[joshuak]

This reminds me of the average salary tool. If you are not allowed, or it is bad form, to ask your peers' salaries you can create a list of people add a random number to your own salary give it to the first person on the list that person had their salary and gives it to the next continuing through the list. The last person give you the final number. You subtract your random number and divide by the total number of people and bingo you have the average salary of the group.

I actually did this once at a company I worked for. Both the management and the employees ended up unhappy.

(the typical, and more secure, version of this includes public key encryption between each participant)

[aaronmerriam]

Can you expand a little on why the result of this made people unhappy? At a guess, something relating to significant differences in salary for similar jobs?

[carb]

I assume he has three groups:

1. Employees paid less than the average 2. Employees paid equal to or more than the average 3. Management.

Reactions are:

1. Unhappy: Being paid less than average 2. Happy: Being paid more than average 3. Unhappy: Half of their employees now know they are being paid less and are unhappy.

[joshuak]

Yep that's it. Less then half of the total people involved are made happy by this.

However, one thing management should be more happy about is that usually the highest paid people are the nosiest. With a tool like this perhaps they can shut them up.