To ask what high earners do all day?

[WearyCat]

I genuinely don’t know what CEOs, that type of role, people earning over 150K pa actually do. How do they spend their time?

Not whether they are worth the salary. But what do those jobs involve on a day to day basis? All I have is an idea based on films and guesswork. Is it golf? Lunches? Meetings? What sort of decisions are they making? What pressures are they facing?

I’m interested, curious, and I don’t see how I would ever find out in real life because I don’t move in circles where people have that sort of job.

Yeah, I did think of artists/musicians/writers whose day-to-day life is solitary. They all loathe the promo side of things but those are occasional intense bursts rather than their defining daily activities. But obviously achieving the level of fame of those you mentioned is vanishingly rare, and actual megabucks rarer still (I think a lot of people would be surprised to learn what even very famous writers, artists etc actually earn).

So not just no meetings but not much in the way of face-to-face work? This sounds like the dream; do you have a niche technical skill, or are you able to take big decisions without having to sell them to other people? I'm intrigued as to which field you're in.

I should note that work-life balance isn't what I'm asking about. I don't think it's an issue that it tilts towards work for high earners. I'm specifically asking about the nature of that work involving intense daily interaction with other people.

Oh absolutely it’s rare in the creative professions, and most writers would make more money scrubbing floors. But it’s not unheard of. Chihuly and Kiefer and some others are multi multi millionaires. Tbh I don’t think they all do hate the public side of it - that’s one of the things that makes them unusual, that they can do and even enjoy both, and some are natural collaborators I think, eg Damon Albarn who gathers co-artists wherever he goes and is another multimillionaire. In general, you have to be exceptional to be at that level of income.

Dick around on Mumsnet, mostly

Whinge on here about how much tax they pay

Agree. My husband regularly comments that he's grateful he can leave his work at work. I dream about mine, and not in a good way.
I would add to the previous comments, that being in a senior role also involves a huge amount of mediation. Between colleagues, staff, peers, more senior colleagues, clients, customers and any combinations of the above. I am absolutely wrung out by the end of my day as I frequently feel like a sounding board for people above, below and to the side. I have to keep my division running smoothly and this means absorbing an awful lot of crap so it doesn't impact others.
I also have to make a lot of strategic decisions, the impact of which can be huge. What I would say is, with highly paid jobs, it's not always about the activity, it's about the outputs. This usually does mean a lot of activity but not always

I get what you mean op. I have a rough idea of what a teacher/postman / shelf stacker/ plumber etc does but no idea what people on big bucks do because it’s not on my radar.
when I was a social worker I earned 30k and had huge responsibilities and enormous pressure. But is a person on 150k on 120k more pressure. Probably not it’s the difference between private and public sector.

Thankful that our council tax isn’t going to double (band G). A bit concerned that salary sacrifice will disappear in 2029. We currently salary sacrifice a high percentage into his pension to future proof ourselves (previously had low pots) and to cover enough for me too, plus avoiding 60% tax trap 100-125k. As a single salary high earning family we pay a fortune in tax and removing salary sacrifice would really impact us

I don't quite top £150k but not far off these days. I manage the European team for my branch of a large Health consultancy company. I have a degree and a long background in drug development before ending up in this job. I have direct reports and they have direct reports so some of my week is spent in people management. We also quote on new work for clients so some of my day is spent on overseeing new work work proposals (so meetings and reading and correcting documents). My team work on billable projects so I am pulled in when something goes wrong with those (more meetings). I am responsible for the finances for my team so budgeting for next year, reviewing our revenue and profit figures and working with the project leads in my team to make changes to improve those figures.

The big thing I do that makes my role different from one more junior is to decide things worth lots of money. Do we give this client a discount and if so how much is a decision I make and then have to justify to finance and my boss. I also get yelled at a lot; client pissed off - roll out TreeDudette and she can take the flack.

For a day in the life of I started at about 8am reading my emails this morning, I had some urgent calls that I arrived over the weekend that I had to attend to make some decisions on proposals and finance. I approved some hiring for my team (I needed another call to be sure I knew what I was approving). I have written some end of year feedback for half a dozen people in our online system. I've replied to a client who has a complaint (after another call with my team to get the background) and have set up someone to work on fixing what the client complianed about. I've just eaten lunch and my afternoon is filled with calls around potential new projects. I may finish at 5 but if there is an urgent US call I may still be online at 7. I do the same again tomorrow but I have a client call at 8am tomorrow to pitch a new service line (Oh I better finish the slides for that too!)

It's pretty full on, never the same 2 days on the run, always urgent, always about money and I love it! No golf and no extra marrital affairs for me!

DH is a high earning CEO. It is very much 'the buck stops here' for him and everyone wants a piece of his time. He spends a lot of time thinking about 5, 10, 15 years out and how to grow and develop the company towards those goals and what it will take. That's both in terms of product/service, but 'if we are x size then, where will we get staff from - do we need to start training people for role y now so we have great people in 3 years. Then where could we put them, should we have an office in town z where there is a pool'. Or where could finance come from. Or 'this law is coming in which is related to our work, what could we do'.
He has a lot of meetings with his senior team to see that they are on track, support them, explain the vision to them and so on. Meetings with big clients to talk them through what is being delivered, make sure they are happy. Meetings to deal with escalated complaints. Meetings with potential clients
He does take people out to lunch once or twice a week - its an easier way to get in someones packed diary, lets you have a more discreet word sometimes, and builds a relationship better. But its not long boozy lunches by any means.
He works about 100 hours a week, and doesn't ever switch off. He loves it (mostly) though.

