What you don’t see can hurt you

This past week, the test prep company I work for held what is known as Convocation, an annual two-day meeting that brings together the organization’s mostly remote instructors to the company’s headquarters in New York City for some solid together time. While ostensibly a training session, the event is more important as an opportunity for more far-flung instructors—teachers are often the only company employees in a particular market—to soak in the company’s culture for a few days … and to commune with people you really like that you haven’t seen for a long time (i.e. since last year’s Convocation).

Having worked at quite a few companies, I’ve found the sense of community, the esprit de teacher corps, so to speak, at this company to be refreshing … and rare. Part of it no doubt comes from the fact that we’re all slightly odd ducks, and I mean that in the best possible way. There was not one, but two presentations on Physics this week, and during Trivia Hour, fisticuffs almost ensued over whether our liver or our skin is, in fact, the heaviest organ of the human body.

This is an actual screen saver from the office:

Teaching is, for most of us, something we do part-time on the side, and one of my favorite parts of Convocation is finding out what everyone is doing on their other side. A high proportion seem to be actors who have much better head shots than I do on the instructor bio pages, but I quibble.

You can find at Convocation both a room at the after-party dedicated to board games and an instructor who works in the board game industry. It’s a special time, and a special place—special enough that our instructors stay on long after they need the income (I’m looking at you, savvy Texas real estate investor). Side gigs, remember?

I’ve been thinking about our group of instructors a lot, and while birds of a feather do indeed flock together, I think the secret sauce of our collegial little crew comes from something else entirely—something both straightforward and radical.

I know how much money everyone makes. We all know what everyone makes.

I don’t mean we all take home the same amount each year. Rather, we all get paid the same hourly rates for the different types of work we do whether teaching, tutoring, or making silly vocabulary videos. It doesn’t matter if we’re teaching our first class or our 100th. Since I started Live Beneath Your Means—side gig!—I’ve been thinking a lot about the many things that hold people back from building a strong financial foundation, and one of the biggest ones, I believe, is the lack of transparency around our personal finances.

Talking about money—what we have, what we make, what we spend—is the last taboo. I don’t know exactly why this is—readers! I’ll answer any question you send along!—but I have a few ideas. Money is so tied up with value in our society. Our salary marks us as relatively worthy … or not. And that is awkward! Even between friends. Maybe especially between friends. When we compare, we might feel shame about out relative worth—and it won’t necessarily be the person with the lower number who feels that way. That shame is uncomfortable. So we just avoid the topic altogether.

The consequences of this secrecy are far-reaching—and mostly to our detriment. To give but a few examples, when you don’t know what other people in your organization make, how do you know if you’re being paid equitably? Why do you compare yourself to others—and find yourself lacking—when you have no idea what their financial situation is? Did they inherit money? Is their lifestyle bought on credit? WHY DON’T I KNOW WHAT ANYTHING RELATED TO HEALTH CARE ACTUALLY COSTS?

Who do you trust enough to really talk about money with? My guess is that list is short.

So back to my fellow instructors. I don’t think I exaggerate when I say that much of my fondness for this little band of test prep enthusiasts stems from the fact that we relate to each other, first and foremost, as equals, at least using the metric America has deemed most relevant. As a result, I trust the company and I trust my colleagues. And we can talk about it all.

Even human organs.