I've been a union rep for a good few years and honestly you wouldn't believe the shit I've seen managers put in writing. "It is company policy to commit crimes here" levels of brazenly breaking the law, especially for stuff like disability discrimination. I can 100% believe this.
I assume if something illegal gets labeled as "Company Policy" (even though it isn't), the company should immediately be held accountable regardless - so terrible managers don't get to throw those two words around as a magic shield to protect themselves from employees being cognitively indisonant, unlike their perfect selves.
Being an "ass" is one thing (making conflicts like it's yoir job).
Paying people preferentially because you and a couple of your buddies like them a bit (bonus points if you spend private time together as well) should be about 3 red flags for everyone involved.
Yeah, don't believe this at all. Reads like some dream sequence someone had. Even the dumbest managers wouldn't say something this stupid, they all know this is a trip right to HR.
I have absolutely met managers this dumb. I had a manager quote me in an email reply, with what was quoted in the same email chain and included with the other replies, then forward it (still including all the replies!) claiming that he "rescued" me from a client incident because I didnt reply.
With the reply from me just two emails below.
Yes, there are absolute idiots in management who would 100% reply with this.
I have had managers send me emails telling me to ignore warehouse safety standards set by OSHA, regardless of what the warehouse personnel tell me when I'm there for the day.
Also had managers that recorded themselves breaking company safety rules and post to social media.
I've even had one manager that straight up pointed a gun at me in front of 3 cameras thinking it was a funny joking thing.
Never assume management has a single brain cell, let alone enough to realize when something probably shouldn't be done or said.
When I was a manager, I refused to discuss another employee with their coworker. If you want a raise, tell me why you deserve a raise for what you do. And I was very careful to only put established company policy in writing, everything else was "let's circle back to that in person when we're both at the office."
These days there's the possibly that a manager might just use an AI for response and not consider the implications if the tone looks professional at a glance, perhaps. There's something that feels AI-ish about it anyway, but that could simply be the corporate "professional" writing style I suppose.
Yeah, the manager fucked up by providing too much info and wording it poorly. If it's "you two have different skills and contribute to the team in different ways" that's another story. If Marcus is also making sure the rest of the team feels supported and keeps morale high then that is work too! (As someone who often fills the emotional support human role, on top of regular duties, I'm glad that this could be recognized). Productivity is more than work output, and comparison is the thief of joy.
If the person is upset because they feel their workload is too high, or that they aren't being compensated for their own work, then that's a different convo they should be having.
My take on it is that the manager should take her complaint seriously and should not have replied like that. That's all we can really go on as we don't know anything else about the situation, work load, what Marcus should be doing, etc.
I worked for an IT manager who fired me after I pointed out that he was scammed for buying a 6 pack 1TB flash drives from Amazon for $40.
He wrote an email saying I was a jerk for delegitimizing his authority which I took to HR and was fired the next day "for not being a good culture fit" and was paid to be under a nondisclosure for half a year.
I am like Mulder, I believe the morons are out there.
Do the minimum and go around the office socializing. If they complain, show them the email and tell them you're working on the metrics they care about the most.
I hear so many workplace horror stories about new management coming in and firing low output people without understanding that they contribute positively to morale and increasing everyone else's output. But when that role is acknowledged, it's suddenly time for a lawsuit and finding a new job?
Both situations if incorrectly handled are a problem.
Being good for morale is definitely a good thing. However if that is the main thing someone brings to the table and their work performance is otherwise noticeably lower, then it's on management to manage the person. The other side of it that I have personally seen is that while their work output may be lower, they produce better quality/detailed work as well (but not always, just playing devils advocate).
Being the hard worker producing a lot of output is also generally a good thing, but only if the quality of your work does not suffer and they are not achieving it by overloading/burning out. OK you've done 4x as much work as Bob. But only because half of that was you then having to re-do the work due to errors, missed requirements, etc. Once again, just an example/playing devils advocate as to why more output is not always better.
It's been my experience and advice that you should never negotiate your pay by arguing that others get paid more, or equal, or whatever. Same for external factors like inflation, cost of living ect. You can think that internally, and base your target on that, just don't bring it up in negotiations because it's a weak argument and signals that you're chasing parity relative to some external factor.
