"how much do you make?"

I 'made' $11k last year, I'm just going to claim whatever makes me break even on taxes.

the foregoing applies to both questions re sizes of paychecks and sexual organs.

Plus, people try to make you buy the drinks if they think you earn more than them. ;-)

I mean, sure, partly it's the insecurity of feeling inadequate and not wanting to discuss salary, in case your colleagues are getting more than you and you feel like you have a smaller penis or something.

But really, it's perpetuated from above. If your employees have a strong taboo against discussing what they earn, they are unlikely to notice any inequalities, and the corporate infrastructure can perpetuate the gender pay gap, the classist pay gap and the middle management bloat as long as they like.

I'd never ask a complete stranger. I think that's just rude. But I do discuss it with friends, and I do try to discuss it with colleagues, because we all have a mutual interest in it. I'd never ask someone I'd only just met, but if I'd been talking to someone for a while, and found out they were also a programmer or whatever, I'd ask what their daily rate was. You know, so I can feel underpaid.

Anyway, if you ask people, they just flat out lie. I ran into someone recently who remarked on what a third party mutual friend was making. I flat out laughed, and replied that I had done their accounts, and sat down with the spreadsheets, and that was *not* what they made.

thats what i'm saying. its not like "ain't the weather fine"

also, i notice that in america, the salary never seems to be mentioned in the job advert?

how you come to the inverse of what i said is beyond me.

Actually, the refusal to discuss income *supports* classism and inequality in pay.

your argument is firm (for within an occupation or a company) but you fail to take into account the reality that some people are very ashamed of what they earn because it isn't very much. i don't blame them for not wanting to talk about it.

I mean, sure, partly it's the insecurity of feeling inadequate and not wanting to discuss salary, in case your colleagues are getting more than you and you feel like you have a smaller penis or something.

I'm really quite interested in the whole "lying about how much you earn" culture that seems to permeate the arts/music/etc. professions. I mean, yeah, it's a form of bragging and the whole "my dick is bigger than yours" bling thing. But in a way, it really perpetuates the culture of exploitation. And it glamourises an intensely unfair system - how many people would actually continue to want to be "famous" if they knew what most musicians, artists, writers, etc. actually scraped by on. Yeah, sure, the perks make up for it, but when you find out what, say, managers, record company executives, agents, galleries actually make off the same transaction, it does make you a bit sick.

Anyway, I'm getting off topic, sorry.

yes but you make it sound like a personal neurosis. some people really *DO* judge you by how much/little you earn. but you imply that if one refuses to discuss it, one is supporting classism, its kind of blaming the victim. i dunno, its fucking late, am i making ANY sense?

Whomever's dick is biggest? Mine is bigger.

well maybe because all you said was "because classism exists". Not a very thorough explanation. In any case, for this to be about classism, classism would either have to not exist or have to not be based on money in either America or Thailand.

What differs from place to place (say America v. Thailand) is how we treat class. Americans are brought up to, and our society is directed toward, avoiding issues of class.

Wait, let me rephrase that... is being completely obsessed with class and earning potential a personal neurosis or a societal neurosis? If someone is going to dismiss me out of hand because I don't earn enough, I think that's their personal problem, not mine.

It's a class issue that a person doesn't earn as much as another. It is to me, however, complete sick and yes, neurotic to treat that as an indication of personal worth or status to the exclusion of any other considerations. That's not blaming the victim, that's blaming assholes who can see no other worth to a person than their pocketbook. Sorry if that was not misunderstood.

I don't count my money from the bar since mr. IRS doesn't know about it.

Predicted income come end of May: $0

(oh and my tits are quite nice, thank you)

(is that cause the US is awake?)

Like I said, it's not something I think is appropriate to discuss with strangers, so it's not something I'd blurt out on a message board or anything, even to prove how "not hung up on salary" I am.

