To think that SOME high earners don't work that hard?

[Usernamemcname]

I'm a domestic cleaner. The people I clean for are usually quite well off, five bedrooms in a posh suburb of an expensive city. They are often in whilst I clean, sometimes they come back whilst I'm here.
I see a lot and I know they are in quite high paid jobs. Yet they always seem to be 'working from home' also known as fannying about the kitchen a lot and playing X Box. A lot of them either start late (10am so they miss the traffic) and finish early. One dad picks his daughter up from school every day even though his wife is at home!
I was always told that you have to work hard to get what you want in life, so why do I have to work two jobs whilst my partner works 45+ hours and we just scrape by? What have these people done to be so lucky? They're not old, seem around my age, what jobs do they do and why can't I do them, I have a degree.
Life just seems unfair sometimes. Unless it's a doctor, I'm sure I could have a crack at it.

Did you read all the threads about people thinking about "them" vs "us", as in management vs employees -it's just people, some with a bad attitude.
Did you read all the threads about people outraged that someone dares emailing them about work after hours or during holidays?

If you are an employee, it's all about attitude. If you have your own business, you just won't switch off until it's built - and not even then for most.

Go be fair they are probably only working from home because you’re there - the wealthy men I know in London or larger cities will often time wfh for when the cleaner / cook / gardener comes as there have been instances where household helpers have tried to rob women at home by themselves.

Also, The situation is probably very different when you aren’t around and I agree with a pp that you don’t see the early / late calls or Emergency late night meetings.

Theres a documentary that explains labour vs capital. You can earn more money on capital than you even could with labour.

The problem is that you need a lot of capital to start with.

MN in a nutshell, when the alternative goady post is made about NMW being easily replaceable and if wages increase can be taken over by automation etc (even some don't work that hard) anecodatal data can't be used.

Yet as is tradition, this thread is full of anecdotal data as to everyone knowing multi millionaires and not working hard, but anyone even hinting at a YABU is met with with the usual childish MN replies.

Is this really so surprising? It boils down to the fact that not all jobs pay the same hourly rate!

My husband & I both earn good salaries and are now afforded the freedom to plan our own diaries.
Yes I have days at home, working my way through the biscuits with a vlog on in the background, but we have both given years of our lives to whatever the company wanted.
They wanted me to move to London - sure!
Now Oxford - no problem!
Call out on Easter Sunday for no extra pay - I’ll be there shortly!
We put our personal lives on hold & concentrated on careers to move up the ladder ASAP.
In my experience those years of putting work first have paid off & now we are reaping the rewards.
It is about working smarter, not harder. You need a career where personality is key, not just grafting away on minimum wage with nowhere to go.

Jellybellies what utter crap - in my department there are 23 people all earning 100K+.
2 went to public school
The rest went to comps - think Hackney Downs in the 80s an 90s and they work their bloody arses off.
All are in their 40s - mid 50s and they worked since the minute their graduated - most are in at 0600 not getting up but physically in work and working, few get home before 2200 and most work at least 1 day of the weekend.

None of them got their by privilege -cos if you think being at Hackney Downs Comp in the 80s was a privilege then you are sadly mistaken.

Op I just read your update. I too didn't get on any grad schemes but I took an office job as a junior sales exec... If you can get a foot in the door in an office in a good industry it's easier to move around internally. Loads of jobs are barely advertised in my industry.

Are you in a city?

My DH earns a low 6 figure salary. Before I had DS I was earning a middle 5 figure salary.

DH sacrificed a lot (but had a lot of fun as well) in his early years by choosing to move to a different country every so often, chasing the work. He lived in 6 countries in 7 years before we met. But that pushed him up the corporate ladder. He's now probably one of a few who has the expertise to do his job to his current level.

I, on the other hand, left school with a handful of O levels. I did take more qualifications over many years whilst I worked as I realised I needed those qualifications. But I've literally just taken on work. My attitude from very early on was 'I'll have a go, I can't promise miracles but I'll give it a go'. And I give it everything I have.

That's meant I've sometimes been able to negotiate a salary increase or apply for higher paid jobs.

I moved from clerical officer to Training Officer by moving into HR as an admin assistant, then offering to help the, then, Training Officer with some of their training admin work. So she trained me to do that part of the job well. Then, when they left, I was able to take on a bit more of their work with a pay rise so the department could have a restructure.

I studied, passed my exams and got promoted. I then took a small pay cut to move to another company that would let me take on a full junior Training Officer role, worked my way up. Four years later I moved to another company to became a Training Manager of a small team of three.

And I'm not unique. My friend left school with three O levels. She joined a supermarket chain on the ground floor, literally stacking shelves. She studied at evening class, got the chance to move into the training section and became a retail trainer. She then moved company to become a training manager and on she went. She now runs her own consultancy business, using the things she's learned in 40 years at work.

My old HR colleague was originally a receptionist. Retrained as she couldn't see a route out of reception. She took HR examinations, started as an administrator, told our boss that she was interested in becoming an HR officer eventually. My boss started training her up. She helped in interviews, learning the ropes as she progressed. A few years later she was officially made HR officer. She moved to another company after three years to be an HR manager. She's now an HR director in a FTSE 100 company.

Some of it is luck. We were all lucky that the opportunities knocked but we were the ones who took them. We were lucky we had supportive managers, but we told them we were interested, we asked for work, we negotiated our way up. So yes, some is luck but some is attitude - not towards working hard (although that helps) but looking at a path through and moving towards that. A lot of people thought I was mad taking on extra work without extra pay. But I knew I needed that work on my CV. Different attitude to them. Then they wondered why I shot up the salary ladder.

