To think some people don’t think opportunity is out there and so they remain in a lower standard of living?

[upugotep]

Sort of inspired by the post about what makes a high earner, it reminded me of a friend who has gone through her life literally never thinking she can earn more.

We had massively different backgrounds and it was expected of me that I should go into a professional job and progress etc. Around ten years into our friendship in our very early 30s, my friend was talking about her ‘wealthy’ family friends, whose dad at 50 had just been promoted and was now earning 52k. She followed this up with ‘I can’t even imagine it, I will never be on anything near 50k.’ At this point I was on 58k and hopeful that my pay would increase a lot in future.

I didn’t say anything other than she might be surprised if she put herself out there that more could be earned.

What I found odd about it is that she is highly intelligent, very employable, personable, just brilliant really. It’s purely her lack of belief in another sort of life and her expectations of herself that hold her back. I am slightly better educated than her but only because of my background and she would absolutely be a competitor to me in an interview and probably get the job over me. I actually think it’s a dirty secret that those ‘at the top’ like to make out they are something special and it’s unattainable when actually it’s not. Why on earth should my friend think 50k is unattainable when she was only 31?!

That's me too.

Comprehensive school, no role models other than family telling me, 'The world needs indians not more chiefs' and 'A woman's place is in the home'. Very definitely from a class who expected no more than their place in society and thought that university, success and career satisfaction were for 'posh people'.

I always knew I wanted more - not necessarily financially but in terms of fulfilling my potential. The money came almost as a bi-product of that.

I just thought, 'fuck 'em all, I'm having some' and went for it. Bloody loved every moment.

My best bit of luck was my first boss. She told me I could do anything I set my heart on and I believed her.

For working class children the big barrier to opportunity is the absence of ambition on their behalf.

I'm sure this has already been pointed out but having to now accumulate massive debt in order to get a degree is a big step backwards for social mobility and kids' aspirations too.

It's about having the mindset of giving things a go. I have been freelance for about 20 years, and working from home well before the pandemic hit. I have always been self-reliant and open to opportunities. Proactive in researching opportunities, putting myself out there and being prepared to try something and it not work out. DH is similar although he has always been employed - first job out of Uni was at the other end of the country where he knew nobody and moved there anyway, was offered the chance to work in Asia for 9 months and took that chance too.

His sister, who was brought up in exactly the same way and had exactly the same opportunity appears to have missed out on the proactive gene. Left school at 17, went to work in a finance role. She is still in the same company, doing pretty much the same role, never promoted 35 years later on. Living in the same town she always has lived in, never doing anything interesting or going anywhere interesting.

Family pressure definitely played a part for me. I was absolutely set on going into the police or nursing. I worked my backside off to get good GCSE results even though my family was going through massive upheaval and was home life was far from ideal. My DDad, once he realised that if I was accepted into either that I'd have to go away to train, put massive emotional blackmail on me to get me to stay. My Dmum tried her best to support my decisions but she was suffering with MH issues herself at the time so I didn't go. In getting me to stay he crushed my confidence and 40 plus years later I can see that I always took the "safe" choice with jobs, even if it meant staying in a job I was massively over qualified for.

Agree with others about being told growing up where your place is.

Where I grew up (one of the poorer UK cities, not London), the absolute worst thing you could be was stuck up / up yourself / think you were better than everyone else. In reality this really supressed anyone with any ambition.

I escaped to uni and never went back and to this day if I go visit old friends back home I lie about my job (gloss over the details) and would actively not mention things like owning property lest I get the old accusation of having forgotten my roots.

Weird thing is I was never told ‘you can’t do this’ by anyone middle or upper class. Not that I knew any middle class people anyway. The people who perpetuate this messaging are other working class people. And what’s REALLY weird is for those of us who do go off and do something different (not better. Different.) we are seen like traitors and so don’t tend to go back and communicate with others that this is possible.

I’ve actually been back to speak at careers events in my old secondary school and the kids looked at me like I was an alien when I said what I do for a living. They all genuinely thought it was more realistic for them to make a living as in instagram influencer or for the girls to marry a footballer. Sigh.

