Re: Pulling it slightly OT: TW Salaries--Is it me, or are people greedier? (Mild Vent)

[Joy Brady <joy_m_brady -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

--- a TECHWR-L list member wrote:
> Do I deserve
> the money? Of course I feel I do

It's funny.  A couple of years ago, I was chatting
with an old DBA  (a self-declared "Socialist") and
complaining about having been underpaid in past jobs
(tech-writing and others), and I stated that "I
deserve x amount of dollars."  He replied, "No you
don't. None of us 'deserves' more than a living wage
for our services."  I'm consider myself a
"Capitalist," but he still gave me a point to ponder. 
I'm now making 10,000 more than several of my friends,
who are dedicated, experienced school teachers.  I
don't know... I feel blessed to be prosperous, and I
have learned that trying to bargain for the best rate
you can get is a good and practical thing to do.  I've
begun to detach, however, from feeling that the world
owes me this wonderful luck.  I do not feel that I
"deserve" this, but I am grateful, and I do have plans
on how to spend the money!  I try to work to "earn" it
as much as possible. (But I've worked SO MUCH HARDER
in the past for much less.)

Wonderful story about Enrico Caruso (gotten from
http://www.paix.com/caruso/caruso2.html):  

"His last contract is said to have been handed him
with a blank space for the figure, but it had been
whispered to Caruso that the board was prepared to go
as high as $4,000.

"I don't think there is a singer in this world who in
one performance can give more than twenty-five hundred
dollars' worth of singing," Caruso is said to have
replied. "If I ask for one cent more than twenty-five
hundred dollars the public, one way or another, will
find out and want from me that one cent more of
singing which I have not got. Therefore, leave matters
as they are, with only one difference; instead of
giving me one first-class cabin from Italy to America
and back, put down what they call today cabin de
luxe."

How do I give that $10,000 more of tech writing? :-)

Well, back to earning it...


=====
Joy Brady
Technical Writer
Columbus, Ohio, USA

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