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Comment by chasing | Hacker News Reader

I feel it's important to remember that in the employee-employer relationship, you're peers. You both need to provide the other with value, and you both need to be frank about your relationship when these values are lop-sided. And you need to be clear about what the value of the things being offered are. Your employer is not your family, your mom, or your significant other. It's a peer with which you trade value. Every person who works is a single-person business selling their particular expertise and time.

I feel like maintaining this attitude can help with all sorts of stuff, including dealing with job offers, negotiating pay, etc. And key to this is having a fairly good knowledge of the value that you provide so you know what value you deserve in return. (Being acutely aware of the value you provide can also help steer you towards higher-value skill sets.)

Intangibles are great. But don't live in fantasy land. And be aware that no one's obligated to give you anything unless it's written in a contract.

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I think you are wrong. The employer has accountants, lawyers, HR, business. You are not equally-equipped parties. You can't really afford to have your own contract lawyer, labor lawyer, IP lawyer, accountant, financial advisor and salary market researcher. You have to trust the company to do these things for you. Even when something is in writing there are 100s of subtle ways to screw you over, especially with shares or options. Sometimes companies will not share any information about the value you are bringing in. There is a big information asymmetry between you and the employer, so you just have to trust them to distribute the payouts fairly. Often the pay distribution is unknown and legally confidential. So even if you try to make an argument with some stubborn manager that you are severely underpaid you can't start throwing teammates under the bus for disclosing their salaries. It's a toxic environment to have to continuously confront your management to do their job properly. Otherwise you are losing money because of their incompetence. Not to mention the losses in terms of stress/health when you are forced to actively confront your management.

The other big aspect of the same issue is the implied responsibility - for example when you are consulting for a third party. Lets say you are paid $10 per hour while your company charges the customer $300 per hour and the customer expects a solid $300 per hour delivery. Now that puts you in a weird situation, because the context of responsibility and ownership is very different. It affects how you think about the code. It's like the difference between life-support critical software and useless departmental tools. It is up to your company to define the scope of responsibility. You can't force it, you don't have the business input to figure out what they need. May be they just need a cheap and stupid code monkey.

You need to re-read the gp comment. Knowing what you're worth is different than what companies value your worth. A company may undervalue or overvalue your work - the responsibility is on you to determine if you're getting screwed or not - it isn't dependent on what others are getting.

I think I understand correctly. What I was trying to say is that if I am able to determine that I am being screwed over, this is management's fault and not my fault. It's management's responsibility to fix it. I shouldn't have to hire salary researchers and lawyers with my own money to create a report that I can use as an argument for my manager to consider it. And definitely must not put me in conflicting position with management over it. Otherwise I'd have to leave and nobody wins.

Well then, you can continue to be controlled economically by your employers, because nobody in the market --- nobody --- is putting your own individual interests before those of the company, except for you.

Personally, I wouldn't want an employer going through lots of effort to figure out what's best for me. I think they'd do a crappy job of it.

I've been a consultant for a while now and I have this conversation every week or so. What you said goes both ways, nobody has your company's best interest over their personal interest. So you better have my best interest in mind if you want me to have your best interest in mind. It's only fair :)

The employer doesn't have to figure out what's best for you. What's best for them is also best for you. Like almost everybody else, I am driven by respect. If the company measures performance based on profit, so do I. If it's a non-profit, so am I. If you give me what you value most I will do the same. Can't go wrong with that.

And what the article and several commenters are saying is that it absolutely is your responsibility. Why? Because you can control your own actions, you can't control management's. Management isn't obligated to pay you anything, and you aren't obligated to work for them. They choose to pay you something and you choose to work for them; you also choose how much to work for them, and your choice might relate to how much they choose to pay you (and if they continue to choose to pay you).

Leaving is absolutely the right choice if the amount they're willing to pay you is wildly out of whack with the effort you're putting in and value you're creating, because it frees your time up to work for somebody else who will value you (and pay you) more. Everybody wins.

There are some very subtle aspects in this discussion and we are talking about the same from different angles. I absolutely agree with everything you are saying.

But this is not the case I am discussing. If you are able to prove objectively that you are not getting a fair share of the value you bring and management doesn't fix it, then everybody loses. You lose what you could have gotten, and they lose because now they have a resentful and demotivated employee. You don't even have to leave or you can't leave until you find another job. It's not that hard for an employee to do the bare minimum and not get fired or demoted.

