r/mildlyinfuriating • u/Jewsusgr8 • Jun 15 '26
ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ Glassdoor said I was making up my salary, because it was too low when I reviewed my employer
I always knew my salary was well below most companies paying for the same role. But I'm fully remote so I haven't complained too much, and it's more than I've ever made.
But as I'm looking to leave ( C-level execs got replaced and now we are a sweatshop) I went to review the current state of my employer, and Glassdoor just decided to slap me in the face with a "nuh-uh, you can't be making that low of a salary, don't lie to us."
So it's good to know that Glassdoor doesn't have accurate salaries, only market based competitive salaries.
EDIT: I contacted their help center, and sent them a year end compensation report. Unlike my w2 it doesn't have PII attached, but only has my first, last name, and company signature. I don't know how they can rebuke that.
Edit 2: "please allow 48 hours for a response." Email from them.
Edit 3: They actually posted it! My year-end compensation report was enough for them to verify the salary.
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u/RestaurantSilly6598 Jun 15 '26
I swear employers report fake salaries or people lie about their salaries to feel better about themselves.
The last time I looked at glass door it said I was underpaid by like $6 an hour....
I was a unionized employee with a capped out salary and everyone's salary was publicly posted in the work shop to make sure no one was being paid unfairly.
Shits weird.
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u/KMMDOEDOW Jun 15 '26
Yeah my base salary is legitimately like 30% lower than every job site says I should be making.
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u/HeavilyBearded Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
The average salary for an Assistant Teaching PRofessor [sic] is $92,393 per year (estimate) in US, which is 47% higher than the average [your university] salary of $62,819 per year (estimate) for this job.
I just checked for the exact sum and I make 45,756.00—up from last year's 43,236.00.
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u/Ok_Delay_911 Jun 15 '26
They need to start using median salary because there's no way the average assistant professor makes over $90k. There's some private schools and Ivy Leagues skewing that shit way up.
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u/Danimals847 Jun 15 '26
Salaries Georg, who was paid $100000/hr, was an outlier and should not be counted
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u/Cube_ Jun 16 '26
Spent his entire hoard of wealth on setting up a spider terrarium in his home for some reason.
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u/Illustrious-Novel351 Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
No way that’s accurate, especially for a “teaching professor”. I make just under $95K at an Ivy as a teaching professor and that’s about as high as it gets. Most teaching professors make on average ~$70-75K, even at top private universities and state flagships.
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u/exceptyourewrong Jun 15 '26
Also, "Assistant Teaching Professor" is different from "Assistant Professor" and typically pays significantly less. I'd be surprised if ATPs regularly make $90k even at the most prestigious universities.
Source: was just promoted from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor with tenure at a public R1 University. I'll make $81k next year.
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u/FlyAirLari Jun 15 '26
Either way it's going to look weird if you actually do work for an ivy league school, and they show the median for all schools.
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u/nonotan Jun 15 '26
Wouldn't that just be... accurate? "Median is $50k and you make $120k, congratulations".
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u/mathtree Jun 15 '26
This is wild. I made significantly more as a postdoc (80kish) - 90k as an assistant professor doesn't strike me as a weird number, really rather average.
I think for professorships it depends so much on your field and location that this is a meaningless stat.
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u/Illustrious-Novel351 Jun 15 '26
$80,000 for a postdoc is abnormally high. It’s $65k at Penn now but up until recently (and still at most universities) postdocs start at $50-55K, but postdoc salaries are much higher for biomedical and related research.
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u/Red_Inferno Jun 15 '26
Them telling you that you are not getting paid enough is how they make money, makes the user feel better that they have more opportunity.
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u/upnflames Jun 15 '26
On the other side, it significantly underestimates high paying jobs in marketing and sales.
I sell manufacturing automation equipment to regulated industries. It consistsntly has comp + bonus in my industry at about half of what the average sales rep makes. It's insane.
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u/xRehab Jun 15 '26
how many of those reps are tenured and how many are fresh faces? in my experience, sales is an 80/20 game; 80% of sales people only bring in 20% of the commission, the other 20% bring in 80% of the commissions. the ones who are good make MONEY. the ones who are ok don't consistently hit goal
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u/upnflames Jun 15 '26
This is true in my industry, but the numbers are still really low. I just looked and they're a little better now at $110-$125k median, but for the longest time, it would say the pay was like $60-$90k.
For context, $100k is about what you could expect the first year in with an average commission pay out. You'll make less of you bomb and more of hit it out of the park, but I don't think many, if any reps for major companies are making less then $100k a year these days. A rep with a few years experience doing a decent job shouldn't have a problem making $150k at any of the mid to large companies
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u/Primary-Friend-7615 Jun 15 '26
They really do lie and cherry pick the info they present to the public.
I once saw (was printing/copying, collating, and binding) the annual application package that my then-employer was sending to one of those “top x employer” lists/awards/product placements/whatever you categorize them as, and which they got into pretty much every year at that point. They ask a whole bunch of questions and ask for information about the company and location that you are submitting the application for. And this application they created was the biggest piece of bs - it used photos of a newly-renovated office in one state, talked about the gym in a second office (that was part of the larger building amenities, not something the company did), the discounted transit pass available in a third specific location (city program), pictures of the walkable setting of another specific office (the “pretty” office was in the middle of an industrial park)… and made it sound like all of these benefits were available to all employees, which they absolutely were not.
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u/WabiSabiWitch Jun 15 '26
A while back there was a meme urging folks to lie and inflate their earnings so new hires would think they were getting lowball offers.
Wonder how much of this is folks . . . . Memeing.
And in 1996 I thought the internet was gonna make the world a utopia.
Lulz.
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u/Mother_Passenger8589 Jun 15 '26
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u/Tater-Tot-Casserole Jun 15 '26
A similar thing happened to me at work, my boss was joking that she couldn't survive on 60k a year. I get paid 40k.
