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We often talk about jobs that don’t pay enough. Service industry employees are typically a top-of-mind mention, where people do the grunt work, yet they may need to take another job just to get by.
We don’t often discuss professions that pay way too much for the required work. Give yourself a few seconds to think, and it would likely take you a short while to make a list of five.
If you’re still racking your brain, here are some responses to a Reddit thread from a while back. While many on this list are reasonably expected, some may surprise you.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Influencers, this includes celebrity and actors. In this world only one thing is worse than elite rich scum, those who pretend to be.
RELATED:
#2
Televangelists preachers. University sports coaches.
Sven Horlemann 6 months ago
All those preachers are con artists. Nail them to a cross or something.
#3
Being a celebrity (famous for being famous, not the people with some degree of talent).
#4
CEO, no one is performing that job deserves hundreds of millions of dollars. Most of the time performance is due to the size of the company and actions taken by lower level leaders.
Boris Long-Johnson 6 months ago
Especially charity CEOs - literally taking money “from a good cause”
#5
Life coaches
When my family moved cities when I was 5 our new neighbours had kids the same age as my sister and I so my dad wanted to meet them (he did not want his girls around weirdos). When he met the mother she asked what he does and vice versa. She told him she’s a life coach. His response was “what the hell is that?”. She stopped letting her kids play with us.
StrangeOne 6 months ago
I've realized life coaches are just people spewing out their opinions on what they could have done with their life, but were never able. So they're trying to live their dreams through other people.
#6
Hedge fund managers. Once the fund is up and running, they don't do much outside of hyper-expensive lunches and dinners, all paid by the fund. They make many millions, but the grunts are the ones that actually pull the sled...
#7
The a******s that write self help books. Motivational speakers. Dhar Man.
Fight me.
#8
Government funded coaches (in several states the highest paid public employee is a coach for a sports team).
SchadenFreudian Psychology 6 months ago
Some colleges and universities are just sports teams with a sideline in tertiary education.
#9
Pharmaceutical reps.
StrangeOne 6 months ago (edited)
TIL just now. A Pharmaceutical rep is someone who promotes and sells pharmaceutical products to healthcare professionals. They are not the same as Pharmacists, who are licensed, education professionals that prepare and give you your medications. Basically, PRs are legal, glorified d**g pushers.
#10
Health Care “administrators” . They administer none of the health care and typically represent a parasitic growth within the hospital.
SchadenFreudian Psychology 6 months ago
They’re part of the reason healthcare is so expensive.
#11
I’m surprised no one has said consultants. Especially management consultants. Here’s a PowerPoint saying you should fire 100 people and get more market share, now please give me $500,000.
Beef Brisket 6 months ago
Please don't lump all "consultants" into the same stereotype. While some are vastly overpaid, a lot are simply contract, gig-economy workers who appear to be highly paid, but in fact a large percentage of their wages is paid to the recruiting company that the business used to hire them. They not only provide advice, knowledge and skills the company may not have on-site, but they do the hands-on work along with the employees--at a slightly higher wage, but without benefits, holidays, vacation, pension, bonuses, annual salary increases, or free equipment and supplies. By the time you factor it all in, consultants can get paid less than employees.
#12
I would say ceos but generally I even just upper management at all is making exponentially more than the actual laborers.
Lena Flising 6 months ago
The fact that higher managers pushed ordinary workers to come back to work as soon as possible in the pandemic, while the upper management probably could do their job from home, show that it's the ordinary workers that bring in the money, and do the jobs that actually produce profit.
#13
Edu-celebrities.
They are the people who spent two years in the classroom, couldn't handle it, then started some online blog/following with some appealing catchphrase. They get paid $3000+ per speaking gig that districts fork up and force teachers to listen to.
#15
I work in digital marketing as an account manager. All I do is respond to emails and Skype people all day. I make over $100k a year just relaying stuff in emails and Skypes. We generate leads off co-registration sites like the c**p where you can win a gift card if you spin the wheel then answer a million questions and your data is sold 10 times. It's all b******t and I have no idea why it pays so much.
