7 ms·

I learned the hard way to not underestimate how competitive and treacherous some people can be in the workplace. I was a long-term contractor in a large company

by ajxs 7y ago

I learned the hard way to not underestimate how competitive and treacherous some people can be in the workplace. I was a long-term contractor in a large company and had an incident where I confided to another employee about some issues I was having negotiating my pay at contract renewal time. I never mentioned any numbers, just that a manager had previously promised me a pay-raise and was not honouring their word. Within two hours I was called into a senior manager's office to be reprimanded for discussing this matter publicly. In retrospect I can see the warning signs exhibited by this employee that I had ignored, and I now see that I should have kept this to myself, however I worked very closely with this employee and felt that this employee would keep what I had told them in confidence. After this incident I saw many other examples of how duplicitous this particularly employee could be when they felt threatened by the ability of others. Ultimately I was not disciplined, but I learned a valuable lesson in the process. For anyone wondering why this was an issue in the first place: It's generally a policy to keep pay and pay negotiations confidential. Employers fear the friction that can result if an employee discovers that they're being underpaid.

bnjms 7y ago
Can you say white kind of warning signs were on display? This sounds like something I would walk into.
- ajxs 7y ago
  It sounds like I'm being very petty bringing these kinds of thing up, but I'll go into a bit more detail. This particular employee was extremely critical of fellow employees at his own level, and would make extremely overt attempts to ingratiate himself with senior employees and managers. We used to interview potential candidates for junior positions together. One very odd behaviour that he'd exhibit that really rubbed me the wrong way was that when we gave the applicant whiteboard tests, he would make such a concerted effort to demonstrate his superiority to the applicant by painstakingly solving and explaining the problem in gory, patronising detail before their eyes. That was how I saw it anyway, I felt that he would relish in any minor victory over other employees. I guess they call this an 'inferiority complex'. In retrospect, I feel that I should have known that someone displaying traits like these wouldn't miss the opportunity to drag me down to build himself up.
  - bnjms 7y ago
    Not petty when it's specifically asked for and relevant to the conversation. I don't know this person so they're not so much a real person as an archetype I can look for. In this case it's always useful to remember patterns we see in others relationships apply to ourselves too. Thanks for sharing.
  - aaronbrethorst 7y ago
    I've worked with someone who acted, down to the very last detail, exactly like what you describe. The rot went all the way to the top. Really, it was the CEO's fault that he allowed this sort of culture to flourish under him, and the company ultimately collapsed in pretty spectacular fashion. I treated the whole thing as a learning experience and have successfully managed to avoid ending up in a similar situation since.
- asdfman123 7y ago
  The world is full of fairly nice people who will spill anything you said to them to anyone for any reason in the workplace. And I'm not cynical about people, I just think it's the truth. There are no warning signs. Just pretend everything you say to a coworker is on a public ledger. In some cases the true, actual friends you make in the workplace, the ones you'd still hang out with years after your employment, ca be trusted. But it's still probably better to not tell them anything that could make you look seriously bad either.
  - ajxs 7y ago
    > pretend everything you say to a coworker is on a public ledger Very succinctly put. I probably could have distilled my post down to just this. If there's any one takeaway from this thread, that's it.
asveikau 7y ago
You can flip that and say the advice your co-worker needed to hear: don't be duplicitous or treacherous in the workplace. You may think it gets you ahead but this is highly illusory and temporary. When you look back you'll just have anxiety and regrets behind you, if you have decency. And when it's all over, the things you thought were really important at the time won't be, so why be a jerk about them?
- asdfman123 7y ago
  Being a jerk might help get what you think you want (money, success) at the price of what you actually need (self-respect, warm relationships). That is, of course, if it doesn't backfire. Then you get nothing.
  - GFischer 7y ago
    Unfortunately, I´ve seen it bring money and success a LOT of times. Some of the most immoral jerks I know are extremely successful and very wealthy.
cannonedhamster 7y ago
It's not that employers care about friction. They don't want poor negotiators realizing that could have had more. Unions have had known pay rates for years. Causes no friction whatever if it's clear what gets you what pay. Employers just want employees to undervalue their work so they can pay them less. It's a perfectly valid thing for an employer to lie to you about why and even to try to get the most work for the least pay. You should be attempting to do the same.
- ajxs 7y ago