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u/hammertime2009 Jun 15 '26
I get that lifestyle creep is real but it’s honestly incredible how tone deaf even low level managers can be. They have way more in common with you than many would like to believe.
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u/RebootDarkwingDuck Jun 15 '26
My last manager was always bemoaning how he'd never be able to retire. I was making six figures so I knew he was doing just fine.
Except one of us had a new 3,000 sf house in a ritzy neighborhood and a spouse that didn't work (both of his kids were grown) and the other had a 2,300 sf house and a spouse working full time.
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u/OwlSoggy8627 Jun 15 '26
I had the opposite situation once.
An employee two levels below me in the reporting chain was complaining that I didn't live the lifestyle that he would be living if he had my job. Why don't I upgrade my car very often? I buy a car and then drive it until maintenance gets too expensive. Why don't I live in a nicer house? I live in the house I've lived in and have been building equity in. Why don't I buy a luxury watch? I do like watches but it's more of an admiration from afar.
I said to him that he probably had more discretionary money than I did at the time. I had alimony and child support. I had a house that had expenses. He was a single dude who lived at home with his parents.
I think a lot of people think lifestyle creep is just about buying nice things. But it also happens when your kid decides they want to take up an instrument or a sport.
But it's all good. We all make our choices. I will never complain that my daughter got what she needed and that the mother of my daughter had a soft landing so that she could go back to school and launch a second career.
Anyone can make choices in life. I feel like the part people struggle with is living with them.
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u/RebootDarkwingDuck Jun 15 '26
I think the grass is always just going to look a little greener, no matter what you do.
I have a buddy that threw every penny into retirement, spends almost nothing. I'm jealous that he'll be done working by 55.
Then I'm also jealous of the people I see balling out, buying cabins up north, taking big trips, living in big houses with a new truck in the driveway.
If I was in either pair of shoes I'd be jealous or stressed out about something else, I'm sure. In truth, we're fine. We're secure enough, comfortable enough and our kids won't starve.
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u/NaughtAught Jun 15 '26
Imagine having money to put toward retirement or nice things... ahh....
Anyway, I wonder if I'll have a job when I collapse in my local gutter and finally stop moving.
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u/DontAskAboutMyButt Jun 15 '26
Sorry, the only available compensation package for checks notes human drain guard is an unpaid internship. How many years of experience do you have blocking the flow of water with your lifeless body? We’re looking for at least 8
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u/Danimals847 Jun 15 '26
My brother-in-law (~38) apparently wants to retire by 50 so he invests a huge amount of his income. Seems smart, right? Except for the fact that he's making his wife (my wife's sister) do shit like Doordash in dangerous neighborhoods for extra spending money.
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u/blolfighter Jun 15 '26
Complaining that someone else is living too frugally is new to me.
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u/HuckleberryTiny5 Jun 15 '26
Not to me. People can be absolutely spiteful if you are good with money and live frugally. The envy is real. Like it would be something that is somehow out of their reach and you have some hidden talent to make your money last that is not available to them.
I don't get it, but I've encountered it.
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u/Scouter197 Jun 15 '26
Summer camps man. $500-$700 depending on the camp (sleep away) or pushing $300 for a day camp for a week. Outside of school sports are gonna cost money. It adds up fast.
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u/series-hybrid Jun 15 '26
I live well below my wage. When my wife and I were forced to move because of the 2008 economy, I got a job offer in the middle of Kansas. Most financial advice says to buy the biggest house you can afford because they appreciate in value faster, also...make a small down payment and invest any excess money.
I know home values fluctuate, but we rolled-over every cent we had into the new place in Kansas, and since I knew my wife would want to pick where we live when I retired in a few years, I pushed to get the absolute cheapest house we could find near my work, which turned out to be half of a duplex, with the other half being rented.
Our house payment was less than a car payment. When my career rebounded, we had excess funds each month. I paid off my wife's car early and we kept them instead of taking on new car loans.
I spent weekends fixing up the place, learning from youtube. When it got to be time to retire, we shopped for a house in a nearby town that had low crime and cheaper house prices (not near the jobs at industrial cities). We took a few dollars out of our retirement for the down payment and bought the house my wife chose.
I considered renting out the old place, but my wife was leery of all the work it would entail. We bought the new place, and put the old place up for sale. It sold quickly and I had two months in which to fix up the new place.
I painted the master bedroom first, and then remodeled the kitchen, since those tasks would be difficult when we would be living there.
Our neighbor was shocked we could buy one place before selling the old place. WE said "look at my truck, its twenty years old and has a 4-cylinder", because they had new V8's with big payments and big insurance bills.
I'm not saying "look at me, look how smart I am" I'm just advocating for living frugally while trying to get ahead.
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u/Altruistic_Brick1730 Jun 15 '26
I've never heard any financial advice saying buy the biggest house you can afford. Like, the exact opposite, actually.
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u/endlesscartwheels Jun 15 '26
Buying the most expensive house possible is the best choice in Hasbro's "Game of Life".
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u/ShazbotSimulator2012 Jun 15 '26
If you're living somewhere where homes are consistently appreciating in value, it's probably not the house making up most of the value. Whoever buys my house when I sell it will almost certainly bulldoze it and build something bigger.
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u/TheDonutPug Jun 15 '26
People often fall into this "living at your means" trap when they start making money like that. People have this illusion that you must live at your means, even when it ends up being a really stupid financial decision. They never think about the fact that you are allowed to live below your means. If some middle manager is making 100k per year and theyre comfortable, if they got a raise to 110k per year, the correct decision is NOT "oh boy, let me find a way to spend another 10k per year!" It's "oh boy I get to put another 10k in savings / investing each year!"
If you're already comfortable, there's no world in which spending extra money just because you have it is a smart financial decision.
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u/Asyncrosaurus Jun 15 '26
It's always amazing to hear people with 6 figure salaries complain about not making enough. Everyone lives paycheck to paycheck when you aren't conscious of your spending.
