To feel depressed at financial talk on MN?

[FluffyPotato]

I understand that people sometimes have to talk salaries for context but I think some people just like to throw out numbers so that they show their middle class status to the rest of MN.

A thread I've just seen 'DH works 30 hours a week earning 60k' and someone commenting 'oh my DH earns 100k'.

I work bloody hard 40 hours a week and get about 1200 a month before tax.

AIBU to think that some MNers just like to boast their household income figures to others? Getting quite sick at how middle class mums net is.

There's always luck involved.

I've worked hard, I've sacrificed a lot and I've taken opportunities when they arose. That bit is down to me. It's fine I take credit for that, I'm proud of it.

But chance could have for example given me a debilitating illness, brain damage from a car crash or any other of a number of awful circumstances which would have meant my chances of success lowered dramatically. That bit IS luck. Awful things happen to good people. A friend of mine died in his early 30s from leukaemia. He was super smart and from a wealthy background, would no doubt have done great in life, but that's just bad luck (by luck I don't mean any kind of superstition by he way, I just mean what happens to you along the way.)

It's not all down to hard work - there is always a combination of fortitude, starting point and circumstances along the way. Always.

None of that takes away from people's hard work. Hard work is almost always part of success.

The amount of luck of getting to where you are without an illness is minute compared to everything else that's needed to succeed.

I think people on lower salaries think there's far more luck involved than there actually is achieving a high salary. It's not a secret what the factors are that lead to high salaries. I think the more people that discuss those factors the more likely people are to social mobility. All those middle class (in economic terms) parents are obsessing over their children's educations/diet etc for nothing.

Luck's not just about avoiding illness, Constance. There are all kinds of random lucky events that will have affected his life. He met you, for a start.

But it is a component. Success is mainly down to someone having sufficient intelligence (although interestingly not too much, it stops being correlated positively at about an IQ of 120, which isn't particularly brainy) an absence of catastrophic life events, where you start and stickability

The ability to push through, keep getting up and keep going and learn from failure is so important

I know I'm smart, I'm stubborn and I'm willing to take chances. Those things are things I can take credit for.

But what if I'd been born in some remote bit of Afghanistan? Or into an abusive family which a chaotic life ? Or some random cult? What would my chances be then even with the same disposition? Way lower. That's what I mean by luck. I'm lucky to be born in the uk.

Good luck is a part of everyone's success story, even if it's a case of not being run down by a bus on any particular very important morning.

See i do disagree with that. Not being killed isnt good luck to me. Going about your daily life, without catastrophe happening happens to millions every day. Its bad luck if happens to you.

By the way none of this diminishes what you're saying about hard work. Your family and you should be rightly proud of where you are and how you got there. As I am. It took a lot of hard work and sacrifice.

OCSock don't confuse high earners with successful people.

A high earners who is always stressed, never sees their kids, lives in a huge house in permanent fear of not being able to pay the mortgage I they lost their job, dreaming of paying off the mortgage and finally retirement and dies of a stress induced heart attack at 57 isn't a successful person compared to an average earner who enjoyed lots of free time and seeing their kids grow up and had a job they loved but that didn't dominate their life and gets pleasure from almost every day.

Also people can work hard, but not have the right other attributes so they dont progress.

I know lots of managers that work hard at their job. But dont look at developing skills to progress. Despite wanting to. They get support, coaching, advice. But dont get that to get to the next step up you need to be more than just good at your current job.

Working your way up isnt about just luck, or just hard work. You have to know your weaknesses and work on them. Know what attributes you need, which ones you dont have, which ones you do have. What opportunities you can take to show off what you can do. Learn new skills, network and a million other things can come into it.

I know they have for me. I needed to change a lot about myself. I needed to i learn to be more assertive and handle conflict better, become more confident. Growing up in an abusive home didnt make that easy.

Fluffypotato, I get you dude I really do. X

Fluffypotato, I get you dude I really do. X

so you can interview people who work in the job you want to find out what skills they have and learn them & then ask them if you can support them on any upcoming projects as unpaid overtime

This is the sort of thing I was talking about in an earlier post. You are taking it as a given that people will talk to you about how they got to where they did, give you advice, mentor you. Most people don't. They treat their success as a closely guarded secret because they don't want other people to reach their level and be competing with them for jobs.

And as for going in four hours early, most people in junior jobs don't even have access to the building four hours before their start time. Or they live somewhere that there is no transport at that time of the morning.

None of that is lack of ambition or work ethic.

