>>> No, how on Earth do you imagine that they could find out your salary?
>>
>> They call my employer and ask them? It's not rocket science.
> 
> There is no way your employer would give out such information to anyone 
> outside the company.  Even to internal employees they would never give 
> out such information, unless authorised to do so by someone quite senior.

Well, it depends on how badly they don't want me to leave, doesn't it?

Thinking about it... my MD is probably far too stupid to realise how 
important I am, so he probably won't care. So maybe you're right.

> DO NOT tell them your motivation for moving is the pay.

Right. So you suggest I go with the "not enough technical challenge" 
route then?

>> Benny seems to think I should be earning 30K - 40K. (Working for 
>> somebody else, that is.) Personally I think that's a little ambitious 
>> for somebody of my limited skill.
> 
> Not at all, if you had spent 2 years working at your company, then maybe 
> moved up and taken some more responsibility for the networking etc (or 
> moved to a different company with a more responsible job) you could 
> easily be earning that much or more.

Heh, damn. My *mum* doesn't even earn that much, and she's seriously 
good at her job.

> The problem you have is that 
> you've spent 6 years doing essentially the same job

Agreed.

> Google "average graduate salary" and hit the first link, it's 24K euro. 

...so that's about £20?

(I don't know if Google is giving you different result from where you 
are, but mine says £23k-£24k.)

> Even with only 3% pay rises and no promotion you should be on almost 30K 
> after six years.

I don't think we've ever had a pay rise that big here. Roughly once 
every 3 years they add maybe 1.5%. (And oddly, when we get a raise 
everybody complains...?)

> I think you just started out on an exceptionally under paid job, and 
> because you've stuck at it for so long you're kind of out of touch with 
> what other technical people with 6 years experience are being paid.

Well, they did hire me explicitly because they were forced to hire 
somebody and "I'm cheap". As you say, I'm still here, so why should they 
pay me any more?

Given that I don't know anybody else, never mind anybody who works in 
computing, I have nothing to compare to...

> BTW just being a manager doesn't mean you're not technical, my manager 
> does essentially the same job as me, he just has a lot more experience 
> and does more stuff like budget and reporting with senior people.

The "traditional" approach seems to be that when you need find the 
person who's best at their job, and then make them a manager and give 
them a sack more money. Which I always thought was a bit strange, given 
that (say) knowing how to diagnose line faults really well isn't 
particularly correlated with knowing how to manage people...

Post a reply to this message