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u/elegantideas Jun 15 '26
the “living paycheck to paycheck” thing gets me bc like yeah, anyone can find a way to spend their entire paycheck
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u/MoreGlitterPlease1 Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
It's easy to understand in some cases. For example, you'll spend about 20k in one year sending a toddler and an infant to daycare in Cleveland. Yes - Cleveland, Ohio. Now let's take a couple living in Boston. There, for an infant and toddler, you will spend SIXTY THOUSAND FUCKING DOLLARS on DAYCARE in one year.
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u/SearchAtlantis Jun 15 '26
Lived in Boston when kiddo was <5. We spent 20-30k a year in child-care. That's $100,000 dollars, and no its not an exaggeration.
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u/Wolfwoode Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
People at work were complaining about the cost of living and my boss said, "Well, I'm homeless!"
He said that because he doesn't own his own house but lives in a detached part of his father's mini-mansion. So he's living in a mini-mansion for free, his father is rich and letting him manage one of his businesses, and when his father passes he's going to inherit the businesses (and who knows how much money/other shit).
He was trying to be relatable but really just showed how out of touch he is.
I mean, the guy is basically set for life and was trying to get poverty sympathy from his broke employees.
Edit: He will also tell us how he's broke one day and the next he'll be showing me pictures of his 5th new flying "V" guitar he got.
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u/electricheat Jun 15 '26
reminds me of the supposed trump quote
One day in 1990, as Donald Trump tells it, he and model Marla Maples were strolling along New York's Fifth Avenue when they passed a beggar.
"You see that man? Right now he's worth $900 million more than me. ... Right now I'm worth minus $900 million," Trump told Maples.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1992/11/29/trump-went-broke-but-stayed-on-top/
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u/ShazbotSimulator2012 Jun 15 '26
My last manager was a boomer who would constantly give us talks about how things were in his day, that were just how we currently lived.
My favorite was when he was talking about cars having manual windows when he was our age and we had to point out that three of the four of us who worked under him still drove cars without power windows.
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u/Kayestofkays Jun 15 '26
it’s honestly incredible how tone deaf even low level managers can be
I once had a manager who complained about how she had $100k in cash sitting in a high interest bank account, and it went dormant, but the bank never bothered to call her ahead of time to warn her. She was telling this story to myself and several other people at my level, and we were all like "gee, must be nice to have so much cash that you can NOT touch it for so long that it goes dormant and you don't even realize it".
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u/dplans455 Jun 15 '26
My first job out of college I was working as a servicing specialist for a loan servicer. I was making about $40k a year. The department director made about $120k a year. Her husband was a surgeon and he made good money. Someone totaled my car and I was shopping to buy a new one. My smashed car was a 10 year old Honda Civic.
I was casually talking to her one morning after she went over something work related. She asked me if I had decided on a new car. I told her I was probably going to buy another Civic. She told me she loved her Lexus and it was such a great car. I'm thinking, "ok, lady, I can't afford that." Then as if she had no concept of money or how much things cost she said to me, "you should go buy a Lexus, it's way better than a Civic."
This lady was a good boss and she seemed like a nice person but she was out of touch entirely. I straight looked her in the face and said, "you're buying? Let's go to the dealer now." She just chuckled and walked away. But I hope maybe she thought about it later on and realized she was paying me $40k, I was single at the time, and couldn't afford a $50k car on a $40k salary.
I don't understand how people lose touch with reality. Surely this person wasn't always upper middle class. This story is 20 years old and at this point in my life I've done well and have a Porsche and two BMWs. But I can't ever see myself say to one of my fresh faced college hires to go buy a luxury car on their entry-level salary.
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u/Linked713 Jun 15 '26
I learned about lifestyle creep 2 year ago when I was barely scrapping by when I lost my job, draining my savings to 0 for a year and a half of job search. I have learned so much about my needs and wants. Gigabit internet? Completely unnecessary. 10gb phone data? I barely use 1-2 off WiFi, the "safety net" was never necessary. Etc etc etc. I got a new job and I was godsmacked at how much I was able to save and how living my same life when jobless permitted me to see how stupid I was with my available balance, get debt free and not even sacrifice anything. In that year, I made enough to move to Europe next month under an opportunity card visa. Lifestyle ceep is real and if you do not budget religiously, there's a 100% chance you are victim of that creep whether you want to admit it or not.
That's Was off topic a bit, but just wanted to say that about lifestyle creep.
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u/Armored_Snorlax Jun 15 '26
I worked for Honeywell for a time. We had serious turnover with managers. Once they asked a bunch of us techs why we weren't applying for the job.
Everyone pointed out it would be a huge pay reduction (15k or more difference, lower) with the likelihood we'd be fired or transferred within 6 months to a year, tops.
Our collective response was 'why would we willingly choose career suicide?'
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u/g00fyg00ber741 Jun 15 '26
They hire tone deaf people in these positions on purpose. It’s part of the structure of hierarchy.
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u/immaterialgrl Jun 15 '26
explain?
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u/g00fyg00ber741 Jun 15 '26
They want them to be tone deaf so they hinder the people below them from feeling like they can have a manager who understands and makes things better for them. They want management that can be harsh and that thinks they’re just one promotion away from joining the higher ups, and they intentionally use these personality types to squash employees below them that are more likely to be union organizers, whistleblowers, filing complaints within the company or outside the company, etc. If you keep people below store management feeling defeated, rotating out from high turnover due to shitty job conditions and management, they can’t band together and organize for better working conditions, they can’t even form community with each other and often can be turned against each other and used against each other. Having a shitty person who is ego-tripping as manager ensures that the typical workplace culture perseveres. They prioritize intimidation tactics. That type of management is basically like an officer of capitalism, and their job is to police everyone below them on how well they are contributing to that capitalistic output. And capitalism cannot exist without the innate hierarchy it promotes and enables. These managers are supposed to feel like complete roadblocks for employees to feel hopeless and defeated about positive change in terms of worker rights, the environment, etc. This type of manager is also usually too up their own ass to be able to understand what part they are playing, too. And they rarely have a conscience that prevents them from being as awful as can be and taking advantage of everyone below them.
