4 ms·

Yeah, it's pretty much this, except also with a sort of class element to it. A lot of people from poorer backgrounds flat out don't know their worth, or how mu

by CM30 7y ago

Yeah, it's pretty much this, except also with a sort of class element to it. A lot of people from poorer backgrounds flat out don't know their worth, or how much money they should be making according to market rates. They're so used to friends and family having low earning jobs that they think that's the baseline, even in fields where you can earn three/four times that by shopping around, negotiating and knowing who to work for. It's also probably why many immigrants work for low wages; because they're too used to the amount of money they would have made in their home country to realise that even double/triple that may be significantly less than market rate in their new location.

Viliam1234 7y ago
This. When you come from a poor background, your parents and friends are like "I have no idea how much these jobs pay", your colleagues are like "we are forbidden to talk to each other about our salaries", and your potential employers are like "no I won't tell you how much we offer, you tell me your expectations first". And if you ask for a fraction of what anyone else with the same qualifications would ask for, they just smile and give it to you, keeping you in the dark. I spent my first few years working for peanuts. The wake-up moment came when I decided to quit, because I believed I was too incompetent for my job (I had a heavy case of impostor syndrome back then), and my boss misunderstood my words, and instead doubled my salary. Then I started to suspect that if there was already enough space to double my salary, perhaps there is more. Turned out that yes, there was a lot of space to grow. Soon I was making about 10 times my original salary... in a different company. (Today you could probably find that information online; if not precisely, then at least within an order of magnitude. But this happened decades ago.)

by CM30 7y ago

Viliam1234 7y ago

This. When you come from a poor background, your parents and friends are like "I have no idea how much these jobs pay", your colleagues are like "we are forbidden to talk to each other about our salaries", and your potential employers are like "no I won't tell you how much we offer, you tell me your expectations first". And if you ask for a fraction of what anyone else with the same qualifications would ask for, they just smile and give it to you, keeping you in the dark. I spent my first few years working for peanuts. The wake-up moment came when I decided to quit, because I believed I was too incompetent for my job (I had a heavy case of impostor syndrome back then), and my boss misunderstood my words, and instead doubled my salary. Then I started to suspect that if there was already enough space to double my salary, perhaps there is more. Turned out that yes, there was a lot of space to grow. Soon I was making about 10 times my original salary... in a different company. (Today you could probably find that information online; if not precisely, then at least within an order of magnitude. But this happened decades ago.)