You're exactly missing my point.

Your comment is written from the perspective of someone who feels like the inferior party in the relationship. You're not. You always have the ability to say 'no' and walk away from a situation. Are you confused by your compensation? Request full explanation until you're no longer confused and understand your risks. (Understanding risk and reward and making judgments in the face of uncertainy is an art, not a science. Nothing is without risk.) If you don't get that explanation or your spidey sense tingles, saying they might be bullshitting: walk. If you're not sure what you're selling your time for, don't. You're selling tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of your time. Would you sell a house or car if you weren't absolutely sure what you were getting return?

Don't be a dick, just be a peer. And confident. If you're a good person doing quality work, you're valuable. Very few companies run with no employees. Don't mistreat. Don't be mistreated.

Excellent point.

But I still have the feeling that simply asking for explanations puts you at risk. Being annoying is a risk. They know that they are not giving you the information you need to do your own valuation. A common tactic from managers is to maintain ambiguity, only to be resolved later against your interest. Many companies have an established scheme with plausible deniability by design. Even if they explain everything to you, you might not be qualified to understand it. I've seen a founder tell me that I don't have to pay for my stock options to become stock, a mistake that is worth $100K+ and I wouldn't have known that if I didn't speak with a financial advisor.

You just can't have the private company information, competence and time to double check everything your management is saying and supposed to do for you. It's just trust in the guy who is in position of power.

I think you are glossing over if not the asymetry in information, than the assymetry in the opportunity cost. 'Walking away', as you put it. Testing the market in this way is stigmatized by future employers (collusively, perhaps) on the one hand. On the other hand, companie have deeper pockets to cushion lumpy productivity/profits. The issues and dynamics are a lot different for a higher level position, where an executive, for example can trade off his reputation to find a new job, perhaps has a sizeabel net worth in any event, and has the contacts and hierachical access to information in the company to no only understand ways of adding value but vulnerabilities of the company as well. This is why you see golder parachutes and etc. These people are <leaving> so they will no longer be productive. You are paying them to go away, quietly, without damaging anything on the way out.

Walking away is easy provided you already have a job. This is why it is a bad idea to wait until you don't have a job before looking for the next one. If you ever do have that problem, take what you can get and then start looking for something better straight away.

>Your comment is written from the perspective of someone who feels like the inferior party in the relationship. You're not. You always have the ability to say 'no' and walk away from a situation.

Yes, except if you need food and shelter, and have been searching for a job for like 4-5 months (or longer) without much luck...

Lots of Americans tend to think like they all are millionaires (or are soon to be) when discussing business and taxation issues, whereas it's a country with higher inequality than most of the western world, tons of royally fucked up people, and most of them will stay that way for all their lives (plus, far more of them will be impoverished and drop out of middle-class than turn from middle class into millionaires).

A vocal portion of the HN community seem to be SV developers whose biggest problem is "How do I get these recruiters to stop calling me?"

Needless to say, these people are in a much more powerful negotiating position than, say, the 9.5% of Nevada residents who are unemployed [1]. And even the Nevada residents are better off than the 20% of people worldwide living on less than the PPP equivalent of $1.25 per day [2].

I think the posters in this thread should state which of those audiences they're writing for.

[1] http://www.cnbc.com/id/100974182 [2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17312819

"Don't mistreat. Don't be mistreated."

Well, tell that to Ryanair. They seem to be doing quite fine mistreating their employees [1]. I find it difficult to understand why people are working for them, but there must be reasons why.

You're suggesting only one option, and that option is to walk away. True, you can do that. In fact that is the ONLY thing you can do. From employer perspective, you're just a resource. Which is relatively easy to replace if there's enough money in their pockets.

Even the "walk away" solution is dictated by the employer, because the reality is that they effectively say "agree to our terms or p*ss off". So walking away is you picking the option #2.

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/10063697/Ryanai...

If you can be easily replaced by a cheaper "resource", you're clearly not as valuable as you think. Your "walking away" obviously benefits both parties (you're not mistreated, employer gets things done cheaper) -- everybody's better off for it. Where's the problem? Do you feel entitled to that job?

I find it amazing people will fight the laws of supply and demand tooth and nail, although it's probably the most solid and universal part of economics (and nature).