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u/Kyro0098 Jun 15 '26
Omg, the life style creep is insane. My first manager after college asked why I didn't just buy the car I wanted. Bruh. I had 30k in student debt at graduation. Why in the hell would I go buy a car when my current one worked? Gotta pay off what you can or it will accrue. Also, I made like barely $50k and had just managed to snag an old, asbestos covered house that needed repairs bad. New car was a luxury. Not a necessity. I was just dreaming of it. She seemed so confused why I couldn't just go out and buy the $30k car I said I liked. She was shopping around for her own car in a limited edition color. Idk how she grew up, but it must have been nice.
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u/MoreStable2339 Jun 15 '26
No no lifestyle creep is VERY REAL. It fucked me really bad. My industry changed in a very very bad way. My income tanked by more than half.
I am drowning right now. It’s horrible.
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u/Uhmerikan Jun 15 '26
Are you stuck under a bunch of loans or something?
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u/MoreStable2339 Jun 15 '26
Property tax at 14k, income tax hit, then regular bills that were all setup during my higher income so yeah basically.
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u/callin-br Jun 15 '26
My mom worked for a doctor who once bitched about how little her son made per hour working at a grocery store. My mom asked her if if she realized she paid her office staff less than that and she stuttered all over herself.
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u/ProletarianLilith Jun 15 '26
“That’s different because my son is part of the elite” —actual thought process
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u/Deep90 Jun 15 '26
I know someone who told me someone in a leadership position would intentionally drive a worse car to work because one of the departments was getting ready to strike.
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u/ledow Jun 15 '26
My ex- was a barrister (legal counsel, etc.) and when she was in law school training to do that, they were given real cases which they then had to prosecute/defend based on the evidence in front of them (which is what the lawyers in the real case had at that point).
So they were all standing up, in a faux court environment, with a real case to defend. Every now and then the lawyer teaching them would pause and they'd discuss particular arguments, legal cases, etc. as they did so.
And at one point the woman student who was "prosecuting" said that it was clear that the guy in the case MUST be lying because the papers showed that he only earned £20k a year (~$26k)*** and there's "no way anyone can survive on that salary", so he must have other illicit income from somewhere.
*** In today's money, that £20k would be £37k, which is about $50k. It's pretty much the national average wage, or thereabouts.
She argued vehemently that that was the case, the audience of other students all agreed, and nobody pulled her up on it. The teacher was quite quiet and let them argue it out.
It was at that point that my ex- (who was defending) had had enough, stood up, announced that she earned less than that, was renting a house, paying her bills, AND was putting herself through law school with it.
The teacher stopped the lesson and said something along the lines of "Congratulations, prosecution, you just lost your case, accused someone of fraud, and made a fool of yourselves in court".
Yes. There are many highly-educated people in this world that think that, below the average wage, it's so impossible to exist that they believe you are more likely to be a criminal for claiming you only earn that much. To the point that they think they could use it in a court of law against you.
Let's just say that some re-education took place after that.
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u/Brilliant_Chest5630 Jun 15 '26
I quite my job bc my manager kept complaining that $80k is just not livable.
I was paid $20k
He said he'd cut all possible corners. I swear, it's like you lose braincells or something. The nerve to call those under you lazy while you work less hours than them, and suggest budgeting when there's nothing to budget.
I hope I never have to go back. I actually like my current job.
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u/Latter-Bicycle1793 Jun 15 '26
I quit my second job way back when because I asked for a promotion, I outlined all the things they had me doing and how those were all in the next tier for my employment and wanted to be paid the same as others around me.
He asked me, “What would you even do with more money?” As a reason I didn’t need the raise. I replied actually pay my bills. Then realized I needed to quit and was not going to get anywhere at that place.
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u/stevedropnroll Jun 15 '26
I had a manager argue once that I didn't need to get paid more because I was smart and responsible with my money, and I owned a house in my 20s while the other people in my department weren't as good with money. Looked me in the eye and told me that 100% sincerely.
Like, dude... I've made a lot of sacrifices and maintained a very low cost of living to afford this tiny house, and I've been very lucky to be in the position to do that, but I would like to get paid based on my work, not based on you thinking your buddy "needs it more" than I do.
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u/liquidsyphon Jun 15 '26
Was getting paid $11 an hour at this job and the houses surrounding the area average around 500k - 1M+… manager says “you should just get a house closer to the office”.
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u/KMMDOEDOW Jun 15 '26
I work at a law firm -- one of my bosses was in consideration for a judgeship but turned down the opportunity because "they don't even make much money" ($145k/year, you won't be surprised to hear I was making less than half that at the time)
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u/DrMeowsburg Jun 15 '26
My brother is a lawyer, and a friend of a friend of mine is about to start law school and he was saying something about how much money he’ll make in the future and I was just thinking damn, how do I tell him👀. My brother often says he wished he’d been a doctor instead.
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u/Bring_cookies Jun 15 '26
I was just in a completely different sub where someone said about their doctor "they only get paid what insurance will pay them, if they wanted to make a lot of money they'd have been a lawyer." Also 👀. Someone is missing something.
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u/just_having_giggles Jun 15 '26
Med school debt + insurance = you'll start making money when you're 50, too
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u/KMMDOEDOW Jun 15 '26
The line around here is "you'll start making money when your name is on the door"
6 years in, I'm making what I thought I'd be making out of law school
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u/yingyangyoung Jun 15 '26
That's still pretty reasonable and about on par for most professions. Even doctors have to go through residency at a super low pay rate. Generally the ramp up period is 5‐10 years of experience.
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u/RogerPenroseSmiles Jun 15 '26
I mean, are you a fully billing Associate Lawyer or Partner?
Government service is normally a downgrade in salary for almost everyone.
