to be fed up of hearing 'I've worked hard for my money'

[newbluesofa]

Lots of chat on MN recently about taxes on high earners. So heard lots of 'we have this money because we work bloody hard for it' and honestly I'm sick of it and think the people who say it are selfish.

Nurses work incredibly hard, long shifts, difficult job. Carers provide absolutely essential service, again shift work, difficult hours, difficult job. Teachers provide essential work, I know multiple teachers and they all devote evenings, weekends, school holidays to the detriment of their own families. All of these jobs also have huge emotional tolls. So 'I've worked hard for my money' means nothing to me, because a lot of people work a lot harder for a lot less.

I'm a retired teacher.

I remember when I was at a Scottish high school, an English teacher who was very good at pretending that he was one with the working class hlet is mask slip at a time when mineworkers were asking for a pay rise.

He started venting during a lesson. [Against the code of conduct for Scottish teachers.]

My dad was a mineworker. I told the teacher that I thought that a pay rise was deserved.

"What?!" he spluttered. "You think that miners should be paid as much as. a teacher?"

"Not much chance of the roof caving in on your head while you're at work, is there?"

I'll give him his due, he stopped dead in his tracks and said "Oh. You have a point."

I didn't tell him that my dad had been hurt in a cave-in and that my great-grandfather had died in an infamous local mining disaster.

High paying jobs aren’t accessible to everyone because you usually need a good education and a good brain to get the best paying roles

and how do you get a good education and brain? You work hard

I’m a nurse and I say that quite often 😳

I’m a teacher and now a higher earner due to fiscal drag. I’m UPS3. 12 years ago I had TLR and was a basic rate payer. The people who are complaining about taxes are people like me, not millionaires!

I’m gonna go upstairs, right this second, and tell my cognitively impaired child that he just needs to bloody work harder.

You can pretty much tell where a post is going to go when it says "I've worked hard all my life" or "I've paid in all my life".

These statements are held up as some sort of justification as to why the poster is entitled to the (often fortunate) position they are in.

In reality, although they have often got to that position by working continuously (not necessarily hard) their wealth is frequently determined by them being lucky or in the right place at the right time.

And they mostly haven't paid in enough to justify the benefits they get, otherwise the country wouldn't be in the state it's in re taxation and debt.

"Worked hard all my life" and "paid in all my life" will probably be held up as parodies in 20 years time, if they aren't already.

No matter how hard some people try they will never be capable of the sort of jobs that pay big money

I used to notice at school I could often achieve much more than my peers - and for far less effort because of lucky genetics

Couldn’t agree more. Have we all forgotten who were the key workers in the pandemic? So-called because the country can’t function without them. Most of them a long way from being high earners. Teachers and nurses work much harder than some of the extremely high earners I work with.

Unfortunately, that's the case for many jobs.

My grandparents put their daughters into service so that their two sons could escape the dangers of the coalmines and get apprenticeships in the dockyard. Both boys became pipefitters and did actually have a good wage compared with mineworkers, though they never made megabucks.

Unfortunately, they both died of asbestosis.

Oh absolutely, nothing sums up global opinion better than a couple of people in a collapsed communist regime.

Not really. I got it by being born smart and doing what smart people do.

I was lucky. In the same way someone who bought a house for 10K in the 70s that is now worth 2 million quid got lucky too.

I mean define big money. I have certainly paid what I consider big money to tradespeople this year. Not particularly academic (known them from school) but certainly skilled.

Im not saying they are earning CEO money, but I suspect that’s not who the OP is referring to.

It's a fact of life that some people work hard, some people are lazy feckers.

Unfortunately working hard doesn't always = good pay.

Agree. I am not on 100k but on 69k and I personally don’t think i’ve put in anymore hard graft than a nurse for example. Yes i’ve put in extra hours and pushed myself but no more than many others who don’t get higher salaries. I left school at 16 pregnant, so i’m over the moon to be earning nearly 70k and I don’t ever take that for granted. Single income household so certainly not rich but happy with my salary

Nail on the head, OP.

Whilst my job now comes with infinitely more stress than any job I’ve ever had, the hardest physical work I’ve ever done was as a home carer. After being ripped off every month being underpaid on mileage, I was earning well below minimum wage. This weird notion that somehow people taking more home have grafted more is ridiculous. I firmly believe that there is a lot of luck involved in financial success - not just ‘hard work’.

I think it's all about luck (parents, growing up, values), then choices of education, for women - choices reg. career/children (I don't really know many women with children who made amazing careers/really big money). My parents really wanted me to finish studies, ANY studies, so I foolishly finished what seemed easy and what I was interested in but gave me very limited options of opportunities and low salary. My DH studied engineering and devoted his whole life and free time to trainings and hard work, so he is the high earner.
BTW, nurses should earn more. It's incredible, all the hard work they do.

We dont know…

You're missing half the sentence. It's "I work(ed) hard for my money and therefore I deserve special treatment because I perceive myself to be more worthy than others".

The idea that tax is a punishment / reward / theft is childish and asinine. We all - rich or poor, grafter or lazy - reap the benefits of living in a civilised society where there is a rule of law, readily available education and healthcare, emergency services, maintained infrastructure and so on, and tax is the price we pay for that.

I didn’t say anyone needs to work harder, I said ‘you work hard’. Hard work gets you further than it would by not trying. Everyone has different abilities so yes go tell your son to work hard but do not tell him to work harder

Scarcity mindset. Just because teachers work hard doesn’t mean other jobs don’t, just because you deem them less “worthy”.

I 100pc agree OP.
I am aware of some 'hard-working' people in my industry who earn a fortune and do very little.
I also know others who work incredibly hard with little financial reward.
The contrast is striking

Unfortunately, that happens even to those of us on more ordinary wages.

In my late 30s, I became a HoD in a secondary school. Finally managed to get pregnant and was punched in the stomach by a 15 yr old boy.

A family member also prioritised her career and made six figures (in the oil industry). The benefits that she got from her job actually made it easier for her to cope with having a child, though she eventually decided to sacrifice her job.

However, she was able to do that because she had built up so much capital over the years. (Her game plan was to retired at 50, but she quit a bit sooner.)

If it were mostly luck, I’d have an awful lot more decent CVs heading my way for vacancies.

Saying I've worked hard isn't saying others haven't.

You can complain about nurses and carers not getting paid enough without belittling others complaints.

This is what the billionaires want, everyone else fighting between each other instead of looking at them as the real problem.

It doesn't need to be so fucking competitive. Most people who work, work hard. We all have different strengths. Stop trying to put down anyone who has done well for themselves.