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Comment by virgilp | Hacker News Reader

A former manager - and friend - of mine told me that, when switching jobs, former employer made a handsome counter-offer, I think basically doubling his compensation; it was more than he got at the new gig. His reaction? "Now I also feel insulted. So that's how much I was worth to you, but you waited for me to leave before adjusting my pay?"

It strikes me as a reasonable attitude, and one that I've adopted too. I don't have time to be constantly checking the market; if I get a better offer, either you can't afford a counter-offer, or if you can, well, screw you anyway.

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Wow. I have never thought about it that way. But now I read it, I will never be able to not think about it that way.

Thanks for that nugget of wisdom.

Personal "fun" fact. I now get about 28% more then when I startet 4 years ago. That is quite a hefty increase and something to be very happy about.

But on the other hand, due to a change in my role I now have insight into how much others in my company doing the same work make. Often with way less senior roles. And I can see, that they got hired at a lower level for about what I make after 4+ years in a more senior position.

So now I feel insulted, because I know - even after having risen in money, that I am still being not payed adequately.

For comparison: I am talking about 1/3 less then others in my seniority level. That equals about what intermediate colleagues two levels down the ladder make.

So I went from feeling being treated good to being treated unfairly with more insights into what everybody around me gets. I love other countries (think Norway) for making this information public, as it gives a clear lever for everybody to demand fair pay.

Your salary information in Norway is not public and never was.

Your taxes paid were public until 2007. Tax paid on the same income can vary up to 2x depending on your personal situation so really it was very approximate.

Since 2008 you can still request personal tax data on anyone, but not anonymously.

> Your salary information in Norway is not public and never was.

While technically true "taxable income" or something was public as well.

For most people in ordinary positions that would give you a reasonable idea. (It would however include everything reported in one lump sum so if you had multiple jobs and/or other taxable income that would show up as well.)

I believe the taxable income also depended on things like skatteklasse you had, one-time tax deductions (e.g. for newly arrived foreign workers), BSU, parental/guardianship deductions etc. So sure, while it would give you a rough idea, using that to compare yourself with coworkers was not trivial.

Yes, agree.

This wasn't an exact science, but you could get an idea if you were underpaid compared to your colleagues.

On the flip side, when I was younger and tried to refuse to say my current salary the recruiter would point out they would find it anyways, so it wasn't always and advantage.

  So that's how much I was worth to you,
  but you waited for me to leave before
  adjusting my pay?

Doesn't everyone already know that?

I mean, the business benefits that pay my salary only exist from the combination of my efforts with the company's existing business. A marginal improvement in X only makes money when combined with an X business, so of course the owner of the business and the owner of the improvement have conflicting interests about how to share the value.

Um, I don't think it's a good idea to take it that personally.

As a talented professional, you are constantly in the market.

What sets the market price? Market.

Your compensation is not about how much revenue you make to your employer, but what is the market price for the resource (you) and is the employer ready to pay the market price.

When you get an offer that is way above your current rate, your explicit market price suddenly increases. Before you get the concrete offer your market price is likely lower.

Big companies have salary policies that are not necessarily about what your boss would like to pay you. When you get an offer to leave your boss gets more leverage as well to offer you more comp.

"I know what our salary policy is, but this individual contributor would be really hard to replace and his cost just doubled. It's really expensive to replace him. Can I make a counteroffer that makes him/her stay?"

>When you get an offer to leave your boss gets more leverage as well to offer you more comp.

That's a good indicator of sub-par company that you're better served if you avoid it, in the long run.

A work contract is a simple supplier-consumer relationship. You are the supplier, and you essentially set the rate at which you offer your work hours.

When someone suddenly offers you the double rate, you should not feel insulted, but you should realize that need to work on rate negotiation skills. Then, if both offers are equally fine with respect to non-compensation aspects, simply take the higher offer.

Suppose you are willing to pay $4 for a coffee, and the café around the corner sells it for $2. Would you voluntarily pay $4?

I don't view myself as coffee - if your employees are fungible resources, I don't want to work for you (99.9% of the cases, there may be exceptions, but they're just that - exceptions).

I never compared you or anyone else to coffee, and I'm not an employer.

My post was about viewing the employer-employee relationship as a business relationship _when you are the employee_.

It was a generic "you" - and yes, you did make an analogy that does not apply since employees are not fungible.

You also present now a distorted view about business relationships - they're about trust far more often than they are about squeezing the best price. That's it really - once I learn that I can't trust my employer to compensate me fairly, that business relationship is broken, and short-term money can't fix it.

My example is about supply and demand, in particular if you are willing to pay a higher price than the supplier asks. Fungible or not doesn't matter at all, the only relevant factor for the discussion is the difference in price you are willing to pay and the supplier is asking.

Indeed, all business relationships are about trust. But they also are about business. I know of no other business relationship where the supplier expects that the consumer will pay him fairly. So what is so special about an employment contract, compared to all other businesses?

> So what is so special about an employment contract, compared to all other businesses?

Oh, this is really easy to answer. For example, the fact that purchaser dictates the price, not supplier - to such an extent, that purchaser voluntarily and periodically decides to start paying more, without explicit intervention from supplier. Oh, and also decides to reward supplier with bonus payments when receiving good-quality merchandise.

But it's not about that - if you think about it, it's probably related to the expectation of exclusivity. Is there any business that is expected to exclusively supply to only one customer? If so, I'd suspect they'd be very concerned about that consumer paying them fairly.

This comment articulated my thought so well. I'm glad that I'm not the only one who would react like that. :-)

The industry is playing a silly game.

Cool, but then you end up with less money overall.

The smart move is to accept the counter, then keep looking for something better with the negotiating position that you're paid $salary x 2. Better yet, push for a title to go with the salary that'll help you land an even better job.

This is assuming all else is equal. If you're moving on for better future propsects, because the company culture is stressing you out, or because of a lack of trust, it might be better moving on anyways.

But there's no guarantee the new lot is going to treat you any better either, and companies do what's best for them, so there's nothing wrong with playing the same games yourself.

> Cool, but then you end up with less money overall.

Highly debatable, because in the real world you need to do multivariate optimization and most people can't (don't have the skills and/or desire) to be constantly optimizing their salary. Thus, choosing a company that is actively trying to fairly compensate existing employees tends to pay off in the long, on multiple fronts, not just immediate salary.

But you don't really know if the new co is trying to "fairly compensate" you if the old co is now offering significantly more? Did you think your salary was fair when you joined old co? You probably did.

> You probably did.

But I learned that they don't care about that, didn't I? Would it not be stupid to ignore this information? I have a chance higher than 0 at the new co...

>"Now I also feel insulted. So that's how much I was worth to you, but you waited for me to leave before adjusting my pay?"

I mean yeah, it's a business. If they paid him exactly what he was worth then he would make them a net profit of $0.

Right. So it is a world in which everyone is for themselves.

Companies shouldn't blame employees having no loyality then.

Having survived a few rounds of layoffs and saw colleagues let go, I said to myself "On a scale of 0 to 10, I will love this company as much it loves me -- 0".

I think market worth as perceived by the employer is shortened to "worth to you" in that sentence and then confused with how much the employee is making for the company. Every employee should create more value than they cost, for some relevant definitions of "value" and "cost". That doesn't mean they should get paid less (money, total benefits and whatever other vague upsides to coming to work) than what's reasonable in the marketplace for their job and their abilities.

That is exactly the point. I'm not constantly optimizing my salary, so if I do get a significantly better offer, it'd better be because you couldn't afford to make me one that was competitive. Otherwise, screw you, I no longer want to work for you anyway.

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