It could be that people offering less simply don't value your skills as much. I've certainly seen people who think they are senior but in tests come out only intermediate. That someone else will buy into their senior claim doesn't mean the companies that do a better job judging skill level don't pay market rate. You seem to be implying that there is no such thing as being overpaid, which is pretty nonsensical.

> It could be that people offering less simply don't value your skills as much.

Entirely possible. Luckily, someone's inability to properly value an employee's skills doesn't prohibit said employee from finding an employer who will pay the market clearing price for their time. Value is determined by the market, not an individual hiring manager.

> You seem to be implying that there is no such thing as being overpaid, which is pretty nonsensical.

There isn't such a thing. Someone is getting paid what they were able to negotiate between two willing parties.

But that is what is called "professional detachment".

The kind of thing that allows your lawyer or psychoanalyst (or your surgeon) to be not influenced in doing their work for (or on) you.

But you don't hire them, you pay them as consultants, and only when you actually need their professional services.

It is probably a good thing (for you) that you are so valued on the market that you can go for the highest bid on a virtual employment auction, and it is fair enough, still if someone is building a company I believe it is their right to limit the amount available for your wage to a given budget and looking for people that may bring with them (besides their professionality) something else to the company (be it enthusiams, good team playing, whatever).

In my experience (not connected to IT or related to it) it happened to me more than once to need to fire someone (or not hire him/her) not because they weren't good at their work (actually in some cases they were very good at it) but simply because they asked for a crazy amount of money or they had (or would have) made other people less productive, one way or the other.

This is all a funny (i.e., sad) thing to have happened: the usual suspects have created a mythology that labor is a "marketplace" that optimizes according to naturalistic laws of supply and demand, which turns into a canard to attack employees. Now that employers are getting what they wish for (from high-end or niche employees, the only ones with any individual power), they really wish it was only an impersonal marketplace for them.

I guess the bigger point is that, when an abstraction gets old and popular enough, it becomes first-class and its specifics get obscured by time. So employment isn't a marketplace anymore, because won't somebody think of the employers! but we just keep the aspects of employees being cogs in the business and call it "culture." Which, of course, the dissenting replies have shown in spades: ask not what your company can do for you, ask what you can do for your company!

> I will be polite, but if you offer a dollar less in total compensation than the other person, I will accept the other offer and thank you for your time.

Many people take into consideration much more factors, than just money, i.e. it is common to work on crappy project in hostile environment with no flexibility for excellent money, and - on the contrary - work for a little less but on fun projects, in friendly environment, with great perks, flexibility, etc.

Anyway, I hire lots of IT-related people and would most probably not want to have in one of my teams person of such attitude. (To be honest, I "inherited" one of such employees and he's really negative, materialistic and 24/7 complaining person. Not pleasant to work with at all, and he demotivates others with his attitude.)

But you don't, and can't, truly know any those other factors until you've worked some where for N weeks/months/years. Every company, when hiring, tries to put it's best face forward.

How will you know if the VP of Engineering is a borderline raving lunatic who treats his staff like garbage until you've had the opportunity to witness their behavior first hand? How will you know if your manager likes to micromanage their reports, making your day job a living hell, until you actually work underneath of them? How do you know beforehand if there are toxic individuals, that may be your co-workers or others that you need to work closely with, who create negative work and a poor working environment? How will you know beforehand if any of these things will be addressed if they are present? What about places with ridiculous office politics and bureaucracy? For instance, it can take years to find out nepotism runs rampant through different layers or departments in a company.

The best you can do is word of mouth and things like GlassDoor. But, word of mouth requires access to people who have worked or currently work at that place, and you have to take those things with a grain of salt, especially coming from former employees. Even if you do have access to these things, it's been my experience that these things only get you approximately close to some truth.

It's a very big gamble and, having lived through some of the above scenarios, I completely understand why people optimize this problem for the highest pay.

Sure and I don't expect people to be foolish. Or to buy into any BS.

However I do think politeness and an interest in long term mutual benefit is better.

The world you describe suggests a zero sum approach in which, indeed, the music must one day stop.

It isn't labor's decision whether this is a zero-sum game or not, though.