I’ve been involved in performance discussions in three different companies and it never works like that. Your salary increase, bonus and promotion is directly determined by your performance relative to your peers. Now it’s not a perfect system. Sometimes “performance” is unduly influenced by favoritism or ability to kiss ass. But I don’t know where this idea came from that management knowingly rewards incompetance as a matter of convenience. Why would we want to penalize our star performers and reward some jerk? Now if you are a good performer and more vocal about your raises, you might get more of a raise. At one of my last jobs, I ended up with a 50% off-cycle salary adjustment because I was kicking ass and every time my managing director asked me “what can we do to make things better for you?” I replied “well you could pay me more money.”
There is no benefit to sharing your salary with coworkers. We are already paying you what we think you are worth and aren’t going to pay you more because you are unhappy making less than Joe and Sarah. It will just make you unhappy because you think you deserve more and it will make Bill unhappy because he doesn’t make as much as you.
I mean if you really think you are worth so much more, get an offer from somewhere else and try to leverage it. People do that.
Not to mention in my company, HR has over 100,000 data points for salaries in our industry. They know how much you’re worth.
I think the word “cheap” implies the sort of person (like George) who forgets his wallet, quibbles over getting paid back any little bit he pays out on someone else’s behalf, and is more or less constantly obsessed about money and keeping as much of his as possible.
In that sense, it’s an insult, and if you ARE such a person, you will take it as such (as George did)
Me, I’m incredibly “cheap” and don’t mind the term, because I am NOT like the above description at all…very generous with my money as a rule and easily let things go when it comes to small “debts” others “owe” me…but when it comes to buying things, I thrift, I am loathe to waste money, and I am proud of it.
As for how much I “make”, currently I am a full time returning college student with a Pell Grant and 2 student loans who recieves SS payments due to the death of my spouse a few yrs back, so technically, I don’t “make” anything. My income averages about $2,800 a mth all told. (for myself and 2 kids)
When I was a newlywed with two babies living on my husband’s gas station wages, I was shopping with my now ex-friend. I declined to buy a clearance item ( a shirt, I think) for myself because it cost half of the money I had for the week. She called me cheap, and I was insulted. I had to explain to her if I was in her position, a grown-ass woman living with the folks, driving a car her mother bought her, eating the food provided her, supporting nobody with her paychecks, and getting spending money from mom on top of all that, yeah, I’d be cheap. But there’s a world of difference between cheap and poor. (This is not the reason we’re no longer friends, but it didn’t help.) If my mom calls me cheap, I beam with pride and tell her “Mama didn’t raise no dummies.”
I earn a very good income and it does not bother me to tell folks that, I work around a bunch of recent College grads and they LOVE to point out how much more Education they have (the last thing I graduated was the 8th grade) but I have 17 years experience in this industry and I make more than almost all of the “Geology Kids”. I take a bizarre-pride in my lack of education and when the “G-K’s” find out that I make more than them it pisses them off like crazy, last year I worked 9 months and netted just under $76,000.00 (there are PLENTY of folks that make more than me, I just don’t care!). When the “G-K’s” call my boss to bitch about me being “overpaid due to my lack of education” he points out that our clients CONSISTENTLY request ME.
I have no Wife or Kids, it’s just me and my toys (and I have some GOOD toys!).
Similar to what other posters have said, I consider “cheap” to be derogatory as it often refers to what a person is willing to spend on others (e.g., “that was a cheap gift”). In contrast, “frugal” often refers to what a person is willing to spend on themselves (e.g., “she’s a frugal grocery shopper”). Thus, cheap contains connotations of being selfish, inconsiderate, etc., while frugal implies being careful, non-impulsive, foresightful, etc.
To answer your second question, I suspect people who are using credit / debt to live beyond their means are more likely to hide their true salary. Of course, the truth will eventually surface…
The bias can go both ways – people who don’t make very much money are inferior; people who make a lot of money (and don’t sock it all away) are fools. I don’t have any $2000 purses (well, being a man, I don’t have any purses at all), but why does spending $2000 on something like that make the buyer a fool? You could also argue that people who like to eat at high end restaurants (guilty) are fools, because a sandwich from Subway does the job just as well (probably better from a health standpoint) and costs a tiny fraction as much. But some people find it much more enjoyable to eat at nice restaurants, just as some people find it nicer to have high end handbags.
Obviously, someone who is going into debt, or spending what should be grocery or rent money, to get a Louis Vuitton handbag is a fool. I grant that there are a lot of people in that category, especially with the flashier items. However, I don’t think that people who can easily afford them are (necessarily) fools for buying nicer products or services. It’s easy to forget, but $2000 is not a lot of money for some people.
I just don’t get the attraction of a $2000 purse. I can understand why someone might be interested in fine dining, even if I’d generally rather eat someplace with a more casual atmosphere and a lower price tag. I don’t understand the enjoyment they get from a $2000 purse, or how it could outweigh the extra worry about “what if I lose/damage it”. I don’t think it makes me a better person to not understand this- I just don’t get it.
For me, the main criterion for handbags is that they should be big enough to fit the stuff I want to carry around in them, and be big enough to hold my medicines for when I fly.
Ever hate the guy in the BMW convertible? Do you think to yourself “He took MY car! He doesn’t even drive well! He’s an old fart anyway, why does he get a cool car?” Or, do you think “He got one, so can I!” (From some empowerment crap book I read once). That should be a poll, because I think the first option would win by a landslide.
I drive a very beautiful, very blue, very small, very old, very British sportscar. I don’t go anywhere, I just drive around, all around, a lot. It’s my hobby and you can probably tell I’m In Love With My Car.
Yeah, people hate on me. They don’t know I do manual labor all day. My son doesn’t really like to ride in the car because it’s flashy. I would fell the same way, but damn I love to drive it. Maybe in 10 years when it’s beat to shit I won’t get that look. (Look at the middle aged asshole blah blah blah).
I’ve been a passenger in a BMW, and they’re very nice cars.
However, I don’t want one. I’m not jealous of people who have them, and I don’t aspire to own one.
I’m just not a materialistic person. I’m more impressed by people who don’t accumulate a lot of useless crap. I like technology, and I like cool stuff, but I really don’t aspire to own very much myself. I can do without a lot of things that people consider essential: I’ve had to, so I know it can be done.
I think anyone who thinks income has any correlation with a person’s value has completely missed the point of life.
I can be frugal - I will fix something rather than buy a new one. My truck has 225,000 miles on it, and I do my own work on it. I wear my shoes until they have holes in them.
On the other hand, I always offer to pick up the check when we are at dinner with friends or relatives, I buy expensive gifts for people, and I tip well.
I merely use the car as an example. The thing is that even posting the pictures of it comes across as snotty. That’s my point. It’s not worth $6,000 to anyone who knows what it is. Triumph Spitfires were always crappy cars. But it is viewed as something ostentatious.
You don’t have to “want one” to be insulted by it. People tend not to like flashy things even if they are gotten at a bargain ($5800 on ebay). While not “cheap”, I am frugal and careful. I just have this one flashy thing. It’s interesting (and a bit frustrating) to see the change in people’s attitudes when I get out of my 1992 Chevy work truck and climb into that car.
Hmm. I struggle to verbalize, as I ponder the compulsion to “defend” my car picture post, the reason behind that compulsion.
Among people you don’t know, wealth = respect.
Among people you do know, frugality = respect.
That’s far too simplified and I don’t agree with it at all (at least not the first part), but perhaps it is a reasonably accurate summation of American (or Korean) society?