IMO you should pick a target that genuinely makes you feel is fair to you, and pursue that in your negotiation, arguing that that's what you feel is fair for your experience and time.
Obviously. No corporation would openly justify one employees compensation over another's, or even consider writing it in an email. They would just say that how another employees compensation is calculated is private, and will not be discussed.
And if they did, saying "We let Marcus get away with everything because he's a righteous dude, but you better get back to work" is never going to fly at any level - morale, management, legal, etc.
Use the time to apply and interview for a new job. Once you've secured a new position, then you quit. Don't hurt your own finances while you hurt your old company.
And it's up to you how much notice you give. Worth considering whether to preserve the professional relationships, or torch that bridge.
So poorly worded. This company should have a better answer to this question, or not engage with the question at all. Comparing compensation is difficult. It isn't just about how much you do.
Not everybody is a factory line worker where you can simply measure the daily widget output. I've been a manager in high tech companies, and people often wildly misjudge their own ability and how they contribute to a broader structural problem in the company. The work is more than daily widget output and doing what you're told. I also need creativity, pushing back on colleagues, human care, commercial insight, among many aspects of your job. Don't reduce yourself to your output.
Edit: I know this is probably going to get downvoted. I'm just answering the reality of how capitalist companies operate. In a class struggle sense, no company is going to give you the full value of your labor. Switching to another company will not change that, there is always profit for owners to take. Fighting unfairness in the workplace is one thing, but we can't know if this is favoritism, the company being bad at judging value, or the worker bad at judging their value. Calling for more to be given to the workers instead of the owners is always right, but that says nothing about the distribution between workers.
In the Netherlands and most of Europe i suppose you're better off being if you get fired, but if you get fired because you're a shitty employee you can get cut on your initial compensation. But especially if you've worked somewhere for a long time you could get a multiple months of pay.
I'm surprised no one in the comments noticed that the person getting paid the same for working harder is a woman. This is sadly the norm in many businesses including those that I've worked for. That made this seem awfully likely to be real other than only a moron would actually put this in writing. I think this lady should just start doing as much work as her salary dictates. There is clearly no benefit to busting your ass if you get paid shit. Also, start looking for a new place of employment.
Quite literally every corporation I've worked in until my current company pulled this shit, but very specifically in the technical roles. It usually led to the women in question leaving, and perhaps that was the intent. When I was doing interviews for my team, I had even heard my boss's boss mentioning how picking one of the female candidates would be "cheaper" and I didn't understand until later what he meant. My direct boss at that company was one of the few to buck that trend where he could honestly, but that place screwed me over quite a few times in other ways. For the record, none of these gender pay issues hindered me, I'm a guy.
I've seen the opposite. Junior dev girl got 5x raise while I got only 20% as strong middle almost equalizing our salaries. In fact where I live I have never seen such thing. Only social cute ones usually get good raise. Introverts never
As I said in another comment, I've seen it at multiple places I've worked. I am aware of the "cute girl gets favored" issue, though never in a technical role. Honestly, I've never see a girl dev that fit your description at any those places either heh. I imagine they probably never made it through the hiring process as it was no secret that the bosses were sexist.
It's so weird that they went through with justifying the difference in pay (which I don't think they actually had to do in such detail) and somehow... they didn't stop halfway through and realize that doesn't actually justify anything. The "we value your attitude" part is exactly why she should be paid equally. I mean, they literally offered her a leverage to use in negociation.
Weirdly, both are kind of true. You should be pissed, but he is also right, he just shouldn’t have said it. Think of it this way, though, a supervisor usually makes more than the people they supervise even though by definition they often do less of the actual work. Same with management. Getting other people motivated (if he actually does do that) is worth something. On the other hand,if you’re really doing twice as much work, you may literally just be overworking or should find another job where that is actually useful.
The world has enough "what's your reaction?" content. No need to poll the internet, just make a decision and move on with your life.
This is like saying the world has enough stories, so new stories don't have a place anymore.
Hard disagree.
But it’s scary!
Should take your own advice sometimes? The world has enough comments.
I, however, am all for documenting unfair treatment and putting it out in the open.
but how else am I going to make thousands of people incessantly angry at a strawman if I don't make them think I haven't made it up?
