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>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

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.

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.

"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).