Money Talks

You are listening to Working File, a podcast about design practice and its relationship with the world. My name is Andy Mangold.

And I'm Matt McInerney.

We're joined by Linda Eliasen and Annie Wang to talk about the most uncomfortable of subjects, money.

And we learned, even if you don't think you're worth it, just lie.

Well, big, deep breath. They say you're never supposed to talk about, what? It's sex, money, and religion in polite company. Right? Isn't that the saying?

And politics. Yeah.

Oh, and politics. Is there four things you're not supposed to talk about?

No one's ever accused you of being polite company, Andy. Come on.

That's true. Well, we're gonna break that rule tonight, so, take a hike, Emily Post, because this episode is gonna be all about money. The money that we make, the money that we don't make, everything money-related. And we're joined by two returning guests, Annie and Linda. Hello, both of you.

Hello.

Hi.

Hello.

So, we're gonna hold the carrot out here and say that on this episode, each of us is going to, to a certain degree, whatever degree we are comfortable, discuss how we have been paid over the years for our jobs in the design world, different aspects of it. But first, I wanna talk about why we're doing this because it's not just a publicity stunt. This is something that I think is important, and I think things like this podcast and things like the AIGA does their salary review every year which gets turned into a bigger census which we've talked about on this show.

All these things that make the things that people don't usually talk about, like salary and pay, a little more transparent, I think is a good thing for the industry. Because it, first of all, limits the opportunities for companies to take advantage of people by paying them less money than they should pay them if more of us are talking about what we're getting paid and it's more understood what our value is. And also, I think it's something that empowers people that may feel like they don't deserve a certain salary or may feel like their contributions are not welcome, to go into a salary negotiation or go into a job interview and actually ask for what they're really worth. So those are the reasons that... Or some of the reasons we're gonna talk about this stuff. Do other people have other motivations behind doing this show?

Okay, am I allowed to say that I'm not totally convinced that it's a good thing, and I'm nervous about it?

Yes, you are allowed to say that. This is a safe space. You can say whatever you like.

Oh good. It makes me very uncomfortable, and also, didn't New York just pass a law where employers are not allowed to ask for past salaries 'cause that's a way to discriminate? So, I'm not sure if I'm totally on board, but I'm willing to try and talk about it.

Well, so, that's an interesting thing because that law that was passed is actually at the root of this. The reason they asked you for past salaries in most job applications is because... Let's say they're planning on paying you a million dollars, and you're like, "Well, my past salary was $200,000." Something tells me your job offer is not gonna be for a million dollars because they think they can get away with paying you less for that. That's pretty much the only reason that I can think of to ask for such a thing as part of an interview process. Is there other reasons I should be aware of?

My understanding is that it is strictly an attempt to stop discriminating between men and women in salary, and I think that probably... What?

[chuckle] I'm sorry. That was one of those, "Oh, wouldn't that be a nice world to live in?"

Where that doesn't happen?

Where that were true, that that's why people are doing it.

It's been framed to me as, that's the reason the law is being passed. Am I...

Oh, oh, oh, oh. No, no, no, no, no. I thought you were saying that that's why employers ask you.

Oh, no.

The reason there's a law against it is 'cause it's discriminatory behavior.

Yeah.

That's...

Yeah, there's really no other reason I can think of to ask.

Not that the government's always doing good stuff now, but that's my understanding of why that law is being passed.

Yeah, and on the contrary to what you're saying, Andy, I had a job offer recently where they were nervous that they weren't gonna be able to match my last salary, so, it's the opposite. They were like, "Oh, we want you to work here, but we can only offer this much, and we just wanna let you know that straight away and see kinda where you're coming from."

Sure, I get that, although I will be a little critical of that in that if the company isn't afraid they can match your salary, like boo-hoo. They're afraid they're gonna shame themselves by offering you too little money? They're a corporation. They don't get to have that kind of embarrassment.

I will say on that front, I think it's more... I've been in that situation where I just was worried I might be wasting someone's time where you're like, "Here's what we have budgeted for this role. I don't really know where you fall on the spectrum," 'cause we already had a show about design titles. That's a fuzzy world. What does that mean? So I've been in that situation where I'm like, I know exactly what we have budgeted, and sometimes people wait 'til the very end to talk about salary, and I'm kinda like, "We'd like to talk about it up front just so you know... If we don't offer you enough, you don't have to go through this process. That's totally okay if you just say, 'No, F you. Go away.'"

I'm also curious when you have a... When you've applied for a new position, does anyone add an extra, or... I think I've never really... For me, I've never had someone ask me directly, while I was going through the process, of what I made last, but it was more like, "What is your expectation?" And does that go around the loophole?

Yeah, I think I've gotten both.

I don't know.

It's a slightly less crappy way to ask that question, but it's really getting at the same thing. They want you to say an expectation that is lower than they're willing to pay you so that they can offer you something lower than they're willing to pay you.

Yeah, that's true.

Which, they have every capitalist motivation to do that, I understand why that happens, but it doesn't make it okay, and I think it's still kind of trashy.

Yeah, and nothing stings worse than when you say, "Oh, well, I'm expecting maybe about this much," and they just say, "Okay, sure, that sounds great."

"Deal."

"Dang it... "

And you're just like, "Oh."

"What did I do?"

"I could have asked for more."

"That's pretty bad, they took the first offer."

Yeah, exactly. Don't ever be the one who says the first number.

It's true. And I will say that part of the interesting part about this show is that we all come from different career backgrounds. I have never actually applied for a real job. I've never gone through that process, I've never had to negotiate for a salary, so I don't know what it's like to be on that side of the table. But I have hired plenty of people, and so, I will say that because of how I feel about this process, at my company, we first of all don't allow negotiations on salary whatsoever, which is two-part. One, we don't wanna favor people that are better at negotiating and pay them more, because that's the skill you're testing there. You're not paying people based on merit at that point, you're paying people based on how good they are at negotiating for themselves, which is a skill that is totally unrelated to their actual skill at doing their job. So, that's one thing.

And the other thing is that we... Basically like Matt said, going in, we're like, "Look, we're very transparent about it." And I think the way to have that conversation, if you are an employer, is to be upfront and be like, "Here's how much this position is going to pay." And if you allow people to negotiate, tell them that, and if you don't tell them that, and if they wanna walk away, they could walk away. This whole idea of, like, "Ooh, the company's worried that they're not gonna be able to pay you enough, so they ask you what you expect to make." That, to me, is just kind of a shady tactic to maybe take advantage of you, because you as a corporation don't get to feel embarrassed for not paying them enough money.