#16
Lots of stuff in Banking. There is no way the wages and bonuses justify what they do. It’s just semi informed gambling.
ElfVibratorGlitter 6 months ago
This is actually quite funny. I have my degrees in finance and mathematics and now...I audit casinos. It's basically all gambling on what you think other people are going to do.
#17
Recruiters. My DevOps jobs pay around 200k - 250k a year, they get 10%-20% of that for making some calls and setting up meetings with hiring managers. Come to think about it, I am also overpaid for my job.
StrangeOne 6 months ago
I watch an ex recruiter on youtube (I think he may actually still be in the field.), it seems like an interesting job that gives you awareness of all the shady b******t that people deal with, but at the same time you have to play along.
#18
Royal expert. Because any money someone pays you for that job is already too much money.
#19
Politician of any level.
Nina 6 months ago
Politicians really don't get paid that much for all the work they do. Especially on the lowest levels they usually have a regular job next to it and there's tons of volunteers helping as well. At parliament level they have a humongous work load and don't make 40hr weeks at all, always more. (Dutch)
#20
Token white person at a Chinese company. When I used to live in China you could get a job at Chinese companies to make it look like they had foreign collaborations. You had to dress well and sit at a desk. Pretend to work only when tours went through. Otherwise game, study, whatever. A lot of sitting on a chair on a stage with a bunch of Chinese executives during awards/presentations.
#21
Realtors
Me: I need to pay off a bond for 20-30 years with blood sweat and tears.
realtor: ‘sells’ house in couple of weeks by sending couple of emails, gives tour of house. “yeah, like I’m gonna need like 5-10% commission of that 30 years.
StrangeOne 6 months ago
A realtor will tell you buying a home without one is full of legal risks, yet they will sell you house that is riddled with hidden problems they know about but "forget" to disclose.
#22
Car sales people, any company executives, and politicians.
fly on the wall 6 months ago
Somebody has to represent the company who owns the vehicle. They also act as an efficient go between if any follow up or warranty work needs to be done
#23
I worked for a business that had a full-time office space designer.
The job of this person was to plot out cubicles for the company's employees in a CAD program.
Forrest Grump 6 months ago (edited)
A group of cubicles AKA Dilbert Squares. BTW, I invented the term "Dilbert Squares" sometime around 1996 and tried to promote it into common use. But that never went anywhere.
#24
Me. I make $100k to manage a small team. They do all the work and I just sign off on some decisions every couple weeks. Everyone loves me because all the work they do and I watch YouTube/Reddit all day.
#25
People always jump on footballers when talking about stuff like this, yet never mention actors, when people like Will Smith and Tom Cruise are getting £20M per movie.
#26
My last job in college, before starting my career. I was an overnight shelter staff for transitional housing. Since these clients were basically back up on their feet by the time they arrived, they were pretty self-sufficient. I was paid about 25% higher than other night-shift jobs I could get at the time, and on most nights all I had to do was make one pot of coffee. The rest of the time I could watch TV, play video games, do personal chores, etc… The one job that I know was better was their overnight sleeper, since we had to have two staff at all times. As implied, this dude made a well-above minimum wage rate to just sleep there on the weekends.
StrangeOne 6 months ago
I would want to look into this more. There is risk to this job. There was a nightshift worker at the Selkirk Behavioural Health Foundation, in Manitoba, (it is considered like a transitional home) who was beaten by bats and pool balls by 2 teens who were staying there. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/beating-addictions-worker-winnipeg-1.3608795
#28
My mom once got a job as a civilian contractor working for the federal government. She was an accountant, and they put her in the department that managed a certain kind of ICBM... that had just been slated for destruction as part of one of the big arms-reduction treaties in the mid-80s. She had a computer at her desk but didn't have login info to use it, so she spent her days doing crosswords. Whatever that job paid, it was definitely overpaid.
