I found out entirely by accident. Matt and I were chatting after a rough client call, and he joked that “for what they pay me, they can dump anything on my plate.”I asked what “anything” was worth, and he answered without thinking. The number hit me like a punch. When I told him mine, he went silent, blinking like he’d misheard.
We were hired the same week, same title, same projects—half the time we literally split tasks down the middle. He looked genuinely rattled.And that’s when he said the part that changed everything, “During hiring, I told them I wasn’t willing to work for less. That was it. No special qualifications. No bonus duties. I just said the number.”