That's not a thing you get to fall back on at all.

Well, I think it was the time-wasting thing. People are just wanting to preserve everyone's time. If it turns out that that number is actually way too low, and suddenly you're like, "Oh, okay, well, then we don't have to go through this whole process."

Yeah.

I'm on board with that idea. Just say upfront, "Here's the amount we can spend." If you say, "Well, that's too little," then, "Okay, we will not waste two days of your time," or whatever the interview process is.

I can tell you, I've had that exact experience and it's still awkward. It's awkward to sit down with a total stranger essentially and be like, "Before we start this whole thing, here's a number of money." And then it's also awkward to have them to be like, "Yeah, that's not really gonna cut it," and they just walk away. But as awkward as that is, I think it's good to do that, get over it, let it be awkward, and then just go on with your process because you... You wasted people's time as little as possible, which I think is an important thing to consider. So yeah. Other thoughts before we just dive in here?

I will say I don't disagree with the idea, negotiating, but it's more because... Maybe it's different for you 'cause you're in a central location, but sometimes we find out things about a candidate that are like, I don't know, "Hey, the cost of living where I live is way higher, are you willing... " We always have a range and not a specific number, so it's kinda like, "Okay, you live in San Francisco versus," I don't know, "Texas or something. We're willing to negotiate. Okay, you have a higher cost of living, that's an acceptable reason to raise the salary for us." I guess that doesn't come up for you, Andy, but...

Sure.

And I do see reasons for negotiating being a thing. Maybe that's bad because... I don't know. I don't know.

Well, it's not bad. I think what that highlights is that you should be open to being wrong, which is essentially what you're saying.

Yes.

You're saying, "Oh, we think this is a fair pay," and they're saying, "Maybe that's not fair pay." And you agree with them after understanding the reason. I think that's a good thing, to be open to re-evaluating things. Yeah, in our situation, that's not as likely because we are talking about similar circumstances. Everyone's in the same city, we're at one office, so, some of those things don't come up, but I do think that's also a separate thing. If one of our existing employees thinks that some part of our compensation package, whether it's benefits or pay, is unfair or inequitable or not cutting it, then we wanna hear that from them even if they're a current employee. So I think that's an important thing, but to me, it feels different, whether or not you have that lane of feedback open with potential employees, current employees, whoever, is a little bit different from whether or not you open negotiations at the table when you're looking to hire somebody.

Fair enough.

Or maybe not.

We disagree. Should I be mad about that? Sorry.

No, I don't think so. What were you going to say in there, Linda?

I was gonna say that it was important for me to jump on this call because of the people who are going to have to negotiate. Again, in a perfect world, I think that everybody would be really transparent, and there wouldn't be all these big unknowns, and you wouldn't have to be a great negotiator to also be a great designer and be compensated well for that skill, but unfortunately, there are a bunch of companies out there who are still operating that way, and...

Yeah, most of them, I would say.

Yeah, and for the first three years that I was working, I had no idea that negotiation was an option. I had no idea that I could go to my boss at my anniversary, or at any time, really, and say, "Hey, I think I deserve a raise for the following reasons." I just didn't even know that I had that option until another one of my female employees started coaching me a little bit on [chuckle] how this stuff works. And my mind was blown. It's crazy. But it's one of those things that you can't know until, I don't know, until you know.

No, I think that's really great to hear, 'cause I think I'm still in the unsure of negotiating, I've always been shy about it because I convince myself that whatever package was offered to me, it's like, this is the best package that I could've gotten at this time.

That's interesting, that you felt that, and I think that maybe us girls will have a stronger opinion on that side of things. That's...

And to reiterate, I agree. That's half the reason I wanna do this show, is that I want to empower people out there, especially younger people. I think a lot of students or recent graduates listen to this show and I want to empower them to know that this is how the world works, even if I'm also gonna be critical of the fact that companies are still behaving this way, which is not something I can really get behind.

But it's actually a perfect transition. So, I am gonna go first and I will say that I have the privilege of being able to talk about whatever I want because I have no boss, I have no... I do have a contract with my employer, we have legal documents binding the relationship between those of us who started the company, but I have no limitations on what I can or cannot talk about, and I also have enough privilege to not be afraid of any kind of repercussions, so, I can talk about anything. And I do wanna start actually with my very first ever paid design job, which was an internship, kinda part-time thing, that I started my sophomore year of college and I worked at this place for three years. So this was back in... I guess I got this job in 2009, initially.

So from 2009 to 2012, I worked there and I made $12 an hour for the entire three years I worked there. And this is actually an interesting example because I did not know that asking for more money was an option. That had never occurred to me.

I figured, like, "Oh, I have this boss and they'll give me whatever I deserve." And I just kept $12 a year for the entire three years I was there, and only right before I left that job did I talk to one of the other employees, he was a friend of mine, actually the person that got me the job there, and he was like, "Oh, yeah, I'm making like $23 an hour." I'm like, "What are you talking about?"

And it turns out that he was going to the boss every six months and saying, "I deserve more money," and they were saying, "Yes, you do, here's some more money." And it's not to say that if I'd done the exact same thing, I would have gotten as far as this person did, but that was my first brush with the sort of world of negotiating for salaries. And frankly, I am not somebody that lacks self-confidence, I'm not somebody that has a tremendous amount of shame, but there's something that just felt like dirty to me about going to somebody and asking for more money.

And I think, what I thought at the time was that it was something I shouldn't have to do. It just felt like if I deserved more money, I should get it, and if I don't get it, then it's either because they can't afford it or because my work isn't good enough or valuable enough to them, or because my boss was a jerk. But if my boss was a jerk, I didn't feel like hashing that whole thing out, I just felt like it shouldn't be something I have to do, and kind of on principle I never did it. And also because I was embarrassed to do something like that, I think. It's hard to remember exactly what I was feeling at the time.

So I was digging through all my emails 'cause I ended up getting a second job, another part-time job at a different design studio in the city after I quit this job. And you would think I would have learned my lesson, but I'm digging through my emails and this second job, which, now I have multiple years of experience at this point, I also had... I was getting close to having my degree, and I took another job and guess what they paid me? $12 an hour, and I took that as well...

