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I hope unionizing against these tech giants becomes fashionable. I worked at Adobe as a contractor and one of the recruiters for the contractor had called me and told me not to discuss my pay because I was being paid very well for the job (I wasn't and in fact was underpaid but I took the job to build a resume). I immediately asked my coworkers what they made and told them what I was getting. I also asked the recruiter to send that in writing. I got a call the next day from his manager saying to ignore and disregard what he said.

While they squashed the issue immediately, I suspect this practice is common and bullying people about sharing their wages in this industry is normal.



It goes a lot further than that. I had a very brief stint at a company that looked good on the surface but was toxic as hell underneath. As part of my employment agreement I had to sign an NDA stating I could not discuss my compensation with other employees. If memory serves there was an exception for HR and my manager but I wasn’t supposed to talk about it with anyone else. I honestly don’t know if conditions like that are legal in Ontario but I also didn’t have the resources to contest it.


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If you make $60,000 a year for a job, you are doing decently well on a US-wide perspective (and very well on a global perspective). However if your coworkers, doing the exact same work as you exactly as well, make $120,000, you’re in fact being underpaid.

And the solution to the first issue isn’t to attack the people making $60,000 but to bring everyone who is underpaid up.


No, he's including in the compensation the experience etc.

It's not strictly a free market so the market closing price will be lower than true equilibrium because a no-agreement for one negotiator (labour) results in starvation but a no-agreement for the other negotiator (employer) results in minor discomfort.

Perhaps allowing the former to negotiate freely by guaranteeing life will bring negotiation outcomes closer to true market closing price. That's got its own problems, of course, but unions aren't a bad idea to attempt to increase power of labour vs employer.


"Experience" has nothing to do with compensation. You don't deserve more money just because you have been around longer. It is appropriate to make it proportional to value creation. Experience helps with this but obviously then the correlation will be lower.


No, he was paid with getting the experience. He got compensation in the shape of "build(ing) a resume"


I'll ask my landlord if they take that next time. I'm sure the company would love to earn experience from my work instead of money too since it's so valuable.


I bring this up in the most tongue in cheek manner: https://thehardtimes.net/culture/surprisingly-cool-landlord-...


Well stated. Makes me wonder...

Maybe you can somewhat pay your landlord in living experience, frequently blogging about your amenities included in the place for a possibly more-than-one-time rent extension for pandemic purposes.


I'm an influencer, let me live here rent-free.


That's not experience, that's advertising.


While you are laughing, tenants absolutely pay landlord in "experience". For commercial rents, tenants like Apple in shopping malls pay significantly less than regular rate (https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-gets-sweet-deals-from-mal...).

Prince Harry move to Montecito increased property values around his house (https://nypost.com/2021/03/08/montecito-home-next-to-prince-...). I am sure many luxury buildings in any city would be happy to rent apartment to him for free just for publicity it will generate. This is equivalent to having Google/Apple on your resume.

Even if you are nobody, there are experiences you can provide to the landlord in lieu of rent (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/landlords-are-targeting...) [Do not recommend, probably illegal for both sides]


That's not experience, that's clout.

Also I think it's pretty clear this discussion does not pertain to corporate or celebrity tenants.


Well, you can always ask. These deals are voluntary.


There is a huge gulf between "we agreed on these terms given extant circumstances" and "this is a voluntary relationship". The gulf exists because extant circumstances can be inherently coercive.

Sorry to burst your ancap bubble though.


What a strange way to converse


Retreating to criticism of rhetoric is a classic signal that you have no substantive rebuttal.


No. It means the opposite - not paid well.


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I think anyone would ask for more money in that case, right?


That's not true. There comes a time where you're willing to take a pay cut for the group of people you are working with [that of which includes experience/mentorship maybe even stable job vs overpaid exec startup position]


Depends on the company. Most are worthless from a resume perspective.

But stating that they were giving you something you wanted even more than money is not good grounds for complaining that you weren't getting enough money.


There is more which has value than money.


This whole thread shows that HN disagrees. I can't understand how you all think compensation works.




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