THINK OF THE CLICKS! THE CLIIICKS! (to the tune of "She takes premium, dude")
*fake :)
(Imagine not seeking advice for major life decisions though! …….. Also imagine using Elon social)
Did everyone clap, too?
I just don’t believe a boss would commit to writing “your output is higher and better but I like Tad’s vibe better.”
Just begging for a visit from HR.
I've been a union rep for a good few years and honestly you wouldn't believe the shit I've seen managers put in writing. "It is company policy to commit crimes here" levels of brazenly breaking the law, especially for stuff like disability discrimination. I can 100% believe this.
My bosses must be smarter than the most them because they refuse to ever put anything in writing.
Tbh, "company policy" are magical words.
I assume if something illegal gets labeled as "Company Policy" (even though it isn't), the company should immediately be held accountable regardless - so terrible managers don't get to throw those two words around as a magic shield to protect themselves from employees being cognitively indisonant, unlike their perfect selves.
I don't believe this but you can absolutely fire someone for vibes.
Your attitude does affect team members. I'd happily fire a high out put team member for being an ass.
Being an "ass" is one thing (making conflicts like it's yoir job).
Paying people preferentially because you and a couple of your buddies like them a bit (bonus points if you spend private time together as well) should be about 3 red flags for everyone involved.
Sounds like an edge case
Nope. It's a spectrum, but at some point "vibes" absolutely matter.
Yeah, don't believe this at all. Reads like some dream sequence someone had. Even the dumbest managers wouldn't say something this stupid, they all know this is a trip right to HR.
Consider yourself lucky then.
I have absolutely met managers this dumb. I had a manager quote me in an email reply, with what was quoted in the same email chain and included with the other replies, then forward it (still including all the replies!) claiming that he "rescued" me from a client incident because I didnt reply.
With the reply from me just two emails below.
Yes, there are absolute idiots in management who would 100% reply with this.
I have had managers send me emails telling me to ignore warehouse safety standards set by OSHA, regardless of what the warehouse personnel tell me when I'm there for the day.
Also had managers that recorded themselves breaking company safety rules and post to social media.
I've even had one manager that straight up pointed a gun at me in front of 3 cameras thinking it was a funny joking thing.
Never assume management has a single brain cell, let alone enough to realize when something probably shouldn't be done or said.
You're overestimating people.
When I was a manager, I refused to discuss another employee with their coworker. If you want a raise, tell me why you deserve a raise for what you do. And I was very careful to only put established company policy in writing, everything else was "let's circle back to that in person when we're both at the office."
Yeah, this feels like bullshit.
lol first time reading the opinions of morons?
I want some oponions. Regular onions aren't doing it for me anymore.
These days there's the possibly that a manager might just use an AI for response and not consider the implications if the tone looks professional at a glance, perhaps. There's something that feels AI-ish about it anyway, but that could simply be the corporate "professional" writing style I suppose.
Oh thanks we figured it out together
Knew it was fake when I read it but now I see, LLM-generated fake
You can smell the prompt, or the way the model almost took it as a joke
Is there anything actually illegal happening here?
I can see a situation where that makes sense. A colleague who keeps morale up can be at least as important for the team as one who works hard
...on the other hand, it can also be a way for managers to reward their loyal favorites for no particular reason.
I dunno, this makes me happy we have collectively bargained wages at my workplace
Yeah, the manager fucked up by providing too much info and wording it poorly. If it's "you two have different skills and contribute to the team in different ways" that's another story. If Marcus is also making sure the rest of the team feels supported and keeps morale high then that is work too! (As someone who often fills the emotional support human role, on top of regular duties, I'm glad that this could be recognized). Productivity is more than work output, and comparison is the thief of joy.
If the person is upset because they feel their workload is too high, or that they aren't being compensated for their own work, then that's a different convo they should be having.
My take on it is that the manager should take her complaint seriously and should not have replied like that. That's all we can really go on as we don't know anything else about the situation, work load, what Marcus should be doing, etc.
This feels fake. I could be wrong and hope I am.
No manager competent enough to write that well is going to put anything like that down in writing. Totally fake.
It's an AI written justification.
Could still be fake, but there are absolutely people that are this stupid and use chatgpt.