My friends and I all discussed salary quite openly back home - gave us at least some sense of perspective about roles within industries, etc. That said we all worked in very different places, so there was no danger of us breeding contempt. Then again, I've never discussed my salary with my co-workers at any of my previous jobs (I think that is pretty common, no?)

I know it's easy to assume the secret motive is to classify yourself or show off, but surely that is only the case for a small number of sad people. Who honestly thinks their salary defines who they are as a person? I've had minimum wage salaries and fat-cat ones too, and have always been the same person.

This is precisely the kind of useful information I'm talking about - if I didn't discuss it, how would I ever get a sense of perspective about how to balance a range of career choices that may lie ahead?

Ahhhh fuck it. Eventually I'm going to do odd jobs in rural Canada anyway so it's all moot...

I'm happier to be told what a reasonable salary range should be. I had the most irritating interview experience where the guy asked me how much I wanted in about the fifth minute of the interview. It's not an appropriate conversation unless there's an offer on the table.

My friends are pretty honest about their incomes,

it is all relative of course, what is high and low, and really you want to be comparing to very similar jobs to see if you are getting what you could.

but, in general, i would say £32k for london is high, much higher than mine, and i would hazard a guess at much more than most london people here

i put that in italics. i dont earn 32k at all, i was trying to cut and paste robs salary. i dont earn 32k, although i would very much like to

I hate the how much question from potential employers.

Anyone whose been here about 5 years is making that (80G in CAD). But those of us hired post Nortel aren't.

This is why I find these open discussions useful, so that you're at least somewhat 'ready' should you get caught off guard. And you're right Suzy - ranges are very useful. P.S. Conde Nasty seemed OK to me. I did one piece (my first ever for them) and got 25p per word - is this standard for 'proper' publications in the UK?

Rob - Most of the Conde Nast editors I've met are pretty nice people, apart from one idiotte at Vogue. Which mag and what sort of piece?

Edgy Style Mag pay 15p a word and they pay it bang on time, too (which is a genuine help as few do).

Time Out and the non-music Emap mags pay 25p a word, Newspapers start at 30p or try to pay a flat rate per article, but if it's a weekend supplement on a profitable paper, it can go much higher.

Suzy - it was for a short-lived mag called "Tra$h", which I think was a remake of 'Mini$try', i.e. for the mega-club of same name. It was an interview with DJ T1m We$twood - he was a lousy interview, and in the end my piece became nothing more than transcription, which in itself was difficult given all his 'street slang' (pretty lame for a white guy IMO)

i'm not shy about asking people what they make, i'll tell people what i make if they care. but then again, i think it's a little silly to be two-faced about it. if i actually want to know, i'll ask. when a friend told me about his proposal, and the ring he'd selected, i asked what it cost, because i was actually curious about it, and don't shop for gems much these days.

kate, i've also made choices that mean i'm making less than i could be. i decided against law school in favor of working in the voluntary sector, and i'm glad i did. even if my boyfriend makes double (exactly double!) what i do. and is still broke every month.

Where am I boasting? Silly me, I'll never 'brag' about my poverty again.

There are plenty of threads where I dispense the kind of advice Cat needs, and I did try to advise her but she was stuck on working for a publication which as of 1pm has no future unless a buyer can be found. She never asked me about money so I think your ire misplaced, if not a downright fucking stupid way to think.

argh - x-post and off topic...

by summer i will quit/get sacked (it is inevitable either way), and i will be broke - again. and so my cycle continues. i used to be obsessed with money, and as each year goes by, i care less and less about it...

I don't think I'll ever earn more than around £25k (not taking inflation into account).

I was also denied a raise this year b/c the bitch dean gave me a negative review last year.

The only thing I will regret about leaving is, like Martin said, working for a place whose aim is more than making people richer. Hopefully I'll be able to continue to work in the non-profit sector. With that goal, my future pay outlook shall remain bleak.

