[Closed] Asking about wages

especially in artistic circles

Is this about the Glesga Bint?

It doesn't bother me.

I wonder if it is a culture many employers have been happy to encourage. Divide, conquer and pay less?

Doesn't bother me either, insofar as I'd tell folk I knew, if they wanted to know. Not sure I'd post it on Facebook, or indeed on here, as it's not really relevant.

@chubstr Err, no, I've not heard of her sorry. I was more referring to some people I know.

Interesting progression in conventional employers though, wasn't it made legal or whatever that employees are now free to discuss each others wages without fear of recrimination, i.e. that any contractual clauses about non disclosure are unenforceable.

It is a cultural thing as in America it is very common. I imagine it is considered bad manners because people will assume you are judging peoples worth on their financial situation rather than their character. Alternatively people who ask may be doing so in a back handed way so they can tell you.

It would be a bit weird if someone I didn't know well asked me how much I was paid but when amongst friends I will tell people if asked.

I've never understood this either. I'd not have a problem with it, even with complete strangers. If they want to know, and they're not some weird stalkers, who cares? It's no different to telling someone where you work or what you drive. But I guess the culture is driven by people who drive status cars and wear watches like dinner plates, regardless of income.

I'd tell people if they asked and I felt they had a genuine need to know. For example, I've told ex-colleagues before when they've been in their own salary negotiations and wanted to ensure they pitched at a comparable level. But I'd also be certain that the knowledge wasn't going to affect my relationship with that person as well.

I wouldn't publicly announce it, as it seems a bit crass. In my industry it's pretty easy to make a reasonable guess though just by the job the person is doing and for which company.

I wouldn't say, but that's just because of my upbringing - it just wasn't 'done'.

I kind of get that though; it is a bit vulgar to even ask.

It's considered bad manners but as with a lot of things like this, difficult to explain why now.

Picking your nose, farting, looking down ladies blouses and wearing hats indoors, all bad manners. Bet you do those as well you filthy beast 😉

Picking your nose, farting, looking down ladies blouses

Fair play to anyone that achieved such a maneuver.

I don't know where it stems from originally but I do know in a lot of workplaces it's a good way to start an [i]incredible[/i] shitstorm. As a naive yout I discovered the hard way that if a company's payroll policy is ****ed and unfair, and as a result you get paid more than the 20 year veteran who's training you, it is entirely your fault, frinstance. Or "why do we get paid the same when clearly I am better" (*)

(*variant on this at current employer- "Why do you get paid more than me when I've been here longer" "Because it's based on performance not duration". That went well)

It's like discussing the colour of crisp packets, no good will come of it.

I think that's the thrust of it. Companies discourage people from discussing salaries in case word gets out that two people are doing the same job on wholly disparate wages.

And Walkers are bastards for swapping S&V and C&O colours over.

My writer friend apparently gets asked "all the time" about how much he earns from it, even though it's not his main job, because naturally, it don't pay that well. He was having a proper princess strop about it, but I didnt really see that it was that big a deal, especially as he's still a long way from being the next JK Rowling.
I found it even more odd, because he always has the option of telling people his other boring day job instead of presumably volunteering the information that he's a writer.

I think for art it can be pretty touchy... Like, I know a fairly succesful scottish author, and he absolutely hates the question, even though it's usually pretty innocent because it's like "what value art"- he rates success on completed work, satisfaction with that work, reviews, publications, events, and yes sales but he doesn't like it when people rate his success and therefore his books based on his "salary".

I think most people who ask are just curious though- hey, you earn a living doing that? Nice one!

Sort of similiar- one of our students turned professional athlete a while back and got a sponsorship deal. Absolute dream come true, for him, and all anyone (outside of the sport) says is "What does it pay". Like he was sat down choosing between a job in an office or a job in his sport based on the salary.

