To think it’s normal for high earners to get home late/work long hours?

[NCDays]

SiL got a new job last year which was a significant step up from her previous role and she now earns enough to pay additional rate tax (so must be £150k +). The job is in London which is a 30-40 minute train journey away, plus a short tube journey to her office. Over the past year we’ve constantly been hearing about “poor SiL” / “life is unfair to SiL” from MiL and the rest of the family as SiL is not home most week days until 8pm and leaves for the day at 6am. It’s supposedly a 9-5 job, she’s only a year in to the role and is apparently already exhausted and drained from working longer than her contracted hours and struggling to cope with the constant train delays/cancellations on top of that, meaning she has no time for herself or her hobbies during the week. I should point out that SiL is 29 with no DC, so she’s certainly not coming towards the end of her career.

AIBU in thinking that this is all pretty standard stuff and par for the course for successful, high earning city worker?! The rest of the family seem to think I’m mad in thinking it’s to be expected.

@cologne4711, never a truer word. You can be the most senior lawyer in a firm, but if the client says jump, that’s what you do. It’s like being in customer service, but on steroids 😁

My sibling has this kind of a job. He works all the time. He worked on Christmas day until half-way through Christmas dinner (we got started without him as it was going cold). And didn't ahve time off elsewhere.
I don't think exhausted people give of their best. I think the culture should change so that people are paid less but also expected to work correspondingly less hours.

Totally normal. When you sign up for a high paid city job you generally know what lifestyle you’re signing up for.

I know of no one who earns that much or more who only works 9-5.

Getting home at 8pm from a job paying that much sounds pretty early!

Yeah I think 8pm doesn’t sound too bad for that money! For 150k they are going to want your soul and anything left after that.

At that level (and lower!) you are paid to do your job, in the hours in takes to do it, not for x hours. To my mind, this is really the difference between a salaried role and an hourly paid role.

My DH earns 165k per year and is in the office from 7.30 until 6. He has to check his phone about half the evenings for texts or calls. He also has to do some weekend work for an hour or two for a few weekend days per month.
However he is able to take a day off if I’m ill or work from home if he has a medical appointment.

It depends on the industry to some extent. DH was on £150k basic and used to get home around 8pm, it was a 40 min tube journey away and he'd leave at 7.45am. After we had DD, he was promoted to a £200k (+ bonus) position and leaves at 8am, has a 20 min bus ride (as he moved offices) and gets home at 6pm so he can do bathtime. He rarely does any work once he's home. He works in tech, and just gets his work done efficiently in the office so doesn't need to bring it home. Finance and law sound like they have much longer hours.

Depends what field of law. I know a lawyer on £600k who works form home most days and only goes into London once or twice a week for meetings. Always around for bath time and knows his stuff so well, it doesn't take him long to identify issues in contracts etc.

I also know business writers on that money who work from home at a leisurely pace.

I know a General Counsel on about a million who works about 10 to 4...honestly the higher you get, the more flexibility you have.

Well done to your SIL for reducing the gender pay gap a bit.