Do you begrudge high earners?

[cheerscheerscheerstomeyeahcheers]

Do you actually understand what they do and why they earn so much?
Would you be actually willing to put in the time and effort yourself?

I see so much griping about people that earn a lot, but I also see a lot of ignorance about why they earn what they do.

It would be interesting if it was possible to measure people precisely on how hard they worked and then pay them accordingly.
<wanders off to start dystopian novel>

with some i know they soon want the extra privilege's. that others get from doing x tasks but then they don't want to do the x tasks, put in the time or do what is necessary to complete said tasks, then they moan about the ones that put themselves forward for doing extra tasks. people are a puzzlement at times.

I don’t begrudge them. I don’t think there is always a correlation between people who work hardest and add the most value to society and how much someone earns. I don’t think high earners are always deserving of the salaries compared to low earners.

I do somewhat begrudge my employer which pays less than my industry standard, and the industry in general which is not particularly well paid. That said obviously I don’t begrudge it enough to leave, I love my job and the people I work with and wouldn’t want to risk losing that by moving elsewhere and certainly wouldn’t want to try and retrain or move to another industry.

You do realise hard work does not mean better pay? The hardest work is done by those on MW.

its partly the fact that others want the rewards of the ones that go the extra mile but without going the extra mile when they get the offer, and at least some cases this is true.

I suppose it depends on what you consider "hard" work.

Some jobs are physically challenging (factory work, manufacturing, labouring, building) others are mentally challenging - social work I can imagine being very mentally stressful.

My job is not physically demanding, customer service sat at a desk all day but it's certainly draining at times being spoken to like shit by the public.

I used to work extremely hard to the point of burnout several times when I was working in the UK.
I used to carry a huge amount of responsibility on my shoulders - human lives.
I used to work on occasions almost double my hours - over 60 hours a week, evenings, all-nighters writing reports, weekends, very common to work over annual leave and even sick leave and managers even expected it and encouraged it.
I used to live and breathe my job.

I was a child protection social worker earning just over £30,000.

I don’t begrudge high earners at all - well done to them! I respect them as long as they are not doing something immoral or corrupt or cutting corners.

But I also can’t stand the belief “only high earners” work hard, or that’s it’s only “high earners who are holding the rest of society up”.

No, i dont really gave a clue what people do to command such high salaries in general. I dont know many people that do earn that much, and the few that do, dont seem any more inconvienced by their jobs than many of my more normal salaried friends. They just seemed to be concentrated in industrues focussed on increasing wealth of the wealthy.

but then just because its not physically hard work it can still be hard work in other ways, eg management of various logistics etc

Not sure I know anyone who earns that. The wealthy we know are old money / inherited money. One family richer than you can possibly imagine. Can be hard parenting alongside them (our teens best friends) as they are lovely but money literally no object to them so they do everything including holidays really last minute. Normal families need to plan / budget!

I don't begrudge successful people, I learn from them. Unlike others who just get jealous, petty and angry and want to take their money away.

but then without the high earners guiding the ship so to speak then could the population still run effectively without top level / medium level .management ?

That's not what @BusyCM was saying though. She wasn't saying you don't work hard. Clearly reading comprehension isn't needed for your high-earning role.

No as a PA to several high earners I wouldn't want their job for all the tea in China, when they tell me they've been working until 10/11 at night, have days full of calls and meetings I'm quite happy doing my job as I tend to be able to switch off by 7 at night.

I think some people mix up hard work with being strategic or risk taking too. For example my dad, I don't work harder than him physically, he has a much more demanding job he has to put a lot more effort into each day, but he's done the same job for 40 years whereas I have put a lot of mental energy and discomfort into being strategic, looking for new roles, training, networking, always thinking ahead and mapping my path, changing jobs frequently entering the "unknown" leaving comfortable jobs to chase the next step up, putting myself out there for difficult interviews that don't always pay off. That's the kind of "hard work" I do that my dad doesn't, it's different, but I think a lot of higher earners mean those kinds of strategic risky steps when they say they've worked hard to be somewhere, not that they're saying they physically work harder each day.

I'm not a "higher earner" at £300k though.... yet

Well, sometimes. It's not as though there's one singular thing that is "hard". There's plenty of people in all tax brackets who coast through life doing as little as they can get away with.

@MissionaryMumtoOne I can't imagine all that pressure. This is what I mean, for me that job should be on £300k not £30k (yes I'm aware it's public sector) but you can't compare a hedge fund manager's work with all the trimmings to a child protection officers job! The hard work and burnout, with no real financial benefit is insane - these are the people in society that I respect

I’m a high earner, especially relative to my in laws family and they despise me. I really don’t care what anyone does or doesn’t have/make etc but it’s very ‘here she comes in the Porsche’ yeah I worked bloody hard to get it. I’m a partner in a large financial services firm by the way.

thats the thing the work is still there, shareholders , other managers etc all need tending to etc, then theres keeping up with whats what from various departments etc

@ArchaeoSpy not sure the high earners have guided the ship very well over the past twenty years! Our country is in a shit state... surely if they were doing such a great job we'd have a thriving economy that would trickle down and we'd all have a good standard of living! Instead the rich get richer and lower and middle classes are squeezed to the last penny! Maybe the question should be 'do high earners have a god complex?' 😂😂

It doesn't suggest that at all.
High earners are allowed weekends too!

Since we're all posting/reading threads on Mumsnet right now shall we just agree that actually none of us are hard working, irrespective of what we do or do not earn...

This thread gets more and more ludicrous. Bonkers.

@cupofteaandasliceofcarrotcake
Here's the thing about your perception of business travel. And yes I am in the bracket we are talking about. You don't get to enjoy anything about these hotels, most of them are in the arse end of a business district. You are often on a 6am flight somewhere, go straight to meetings, dump your bag in the hotel, leave straight away for a dinner that is more work, crash and sleep in the room and head back off early the next morning.

It's not what you think it is. I have never used the gym, pool or had time to relax. It's not living the high life in the slightest. I'm 52 this has been the norm most of my career.

I feel resentment about my own missed opportunities to have a good career due to circumstances I had no control over. But this is not something I can fix anymore.

But no, I don’t begrudge people who work hard and earn a lot. People who have been born into wealth and show a disdain for work, and people who wormed their way into positions they aren’t qualified for and force the people beneath them to cover up for their own incompetence annoy me.

But not those who are good at what they do, happen to have skills/ideas that are in demand and enjoy the fruit of their own hard work. That’s actually great and I wish them all the best.

I used to be a high earner. I now am not (didn’t return after children). The stress and responsibility of high earners is not comparable.

I don’t begrudge them, but I get angry when people insinuate that they are paid well because they work hard.

Generally speaking there is little to no correlation between how hard you work and how well you are paid.

How well you are paid is related to how able you are to perform a role which is in demand, and which will make people (your employers most usually) money.

Many low-paid workers work three or four jobs and work 70 hour weeks just to make ends meet. But because there is no shortage of carers and cleaners, and because nobody else stands to make a profit from the fruits of their labour, they earn peanuts.

Lawyers, IT specialists and bankers now, they earn a lot more, and while they may work hard, that’s not the reason for their high salary. They have skills that are in demand.