Could you do my old jobs? Probably to an extent - not everyone is cut out to train people 6 - 7 hours a day doing presentations, writing training course, doing training needs analysis alongside the constant travelling to venues. But if you are cut out, then yes you could eventually do the job. After studying for a few years to get the necessary qualifications.

Could you do my husband's job? Probably, but you'd need 25 years plus experience to get the salary he commands and you'd have to work like he works. Which is making and taking calls late at night because of time zone differences, negotiating multi million pound contracts, be able to live in other counties if that's where the work takes you. Or, like he has done today, leave the house at 3am to catch a 6am plane. Touch down at 10am, hit a meeting at 11am, do another at 2pm. Catch a plane at 6pm arriving at the airport at 10pm. I'm expecting him home at midnight. He's due in the office at 8am tomorrow and will probably be home around 7pm.

Next week he's away for a week and will leave home on Sunday at mid day. That's normal for his work. That's why he earns the money he earns.

It's not usually about physical hard work- the higher paid usually have a higher responsibility, the buck stops with them, they'll be accountable if things go wrong. The higher you are paid then the less your job is about doing the work and the more it is about making sure others do the work. With this kind of job it also brings a greater flexibility because although they are probably available to be contacted 24/7 they can work when necessary. My DH has a job like this- he might appear to be popping out with dd to after school clubs, going for a run during the afternoon, making lots of coffee at home- but he's on the phone to clients in the US until 10pm every night, he spends some whole weeks travelling abroad, he will stay up late when a deadline is due and work through until 2am, etc.

And if you have a degree then why are you cleaning for a living? ,

I’d likely be classified as a high earner, & on the face of it you’d probs (rightly) say I don’t work as hard as you. I wfh I day a week (& I do work, not doss) ... but what you’re not seeing is the 30 years I’ve been doing my job. My company are paying for my knowledge and experience...& the years that I started on at 5am and finished at 11. I’ve earned my work/life balance.

Also - I forgot to write this. I honestly believe its about enjoying what you do. If you enjoy it you'll want to progress.

I'm probably one of the people you describe. I live in a 5 bedroom house, and I occasionally work from home, in a manner you couldn't in all honesty, describe as "hard work".

The thing is, though, that I've spent two decades learning the things that I need to know, to be able to do some complicated stuff that 99.9% of the population is in no position to do, but that needs done.

So, I guess there's the hard work you see, and the hard work you don't.

If hard work was properly rewarded my mother would have died a millionaire !

You're clearly intelligent in many ways and like many have said, you need to figure out where you want to be and work backwards. Doesn't always mean taking the most obvious route ie grad schemes. These seem to take a certain type of personality and maybe you don't have it.

Take my colleague who is about to take on a really good role. He started at the same level as me, took advantage of every internal opportunity going (essentially doing loads outside the role for free), applied for temporary management positions, made a success of that, made permanent and is now leaving to pursue what sounds like a great job (obviously some luck/ right place, right time etc thrown in).

I don't have that drive so I'm in the same role as we both started (family commitments, works for me).

You sound a bit defeatist and that may be coming across at interview. Remember people need to want to work with you and if you're a bit of a misery guys the scores might reflect that (sorry to be blunt).

There are people across each earning demographic who work really hard. And people across each who don’t. Some people are hardworking. Some are not.

It's getting harder and harder to succeed by means of nothing more than hard work, though. When I was a student, for example, (I'm in my 50s) we got grants to go to university, not loans. There was an expectation that you started off by making the tea and running the errands but you would learn on the job, but nowadays it's either unpaid interns doing the tea-making and errand running (for years) or it's agency workers, who are paid a lot less than the agency which supplies them charges the client. And agencies don't bother with training staff; they regard them as interchangeable, disposable domestic animals.
Even in the 'good old days' when people could allegedly progress steadily in their careers, there was always a significant amount of luck involved in those people who came from poor backgrounds - their classmates or neighbours might have worked just as hard but been less lucky.

Skills are paid well. It's not about the time you invest but the thinking applied to the task and the outcome achieved.

Why are high earners always so defensive about the fact that they are high earners? .

And I absolutely don’t agree with the point of view that lots of lower paid workers can ‘switch off’ at 5pm and aren’t on call etc. Many are and have to deal with alarm call outs, emails, covering other people’s shifts when they don’t turn up etc etc.

Some people on high salaries don’t work very hard, some people on low salaries don’t work very hard .... that’s life.

My salary is almost six figures. I don't work particularly hard and I am fairly sure that someone of average intelligence could my job. I worked hard when I was younger but I also think I've been very lucky and kind of fell into an industry (Tech) that worked out well for me. I do occasionally have to take calls with colleagues overseas later than I'd like, I travel on a regular basis which can be tiring and once in a while I have to send emails out in the evening. I do not for one moment think any of those tasks is as hard as cleaning multiple houses/offices every day of the week.

The myth that working hard = just rewards is one created by the political elite who use it to justify glaring inequalities in this country ("if only the poor worked harder, tried harder, made more effort at school...).

I’ve seen some on £80k a year who are extremely effective and work very hard indeed, and others on similar pay who seem just to survive on their own arrogance, and do very little. Infuriating when you earn much less but deliver much more!

The thing is, "hard work" is not that rare. Lots of people can work hard.

Being able to do difficult, in-demand things, is what the market rewards.

Why is MN so full of people bragging about six figure salaries?

Totally agree @Ragwort. My DH often says, when he sees police or nurses etc on the TV, that they're doing a proper job compared to him. Not much he can do about the unfairness of their salary vs his. He's in a corporate environment and that is often a lot better paid that public service jobs unfortunately. It doesn't mean he doesn't think they work bloody hard though.

Some people on high salaries don’t work very hard, some people on low salaries don’t work very hard

Equally, some people on high salaries don't work very hard, and some people on low salaries do!