To ask if you’re in a highly paid job but do very little…

[Workbutba]

Do you feel uncomfortable or worried? I earn over 60k. I know this isn’t loads but it’s obviously decent. Some days I do very little. That said there are times I will work a whole weekend or very late night so perhaps it evens out. But on Wednesday for example, I sent two emails and had two calls and then had a bath and tidied the house. I used to feel anxious about it/job security and was always asking my manager for more work etc but they are relaxed and say it ebbs and flows, which it does I suppose. The company makes big profits generally.

Is this common? I now have a dc so I worry even more about job security. I have a friend in a different industry who earns similar in management and she has days she can be on the phone to me for 3 hours and it doesn’t matter. I wonder how common this really is?!

Well yes, but by making that money they can have more of it.

I would’ve thought keeping the populace alive and well would be the ultimate money making profession (dead people don’t earn much, unless you’re maybe Elvis?) but hey ho

I think the biggest users of the services are the chronically ill and elderly. I’m afraid it’s not really the people making money.

I don’t think this thread is very representative of highly paid jobs (because it’s those with enough downtime to read MB who are mainly responding!!)

as contrast - I am c.£95k, London (this is always relevant fact in UK) and I work VERY hard to the point of making myself ill, not eating or sleeping enough and regular weekend working. so @Daphnis156 don’t generalise too much.

interested to know which jobs are the 80k ones which could be done in one day a week 🙃 I’m obviously in the wrong job.

But as
@Snuffey and @Totalwarbanner are saying…there are people who are high pay low work (on this thread), high pay high work (me) and those who are most unfairly treated who are in low pay high work (care, education) - it’s not right.

I wish I knew how to get a job like this. I've worked very hard most of my life and barely scrape by. I'm well educated too.

That's the crux of it. People don't matter. Money does.

They could. Many won’t because, presumably, there are reasons why they chose the jobs they do in the first place. Read any MN thread about “what could I retrain as so I can be flexible around my DC?” and the suggestions are generally NHS, civil service and public sector jobs with mediocre pay and fairly low status - but with flexible working options for parents and good maternity pay. Many women choose those jobs for that reason - but if you make that choice for those particular perks you do lose the right to feel aggrieved about other people’s choices with different perks. I’m happily childfree and make no secret that I chose this route for the money and the freedom. Equally, many women in this industry are mothers and have accepted that in return for the great money they sacrifice other things.

@Workbutba "It would be hard to brag on less than £100k." That's over three times the average UK salary! I can't imagine earning such an eye watering amount of money. It seems to be that Mumsnet is dominated by high earning, high achieving women who forget that there are lesser mortals on the site too.

God this thread has made me quite sick. The amount of people earning gold off their "30 years of experience" and occasionally stepping in to give their words of wisdom 😂. You think the rest of us oldies don't have 30 years' experience in what we do, but given any practical reality of daily life for most and what we do is far more practical than the social value offered by you finance etc types.
Don't pretend your superior innate skills got you where you are today; everyone has skills but probably it was your class/status/university/insta connections that were the decisive factor.
This thread just demonstrates the upside-down priorities of our system and the deplorable disrespect for anything socially useful

I do understand where you are coming from, but sometimes it's a combination of luck, grifr and fate that can also land you in a good place. I don't think anyone's gloating but often just reality. My neighbour for ex, moved to UK aged 12 not speaking any English. Struggled financially, local comprehesive etc. Worked very hard and ended up BCD at A levels, but yes got lucky by getting into a good uni at a time when universities were free. He also graduated in 4 yrs not 3 as had to work to support financially. I remember him telling me about his first pair of "branded" shoes he bought with first paycheck and lots of mirroring accents etc to "fit in". Anyway worked very hard his way up and now earns a huge amount (but does work a proper 40 hour week). He probably didn't work much harder than everyone else but chances and luck had more to do with it than any connections, social media, parental input etc. Anyway my (rambling) point is, it's not always gloating or someone being better than others but just a combination of things out of our control that can bring us along life's paths.

Fair point. My comment only applies where a market prevails. The NHS is a state run monopoly aggregating the public into a monopsony.

You know what has struck me about this thread. The absolute confidence of a lot of people. I get paid for my skills…I’m well paid because of my expertise…I know that when the shit hits the fan in the person…etc etc etc. I work for myself. I cringe myself inside out asking for a decent amount. I’m guessing all this “I know my worth” confidence comes in the corporate world.

that’s not a criticism. I wish so much I had more of it. Confidence. Chutzpah. What my dad would’ve called brass neck.

good on you all.

it is a shame though that people doing real, actual, meaningful jobs aren’t as well rewarded.

I earn about £50,000 in an NHS role. I get to work at 8 ISH, I seldom leave before 6.30, I rarely take a lunchbreak and sometimes I only get to the toilet once. My day is literally non stop. Teams meetings, supervising staff, answering phone calls, replying to emails, sending emails, helping out clinically, face to face meetings, interviewing , service development.I manage 40 staff over 3 different hospital sites. I can not remember in years, ever feeling I am on top of all my priorities. I find it really depressing that people can earn so much for doing so little.

I'm leaving the NHS after reading this thread! I didn't even have time for a wee today. And I'm on half what most of these posters are on. Ugh.....

ActDottie do you mind telling us what you do?

