Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Really fucking annoyed

296 replies

Diabetes123 · 30/08/2020 23:04

So

Advice bet much needed

Had friends over tonight really close friends we’ve known for 20 years + gf of son who we’ve known for 20 years + I ask her what she does for a job. She says teaching assistant 👍 I am a nurse and out of interest i say how much do you get paid if you don’t me asking. She’s says no I don’t mind at all my husband chirps in “don’t ask her that it’s none your business (or words to that effect) can’t quite remember what he said. She answers my question but not before I say shut up to him (fair enough I could have said it in a better phrase) and he says no I won’t! Then our friends look at us (considering we’ve just got together after a 4 month split) instigated by me as I was struggling with depression brought on by our 16 year old daughters depression and his dominating personality (example tonight)! Hostile to which I thought he felt embarrassed 😩 right now we’ve just rowed about it and he’s gone to bed in a huff!

#foaming what have I done wrong?

OP posts:
PyongyangKipperbang · 31/08/2020 14:35

Well I hope you're all happy being paid, on average, 25% less than your male counterparts for the same job due to this uptight anal attitude to salary details.

As I said above, this idea that its rude to discuss how much one is paid is the very reason that women are down graded salary-wise. Personally I would rather share this information to give us all a fighting chance at being paid equally, but clearly I am in the minority and everyone else is happy to be unpaid and undervalued.

PyongyangKipperbang · 31/08/2020 14:35

underpaid

EmilySpinach · 31/08/2020 14:46

As numerous posters have patiently explained, this isn't really about the taboo around discussing salaries. If OP and the girlfriend worked in comparable fields and were a similar age she would have had completely different responses. What made OP's question inappropriate was her status as a family friend of the girlfriend's prospective in-laws, and her question was in the same category as if she had asked whether she hoped to marry her boyfriend, or have children, or any of the other invasive questions that certain family members have a knack for posing.

Bluntness100 · 31/08/2020 14:47

Personally I would rather share this information to give us all a fighting chance at being paid equally

Crack on then. We are all listening.

For the rest of us we will choose when and whom we share with and not have someone else decide that for us in the middle of a social event.

Bluntness100 · 31/08/2020 14:49

@EmilySpinach

As numerous posters have patiently explained, this isn't really about the taboo around discussing salaries. If OP and the girlfriend worked in comparable fields and were a similar age she would have had completely different responses. What made OP's question inappropriate was her status as a family friend of the girlfriend's prospective in-laws, and her question was in the same category as if she had asked whether she hoped to marry her boyfriend, or have children, or any of the other invasive questions that certain family members have a knack for posing.
As much as I take my hat off to you in trying to explain it, I’d not bother. Rhe posters making this about salary inequality don’t care.
Angelina82 · 31/08/2020 14:53

You were so rude. I’d have been mortified if I were your husband and would have piped up too.

MilleBee · 31/08/2020 15:05

If its out there on Google for all to see then why would you ask her in front of a room full of people? Of course she said it was fine. She probably didn't know what else to do.

Your husband may have over stepped the line mind and didn't need to do that in front of everyone.

I know you laugh at the responses here but perhaps just see it as a learning curve and understand that it's a very inappropriate thing to ask xx

Hopefulhen · 31/08/2020 15:32

I’m a nurse and I think you were very rude to ask. You might discuss pay scales or promotions with good friends in confidence, but never in a group situation with new acquaintances.

SoupDragon · 31/08/2020 15:36

Personally I would rather share this information to give us all a fighting chance at being paid equally, but clearly I am in the minority and everyone else is happy to be unpaid and undervalued.

Please can you explain how asking another female, who works in a completely different job, what she earns addresses inequality in pay?

It doesn't. Nor does calling out rudeness mean that someone is happy to be underpaid and undervalued - that is utter nonsense.

ColleagueFromMars · 31/08/2020 15:48

You were rude to the gf , rude to your DH , rude to the posters who have given you their honest opinion . I guess that’s just your nature

This. You sound like some of the nightmare MILs people post about.

I actually agree that we shouldn't be shy about sharing salary information (because inequality thrives in the dark) but not everybody feels that way and I certainly wouldn't ask the new girlfriend of my friend's son(!) her salary. As you can day the general info is easily Google able, you could have done that without making a faux pas.

ColleagueFromMars · 31/08/2020 15:52

Please can you explain how asking another female, who works in a completely different job, what she earns addresses inequality in pay?

I'm not the OP but I hold a similar view (see above). But it doesn't really does it, not in this scenario.

Bluntness100 · 31/08/2020 16:02

Please can you explain how asking another female, who works in a completely different job, what she earns addresses inequality in pay?

We all know it doesn’t. Just some folks will jump on any bandwagon.

BoomBoomsCousin · 31/08/2020 16:09

Please can you explain how asking another female, who works in a completely different job, what she earns addresses inequality in pay?

Knowing how much people you know are actually getting paid helps you better calibrate the worth you’re own job is held in and how much you might be able to earn by moving fields. This can help route out unfairness but mainly it provides data for deciscion making that is routed in real world examples (which most people cope with better) and fuels ambition and helps provide the confidence to aim for more.

You can find out the range by looking at pay grades for many public service jobs, but assigning those numbers to the reality around you requires real life examples for most people (because that’s the way our brains work). It can also help (if you talk to enough people, at least) with understanding when a salary range for a role is £x - £y, whether people are more likely to fall closer to the x or the y, and so whether you might as well.