At my second job.

You were like "Oh I'm used to that, so that works."

You were still in college at the time?

Yeah, I was a senior in college when I took this job. Which, I had that job for my senior year, part of my senior year, and then I also had it more or less full-time for most of the summer after my senior year. And the one thing that was different about this job is they did give me raises on their own. They just kind of like, "After the first four months, here's an extra dollar an hour," or something. They just kind of had that built into the system.

Oh, that's nice.

Yeah, that was super nice.

So, I did end up making a little more money there by the time I was done, but I did not negotiate at all for salary. I have the email right in front of me and they said, "Here's what we can pay you, it's $12 an hour," and I said, "Sounds great. Beep, beep, beep." So yeah. Those were my first two paying design jobs, and transparently, those are the only two paying design jobs I've had other than having started my own company.

Nice.

So, let's dive into that, because an interesting rollercoaster.

Yeah. Well, internships especially, 'cause I had three internships when I was in college, and the first one was at an ad agency and it paid $10 an hour. And then I worked for a... I'm not gonna mention names specifically, I think that's how I figured I would get around this.

Sure, I didn't mention names, either.

Yeah. And I worked for a TV studio for zero dollars. It was for...

That was an easy one to reveal, Linda.

Bad job negotiating there, Linda, you really...

It was in exchange for class credit. So, this was me not having to take Typography III or whatever. So, yeah. So I was paid with class credit and nothing else. But because of that, I had to still bartend and be a waitress and everything full-time on the side, and I remember having one of those moments, Andy, that you had, where one of my co-workers, I found out, made a few more bucks than me and I had been working there longer than her, so I went to my boss and was like, "Hey, I don't think this is fair, we do the same amount of work," blah blah blah. And he was like, "Oh, well, she has a kid." And I was like, "What does that have to do with me?"

It's technically discrimination, I'm not sure...

I think she was gonna ask, is that fair or unfair? Is that the boss being kind, or is that unfair because you shouldn't consider that?

Yeah, or because... Yeah, our life situations maybe shouldn't be taken into account when we're being compensated for our work. I don't know. I didn't know how I felt about it, but all I knew is it shut me up and I was just like, [chuckle] "Okay." I'm good at bringing up the negotiation, but then as soon as I'm shot down, I'm just like, "Alright... "

"Thanks for the talk."

Actually, I think part of why I didn't negotiate in either of my first two jobs for salary at all... Not salary, for pay an hour, it was a part-time job. Part of why I didn't negotiate for pay, I think, is that at my core, I really just want to diffuse conflict and make everyone around me happy.

Oh, totally.

And so the idea of bringing up something that might cause conflict or might be some kind of issue is something I'm really averse to. I'm generally just trying to make everybody chill.

I think that is part of the problem, too, at least when it comes to young Andy negotiating for his pay.

And that can be a very un-chill situation, depending on how it pans out.

I remember thinking about that situation, just stressing out and be like, "Oh, I think I want to ask for more money," and then pacing in a circle for hours.

It's not a great mindset.

Well part of why it's so uncomfortable is you're essentially saying, "Dear boss, I believe you are currently undervaluing me." Obviously, it shouldn't be personal, in a perfect world, but it feels personal, to be like, "You are not paying me enough to be here. I think I am great and deserve more money."

Well you say it shouldn't be personal, but you are saying, "There's a dollar amount attached to me, and I think you're wrong." It is personal.

It's a deeply personal thing.

Yeah, weird.

Which is part of why it's uncomfortable to talk about.

It's a very specific way to stack yourself up to other people. If you ever find out what anyone else makes, you're like, "Oh, I guess I'm a less valuable person than that person, it turns out."

It's so arbitrary, too. Like my first job, so I worked for... I had a non-design career before. And my first job out of college was... I wanna say an events/admissions day coordinator for one of those... It's a... Do you know Full Sale? They're like these schools that teach.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So...

Kind of like a contemporary trade school, almost, is how I would describe it.

It was a trade school, and it was my first job, proper job, full-time job out of college, the first time around. And my starting salary was like $26,000, and at the time I was just like, "Oh, this is great." I didn't even think of negotiating anything. I was promptly fired after six months 'cause I was not qualified for the job. It was really hard.

It was totally fine, but I was just like, "Oh, okay, so this is not something that I wanna go into. That's cool, learning that now." But then my first design job after graduating design school paid twice that, so my base salary was like $50,000. So, in my mind, I was just like, "Oh, my god. I'm off to a great start." And I think that was a pretty high number for kind of first job out of school. But then I realized...

It feels that way.

Yeah, it feels that way, totally.

Right? Because before that you never made any money.

Oh, I was gonna say, not just feels that way, I'm clicking around AIGA's salary averages, that's a pretty standard average even for... It's not differentiating between junior and senior.

Yeah.

Just like most jobs, it seems, are falling somewhere between 50 and 70, even some higher titles, so, not crazy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And in that position where you're transitioning from being a college student, which is, you're just losing money pretty much, most people in college are losing money constantly. Your tuition and your costs of living are higher than the money you're making. Some people do pull it off, they get a lot of scholarships, they work a bunch of jobs, and they can actually break even, or even make money during college, but that's not the norm. So, transitioning lifestyle-wise from that lifestyle to having a job, truly, I think it's very difficult for anybody to know what is gonna be correct, what feels right. Because all of a sudden, you're like, "Wow, I make this much a week? That's a lot more than... "

I remember having my first internship, and by comparison, not... I don't know how you guys remember exactly what you made an hour, I don't remember what I made an hour, but I do know...

I looked it up.

I don't know where I have that recorded. But I do know... I definitely... In comparison to now, I would be like, "Oh, I can't live on that." But in comparison in college, I was like, "Oh! I have any money at all! This is great!"

Any money is good money, yeah. It makes it that much harder...

You're like...

It makes it that much harder coming out of graduation to try and figure out what your value is because anything seems good, because it's better than nothing.

Yeah, your bar's so low.

Yeah.

Yeah, after I graduated from college, I got one job offer in New York, and the guy who offered me the job had one of those conversations where he said, "We're gonna be straight up with you, we can only pay this much." And I think it was something like $30,000, or $35,000. And I had just gotten married, and I had three dogs, and I did the math, and I wanted the job so bad, but I was just like, "It literally doesn't work, I can't."