This is largely true, but it is why it is better to negotiate with the would-be employer with you as the supplier and them as the customer. In other words, it is better to be self-employed and negotiate your own rates on that basis.

I feel it's important to remember that in the employee-employer relationship, you're peers.

That's a false statement whose falseness has been observed by economists since Adam Smith:

What are the common wages of labour, depends every where upon the contract usually made between those two parties, whose interests are by no means the same. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter in order to lower the wages of labour.

It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorises, or at least does not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen. We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work; but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes the masters can hold out much longer. A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, or merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year without employment. In the long-run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him, but the necessity is not so immediate.

http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN3.html#I.8.11

Smith continues to further detail the advantages of employers. Not all of the conditions he describes apply fully today (trades unions are no longer illegal), though in practice they largely still hold, particularly in the technology sector (in which trade unions are almost wholly nonexistent).

The law of rent (David Ricardo) states the situation simply: your ability to command a wage from one employer is wholly dependent on your ability to claim as much or higher compensation from another, or by striking out on your own.

Smith also makes the observation that it's not the size of an economy but its growth which tends to produce circumstances most favorable for labour (a growing economy has a larger number of alternative opportunities for labour).

Not necessarily; few employees are willing to take a pay cut - that is why 5% of staff are laid off, rather than everyone in the company taking a 5% cut.

The latter would probably be more efficient for the company. However many workers would start looking for a better job.

Rubbish. The entirety of EMC got a 5% pay cut two years ago, and there were people who actually thanked EMC management for doing so.

A week later they made a billion dollar acquisition, and they still made a good profit.

Don't tell me that folks won't take a paycut. They'll take one, and be grateful!

Adam Smith might have been right about his era, but his reasoning does not apply in our era.

It is illegal for employers to collude to lower wages, while unions gain legal privileges by doing so. Parliament and congress tend to be bought and paid for by unions. Similarly, due to a combination of high wages and welfare, most workmen can subsist for long periods without work.

(Most workers don't value stability, and choose consumption over savings. But this doesn't mean they lack the ability, they merely don't value it.)

In the UK, unions have been utterly castrated by the Thatcher government.

> Similarly, due to a combination of high wages and welfare, most workmen can subsist for long periods without work.

Nope, most workers here are living paycheck to paycheck.

> (Most workers don't value stability, and choose consumption over savings. But this doesn't mean they lack the ability, they merely don't value it.)

Savings? You must be joking.

Let's see. Minimal level of enjoyment, a roof over one's head, food, heating, savings. Choose three, depending how skilled you are, for many, choose two.

In the US, we have a GDP/capita of $50k/year. In the UK, it's just under $36k/year. In Poland it's $21k/year.

If it's impossible for a Brit to save, since they must consume everything they earn to survive with a minimal level of enjoyment, then how do the Polish avoid death? Do the Polish simply not enjoy life at all? And surely you'd agree that Americans should be able to save, simply by reducing their consumption to British levels.

Well, first, GDP/capita isn't a great measure for how the average (low quartile?) worker is doing. I'd think you'd have to look at actual wage levels.

Second, cost of living is different in the UK, US, and Poland. If we ignore wage levels and just look at GDP/c, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity#OECD_co... tells us that after adjusting for costs, the effective numbers as compared to a US citizen's purchasing power are $50K US, $32K UK, $35K Poland.

Mind you, I don't know I buy antihero's argument that the British are struggling to stay alive, but your argument isn't a particularly strong counter.

Have you heard of cost of living?

The numbers I gave are adjusted for PPP, though using the world bank method rather than the OECD method given by ahh in his reply.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...

Adam Smith might have been right about his era, but his reasoning does not apply in our era.

I disagree profoundly. Much of the world still operates under conditions Smith would recognize quite readily. Even industrialized nations still have a fundamental set of circumstances as described by Smith which benefits employers.

It is illegal for employers to collude to lower wages, while unions gain legal privileges by doing so.

It isn't illegal to collude everywhere, and even where it is, this doesn't stop the practice. To put this in terms HN readers might appreciate, most of the major employers in Silicon Valley have been convicted or strongly implicated in anti-poaching hiring practices (another reason recruiting is as big a mess as it is):

http://www.siliconvalley.com/companies/ci_22962030/apple-goo...