#29
Advertising. My brother used to work in it and earned double what I ever could. He was working from home before the WFH movement and set himself up the living room so I couldn't watch my cartoons. He spent 5 hours a day easily just scrolling through Facebook. 'Market research' he called it.
#30
OnlyFans "content creator".
No one's giving me money to look at my bumhole :(.
#31
Most people on local school boards. Check their salaries...they should be public. It's sad.
#32
Cable news anchors. A few million dollars per year just to read a teleprompter.
#33
This might be a hot take but my cousin works in coding and tech and one time told me his job is "100% overpaid." What he does really isn't difficult coding it's just in high demand, but he told me that what he does for the time and energy is probably overpaid.
StrangeOne 6 months ago
If coding is so simple, you must be very smart and have an ease with paying attention to a bunch of little symbols. It's not so simple for everyone. Definitely a skill for those who have the patients to do it.
#34
Landlords. They do literally nothing,just own land.
StrangeOne 6 months ago
Slumlords. Not to be mistaken as landlords. They are of 2 different breeds.
#35
I got paid $46 an hour once to juggle in parades for Vail resorts. Honestly, it was way too much but I couldn't turn it down because I was making $10 an hour as a ski/snowboard instructor.
StrangeOne 6 months ago
Juggling is a real, hard skill to learn. I couldn't do it. I can't even juggle 2 things at once.
#36
One night I babysat three kids for about 2 hours or so. The kids went to bed when I got there, and the parents had left dinner out for me, so all I did was eat their food and watch their TV and pet their dogs.
When they got home the mom paid me $100. I told her that was way too much. She slurred "Don't worry about it, I'm drunk." And then I noticed her fly was down.
So that was the most over paid job ever lol.
StrangeOne 6 months ago
That's how much babysitting kids is paying teens? I was lucky to get $10 or $20 for 2 hours. Sometimes a bit of extra was given to order pizza because the parents didn't want you to rummage in their kitchen.
#37
Mother. F*****g. Contractors.
$200-$400/hr and I still have to check all your f*****g work and herd the group of you like a bunch of g*****n cats? And cater your f*****g lunch? And nothing is going to be on time for my f*****g client because your documentation is all a*s backwards?
In other news, I'm in the middle of a very stressful construction project at work.
#38
Lollipop sign holders (stop/slow signs) in Australia, there on like bloody $60 an hour!
#39
I'll be honest. Mine. I'm a busboy in NYC and I make $20-$30 an hour and just take shots with my coworkers all the time.
edit: Your downvotes look much nicer on my brand new 27" retina imac. ahhhhhh the color fidelity.
#40
Diversity and inclusion managers.
Michael Largey 6 months ago
Diversity and inclusion managers are as necessary as janitors - both clean up messes other people have made.
What do you think ?
SouthernGal 6 months ago
With many of these examples, you have to keep in mind that they aren’t being paid for the number of minutes it takes to accomplish a task. They are being paid for the years of experience and knowledge gained, the network of contacts they have and their core ability to get the job done. I’m sure thousands of dollars for a surgeon to perform a 30 minute procedure might sound outrageous. However, they went through many years of medical school, residency and internship to gain the experience to perform that procedure.
Kit Black 6 months ago
No, if you keep all of that in mind, you can't enjoy complaining about people who make more money than you do 🤣
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SouthernGal 6 months ago
With many of these examples, you have to keep in mind that they aren’t being paid for the number of minutes it takes to accomplish a task. They are being paid for the years of experience and knowledge gained, the network of contacts they have and their core ability to get the job done. I’m sure thousands of dollars for a surgeon to perform a 30 minute procedure might sound outrageous. However, they went through many years of medical school, residency and internship to gain the experience to perform that procedure.
Kit Black 6 months ago
No, if you keep all of that in mind, you can't enjoy complaining about people who make more money than you do 🤣
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