4 ms·

I feel it's important to remember that in the employee-employer relationship, you're peers. You both need to provide the other with value, and you both need to

by chasing 13y ago

I feel it's important to remember that in the employee-employer relationship, you're peers. You both need to provide the other with value, and you both need to be frank about your relationship when these values are lop-sided. And you need to be clear about what the value of the things being offered are. Your employer is not your family, your mom, or your significant other. It's a peer with which you trade value. Every person who works is a single-person business selling their particular expertise and time. I feel like maintaining this attitude can help with all sorts of stuff, including dealing with job offers, negotiating pay, etc. And key to this is having a fairly good knowledge of the value that you provide so you know what value you deserve in return. (Being acutely aware of the value you provide can also help steer you towards higher-value skill sets.) Intangibles are great. But don't live in fantasy land. And be aware that no one's obligated to give you anything unless it's written in a contract.

coldtea 13y ago
>I feel it's important to remember that in the employee-employer relationship, you're peers. Only rarely and in quite good economy and job market conditions (can differ depending on profession). And that's for better than average workers. For average and below average (ie. most of the population at any give time) not even then. Normally you are the one needing work and money to feed your family and he is the one with the money to pay you. "He" could even be a multi-national. You are the weaker one here, make no mistake.
vladimirralev 13y ago
I think you are wrong. The employer has accountants, lawyers, HR, business. You are not equally-equipped parties. You can't really afford to have your own contract lawyer, labor lawyer, IP lawyer, accountant, financial advisor and salary market researcher. You have to trust the company to do these things for you. Even when something is in writing there are 100s of subtle ways to screw you over, especially with shares or options. Sometimes companies will not share any information about the value you are bringing in. There is a big information asymmetry between you and the employer, so you just have to trust them to distribute the payouts fairly. Often the pay distribution is unknown and legally confidential. So even if you try to make an argument with some stubborn manager that you are severely underpaid you can't start throwing teammates under the bus for disclosing their salaries. It's a toxic environment to have to continuously confront your management to do their job properly. Otherwise you are losing money because of their incompetence. Not to mention the losses in terms of stress/health when you are forced to actively confront your management. The other big aspect of the same issue is the implied responsibility - for example when you are consulting for a third party. Lets say you are paid $10 per hour while your company charges the customer $300 per hour and the customer expects a solid $300 per hour delivery. Now that puts you in a weird situation, because the context of responsibility and ownership is very different. It affects how you think about the code. It's like the difference between life-support critical software and useless departmental tools. It is up to your company to define the scope of responsibility. You can't force it, you don't have the business input to figure out what they need. May be they just need a cheap and stupid code monkey.
- dwrowe 13y ago
  You need to re-read the gp comment. Knowing what you're worth is different than what companies value your worth. A company may undervalue or overvalue your work - the responsibility is on you to determine if you're getting screwed or not - it isn't dependent on what others are getting.
  - vladimirralev 13y ago
    I think I understand correctly. What I was trying to say is that if I am able to determine that I am being screwed over, this is management's fault and not my fault. It's management's responsibility to fix it. I shouldn't have to hire salary researchers and lawyers with my own money to create a report that I can use as an argument for my manager to consider it. And definitely must not put me in conflicting position with management over it. Otherwise I'd have to leave and nobody wins.
    - tptacek 13y ago
      Well then, you can continue to be controlled economically by your employers, because nobody in the market --- nobody --- is putting your own individual interests before those of the company, except for you. Personally, I wouldn't want an employer going through lots of effort to figure out what's best for me. I think they'd do a crappy job of it.
      - vladimirralev 13y ago
        I've been a consultant for a while now and I have this conversation every week or so. What you said goes both ways, nobody has your company's best interest over their personal interest. So you better have my best interest in mind if you want me to have your best interest in mind. It's only fair :) The employer doesn't have to figure out what's best for you. What's best for them is also best for you. Like almost everybody else, I am driven by respect. If the company measures performance based on profit, so do I. If it's a non-profit, so am I. If you give me what you value most I will do the same. Can't go wrong with that.
    - 13y ago
nigelsampson 13y ago
Realising this was one of the best things in my career, it helped me increase my confidence in job interviews. They now weren't just me desperately selling myself to the company, but also them trying to sell me on why I should work there.
- beat 13y ago
  When I'm interviewing candidates, I'm very conscious of the fact that I'm selling the job to them, at the same time they're selling themselves to me. If they can't make the sale to me, I'm not going to put much effort into making the sale to them.
dredmorbius 13y ago
I feel it's important to remember that in the employee-employer relationship, you're peers. That's a false statement whose falseness has been observed by economists since Adam Smith: What are the common wages of labour, depends every where upon the contract usually made between those two parties, whose interests are by no means the same. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter in order to lower the wages of labour. It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorises, or at least does not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen. We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work; but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes the masters can hold out much longer. A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, or merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year without employment. In the long-run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him, but the necessity is not so immediate. http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN3.html#I.8.11 http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN3.html#I.8.11 Smith continues to further detail the advantages of employers. Not all of the conditions he describes apply fully today (trades unions are no longer illegal), though in practice they largely still hold, particularly in the technology sector (in which trade unions are almost wholly nonexistent). The law of rent (David Ricardo) states the situation simply: your ability to command a wage from one employer is wholly dependent on your ability to claim as much or higher compensation from another, or by striking out on your own. Smith also makes the observation that it's not the size of an economy but its growth which tends to produce circumstances most favorable for labour (a growing economy has a larger number of alternative opportunities for labour).
- SilliMon 13y ago
  Not necessarily; few employees are willing to take a pay cut - that is why 5% of staff are laid off, rather than everyone in the company taking a 5% cut. The latter would probably be more efficient for the company. However many workers would start looking for a better job.
mathattack 13y ago
It's good and healthy to be skeptical about talk like "This is one big family" because the economy is littered with public companies that operated like families until they laid everyone off. Saying, "Only be loyal to yourself" can be short sighted too. People remember. If you refuse to renew your contract mid-project because someone else away is offering $50/day more, people will remember. If you quit your company because you don't want to do any overtime for a month, people remember. More importantly, your immediate boss remembers. The best work out there is never advertised. It appears by word of mouth. This is true for both full time employees and contractors. The best work at the highest wages come when a prior boss says, "This is very important, and only YOU can do it for me." This isn't corporate loyalty, but it's having someone know that you'll be in the foxhole with them. One last thought on the OP - I can't imagine a company laying off the folks who "finished first" staying in business for very long. It's very Dilbertesque.
pseut 13y ago
Viewing it that way can be a huge help when you're approaching job interviews too. When you see an interview as, "I'm a professional; they're professionals in my field; let's talk to see if there are projects that we'd like to work on together," it takes away a lot of the anxiety.

