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Comment by joezydeco | Hacker News Reader

The employee might start looking anyway if the answer is "wait a year" and there are better title/pay options available to them on the open market.

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Exactly my situation. First thing I did when I got home was start rewriting my CV and putting together a list of potential leads in competitor firms. You better have something amazing to offer if you think you can 'motivate' me to work my ass of for a year just to change one word in my title.

I love this..."motivate me". They gave you a job, they pay your salary...but hey! "You must motivate me if you want me to allow you to continue doing that!" Get off your high horse and do your job instead of running off because someone didn't give you a pep talk. In reality it all comes down to mutual respect and relationships. If management and employees respect each other then there is dialogue. If not, then it's probably either a bad environment or bad team relationship and the employee should move on elsewhere. Be honest, set achievable goals, and build team relationships. For those that are thinking "quite and get better money elsewhere" I feel sorry for you. That simply means you you could careless where you work as long as you get paid...in other words 70% of your time in life is going to be in misery...but good luck!

> That simply means you you could careless where you work as long as you get paid...in other words 70% of your time in life is going to be in misery...but good luck!

I don't come to work to be fulfilled. I come to work to be paid.

Exactly, if I came to work to be fulfilled I'd work with disadvantaged children or something unfortunately that doesn't pay the mortgage.

Your assumption is that the current place awesome, and there are no better places to work.

There's always a better place to work, and not only from a money perspective

If your bored to the point, where you want more responsibilities it's time to move on. Your not learning or growing. Your biding time.

If management underpays me significantly compared to market then there isn't mutual respect.

If management doesn't want to support my career progression then there isn't mutual respect.

But I'm not enough of a sucker to plead for it. If it's not provided I'll go and get another job.

Mutual respect goes both ways.

If you discovered that you are paid way over market rates, do you say "hey, you are paying me too much, but I will work my ass off to give you the right value"

Sure, to an employer who goes to employees and says "Hey market value for this position has gone crazy in the last year, here's a raise to bring you back in line with that" without prompting. I haven't met them yet.

Exactly. When it comes to salary, mutual respect is a myth. The closest I got to experiencing mutual respect on both sides started with an open and frank discussion with my boss about salaries and work expectations. But for most folks, these type of relationship with their boss is also a myth. I have been lucky quite recently.

So employees should really care about their employer and the companys wellbeing and be loyal because the company is this irreplaceable asset, right? I feel sorry for you.

You should know that your employer has no emotional attachment to you, and you will be immediately replaced by equally skilled labor in a matter of weeks. If you go around caring about your employer, you will be hugely disappointed when you find out how little they actually care about you. You are just a cog in the machine. If you give up a significant portion of your life and more importantly of your work years you might become one of the cogs thats deeply buried in the guts of the machine. Just remember that at the end of the day everyone is replaceable even the CEO. You are not special. You are not unique. Someone else can learn your position and do your job.

There is a big difference between "wait a year" and "here are tangible goals, action steps and valuable skills to develop by accepting X, Y and Z responsibilities. At Time A and Time B, let's review and make incremental advancements toward your title and salary goals".

If you aren't willing to stick it out through the latter, you're probably doing the manager a favor in the long term by shopping that CV around.

Honestly, there really isn't a big difference at all unless you are willing to put concrete numbers forward in writing.

I've worked at a small business that put 15% annual pay rises into my contract. Thats meaningful. And I busted my ass of for them for close to a decade.

Yeah, sorry, that's how the world works. Why am I going to give you more responsibility if I'm not sure that you can handle it? Do the job, get the job.

You come off as extremely entitled. Honestly, I'd be happy that you left.

> You come off as extremely entitled. Honestly, I'd be happy that you left.

Easy to say, hard when its a sellers market. Maybe when the tech labor market softens? Otherwise, you see a 10-20% bump by moving immediately, rather than wasting a year of your life making less than you could.

Sure, if I really needed you. I'd also be looking to ditch you as soon as I could. I'd also be suspect of any resume which shows a tendency for frequent job hopping.

> Sure, if I really needed you. I'd also be looking to ditch you as soon as I could.

Sounds like you'd be doing you're subordinate a favor.

I remember when looking for a new job was considered bettering yourself. Now you are labeled as one of those assholes who wants to be paid for his work.

I think my intent has been lost along the way here. Look to the original post I responded to; this is a person who doesn't want to put in any of the up front work typically required to get a promotion with increased responsibility.

I'm guessing you're not in the UK market, because you would know the reason why you're going to give me more responsibility and pay me more before having to prove it to you: Someone else will give me that responsibility and pay me more and it'll probably take me a week to find them.

I'm not talking about me specifically, but that's how most IT profiles go around here. Some areas more than others, but there's too much demand for talent that the market can't absorb it, hence the prices go up.

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