It doesn't read like it's generated, but I'm not really that savvy on these things
I worked for an IT manager who fired me after I pointed out that he was scammed for buying a 6 pack 1TB flash drives from Amazon for $40.
He wrote an email saying I was a jerk for delegitimizing his authority which I took to HR and was fired the next day "for not being a good culture fit" and was paid to be under a nondisclosure for half a year.
I am like Mulder, I believe the morons are out there.
Good reminder not to trust HR.
There's people at Amazon that thought an AI only phone is a good idea
Yep. This would never ever be an email. It'll be a in-person meeting.
Why? It leaves a paper trial, and it's written too "smart".
I have broken some HR policies before - real stupid ones (like using the bathroom too much or something ridiculous) and had "the meeting".
But when I ask them to give me a written version of the issues after the meeting, it's always vague and points to line items in the handbook.
It actually sounds like ChatGPT, so...
There ARE a lot of incompetent managers out there though ...
That was one of my first thoughts too, but I'm not sure that's a sign of it being fake.
The whole thing is curious but I'd need more detail to make a confident statement.
"You're a mule and we will work you as hard as you let us. Quit if you don't like how we run things."
Can’t tell if the boss’ reply is AI text or just kool-aid drunk businessman.
My vote is thinly disguised sexism.
Does that even count as a disguise? Either way was pretty dang sexist.
absolutely written by AI. I can even guess the prompt
Working hard and working effectively are not always the same thing.
Not working hard or effectively is always the same thing.
Do the minimum and go around the office socializing. If they complain, show them the email and tell them you're working on the metrics they care about the most.
Work hard to get paid. Once you get paid, dial back that work folks. Dial it right back.
Just don't work anymore and instead chat cheerfully with your coworkers. Its the same quality work. Bring the vibes xD
They are fucking, aren't they?
I don't understand the stance in this thread.
I hear so many workplace horror stories about new management coming in and firing low output people without understanding that they contribute positively to morale and increasing everyone else's output. But when that role is acknowledged, it's suddenly time for a lawsuit and finding a new job?
Both situations if incorrectly handled are a problem.
Being good for morale is definitely a good thing. However if that is the main thing someone brings to the table and their work performance is otherwise noticeably lower, then it's on management to manage the person. The other side of it that I have personally seen is that while their work output may be lower, they produce better quality/detailed work as well (but not always, just playing devils advocate).
Being the hard worker producing a lot of output is also generally a good thing, but only if the quality of your work does not suffer and they are not achieving it by overloading/burning out. OK you've done 4x as much work as Bob. But only because half of that was you then having to re-do the work due to errors, missed requirements, etc. Once again, just an example/playing devils advocate as to why more output is not always better.
Quit the Lawyer, Hit the Facebook, Gym Up
Hit up a lawyer, quit Facebook*
Idk why you're being downvoted lol.
Idk either, but whatever. I didn't comment for the upvotes. Maybe i should've put /s or a ;) behind it.
It's been my experience and advice that you should never negotiate your pay by arguing that others get paid more, or equal, or whatever. Same for external factors like inflation, cost of living ect. You can think that internally, and base your target on that, just don't bring it up in negotiations because it's a weak argument and signals that you're chasing parity relative to some external factor.
IMO you should pick a target that genuinely makes you feel is fair to you, and pursue that in your negotiation, arguing that that's what you feel is fair for your experience and time.
I was planning to use inflation as an argument but I guess there are better words I can pick
Rage bait. Fake and straight.
This can't be real. Who would write this down? This sounds like an easy lawsuit.
Obviously. No corporation would openly justify one employees compensation over another's, or even consider writing it in an email. They would just say that how another employees compensation is calculated is private, and will not be discussed.
And if they did, saying "We let Marcus get away with everything because he's a righteous dude, but you better get back to work" is never going to fly at any level - morale, management, legal, etc.
Insta-quit.
Agree on the quit, disagree on the insta.
Use the time to apply and interview for a new job. Once you've secured a new position, then you quit. Don't hurt your own finances while you hurt your old company.
And it's up to you how much notice you give. Worth considering whether to preserve the professional relationships, or torch that bridge.
“What is it you’d say you do here?”
“I’m a vibes person! I deal with vibes!”
