8 ms·

Money is important, but past a certain point (when you are able to live comfortably and are no longer feeling stressed about your personal/family finances), ot

by jcadam 9y ago

Money is important, but past a certain point (when you are able to live comfortably and are no longer feeling stressed about your personal/family finances), other factors come into play. Off the top of my head: 1) Respect. By that I mean professional respect - I want to feel that my contributions are valued and that people recognize my talents :) 2) Team. Working with dirtbags is miserable no matter how much you get paid. Sure, I'd do it if you threw enough money at me, but all else being equal, I'd like to work on a team full of smart, pleasant people. 3) Growth. Learning opportunities (conferences, training, etc.), promotions, stimulating projects, etc. 4) Time. As in my time. Overtime is kept to a minimum and really only happens when there is a true emergency. This kind of ties in with #1. To an extent you can substitute cash for any or all of these. However, if your working environment and/or culture is toxic, you're going to have trouble with retention no matter what else you do.

CydeWeys 9y ago
A lot of these are independent from salary, however, and usually uncorrelated. I pretty have all of these at my current job, certainly the best I've ever had at any job (and I'd throw in a #5: Perks). And my current job, at a Big 4, also happens to pay by far the most of any job I've ever had too. I would certainly never sacrifice any of these for a minor bump in pay, but oftentimes you don't have to sacrifice any of them even for a major bump in pay.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  Most people have this idea that either you get paid less and have a good job environment or you are highly paid in a bad environment. From my experience it's the opposite. Companies that pay well also have a good environment.
  - lordCarbonFiber 9y ago
    Here to second that notion. So far in my career every move I've done has been for a salary bump and quality of life improvement.
  - octasimo 9y ago
    Same for me!
  - CydeWeys 9y ago
    Actually, I guess I do have to agree with that.
- KKKKkkkk1 9y ago
  Actually, oftentimes they are correlated. Your pay is often low when you work on a shitty overstressed team on a dead-end project, and vice versa.
lhnz 9y ago
This is true, but can I just pay devil's advocate here. What if you're exceptionally stoic and enjoy learning things in your spare time? If you're emotionally stable enough and a hard worker outside of your career, you might want to just grow yourself a nest egg (pension, housing, shares, etc.) or make as much money as possible to provide for your children/wife/hedonism. Also, it's a good thing to learn how to placate toxic personalities and to be low maintenance. Not saying that it's easy, but I wanted to say this because I think people assume too readily that their own personal comfort is the most important thing when they take a job. Personally, as my emotional health has gotten better and I've made deeper connections with people, I've prioritised very different things than my younger self.
briandear 9y ago
I don’t know, $750k per year would put all of those concerns to rest for me. I don’t care about respect when I’m sitting on a boat off the coast of Nice. “Comfortable” for me means having the option to not work.
- notyourday 9y ago
  And that's how it works in finance. You are hired to do a job. For boat load of money. When that job is done, you are fired. And no one cares because working 3 years for guaranteed $800k/year + $500k bonus that you will probably get is worth being fired on a 3 year + 1 day anniversary.
  - pc86 9y ago
    Serious question, how many people in finance really make $3.6+ million in just a few years then retire? Honestly that's enough to pay off every cent of debt for both my wife and I, and then pull off over $100k/yr for the rest of our lives. Give me $3.6 million today and I will never touch an office door for the rest of my life.
    - notyourday 9y ago
      Devs? Not a lot. Senior devs that are basically tech leads + PMs for projects with a visible termination point? All the time.
    - SubuSS 9y ago
      Depending on the lifestyle you want, your choice of location etc, 3.6MM doesn't go far. You also have to take into account inflation / insurance against major changes in future (divorce / health hits / accidents?). Yes, you can choose to live in rural India for <10k a year, but that's exactly what you are getting away from by going after these high paying jobs. I want to live in a good / safe place, have good schooling opportunities for my children, have the ability to enjoy the activities around at a fun level (skiing - about $500 per day, cycling - about $5-10k a year, eventually it adds up). Finally the concern about uncertainities of future means you can pretty much never afford to go out of touch with the industry that made you all your money. Yeah I can F off on my bike / paint etc after $X MM, but there might come a day when that isn't enough and here I am with zero marketable/sellable skills having to downgrade my life style because I chose to not practice my profession. You might think but I will do open source, but I will do hobby projects etc. - in reality, I have seen very few (again with equal or more discipline to what they were putting into their desk job) succeed in keeping up with the market via a 'hobby'. If I didn't make it clear, I don't see myself not working on software until the day I die :). It might be lower hours, but it is going to be a significant portion of my time. The alternatives are too risky, but again YMMV because your risk tolerance is different.
dmitrygr 9y ago
Money is important, but I'm going to stop you right there. #1 is solved by more money. Want me to work in a team that mocks my work? $100k extra will do it #2 is solved by more money. Want me to work with dirtbags? $100k #3 is solved by more money. Want me to wear a "super junior nobody" title? As long as you're up front about it, $100k. #4 is solved by money. My overtime rate is 2x normal rate You know why? Money buys more than just "roof" and "comfort". It buys everything. Planes. Parachutes. Yachts. Horses. Jet skis. Vacation homes. College and private school for kids. If you think that more money doesn't motivate you, either you've never been paid enough, or you need to go find some interesting hobbies. You'll quickly find they cost money (and do not accept "but I'm happy at work" statements as payment)
