He’s being paid more than me! So what?
One of the biggest taboos while working for people is to talk bad about your boss about your salary publicly especially when your colleagues are around. However, there will be times when something as confidential as salary, is being broadcast or informed to the wrong parties. The result? Dissatisfaction among employees.
Let’s be honest, most people are not content with what they have and that includes their salary. And most people also think that they are the one working harder than most of the people in the team. So when the news of a peer/colleague receiving a promotion or a higher salary than themselves, all sorts of negative feelings will appear.
“Why is that idiot getting higher salary than me when all he does is talk talk talk?”
“Why is the new guy getting the promotion ahead of old employees like us?”
“Why is he getting a higher increment when our job role is the same?”
Questions like these will keep popping up in the head all the time. It’s normal. After all, we’ve put in so much hard work for the company and it seems like we’re not being appreciated (funnily, some people who always spend their office hours chatting and Facebook-ing also think they’re not being appreciated enough). I’ve been through that before on a couple of occasions and man, I was pretty pissed back then.
But things have changed, and I believe I’ve changed.
Over the years, I’ve given much thought on this issue and I can tell you it’s a very common issue which exists in every organization. But rather than making my life miserable by asking myself questions which I could not answer, I prefer to ask myself a few questions and also try my best to answer them HONESTLY (without any discrimination and with extreme fairness + calmness). It wouldn’t help if you answer these questions when you’re jealous of some people. 
- Is the guy really better than me? Or perhaps my performance is actually not-so-good?
- Is there anything I can do to match him or even better than him?
- How much time do I have left until the next performance evaluation? I need to use those time to improve myself.
- Is there a need to talk to my supervisor regarding this? Maybe my supervisor is not happy with something I did which I’m not aware of? Remember, this is to have an honest heart-to-heart talk with your supervisor and not a confrontation.
- Maybe your supervisor has some ideas on how you can perform better in the future?
- Perhaps there are something which this guy has to do, without your knowledge? Maybe he really did go that extra mile?
- Will you be happy after the promotion or the increment? Will you be happy with your new job role or you rather stay where you are now? After all, money is not everything.
- How much is this affecting your mood and overall well-being? Do you think you’re wasting too much time thinking about something you have no answer of?
- And most importantly, do you think there is something that you can really do to change the situation?
Among those questions above, I find the last 2 to be the most important question. If there is really nothing you can do to change the situation, then why do you even bother to think about it? If there IS indeed something that you can do, then do it and change the situation. Get out from that emotional hell you’ve put yourselves into.
For me, even though I know there are people who earn more than me, I don’t really think much about it. Perhaps they are indeed better than me in certain aspects of things. All I can do is to commit myself to do my work, and to get the expected reward from my company. The important thing is that the company or my supervisor should appreciate what I do, and I myself must like what I do.
Whether the company appreciate that guy’s work more than mine, is not really something I can control.
And when I think there’s really no other option for me…..then I might just go find another job and find someone who I think will really appreciate me.
Remember, it’s not worth torturing yourselves by feeling lousy or bad especially on things that you have no answer to. If it’s within your control, then change it. If not, then just ignore it.
DISCLAIMER — i don’t Facebook that much in office. Nothing much in there except other people’s photos. =_=
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it goes without saying that your salary is very very confidential.
i mean i get peanuts, so nothing to brag about (pay peanuts, get monkey mah, but that doesn’t mean i dont give it my all to the job)
anyway, we can do something about it doing the yearly appraisal. this is the best time to talk to your superior on what is lacking on your part. as with some points above, maybe there is something you thought you were doing right, but instead was wrong in his eyes.
@ calvaryzone
True. People always think that they’ve been misunderstood, but they never bother to explain themselves. So all those performance review sessions are mostly…..er…one sided – the supervisor doing all the talk because the employee is too pissed that he prefers to keep quiet.
That’s not a good thing to do actually. Best to be honest and tell what you feel (in a polite way). Find out what went wrong and try to correct yourselves.
p/s… actually i’m not those people complaining about salary :p so i have no issue with my supervisors actually.
Have you tried facebook games? Pretty addictive I hear.
In my view, the less transparent the increment mechanism is, the higher the dissatisfaction rates. I think people can accept penalties if all measurements show they had underperformed. What can they say if they fell 20% short of target. But what people cannot accept is suspicions of favoritism.
I had the opportunity to work in an environment that flies by balanced scorecard, something that I helped create. We opened our system to challenges when it came to how compensation was derived from the staff’s own KPIs. Glad to say we managed to reduce salary-related complaints by over 80%.
The trouble with local companies is how they believe they know everything. If they knew how much money they throw down the drain due to staff turnover, I think they’ll be scrambling to stop the leaks.
@ Damien
I tried 2 of them last time. Yea, they were very addictive and they decided to put a stop to it. Because it was just too time consuming. Haha. Every day after work, I will rush to my Facebook and play those games. Fortunately, it only last for 1 or 2 months. =_= Some friends of mine who started with me….they’re still playing it until now (more than 1 year later).
Actually, not all big companies have proper performance evaluation process. Some of them are more time consuming than useful. =_=
Well, I do believe that some of these local companies do realize about the losses incurred but, maybe, they don bother to do anything due to their ego. :p after all, their ego is more valuable than the good people who are being forced to leave the company
Agree with Damien Tan re being transparent – keeping salaries confidential is basically one of the most powerful tools a company has to control the workforce. But if they want people to be happy, they need to be fair and as open as possible.
Also agree with your general approach – being honest with oneself is the first step to success. Far too much bitching goes on in offices, and whenever someone is successful one of the first reactions is to look for some negative reason (s/he is of right race/nationality, she slept with someone, etc…).
@ julian
First of all, thanks for dropping by
An honest employer is always better than an employer who likes to hide stuff. Hiding stuff will only allow people to suspect you for favoritism. Because there’s no clear guidelines/benchmark to which people can judge themselves with. So being open-minded with how you judge your own people, is definitely helpful.
But I also believe that even if the employer is being fair and open, there will always be certain employees who don’t feel they have been treated fairly. Such employees are mostly those lousy performers who think they have done a great deal for the company.
I don’t always Facebook in the office, only when I’m slightly free or when I temporarily have nothing to do. (but most of the time I’m busy with my work) Whereas, my colleagues can just always spend time playing Facebook =.= (sometimes I feel a bit pissed off, because I have many things to do, yet others just enjoying themselves and get higher salary like what you said in this post)
If the company is lokek, no matter how good your performance is, still the same lah…they won’t appreciate because they can simply find someone (which willing to get low paid) to substitute you (well, depends on what kind of business lah, actually I’m referring to my company :X)
@ Apple
To be honest, anyone is replaceable for a company. If not, then that should actually b the case. A company should not be held hostage by any employee but that doesn’t mean they should treat employees like dogs because turnover rate will only hurt the company more than the employees.