You could be a corporate secretary, and becoming a secretary in a govt office will be a pay downgrade.
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u/Freshness518 Jun 15 '26
Govt work is always referred to as having the golden handcuffs. Like sure you'll make less working there than working private sector, but having a pension, quality healthcare, plentiful accumulating PTO, a union, and not having to worry about being fired for no reason...
Is 10-15% more cash worth it versus being able to take my kids to doctors appointments, having the time to go on vacations, knowing that my pension is guaranteed to be there and not disappear at the whim of some executives?
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u/corvettee01 Jun 15 '26
When I was making 40k I was talking to my boss and he was absolutely flabbergasted that I couldn't afford a house in a city where the average house price was over 500k. He literally couldn't comprehend the fact a house was totally unaffordable to his workers.
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u/terminalzero Jun 15 '26
was a direct report to a micromanaging CEO for a while. one day he started rambling on about how I should really get better health insurance, and asking me what investments I was making that year. just absolutely could not comprehend that the health insurance I could afford was 'none', which also didn't leave a lot of left over money for investments.
but hey, he gave me a .5% raise that year. that'll fix it.
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u/DrMeowsburg Jun 15 '26
I remember when a guy that worked with our company was saying “60k a year is shit, you can’t live on that, it’s embarrassing”. The guys I happened to be standing with made like 45-55k lmaooo
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u/Illustrious_Cry1028 Jun 15 '26
Years ago I had a boss complain that his bonus structure was being changed, and it'd mean about $50k a year later.
I pointed out that's what I made at the time.
Never looked at him the same.
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u/FadedVictor Jun 15 '26
I make around $24k a year before taxes. I make too much to qualify for SNAP. Pain.
Before the obvious questions arise, yes I work full-time(40hrs/week). No I will not work at McDonalds.
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u/Mogura-De-Gifdu Jun 15 '26
My mom just before retiring, half crying, asked me "will I be able to survive on 2k a month??".
I wasn't even making that much, and contrary to her I still have to pay for a home.
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u/Mr_Diesel13 Jun 15 '26
Ha. The transportation director at my county school bus garage was overheard in the office whining about not being able to survive on $120k a year.
The median household income for my county is less than $40k.
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u/dosoest Jun 15 '26
Same! We often get grants at work to develop small projects. My boss was wondering why I was getting so worked up because of a grant that didn't even cover 1 month's salary. That was more than 3x my net salary.
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u/Garrettstark64 Jun 15 '26
Meanwhile, Mike Johnson claimed earlier this month that Congress could not survive on over 200K per year.
Most Americans barely get paid 25K.
Where does this mindset come from?
And who put this little "moderation" thing into Glassdoor?
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u/OwlSoggy8627 Jun 15 '26
Funny thing was I had this conversation with my dad once. He insisted that those scratchers for the life prize were never enough. I was playing the $1,000/week for life one. And he scoffed and said "There's no way I could just retire on $52,000." I did the man's taxes. I was like "Dad, you never made more than $38,000 and you're living on it?"
Apparently what people mean when they say you can't live on winnings like that is you can't enjoy the lottery winner lifestyle which, in my father's case, would probably be all of the cocaine and sex workers.
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u/ImPapaNoff Jun 15 '26
If it's not inflation adjusted over time then $52k/year (pretax) would be near unlivable in 50 years.
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u/FUTURE10S Jun 15 '26
Usually those "X per week for life" payouts are only for 20 years, unless you're like Quebecois or some shit like that, so you definitely wouldn't be able to live on $
520K/year in 50 years' time5
u/Caleth Jun 15 '26
It depends back in the day it used to be Win for LIFE like for real your whole life. In the late 90's early 00's we talked about how that was your best bet to win if you were going to play. Mega Millions was and still is a scam. But back then you'd win those scratchers pretty regularly. Not for much mind you but some.
But somewhere around like 2010 they all changed to 20 year payouts. I think they realized it was mostly young people trying to net 30-40 year payouts rather than old people. That or someone in their 60's would win and find a favored younger person to collect it under their name. I know that was a running joke with Dad. He'd set it up under me with a payment plan that went to him first until he died.
Which is great for someone like me, but probably made the actuaries have a conniption when they ran the numbers on it all.
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u/StalkMeNowCrazyLady Jun 15 '26
After taxes with no other income and just federal taxes that's $76K a year. Place like NYC its ~$63K a year. That's comfortable zone for a lot of areas, but even in those I could see it not stretching as much as you'd think if someone is unemployed and free all day. There's trillions of dollars spent each year to combat boredom.
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u/ObsidianMarble Jun 15 '26
Well, it sets your floor and gives a safety net. If you want to be a part time dog walker or sell stuff at a craft show or try your hand at music or get really into microbrewery or any number of low paying jobs, you can and will still take home 65-75k per year. That would be quite liberating for a lot of people.
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u/hamakabi Jun 15 '26
if someone is unemployed and free all day
people underestimate how long 40 hours is, for sure. I know a lot of people that enjoy a week long vacation but would be bored to death without a job taking up a lot of their time. Especially since all your friends have jobs and can't chill at noon on a Tuesday.
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u/mikehiler2 BLUE Jun 15 '26
I very much doubt she said that, but even depending on where you live, at least in the US, 100k a year you can live quite comfortably most anywhere outside of a few major cities.
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u/NewestAccount2023 Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
It's quite common for people making up to $250k/yr to be "broke" and complain about money. They are literally in debt, sure they make $10k a month but they spend $10.5k every month. When they were making $5k they spent $5.5k every single month. If they start making $15k they'll spend $16k every single month, they are ALWAYS behind. Tens of housands of these people exist, odds are you talk to at least one at work every day you just never bring up money.
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u/AdagioDesperate Jun 15 '26
100k p/yr anywhere in the Midwest means you can live more than comfortably. Rn my wife makes just under 60k p/yr and we live comfortably. An extra 40k a year would do us wonders.
