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Comment by kcplate | Hacker News Reader

I am pretty sure you missed the entire point of their comment. The commenter was not speaking about their own current comp, but the current comp vs quality vs entitlement within their direct reports. It’s hard to look at low quality employees making large salaries as a leader and not be dismayed, disappointed, and discouraged when the entitlement and whining happens. A lot of employees act like children and that is not ok or justified. That is what is immature, not pointing out that people commanding six figure salaries should maybe act like adults and actually provide six figures of value for their compensation.

After a couple of decades managing developers and engineers I specifically left management and now refuse to take on any role that requires direct reports just because the entitlement attitude in tech is so bad nowadays. “Management” gets a bad rap here on HN, but to me, they are real hero’s and doing a shit job.

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If your staff is acting like spoiled bratty children, you talk to them. If they don't adjust, you fire them.

If you can't fire them because they're hard to replace, guess what; they have more value than you attributed to them, and were probably RIGHT to complain and insist on better pay.

Just like your employer tries to extract maximum value for minimum pay out of you, so should you extract maximum pay for minimum investment out of your employer. That's only fair.

The problem isn’t firing them, firing people is actually pretty easy—-it’s having to manage them up to that point where you determine that termination is the appropriate solution.

Whether or not they have value or hard to replace doesn’t excuse them from having the responsibility of civil behavior. Where is being valuable an appropriate excuse for being an asshole acceptable anywhere in society?

Basically everywhere, unfortunately.

Absolutely, couldn't agree more. Mostly with this bit though:

> "Management" ... are ... doing a shit job

One strategy I like to use when I encounter a manager doing a shit job is to complain about my six figure salary every 1:1 while putting in the minimum possible effort. Eventually they tend to leave and never take a management job again.

Works a treat.

> It’s hard to look at low quality employees making large salaries as a leader and not be dismayed, disappointed, and discouraged when the entitlement and whining happens

I’m “entitled” to my market worth. I feel not an ounce of sympathy for parent poster. He has accepted what the company is paying him.

> I’m “entitled” to my market worth.

Sure, but your employer will have the expectation that you will provide market value for that compensation that they provide you. If you are well paid and do underwhelming work compared to coworkers who are paid less but provide exceptional work, your leadership will take notice of that. They will and should expect more from you because your better lower paid coworkers are moving the value/$ bar expectations for you.

Literally the worst reputation you could have among your leadership is that of a “market worth” paid underperformer. Folks like that are the easy choice when the RIF conversations starts happening. When RIFs aren’t happening, folks like that are going to catch every shit job a manager can throw at them.

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