That sounds like a bit of a jump to conclusions
Quit
I'm in the Netherlands, work culture may differ.
So poorly worded. This company should have a better answer to this question, or not engage with the question at all. Comparing compensation is difficult. It isn't just about how much you do.
Not everybody is a factory line worker where you can simply measure the daily widget output. I've been a manager in high tech companies, and people often wildly misjudge their own ability and how they contribute to a broader structural problem in the company. The work is more than daily widget output and doing what you're told. I also need creativity, pushing back on colleagues, human care, commercial insight, among many aspects of your job. Don't reduce yourself to your output.
Edit: I know this is probably going to get downvoted. I'm just answering the reality of how capitalist companies operate. In a class struggle sense, no company is going to give you the full value of your labor. Switching to another company will not change that, there is always profit for owners to take. Fighting unfairness in the workplace is one thing, but we can't know if this is favoritism, the company being bad at judging value, or the worker bad at judging their value. Calling for more to be given to the workers instead of the owners is always right, but that says nothing about the distribution between workers.
Quit, without notice.
Find another job, get a start date, call out first day of new job, if you like new job quit old next morning. They don't deserve any notice. Simple.
That is a quittable offense.
From https://www.wikihow.com/Quiet-Quit#How-to-Quiet-Quit-Your-Job-.28Without-Getting-Fired.29)
My opinion, only quit if you a) can do those things and b) want to extract value aside from money during the time you spend working.
I already do all of those. I'm not looking to quit, I'm just not going to do work I'm not being compensated for.
If I quit, and the boss man is like "you can't quit, you're fired!" I'd be like "woohoo! unemployment!" which I wasnt gonna get by quitting.
Edit: I missed the quiet part. Still gonna leave this here tho.
In the Netherlands and most of Europe i suppose you're better off being if you get fired, but if you get fired because you're a shitty employee you can get cut on your initial compensation. But especially if you've worked somewhere for a long time you could get a multiple months of pay.
I'm surprised no one in the comments noticed that the person getting paid the same for working harder is a woman. This is sadly the norm in many businesses including those that I've worked for. That made this seem awfully likely to be real other than only a moron would actually put this in writing. I think this lady should just start doing as much work as her salary dictates. There is clearly no benefit to busting your ass if you get paid shit. Also, start looking for a new place of employment.
Tell me where did you see woman selectively getting underpaid, which field?
Quite literally every corporation I've worked in until my current company pulled this shit, but very specifically in the technical roles. It usually led to the women in question leaving, and perhaps that was the intent. When I was doing interviews for my team, I had even heard my boss's boss mentioning how picking one of the female candidates would be "cheaper" and I didn't understand until later what he meant. My direct boss at that company was one of the few to buck that trend where he could honestly, but that place screwed me over quite a few times in other ways. For the record, none of these gender pay issues hindered me, I'm a guy.
I've seen the opposite. Junior dev girl got 5x raise while I got only 20% as strong middle almost equalizing our salaries. In fact where I live I have never seen such thing. Only social cute ones usually get good raise. Introverts never
As I said in another comment, I've seen it at multiple places I've worked. I am aware of the "cute girl gets favored" issue, though never in a technical role. Honestly, I've never see a girl dev that fit your description at any those places either heh. I imagine they probably never made it through the hiring process as it was no secret that the bosses were sexist.
Good, good.... Make them fight each other
that reply is all you need, time to start looking for something else
Feels like the scene from The Other Guys about how you’re valuable for doing the work we don’t want to
It's so weird that they went through with justifying the difference in pay (which I don't think they actually had to do in such detail) and somehow... they didn't stop halfway through and realize that doesn't actually justify anything. The "we value your attitude" part is exactly why she should be paid equally. I mean, they literally offered her a leverage to use in negociation.
You could read between the lines and realize your attitude affects the team in a negative way.
Weirdly, both are kind of true. You should be pissed, but he is also right, he just shouldn’t have said it. Think of it this way, though, a supervisor usually makes more than the people they supervise even though by definition they often do less of the actual work. Same with management. Getting other people motivated (if he actually does do that) is worth something. On the other hand,if you’re really doing twice as much work, you may literally just be overworking or should find another job where that is actually useful.