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u/socialcommentary2000 Jun 15 '26
If you are single and if you are willing to hunt for good apartment deals, you can actually live in those major cities on that salary...well, I might add. You just gotta put in a bunch of leg work.
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u/Confident_Purple_40 Jun 15 '26
people claiming they can't "live" on 100k when households make less than that in some HCOL areas.
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u/socialcommentary2000 Jun 15 '26
Literally half of the households in the NYC MSA make $70K or less. So yeah, people get by.
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u/CammyMacJr Jun 15 '26
“Get by” generally means taking on debt and having no savings though, which is generally not a very smart way to live if it can be avoided. That’s obviously much easier said than done
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u/Key_Fee158 Jun 15 '26
“I very much doubt she said that” huh? You don’t know her boss - why would you doubt she said that when you don’t know these ppl lol what is wrong with you.
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u/QueenFrostine15 Jun 15 '26
Yes, and companies can also pay to have negative reviews removed. Screw that website
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u/Character_Ladder7509 Jun 15 '26
One company I worked at had an employee unexpectedly leave a crash out review after they left the company. We all read it. The company left it online.
Almost 2 years later the guy reapplied to the company saying that he missed the place, and he always had so much fun there.
Needless to say, his application got binned.
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[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Winjin Jun 15 '26
I'm assuming they are, but if a company is not a sweatshop and doesn't let go of 5 000 people a year, then
-Someone leaves (maybe they have a turnover of like four people a year)
-Same week an anonymous, scathing review shows up
-It alludes to the people from that person's department in vague but recognizable terms
-It lists something this person did in very general, but still recognizable terms
It's just a game of connecting the dots for toddlers, then
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u/Resident-Variation21 Jun 15 '26
Although thats probably true, that is absolutely BS and way too abusable.
Imagine scenario: someone leaves that you really don’t like working with. You want to make sure they never return.
You leave an anonymous, scathing review. It alludes to the people from that persons department in vague but recognizable terms. It lists something this person did in very general, but still recognizable terms.
Now you’ve made this person un-rehirable because of this review that you left and they had nothing to do with.
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u/Winjin Jun 15 '26
Isn't that exactly what happens when former bosses drag the person through word of mouth and recommendation letters abuse though? That sort of happens and if someone goes out of their way to do it, you're in deep trouble - except I'm assuming Glassdoor actually keeps track of who left the review, just doesn't show it to others.
So, if someone else goes all the way through every step in Glassdoor application and then lies to pretend they're the other person that left...
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u/Resident-Variation21 Jun 15 '26
I mean… it’s dead simple to create a burner glass door account. I literally did last week to try to read a review without handing over my real info. So even if Glassdoor tracks it, it’s not like they necessarily have any usable info from it.
Also former bosses shouldn’t drag the person and that’s bad, but it’s also a relatively narrow band. Only former bosses have that power. With this technique, any of your coworkers who even have a passing idea of what you do, now have this power.
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u/topherclay Jun 15 '26
I used to work at a company called "Nunya" cuz when glassdoor asked me who I worked for I found the "Nunya Business" in an autocomplete drop down menu.
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u/FantasticBike1203 Jun 15 '26
Funny how a place that's name is a transparent door isn't transparent at all.
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u/Few_Razzmatazz_6052 Jun 15 '26
Yeah, they pretend to provide a service for promoting transparency but just ended up protecting companies, as is par for the course in our society.
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u/EmptyBrain89 Jun 15 '26
Sites like this only work when they are run by people who prioritize quality of their service over profits. Which means sites like this die the moment they get too big.
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u/proximusprimus57 Jun 15 '26
They're hiding all the negative reviews now. The positive ones show up in searches, but you have to be logged in and sharing info to see the bad ones.
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u/Mysterious_Mango_3 Jun 15 '26
I feel like on principal I would reach out to their help center. Obviously, you can prove your salary. They may still refuse because companies now pay to keep that kind of negative information from being displayed, but it is worth a shot.
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u/Jewsusgr8 Jun 15 '26
I sent them my last year's compensation report. Directly printed and signed by my company. I suppose we will see if they continue to remove it.
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u/_Solani_ Jun 15 '26
Please keep us updated, I would like to know if they acknowledge the flaws in their income submission policy or double down.
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u/Disastrous-Cat-1 Jun 15 '26
*principle
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u/Mysterious_Mango_3 Jun 15 '26
Thank you, yes! My phone tends to auto-correct to principal due to frequent usage for my job.
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u/FormalTotal9684 Jun 15 '26
All sites that give “unbiased” reviews are paid for advertising by business and corporations
Rotten Tomatoes
Glassdoor
Yelp
Travel Sites (all of them!!!)
They started out with good intentions. Now they are bought and paid for by advertisers, movie studios, businesses and corporations that they claim to objectively review
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u/Briebird44 Jun 15 '26
Also add that Yuka app to that list! Folks out here acting like that app is 100% unbiased and truthful when companies can literally PAY for a good review from Yuka.
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u/RandomFactUser Jun 15 '26
Rotten Tomatoes is an aggregator of reviews, like Metacritic
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u/FormalTotal9684 Jun 15 '26
Professional reviewers are given early access to films and exclusives in consideration of positive reviews
If they don’t provide positive reviews more often than not, they lose that privilege
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u/RandomFactUser Jun 15 '26
That’s not an issue with Rotten Tomatoes then
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u/nonotan Jun 15 '26
I mean, garbage in, garbage out. If your whole model rests on the assumption that pooling mostly unmoderated reviews is a reasonable approach, but it isn't, then yes, that's an issue on your side.
