Does the market really matter if I'm happy with what I'm being paid?
Sure it does. A portion of your happiness at work is down to the quality of people you work with, no? If your company routinely lowballs, then when the dust settles you are going to find yourself surrounded by people who had no choice but to accept that rate. The market therefore affects you whether you care about it or not.
Also, things change. Plenty of money to live on as a bachelor might leave you a bit short if you want to start a family. If you don't "need" the money right now, stick it in a savings account. Because remember this: someone is getting the value you create. Why shouldn't it be you?
I guess this is just a "to each his own" sort of thing. Personally I'm only truly happy when I have all the information (or as much as I can get in practical terms, anyway) and I'm still satisfied with the situation. I suppose others are fine without.
Note that this isn't a competition thing. I wouldn't necessarily be dissatisfied just by the concept of an equal peer making more than me; I'd be disappointed that I could be making more but I'm not.
I'm personally happy if I don't feel like I'm getting screwed for my time/output. I can't really judge that very well other than gut feeling if I don't know how much other individuals around me are making.
In order to find out if I'm getting boned I've had to go out and interview with other companies to pull offers to gauge the market, this is probably a net negative for all sides.
To me, this raises the question, "How do I determine whether to be happy with what I'm getting paid?" This is where having open salaries would be beneficial - I could compare my salaries against others with the same skills and experience and determine whether I was being treated fairly or not.
This is my thoughts exactly. I'm happy with my salary because it enables me to live comfortably and purchase the things that I want. What other people make doesn't directly factor into it at all (not withstanding the fact that prices usually follow the average income, which affects my purchasing power).
Comparing incomes and constantly thinking about what you _could_ be making just leads up to never being satisfied with any kind of salary in the long run.
>Comparing incomes and constantly thinking about what you _could_ be making just leads up to never being satisfied with any kind of salary in the long run.
I couldn't disagree more. The first career company I worked for, I got transfered up from a less-than-level-one position into a high end dev position through my own sweat [1]. Due to company policies about how much a maximum raise could be I found myself making less than 1/5th of what that position would normally get. For the first year or two I wasn't bothered because I didn't have too much experience. 5 years later when every piece of software we had deployed was my architecture, using my libraries, etc., etc. I started to be bothered seeing other people have all these possessions while being so frugal and getting no where. Even though I had no idea what other people were making, it was totally obvious I was getting screwed but I didn't know how badly. I didn't know what my market rate was.
Now as a contractor I know very closely what my market rate is because I get to test it at least twice a year (as opposed to once every 2-5 years before). I know what other contractors are making, I'm the lowest of my circle of friends or close to it. That doesn't bother me because we all do different things and they've all been contracting longer.
I know exactly where I stand and I see an obvious growth path and target. I have real (or at least the chance of it) feedback into where I stand instead of made up nonsense in some yearly meeting where your raise was set by someone you don't even know weeks ago and the things you have to "improve" on your yearly review are structured to justify it. Did my new contract rate go up, down or stay the same? Based on contacts and job ads, did I follow the market or diverge? If market rates went up and my rate didn't that's a real call to action. "Demonstrates acceptance of company vision - needs work" is not.
[1] Not trying to toot my own horn, others did as well. It was probably an artifact of how awful it was where we were.
That's ultimately the motivation for my argument - in which system are the greatest number of actors likely to be content?