Does not compute.

Yeah. So, then I ended up getting my first job and it was... I think it was $46,000 or $48,000. But yeah, I was ecstatic. That number of dollars, to me, was just unheard of at the time. But I think...

Was that also in New York?

No, that was in Atlanta.

Okay.

That was... I think I made a very similar amount when I started, but it was in New York and I didn't realize how different that was going to be than I expected.

Yeah, that amount of money in New York does not go nearly as far as it does in Atlanta. [chuckle]

So, I'm gonna keep going here on my little list and people should jump in whenever they want. So, 2011 is the year I graduated. It's the year that we started our company, which we started in a house that... Well, actually, five of us. Four of us started the company, and one of my business partner's girlfriends lived with us for that year, so we split rent five ways in this little house in Baltimore that was barely big enough for us to live. Our living room was our office. I think our rent every month was like $1,600 divided by five. So, pretty cheap.

Sweet!

What?

So, we started the company right when we graduated, which was May of 2011. And between May and December of 2011, the money that I was paid for my job at the company I started amounted to just south of $10,000, which is obviously very little money. I also worked part-time that summer at aforementioned design studio to offset that. But part of the fact that rent was so cheap meant that... I basically got by that first year and just barely. And that felt okay because I got to start my own thing and kind of have my own...

You weren't working for the man.

I wasn't working for the man. Working on my own terms.

You're the man. You were the man the whole time.

Exactly.

So obviously, very little money. I would never have accepted a job that said it was gonna pay me $10,000 a year out of graduation.

[laughter] I guess when you put it that way...

Yeah, but that's where I found myself eight months, seven months after graduating there. So, the next year, 2012, this year, the business picked up and we were still living together, so we still had very few expenses. Part of starting a business together when you're young and reckless is that you have basically no expenses, especially in a design and technology world. We had our computers, we had already licensed the software we needed on them to do our work. So our expenses were really basically nil for those first couple of years. So, when work picked up, we had a good year, and we didn't have any expenses, really, still. So, in 2012... And at this point, I was not getting a salary. We were not paying ourselves with a payroll system; we we were just taking cheques from our clients, cashing 'em, and keeping some money in the business bank account, but mostly just distributing it out to the owners. And that year, I made right around $100,000, a little north of that. And with that money, I was very luckily able pay off my student loans and do pretty well. So, a big jump obviously from year one to year two.

Is that pre-tax or post-tax?

That's pre-taxes. That's not post-taxes. I have all pre-tax numbers. I don't remember what the post-tax numbers were. The 10,000 was pre-tax. They don't really bother taxing you much when you make $10,000 a year.

That's fair.

The government is mostly like, "You can keep that. We think you need it." [chuckle]

That's a really good second year, Andy.

It is. So, here's the rollercoaster of owning your own business. So, in 2013, for the very first time, we started paying ourselves a salary, and the salary we started paying ourselves was $50,000 a year, which was...

You said 50?

50, yeah. So, for that year... We've always had a... It's actually hard to tell even from looking at my tax returns and stuff, it's actually hard to tell how much money I actually made because some of the company's money is... It's all complicated and weird. But we were also getting bonuses every once in a while, it's everybody, depending on the performance of the company. So this year, we hired more people, so it was not just the four of us anymore. We got an office, so increased our expenses significantly, exponentially, and started putting ourselves on the payroll system. And so our first salary there was $50,000 and it was that for most of the year. I couldn't find the exact date we started paying ourselves a salary, it was some time in early 2013.

With bonuses, I've probably made another 10-ish in bonuses, I would bet. My take-home pay, pre-tax, was probably about 60 that year, if I had to guess. So that was that year. Next year, 2014, we started... And I should say at this point, we are paying ourselves significantly less than our employees because we're the ones that started this company, we believe that we wanna get this thing off the ground, and we're still young and still have... None of us have kids, none of us have mortgages, so we're happy to not pay ourselves what we think is a fair wage for our work. And we had no illusions about making... We knew for sure that we could go and get jobs elsewhere that would pay us more than what we were gonna pay ourselves. But again, that's part of the trade-off of doing your own thing.

So, yeah. 50 for that year. The next year, 2014, we started slowly raising our salary over time just to kind of ratchet it up. And by the end of the year, while we had raised our salaries to $75,000, over the course of that year, as it slowly raised, my actual take-home salary for the year was somewhere between 50 and 75. But by the end, my effective salary was $75,000. And since then, which was 2014, that's basically been my salary with the exception of inflating it every year with inflation a little bit. So, going up a couple percent every year, which is what we do for everybody in our company. So my salary now is a little under $80,000, I believe. And that's 2015, 2016. It's been pretty much that since then.

So, the other thing about starting your own company, and this, I actually can't talk about, but I will say that starting your own company has risks associated with it. And because of some of those risks, my pay last year was not nearly my salary. We had to take a hit financially for some reasons that I can't discuss. And so I did not get my full salary last year and I'm not going to this year, either. So, what my salary should be, my effective salary is supposed to be, like I said, around $80,000 a year, this is for somebody six years out of school working at a technology design studio, but my actual current salary right now is right around $48,000 a year. And not sure how long that will continue, but suffice it to say, come the end of the year, the money I will actually take home will be somewhere between $48,000 and $80,000, depends how the rest of the year goes.

And now you're in Baltimore. That's where...

Yeah, yeah, I should mention that, too.

Yeah, you should mention that.

Yeah, so we're in Baltimore, but our clients are all over the place. I think region is an important thing. So, that's basically what I've made for the entire time since I've been working as a professional. I also made a font that I sold, or gave away for free, rather, for a pay-what-you-want thing. For a couple of years, that actually made me almost $1,000 year in pay-what-you-want. It's really trickled off since then, I make a few hundred dollars a year now from that, which is another part of my income. And I also taught a couple courses, adjunct, for a arts college. And that does not pay very well, either. So...

A little bit more money from that also goes into my income, but really nothing compared to my actual job-job that gives me a salary.

You're not gonna disclose that podcast salary?

Oh, yeah. And Matt and I used to have a podcast that had some ads on it where we made a couple hundred dollars a month split three ways...

So that was pretty good too.

Nice!

That's awesome.

I think at the peak, I took home $300 a month. Pretty good.

That's good. And you were getting the...

I got the lion's share of it, I got way more than Andy because I did all the work.