by chasing 13y ago

coldtea 13y ago

>I feel it's important to remember that in the employee-employer relationship, you're peers. Only rarely and in quite good economy and job market conditions (can differ depending on profession). And that's for better than average workers. For average and below average (ie. most of the population at any give time) not even then. Normally you are the one needing work and money to feed your family and he is the one with the money to pay you. "He" could even be a multi-national. You are the weaker one here, make no mistake.

vladimirralev 13y ago

I think you are wrong. The employer has accountants, lawyers, HR, business. You are not equally-equipped parties. You can't really afford to have your own contract lawyer, labor lawyer, IP lawyer, accountant, financial advisor and salary market researcher. You have to trust the company to do these things for you. Even when something is in writing there are 100s of subtle ways to screw you over, especially with shares or options. Sometimes companies will not share any information about the value you are bringing in. There is a big information asymmetry between you and the employer, so you just have to trust them to distribute the payouts fairly. Often the pay distribution is unknown and legally confidential. So even if you try to make an argument with some stubborn manager that you are severely underpaid you can't start throwing teammates under the bus for disclosing their salaries. It's a toxic environment to have to continuously confront your management to do their job properly. Otherwise you are losing money because of their incompetence. Not to mention the losses in terms of stress/health when you are forced to actively confront your management. The other big aspect of the same issue is the implied responsibility - for example when you are consulting for a third party. Lets say you are paid $10 per hour while your company charges the customer $300 per hour and the customer expects a solid $300 per hour delivery. Now that puts you in a weird situation, because the context of responsibility and ownership is very different. It affects how you think about the code. It's like the difference between life-support critical software and useless departmental tools. It is up to your company to define the scope of responsibility. You can't force it, you don't have the business input to figure out what they need. May be they just need a cheap and stupid code monkey.