  The friction I'm describing is what inevitably occurs when workers start openly discussing pay and realise that some among them are paid much more than others. I've seen it happen multiple times in different workplaces. Some longer-term employees discover that more junior, less experienced employees are being paid maybe 30% more and pretty much mentally check out instantly. They become instantly absolutely demoralised and will end up on a spiral downwards which either ends with them resigning or being given a massive pay-raise. I've heard someone describe the phenomena as 'contractor rot', when a full-time employee discovers how much more contractors earn.
  - cannonedhamster 7y ago
    Yes and this isn't your fault, no matter how much employers want you to feel. It's entirely up to a company how much they offer employees. Think about this, they could at any moment increase the pay off every employee without as single complaint from employees. They make a conscious choice to not increase the pay of more senior employees intentionally because they know the employees won't leave to get more money. You shouldn't feel bad because of choices the company makes. The friction isn't your fault or your concern. As I stated before companies tell you not to share because it benefits them, not you. No one feels bad when someone leaves the company for more money elsewhere, there are even companies that ask their employees to take a cut and they do and everyone feels okay with it because you're all in it together. The only time this friction occurs is when a company chooses to bring someone in for money they choose not to offer to another employee. You stated yourself that you became demoralized before sharing, in fact it was the company that brought it on. The company is trying to make you feel bad for sticking up for yourself in a contract negotiation, don't let them do that to you. You're worth more than that, both as a person and as an employee. The contractor makes other sacrifices including benefits and stability as part of their wages. If the company can't explain that it's on them, not you.
brokenmachine 7y ago
Keeping pay negotiations confidential benefits only the company, not the workers.
- nprateem 7y ago
  It can help reduce jealousy between colleagues. How would someone feel knowing one of their other colleagues who just so happened to be a better negotiator is getting paid possibly much more than them, despite apparently similar skills/work?
  - snarf21 7y ago
    The counter argument is that salary negotiation is a skill that all employees should develop, not just the newest code framework.
  - brokenmachine 7y ago
    So the solution is to bypass some potential jealousy through mandating secrecy, instead of making the pays more fair? Sounds like a weak argument to justify possible exploitation. In my opinion, there's an unfair information asymmetry, as the company knows how much everyone is getting paid. I've worked in government jobs where everyone's pays are easily known, and there is still some (smallish) amount of jealousy because those pays are still based on a grading, so some people will think that others are not doing enough work to justify their grading.
    - nprateem 7y ago
      > mandating secrecy That's unnecessary. If you've a gram of experience you should realise it's generally in your own best interests not to tell your colleagues what you're on. > justify possible exploitation. If you don't like the pay, get another job. I don't see where the exploitation comes from. Unless you're suggesting people who don't like the pay can't get a job, can't negotiate and should for some reason therefore be excused of the need to do either with strict pay grades? I can't see how that would work across the whole market, and unless there is pay fixing then market forces will prevent it working.
ps101 7y ago
> It's generally a policy to keep pay and pay negotiations confidential. I know that your general point is about the personal relationships, but I want to point out that this policy is bullshit. You can legally disclose your salary with anyone (including in the US). From my experience in the UK employers don't even try to pull any of these 'policies', although often employees don't go around discussing their salaries simply out of courtesy.
- BeetleB 7y ago
  >You can legally disclose your salary with anyone (including in the US). You can legally do lots of things in the US. At will employers can also legally let you go without a reason. It's not going to be easy to show that they let you go for a legally protected reason.
  - ps101 7y ago
    Don't put up with it. People reading this will have the rare luxury of working in an industry and in positions where they have a lot of leverage and a choice of employers. (Disclaimer - it's easy for me to write this from the EU where this isn't a problem at all, thankfully.)
thrownaway954 7y ago
colleagues ARE NOT friends... they are competition. Don't tell a colleague anything personal you wouldn't tell an enemy. I've too have learned this the hard way.
- BeetleB 7y ago
  I think the lesson I would have learned in that situation is not to work there. But who am I kidding? I DO work there!
- anthonypasq 7y ago
  yikes. you sound like a miserable person to work with
- nefitty 7y ago
  If evolution has figured out that cooperation is the best strategy, who am I to think competing with everyone will get me far?