Yeah, you were getting that double cut 'cause you also edited it.

That's right.

So there it is, I've laid it all on the table. That is the money I have made as someone starting their own business out of college in design, and sort of technology-specific design. We do mostly work for tech companies, which, I think, is also a big factor.

Before we jump into our stuff, can I just ask you, is it worth it to you, these years that you've taken a hit? Are you... Do you even really think about it? Are you ever like, "Ugh, I wish I wasn't running my own company so I could go make some giant salary at some giant company." Or are you just like, "No, whatever. I'm doing this because I want to, and it was worth it."

Here's what I'll say. The early years I felt it zero. I was not at all upset at the end of that first year we were in business to basically have made no money. I really, truly made no money after paying towards my student loans and paying rent, that was the money I had. And I was fine with that. I knew that it was gonna pick up at some point, and if it wouldn't, I would just go get a job, and it was exciting enough to start our own thing that it wasn't a hit. Now I'm getting older, I do have a mortgage now, so that's a consideration. So, this most recent hit has been significant. It's been significant emotionally, it's been significant financially, I've been tightening up my belt, and it's the kinda thing we're like, we all recognize that this cannot continue forever. If this is not... And there is an end in sight. So with that end in sight, it's something I can get through. But if I was told that in order to continue living my dream and having my own company, I would have to be paid $48,000 a year for the next five years, I would not be able to continue that. Or I would not choose to continue that, I should say. You can always do something if you want, but I would choose to quit at that point.

Got it.

'Cause that's not worth it. And I should say, too, I think this is maybe a whole 'nother topic, which is the ups and downs of either freelancing or starting your own company, I think it's actually useful for people to know what I would expect to get paid if I were to go into the job market right now. And so I spent some time thinking about that. And so if my job were to disappear tomorrow, I wake up in some alternate reality and our office is gone and all of my co-workers and friends have vaporized...

If I were trying to get a job in Baltimore or the Baltimore area, I would be looking to get a job either as a design manager or the head of design at a small company, or possibly even a project manager at a technology company. Those would be kind of the three things I'd be looking at, and I would expect to be making right about $100,000 a year for that job, is what I would go into negotiations looking for.

Yeah.

If I was to go to the Bay area, San Francisco or anywhere around there, I would expect to be making almost twice that much, for sure. And if I was to go to New York, I would probably expect to be making a little less than twice that much, right around those ranges. If I were applying for jobs now with the experience that I have, that's what I'd be going into negotiations trying to get. And I think I can... I can definitely say this, I have turned down one job I was offered in the Bay area for well over $200,000 that I just didn't wanna take. So, that feels like some confirmation that that is something that my work will be worth at least in that economy.

Yeah.

But yeah. There it is. I've laid it all out. Exhale.

Nice, and now we all just jump off the call and...

Yeah, we're like, "Okay cool."

Now we all hang up...

Now we all hang up and say, "Gosh, that was awkward."

We got all your information, we're gone.

Actually, I'll hop in... Honestly that made me feel more comfortable, was just hearing... Andy, I'll tell you a secret, I've made pretty much the exact same amount of money that you have in my life.

Woo-hoo! Maybe we're doing it right.

That sounds about right, somewhere between get out of college making the 40 to 50 range and then hopefully work your way up from there, and if you're in a small city, try to get to $100,000 and if you're in San Francisco, try to get to $200,000. That seems pretty reasonable. I get that.

As a design manager, I would say, yeah.

Yes. And I think a lot of that has to do with product design specifically. I think there's a big difference between working at a design firm that does branding and working in technology companies.

Unfortunately, yes.

And I should say, too, that part of the reason I'm somewhat comfortable, and not entirely comfortable, I'm sitting here fidgeting like a monster, part of the reason I'm somewhat comfortable sharing this is because I don't think I've made as much money as I could elsewhere, so, it's... If I had made just piles and piles and piles of money starting my own company, I think I might be less comfortable coming out here and being like, "Guess what everybody? I'm a rich guy."

Yeah.

But because I haven't, and I think I've actually probably made less money over the past six years than I could have in the regular job market if I'd just gone and gotten a regular job, that makes me a little more comfortable sharing it. And also, this is maybe a different conversation, too, but like I said, if I was applying for a job in the Bay area, I would be hoping to make around $200,000 a year. And I don't think that is reasonable.

I think that is entirely too much money to make for the job that I do, but I also recognize it's what the market will bear, and it's what people are paying for that kind of work. And so...

Well, is it unreasonable... I mean, given what you would have to pay for housing there, is it totally unreasonable?

Well, that's also unreasonable. Here's what I mean by that...

The whole thing...

The whole thing is unreasonable. [laughter]

What I mean by "it's unreasonable" is I am not gonna sit here as a... Basically a shapes-and-colors expert and be like, "You know what's worth $200,000 a year? Shapes and colors." Because I know what public school teachers get paid, and I know what people that work in the government and in the public sector get paid, and those are jobs that are worth, to me, much more money and don't make that kind of money, so...

Yeah.

Oh, totally, yeah.

If I were to go into that job, I'm doing it because that's what I can get paid. I'm not doing it because I think it's what I, on some ethical or fundamental or philosophical level, think I "deserve" for the work I'm doing, which I just want to specify because I think there's a distinction there.

Yeah, definitely. When I moved to San Francisco, I had heard about this class divide and this problem that people aren't being paid what they're worth.

I've read about the class divide in San Francisco.

Oh, god. So when I moved there, I really had no idea what I was getting myself into because I moved in with one of the school teachers, who, to me, it seemed like she worked just as hard, if not harder than I did, with screaming little kids all day, and yeah, it became really kind of awkward, I think. For me, I... It's not like she was being awkward towards me, it was like me feeling awkward in my own skin, being paid what I was being paid in Silicon Valley. 'Cause you're like, "Yeah, I'm the shapes-and-colors person, why do I deserve this?" It's BS, but then...

Yeah. And we don't, I'll admit it.

But just because I don't think we deserve to be paid two or three times as much as a public school teacher in most cities doesn't mean that I'm going to not get what I can get for a job if I'm applying for one.

Right. And also I think it's that... I think you're saying that someone else is being undervalued, not you're being overvalued, or both?

Exactly. Well, maybe a little bit of both probably.