Picking your nose, farting, looking down ladies blouses

Fair play to anyone that achieved such a maneuver

But you lot are now talking about two different things. Talking about salaries in the workplace is usually a no no for the reasons outlined above. I.e.it starts a shitstorm and could get you turfed out.

Talking about salaries amongst friends/acquaintances/random strangers is considered vulgar and bad manners.

There now, chapter and verse.

Agreed. It's simpler to just flop one's danglies out onto the table.

Not only does it resolve any vulgar salary discussions, it ensures you don't have to pay for the bill at Nandos. Ever again.

Reminds me of a job I had, one of the women in the payroll department was a right poisonous piece of work, told my manager that I'd been "bragging" about my salary and he called me into his office about it. I told him that (a) if my salary had got out it hadn't come from me and that (b) frankly it wasn't much to brag about.

Glad I got out of that job

I don't like telling my accountant.

chip - Member
I don't like telling my accountant.

Mine knows, Christ knows how...

Place i used to work, it got out that new graduates (call them grade 1) were getting more than some experienced engineers/engineering managers/technical experts (grade 4, 5 and 6).

It was apparently critical to ensuring that top quality grads joined the company.

I'm sure they were over the moon when an entire chunk of their key/senior staff handed in their notice and buggered off elsewhere for (lots) more money.

bearnecessities - Member
Agreed. It's simpler to just flop one's danglies out onto the table.

Not only does it resolve any vulgar salary discussions, it ensures you don't have to pay for the bill at Nandos. Ever again.

Yes, there is the problem of one-upmanship, but I guess if that bothers someone then maybe money has too much of an unhelpful/unhealthy role in their life?

My colleagues at work are all on individual contracts and we get individual pay rises in private interviews, but its ridiculous because we then all go in the brew room and tell each other what we got! There's no real resentment because as a proportion of wages the differences are single figure percents.

I'm sure they were over the moon when an entire chunk of their key/senior staff handed in their notice and buggered off elsewhere for (lots) more money.

Should've paid them properly in the first place.

A company will almost always pay the minimum it needs to in order to retain staff (and sometimes not even that if they're considered expendable); why would they pay more, it can be the biggest outgoing a company has. But whilst it makes perfect sense it may be shit for the employees. If that chunk felt undervalued it's no surprise that they left (and I've little sympathy).

It's like discussing the colour of crisp packets, no good will come of it.

I'm going to use that phrase next week at work - genius 😀

when i was doing an industrial apprenticeship we all got paid the same no matter where we worked on site, yet when i became a qualified tradesman there where different rates per hour added onto yoyur basic hourly wage for working in different departments, eg dirt money, safety money, and acting up pay for being a chargehand, or foreman, when they where off work on hols or sickness.

Nobody discused their hourly pay but all add ons where closely watched and timed.

Most of my career in IT has been in manufacturing. Typically, and I guess this is common with other skills in industry, recruiting new staff requires the "market rate" for the job, but once you've been there a while, your annual payrise (if any) starts to fall behind the market rate. So once you've been there say five years, when a new employee joins, they're already on more than you for the same job. If this gets out it festers and eventually leads to people moving on and then they become "the new guy on more than me and I've been here X years"... And so on

[quote="cougar"]Should've paid them properly in the first place.should have, but didn't.

Didn't particularly bother me. I left a year or so earlier. For a large sum of money.

It's funny at my previous firm I searched the company servers one day for "Christmas Bonus" to see if we were going to get one and up popped a spread sheet with the entire firms salaried staff wage list and % Xmas bonus.
No security, password or anything salaries from the MD down but none for the production staff were on it. Made for a very interesting read 😯

All I concluded was
1) Some people worked their arses off for very little rewards.
2) Some people got paid shit loads for doing very little.

How well you got on with the Chairman had a big bearing on this 🙄
Unfortunately I was in category 1, I left within 6 months.

I have always had nationally set salary, so anyone who wants to know what i can earn can google it.

I negotiated a better salary to accept a teaching job once and was specifically told I must not tell anyone else (especially my colleagues) how much I was being paid. Situations like this could very well force people to be reluctant to discuss their salary.