- pm215 9y ago
  OK, so how do I buy a 3-day working week with my extra salary?
  - dmitrygr 9y ago
    You can. Yes. Go to your boss. Ask to be paid 60% of your current salary to work M-W. I'm sure you'll get a yes.
    - jcadam 9y ago
      I'm sure he'll laugh in my face.
      - notyourday 9y ago
        That means you are not making enough money.
    - Jemmeh 9y ago
      Haha the length of time to complete projects would go through the roof, so that would never work here.
    - pm215 9y ago
notyourday 9y ago
Let me be a Certified Finance Asshat to demonstrate that you are externalizing money: I will give you $35k/year for 40 hours a week total compensation and you get all the other 4. Why aren't you taking this job? The reason is because you know that it is a laughable salary. FRC has an agenda. Its agenda is convince naive people to go work for their startups ( and other startups ) for Magic and Unicorns, rather than $$. P.S. Thanks for downvotes!
- BeetleB 9y ago
  You're being downvoted because you ignored this: >Money is important, but past a certain point (when you are able to live comfortably and are no longer feeling stressed about your personal/family finances), other factors come into play. It's difficult to counter his comment when you don't address it and give an obviously low salary.
  - notyourday 9y ago
    Whenever one needs to quantify using unquantifiable words like "important but past a certain point" it is helpful to solve that point at the limit. Pacifists, for example, will refuse to kill someone who is pointing a gun at their family because of their, in my not humble opinion, stupid beliefs. I may think their beliefs are stupid but I cannot say that they themselves are full of crap because, after all, they live their beliefs. The people who are making claims that money is not the only mandatory thing and everything else is optional nice to have thing(s) tend to weasel out of the lets solve for money being zero ( or minimum wage ). Unfortunately, while pacifists do not disrupt my life (when their world collides with reality, they die and their ideas die with them ) the people who are claiming that conferences are more important than $$ disrupt my market. This means that my goal is to illustrate as much as possible how silly their positions are.
    - BeetleB 9y ago
      >The people who are making claims that money is not the only mandatory thing and everything else is optional nice to have thing(s) tend to weasel out of the lets solve for money being zero ( or minimum wage ). Except it wasn't his claim. The claim is pretty well known: Below a certain threshold, money is the most important thing. Above it, it is not. This is very different from the extreme pacifist mindset. The equivalent would be: "There are certain circumstances where it is important to kill another. Outside of those circumstances, it should not be the primary means." As an aside: Telling people what is important to them and ignoring their own claims on what is important to them will not make you many friends.
ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
> Money is important, but past a certain point (when you are able to live comfortably and are no longer feeling stressed about your personal/family finances) My problem is with that statement. I know this is a very common belief, but has anyone actually hit that point? I have gone through several cycles over the past 10 years, where I thought 20% more money would get me there. At each point, what was required to be comfortable would change. At first it was having enough money for me, then having enough that I could get married and buy a house and help my wife, then it was having enough money for my kids to go to a decent day care. Now I'm worried we don't have enough to send our kids to private school. Once I hit that, I will probably want to have enough money that my wife doesn't need to work. I wonder if that's when I can relax and the stress of finance will go away?
- Bjartr 9y ago
  In my current job I am paid below market rate. If I cared about money first I absolutely would not remain in this job. However, the coworkers are absolutely excellent and I am treated with respect. I would hesitate to trade that for anything less than an absolutely stellar offer well above market rate because not only what I have good, but also that I am content with my current lifestyle.
  - ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
    It makes me really happy that there are people like you who have achieved this. Anxiety is destroying me in my current job, even though I love my co-workers. I need to figure out how to value money less and find an employer that would work with me on a 4 day week schedule.
- GFischer 9y ago
  The good old Hedonic Treadmill ("as a person makes more money, expectations and desires rise in tandem"). I do agree with you, but is private school strictly necessary? (not judging - in your position, I'd want to send them too btw). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill
sidlls 9y ago
> (when you are able to live comfortably and are no longer feeling stressed about your personal/family finances) This is too vague to be quantifiable in the way you intend. Money is important because it's by far the most common medium by which we acquire things that are necessary for life (e.g. food, shelter). It's important to have sufficient income to have these things in the present and to be able to stash enough reserves of money to have them in the future. Money is important (full stop). Here's my entirely subjective, anecdotal view: I've never met a person who says "money isn't the most important thing (about a job)" who also was not either: a) well off enough their entire lives that they never really had to worry about not having money or b) engaging in some serious sweet lemons rationalization so as to avoid facing their reality.
GFischer 9y ago
I agree that those are important, but money is a HUGE indicator/proxy of how much a company respects you, your talents and your contributions. I've quit a higher paying position because of bad leadership and no growth opportunities, but I dug myself into that hole, and I'm absolutely looking forward to a raise (and I'm not yet at the point where I'm not stressed about finances).

