In your OP, your primary argument, as I read it, was that business is fundamentally a business transaction. When I pointed this out, you changed your argument to how there are other benefits to a job.
My point is that if you go around and tell everyone at work that you're doing it because of the money, you're... not coming off particularly well? A statement like that comes off a bit odd and socially tone-deaf? And yes, I understand that it's true that you would quit your job if they stopped paying you, but things can be true and still not a great idea to say out loud. It can be an objective fact that my manager is ugly; it's not a good idea to say this during a meeting.
I said “they give me money and benefits”, and I didn’t define what those benefits were. As I said, I hated working at that BigCo and took a pay cut to work with people I liked more to do work I thought would be more fun. To me the benefit was being able to do work I enjoyed more. I apologize if that wasn’t clear, obviously there are more categories to choosing a job than net pay; if there weren’t we wouldn’t have any teachers.
It wasn’t like I just blurted it out when people were deciding which database to use, it was relevant to the discussion. I can’t remember the exact conversation but IIRC we were having trouble hiring someone for a role and the topic of compensation came up. I felt my comment was relevant, and I genuinely didn’t even consider that people would have issue with it because I thought it was borderline tautological.
My point is that if you go around and tell everyone at work that you're doing it because of the money, you're... not coming off particularly well? A statement like that comes off a bit odd and socially tone-deaf? And yes, I understand that it's true that you would quit your job if they stopped paying you, but things can be true and still not a great idea to say out loud. It can be an objective fact that my manager is ugly; it's not a good idea to say this during a meeting.