Years ago I knew a brilliant engineer who took a job with a new company as their first hire… programmer, strategist, everything.

They delivered work that allowed the company to become a successful, thriving business that ultimately supported a sales team, marketing team and office workers, as well as a (what some might call) lavish lifestyle for the founder and offices in a prominent upscale area of the city this was in.

For the first few years they worked themselves to the bone, working through holidays and 12+ hour days building solutions for the company that brought in lucrative contracts. For months if their family wanted to have dinner with them it would be at the office, or cold leftovers whenever they finally made it home to sleep.

Eventually they hit burnout and had to walk away.

Sometime later I happened to be talking with former employees of that company who had moved on to other jobs and in a casual conversation they said “Hey you remember so-and-so from that place?” I did. They followed with “Man we all felt so bad for them and how things went. It’s like they built that whole operation and they were the lowest paid person in the company. Even the receptionist was getting paid more and we all knew it but nobody knew what to say. I hope things worked out well for them.”

😳

Then, years later I happened to run into the owner of that company in a public space and we had a pleasant conversation (I had done some contract work for them over the years myself) and at one point he asked if I was still in touch with the former employee and if I knew how they were doing. I shared what I was aware of and asked him casually… “so I ran into some of the other guys and they were telling me something, is it really true that (the former employee) was the lowest paid employee there?” His answer was yes, but it was the person’s fault for undervaluing their talent and he held no fault, hopefully they learned from that experience. He literally used the term “tough love” to summarize the situation.

😶

I want you to sit with that story. Do not be that guy. If an employee is the source of your revenue, compensate them accordingly. Not everyone is savvy about fair compensation for their skills. Someone lowballing themselves isn’t a win for you. It’s exploitation.