by jcadam 9y ago

CydeWeys 9y ago

A lot of these are independent from salary, however, and usually uncorrelated. I pretty have all of these at my current job, certainly the best I've ever had at any job (and I'd throw in a #5: Perks). And my current job, at a Big 4, also happens to pay by far the most of any job I've ever had too. I would certainly never sacrifice any of these for a minor bump in pay, but oftentimes you don't have to sacrifice any of them even for a major bump in pay.

maxxxxx 9y ago
Most people have this idea that either you get paid less and have a good job environment or you are highly paid in a bad environment. From my experience it's the opposite. Companies that pay well also have a good environment.
- lordCarbonFiber 9y ago
  Here to second that notion. So far in my career every move I've done has been for a salary bump and quality of life improvement.
- octasimo 9y ago
  Same for me!
- CydeWeys 9y ago
  Actually, I guess I do have to agree with that.
KKKKkkkk1 9y ago
Actually, oftentimes they are correlated. Your pay is often low when you work on a shitty overstressed team on a dead-end project, and vice versa.

lhnz 9y ago

This is true, but can I just pay devil's advocate here. What if you're exceptionally stoic and enjoy learning things in your spare time? If you're emotionally stable enough and a hard worker outside of your career, you might want to just grow yourself a nest egg (pension, housing, shares, etc.) or make as much money as possible to provide for your children/wife/hedonism. Also, it's a good thing to learn how to placate toxic personalities and to be low maintenance. Not saying that it's easy, but I wanted to say this because I think people assume too readily that their own personal comfort is the most important thing when they take a job. Personally, as my emotional health has gotten better and I've made deeper connections with people, I've prioritised very different things than my younger self.