As I've noted: IT is a very largely non-unionized industry sector. For recent unionization rates by industry sector, this BLS 2007 report notes that even in the government rates are below 50%: 35% public sector, < 25% transporation and utilities, 15% construction, 12% information, 11% manufacturing. Most recent growth has been in service industries (housecleaning, janitor, etc.).

http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2008/feb/wk2/art01.htm

Parliament and congress tend to be bought and paid for by unions.

Campaign donations from corporations ($25.2m), trade associations ($15m), and individuals and organizations ($16m) all dwarf labor ($7.6m):

http://www.project.org/info.php?recordID=28

While the largest _single_ donor sources are frequently labor organizations, these represent a large number of individuals across a large number of employers. Single corporate and PAC donors aren't far behind. Looking at recipients of contributions, the top Democrat and Republican in the US House of Representatives, it's individual contributions which make the lion's share of contributions in both cases:

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php

http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/campaigns/edward-j-ma...

http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/campaigns/john_a_boeh...

The remainder of your assertions without any backing data I simply dismiss as non-credible in light of reports that half of Americans have less than $800 in savings (less than a month's expenses in most cases), and less than $25k in retirement funds.

http://blog.credit.com/2013/06/half-of-americans-have-less-t...

http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2013/0319/Most-Americans-r...

Nice counter-factual troll.

I didn't say Americans had savings. I said "Most workers...choose consumption over savings." Further downthread I pointed out that if Americans chose to consume at Polish or British levels they could save.

Try disagreeing with what I actually said, rather than some straw man.

I didn't say Americans had savings. I said "Most workers...choose consumption over savings."

The effect is the same result in the context of the original statement: that employers and firms are better positioned to weather a work outage than employees are.

Your aren't holding up particularly well on any of your other points, and I could point at any number of issues, including, for what it's worth, reduced wage-bargaining power, which leaves employees in the US with lower savings than those elsewhere. There are also comparisons such as purchase power parity or costs which are individual and out-of-pocket or just generally higher in the US (health care, education, transportation) than elsewhere.

Most of what you've said has been strawman arguments. QED.

Bear in mind, however, that a 21st-century programmer is in a much stronger bargaining position than an 18th-century workman. I've seen people in the former category let their lives get screwed up by following subservience instincts more appropriate for the latter, and as a way to avoid that, regarding yourself as the peer of your employer is a decent first approximation.

True, the programmer of today is more equivalent to a skilled craftsman of Smith's time than of unskilled labour (dumb muscle). However the craftsman also has a relatively difficult time to create a reserve of capital. Especially in jurisdictions in which your primary store of capital (your own inventions) are by law or contract assigned to your employer.

Great comment, thanks

Realising this was one of the best things in my career, it helped me increase my confidence in job interviews. They now weren't just me desperately selling myself to the company, but also them trying to sell me on why I should work there.

When I'm interviewing candidates, I'm very conscious of the fact that I'm selling the job to them, at the same time they're selling themselves to me. If they can't make the sale to me, I'm not going to put much effort into making the sale to them.

>I feel it's important to remember that in the employee-employer relationship, you're peers.

Only rarely and in quite good economy and job market conditions (can differ depending on profession). And that's for better than average workers. For average and below average (ie. most of the population at any give time) not even then.

Normally you are the one needing work and money to feed your family and he is the one with the money to pay you. "He" could even be a multi-national. You are the weaker one here, make no mistake.

It's good and healthy to be skeptical about talk like "This is one big family" because the economy is littered with public companies that operated like families until they laid everyone off.

Saying, "Only be loyal to yourself" can be short sighted too. People remember. If you refuse to renew your contract mid-project because someone else away is offering $50/day more, people will remember. If you quit your company because you don't want to do any overtime for a month, people remember. More importantly, your immediate boss remembers.

The best work out there is never advertised. It appears by word of mouth. This is true for both full time employees and contractors. The best work at the highest wages come when a prior boss says, "This is very important, and only YOU can do it for me." This isn't corporate loyalty, but it's having someone know that you'll be in the foxhole with them.

One last thought on the OP - I can't imagine a company laying off the folks who "finished first" staying in business for very long. It's very Dilbertesque.

Viewing it that way can be a huge help when you're approaching job interviews too. When you see an interview as, "I'm a professional; they're professionals in my field; let's talk to see if there are projects that we'd like to work on together," it takes away a lot of the anxiety.

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