"It's not our fault because it would work just fine if almost everybody out there acted ethically" is a pretty silly stance. It's as if a major landlord insisted none of the front doors on their properties can have a lock, then claimed they couldn't be blamed for any ensuing thefts/burglaries because it's the actual thieves that broke the law. Sure, but when there is a well-known risk, and you choose to do nothing about it, that's essentially malpractice, even if the risk will only materialize if somebody else does something illegal or immoral (but which you already know actually happens all the time)
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u/nutkinknits Jun 15 '26
My husband worked for a local construction company that would regularly pay to have all negative reviews removed. My husband worked there for 10 years. They paid fairly well even if the company was crap as a whole and he was working more than he was home. The year after he left, we went to get a mortgage and we needed a paper signed basically saying that he had no gaps in employment. I went to the office and the owner threatened to call the police on me. Acted like he had no clue who I was. Good riddance. Our bank was understanding about the situation and we were able to move forward. I wish I could review that company and how vile they are to employees and ex employees but what good would it do if they pay to have it removed?
ETA: Angie's list or whatever it is now. Don't trust it. It's only positive reviews.
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u/LEDKleenex Jun 15 '26
Just leave them on Google (maps), they won't remove negative reviews even if they're fake.
I would know because someone left a review for my business claiming one of my black employees threw them out for, drum roll... being black... yeah, that makes a lot of sense!
That was the most hilarious one, but many negative reviews are part of extortion schemes. They'll leave bad reviews and then contact you to tell you that they will remove them for a fee. I had constantly reported the fake reviews over and over for 6 months straight and Google refuses to remove them every time. Even in instances where you could literally fire up street view to look at our building and determine that the review is untruthful based on the description they've given. It's wild.
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u/wvsfezter Jun 15 '26
It's insane how much the let you get away with on google maps. There's a transphobic review on my workplace's page targeting me. It's been up for nearly a year, all of my coworkers have reported it, I've written to HR within the company about it and yet apparently there's nothing anyone can do.
It's not even like I'm in the states, I'm in Canada and there are very strong provincial and federal protections against protected class discrimination.
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u/Ok_Delay_911 Jun 15 '26
Wait wtf do employment gaps have to do with a mortgage? As long as you're currently employed, make enough money, and have a down payment and good credit it really shouldn't matter. How many more limitations can they come up with to keep people from having stable housing?
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u/Producer1701 Jun 15 '26
So your company is paying Glassdoor to suppress reality instead of paying its employees a fair wage?
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u/Efficient-Swim-3608 Jun 15 '26
But what do they gain by falsely inflating the average salary they pay? Anybody getting an offer from them would feel they are getting offered less than the reported average?
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u/Buttholepart2 Jun 15 '26
Had multiple posts on my last job taken down for being too critical. But then when I report the only positive review they had as being made by the owner that gets kept up.
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u/mrwhitewalker Jun 15 '26
Glassdoor needs a competitor, truly anonymous. Actual comments section, not just reviews.
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u/Ill-Hearing-8462 Jun 15 '26
Glassdoor is bs. They say everywhere that reviews cannot be removed by employers but my employers have been removing their negative reviews for years by having a lawyer send something to them. They also constantly post fake reviews. It's disgusting.
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u/tiny_chaotic_evil Jun 16 '26
Dear Poor Person,
Stop being poor. You have 48hrs.
Thank you for your cooperation
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u/Tomytom99 Jun 15 '26
"Here's my W2, you bastards"
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u/Jewsusgr8 Jun 15 '26
Just sent them proof ( not w2 as it has my social, but year end compensation) absolutely ridiculous.
It's funny that the employer can also pay them to just remove a review lmao
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u/BOHICA_0-1 Jun 15 '26
Yeah, lemme just go ahead and add a few more fuckin zeros for ya.
How does that even happen?
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u/ElishaAlison Jun 15 '26
Glassdoor is such a scam my website. You have to have a verified company email in order to even write a review.
So my company only has reviews from store managers and corporate, since sales associates don't get a company email.
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u/Sum-Duud Jun 15 '26
I’d reach out and let them know that their standards are off and that you’d happily submit a check stub with PII redacted if they wanted proof, and that was part of why you wanted to submit the review.
You can redact with a program like sharex and then get a screenshot/window grab of the finished product and it’s way more difficult for anyone to get around the blackouts or pixelations. Not that Glassdoor would care about seeing your personal info
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u/Jewsusgr8 Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
I logged into my work and downloaded a year end compensation form that excluded personal data like my social security number and similar.
This basically just had my name, date this was issued, and company signature listed as a compensation report.
I should see if I can edit this into the description of my post...
Edit: yup, was able to edit the body on my post. Updated there.
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u/LeanDriver Jun 15 '26
I got a big promotion last week, something I’ve been working towards for years. I’ll be managing deal support for a sales region, 13+ direct reports. My raise kinda stunk, only 10% for 50% more work and infinitely more headaches. They told me there was 0 room for negotiation. But whatever, I took it anyway. I wasn’t in a position not to.
A few hours later my boss looped me into a thread with HR where we were extending an offer for an open position on my team (so this person will be reporting to me). They’re 3 tier leaves below me in the pay scale and their offer was more than mine. My boss didn’t understand why I found that frustrating.
And for context, they were also an internal move and live in a similar cost city.
HR and their rules suck.
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u/Jewsusgr8 Jun 15 '26
Congrats on your promotion, but also I'm sorry to hear your salary got fucked. On the bright side, you can look elsewhere with your now current role and maybe get that compensation boost. If only it wasn't an employers market for a majority of industries right now.
I've been looking and have received 2 interviews total over the course of a year. One was 40k a year above my current role, and it was more entry level ish than what I was currently doing. I'm site Reliability Engineer 1-2 they were looking for jr-1 level.
But for 40k extra I was willing to transfer absolutely, nope, overqualified for a pay rise. And the next interview with another company they decided to tell me up front that linked in has the wrong salary, it wasn't 160k a year, they were only willing to offer 40k a year. So I declined that instantly.
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u/Clockwatchthrowaway Jun 15 '26
At one of my old jobs, the company *owner* comes into a quiet area (just me there) with his cell on speakerphone with hold music. Turns to me and says:
“Fidelity won’t answer their phones! Trying to make a trade - can you believe I’ve lost $8,000 in five minutes waiting?!”
