My Coworker Made 300 Yuan More Than Me, So I Quit in a Huff. Things Only Got Worse.

My cousin Alan quit his job again, on impulse.

The reason was simple: he found out that Sam, a junior college graduate with less than two years of experience, was making 300 yuan more than him.

Alan was furious. He paced around the break room, his instant coffee still unstirred, and started venting: "How does he deserve a higher salary than me? The company's compensation system is toxic!"

At noon that day, he slammed the table and resigned. On his way out, he kicked over the HR department's money tree. His WeChat Moments post read: "I'm done serving you."

This was his seventh resignation in four years.

His previous reasons for quitting were all over the place:

Once, it was because the team-building dinner was seafood, and he's allergic to seafood (the key point being he didn't even go);

Another time, the office coffee machine was a ten-year-old model, and he felt there was no future;

The most absurd one: he saw the new post-95 director wearing sneakers three times more expensive than his, and immediately concluded the company's pay system was broken.

Every time, he believed he was an undervalued genius, and the next company would surely recognize his talent.

But reality is—his salary kept dropping with each job change, and his roles became more and more marginal.

His latest offer had a probationary salary 500 yuan less than Sam's.

And what about Sam, the guy he raged about for not deserving a high salary? Three months later, Sam passed probation with a raise and was pulled into a key project team. Because in those three months, Sam went from not knowing SQL to independently building a data warehouse; from knowing nothing to delivering weekly data reports to product managers. No one mentored him. He learned on his own.

You think your salary is compensation for your emotions, but in reality, it's just the pricing of your value.

Many people believe they've been shortchanged.

But here's the uncomfortable truth: your current salary is very likely the highest market price you can get right now.

This isn't motivational fluff or a put-down. It's the essence of workplace economics: your salary is the market price of the problems you can solve.

At the evening market, celery is sold at a discount not because the vendor is mean, but because no one will want it tomorrow.

The workplace is the same. Can someone else do what you do faster and cheaper? That's what HR and companies care about.

Why do you always feel "shortchanged"? See if any of these fit:

Copywriter Lisa claims five years of advertising experience. For Women's Day, she was asked to write a poster. She agonized all day and finally submitted: "Happy March 8th, 20% off storewide!" The boss nearly called the police after reading it.
Programmer Lao Zhang always says technology is his faith, but whenever his service goes live, the whole company has to take emergency measures.
Operations Mike calls himself an undiscovered marketing genius. During a livestream sales session, the audience dropped from 200 to 18, 15 of whom were cursing him, and the remaining 3 were spies sent by competitors.

Do you know why Sam got a raise?

Because he quietly used ChatGPT to analyze product data and write competitor reports, and built a web scraper that saved the team two weeks of work.

He doesn't talk much, but problems get solved silently by him.

And Alan? He stares at other people's pay stubs every day, speculates about colleagues and bosses behind their backs, complains about unfairness, but never actually does anything.

Stop asking only whether you deserve your salary. Instead, ask:

If I left, who would panic? Could the company replace me painlessly?

Want a raise? It's not about emotions; it's about scarcity.

Three practical actions that beat job-hopping:

First, upgrade your skills. Learn in-demand technologies like data analysis, AI tools, and low-code automation.
Second, quantify your results. Change "I participated in project XXX" to "I improved metric XX by 30%." (See How to Write a Resume with AI)
Third, take initiative. Pick high-priority tasks and solve the problems that keep your boss up at night. He will remember you. (See Rule 3: Solve the Problem First, Then Seek Recognition)

When you're busy but no one knows what you've done; when you work hard but no one thinks you're indispensable, it means what you do is not scarce, not valuable, and replaceable.

The truth about the workplace is:

Truly valuable people need to do even more to earn a raise (toxic teams are even worse, see Diagnosing a Toxic Team); people with vague value can talk until their mouths dry, and HR will still say, "We'll think about it." (Cherish any boss who proactively gives you a raise.)

If you've read this far and feel a slight sting in the corner of your eye, it might not be grievance. It might be the realization that you truly lack scarcity in the workplace.

Now, it's your turn to reprice yourself.