Part I here.
This seems to especially affect younger people. I don’t know if they are indoctrinated or cowardly or just plain naive. You don’t owe anything to anyone. You do your job, you get paid. End of transaction. Giving you a job isn’t an act of charity deserving reward any more than giving them your labor. If you are paid well then work hard. If you aren’t then demand a raise appropriate to the greater of your market and organizational value.
Don’t ever “take one for the team”. There is no team. They will fire you in an instant if it saved fifty bucks. The executives will Zuckerberg you without hesitation. VC’s will demand entire divisions to be laid off in order to meet arbitrary quarterly profit numbers so they can dump the husk of a company on Wall Street next year. One naive friend of mine still hasn’t been compensated as promised for working with no pay for six months to help found a startup, after three years and over $2,000,000 of subsequent funding. Did I mention he moved across the country to do this?
Does your title start with C and end in O? If not then the company’s finances are not your problem. If they can’t afford to pay an agreeable wage then move on to someone who can. You are not the company’s rich grandparents. You should not ever “bail them out”. If an executive ever says they can’t afford your reasonable wage requirements because the company has no money, look them in the eye and say “then take it out of the salary of those who are responsible for the company’s finances.” I know several executives who have taken it out of their own pay.
What has “the community” ever given to you that it deserves to be “given back to”?
Are you afraid of hurting someone’s feelings by demanding a fair wage? What about your feelings? What about your family’s feelings? You spouse, your kids? Whose feelings are more important to you: your manager or your child?
Remember there are always secondary consequences. By working for low pay at a company that “gave you a shot” you are depriving another company of the opportunity to give you the next step. By working for low pay for one friend you are depriving other potential new friends of the value of your work. Offering your services at below-market wage “to a good cause” deprives your services to “a better cause” somewhere else. Life consists of an endless series of trade-offs. Money is how we compare them. Make sure you charge appropriately too. I charge an extra $20k per year to have to occasionally use Windows. $15k for OSX. No amount of money could bribe me to work on Android or iOS again, nor to infringe on my family time.
The reason you watch out for yourself first is that nobody else is. Want to help others? Become strong first. Weaklings accomplish nothing.
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