Higher income comes at a cost. It maybe more money, but also higher responsibily and more stress. Many people are happier with a modest income, but enjoyable work, sociable hours, etc.

Those that are high flyers on here... what jobs do you do and how did you enter those jobs?

Depends on the career imho. At least in my career, the higher up I went the less stress and also weirdly, less responsibility in terms of being held accountable. When you’re over 1,000 subordinates you’re not held responsible if one of them fucks up, they & their direct line manager is. Being a sr manager is actually very freeing. You’re literally paid to attend meetings, dish out words of wisdom, issue orders and then do a bit of front man/face to face time with VIP clients, politicians, foreign dignitaries and such- all with great big expense accounts.

If you went to Ashburton, he might have experienced the joys of getting a kicking for being in the top sets. I only escaped them by befriending the scariest kids and helping them with academic things.

@Kalodin I'm retired now, but my career was in Human Resources. I got into it via working in insurance as a clerk. I liked the nature of the work the people did in the HR department and kept knocking on the managers door until she gave me a job. Then I spent years working and studying in my spare time.

I kept applying for more and more senior jobs, the more success I had, the more I pressed on. I made it my mission to do as well as I could by being decent and treating people well. I loved all my jobs and the best bit was empowering and creating opportunities for other people who had been in my starting position.

I suppose it must depend what industry you are in too @BunnyBettChetwynd ? As my friend who is a HR Manager earns £32k. Likewise, just having a quick job search the HR roles near me don't seem to be high-flyer as topping at £55k.

So I suppose it's knowing what industries pay more too? So whilst I'm in Construction, I need to find which area of the sector pays more maybe?

Some people don't take opportunities because of laziness or fear. It's not what you earn though it's how you invest the disposable income that counts. You can earn £150k+ a year and spend the lot on cars, tech, luxury holidays, a big house etc and not save one penny.
I honestly couldn't be bothered to go as far as I did but I didn't need to because I started saving and investing very young. My career became secondary to my investments. We still went on tons of holidays and bought a big house (which we downsized from) but always investing a good bit of our wages every single month. We have been able to retire early pretty well off because we did.

When you’re over 1,000 subordinates you’re not held responsible if one of them fucks up, they & their direct line manager is.

So I guess the direct line manager job opportunity is much less exciting.

How do you get into investing @Zipps ? During Covid I did get into shares and kept an eye on things, managed to earn enough to put a deposit on our home. But I couldn't keep up with that now I'm back at full time work. Currently put some savings into my workplace share scheme but its not really doing much.

I understand what you're saying.

I come from a very poverty ridden background, with no aspirations mainly because I didn't know what opportunities there were.

I then found myself wanting more. I'm selfish by nature, I wanted the nice car, the nice house and the nice bags. I wanted to not worry about where my next meal was coming from or if the pants I was wearing were brand new or second hand.

I still didn't know how to get there. And I thought earning 20k was amazing.

And now, at a little older than your friend, I'm the highest earning woman in my friendship group and most importantly, have the best work/life balance and am happy in my role. But it took a serious amount of knock backs.

I still don't know how I got here. But I do know my next steps to hit the next level up, and know how to value myself at that step up.

I lost every single school friend, bar two, along the way. Because they wanted to stay in the home town we grew up in, have coffee with their mom every morning etc.

I understand your friends POV and others of the same background to me, how can you know what to do to achieve what you want..when no one around you is/does/has?

I just want to say that I am eternally grateful to all those who don’t choose a job just based on salary. My best friend is a nursery manager she will not earn over £50k. My sister is a nurse in NICU and again she may never earn over £50k. My mother in law is a community nurse and did her degree whilst working full time and she doesn’t earn £50k.
I hope that we can live in a world where we don’t just judge people on salaries but what they do. Just to think these people on what OP says is ‘not a very good standard of living’ that are making such a great contribution to the society in which we live.
**@Commentsonly 👏👏

The thing is if everybody aimed for the high salaries and pushed themselves to earn more, the country would be a different place.
Need to work? no childcare
Kids need to learn? no teachers
Want to spend money on a meal out? no restaurant staff
Fancy a drink to celebrate an achievement? No bar staff
Feeling ill? No nurses
Want to have a baby? No midwives
Need your bin emptying? No garbage disposal people
Relatives need elderly care? No care workers
Want to get groceries? No supermarket staff

The real problem here is that we don't pay enough money for people doing really hard working, meaningful jobs. It's not that these people aren't aiming high enough, we just don't value the people who keep the country afloat enough to pay them a decent living wage.

