When, "lesson's Learned" is Sometimes Worth More Than a Good Salary

There are many reasons why you might not be getting paid the right salary at your current job. Chances are that you might never guess the real reasonsome of you are not getting fair monetary compensation (i.e. pay) atyour place of employment.The answer is, in all honesty, that you may be the very source of this impedence.I recently had a chance to cross paths with a professionalat a weekendsocial gathering.It was one of those chance meetings where you learn a thing or two about the human condition (that we can be our own worst enemy).One of the first things that we talked aboutwas salary.She told me that she worked for a very successful medical supplies and services company and that she managed 30 offices nation-wide and handled sales in the millions. She also told me that a co-worker of hers made twice as much money as she did but only worked a fraction as hard as she does. This interested me to say the least. I was compelled to start asking the pointed questions to pin down the reason for this apparent anomaly. "Maybe your co-worker works twice as fast as you or knows certain tricks of the trade to make it appear he doesn't have to work as hard as you." Her answer was lightening fast: "No. He comes in normally after I do and leaves earlier than I do." There were many other similiar-related questions that I posed to her with very similiar answers. After going back and forth like this for several minutes I asked her about her relationship with her team."I'm very easy on my team. If they need extra time to work on a project I allow them to take it home and get compensation for it." Then she followed up with, "I KNOW that I shouldn't do that, and I ask myself why I do it but I don't have a good answer for it."Bingo.There was a very enlightening moment that ensued and I could see within her eyes the self-revelatory statement she had just made was starting to seep inside her very psyche. Then, it was as if my role as "social event partier" had turned into that more akin to a priest taking confession: "I know that I should not be so easy on my suborindates but I know what it's like to be lower on the ladder and what that entails on a daily basis at work." Also, "I just know they must think I'm too easy on them and my superiors must also know this..."Needless to say, the rest of our conversation immediately turned into a series of quick remedies to turn-around her image at the office -- I told her that the damage may already have been irrevocable at her current employment but that she should take note of what we talked about and make a list of "to-do's" and "not-to-do's" when she found employment elsewhere in the future. Yes, I told her my professional opinion wasthat she would never get the amount of money she was worth at her current employment but that the lessons she had learned would probably be worth more to her in the long run.In my next article I will discuss the lists of "to-do's" and "not-to-do's" that we came up with -- maybe they will come in handy for some of you who have found yourself in a similiar situation.