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I'm pretty sure the "telling her manager to fuck off" comment was a reference to refusing to be illegally intimidated over salary information sharing. Assuming

by aaronem 11y ago

I'm pretty sure the "telling her manager to fuck off" comment was a reference to refusing to be illegally intimidated over salary information sharing. Assuming that's an accurate reading of GP's comment, I think it's quite telling that, again, an employee's refusal to be illegally intimidated should be constructed as "telling her manager to fuck off". The sympathies and attitudes thus revealed make me very glad that I don't have to depend on the good feeling of random Silicon Valley magnates and would-be magnates to work in my industry.

braythwayt 11y ago
Leaving gender out of this (which is a massive hand-wave on my part), HN skews very heavily towards people who bifurcate the world into two kinds: Entrepreneurs and little people (I am referencing Bladerunner, not persons short in physical stature). Had this story been rewritten to describe the situation as Google (and other BigCos like Apple) erecting arcane and anti-competitive mechanisms to manipulate a market for talent, and the protagonist quitting to found a web-based startup to disrupt their 19th century attitude to business, we might be toasting her as starting the next Uber for people. How dare those fat cats do dirty deals to prevent the ordinary person from sharing a spreadsheet! SecretSalary to the rescue!
raisedbyninjas 11y ago
It's a fuck off comment because the manager asked an open-ended question and tweeter bluntly retorted that retaliation is illegal. The manager could be ascertaining the awareness and intent behind stirring up this substantial turmoil. It would be polite to give the manager the benefit of doubt until threats are actually made.
- aaronem 11y ago
  It would be polite for the manager not to allude to threats which would be unlawful to make outright. Where else do you see something like "Don't you know what could happen?" going in a situation like that? And let's be clear here. There is absolutely no downside to the sharing of salary information from the employee's perspective, and absolutely no upside to same from the perspective of management. So when it comes to hauling the employee into a private meeting with higher-ups, who are already outright declaring their displeasure with the situation, I think the "benefit of the doubt" boat has sailed.
  - vonmoltke 11y ago
    > absolutely no upside to same from the perspective of management Are you asserting that 95%+ of companies in the US have, and sometimes enforce, a policy that actively hurts them? I know companies do stupid shit from time to time, but you are basically saying salary confidentiality policies are some sort of mass MBA psychosis. After all, if there is "absolutely no upside" to management, why do we need labor laws to prohibit these policies in the first place? Edit: So, I totally mis-parsed that statement. I thought you were stating there was no upside to management prohibiting salary discussions.
    - woah 11y ago
      Re read the comment.
      - vonmoltke 11y ago
        Aw crap, early morning parser failure.
    - aaronem 11y ago
      Where on Earth did you get the idea that labor laws prohibit employees from discussing remuneration with one another?
      - vonmoltke 11y ago
        Somehow I got thoroughly confused and thought the management comment referred to preventing, not permitting.
    - fyolnish 11y ago
      You need to read parent again
  - raisedbyninjas 11y ago
    I can imagine a number of downsides to publishing pay rates. Not every workplace is a beacon of maturity and comfortable upper-middle-class wages. Some offices have politics, gossip, and troublemakers. Immediately employees would be calling meetings with their manager to hear the justifications for pay rates they felt were unfair. This could repeat with each new hire, promotion, raise, bonus, and change in responsibilities. This generates wasted time and increased turnover. My wife's design company would virtually grind to a halt for a few days. Even after everybody is placated with their pay rate, each doling out project assignments would be a new opportunity for friction over who deserves to do what. Then let's consider accusations of sexism, racism, ageism. The number of discrimination lawsuits would likely be non-zero. There are also social introverts who don't want to turn half of their co-worker interactions into awkward conversations. So once profitable workplaces that kept everybody moderately polite and happy could face several obstacles. Handing out raises wouldn't solve all of these problems either. I'll admit some worker bees would probably get paid a little more.
edkennedy 11y ago
My understanding from reading the vague tweets was the "fuck off" statement was referring to some other occurance of racism that she mentions, unrelated to the salary spreadsheet.

by aaronem 11y ago

braythwayt 11y ago

Leaving gender out of this (which is a massive hand-wave on my part), HN skews very heavily towards people who bifurcate the world into two kinds: Entrepreneurs and little people (I am referencing Bladerunner, not persons short in physical stature). Had this story been rewritten to describe the situation as Google (and other BigCos like Apple) erecting arcane and anti-competitive mechanisms to manipulate a market for talent, and the protagonist quitting to found a web-based startup to disrupt their 19th century attitude to business, we might be toasting her as starting the next Uber for people. How dare those fat cats do dirty deals to prevent the ordinary person from sharing a spreadsheet! SecretSalary to the rescue!

raisedbyninjas 11y ago

It's a fuck off comment because the manager asked an open-ended question and tweeter bluntly retorted that retaliation is illegal. The manager could be ascertaining the awareness and intent behind stirring up this substantial turmoil. It would be polite to give the manager the benefit of doubt until threats are actually made.

aaronem 11y ago
It would be polite for the manager not to allude to threats which would be unlawful to make outright. Where else do you see something like "Don't you know what could happen?" going in a situation like that? And let's be clear here. There is absolutely no downside to the sharing of salary information from the employee's perspective, and absolutely no upside to same from the perspective of management. So when it comes to hauling the employee into a private meeting with higher-ups, who are already outright declaring their displeasure with the situation, I think the "benefit of the doubt" boat has sailed.
- vonmoltke 11y ago
  > absolutely no upside to same from the perspective of management Are you asserting that 95%+ of companies in the US have, and sometimes enforce, a policy that actively hurts them? I know companies do stupid shit from time to time, but you are basically saying salary confidentiality policies are some sort of mass MBA psychosis. After all, if there is "absolutely no upside" to management, why do we need labor laws to prohibit these policies in the first place? Edit: So, I totally mis-parsed that statement. I thought you were stating there was no upside to management prohibiting salary discussions.
  - woah 11y ago
    Re read the comment.
    - vonmoltke 11y ago
      Aw crap, early morning parser failure.
  - aaronem 11y ago
    Where on Earth did you get the idea that labor laws prohibit employees from discussing remuneration with one another?
    - vonmoltke 11y ago
      Somehow I got thoroughly confused and thought the management comment referred to preventing, not permitting.
  - fyolnish 11y ago
    You need to read parent again
- raisedbyninjas 11y ago
  I can imagine a number of downsides to publishing pay rates. Not every workplace is a beacon of maturity and comfortable upper-middle-class wages. Some offices have politics, gossip, and troublemakers. Immediately employees would be calling meetings with their manager to hear the justifications for pay rates they felt were unfair. This could repeat with each new hire, promotion, raise, bonus, and change in responsibilities. This generates wasted time and increased turnover. My wife's design company would virtually grind to a halt for a few days. Even after everybody is placated with their pay rate, each doling out project assignments would be a new opportunity for friction over who deserves to do what. Then let's consider accusations of sexism, racism, ageism. The number of discrimination lawsuits would likely be non-zero. There are also social introverts who don't want to turn half of their co-worker interactions into awkward conversations. So once profitable workplaces that kept everybody moderately polite and happy could face several obstacles. Handing out raises wouldn't solve all of these problems either. I'll admit some worker bees would probably get paid a little more.

edkennedy 11y ago

My understanding from reading the vague tweets was the "fuck off" statement was referring to some other occurance of racism that she mentions, unrelated to the salary spreadsheet.