dwrowe 13y ago
You need to re-read the gp comment. Knowing what you're worth is different than what companies value your worth. A company may undervalue or overvalue your work - the responsibility is on you to determine if you're getting screwed or not - it isn't dependent on what others are getting.
- vladimirralev 13y ago
  I think I understand correctly. What I was trying to say is that if I am able to determine that I am being screwed over, this is management's fault and not my fault. It's management's responsibility to fix it. I shouldn't have to hire salary researchers and lawyers with my own money to create a report that I can use as an argument for my manager to consider it. And definitely must not put me in conflicting position with management over it. Otherwise I'd have to leave and nobody wins.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    Well then, you can continue to be controlled economically by your employers, because nobody in the market --- nobody --- is putting your own individual interests before those of the company, except for you. Personally, I wouldn't want an employer going through lots of effort to figure out what's best for me. I think they'd do a crappy job of it.
    - vladimirralev 13y ago
      I've been a consultant for a while now and I have this conversation every week or so. What you said goes both ways, nobody has your company's best interest over their personal interest. So you better have my best interest in mind if you want me to have your best interest in mind. It's only fair :) The employer doesn't have to figure out what's best for you. What's best for them is also best for you. Like almost everybody else, I am driven by respect. If the company measures performance based on profit, so do I. If it's a non-profit, so am I. If you give me what you value most I will do the same. Can't go wrong with that.
  - 13y ago

nigelsampson 13y ago

Realising this was one of the best things in my career, it helped me increase my confidence in job interviews. They now weren't just me desperately selling myself to the company, but also them trying to sell me on why I should work there.

beat 13y ago
When I'm interviewing candidates, I'm very conscious of the fact that I'm selling the job to them, at the same time they're selling themselves to me. If they can't make the sale to me, I'm not going to put much effort into making the sale to them.

dredmorbius 13y ago

I feel it's important to remember that in the employee-employer relationship, you're peers. That's a false statement whose falseness has been observed by economists since Adam Smith: What are the common wages of labour, depends every where upon the contract usually made between those two parties, whose interests are by no means the same. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter in order to lower the wages of labour. It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorises, or at least does not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen. We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work; but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes the masters can hold out much longer. A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, or merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year without employment. In the long-run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him, but the necessity is not so immediate. http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN3.html#I.8.11 http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN3.html#I.8.11 Smith continues to further detail the advantages of employers. Not all of the conditions he describes apply fully today (trades unions are no longer illegal), though in practice they largely still hold, particularly in the technology sector (in which trade unions are almost wholly nonexistent). The law of rent (David Ricardo) states the situation simply: your ability to command a wage from one employer is wholly dependent on your ability to claim as much or higher compensation from another, or by striking out on your own. Smith also makes the observation that it's not the size of an economy but its growth which tends to produce circumstances most favorable for labour (a growing economy has a larger number of alternative opportunities for labour).

SilliMon 13y ago
Not necessarily; few employees are willing to take a pay cut - that is why 5% of staff are laid off, rather than everyone in the company taking a 5% cut. The latter would probably be more efficient for the company. However many workers would start looking for a better job.

mathattack 13y ago

It's good and healthy to be skeptical about talk like "This is one big family" because the economy is littered with public companies that operated like families until they laid everyone off. Saying, "Only be loyal to yourself" can be short sighted too. People remember. If you refuse to renew your contract mid-project because someone else away is offering $50/day more, people will remember. If you quit your company because you don't want to do any overtime for a month, people remember. More importantly, your immediate boss remembers. The best work out there is never advertised. It appears by word of mouth. This is true for both full time employees and contractors. The best work at the highest wages come when a prior boss says, "This is very important, and only YOU can do it for me." This isn't corporate loyalty, but it's having someone know that you'll be in the foxhole with them. One last thought on the OP - I can't imagine a company laying off the folks who "finished first" staying in business for very long. It's very Dilbertesque.

pseut 13y ago

Viewing it that way can be a huge help when you're approaching job interviews too. When you see an interview as, "I'm a professional; they're professionals in my field; let's talk to see if there are projects that we'd like to work on together," it takes away a lot of the anxiety.