This might be a misconception… but I’ve heard enough stories to beleive in it. Especially as regards dating and small talk.
Do people actually ask how much you make ? Do girls ask this during dating ? Is this considered rude at all ? Is it normal to ask this in casual conversation ?
Doesn’t this make salaries and money too important as regards personal value ? Like your salary is an important part of what you are worth as a person/friend/lover ?
( Overhere its extremely rude to ask this out of context. You only ask about it in a job interview or if discussing a job change with a very personal friend. Even saying out how much you earn can be rude if its not warranted. )
My perception is different. I have no idea what any of my friends earn in salary. They have no idea about my salary. I’ve never been asked, and I never would ask. Same for my family (other than, of course, my husband).
When salary has come up (say, in discussions about career changes or promotions), it’s always vague… as in “Salary is a little better” or “not as much as I hoped, but still competitive”
B. Ehrenreich mentioned the American reticence about discussing salary and income as being a factor in why some companies can pay such low wages to hourly employees. That is, Wal-Mart can screw its associates because they never find out that their cousin who works at Target makes more.
My lifelong experience as an American is that people rarely discuss salaries. They may allude to them, but actual numbers are almost taboo. If asked point blank, I think most Americans would dodge with something like “not near enough, I can tell you” or “well, I can’t complain”
Although I share my culture’s reticence on this point, I hate it. As CrankyAsAnOldMan points out, it hampers employees in salary negotiations. Often people do not know what their co-workers make. This makes it possible for two people doing the same job at the same company to get paid wildly different salaries.
Salary is not a topic for casual conversation except among close friends.
These are my experiences. The case may differ regionally–the stereotypes I have --New Yorkers and Los Angelenos would be more likely to ask and answer, Midwesters would Never and southerners would telegraph the information without actually asking or telling.
You mean the southerners blab about it all the time... or brag about it ?
The regional differences certainly would explain why such different answers to the same question. A factor could be that people gaining much more are more likely to talk about it than lower income people ?
Lifelong New Yorker here. The only time in my life when my annual salary was a subject of casual and open conversation was as a grad student, when of course all of us were getting the same stipend (and bitching about the stipends given in other departments ). No one I know has ever asked me what my salary was, or volunteered theirs without a compelling reason (i.e., having a delicate conversation about personal budgets and affording a new car/home). I was raised to view that asking such information as very personal and rather rude to ask about. Maybe this is dependent more on the profession people are in - people who deal with money more likely to talk about it? Just guessing.
It’s also true that companies do not want you to know what your co-workers are making and frown severely on discussions of salary. Originally I’m sure that was so that pay exceptions could be made when management thought it necessary, but these days it might well be to avoid lawsuits over “discrimination” too (e.g., So-and-so is getting paid 14% more than me for the same job, it MUST be because I’m the wrong gender/ethnicity/etc., not because I’m a chucklehead that can’t do the job properly).
What ARE you talking about, APOC? In my experience incomes are practically secret in the US, certainly compared to here in Hong Kong. People who are genuinely interested in your line of work may apologetically ask if you mind saying how your job pays, but in general, while people might ask what you do, “how much to you make” would be considered a pretty rude question in most settings.
Midwesterner moved to the south after going to college w/ a lot of New Yorkers here. I would generally agree with the regional assessment. I also think the willingness/eagerness to discuss this is primarily among people just starting out in their jobs, or still as students. For example, if it’s not your real job, to say “I’m still just making $7/ hr. at Wal-Mart.” Someone who has been in a job for 10 years is not so likely to discuss salary.
What do you do?, used in club/meat market situations as a discriminator to decide whether the number is given out or the conversation pursued. I know we have all seen it. And seen it way over used: It is the excuse the dorky odd-looking guy always gives for not getting the number or hooking up.
But in every case would I call BS on “She doesn’t think I make enough money/is looking for a Doctor/Lawyer?” No.
N.B. This is a certain type of person, (I’d say a low %) in a certain situation trying to make a social decsion with no information and shouldn’t be used to paint all single women, or all americans for that matter with the same brush.