I've a rule that I don't tell colleagues how much I'm on and I don't wish to know how much they are paid.

Causes nowt but grief.

I don't mind (even though it's rude). I'm on less than £5m p/a...... substantially less 🙂

I'm a teacher - and to be honest our salaries are published online as pay grades. Everyone seems happy enough to say what scale they're on, not a big secret.

Yup my wages are online for everyone to to view. I've no shame in hiding my shite wages link [url=

FBU.ORG.UK "https://www.fbu.org.uk/pay-rates/pay-settlement-2015]here[/url]"

Picking your nose, farting, looking down ladies blouses

Fair play to anyone that achieved such a maneuver.

Unless I can do all three at once, I don't bother.

bruneep - Member
Yup my wages are online for everyone to to view. I've no shame in hiding my shite wages link here

The trainees are on more than me

Shitting hell

To be fair you are saving people's lives

Again all my salary etc is in the public domain available for anyone who cares enough to find it. I've even had FoI requests about travel and subsistence (not just for me, but asking for individual payments etc). Really don't understand the fuss.

Also not sure why everyone is so secretive about wages. I would answer if asked by a mate. Its not like we judge each others worth by our actual wage.

Norway - everyones income and tax paid is available on line-how good is that !

I recall a training program some years back where one of the consultants running it was very surprised that we had a 'keep quiet' rule on salaries. Their belief was that transparency reduced the perceived differentials in pay and made it possible for folks to instead focus on why their pay might be different. Clearly if you think you're being paid unfairly you can then consider doing something about it.

Aside from the English discomfort with sharing financial information I guess there's a fear that a sudden rush of transparency can be disruptive for the reasons that folks have already cited: new people getting more than long stayers, people apparently getting more money for less effort,...

My pay is not on line. When we advertise for my replacement the salary and benefits might not even be mentioned. Most jobs we're advertising now have nothing about packages. We aim to be competitive I suspect.

I've had no problem discussing my salary since I've been in the public sector - i can't influence/negotiate my salary, and pay bands are easy to find.

Interesting conversation in the pub last night around salaries. I said that my new part time hours meant that my take home would be about £10k. A couple of the with proper jobs had obviously swallowed too much Tory propaganda about Civil Service fat cats!

When we advertise for my replacement the salary and benefits might not even be mentioned. Most jobs we're advertising now have nothing about packages. We aim to be competitive I suspect.

That's a good point actually. I get really vexed with job adverts that give you a big long list of what [i]they[/i] want and no indication whatsoever as to what they're offering in return. It hadn't occurred to me that it might be to prevent existing employees being disgruntled (but then again, do I want to work for a company which needs to hide its salaries due to pay discepancies?).

Channel 4 did an interesting show called 'show me your money' a few years ago, can't find any link to the full episode, only clips but basically the boss at Pimlico plumbers got all the employees to tell each other what their salaries were in order to create a fairer system, but without upping the payroll budget. Everyone from boss man on a million a year, down to the office cleaner on minimum wage, who had about 4p disposable income a month. Lots of questions like does a cleaner work 20% as hard as the marketing guy in £60k a year and why there were 10k diferences in people who did the same jobs wages, but if they wanted to give someone more money, someone had to take a pay cut, I think one dept had a whip-round so they could pay one lad a bit more, and £60k a year marketing man gave up a grand a year to give the cleaning lady an extra k. Lots of pissed off people though iirc

...new people getting more than long stayers...

I can appreciate people getting paid more based on performance, meeting targets, or whatever. I'm not sure it's entirely right, but I reckon there's probably good arguments either way. I've worked with colleagues who have been on higher wages doing the same job, it's never really bothered me too much.

Newcomers getting paid more than experienced staff who know their job well (and in the vast majority of cases work much more efficiently). That seems almost criminal to me, and should be exposed. People would be right to kick off about that.