by ajxs 7y ago

bnjms 7y ago

Can you say white kind of warning signs were on display? This sounds like something I would walk into.

ajxs 7y ago
It sounds like I'm being very petty bringing these kinds of thing up, but I'll go into a bit more detail. This particular employee was extremely critical of fellow employees at his own level, and would make extremely overt attempts to ingratiate himself with senior employees and managers. We used to interview potential candidates for junior positions together. One very odd behaviour that he'd exhibit that really rubbed me the wrong way was that when we gave the applicant whiteboard tests, he would make such a concerted effort to demonstrate his superiority to the applicant by painstakingly solving and explaining the problem in gory, patronising detail before their eyes. That was how I saw it anyway, I felt that he would relish in any minor victory over other employees. I guess they call this an 'inferiority complex'. In retrospect, I feel that I should have known that someone displaying traits like these wouldn't miss the opportunity to drag me down to build himself up.
- bnjms 7y ago
  Not petty when it's specifically asked for and relevant to the conversation. I don't know this person so they're not so much a real person as an archetype I can look for. In this case it's always useful to remember patterns we see in others relationships apply to ourselves too. Thanks for sharing.
- aaronbrethorst 7y ago
  I've worked with someone who acted, down to the very last detail, exactly like what you describe. The rot went all the way to the top. Really, it was the CEO's fault that he allowed this sort of culture to flourish under him, and the company ultimately collapsed in pretty spectacular fashion. I treated the whole thing as a learning experience and have successfully managed to avoid ending up in a similar situation since.
asdfman123 7y ago
The world is full of fairly nice people who will spill anything you said to them to anyone for any reason in the workplace. And I'm not cynical about people, I just think it's the truth. There are no warning signs. Just pretend everything you say to a coworker is on a public ledger. In some cases the true, actual friends you make in the workplace, the ones you'd still hang out with years after your employment, ca be trusted. But it's still probably better to not tell them anything that could make you look seriously bad either.
- ajxs 7y ago
  > pretend everything you say to a coworker is on a public ledger Very succinctly put. I probably could have distilled my post down to just this. If there's any one takeaway from this thread, that's it.

asveikau 7y ago

You can flip that and say the advice your co-worker needed to hear: don't be duplicitous or treacherous in the workplace. You may think it gets you ahead but this is highly illusory and temporary. When you look back you'll just have anxiety and regrets behind you, if you have decency. And when it's all over, the things you thought were really important at the time won't be, so why be a jerk about them?

asdfman123 7y ago
Being a jerk might help get what you think you want (money, success) at the price of what you actually need (self-respect, warm relationships). That is, of course, if it doesn't backfire. Then you get nothing.
- GFischer 7y ago
  Unfortunately, I´ve seen it bring money and success a LOT of times. Some of the most immoral jerks I know are extremely successful and very wealthy.

cannonedhamster 7y ago

It's not that employers care about friction. They don't want poor negotiators realizing that could have had more. Unions have had known pay rates for years. Causes no friction whatever if it's clear what gets you what pay. Employers just want employees to undervalue their work so they can pay them less. It's a perfectly valid thing for an employer to lie to you about why and even to try to get the most work for the least pay. You should be attempting to do the same.