Also, being a risk taker is a tricky one for me. I was raised being told that being a risk taker was a bad thing. Risk taking was for flighty, unreliable people. Risk taking was shameful, like a form of gambling. (I suspect that might have been due to my very religious upbringing where gambling was just about the worst sin imaginable.) So taking a chance on an opportunity that might work out, was just not something that I would have ever considered because I had been told my whole life that it was utterly wrong.

It is very very hard to unlearn something that has been ingrained into your very being.

@treaclesoda - I was taught the same thing about taking risks (Indian family, risk taking is always discouraged) but I did it anyway.

Yes, family background and upbringing plays a huge part too.
I sometimes think my testosterone (I am female but probably have fairly high levels) is a biological reason I earn a fair bit and take some good calculated risks. I also have failed a lot but I seem able to pick myself up and start over again always assuming things will be well.

My daughter in one job could not get in early because of keys issues so she sorted that out - they found her a set of keys. Like me she works best before anyone arrives at work - that first golden hour of silence seems to be very good for both of us. I agree you can't always do that in all jobs but it's worth asking about and trying to fix it. Perhaps it's also a question of being reasonably assertive but without making everyone hate you - it's a kind of charm or ability to get people on your side in a sense. Perhaps some of these things are innate in some people or may be it's if your family has that charm and ability to make people want to be with them and give them work and seek them out and be enhanced by their happy smiling presence... actually given how nasty some bosses and junior people are may be this theory is best left. it's my bed time - another reason i think I'm just about never ill - getting to bed about 10 every night. Sleep - one of the very very best things for happiness and health.

@treaclesoda - the trick is in how you ask someone. You need to do the leg work in advance, say hi when you pass them, offer them coffee, then slip in a conversation about what you both do. Eventually even the hardest nuts will crack.

As for not coming in early - you probably can as in most places the managers do. It's all about emulating them really

i was not referring to the thread about being a SAHM ffs

@Genghi I'm really glad that that worked for you, but honestly, it does not always work. You'd have a disciplinary slapped on you in some places for that sort of thing, it certainly wouldn't have been allowed in the big company that I worked for, it would have been seen as misconduct - poking your nose into stuff that wasn't your business, trying to influence and manipulate managers etc. And in any case, none of it matters a jot when it comes to filling in application forms for promotion and sitting the interview, because whatever happens outside of the interview room can't be considered anyway.

I do find it really astonishing sometimes just how much money some people have and see as normal - I don't think that they're being smug or snobbish though most of the time. I'm sure it happens occasionally but most of the time people are just being honest and I appreciate that, as it's interesting to see how other people live and how their experiences/attitudes differ.

It's actually made me more ambitious because I suppose I'd fallen into a trap of thinking that what we have is average/the norm and to see that other people have more, yes, sometimes I feel envious, as I don't think we're particularly lazy or slacking, and sometimes I even feel hopeless like we'll never get to that point, but I think the overriding outcome has been that yes it is possible to aim higher and not to just give up and settle for what we have, as long as we're willing to work for it why shouldn't we expect and go for more?

As for not coming in early - you probably can as in most places the managers do. It's all about emulating them really

Again, that hasn't been my experience either. The managers are senior enough to be allowed to work from home, so anywhere I have ever worked (which is over 20 years now) they aren't there early in the evening or late at night. The only people there early in the morning would be security, and they are under strict instructions not to let people in until a certain time.

It really irritates me to see people say 'but I work hard for my money'. Working class people on 10k don't? I honestly find it hard to believe that the people on these high salaries didn't come from a higher class than the impoverished working class. I work a hard 40 hour week when I've seen other reference they work 25 hours for 50+k and I struggle to see how they manage it without being lucky or having class to do with it. I couldn't ever imagine myself making 50k+K in my lifetime no matter if I worked every day of the week every houR

This is true. Dh is in the £40ies for 4 days work, 9-5ish. And that is pretty low pay for his specialism but we live in an odd area. If we moved he could get a lot more, but we don't want to.

Key for him isn't really hard work per se, it is that his particular skill set makes more money than others, it isn't necessarily more important just more unusual/sought after.

My skill set is way more common so less in demand, so I would get paid less. My brain doesn't work like his so I couldn't just swap to doing similar to follow the money, whereas chances are he could do a vaguely presentable job of doing mine.

I don't see what the problem is if you don't like those threads. I earn £1000 A month before tax working 5 days a week 9-2.30 with no breaks which is crap but I'm not very clever and it fits round school times so I'm happy I have a job and hopefully I will find something better one day. There's no point being jealous of others.

thanks Henrythehoover

I work the same hours as you and earn a bit less, I must be really thick then