briandear 9y ago

I don’t know, $750k per year would put all of those concerns to rest for me. I don’t care about respect when I’m sitting on a boat off the coast of Nice. “Comfortable” for me means having the option to not work.

notyourday 9y ago
And that's how it works in finance. You are hired to do a job. For boat load of money. When that job is done, you are fired. And no one cares because working 3 years for guaranteed $800k/year + $500k bonus that you will probably get is worth being fired on a 3 year + 1 day anniversary.
- pc86 9y ago
  Serious question, how many people in finance really make $3.6+ million in just a few years then retire? Honestly that's enough to pay off every cent of debt for both my wife and I, and then pull off over $100k/yr for the rest of our lives. Give me $3.6 million today and I will never touch an office door for the rest of my life.
  - notyourday 9y ago
    Devs? Not a lot. Senior devs that are basically tech leads + PMs for projects with a visible termination point? All the time.
  - SubuSS 9y ago
    Depending on the lifestyle you want, your choice of location etc, 3.6MM doesn't go far. You also have to take into account inflation / insurance against major changes in future (divorce / health hits / accidents?). Yes, you can choose to live in rural India for <10k a year, but that's exactly what you are getting away from by going after these high paying jobs. I want to live in a good / safe place, have good schooling opportunities for my children, have the ability to enjoy the activities around at a fun level (skiing - about $500 per day, cycling - about $5-10k a year, eventually it adds up). Finally the concern about uncertainities of future means you can pretty much never afford to go out of touch with the industry that made you all your money. Yeah I can F off on my bike / paint etc after $X MM, but there might come a day when that isn't enough and here I am with zero marketable/sellable skills having to downgrade my life style because I chose to not practice my profession. You might think but I will do open source, but I will do hobby projects etc. - in reality, I have seen very few (again with equal or more discipline to what they were putting into their desk job) succeed in keeping up with the market via a 'hobby'. If I didn't make it clear, I don't see myself not working on software until the day I die :). It might be lower hours, but it is going to be a significant portion of my time. The alternatives are too risky, but again YMMV because your risk tolerance is different.

dmitrygr 9y ago

Money is important, but I'm going to stop you right there. #1 is solved by more money. Want me to work in a team that mocks my work? $100k extra will do it #2 is solved by more money. Want me to work with dirtbags? $100k #3 is solved by more money. Want me to wear a "super junior nobody" title? As long as you're up front about it, $100k. #4 is solved by money. My overtime rate is 2x normal rate You know why? Money buys more than just "roof" and "comfort". It buys everything. Planes. Parachutes. Yachts. Horses. Jet skis. Vacation homes. College and private school for kids. If you think that more money doesn't motivate you, either you've never been paid enough, or you need to go find some interesting hobbies. You'll quickly find they cost money (and do not accept "but I'm happy at work" statements as payment)

pm215 9y ago
OK, so how do I buy a 3-day working week with my extra salary?
- dmitrygr 9y ago
  You can. Yes. Go to your boss. Ask to be paid 60% of your current salary to work M-W. I'm sure you'll get a yes.
  - jcadam 9y ago
    I'm sure he'll laugh in my face.
    - notyourday 9y ago
      That means you are not making enough money.
  - Jemmeh 9y ago
    Haha the length of time to complete projects would go through the roof, so that would never work here.
  - pm215 9y ago

notyourday 9y ago

Let me be a Certified Finance Asshat to demonstrate that you are externalizing money: I will give you $35k/year for 40 hours a week total compensation and you get all the other 4. Why aren't you taking this job? The reason is because you know that it is a laughable salary. FRC has an agenda. Its agenda is convince naive people to go work for their startups ( and other startups ) for Magic and Unicorns, rather than $$. P.S. Thanks for downvotes!

