Do you tell colleagues how much you earn?
THE situation of the very poor in this country is not a secret, nor is the good fortune of many of the very rich. (It’s hard to hide a mansion or a yacht and often they don’t want to.) But that isn’t what really gets our goat, it’s the sucker in the same sort of job as us, who is just like us (or worse) and gets paid even just a little bit more.
That is a thousand times more painful than the good fortune of mega-rich bosses (unless they steal our pensions). Those who have made several billion are simply animals of a different species. They may become peers but they aren’t in our peer group.
A decade or two ago I played cricket against Sir Martin Sorrell, the world’s biggest advertising tycoon who last year took a (reduced) annual salary of only £50million.
He was bowling, I was batting. He wasn’t much good but as he ran in I couldn’t stop myself thinking: “I couldn’t even afford this man’s boots.” All my confidence went, the ball hit me on the pad. It was missing the stumps by a mile but I was given out LBW – by one of his employees! That is the very definition of “not a level playing field”.
I still remember it but happily don’t need to play on that field again. In many trades there is simply a rate for the job. Everybody gets the same. But very often your money depends on how you came in. Join young, on low pay, and it can set a low base for your whole career. You can only lever yourself up by getting a better offer from elsewhere and using it to bargain. But get taken on when they really need you and you may get a deal that serves you well for ever.
It isn’t just the person sitting next to you who wants to keep their pay a secret. The firm really, really wants it as well because, as the BBC knows, inequalities and anomalies once revealed must be sorted out and that costs money.
Who is worth what? So difficult! Is Chris Evans worth a hundred young nurses? Probably not. Is Clare Balding worth more than the Prime Minister? Quite possibly yes.
I used to work at a big magazine company where there were clearly defined pay grades. Near the top, above writers and the like, was the salary for knitting sub-editors on Woman and Woman’s Own.
These were people who could knit and sub at the same time: multitasking at its mostest and most crucial.
An inaccuracy in an article is regrettable, an error in a recipe is indigestible but a mistake in a knitting pattern is nothing less than a catastrophe: a kind mother or aunt humiliated, a Christmas sweater ruined, a long tangled yarn that starts with a cast-on and ends up a cast-off.
Knitting subs are worth their weight in gold (or wool) because if they cock up it’s like finding out you’re sitting next to someone earning more than you. A needle through the heart.
JOHN INGHAM IS AWAY