Wow. No surprise that Coelho is hashtagged in that post (it is in Hungarian which is my mother tongue). In the post the writer of the gray averages appears, so you can be sure that banality, extreme simplification and shallowness arrive quickly.
I’m a bit disappointed that a serious person posted such a question. Even though I understand or at least hope it is for provoking people - if so, it was successful. Why would you have to choose among those groups? Why isn’t there an option to choose from people who are paid as deserved and still like their job?
In order to maximize profit obviously as an employeer you’d prefer people who work their asses off for peanuts of even better for free… Or even better the employees should pay for the employer so that they can work! To be fair, this phenomenon exists, but mostly among interns, juniors.
Luckily this isn’t the realily for most of us, but it seems some employers still dream about people who’d for work for them underpaid and being happy about it.
For me one manifestation of this idea is a job description - some would call it an offer - which does not indicate the available salary range. In certain countries, unfortunately this is quite a habit. Hungary and France are among those countries. They show the job as an offer, but they hide what’s offered in exhange for your services. My strong belief is that it’s to reduce salaries. John Sonmez basically says the same when in his book called Soft Skills:The software developer’s life manual he writes about salary negotiation that you must avoid at all costs saying a number first.
I think those who are from group two make bad for all the employees. Employers should not get used to qualified work force who do not expect to be fairly rewarded for their services. But let’s not forget that rewards can have different forms. I know certain smaller companies which do not wish to compete with market salary rates, but offer really valuable experience. On the other hand they never bullshit around this. They won’t deny that the salary is relatively small and they don’t expect to be build a super loyal team who will work hard for long years just for the sake of work. No, they know exactly they are a sort of spring board. People who will work for them will leave sooner of later, but they will work hard while being there. Why? Because they want to get that precious experience that they can exchange for hard cash at their next employer.
That’s a fair exchange. But don’t bullshit and oversimplify things if you consider yourself a serious person. Please.