Of course you shouldn’t limit your enquiries to just women, men earn higher, on average, so asking men will help raise the bar even higher.

rvby · 31/08/2020 16:11

@PyongyangKipperbang

Well I hope you're all happy being paid, on average, 25% less than your male counterparts for the same job due to this uptight anal attitude to salary details.

As I said above, this idea that its rude to discuss how much one is paid is the very reason that women are down graded salary-wise. Personally I would rather share this information to give us all a fighting chance at being paid equally, but clearly I am in the minority and everyone else is happy to be unpaid and undervalued.

I completely agree that salaries should be discussed for the reasons you state.

I also think that the op asking this question of a woman many years her junior, in front of that woman's prospective in laws, who themselves are friends of the op, puts the young woman in a horrible power dynamic that stripped her of the ability to say "no" to the request for information.

It was an unkind power play by the op. That takes precedence over the macro question of whether, as a society, we ought to discuss pay more openly.

If the op had been talking to a peer, especially a peer in the same field of work, and in an environment where the peer felt she was allowed to say "I don't want to tell you" without there being a social impact on her, that would be quite different.

DesertSky · 31/08/2020 16:14

Why would you ask how much somebody earns? Cringe.

Nanny0gg · 31/08/2020 16:17

@Diabetes123

Lol curious about samphire

Get your heads out of your backsides people because ultimately yes if someone knows what jo you do they could just google how much the salary is so why would you be offended by telling them yourself or saying actually I would rather not answer that question!

And yes my husband is not my gatekeeper and does not get the right to tell me/interject on something that didn’t affect him and actually he could have waited until our guests had gone and then said something but I do not appreciate being told what I can and what I can’t say. I could put more context behind this because he does this a lot which is why lost it last night because quite frankly he says things to people/work colleagues/sales people and I may cringe but I don’t undermine him. As far as I’m concerned nobody has the right to tell you what you can and can’t ask ie trying to stifle/undermine you.

And just for the record anybody who knows my knows I would never ever judge belittle or embarrass anyone purposely.

I’m really shocked that so many of you find this question so rude says a lot about the society that we are living in in my opinion

You asked. You were answered.

You asked someone you didn't know very well, what they earned. You have no idea whether or not you were putting them on the spot with that question.

You were very, very rude.

And just for the record anybody who knows my knows I would never ever judge belittle or embarrass anyone purposely.

Well, no one on here knows you at all. And it may not have been 'purposely' but it was definitely thoughtlessly,

Nanny0gg · 31/08/2020 16:18

@Diabetes123

More prosperous 😂 you obviously don’t know how poorly nurses are paid!

I’m getting the impression that the individuals commenting on this thread work in the education sector.......

It’s seems to be the only reason they would be so negatively opinionated.

No. What someone earns (even if public sector) is their business. Not some Random's (which is what you were to her).

Rude.

Nanny0gg · 31/08/2020 16:20

@Diabetes123

I accept everyone’s responses thank you and maybe yes I shouldn’t have asked the question but quite honestly I still do not understand why people find it so difficult to talk about their income what is the issue?

I personally couldn’t care a less if people want to know how much I earn I have no problem with it and I did actually tell the sons gf how much I care out with.

I can’t imagine that I’m the only person in this big wide world that have asked somebody this question?????

Because what's it got to do with anything?

If you're talking about pay equality then that can be discussed in much more generic terms

SoupDragon · 31/08/2020 16:29

Knowing how much people you know are actually getting paid helps you better calibrate the worth you’re own job is held in and how much you might be able to earn by moving fields.

And how does that have anything to do with addressing equality in pay between men and women that certain posters are going on about?

QueSera · 31/08/2020 16:29

Agree with Bluntness.
Sorry OP, I know you're upset and that is distressing, but really you were way out of order to ask that question in the first place, and also to tell your DH to shut up, and to blame your issues on your daughter.
You may want the world to be open about salaries, but that's just not how things are. I'm cringing for that poor woman.

QueSera · 31/08/2020 16:30

PS I do not work in education.

SoupDragon · 31/08/2020 16:31

@Bluntness100

Please can you explain how asking another female, who works in a completely different job, what she earns addresses inequality in pay?

We all know it doesn’t. Just some folks will jump on any bandwagon.

Yes, but I'd rather like the poster(s) to explain how knowing what a female TA earns when I am a female brain surgeon helps me know whether there is my sex discrimination in the pay grades.
AlexisCarringtonColbyDexter · 31/08/2020 17:15

Well I hope you're all happy being paid, on average, 25% less than your male counterparts for the same job due to this uptight anal attitude to salary details

LOL I'm not actually. I am managing director of my own company that I started from scratch from nothing but a huge bank loan and with my business partner who is also female but please do tell me how I'm doing it wrong since you know everything about woman in the work place!

Since you're sooo keen to share salaries to lower inequality- why dont you share with us all your salary and job title then and where you work? after all, it would be helping inequality wouldnt it? so, you go first then....

incognitomum · 31/08/2020 17:52

I think you have a social problem OP.

SoulofanAggron · 31/08/2020 18:28

As I said above, this idea that its rude to discuss how much one is paid is the very reason that women are down graded salary-wise. Personally I would rather share this information to give us all a fighting chance at being paid equally, but clearly I am in the minority and everyone else is happy to be unpaid and undervalued.

@PyongyangKipperbang The thing is if it's in that context it would be different i.e. colleagues finding out what they earn. This was not in any context that was useful.