The One Thing I Would Have Liked To Say While On 20/20

I’m passionate about what I do.

While I love making money, my salary is not why I come into work every day. I love what I do. I’m passionate about being a community manager. And I am passionate about the people I am connecting with every day.

So to me, being transparent about my salary is no problem. Regardless of what that number is now, or in the future, the real value I am getting is from the skill set I’m developing and the journey of self discovery happening along the way.

Transparency is all relative to how good we feel about what we do. So how transparent are you?

Click here to check out our interview with 20/20.


6 Responses for "The One Thing I Would Have Liked To Say While On 20/20"

  1. Katie Konrath January 19th, 2009 at 2:08 pm #1

    I like how you mention passion as something that’s an important consideration about your salary. I feel the same way. When I’m doing something I enjoy and am passionate about, I’m getting so much more out of my job than just the $$$. I’d much rather have that than a high paying job that makes me feel depressed every Sunday night because I have to work the next day.

  2. Ryan Paugh January 19th, 2009 at 3:41 pm #2

    Hey Katie,

    Thanks for commenting. I think we are in the same boat when it comes to how we weigh our salaries versus our passion for the job itself. That was my biggest problem with the 20/20 interview … nowhere did anyone talk about their passions for the job. Well … people did talk about it. It just didn’t make it on air.

  3. Emily Stoddard Furrow January 19th, 2009 at 4:21 pm #3

    Really interesting, Ryan… I think our generation is naturally more transparent and forthcoming with this kind of information. We’re used to sharing a lot about ourselves in online environments, for instance, and I think we were taught to be forthcoming as children as a way of connecting, learning to share with others, etc. Part of “playing nice” and working toward equity is being transparent.

    Furthermore, I think our generation also puts a unique emphasis on the value we bring to a job. We like to know our work matters, and consequently, we’d prefer to be compensated in a way that reflects the value we bring rather than our years of experience or supposed lack of experience as it relates to co-workers with more seniority.

    I’ve been in situations where I know others are paid much more just because they have experience on paper (whatever that magical number of years is), while in practice, I bring a skill set that may be more sophisticated and harder to find in my market. Without more transparency about salary and clearer expectations about what “value” means in a job, it’s difficult to know when a job situation is equitable and (financially) rewarding.

  4. Ryan Paugh January 21st, 2009 at 9:33 am #4

    Emily — I agree. Maybe when salary is more transparent we can focus on the real value people bring into the office (passion, drive, inspiration, etc, etc).

    I think the biggest problem is that your salary makes it easy to quantify your worth to a company, but really it’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to recruiting and retaining valuable people.

  5. If you’re not growing, you’re dying. « Politicoholic by Nisha Chittal February 19th, 2009 at 7:51 pm #5

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Who Am I?

I'm a community-building expert and founder at Brazen Careerist, the #1 social network for Generation Y. There are more fun things that you should know about me and you can click here for all of that good stuff.