Well, I feel like for the amount of money that rent is in that city, I felt like I was able to live a somewhat comfortable life, being paid what seems like a ridiculous amount of money. So, I lived in a 350 square foot apartment, a tiny studio apartment, by myself. It had no washer or dryer or outdoor access. It had two windows [chuckle] and it was $3,000 a month and...

That's wild, but that's normal, yeah.

Yeah, but that's just how much it costs to live in that city and to be within a reasonable distance to your office. So, yeah. So yeah, I was getting paid "well," but that much of your money just goes straight into rent and you never see it again, and [chuckle] ugh, yeah.

I also moved to San Francisco, I live in Oakland now, but I remember when I was still in Minneapolis, I kept jumping jobs [chuckle] because I was just like, "Eh, I'll just go on to the next thing." But the last job I had in Minneapolis, I kind of knew firsthand that I was gonna move back to the West Coast, so I specifically looked for a job that paid more, so when they did the whole cost of living calculations, that it would be based off of the last salary that I had in Minneapolis, which was pretty decent, it was around $72,000, I guess. And so when they did the math, when I moved to the Bay area, the cost of living was whatever it was, but it just blew my mind that there was such a huge jump from Minneapolis salary to tech salary...

Yeah.

But then, my apartment, when I moved here, I was like an in-law. I felt like I was Harry Potter living under the stairs and it was like $1,800 and I was like, "I'm so lucky, it's under $2,000."

Like, "Oh, my god."

Yeah that actually is pretty good.

I know, right? [chuckle] I was like, "It's got a bathroom, this is great."

The first place I lived in, I lived with roommates so that I could pay off my student loans. And yeah, it was like $1,500 or $1,600 a month.

I think what also complicates the salary stuff and benefits package in the tech... In the Bay area too is that there's equity and then vacation days. So the entire packages... It gets really muddy as to salary is just one fraction of your entire compensation package, so, it's really hard to say, "Well... " I don't... I'm a tech baby basically, we have pre-sliced apples in the fridge, that's the vibe.

And so...

Wait, really? Pre-sliced apples?

Yeah. We have whole apples, but we also have pre-sliced apples. So...

They can't even trust you to cut your own apples, geez.

No.

So it gets really confusing 'cause then if you calculate also catered lunches and then the money that you'll be saving on food, or... I know friends at the big tech companies where basically everything is compensated, so that gets added to your "salary." So it's really hard to be like... At least for me, I'm like, "Uh... "

Actually, wait. Wait, what do you mean it gets added to your "salary"? They actually tell you that "Here's the value that you're getting in lunches," or you're doing it yourself?

Oh, I'm doing the math myself. I'm like, "Okay, if I spend $10 on lunch every day, and that's not... Before free lunches, how does that calculate into my total salary?" And...

Although it's actually interesting...

Isn't that also a trick? Isn't that a trick to keep you at your desk at work?

Oh yeah, it's totally a trick. It's absolutely a trick.

Okay.

But it's still kind of...

It's actually interesting, though, because there's actually been some interesting lawsuits in the past few years with these tech companies that have the campuses where they give you free food, where...

Yeah, it's pre tax...

Some states have been saying that you have to actually calculate the value of that food and then include that in the taxable income...

Totally, yeah.

For the people you're giving these benefits to, which really throws a wrinkle into some of the ways that those companies want to account for their money. Not that that's interesting at all, I don't know why I bothered saying that, it's kinda boring.

Well, there are some nerds who are like, "Say, more Andy."

"Talk more about tax code."

Yeah, I think the first big jump for me was when I moved to new York and I went from my $48,000 job to a job that paid 80, and that was for a designer position at a company. My role was just designer.

That's a big jump, that had to feel pretty amazing.

Oh, yeah. I was on top of the world.

Yeah. And then I think that within a year, I moved jobs and then negotiated up. I had been learning about negotiating and trying my best to bite my tongue when I said these seemingly huge numbers out loud into a phone at a recruiter. I was like, "I think I deserve 90 this time," and I don't believe that. I don't think that my design skills are worth that much when I was moving to New York for the first time, but I just asked a lot of people... Or everyone who was willing to share that information with me, and I've been surprised actually how many people are willing to talk about this stuff, if you're like, "Hey, this is just between us, I'm just curious because I wanna make sure that I'm paid what everyone else is being paid." But yeah, people were like, "Oh, yeah, you should definitely ask for this much, and just like don't think twice about it because that's what other people are being paid, so you're worth that much, too."

Something came up on our last episode that I thought was great, was it Robyn that said this? When you're negotiating salary, just imagine what your cockiest male friend would say. Just say that.

Yeah. It's a pretty good rule of thumb, I think.

Yeah.

So maybe we should get back to why we thought this was important. Why do we wanna talk about this? Why is it important to even mention it, when we're all uncomfortable about it?

I think it's... Well, having conversations with my female friends, I think it's also really important to... Even if it's not totally transparent publicly or talked about openly, it's still really good to share that type of information. Because I had a really close friend who had a couple of... She had fewer years in design professionally than I did, but she was making half of what I was making and still living in San Francisco. But it just blew my mind that that was happening, and a lot of it is just because you don't know what is actually out there so you just kind of assume that that's the best offer that you're gonna get, or that that's how much you deserve. Yeah, it gets really interesting to hear the variety of salaries that people get 'cause they can vary so much. Even when... I feel like I'm making enough money, I don't feel comfortable sharing it per se, but it's tech. Silicon Valley money, but I'm...

You got that tech tech money.

I know, I've got that free catered lunch.

You got that venture backed salary, is what you've got.

Yeah, but it's still... I'm still just like, "Wait." And I'll hear people make... Hear other people and their salaries, I'm like, "Wait, am I not making enough?" I'm still really confused because there's no... The range is so widely, and I'm not a product designer, so I'm like, "I know I guess I'm worth less than a product designer?" What does that even mean?

Yeah, I will say, too, that the regional difference is huge and the industry difference is really big. I keep in touch with some of the part-time employees and interns that have come through our office and keep talking to them, and numerous of them have left part-time working for us and gone and gotten jobs right out of graduation that pay significantly more than I make because they moved to San Francisco, moved to New York, and started working for some kind of tech company that has a lot of money to pay. So, that's something I'm used to at this point, I know that's going to happen to some of the talented people that come through our office, but it is very interesting to see that enormous leap that can be made when you either go to a different city or go to a different industry. And something Linda mentioned, which I wanna come back to, is that practical advice for getting paid more money. Sometimes it is easier to get paid a lot more when you change jobs, and even if you love the job you're in...

