RE: TW Salaries--Is it me, or are people greedier? (Mild Vent)

["Miller, Lisa" <Lisa -dot- Miller -at- Anheuser-Busch -dot- com>]

Donald writes:
"The question of what is "fair" is answered by "whatever the market will
bear." Is professional baseball player Alex Rodriguez worth $14,600 an hour
or over $560,000 per week?  We may all say "hell, no" but he's getting it
because that's what the market will bear."


I would add that we should also think of salary as a percentage of the business
revenue.  Think about this - professional athletes and actors do make a great
deal of money but the revenues received by the contracting agencies are also
great.  The question should be what percentage of the revenue are they receiving
for compensation?  

I don't know the answer to this question, but I will say that until companies
see or understand that technical writing -adds- to the bottom line instead of
believing it subtracts from the bottom line as overhead then salaries will
always be an issue.  I don't have statistics for this, but I'll bet most of use
make only 60-80% of what developers with equal experience make.  Based on my
stated premise this would be because developers are perceived to directly add to
the bottom line and therefore command a greater percentage of generated revenue.

Lisa A. Miller
Technical !  Writer 
Anheuser-Busch, Inc.
Packaging Team - Corporate Engineering
mailto:lisa -dot- miller -at- anheuser-busch -dot- com
(314) 865-8904

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."
                                                          -- Benjamin Franklin


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