Not that simple, I don’t think. The only person whose salary I know – and who knows mine – is my sister, and we’re extremely close. I have plenty of friends who are clearly doing very well, and I wouldn’t dream of asking for dollar amounts, and would be flabbergasted if they asked exactly what I was making.
Another vote for salary talk – once you’re past the minimum wage, stage – is the height of rudeness.
And as far as “what do you do” – to me, that’s strictly small talk, along the lines of “where are you from, what’s your major” in college.
Two notable exceptions in my present place of employment:
The blue-coller types (e.g. shipping and receiving, machine shop) have been known to compare paychecks on Friday. Different mindset there.
I had a co-worker from another land who asked these types of questions from time to time: the salary question as well as other goodies like “How much did you pay for your new house?”
It was done in such a friendly, innocent way that I felt compelled to take him aside one day and explain politely that these questions were not acceptable in polite American society. He told me that where he came from these questions were not inappropriate and thanked me profusely for guiding him away from social faux pas.
I would never ask about salary, and no one has ever asked me. I have no idea what my friends earn. We have been known to discuss house prices–very hesitantly–because we are all hoping to find a house in the same market, or are sympathetic to those that are.
As for dating, I wouldn’t know much about that. I, and most of my friends, tended to marry during or just after college, when we had no idea what (if anything) we would earn. It wasn’t even a factor–note all the male English majors who got all the dates. I dated two CS majors, and married one of them, without giving a thought to future earning potential, though it was clear to me that mr. genie would work hard to care for his family. The willingness to work was the important thing.
If I was asked, I would only say that we are doing OK. And I would be pretty shocked and unwilling to be friendly with that person in future.
College, when we were trying to make slightly above campus minimum wage (“The library pays $x.xx! Cool, I’m applying there!”) was the last time I knew my friends’ wages - and even then I wouldn’t know how much they worked, just the rate at which they earned. I cannot imagine asking anyone and it’s rude on the rare occasion that I’m asked.
Another Midwesterner who has worked closely with folks from Georgia and South Carolina and with folks from New York and Connecticut: I have never asked and never been asked what my salary was (aside from one totally obnoxious boob with no manners at all).
There have been a few amusing incidents in that regard. I helped maintain payroll at one client where the security person put lots of obstacles up to prevent programmers seeing the actual data they were working on so as to “protect” the staff from intrusive inquiries. We all found ways to get around the security. We had to. You can’t fix a data exception on a pay run at 3:00 a.m. without being able to touch the file and no one wanted to hear that their pay was going to be a day late because we needed prior authorization to fix the file. In the years I worked there, no programmer ever spilled (or paid attention to) the salaries of the other employees. On the other hand, the company had a policy of performing all the rate reviews in December, and just about every year one or more of their just-out-of-high-school clerks would race up and down the halls telling everyone who got how much of a raise.
As to the “what do you do?” question: it is simply an ice-breaker. Asking who one’s favorite poet or novelist might be will get blanks stares from many people while asking for one’s favorite sports team will get bemused replies from others. On the other hand, we all have (or have had) jobs at some point, so it is a way to establish some connection. Obviously, there is a certain amount of class assessment (in our purportedly classless society) in identifying each person’s occupation, but there is enough range even within occupations to avoid a direct rating of a person.
If one is familiar with the occupation, one can ask for responses to the latest breakthrough or crisis. If one is unfamiliar with the occupation, one can ask what the daily tasks are, leading to expanded queries about the person’s life.
I’m talking about personal experience.
Whaddya what ? a blessed weblink ?
Im not saying it’s the first question Im asked , but it has come up on both casual and work environment occasions and reasonably frequently .
The miscomprehnding look recieved when my jaw hits the floor having been asked the question speaks to the fact that I have been considered to be be overreacting to what was apparently an innocent & oft asked question.
I would also consider it an audaciously rude and invasive question hence my surprise.
But lets talk about rudeness shall we …
I am talking about what I have witnessed.
and no emphasis or sarcatic capitalisation on your part is going to change what I have witnessed.
Ohhhhh ! That this were the pit …
FTR: My experience is mainly mid south & south (TN & FL).