Barry never so OTM. I used to earn more than most of my friends, but I have slipped down and down and it annoys me that it bothers me. None of them work in wanky city jobs. In fact most of them even work in the public sector. They're just in jobs that they have worked at and steadily got their promotions and their incremental salary steps. Sadly, I am in a job that offers neither.

One of my friends laughed when I told her what I earned (she apologised afterwards - it was just a shock reaction). She earns way more than me, as a social researcher.

I think most people of my social group expect to be earning a salary that is roughly their age in years. I am far from £30K.

I don't really mind talking about how much I earn. I'm more shy about saying what the job itself is.

Part of my job involves research, Jel, yes. At the Guardian, that was pretty much all it was. That and emptying bins, obv. But now I spend a lot of time doing glorified data entry. I am too honest to be able to say to people 'I'm a researcher', though I do play this aspect of the job up when I talk to people, if only for the sake of the conversation. ("Oh, so you copy and paste things into a database - that must be interesting")

I remember Barry on here, or maybe on Sinister, saying in response to someone saying 'gosh, you work at the Guardian', something like "Why don't you tell people what you actually do there, Nick?". I thought that was a bit pointed.

When I met up with an old schoolfriend a while ago, she said "Oh no, I always thought you were destined for great things" and then was all apologetic.

It was a lady.

I couldn't actually say what I earn while I was at work, because it's in the contract with my agency that I'm not allowed to let the client know my net salary. (Which obviously is a lot less than what they pay the agency, grrrrrrr.) I get about £25K pro-rated. So I'm back where I was five years ago. I guess. Or, at least, I would be if I worked full time. If I hadn't taken a couple of years off to be a pop star, I reckon I'd probably be earning my age. That's depressing. (Especially last year when I was earning less than half my age. That age thing is total bollocks in the UK.)

As soon as I realized what I had I closed it in horror, thought about whether I wanted to know and........deleted it. I thought nothing good could come of knowing, yet knew that if I kept it, I would be tempted to look one day.

Right now, in NYC, a lower-end entry-level salary for a college grad type person would be around $30,000. What would the equivalent be in London?

We get longer paid holidays too.

oh really, ms kearney?

What would an average salary for a doctor/lawyer/financial type in London be (in U.S. currency please)?

At the current rate of exchange, about 2k less than that maybe even 3k less.

I could offer very rough ballpark figures but maybe someone else would be in a better position to answer curious Mary. The latter two in paricular seem a bit 'how long is a piece of string?' though.

although technically my job involves persuading sad old codgers to spend their pension money on the gee-gees, ah well...

Ed on Thursday I swear I'll change my address at the bank.

If you demote Ed he will become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.

My career arc is kind of odd, though. I don't expect most people here are willing or able to go through the process of getting a TS clearance with the US federal government. I basically dropped out of college, tripped, fell over and wound up in this career field. I'm just a lucky bastard, I think.

I'll also be just about $100k in debt for undergrad and grad school.

However, I now pay ridiculous rent.

ally, can't you be declared independant after living on yr own for so many years?

However I am in the middle of investigating a good new opportunity to earn a salary for a three-day week ;-).

Depends on experience. Don't know about doctors starting salaries, but a med.reg should be on £40-£50K and a consultant maybe £70-80K.

Lawyers - I only know one. She's a partner in a city firm with maybe 10 yrs experience. She says she earns 'a six figure salary starting with a 3'. And she's not bullshitting.

Financial Types - varies obv. MEGA-salaries are still possible I believe, but fewer to go round. Someone with 10 years in the city doing say, bond trading, merchant banking, commodities would be unlucky not to be making £100K basic + at least that in bonuses.

For US dollars just X2 the above.

Not as stupid as putting an incorrect mobile number on my CV mind. Idiot Matt DC! Still, they went to the trouble of emailing me to invite me for interview despite this so it can't have put them off that much.

Other locations are available. Check atlas for details.

London is much much more expensive than other areas in the uk. Ridiculously so, actually.

I think an "average" (whatever that it) starting salary in the UK is about 15k.