“Know Your Value” is a powerful phrase coined by author Mika Brzezinski, urging women to assert their worth and demand the pay they deserve. I wholeheartedly support her call for equality and encourage our members to actively participate in the fight to bridge the gender pay gap.

As finance professionals, we quantify people’s value daily through payroll, the budget, and our decision making. On our paychecks, we measure our time in dollars. I am not saying this is wrong; our entire financial system relies on these calculations to ensure we can quantify equity, importance, and liability. However, this phrasing also highlights our fixation on the value of our time expressed in a dollar figure.

I recently changed jobs and received a check for my unused vacation time. The money was nice, but I began to think about the other side of the equation. That money represented three weeks of leave. In the past year, I have lost my grandfather and my longtime cat. That is 120 hours I could have spent with the people I had lost; that is a vacation I could have taken with my family; or that is time my spouse and I could have spent together. If you are like me that time with your loved ones is worth more than your hourly rate.

The past year’s events have made me rethink the value of time, because it is the one thing I can’t get back. My vacation bank is not a badge of honor. It does not show my commitment to my job or profession. My payout showed me that my time is worth more than my hourly rate. No amount of money can give me back that time with those I care about. I cannot change the past, but from now on, I can better understand the value of my time.

Thank you for your time,

John Zagurski

GFOAT President