r/personalfinance • u/ekampp • Jul 02 '19

I received an accidental mail with all salaries for everyone in the company Employment

Hey, first time posting here. Hope this post will be ok.

This is problematic in regards to personal information discretion, but my issue is:

I realized I'm being significantly underpaid in comparison to others who do the same work as me.

I feel frustrated and upset about that fact. Not sure how to approach from here.

How would you approach the situation?

EDIT 1: Thanks for all the answers. There are many good ones in-between!

There are also a few that clearly want to see the world burn 😅

I had never expected this many replies, so please don't hold it against me for not answering each one of you.

RESULT:

First off. Again, thank you to all of you, who pitched in with your personal experiences, hardships, concerns, and advice. I have read through most of all ~2000 of them 😅

I have chosen to simply delete and bury the faulty email, and I will add a bit about being careful to not forward email-chains in our security newsletter this month instead. This way it will benefit everyone in the company to be wary of forwarding email-chains. The WHOLE chain will be forwarded.

I had a sit-down with the boss-man, and he agreed to give me a raise, and a promotion.

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38

u/not_here_for_memes ​ Jul 02 '19

Why would you be fired on the spot?

86

u/money_tester ​ Jul 02 '19

because companies don't like to reward blackmailers with money. It's a free excuse to get rid of someone with no repercussions legally. No judge on the planet is going to look at the quote given and say "what blackmail!?!" like this thread is doing.

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u/AmateurOntologist ​ Jul 02 '19 edited Jul 03 '19

But firings need to be justified or they can also be in trouble. OP has the goods on them and as long as they do not do anything that can be construed as blackmail, as many of the posts here have suggested, they should be in the clear.

Business is all about leverage.

Edit: ok, I get it. Labor laws are shitty in the US and you can very easily be fired for almost any reason, depending on the state and the employment contract.

24

u/money_tester ​ Jul 02 '19

> as long as they do not do anything that can be construed as blackmail

I don't understand your point. People are literally advocating doing something that can be construed as blackmail.

​

Setting up a meeting to discuss a pay raise right after you are known to receive salaries of the company can be construed as blackmail.

34

u/AmateurOntologist ​ Jul 02 '19

NEVER mention the email in this conversation

This is in the top comment on the thread. There are many other similar comments.

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u/Na3_Nh3 Jul 02 '19

Yeah but this point in this reply chain is after a comment that specifically advises how to word it when talking about the email. Your comment works anywhere in the chain before that one, but that's the one /u/money_tester is talking about.

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u/Erpderp32 Jul 03 '19

firings need to be justified

No, they don't. They just can't be due to something related to a protected class.

All the company needs to say is your position is not needed anymore, pack up your desk by 3.

Welcome to the majority of at-will states.

3

u/geoff5093 ​ Jul 02 '19

But firings need to be justified or they can also be in trouble.

Not if you're an at-will employee, they can fire you for any reason, they just can't say it was because of some protected class.

3

u/GoRocketMan93 ​ Jul 02 '19

Firings don't need to be justified in the vast majority of the United States. Very few people have contracts that don't say "employment is at-will".

4

u/TwistedRonin ​ Jul 02 '19

But firings need to be justified or they can also be in trouble.

The firing needs to be justified if the fired employee hits them with a wrongful termination suit. "They fired me because I asked them for more money after I received an email detailing I'm being underpaid," isn't grounds for wrongful termination and would be stupid to argue in court. You're going to get laughed at. At best, it's legal on the company's part. At worst, it opens you up to attempting to use information you didn't have permission to have access to in the first place.

1

u/xanderrobar Jul 02 '19

Sure, but if they've got legal grounds to fire OP already, why is OP still employed? Do you think the company is just sitting on a trove of fireable offenses until someone does something they don't like?

1

u/TwistedRonin ​ Jul 03 '19

I mean, that's a thing companies regularly do. Why else do you think write-ups are a thing?

But my point is, they don't need to have that trove of fireable offenses. All they have to do is point to the meeting and say, "We fired him because he wanted more money than we wanted to give him so we thought he was a flight risk anyway." Which is perfectly legal.

1

u/xanderrobar Jul 04 '19

Why else do you think write-ups are a thing?

If you work for a company that keeps write-ups solely for the purpose of firing a person, leave that place. Write-ups are supposed to help show you what's going wrong, and give you a chance to fix it before things go too far downhill.

I run a company, and we do not give write-ups just to ensure we've got a reason to fire someone. They get given out if something went seriously wrong. It's way cheaper to correct the mistakes of an existing employee who's trained up already versus finding and training a whole new employee. You seem to be implying that write-ups only exist so a company can say, "Bob started wearing Bernie shirts to work, I hope he's got enough write-ups so we can justify firing him". If this has been your experience with your employer... Believe me, there are better ones out there.

1

u/calm_incense ​ Jul 03 '19

But firings need to be justified or they can also be in trouble.

You know your comment is wrong. Why not just edit it?

1

u/[deleted] Jul 02 '19

You must not live in a right to work state. In North Carolina the employee or employer reserve the right to end employment at any time without any notice or warning unless a legally binding contract was signed stating otherwise. Granted I'm in the blue collar world but even as a maintenance tech making a really good salary I can be fired on a dime.

1

u/AmateurOntologist ​ Jul 02 '19

I don't, and I agree that OP must be careful about how they proceed. Worker's rights have been consistently attacked over the last four decades. We have to pick our fights, and do so carefully.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 02 '19

I completely agree. I fear though that the larger these corporations and conglomerates grow the worse it's going to look for the every man. Hopefully OP thinks very carefully about what they're going to do. Personally I would just rather field offers from other companies if possible and use that as leverage rather than what my current peers are making. Alas, it's not me or my decision.

1

u/AmateurOntologist ​ Jul 02 '19

Agreed. In any case at least OP knows what the usual rate for their job is.

1

u/GeraldBWilsonJr ​ Jul 03 '19

Are you sure it's only been 4 decades?

-2

u/looloopklopm ​ Jul 02 '19

Or... you know... OP actually does good work and his company wants to keep him around...

1

u/krackbaby9 ​ Jul 02 '19

It's just not necessary to keep that kind of trash around