I get paid way more than my coworkers, and even my supervisor, because when I got hired I immediately made a bunch of random tools in google sheets that only I know how to maintain, and spread them around until everyone was using them. Before long, I was essential to my department, and praised for going "above and beyond" even though I was mostly just dicking around making the tools rather than doing my actual job.
I have 0 coding experience, so the tools are absolutely horrendous behind the scenes, but that just means that they break pretty often, and people are reminded that only I know how to fix them. So, when I went looking around on LinkedIn for other offers after a few years, I eventually got one that was paying way more since it was in a major metro area, and I took it back to my manager to negotiate a 50% raise and a full-remote designation that virtually nobody else in my office is given.
You don't get ahead by working hard, and you don't get ahead by working smart to benefit the company, you get ahead by working smart to benefit yourself. Think about it this way - if you're at the store to buy bananas, and you see that they're selling bananas for $0.05 ea, you'll likely think "Wow, that's a great deal!" and buy a bunch of those bananas at the $0.05 price. You're not going to pay them the price you think would be fair for a banana, you're going to take advantage of the price you're allowed to pay so that you can save money. Your employer sees you - working for less than you're worth - as a $0.05 banana. You're nothing more than a cheap commodity they were lucky to snag on sale.
56Bro, I'm salaried and only really need to work six hours a day. So that's exactly what I do. My coworkers put in 12-14 hours a day six days a week... We get the same paycheck.
Granted, I'm consistently rated at the bottom of my department by my supervisors, but I'm also the most highly requested employee by our customers. Literally no one else gets requested by name and I have to triage projects.
49Some people are passionate about always doing the best they can, and they get a great deal of satisfaction from it. I love being excellent at what I do.
I don't have a wife or kids. My jobs are a huge part of my identity. Heck - my night job teaching is something I do because I want to do it, not for the little bit of extra money.
But I also know that I'm weird. Most people just want to do their job and go home to their families, and that's great. They're doing the job, so they should be compensated every bit as much as the people like me who are devoted to their work.
18And neither gets enough to cover inflation.
17If you see me going the extra mile, it's probably the side-effects of me using the company's resources to learn and do crazy experiments for my own gain.
17Going the extra mile is a good way to never get promoted because you are too valuable in your current position.
8It depends on the company and how they treat your job, but mostly as a worker you are there to fulfill a company's requirement. Unless there's a position or incentive to go that extra mile, don't, most companies will never see it. Even if you want to do the extra work for yourself, I'd recommend to find a way to do it as a hobby if it's unrewarded, separate from work.
What they will see is the absence in case they do need it, and then they will be required to fulfill it, although they may not want to focus on better and more empowered workers with higher expectations and may instead just focus on quantity over quality by hiring more people to fill it. Even worse, don't be the guy who makes his (and other's) jobs obsolete to scummy bosses.
Open your eyes, you aren't in school, you aren't getting rewarded for better grades at work unless they make it part of the business and your bosses stick to it and not just plugging in friends, buddies, and associates.
8My rule at work has always been based around the bears and hikers analogy. You dont have to be the best at what you do. Just dont be the worst.
Also some jobs afford opportunities for non-conventional self-education. If you can learn useful personal or professional skills while at working, do it, and under the guise of work.
7Or in my case, get singled out by a manager from another department for no reason, who then gaslights the other managers into thinking I don't do shit when I'm the only person in my section that even does anything at all. Go through the whole "try to make them quit" playbook but never do anything wrong so they can't fire me. I would have outlasted all those fuckers if circumstance hadn't forced me to move out of state.
Pretty sure they just wanted to eliminate my full-time position to save money.
6Hard work is rewarded with additional responsibilities and tasks for no additional benefit. What is the point?
5The guy that does nothing at all and whines until he gets someone else to do it, is also paid the same as you. And will never get fired.
5As if either employee is the problem. Blame the fucking aristocrats shorting both of their paychecks
5Go the extra mile, not working but bootlicking your boss and you'll ascend faster.
3Not true in my experience, both as employee and employer
3Isn't this socialism? 😜
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(Joking! before anyone hurts me)
1"But you could get bonuses each pay period up to $100"... which after taxes comes to about $60, after union dues $58. Extra stress and work that makes you more than $100k more a year is not worth $720/yr to me thank you. Give me percentage and we'll talk.
1Later on: the employee who does extra work will make the employee who does the bare minimum getting fired, but he doesn't get a wage increase. He will however complain about "lazy" people like immigrants, the disabled, etc. instead.
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