Ask any teacher, including many very experienced and senior colleagues, looking for opportunities outside of education and you'll find this. Happy to work insane hours in a highly pressured environment to wildly aspirational targets, yet most can not imagine our skills are transferable or that we could cut it in other fields. Brilliant, capable people who stay doing what they're doing on account of a sense of duty or social conscience.

And I agree with PPs, the higher your salary, the greater the incremental raises seem to become. In a profession where a rise of a few hundred quid is a hard-won milestone, gaining a rise of +5k seems totally out of reach for many.

Class is a real thing. It's almost taboo to mention it, particularly among the higher middle classes; this perpetuates the problem because it's unseen.

Donkeys years ago, I was headhunted for a fabulous job at an incredibly prestigious brand. I knew I had all the right experience, contacts and enthusiasms. I'd been put forward by more than one important client.

By my fifth minute in reception, I knew I wasn't going to be seen as a match. Everyone working there was way posher than me. Chemistry in the interview was good, but there were also strange holes where assumed shared experiences failed to materialise.

I've just visited that company's current staff register. It's still posh. Somewhat less white but still solidly upper middle class or higher.

I'm from a working-class background, and went to a selective grammar school. That school was the making of me, not only by education but also that oft-derided aim of grammar schools: to endow social mobility. Being very good at my job and reasonably pushy, I did have a great career.

Certain avenues remained closed, however. Grammar school can't give you a family that quotes Greek philosophers in ordinary conversation, has a little place in the Alps and a couple of successful artists at weddings & christenings. School can't fund your year or two volunteering in distant lands, get you a place in the Tall Ships or invite you on country house weekends. The families that do provide such environments tend to favour others like them.

I'm in favour of the growing campaign to make socio-economic class a protected characteristic. I'm also, unsurprisingly, in favour of grammar-school values at least to GCSE level.

Perhaps some of us have now learned that a job we enjoy will never pay mega bucks. So were in a poor paid industry because its a job we enjoy and we accept it will never pay well.

Which is shit because a lot of very Important jobs get pathetic pay.

That's true as well.

Where socially necessary jobs are concerned, I wish there were a sensible way to improve pay & conditions. The pandemic really showed us who we depend on, and it's despicable that our collective appreciation doesn't extend beyond a pat on the back and a gift voucher.

The thing is if everybody aimed for the high salaries and pushed themselves to earn more, the country would be a different place.
Need to work? no childcare
Kids need to learn? no teachers

Or if more people carried their weight there might be more money in the public purse (through tax and NI) to pay necessary occupations a decent salary. We don’t have an infinite public resource, too many people being topped up by the state when they could reasonably be working. And yes I know corruption, lack of childcare etc but if we want people in essential jobs to be well paid, we need people who generate wealth into the public coffers to pay for it.

The answer isn’t to argue someone needs to do low paid jobs as much as it is how do we generate enough wealth that those jobs don’t need to be low paid.

Again, this really just isn't true. A lot of fairly low-paid jobs are very stressful. A lot of higher-paid jobs are really not that stressful. The relationship between pay and stress is really fairly weak. Value and scarcity of skills is much more important.

I earn £80k and undoubtedly have a lot less stress than many people on £25k.

I absolutely could earn more. I have excellent qualifications from school/university. Many of my university friends earn hugely more than me. The education sector would be totally buggered if all well-qualified people rejected teaching as a career because of the pay. I imagine the health and social care sectors would be equally stuffed.

Getting the most possible money has never been my sole motivator. I have always done voluntary work and tried to support my community. It's not that I "lack confidence" to apply for better paid roles. I just don't want to do a job that I don't feel gives back to society.

Good luck! Don't be afraid to jump ship to somewhere where career development is valued and they invest in their staff.