Part of my portfolio working is entirely solitary and admin/computer based. Making quite complex decision. But many years of training and experience. I do love it but it can be very isolating and have now built in a few hours in our office to balance it out.

Almost certainly yes. Just because you don't understand what they do. The pressure is huge.

Meetings. Telling other people what to do. Planning. Projecting.

DH and I are in the same industry, he’s board level and I’m one step below him. At board level it is very much decision making, both in terms of firefighting and as part of the wider strategic picture.

Both of those things involve having a lot of meetings - so that he can understand the subject (often explained by a specialist who has brought it to his attention), so that he can understand the wider ramifications of the decision he makes (so, both external consultants and other areas of the business - to look at the bigger picture and resource and impact on the wider business) and to communicate to external stakeholders and staff.

It’s far less granular ‘doing’ and a lot more thinking, decision making, and communication - both down, to his employees, and up - to the VC board, or relevant regulatory bodies.

Where I sit, it’s also extremely meeting heavy but I’m still function led, so I’m still within my own specialist area rather than having whole company oversight. I don’t ‘do’ so much any more but I provide guidance, oversight and instruction using the expertise I have to the teams I manage.

I'm a marketing director for an environmental firm. The golf and lunches disguised as networking or 'lunch and learns' are available to me, but I can't stand them so I tend to steer clear.

My day to day varies. Generally it kicks off with reviewing metrics reports -- how effective is my team's work in a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly context? I also review the reports from other teams to identify where support is needed, directing attention to places where revenue is weaker. What that support looks like will vary by product and region; we might generate a local marketing campaign, or we might adjust the flow of targeting for a larger, national campaign. That will involve most of my team working on creative, which I then have to approve and sometimes deploy, depending on if it uses one of the channels I prefer to manage end-to-end (because sometimes it's just easier if I do it.)

Then it's working on the local and national campaigns that we run regularly. That can be either working on upcoming campaigns, swapping out creative for existing campaigns, or a mix of both. At this point my team and I have all worked together for several years so I can just say 'let's get x campaign together' and everyone will know what to do; if there's someone new, there's more hand-holding involved. A campaign will involve multiple pieces -- printed (trade magazines or direct mail), emailed, online ads, working with local and national professional associations.

The rest of the time will be spent working on other projects -- planning for events marketing and trade shows to make sure the sales reps have everything they need, writing reports, working on my budget to reconcile spending or planning for the next year, meeting with vendors (paper company, printing company, external design firm, data warehouse, very persistent media partner sales reps, etc.)

If something performs well, I tend to not hear anything. If something performs poorly, or costs too much, I'm the person who gets called to account for it and I'm the person who has to make the changes to correct it.

If you're the boss of a water company you spend all day screwing the environment and ripping customers off.

You think the pressure on a social worker on £30k with a case load in the hundreds is not huge?

How does he feel about paying more tax?

@GoodNightsshe fully supports paying more tax. It’s a privilege to be earning the level he does now

It won’t be as huge as the pressure a CEO or CFO faces. It’s also a different kind of pressure. When a social worker is sick they (rightly) get time off to recover, least of all so they don’t pass any illness onto their patients. I am far below CEO in my organisation, mid-seniority, and when I’m sick I continue working but do so from home. No change to my hours because I am the only person on a project who has certain responsibility and no one else can step in. Similarly, I suspect a social worker does not continue working while on annual leave. They don’t come into work on their days off and care for patients. CEOs have to always be ‘on’ through weekends and holidays.

More fool them then, TBH. Not having a plan in place for someone to step in in case of illness sounds like poor planning and bad workplace practice to me. What happens to the company when the CEO slash CFO is suddenly incapacitated?

They also have the responsibility for the livelihoods of every one of their employees. If they make poor decisions which lead to the company becoming bankrupt, or being subject to huge regulatory fines, or suffering reputational damage, it doesn’t just impact them - it impacts all the people they employ too. And a good board should be mindful of that. Quite apart from the personal liability they hold in terms of prosecution in a number of industries.

If a social worker (or childminder etc.) makes the wrong call, people die. Not sure I am seeing the difference in pressure here.

Pretty much how it was for me and my late husband. No kids but I had a 0.5 part time job, fairly senior but very flexible, in a local NHS Trust. Running the house and the life admin was all mine because he might get called away at no notice for all sorts of reasons and need to spend literally days onsite in the Uk or abroad, He kept a couple of changes of clothes and a wash kit in his workplace. He was well paid, yes but he was also excellent at what he did and made huge contributions to workplace safety and global environmental safety. I sort of mind the wording of the OP's post although they may not have meant it To me "what does xxx do all day" implies that the speaker thinks that they lounge around and do sod all.

To make decisions quickly and own them.