To ask what high earners do all day?

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You know this how? You work at high level and are privy to these details? Or youre just daily mailing it...

I'm guessing nuclear power?
And I'm glad to hear that this at least is a sector where responsibilities are taken extremely seriously. Anything less, as we all know, can be pretty catastrophic...

The job my late husband was in was directly monitored by national, and some international safety organisations. Decisions he took relating to safety and environmental safety were his direct personal responsibility. Getting sacked was the least of his concerns.

If you cannot take time off when you are ill or on holiday then a) you are not modelling healthy working practices for your juniors and b) you are functionally a single point of failure waiting to happen, which is not generally considered a good thing.

Max Weber is fucking loving this thread

Used to be one of these. Combination of strategy, business planning, management and hr, as well as specialist advice, problem solving and crisis management. Sadly too much of the crisis stuff and less of the others. I was much younger then and probably would do a better job these days.

This is very interesting and I read it a lot, however it’s very different from my experience.

The senior people I know are invariably married (as opposed to separated / divorced or single) and more often than not they are married to an equally high-achieving spouse i.e. so called “power couples”. I know a very high number of couples in exactly the same profession - two lawyers, two doctors, two accountants etc. Perhaps these marriages have a higher chance of survival than more unequal marriages because there is an understanding from each party of the stresses and demands of their respective careers? I’m speculating, because I genuinely hardly know any divorced people in my profession, at any level. I can think of one divorcee who found a new boyfriend and remarried quite quickly, and one widower, in the almost 15 years I’ve been in the profession.

I genuinely think this thread has been a valuable insight into why corporate capitalism is so fucked up. All the people making decisions being pulled this way and that in meetings from morning til night. I wonder how many of - for example - Thames Water's meetings were actually about public accountability versus covering-our-arses firefighting.

What they don't fundraise, ensure governance is done properly, deal with staffing issues - hiring and firing, talk to trustees, ensure there is a strategic plan, ensure the charity is still solvent and viable. .?

I'm not senior management level, but over the years I have seen what my bosses go through with pressure and endless meetings, and what happens to them when the shit hits the fan. I also see their lovely cars, houses, jewellery and kids with private education.. but then I also see their failed marriges and stressed-out over-achiever kids (not all of them, obvs).

No thanks, not worth it.

All the people talking about the huge responsibility CEOs/ Heads of departments carry - and I don't dispute on paper that they absolutely do - do you ever wonder though why there appears to be so little real accountability for failure/disasters/scandals on their watch?
From what I've seen of both the top tier corporate and public sector world, people seem to fail upwards or they're shuffled sideways from one extremely well-paid position to the next. It's like this unwritten code that once you've made it to a certain level/ made enough connections/ know where enough of the bodies are buried you're golden, irrespective of your actual ability, the state you've left the company or organization in or even whether you've actually achieved any tangible results at all...

I'm a lawyer working in-house in tech and tend to earn about that, depending on bonus. My days involve a never ending cycle of emails, meetings, meetings about meetings we're having later, meetings to argue about the interpretation of individual words in a contract, meetings with engineers to try and understand their products etc. Lots of drafting of contract terms for upcoming deals, drafting emails, advisory notes. Sending instructions to external counsel when necessary and meetings with them. Providing training to the business and engineering teams on key compliance frameworks (e.g., latest regulations for AI and how it impacts our product designs).

Just generally lots of stress too. Far more stress than when I was more junior. Now I'm more senior I have the benefit of being a bit more flexible in terms of working hours, but the work itself is very complicated and decisions I make are more risky or potentially more impactful. I'm expected to be available a lot, which means working weekends, holidays and a lot of evenings once the kids are in bed. When I'm not physically working on my laptop, I often have work in my mind. Its very hard to switch off. I literally dream about different work matters I have on that I'm finding it hard to 'fix'. The pressure to come up with 'creative solutions' (i.e., the business wants to do X, find a way to make it legal or compliant) which aren't too risky is exhausting and you're constantly second guessing your decisions.

Honestly, its been pretty horrific recently and I've been making exit plans to move to a less stressful role. I'm thankful not to have any direct reports or people management responsibilities.

Writing complicated spreadsheets and meetings (DH, actuarial consultant).

Also there is a huge difference between CEO level and salary or running a law firm (people have floated numbers like 400k plus) to a sales or marketing director on 150k. Obviously both are incredibly stressful but the responsibility of the whole company does not fall on the marketing director..

Something, something, something... "meetings"; something, something, something... "pressure"; something, something, something... "decisions" 🤣

It’s okay if you don’t understand it, not many people do. Hence threads like this. Most people have no clue what is involved in being a CEO.

To make decisions quickly and own them.

Pretty much how it was for me and my late husband. No kids but I had a 0.5 part time job, fairly senior but very flexible, in a local NHS Trust. Running the house and the life admin was all mine because he might get called away at no notice for all sorts of reasons and need to spend literally days onsite in the Uk or abroad, He kept a couple of changes of clothes and a wash kit in his workplace. He was well paid, yes but he was also excellent at what he did and made huge contributions to workplace safety and global environmental safety. I sort of mind the wording of the OP's post although they may not have meant it To me "what does xxx do all day" implies that the speaker thinks that they lounge around and do sod all.

If a social worker (or childminder etc.) makes the wrong call, people die. Not sure I am seeing the difference in pressure here.

They also have the responsibility for the livelihoods of every one of their employees. If they make poor decisions which lead to the company becoming bankrupt, or being subject to huge regulatory fines, or suffering reputational damage, it doesn’t just impact them - it impacts all the people they employ too. And a good board should be mindful of that. Quite apart from the personal liability they hold in terms of prosecution in a number of industries.

More fool them then, TBH. Not having a plan in place for someone to step in in case of illness sounds like poor planning and bad workplace practice to me. What happens to the company when the CEO slash CFO is suddenly incapacitated?

It won’t be as huge as the pressure a CEO or CFO faces. It’s also a different kind of pressure. When a social worker is sick they (rightly) get time off to recover, least of all so they don’t pass any illness onto their patients. I am far below CEO in my organisation, mid-seniority, and when I’m sick I continue working but do so from home. No change to my hours because I am the only person on a project who has certain responsibility and no one else can step in. Similarly, I suspect a social worker does not continue working while on annual leave. They don’t come into work on their days off and care for patients. CEOs have to always be ‘on’ through weekends and holidays.

@GoodNightsshe fully supports paying more tax. It’s a privilege to be earning the level he does now

How does he feel about paying more tax?