Maybe those with large salaries but not much to actually do could keep it down a bit.

Though it would be a personal hardship for you, I doubt the general public would notice much if you all lost your jobs.

But your not-bragging appears to have pushed at least two nurses over the edge today…. and we actually need them.

Maybe those with large salaries but not much to actually do could keep it down a bit.

But that was the whole point of the thread 😄. OP asked for those "with large salaries but not much to do to" pipe up.

Comptesse
But equally, I come from an average working class background, had an average state education, was not much more than average academically. There’s not much about my career which many nurses or teachers couldn’t have built instead, had they not chosen to be nurses and teachers. There’s no big secret to it, except our respective choices and our differing reasons for them.

Good job someone taught you how to add up then! And healthcare employees were there to keep you in good health.

I don’t think it’s so much that people are underpaid ( although they are undervalued), it’s that some people are vastly overpaid in society, which creates such an imbalance.

Also, and I’m just thinking of education here as this is the sector I work in, decisions from high up made by those who are remote from the day to day running of the core business, can often have a huge negative impact on workers further down the line. What seems like a good idea with some ‘ blue sky thinking’ in a meeting or in theory may not be practical. I’m sure this must happen in health care too.

Whilst I agree that some people have a very poor start and experience genuine hardship as youngsters, I honestly bet the vast majority of financially successful people had some sort of helping hand through family connections, support, good housing and schooling.

There are differences in people’s intellectual abilities I agree with PP but that doesn’t make people any less useful to society. We saw this in the pandemic when society was serviced by the least well paid working crazy hours.

Also we undervalue different types of intelligences which aren’t ‘book led’. Two of the most practical people I know, who can fix your car, sort out electrical and plumbing problems and so on are severely dyslexic and can barely read.

The hostility on this thread is aimed at the wrong people. Be angry with the government, who don’t think that publicly funded jobs in healthcare and education are worth paying more. Be angry with parents who pay for childcare, who apparently don’t think it’s worth more than minimum wage to look after their DC. Be angry with the paid union leaders, who don’t seem to be doing an excellent job in obtaining better pay deals for their members.

Being angry that some other employees who work in different industries and who are paid via private markets are valued more for their ability to earn money within those markets is utterly counterproductive.

Be angry with the government, who don’t think that publicly funded jobs in healthcare and education are worth paying more

^

Agreed. There was a thread on here yesterday from a dental hygienist: she had 15 years of experience and was paid something pitiful like £11.50 an hour. Absolutely shocking

I’m not angry about it, I genuinely enjoy my job and feel that my pay is reasonable for what I do. This thread is not really about people getting paid loads, it that they are being paid a huge amount for doing very little actual work! This was the OP’s original question…. Do you have a high paid job and do very little?

Also, the government doesn’t have money, it’s all taxes. It is about fairness and how that tax money is collected and redistributed.

Very well said. This post has me raging mad. No wonder this country has huge financial problems when they’re are people sitting at the top of their trees doing virtually nothing. Makes me sick - nurses make life or death decisions under huge strain and are paid a pittance. Other emergency services are the same

My job is very busy most of the time, but I have experience of dealing with colleagues in niche roles who have always responded to my requests for support within hours, if not the hour. I can only assume they weren’t working anywhere like flat out in order to deliver the service they did. But that combination of almost instant response plus deep knowledge and decision-making power made them worth their weight in gold.

My organisation got rid of a number of highly experienced professionals of this type who were insurance specialists, and it has made everyone’s else’s life so much more difficult, as well as leading to delays for customers.

Most people in big companies are working hard in my experience, but there is also a need for experts who are available at the drop of a hat. Something that is only possible if their diaries aren’t full.

I don't know if it helps anyone, but I found that when you're on a lower salary, you find yourself fighting for every couple of thousand pounds in terms of pay rises but this situation improves once you get into the £40k and upward salaries. Instead of fighting for an extra £3-5kpa, you start pushing for £7-10k rises.

Also, you start to find that the salaries on private sector roles start to vary wildly at middle management and beyond, so with a couple of good job moves, it's not unheard of to jump up by £30k within a couple of years.

I worked in IT for years and have made a sideways leap into cyber security. As it's a bit of a hot topic in the tech world, the salaries are getting interesting. For example, a mid-level cyber security analyst could quite easily achieve £45-50k with only a few years experience in that sort of role. With a bit of training from home via YouTube etc, you can walk into a junior analyst role at around £32kpa.

Whilst this is in no way as important on a social level as teaching or NHS work (which are both criminally underpaid and undervalued), it is at least protecting companies from criminals so at least it's an industry where you're doing some good.

On another note, I am sorry if I offended anyone with anything I said earlier on in this thread, I was only trying to help answer the OP's question.

One other thing that occurred to me is that the further up the ladder you get in terms of management, the more removed from the actual "doing" you get, so it's more about adding value to the company by ensuring your team's perform well and that you deal with things that impede their progress. I work for more for my team's than I do for my bosses if that makes sense...

It’s peaks and troughs.
i am paid for my skillset and years of experience.
I‘m paid to take responsibility and delegate tasks to other people. End of a quarter I’m the one checking out kanban boards at midnight and organising things. That’s what I get paid for.
I mentally work as hard as I ever did, but that’s why I got to where I am. I like strategic planning and problem solving. I like the fact that some days or weeks I start late and leave early.