Additionally, salary is about more than gaining wealth–it's the indicator of whether my time is well-spent. All else being equal, a company can pay me well because my skill-set in their hands creates value. Contrarily, if a company can't pay me well, presumably my time won't be spent doing something valuable.
My morale is directly tied to a sense of value and pride in my work, which means it's directly tied to salary, and not because I'm greedy.
Don't work–or at least be very careful–at a company that can't pay you well but hopes to someday. Unless things change quickly, it means you're not creating something worthwhile.
Salary has nothing to do with work.
Getting and keeping high salary is all about luck and cunning.
Your work does not have to be extremely useful or valuable.
I don't know where this idea that world is fair comes from.
The other reality is that if you expect nothing, you will get nothing. If you expect low salary, you will get low salary no matter how hard you work or what skills you have.
Working hard on itself does not bring rewards. Asking for what you want and negotiating brings rewards.
That's not how it works. Educated, creative workers look for more than just salary. Increases in autonomy, purpose, and opportunity for mastery are often viewed as more valuable than money (once threshold levels of income have been crossed)[1]
It makes no sense but you should be grateful that the only thing stopping you from being one of the highest paid employees in the world is a few weeks of studying.
Seriously this. Salary is NOT everything, and a job that is kicking your butt all day and especially eating into weekends is not worth the tradeoffs. At least, it will catch up with you.
Salary is useful for buying things, up until a point, and at a certain point (assuming you aren't too materialistic) whether you are enjoying the job and other things gets to be way more important, and monetary compensation really doesn't make you that much happier.
Salaries reflect the ability to capture value, not need or value to the society. There are plenty of highly-paid jobs with effectively zero or even negative net contribution to the society.
Whether you work in finance or as a developer, your worth to your employer is dependent upon the value you bring to your employer. Might be an idea to look at what you enjoy instead of being fixated on the money.
In the sense of "meaning of life stuff" (fulfillment, meaning, purpose, etc). Your salary is what you charge someone to make you do things you wouldn't normally do. Sometimes, especially in "tech," jobs and natural interests align. In the normal world, that isn't always so.
Yah, that's why you're paid well, because why else would you do it? If you want meaningful work get into research or work at a uni, but don't expect much money.
It is ridiculous if you associate pay with degree/profession, but it is not if you associate pay with the offer and demand equilibrium. If there are no revenues to be taken or no demands for a professional, there’s no reason to pay them more. Degree does mean someone deserves to make more.
Let's face it, you are going to spend the majority of your life at work. Is money the only thing you care about? If so, why not doing something else? Nobody gets rich being a checked out employee.
You not only get paid with money, you get also paid with experience. That experience has a market value.
If your resume reads: "mindless checked out employee in tyrannic sweatshop using 15 years old tech", your market value will be lower than "engaged employee in innovative company using cutting edge tech". So if money matters to you, you should care about investing your career in experiences that lead to a higher market value.
Does the market really matter if I'm happy with what I'm being paid?
Sure it does. A portion of your happiness at work is down to the quality of people you work with, no? If your company routinely lowballs, then when the dust settles you are going to find yourself surrounded by people who had no choice but to accept that rate. The market therefore affects you whether you care about it or not.
Also, things change. Plenty of money to live on as a bachelor might leave you a bit short if you want to start a family. If you don't "need" the money right now, stick it in a savings account. Because remember this: someone is getting the value you create. Why shouldn't it be you?
This is just semantics. Typically wages are valuable--I don't know anyone who is being paid in smiles. Ostensibly when work is done and paid for, value has been created.
I really don't give a shit if I'm being paid more than my fellows, hard-working or no. The only thing I care about in my pay level is: am I making enough to support my family in a decent lifestyle? This means I'm comparing against the cost of living, NOT what my coworkers make - I only care about my relative wage insofar as it indicates how most people are getting by.
What I'm more interested in, as a smart person, is that my work is recognized as valuable, given the resources it needs to succeed, encouraged, improved upon, aided.
If you spend time studying something useless or not making money you wont get money. Its as simple as that.
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