"Beware of the Ides of March"

Wage gaps and the hour that got away

Mar 16, 2023

Shakespeare warned us to “beware of the Ides of March,” and he was not kidding. Sunday was “Spring Forward” day, and also my least favorite day of the year. Every year, I spend weeks feeling like I’ve lost something of great importance, much like how Dustin Hoffman’s “Ben Braddock” pursues his lost love “Elaine” at the end of The Graduate.

According to The Farmer’s Almanac, William Willet, a builder in London wrote a manifesto called “The Waste of Daylight” because he was so upset to see people’s shutters closed after the sun had risen. And of course, just like when lobbying successfully convinced us that eggs would kill us all, lobbying is to blame here too as Willet spent a small fortune lobbying Congress (as well as Parliament and business) to “put the clocks ahead 20 minutes.” Of note, he is also the great-great-grandfather of Coldplay’s Chris Martin, which might explain…

After World War I, people everywhere recognized the need to conserve coal. The Germans adopted the first daylight extension in 1915 as a fuel saving measure. Then, the British and the United States did the same over the next several years, following several more lobbying campaigns with messages like “If I have more daylight, I can work longer for my country.” I suspect this was the early 20^th century version of “we all have to come back to the office.”

What I find most fascinating is that farmers were not the driving force behind Daylight Savings Time (DST), which is what I have believed for most of my life. The original DST experiment only lasted a couple of years and was repealed due to opposition from dairy farmers (who know a little something about having to get up in the middle of the night). The practice returned again during World War II to “save fuel” and has been in place in some form ever since, though for many years states could apply their own “flavors” until that had such a negative impact on interstate travel that Congress passed the Uniform Time Act in 1966 establishing the consistent application of DST. The current daylight saving period was established by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 even though farming organizations continue to lobby against the practice (go farmers!). There are 19 states that have passed bills to end the practice of switching clocks, but Federal law creates the “floor” that the states must abide by.

While not a farmer (though I am interested in adopting a pair of adorable donkeys based solely on this CBS This Morning segment and a lifelong love of Eeyore)1, I am a person who walks at 6 a.m. every morning. In late February and early March, I start to be able to see the sidewalk without a headlamp which makes the whole experience more enjoyable, makes me look less like a coal miner, and ensures that I don’t spend half the day with a red indented spot on my forehead where the lamp was.2

Unfortunately for me, Federal proposals seek to have DST all year round – evidently so that the night owls (namely people who do not eat dinner at 4 p.m. like I do) have more daylight to play while I am sleeping, and I can continue to schlep up the sidewalk in pitch black darkness.

Last week, I had the unfortunate realization that Clarence Thomas and I were on the same side of the fence related to Section 230 and liability protections for social media platforms. Earlier this month, Marco Rubio and I aligned “in principle” (which is a horrifying thing to put in writing) relating to not changing the time twice a year. Will “the Donald” and I be next in this upside-down world? Stay tuned.

It all reminds me of a poem my mom made me memorize when I was a kid.3 Yes, she was one of those moms who heavily “supplemented” the typical public school curriculum to make me more well-rounded, then worried all through college that I didn’t have a major and my propensity to take classes that were “interesting” would ensure my lifelong unemployment and general financial ruin. The poem is called “Bed In Summer” by Robert Louis Stevenson, which includes the prophecy of my future life: “In summer, quite the other way, I have to go to bed by day.”

As if Spring Forward Day was not enough to hate this week, then came Equal Pay Day

March 14^th marked Equal Pay Day. As a level set, it is the day that measures how many EXTRA days the average woman would have to work to make the same amount as a man made IN THE PRIOR YEAR because women are paid 83 cents for every dollar men earn (and it’s even lower for women of color). This is more time than it took Elon Musk to take Twitter into the dumpster.

And here I am complaining about losing an hour when we have bigger problems.

According to the Pew Research Center, women are penalized by more family caregiving responsibilities, discrimination, and the types of jobs/fields that women are overrepresented in (like care work, etc). Many argue that policy solutions are the answer, including pay transparency, prohibitions of asking about pay history, improving the childcare infrastructure, higher minimum wages and stronger pay equity laws. However, these have always been the “solutions” and yet the wage gap “hasn’t narrowed a lot in the last 15 years.”