Totally.

You can do that thing where you go work somewhere else for a year and you say, "Do you wanna come back?" And now, "Look, I have a year more experience, I need a lot more money now." You can do that. That's a big reason I think a lot of people... Especially in our industry kinda jump around because it's one of the only ways that I think people feel comfortable asking for more money and it's also a way that you can justify it and kind of climb that ladder.

Yeah. Well I've found that once you have a job, people are only willing to give you that 5% bump every year.

Totally.

Yeah. But then when you switch jobs, you can get an extra of $40,000, an extra $60,000, it's insane.

It's so crazy. You're just like, "Oh, I just add this 40% padding to what I expect." But if I had stayed at the same job, like my first job, first design job, if I'd just stayed there, I think the increases were 1.5% to 3% a year, and that's just like, "Wait a second."

Yeah.

Yeah, that's currently the raise that we give ourselves every year that I give myself, is basically that essentially inflation, at least for the foreseeable future. So, I understand where that number comes from, but at the same time, if you can make a lot more money by leapfrogging, then leapfrog. Jump around.

Yeah, I think that if companies really value their employees, they should try to do that. And also, little things that I've had happen in my career that have been really nice have just been little bonuses, unexpected bonuses, and... I don't know why, but for me personally, that boosts morale a lot. So even if you're not able to give your employees a giant salary, it's amazing what a few hundred bucks here and there can do. And... Yeah, I think that also just... When I had that conversation with my co-worker about negotiations for the first time, I think that the thing that really blew my mind that I hadn't thought of before was just this thought of believing that you are worth more money and going in with a bullet list basically of the things that you've done that year, the ways that you've helped to improve the company, the ways that you've improved your own performance and saying, "Because of these reasons, I think that I deserve X amount of dollars now." And that was just a conversation I never even had with myself before. And again, like Andy, I don't think everybody should have to do that and the company should be paying people what they're worth.

Ideally.

But I think it's important for people to know that that is something that they are very allowed to do.

And I think this is especially true in the first couple of years of your career, the difference in perception and pay between fresh out of school, or even not fresh out of school, if you didn't go to college or whatever, like first design job, junior designer, underling to the underling. The difference in that versus just having two years experience is a huge difference. And you have to basically think about it, even though you've just been in a job for a while and you still feel like you and you are the same person and you may not even felt like you grew that much in terms of your skills, you are no longer a junior designer. You're now somebody with two years of professional experience doing this job, and imagine what that would be like to go to another company and say that, and then say that to the person at the company you're already in and see how that works out, probably.

Yeah.

I did wanna touch on some other reasons why people are uncomfortable talking about money in this exact sense, and some of the sort of things that are behind that. And one of them which I think we've already gone over but I do wanna put a point on is that one of the reasons it's uncomfortable to talk about this is because employers do their best to make it uncomfortable to talk about this. Some people have contracts that say they are not allowed to talk about how much they're paid with anybody. Some people don't have contracts but there is a subtle culture and they... Maybe not subtle, maybe an overt culture of, like, "You don't discuss this, the people that answer to you don't know how much you make and they shouldn't know how much you make." And companies may say they have their reasons for that, but at the end of the day, the biggest thing that does is it allows for a system of bias to pay people different amounts based on all sorts of unfair things.

If you are peers with people and the thing is not discussed, nobody is supposed to talk about it, you have a contract that says you're not supposed to talk about it, that just allows them to pay women less, to pay minorities less, to pay people that are quiet less, pay people that are not able-bodied less, which is the thing that I do think is BS. I get why it happens, and I recognize that and I think we should recognize that we live in the real world and that's what's happening out there. But that is one of the major motivations to have people not talk about this stuff, and I think it's one of the motivations for why we have a culture like this.

Yeah, and I also think that there's this really big problem with privilege floating around right now, where you don't want to be the asshole who's like, "Oh, this is how much I make." You don't wanna seem like you're bragging. And it's just a really sensitive subject especially since I've been there where I am the person been paid zero dollars at an internship, and then waiting tables all night to try and make up for it. And I remember looking at people like myself in the place that I'm at now with such severe envy, and I don't know, it hurts to do the thing that you love and to not be compensated well for it. So, some of us have fallen into places of privilege over others, and it just makes it awkward to bring it up.

Do you all remember, I think on Twitter there was this hashtag that was kind of like, "Share your salary"?

I do. Yeah.

And then somehow it had just turned into a lot of tech bros bragging... Like Backdoor bragging...

Backdoor bragging about how much they were making at their big tech companies? It started off with, in the beginning, most people being really honest about their highs and lows and ups and downs, but then it started feeling like, engineers being like, "I make this much money," or a design tech designer will be like, "Yeah, I started here but now I make tons of money."

Yeah, that's true, I did notice that thing. I will say, though, that even though that's a gross way to feel when you're doing it, like, "Ha-ha. Look, I've one-upped to the other engineer at this other tech company." Ultimately, I'm glad that they are posting those numbers online and that other people can look at them and say, "Holy crap. I need to ask for a raise."

Yeah, that's true. Totally, totally.

So, at the end of the day, I'm willing to abide a few arrogant bros bragging about how big their salary is to have that information be more publicly available.

Yeah.

There's that cocky dude we used for reference to say, "Oh, I'll just ask for what he's asking for."

Yeah.

So, Linda, so when you moved or when you check out companies for positions, do you use Glassdoor or other salary... Hired sends out like a 2017 salary guide, do you check those and have you felt that they've been pretty accurate? Or is it just kinda like, "Well, this also just depends on the company."

No, so I used to check those, especially when I was younger and kind of trying to figure it out. But now that I have this sort of extended community through Twitter, I ask other females that I know specifically... Well, I have a few male friends who I ask as well. But I just look to the job that I'm applying to and figuring out who's the most relevant person to ask. Maybe it's somebody who works in a company that's similar, or somebody that I feel like I can actually confide in and ask them that. And sometimes I'll ask a few people, and so I did this recently, and both people had very different answers. So I kind of let the person with the lower number know, I didn't give her any details, but I was just like, "Wink, wink, next time you're in San Francisco, you can charge a little extra." 'Cause I feel like we should have each other's backs a little bit. Especially when I was freelancing as an illustrator, a lot of times, people wanted you to just... They would say, "Oh, it's just a quick little thing, we have a hundred bucks for it." They try to underplay it.

