Employment without regret
I am an Indian American female software engineer who is constantly feeling underpaid and under-recognized. My promotions often are either pretend promotions where I get a promotion party and no raise or we just hire a Man 2–3 years older than me with more business skills and less technical skills, to take over and manage all the wonderful projects I took the initiative to come up with and deliver. Basically, all my projects are too big for me, so we need a man to manage them.
The most important realization I had moving from India to America was that Indian’s don’t have a sense of being paid by the hour. That also means that they tend to apply more passion and more hours than they are paid for. I remember the phrase “Itna Paisa mein itna hi milega” which translates to “This is what you get for what I get paid”.
I have come to really appreciate that statement. A major reason people like me feel dissatisfied with our salaries is because we tend to overcompensate for being women or being immigrants. Every time I am denied a raise, I tell myself to perform at the level I am at. If I know that I am not getting promoted in this sexist, ageist environment where mysogynistic leaders strategically drop women off of email threads to limit their exposure, and if I continue to make this bad investment of my time and energy with no returns but regrets. Who’s fault is that?
I can’t live with regret. I can’t go by my life complaining. But I can learn discipline. I can train myself to be able to quantify my work, put a price on it and deliver only as much as I am paid. Commit only as much as my paycheck earns each month.
I shared this advice with a lady friend and she told me how she just can’t control the workaholic in her and “ends up” being invested in work and passionate about deliverables. I can connect with that. I see a majority of women being this passionate about their work. But not as many men would do that. They are perfectly naturally doing their part and calling it a day.
Now this might sound sexist, but by all the years that men have worked more than women became part of the workforce, makes them a little more experienced as employees than us. And maybe in some abstract way, that is something we can learn and benefit from.
Learning to moderate the deliverables according to the paycheck is not as easy as it sounds. It’s a discipline that takes time to master. Since our brains are the asset we have constant dissatisfaction and anger damages your future health, it might be a good idea to maintain it for longevity. This approach has helped me immensely and I hope it helps more of you out there.