To me, legislation isn’t the solution. I think the immediate solution is simpler, and exists with every hiring manager at every organization. Most companies have “pay bands” or ranges that are approved for salaries and as long as they stay within the “ranges,” hiring managers tend to have some discretion. In my experience, managers and organizations aren’t nearly so “expense conscious” when they are buying the latest whizbang technology, bringing in consultants to tell them what their own talent likely already knows, or doling out executive bonuses. So, why does everyone become a penny pinching negotiation ace when acquiring talent (the most critical and valuable resource there is)?

Take my own experience (before certain states started requiring salary transparency in postings). During the interview process, I ask people what their “expected salary” is and tell them “I’m not going to hold it against you if it’s lower than what’s in my head, I just want to make sure we live on the same planet.” And I mean it. My most colorful example of this was years ago when I was hiring a lawyer. I could tell in the interviews that she really wanted the job, and when she shared her desired compensation, we were definitely living on the same planet, and even on the same street. It came time to offer her the job. When I called her, I could hear the excitement in her voice and I could not wait to watch her flourish in the new role. After telling her that I wanted to offer her the job, I said “we just have one problem. Your salary expectations aren’t lining up with what the job pays.” She immediately told me how much she wanted the job, and that she would take less. I laughed and said “oh no! The job pays $30,000 more than you asked for.” We had a good laugh and she accepted the role on the spot (once she had picked herself up off the ground).

The lesson here is not to be slightly wicked with your sense of humor. It is: pay at the top of the “band” for everyone (regardless of gender, race or any other protected status, and regardless of the individual's salary expectations that might be heavily shaped by years of being underpaid). Pay what the job is worth to YOU (the expert on what people earn), and find your cost saving opportunities elsewhere. By hiring great talent, they will pay for themselves exponentially in the long run, and more than recoup that “extra spend” at the start. If you are making an offer to someone, you obviously already believe that they are the most qualified for the job. You are likely going to expect them to work hard and make a difference in the organization. Pay them in anticipation of that and do not "nickel and dime" your most precious resource. And for all of those people who told me “don’t pay at the top of the band because then there is no room for raises,” I ask this: why on earth would I reduce someone’s pay today so that I can dole it out to them in 3% increments over the next decade?4 How do we expect that to motivate anyone or retain top talent?

In addition, invest your energy in developing your leadership to focus on coaching and development of the team, ensuring continuous upward opportunities toward higher pay bands.

But, “people are people”

And finally, for the cynics among us, do not let your lack of understanding of human nature affect your views about pay. A few years ago, I took the very popular Yale “happiness class” online (which I highly recommend).

Of the many surprising things I learned, none was more surprising that a study Dr. Laurie Santos shared (similar to one here) where HALF of the people surveyed would prefer to earn substantially less money as long as they were earning more than their peers. This is both terrifying and counterintuitive, but may explain more about pay disparity than anything else (and certainly won’t be solved with legislation).

Espresso shots

Since we all lost an hour this week and many of us are working more for the same pay, I thought I would share a few other articles and items of interest to return some of that lost time to you.

The Atlantic shared a great piece in the April 2023 issue, “The Puzzling Gap Between How Old You Are and How Old You Think You Are.” In a world of tiny coincidences, I also read “Have I Told You This Already?: Stories I Don’t Want to Forget to Remember,” by Lauren Graham (aka Lorelei Gilmore), who wrote an essay about being 32…the exact age that I feel in my own head at all times. I highly recommend both the book and the article.

I heard from several of you in response to my article about introversion, “Shhhh! I’ve got a professional secret (and half of you probably do too).” As a follow up, there was a terrific piece in the NY Times called “I Love You, Now Leave Me Alone: What Friendship Means to an Introvert.”

And finally, unless you have been at a silent retreat for the past week, you heard all about the latest venture capital dumpster fire, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). There is so much interesting coverage, but as a preview to a future PrepOverCoffee article, I think the longest lasting impact will be the governance story behind the SVB failure (check out the various links that follow). With everything from culture wars and the anti-ESG crowd, the theme you’ve heard here before about how the VC/entrepreneurship community will eat itself alive if it continues to behave as though it is a completely separate industry operating with completely different rules, conflicts of interest, the critical nature of risk management, the limitations of 10b5-1 (aka insider trading) plans, and even how critical board functions like risk committees will operate moving forward, it is a model of failure that will be talked about for years to come.

PrepOverCoffee

"Beware of the Ides of March"

Wage gaps and the hour that got away

As if Spring Forward Day was not enough to hate this week, then came Equal Pay Day

But, “people are people”

Espresso shots

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