I'm in Glamour Magazine, Folks! October 2009 Issue, Page 253.

well, i'd be a big fat liar if i said i didn't think it was a big deal to have landed on the pages of a national magazine. seriously. glamour magazine, folks. for real! page 253, the october 2009 issue, the focus being on pay transparency. you shouldn't have to guess what side of the issue i can down on...

the spread:

glamour asked:

should you tell coworkers how much you make? salary sharing sites like glassdoor.com make it easier to know what other people earn. (and if the new paycheck fairness act gets passed, your employer can't retaliate if you disclose what's on your pay stub.) should we be more open about our salaries? we put the question to the experts.

and the response from moi? 

no! making salaries public breeds resentment. let's say your coworker julie tells you her salary, and she's making $8,000 more than you - for doing the same job. your company may have valid reasons (maybe julie has more education), but you'll still resent it and then how could you work well together? no wonder 89 percent of workers say they don'tw ant to share their pay details, according to a british study. companies should give employees a salary range for specific jobs (that's only fair), but the exact number should be determined by negotiating skills. build the best case for why you should earn more based on your record. regardless of what others make, you have to ask for what you're worth.

a little bit about what went into this because it was an interesting, interesting process. first off, thanks to Ann Bares at the blog Compensation Force... i wouldn't have had this opportunity had she not referred them to me. but the chatter between the editor and i started back in december. december! this was 9 months in the making. they gave me the premise. i gave them my opinion. and we started with me writing something up that was about 300 words in length. 300 words written in my voice, saying kinda about the same thing as what eventually printed... but my voice isn't necessarily glamour's voice. about four rounds back-and-forth with their editors and varying versions of the piece, the 300 words i originally wrote was eventually whittled down to 122 words. 

the writing process was interesting. getting the voice right for glamour was tough but even harder? writing something that was still ra-ra for the ladies but still held true to my own beliefs. i mean... i didn't know what the "yes!" piece opposite mine would say but seeing it now, i'm reminded why this was challenging in the first place. basically, she throws in the fact that women still earn 78 cents for every dollar earned by a man as the basis of her argument for why we need pay transparency... and that kind of makes me look like the anti-woman asshole, you know? i'm arguing that we need to be better at negotiating and we should keep salaries private; who cares about gender equality! {sigh...} i still hold firmly with my viewpoint though. it's easy to pontificate and say everyone's salaries should be public... but it's just not practical in a real world setting.

so the piece was written. we came to agreement on the tone and content... but after not hearing from their editors for months, i assumed that they scrapped the piece and that it was just an exercise in dealing with big publishing houses... then came the call from the conde nast fact checker in august. spell your name. what's your title? who do you work for? confirm that you wrote this. and nine months later, the piece finally ran and i bought my copy of the magazine off the shelf of CVS!

and in case you were wondering, nope, i wasn't paid for it. don't think that i didn't ask either. you have to ask for what you're worth, remember? apparently, being in glamour magazine as a newbie like me should be payment enough... and i'd have to say... they were actually right.

have you picked up your copy of glamour magazine yet?!

Comments

[Robert Jae]

so proud!

[Trish McFarlane]

Jessica- Congratulations. Although it was a long process and heavily edited, you can feel proud that you got your message out. I'll need you to autograph my copy when I'm in DC. :-)

Trish

[lisamacabu]

congratulations!!

[Joan Ginsberg]

Kudos, Jessica! I agree with you - getting this type of exposure in a national magazine is a great thing. You can get actual cash next time!

[Cherene Vitello]

Jessica -

Congratulations on this! What an honor and how exciting. I totally agree with your perspective and how people should not share their compensation with other co-workers. It is not apples to apples. Looking forward to reading others pieces as well. Thank you for sharing how the story came to be as well, publishing no matter what the medium is so interesting.

Best -
Chernee Vitello

[Keith McIlvaine]

rock on!

[Jennifer McClure]

Congrats JLee! You are doing a great job of continuing to build your resume as the "voice of the new HR pros"!

[Ted]

Congratulations! I'm going to pick up a copy - should be interesting to see what my housemates think when I promise them that Glamour is research/work related!

[twitter.com/hostessgoddess]

congratulations JL!! thats huge!! its only every girl's dream to be published in glamour and you've done it.

[www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=632019852]

Did I miss this? Congrats!

[Ginger Dodds]

Jessica,
congrats! That is excellent exposure. (Love Jennifer McClure's way of thinking!!)