One long-held taboo of office life is that you're not supposed to talk about what you make. And if you do, oh, you better make sure that whomever you share those private $$-details with can keep his or her mouth shut, lest it get back to someone in, say, human resources, who will not approve at all of your mouthing off on the issue everyone's supposed to keep mum about. Of course, this is a bit strange, because if we all knew each other's salaries, we would be in better, more informed bargaining positions. If there was wage discrimination of any sort, it would be revealed. And more basically, knowledge is power, right? And so are salaries. Getting paid is a key part of work (this is not just for pleasure, friends). So why are we so afraid to go there in our conversations about working?

I literally just left a meeting where our VP told us that the average base salary was between $X and $X for those in the room. -We all have the same job. I know that some were at the bottom "X" and were probably like, "WTF!"

I was in the second "X" -Sweet!