Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Should You Tell Your Coworkers How Much You Make?
An anonymous reader writes: Asking someone how much money they make is often -- if not always? -- considered impolite. But over the years, there has been a movement in toward more salary transparency. Some say salary transparency can make workplaces more equitable by helping to eliminate the gender and racial pay gaps. Even in companies that haven't decided to officially make all salaries open, some employees are taking matters into their own hands and sharing their pay rate with their coworkers. What's your take on this?
My company told me when I was hired (buried in some document) that salaries were considered trade secrets, and we weren't allowed to discuss them. I don't know if they have any legal footing there, especially when discussing them within the company. Also, we've been acquired by another company since then, so I don't know the current policy. But in any case, you may risk some retribution from your employer if they find out you're sharing salary information (potentially forcing them to pay more when the underpaid workers find out).
Are there any examples of where this has happened? Because there are lots of counter examples, e.g. entire counties where salaries are public information.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Duning-Kruger is about people thinking that they are better at random fields than they really are. Or as often stated "incompetents don't realize they are incompetent." However this is often misunderstood - it is not talking about someone's competence in their area of expertise, their job, etc. Instead it is about people misjudging how good they are at a different field from their normal competence. Ie, an above average engineer who thinks they're also above average at wine tasting on their first try. An engineer who is incompetent at engineering will quickly learn that they are indeed incompetent.
The original results were based on people being given some tests (humor, logic, grammar, etc). Afterwords they were asked to rate how good they thought they did on it. Those who were in the bottom of the ranking tended to rate themselves a bit above average. The hypothesis was that if they're bad enough at it that they scored low, they're also bad enough to not be able to effectively rank themselves. After some minimal tutoring they tended to become much better at estimating their own abilities.
Additionally, those who ranked near the top also assumed they were closer to average. Presumably because they thought everyone else did better because the tests didn't seem hard.
That's the background anyway. But the Dunning-Kruger effect has sort of taking on a life of its own with the general public, and is misused a lot. Such as being misused by slashdot right now. The Dunning-Kruger effect is not the same as the Peter principle. Being "incompetent" does not mean that the person is an idiot, instead it's more that they're ignorant of a particular subject.