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Comment by greenspot | Hacker News Reader

Saying 'you will live like a king' is not the smartest thing. He should have said:

'Please consider that your local living costs are much lower than in Switzerland. We incorporate those differences in our offered rate like every other company does. Thanks for your understanding.'

So the tone was—yes—unprofessional, the attitude not. And even if this attitude is debatable, you have to allow the other party to express reasons for a lower offer in a negotiation.

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Both phrases are quite presumptuous. As if I don't know what my cost of living is.

This is how much I charge. Thanks for your offer, it's way below of what I think I deserve for my services. Nah, I don't need a lecture from you on why I should find this generous. Nope, I don't care why you make me such a low offer. What does it matter if I can actually find people who pay the rates I charge?

The market will balance this out. Thanks for your time, have a nice day.

You just gave yourself the counter-argument:

> The market will balance this out.

The employer can also and usually choose between different candidates and maybe there are some or many equally skilled professionals in country x offering their work for much less (because they can because of lower living costs). So, it's reasonable to ask for a lower price in such a context. It's not about disdain.

EDIT: why the downvote?

How's that a counter-argument?

My argument is that "offer me whatever you want; I'll accept whatever I want".

I don't need a justification or a lecture on why I should consider your offer as a generous one. That's how much you can give for my services at a certain point in time. Even if I consider your offer low, I won't find it insulting. But I will find it insulting if you think that I should accept your offer because based on your opinion this is how much I should make because of where I live.

No thank you, I'll be the judge of that.

Both arguments are the same, by rejecting the offer, you, as part of the market, are deciding and affecting the market itself.

I find it quite bizarre that remote workers living in a country with lower cost of living are expected to take lower pay than locals while doing the same work and offering the same value.

Otherwise yes, people are allowed to express silly things and one shouldn't prevent them from doing so, especially when they show their true colors.

Looks to me like they dodged a bullet.

It's essentially about power differentials and narcissism, not money.

When you call out someone trying to lowball you and they start ranting, they're really ranting about a narcissistic injury to their self-image.

Someone who does that will be a terrible client, because they're operating from a position of contempt for the people they employ. They do not see you as an equal, but as an inferior.

If the "inferior" challenges their default entitled one-up world view by expecting to be treated like a competent and well-compensated professional, they're absolutely going to have issues with that.

An apt description of disturbingly many workplaces. This type of "superior" person can hide themselves quite well and have a decent working relationship with their "inferiors", but when challenged will show their cards.

The difference here was that OP had the power to say no, and wasn't trapped by obligations.

I have the impression that some commenters resent them for having that level of self-determination and make excuses for the behavior of the employer.

But why would there be a "differential"?

If you can low one employee, why not lowball them all, and and up with only lowballed employees?

Yeah, like the UK universities I attended offered me a discount for being Bulgarian ...

EDIT: funny as it is, my rates were probably a third less than what a local consultant would have charged them.

I can understand paying remote workers somewhat less, regardless of what country they live in. I would expect productivity to be lower for remote workers and communication with them to be more difficult, hence the lower value.

But I agree that basing salaries on costs of living in the worker's country is wrong. Salaries should be based on what your labor is worth, not what your perceived economic need is. It's exploitative, and it's also not fair to local workers who would get priced out by foreign workers willing to settle for less.

> with lower cost of living are expected to take lower pay than locals while doing the same work and offering the same value

DO you also think it is weird that people who live in incredibly expensive cities like NY or SF should get paid more money then?

I don't think the customer of a remote contractor should care much what costs the contractor has. It's the contractor's job to deliver enough value so that they can charge enough to cover their cost of living and make a profit.

Yes, which is why I can't support the idea of a living wage in general, because a living wage in some areas would equate a nice wage elsewhere.

There are multiple advantages in taking someone local. Mostly in requirements gathering - it's easier to do this face-to-face, but there can also be cultural differences, knowledge of local business practices. Additionally, if it all goes wrong, it's easiest to take legal action when you're both in the same country.

No, that would be just as bad. You pay for results, not for where the person lives.

I don't understand the downvotes here. Results are results. I can understand paying a person more if you are worried about providing a living wage, but really you are paying them to do a service for the company.

If you are looking at two remote candidates offering to do the same work, the fact that one lives in India and the other in Paris should not make a difference in what you pay them (well, timezone difficulties aside). You should pay well for good work, and if it's not going to be good work you shouldn't pay at all. 'Pay well' is not relative to where a person lives, it's relative to the market value of that work.

No, you pay the minimum amount you can to get the job done to a satisfactory standard.

That's the same thing. But we are apparently only capitalists when it means keeping the minimum wage down.

It wouldn't have been smart either. What one should charge is what one can charge. And it's unrelated to what the cost of living is in a given country.

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