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Comment by thenmar | Hacker News Reader

I think the fear is that it will create animosity by making the information so accessible. On some level, the junior-level dev knows he's not making as much as the guy with the PhD in an esoteric mission critical topic, but he has a kind of plausible deniability that lets him avoid thinking about it. If everyone's making 80k and everyone knows that Jane The Expert is making 300k, there's going to be friction. "Hey Jane, why don't you pay for the dinner."

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Worked as an intern once, had one of the full-timers complimenting my work and saying I was just as sharp/skilled as him at the job. I knew he was getting paid a lot more than me. The multiplier was probably a whole number. Yes, he was on-call and I wasn't. Yes, there are always other good reasons too. But it still rankled to be doing close to the same work, and paid so much less. As you say I made sure to stay ignorant of the exact number to help ignore it.

I think you are trying to say that he made at least 2x what you were making. I would be very surprised to find an intern making more than half of what the person they are interning under makes and normally I'd expect it to be much less.

Typically you aren't working at an internship because you have a proven track record of skills in a certain area. That is kind of the point of doing an internship. And having a proven track record is something employers are willing to pay a lot more money for.

At least 2x, possibly 3x, possibly more.

You don't have to justify it, I understand all the bullet points. I'm just corroborating the parent's statement that willful ignorance of someone else's wages can be a useful coping mechanism. Because no matter how many justifications there are, it still stung.

Do you think you would if you knew exactly why the other person was paid more, and how you could get to that level? I find the public table a lot fairer than not knowing how much the others make and why.

Oh, I knew how to get to that level and I knew for sure at least some of the specific reasons there was the discrepancy.

That doesn't stop unbidden thoughts from creeping into my head at 4AM when the two of us are working side-by-side doing the exact same thing.

They'll already know that the expert is making more. If she deserves it and the company pay structure is fair, then no good employee will complain.

... and she's already expected to pay for dinner. ;-)

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