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> Every place I have worked needs me more than I need them. If this is actually true, in any situation where this happens, you are being underpaid, because it

by zanny 11y ago

> Every place I have worked needs me more than I need them. If this is actually true, in any situation where this happens, you are being underpaid, because it implies the employer is getting more out of your employment arrangement than you are. I know what you meant, it is just the semantics of economics are precarious and a lot of people would fight tooth and nail to be in a position to bargain for more because of a situation where an employer values the worker much more than the worker values the employer. You want equilibrium where the worker gets as much from the employer as they can, which is when employer and work both get as much out as one another.

cortesoft 11y ago
Well, it usually starts out being more equal when the job first starts. Over time, however, your value goes up faster than you get raises (which is why you get the largest raise when you change jobs).
Johnny555 11y ago
No employer could ever stay in business if they paid employees as much value as the employee brings in. A $100K engineer may work on features worth a million dollars a year, but that doesn't mean that an employer could pay that employee a million dollars because the employer has many overhead expenses -- office rent, paying for servers, marketing expenses, paying the sales guys that bring in the million dollars a year, paying other support employees, putting money in the bank to ride through lean times, investing in new products/features that may never make money, etc. The only way an employee can be paid as much money as he brings in for the company is if he is self employed.
geofft 11y ago
That doesn't seem implausible, but I generally prefer lower pay for stability (or other soft benefits like more political capital). There is an equilibrium salary at which it is just barely worth it for my employer to keep me; there is another lower salary where it it is obviously worth it for my employer to keep me, and therefore still worth it for them to keep me despite me being burned out for a week, or having a bad day and having yelled at someone important, or having just broken something in production, or whatever. Or despite them having a tight budget and a soft or hard requirement to cut payroll by some fixed amount, as seems to be the case here.

by zanny 11y ago

cortesoft 11y ago

Well, it usually starts out being more equal when the job first starts. Over time, however, your value goes up faster than you get raises (which is why you get the largest raise when you change jobs).

Johnny555 11y ago

No employer could ever stay in business if they paid employees as much value as the employee brings in. A $100K engineer may work on features worth a million dollars a year, but that doesn't mean that an employer could pay that employee a million dollars because the employer has many overhead expenses -- office rent, paying for servers, marketing expenses, paying the sales guys that bring in the million dollars a year, paying other support employees, putting money in the bank to ride through lean times, investing in new products/features that may never make money, etc. The only way an employee can be paid as much money as he brings in for the company is if he is self employed.

geofft 11y ago

That doesn't seem implausible, but I generally prefer lower pay for stability (or other soft benefits like more political capital). There is an equilibrium salary at which it is just barely worth it for my employer to keep me; there is another lower salary where it it is obviously worth it for my employer to keep me, and therefore still worth it for them to keep me despite me being burned out for a week, or having a bad day and having yelled at someone important, or having just broken something in production, or whatever. Or despite them having a tight budget and a soft or hard requirement to cut payroll by some fixed amount, as seems to be the case here.