ajxs 7y ago
The friction I'm describing is what inevitably occurs when workers start openly discussing pay and realise that some among them are paid much more than others. I've seen it happen multiple times in different workplaces. Some longer-term employees discover that more junior, less experienced employees are being paid maybe 30% more and pretty much mentally check out instantly. They become instantly absolutely demoralised and will end up on a spiral downwards which either ends with them resigning or being given a massive pay-raise. I've heard someone describe the phenomena as 'contractor rot', when a full-time employee discovers how much more contractors earn.
- cannonedhamster 7y ago
  Yes and this isn't your fault, no matter how much employers want you to feel. It's entirely up to a company how much they offer employees. Think about this, they could at any moment increase the pay off every employee without as single complaint from employees. They make a conscious choice to not increase the pay of more senior employees intentionally because they know the employees won't leave to get more money. You shouldn't feel bad because of choices the company makes. The friction isn't your fault or your concern. As I stated before companies tell you not to share because it benefits them, not you. No one feels bad when someone leaves the company for more money elsewhere, there are even companies that ask their employees to take a cut and they do and everyone feels okay with it because you're all in it together. The only time this friction occurs is when a company chooses to bring someone in for money they choose not to offer to another employee. You stated yourself that you became demoralized before sharing, in fact it was the company that brought it on. The company is trying to make you feel bad for sticking up for yourself in a contract negotiation, don't let them do that to you. You're worth more than that, both as a person and as an employee. The contractor makes other sacrifices including benefits and stability as part of their wages. If the company can't explain that it's on them, not you.

brokenmachine 7y ago

Keeping pay negotiations confidential benefits only the company, not the workers.

nprateem 7y ago
It can help reduce jealousy between colleagues. How would someone feel knowing one of their other colleagues who just so happened to be a better negotiator is getting paid possibly much more than them, despite apparently similar skills/work?
- snarf21 7y ago
  The counter argument is that salary negotiation is a skill that all employees should develop, not just the newest code framework.
- brokenmachine 7y ago
  So the solution is to bypass some potential jealousy through mandating secrecy, instead of making the pays more fair? Sounds like a weak argument to justify possible exploitation. In my opinion, there's an unfair information asymmetry, as the company knows how much everyone is getting paid. I've worked in government jobs where everyone's pays are easily known, and there is still some (smallish) amount of jealousy because those pays are still based on a grading, so some people will think that others are not doing enough work to justify their grading.
  - nprateem 7y ago
    > mandating secrecy That's unnecessary. If you've a gram of experience you should realise it's generally in your own best interests not to tell your colleagues what you're on. > justify possible exploitation. If you don't like the pay, get another job. I don't see where the exploitation comes from. Unless you're suggesting people who don't like the pay can't get a job, can't negotiate and should for some reason therefore be excused of the need to do either with strict pay grades? I can't see how that would work across the whole market, and unless there is pay fixing then market forces will prevent it working.

ps101 7y ago

> It's generally a policy to keep pay and pay negotiations confidential. I know that your general point is about the personal relationships, but I want to point out that this policy is bullshit. You can legally disclose your salary with anyone (including in the US). From my experience in the UK employers don't even try to pull any of these 'policies', although often employees don't go around discussing their salaries simply out of courtesy.

BeetleB 7y ago
>You can legally disclose your salary with anyone (including in the US). You can legally do lots of things in the US. At will employers can also legally let you go without a reason. It's not going to be easy to show that they let you go for a legally protected reason.
- ps101 7y ago
  Don't put up with it. People reading this will have the rare luxury of working in an industry and in positions where they have a lot of leverage and a choice of employers. (Disclaimer - it's easy for me to write this from the EU where this isn't a problem at all, thankfully.)

thrownaway954 7y ago

colleagues ARE NOT friends... they are competition. Don't tell a colleague anything personal you wouldn't tell an enemy. I've too have learned this the hard way.

BeetleB 7y ago
I think the lesson I would have learned in that situation is not to work there. But who am I kidding? I DO work there!
anthonypasq 7y ago
yikes. you sound like a miserable person to work with
nefitty 7y ago
If evolution has figured out that cooperation is the best strategy, who am I to think competing with everyone will get me far?