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Best to Get Paid Less Than You're Worth

TIL OP is a Fortune 500 corporate exec trying to convince us that working for less than we are worth means we will make more money.
 
theprestige said:
I'm pretty sure nickel and dimeing western middle class knowledge worker and specialist trade payrolls is not what allows billionaires to exist. Or is even on their radar.
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A broken economic system and misplaced aspirations are what allow billionaires to exist.
 
marting said:
I've always found the notion odd that a business should "pay you what you are worth."

I mean really. Why would a company pay you what you are worth when they can just not have you and they haven't lost a thing?

There are three possibilities.

1. You are paid more than you are worth.
2. You are paid exactly what you are worth.
3. You are paid less than you are worth.

I submit that #3 is almost always the case. Further, it's the most desirable case as an employee. Those in category #3 are far less likely to be let go and will be valued more.

To the degree your boss/business sees you are costing less than your added value to the biz, you have leverage and so more flexibility in how you go about work.

You have the best chance of finding ways to increase your value to the employer. And you are better at that because you know your strengths better than anyone else. And increasing your value is the best way to get good raises.

Worked for me. I never asked for a raise and got very good ones.
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You're just creating a race to the bottom. Your employer is paying the the least it takes to keep you, not how much you are "worth". And it doesn't matter how much money you leave on the table, your boss will play you off the second it makes financial sense.
 
Donal said:
You're just creating a race to the bottom. Your employer is paying the the least it takes to keep you, not how much you are "worth". And it doesn't matter how much money you leave on the table, your boss will play you off the second it makes financial sense.
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For the most part people get paid enough so they don't quit, and work hard enough so they don't get fired.
 
Donal said:
You're just creating a race to the bottom. Your employer is paying the the least it takes to keep you, not how much you are "worth". And it doesn't matter how much money you leave on the table, your boss will play you off the second it makes financial sense.
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Race to the bottom? From 1971 to 1976 my pay jumped frequently even though I never asked for a raise. It was 2.5X higher in 1974. Inflation cut into about a quarter of that but the rest I pocketed.

I left for another company in 1976 because the owner was afraid of microprocessors in designs and I really wanted to use them. My new job, where I used a Z80 in a product, was at only a slightly higher pay. However, similar increases occurred there over time.

At both companies I sometimes went against the instructions of my boss to produce what I believed were better and cheaper designs. Worked out quite well. For both me and the companies.

Yep, I really raced to the bottom.
 
In my experience the premise is wrong, I've known many highly overpaid individuals who were, unless the company as a whole failed, fireproof while essential but low paid functions were cut to the bone, or cut entirely and outsourced.
 
marting said:
Race to the bottom? From 1971 to 1976 my pay jumped frequently even though I never asked for a raise. It was 2.5X higher in 1974. Inflation cut into about a quarter of that but the rest I pocketed.

I left for another company in 1976 because the owner was afraid of microprocessors in designs and I really wanted to use them. My new job, where I used a Z80 in a product, was at only a slightly higher pay. However, similar increases occurred there over time.

At both companies I sometimes went against the instructions of my boss to produce what I believed were better and cheaper designs. Worked out quite well. For both me and the companies.

Yep, I really raced to the bottom.
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Again, you got the least amount it took to keep you. You can't say you got more than if you asked because you never asked. You really have no idea what you left on the table.
 
P.J. Denyer said:
In my experience the premise is wrong, I've known many highly overpaid individuals who were, unless the company as a whole failed, fireproof while essential but low paid functions were cut to the bone, or cut entirely and outsourced.
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I was training a new hire that quit her old job because she was sick of people who got paid way more than her and didn't know wtf she did. She warned them time and time again. She showed me all the !!!!! text messages she was getting from former managers after she quit on how to do the myriad of things she kept going that no one understood.
 
marting said:
I've always found the notion odd that a business should "pay you what you are worth."

I mean really. Why would a company pay you what you are worth when they can just not have you and they haven't lost a thing?

There are three possibilities.

1. You are paid more than you are worth.
2. You are paid exactly what you are worth.
3. You are paid less than you are worth.

I submit that #3 is almost always the case. Further, it's the most desirable case as an employee. Those in category #3 are far less likely to be let go and will be valued more.

To the degree your boss/business sees you are costing less than your added value to the biz, you have leverage and so more flexibility in how you go about work.

You have the best chance of finding ways to increase your value to the employer. And you are better at that because you know your strengths better than anyone else. And increasing your value is the best way to get good raises.

Worked for me. I never asked for a raise and got very good ones.
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So workers should be ok with being exploited? Somehow I don't think too many people like being done over.
 
Your boss should always feel that you are worth more than you are getting paid, and if you are rational so should you. Now that said, you should always be trying to find out what you are worth on the open market and considering whether continuing your time at your current employer is worth the difference. I was being underpaid in San Francisco, and had an opportunity to be paid a little better in Phoenix (where the cost of living was quite a bit less, so it was a double raise).
 
I've been told a couple of times, that I'd been replaced by two people after I left...

Including my most recent position.

But they couldn't possibly give me a pay rise to stay.

The modern world at its finest.
 
novaphile said:
I've been told a couple of times, that I'd been replaced by two people after I left...

Including my most recent position.

But they couldn't possibly give me a pay rise to stay.

The modern world at its finest.
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If there's one thing we can learn from Ea-Nasir's one star Yelp review, it's that the modern world is no less fine than the ancient world. You're just indulging in a variant form of the reincarnation fantasy. Everyone likes to imagine they were someone special in a past life. Everyone likes to imagine they would have been a skilled knowledge worker and a free man in antiquity, and not yet another slave or indentured servant or slave or war prize or slave or chattel or concubine or slave or temple servitor or slave or slave.
 
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What better objective measure can we apply to determine what a person's employment (or any other good or service) is worth than what someone is willing to pay for it?

I guess you could say that you're getting paid less than what you're worth if you keep turning down job offers for a much higher wage or salary.
 
sir drinks-a-lot said:
What better objective measure can we apply to determine what a person's employment (or any other good or service) is worth than what someone is willing to pay for it?

I guess you could say that you're getting paid less than what you're worth if you keep turning down job offers for a much higher wage or salary.
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The market does not have an even hand. We would all likely be dead without farmers, water treatment guys and the like who keep the hedge fund managers alive. Betty the bank VP or Benny the lawyer would likely not survive a week without them. The market's influence is based on coercion, not choice or value of services.
 
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