Remote employee discovers that the new hire makes 25k more for the same position, so he prepared a presentation to get a raise: ‘Here's what I'm doing and here's what the market and my own scope say it's worth’

María Cetra • Writer

Jul 24, 2026 10:30 AM EDT

To stand up for yourself can get you really far

This Reddit story got me thinking about our worth. Our value, what we do, and how much it matters. We make a difference, we are capable of something, and we do it. That has real value. Sometimes we feel as if companies only saw us as numbers or robots. Something that is there and doesn't matter outside of the workload that they do. We are far more than that. We have our own thing that differentiates us from everyone else. That matters. If it weren't for that thing, what is really saving us from getting replaced by robots or AI?

That value matters, but not everybody is going to admit it. When a job isn't valuing you, that doesn't mean that you don't have value. It just means that they don't see it or need it, but someone or somewhere else is going to matter. And the only way to discover how important you are to others is to stand up for yourself, because if you can't see your own value, why would somebody else notice it?

Standing up for yourself means knowing your worth and fighting for it. Is not letting anybody step on you or use you. Is knowing what is mistreatment and defending yourself. Is actually caring about you and your individuality. To get what you deserve. What this person did could have gone wrong, but he did it anyway, because he knew his worth was underestimated, that he was mistreated, that standing up for himself had value. So be more like that. Make sure people know that you know your value, and defend it even when it seems hard. After all, we only really have ourselves, and if we don't take care of us, nobody ever will.

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