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Comment by sabhiram | Hacker News Reader

It pays for engineers to be able to inflate and justify their worth, especially when moving ships.

It is not about everyone getting equal pay. It is about everyone having equal visibility. The former creates unmotivated employees, the latter creates one of two outcomes: 1. Satisfaction of relative comp for the amount of work done -or- 2. Understanding of what is valuable in this venture; how to spend your time

Often times in larger establishments (after playing enough politics to gain visibility), I found myself in camp (2). What you think is important is seldom actually important to the powers that be. If you find yourself disagreeing with the last statement, go hug your management team / coworkers!

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> getting equal pay.

To be clear, IMO, people want equal total comp per input. We have to consider all inputs like, including the person themselves (some comp is worthless to me personally, eg certain health benefits for situations I will never have, or considerations for needs that I do not have.

* average and best/work weeks of hours worked

* stress load

* future value of today's learnings

* inconvenience factors - like do I have to work during my kids' <important event>

* feel good factor -- obviously personal Am i working on shiny fluffy things or bombs?

* extrinsic compensation like "clout" or "status" -- Do you think working at google might give you some "cred" or greater viability in the dating pool? that's a form of comp

I'm sure the list goes on an on, hence one reason that seeing Engineer 5 yrs exp, $X comp is too little info to compare what you _should_ be paid, though informative of what you _could_ be paid if you conformed to all the variables of that job .

Considering that there has been a fair amount of collusion to suppress engineer salaries, are you surprised that engineers feel unmotivated? People work harder to hold onto something they value.

Do you have evidence for this? I feel it would be difficult to orchestrate collusion across thousands of private companies especially during our current skilled labor shortage.

> Do you have evidence for this?

Ooooooh boy, do we! This type of behavior from the technorandians is about as well established as gravity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

What you think is important is seldom actually important to the powers that be.

Underrated point. People should reflect on whether the powers that be might actually know what they are doing. Not always and everywhere, but be open to the possibility.

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