Last place I worked had “open book” accounting where every one’s salary was known. I found it added a lot of distractions but the whole shroud of secrecy you mention is also ridiculous.

You have to be judicious about sharing your salary. For instance, I won’t share mine here and generally try to obscure it in other ways since my friends read my blog. But if they flat out asked me, of course I would tell them. It doesn’t really bother me since most of us are IT geeks.

Also, if management finds out and gets irritated by your activities to ferret out what others make, you can often be fired, so BE CAREFUL.

It kills me that people will lie about their salary. It’s one thing to bump it up per the benefits and perqs you get at a job for a salary negotiation, and quite another thing to keep up with the Joneses for ego’s sake.

My favorite work environment I’ve ever seen posted everyone’s salaries on a list and all salary increases were done by majority vote. The boss would propose a raise for a worker, everyone knew the amount of the proposed raise and who was getting it, and they’d vote by secret ballot with a public vote count. Seriously. You know what? There was absolutely no complaining about salaries at that company, because everyone was involved with the decision.

As a final point, getting a good salary is important, but for those at the early stage of your career, building a good cv and getting the right training and experience are much more important.

Yeah, that! Oh if I could just get that through the partner’s head — and we’re not talking a measly 5K difference in worth/willing either. Sigh, maybe someday soon that thought will sink in.