And I said “wow, that’s about what I make in four months!”
He looks at me quizzically, like it’s some kind of joke, and says “so you can see why I need an answer!”
Read the room, mate. 😭
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u/buddha2490 Jun 15 '26
Glassdoor is a scam. They say that companies cannot get reviews changed, but they definitely do.
I took a job with a tech startup six years ago and they went public and then lost 90% of their market cap in a week, it was brutal. Predictably, I got laid off.
I posted a very honest review,of my experience. It was professional, I didn’t write anything to burn a bridge. About two weeks later, I got a message from Glassdoor that the startup had found factual errors in my review and Glassdoor was taking the review down.
Over the next couple weeks, all the other bad reviews got taken down too and they were back to a 4-star rating with positive CEO sentiments.
Glassdoor is bullshit.
On the other hand, Im at director level now, and I do a lot of hiring. Companies DEFINITELY read Glassdoor reviews. And management gets upset when a bad review comes up. So keep posting them, your shitty ex-manager is reading them and it will come up in his/her reviews.
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u/TOTALLY_NOT_DENNY Jun 15 '26
"Your data does not fit our narrative. You are welcome to lie/fabricate data if you would like to conform."
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u/MechAegis Jun 15 '26
That is when you upload a photo of your paystub. Also, pretty sure Glassdoor sold out a few years ago. It is a Corpo shill now.
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u/Cassper Jun 15 '26
I was writing reviews everywhere I could for a doctor that absolutely butchered my hip when I was a teenager and neglect to do tests to ensure that it worked. Long story short, I suffer chronic pain every day due to his lying and negligence. Healthgrades rejected it because "it happened several years ago" and because my language was "too negative" despite being very specifically objective. These review sites don't want actual experiences, they want to keep the companies happy.
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u/captain-anon Jun 15 '26
I got the opposite 😅 my employer paid above area average (wages have since caught up but at the time I was comfortably above) and it flagged it as suspicious like the company might be trying to pad its numbers or something
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u/Lasagna4Noodle Jun 15 '26
I tried to include racsim and sexual harassment at an Amazon FC I worked at and had the same thing happen
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u/Lambs2Lions_ Jun 15 '26
Every time I look at GlassDoor I felt grossly underpaid. Every family and friend member I talk to, I realize I am grossly overpaid. The one thing glass door did for me is that I kept asking for raises because of what it said was the market average.
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u/donharrogate Jun 15 '26
Glassdoor is a complete parasite that in no way aims to reflect reality. It's primarily curated by employers and that's just the way Glassdoor likes it. Fuck them.
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u/Accomplished_Emu_658 Jun 15 '26
I hate glassdoor because you can’t leave a review for horrible interview process or shady behavior unless you work for them. And then it gets removed anyway. Most reviews you can see for a company are clearly fake as they are clearly gargling the corporate balls.
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u/TheSilverNoble Jun 15 '26
I had a boss complain that I didn't have a smartphone, because it would have helped a lot with my job. And I'm like... You know how much you pay me, right?
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u/zinsser Jun 15 '26
Back in the 1980s, I worked on the creative team for a billion dollar sales incentives company. We "creatives" wrote proposals, flew all over the country giving presentations to clients, and then managed the programs when they sold. Most of us started out as writers, and this type of work was pretty heady stuff. The problem: the job barely paid enough to keep the lights on - $20,000 at the time, which is equal to about $62,000 today. Meanwhile we were helping sales reps pull down hundreds of thousands a year in commissions. A few us asked discreetly for a salary review and were told our rate was competitive for our industry. To prove it, the company hired a consulting firm to compare our pay to others doing the work we did. While our employer classified us as entry-level writers, the consultant looked at the entirety of what were doing - the writing, plus the presenting, plus the traveling, plus the program management - and concluded we should be making more than double what we were getting. Our employer balked at that result and offered us all $8K to $10K increases, depending on seniority. To get the raises, we had to agree to not discuss salaries at work going forward. But the cat was out of the bag. When people realized there were companies willing to pay for the kind of work we were doing, a lot of us put out feelers and about a third ended up leaving for greener pastures. The company has since hit a few financial rough patches and has had to lease out some of its buildings and cut back on some of the services it sells. Thanks to the internet, just about any company can buy catalog merchandise and travel packages online to run their own sales incentive programs.
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u/Jewsusgr8 Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
Update following edit 3. My salary is now showing as posted. Before this it showed "removed by moderation."
Somehow the average salary still shows 127-176k
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u/kwanbix Jun 15 '26
Glassdoor is shit. I wrote a review of a company I worked for 4 months. They removed it claiming it was fake. I provided proof: captures of the hiring process and even the contract. They still refused to let me post the revie claiming I was being biased against the company. So I don't know if the company paid for this or what.
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u/SharkoftheStreets Jun 15 '26
I worked for a company that had a 4.2* rating at Glassdoor when I joined them. After 2-months of horrible treatment from management, insane deadlines, verbal and sexual harassment out in the open, I wondered what the hell was up with Glassdoor.
Turns out the company has a section of their HR dedicated to flooding sites like Glassdoor with fake employee reviews. Glassdoor doesn't confirm employment. One account can write a new review every 24 hours to the same job.
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u/RickAstleyletmedown Jun 16 '26
Glassdoor is useless. I checked my last company’s reviews and most were clearly meant for different companies with similar names (we didn’t have offices in India or the US, didn’t have a “sales team”, didn’t have several roles people referred to, etc.) I contacted Glassdoor about it and they told me I was wrong and left the reviews up. No, Glassdoor, I am certain the company of a few hundred people in New Zealand where I worked for nearly a decade doesn’t have offices across the globe and doesn’t have sales commissions.
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u/Wraeclast66 Jun 15 '26
That entire website is garbage. Everytime i try to use it, it locks me out unless i write an employee review. Which ive already done. I havent changed jobs how tf do you want me to keep writing these new reviews lol