You're like, "Cool."

[chuckle] You're like, "You have no idea, this is gonna take me two and a half weeks, and also it's a real skillset that took me years to develop." So yeah, I tend to just ask my own extended community. And I'm looking for jobs right now, even, so I quit my job in San Francisco, moved to New York, and I've just been kind of contracting and bumming around with different agencies and stuff. But yeah, I'm just kinda using... Now I'm just kind of using my last salary as comparison, where I'm just trying to not necessarily even match that number. And I've had a few conversations about salaries with companies recently where I'm saying, "Let's just not even talk about the numbers 'cause right now I'm just worried about finding awesome people to work with." 'Cause that's another thing that I wanted to ask all of you, is that there's this theory that once you're making over, what is it, $60,000 or $70,000, that your happiness doesn't really increase with those incremental changes to your salary?

Until you hit a certain number, or... I heard that...

A certain number is... It is the number she gave, though, yeah.

Yeah. It starts at 70 and then your happiness really doesn't change much until you get up into the $300,000- or $400,000-range or something like that.

We're all just... Yeah.

I don't know. I feel like that was true for... It was definitely true for me in that basically a lot of money would not compensate for working with assholes.

Totally.

Yeah, that's another thing I did wanna mention at the end of this conversation, is that these are the numbers that kind of guide decision-making. Again, if I was applying for jobs, those are the kinda salaries I would be expecting. But there are a myriad of reasons to accept jobs that pay less than that. And case in point, I currently make way less than that because I have chosen to be my own boss and not to answer to anybody, which comes with its own pros and cons. So, I would be looking for the right combination of factors. Pay is not the only thing that'd be dictating where I worked, and for a company that was working for social good or for a company that was involved in something I really believed in, those things obviously are flexible, which I think it's important to say.

Yeah. Actually, I always... So, I do a similar thing to Andy where we're on a digital firm with a couple of friends, and I took a pay cut to come... When I started, I took a pay cut to come work with them 'cause I really liked them and I felt like it was time to move on from my last job. So, it hasn't always just been about trying to make more money; it's sometimes been about working with people I really wanted to work with.

Yeah. Exactly.

I don't know about that salary thing and happiness. It could be it turns out or it double turns out, but it feels right. You're basically saying, if you are one of the privileged people in the United States that basically does not have to worry about being impoverished because you make over this amount of money, then beyond that, I know plenty of rich people that are real depressed, so...

I can see that being a real thing.

I think it seems to make logical sense if you just say, "Oh, okay, you have enough money in the bank account that an emergency doesn't destroy you and you pay your rent and you get to do fun stuff, that seems pretty reasonable. Anything more is just more money in the bank and what does that mean to you?"

Yeah.

Yeah. Exactly.

Can't take it with you.

Have we acknowledged all of our various privileges around this conversation?

We're in an industry that pays well. All of us were able to afford higher education for the thing we do. So, that's an enormous privilege that, of course, changes the landscape of potential jobs we can get and potential salaries we can be paid. I think it's important. Yeah, I think we kinda covered that, though.

Yeah.

Well, let's go to our final thoughts, then. What do we think?

Alright. Final thoughts? Somebody else have a final thought immediately come into their mind?

I like the idea that maybe this gives someone some negotiating tools, 'cause I feel like I spend a lot of time thinking about what the absolute ideal situation for hiring someone would be, but I know I'm on one side of it. So, acknowledging the real world exists, I hope someone comes away thinking, "Oh, maybe I am either worth a little bit more or I can at least pretend that I feel that way to somebody else and try to negotiate a little bit more," 'cause that seems like a good for everybody.

Yeah, I really want especially young women to know that they should feel just as valued as everyone else that they work with. I think it took me years to get to that point, where I felt like, yeah, I was equal to the men that I worked with.

Yeah, I guess my final thought is that everyone should know that all of the companies that are hiring people, especially the bigger companies, have calculated and they're talking to each other and they're studying market reports and they're doing everything they can to pay you as little as possible. So, you should do...

You should do whatever you can to fight that. I think it feels gross because it feels like you're trying to gain an advantage, you're trying to do better than you should do. But fighting for that and being aware of what other people are being paid and negotiating on your behalf and standing up for yourself is only making up that deficit of how much capitalism is trying to suck your life away and give you as little money for it as possible.

I guess...

Smile.

Yeah.

Smile emoji, smile emoji.

Oh, no, you have to add "lol," as in self-defense after that, be like "lol." I don't... My final thoughts, I am always so unprepared for this, but I totally agree with Linda. I think so many... I think just believing that you are worth maybe what your other friends are making or what your male friends are making is so important because I still find myself just being, not making excuses, but being like, "Well, because of this X, Y and Z, I don't really deserve this much money," or "I don't really need to make as much as this person because of whatever other circumstances." But I think it's super important to just ask around, or ask as much as you feel comfortable, and then kind of advocating for yourself. Or if not, just finding someone at work to be an advocate for you 'cause I think there's studies where it's easier for women to advocate for each other. So, that's a really great way to do it, too. Just squad up and advocate for each other and help each other out.

Yeah, definitely.

Whew. Well, thank you all. This has been a thing.

Yeah, this is intense.

Does anybody have anything they wanna promote?

I'd like to promote myself. I think I'm worth a lot of money.

You should hire Linda if you're in New York. Or I guess are you accepting remote work, too, Linda? What are you looking for?

Yeah. I don't even know right now.

I'm in New York, I'm looking for... I'm just looking for the right thing, you know?

Looking for that right fit.

Yeah. I just wanna work with some awesome people.

Cool. So if you're the right fit, reach out to Linda.

Anything you want to plug at the end here, Annie?

Oh, shout out to pre-sliced apples, I guess.

Well, thank you both for joining us for this tenth conversation. I can't go to bed right now. I'm all jazzed up. I feel like I've got my fight or flight going on. It's like...

Aww.

Backed into a corner. Wooh. I've gotta do something to defuse.

This has been Working File. Thanks for listening.

Real simple homework this week. Just go to Twitter, hit new Tweet, type @workingfile and then just send us your salary. Why not?

And maybe we'll feel bad about ourselves, if you work in San Francisco.