BeetleB 9y ago
You're being downvoted because you ignored this: >Money is important, but past a certain point (when you are able to live comfortably and are no longer feeling stressed about your personal/family finances), other factors come into play. It's difficult to counter his comment when you don't address it and give an obviously low salary.
- notyourday 9y ago
  Whenever one needs to quantify using unquantifiable words like "important but past a certain point" it is helpful to solve that point at the limit. Pacifists, for example, will refuse to kill someone who is pointing a gun at their family because of their, in my not humble opinion, stupid beliefs. I may think their beliefs are stupid but I cannot say that they themselves are full of crap because, after all, they live their beliefs. The people who are making claims that money is not the only mandatory thing and everything else is optional nice to have thing(s) tend to weasel out of the lets solve for money being zero ( or minimum wage ). Unfortunately, while pacifists do not disrupt my life (when their world collides with reality, they die and their ideas die with them ) the people who are claiming that conferences are more important than $$ disrupt my market. This means that my goal is to illustrate as much as possible how silly their positions are.
  - BeetleB 9y ago
    >The people who are making claims that money is not the only mandatory thing and everything else is optional nice to have thing(s) tend to weasel out of the lets solve for money being zero ( or minimum wage ). Except it wasn't his claim. The claim is pretty well known: Below a certain threshold, money is the most important thing. Above it, it is not. This is very different from the extreme pacifist mindset. The equivalent would be: "There are certain circumstances where it is important to kill another. Outside of those circumstances, it should not be the primary means." As an aside: Telling people what is important to them and ignoring their own claims on what is important to them will not make you many friends.

ghostbrainalpha 9y ago

> Money is important, but past a certain point (when you are able to live comfortably and are no longer feeling stressed about your personal/family finances) My problem is with that statement. I know this is a very common belief, but has anyone actually hit that point? I have gone through several cycles over the past 10 years, where I thought 20% more money would get me there. At each point, what was required to be comfortable would change. At first it was having enough money for me, then having enough that I could get married and buy a house and help my wife, then it was having enough money for my kids to go to a decent day care. Now I'm worried we don't have enough to send our kids to private school. Once I hit that, I will probably want to have enough money that my wife doesn't need to work. I wonder if that's when I can relax and the stress of finance will go away?

Bjartr 9y ago
In my current job I am paid below market rate. If I cared about money first I absolutely would not remain in this job. However, the coworkers are absolutely excellent and I am treated with respect. I would hesitate to trade that for anything less than an absolutely stellar offer well above market rate because not only what I have good, but also that I am content with my current lifestyle.
- ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
  It makes me really happy that there are people like you who have achieved this. Anxiety is destroying me in my current job, even though I love my co-workers. I need to figure out how to value money less and find an employer that would work with me on a 4 day week schedule.
GFischer 9y ago
The good old Hedonic Treadmill ("as a person makes more money, expectations and desires rise in tandem"). I do agree with you, but is private school strictly necessary? (not judging - in your position, I'd want to send them too btw). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill

sidlls 9y ago

> (when you are able to live comfortably and are no longer feeling stressed about your personal/family finances) This is too vague to be quantifiable in the way you intend. Money is important because it's by far the most common medium by which we acquire things that are necessary for life (e.g. food, shelter). It's important to have sufficient income to have these things in the present and to be able to stash enough reserves of money to have them in the future. Money is important (full stop). Here's my entirely subjective, anecdotal view: I've never met a person who says "money isn't the most important thing (about a job)" who also was not either: a) well off enough their entire lives that they never really had to worry about not having money or b) engaging in some serious sweet lemons rationalization so as to avoid facing their reality.

GFischer 9y ago

I agree that those are important, but money is a HUGE indicator/proxy of how much a company respects you, your talents and your contributions. I've quit a higher paying position because of bad leadership and no growth opportunities, but I dug myself into that hole, and I'm absolutely looking forward to a raise (and I'm not yet at the point where I'm not stressed about finances).