There are plenty of uncomfortable conversations to be had in life. Just think about politics or religion — these topics evoke such strong emotions, people are bound to find themselves in heated arguments. But there are also matters that some folks avoid speaking about, and money is certainly at the top of the list.
From salaries and personal savings to spending habits, our finances carry a certain stigma which makes it hard to talk about. Yet, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t. A few days ago, user Necessary-Bun raised a question on Ask Reddit and invited fellow members to open up about professions they think are way overpaid.
The thread quickly went viral and received a deluge of comments where people called out some relatively cushy jobs with paychecks that just don’t make sense. Bored Panda has collected some of the best answers from this post, so keep scrolling and let us know if you agree with them in the comments!
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Preachers. No one dedicated to God should own a jet, mansion, or expensive car.
Are preachers rich? Because my dad was a minister when I was a little kid and we lived in legit poverty.
Politicians. I'd understand if they made things better, but they generally f**k over the working class which is the majority of the country yet give themselves huge bonuses and expenses as though they have done a brilliant job.
Out here when politicians are asked why their pay/allowances and conditions are so extraordinarily generous compared to other actual jobs, they invariably reply "you need to have remunerations and incentives at those levels to encourage the best and brightest to apply". Funny how it only applies to those parasites in politics because as soon as you talk about needing decent, thriving wages and working conditions for frontline/essential workers suddenly "oh no The Economy cannot afford it" "we need to reign in excess spending on wages". Except of course for politicians and CEOs and the like. Surely you want the best and brightest attracted to professions like teaching, nursing and policing and others that perform vital functions so the dodgy weirdos can be weeded out? Surely that is most important to a community? Perhaps if politicians and CEOs had their pay, bonuses and conditions kept at no more than 3-4 times the welfare or minimum wage we might see less inequality
Socialites. Why do we have people who have never worked a day in their life getting millions on investments they didn’t make when others need 3-4 jobs just to keep a roof over their head?
To the exception of criminals, these are probably the worst society has produced. They're the obnoxious embodiment of laziness, superficiality and uselessness.
Hospital CEO’s… and actually almost all hospital upper management. There are so many layers of management that many of them barely step foot into a healthcare facility EVER, let alone EVER speak to a patient, yet all of them make 6, 7, 8 figure salaries plus mega bonuses. My hospital network CEO makes $11 million salary not including bonuses, which bothers me, but bothers me, even more, are all the board members and s**t directly under him making nearly as much. It’s hundreds of millions of wasted money paid to the people trying to screw staff out of good pay and screwing patients into paying big bills.
Kardashians. Definitely the Kardashians.
Honestly, most celeb positions. Pro athletes, singers, actors, etc...
Before you respond, I understand the literal mechanics of a capitalist market. I understand that they command those wages through their craft, by being the best in a very competitive and limited market. I get the "supply and demand" of it all.
I'm just saying, Mahomes getting like $40m per year just to throw a ball around in a game... When a top surgeon saving actual lives makes like $500k? Yeah, that's a silly overpay.
And I'm a HUGE football fan, don't get me wrong. But at the end of the day, it's just a game, just entertainment. Not that serious.
Thanks to Republicans in Congress for giving the tax breaks to the rich, while cutting services to the poor and letting our country fall apart
CEO of various charities that make mid to upper 6 figure income.
Check charitynavigator.org for statistics on charities. A charity that can pay a CEO that kind of money would have to be taking in billions to get a 4 star rating. This site will show you what that CEO makes. It's public record.
Celebrities and “influencers”
Influencers are the least talented people on the planet, especially those on tiktok. They get millions of views on tasteless trend videos, which translates to lots of money. Pointless.
Since we’re talking athletes, I’d say the sports teams owners are way overcompensated. Just as one example, owners often blackmail cities into paying for new stadiums with tax dollars rather than making those renovations themselves.
Just stop going to the games, which are already beyond the budget of most families
College administration. Don’t come begging me for money for your “alumni fund” (or, even worse, for feeding and clothing poor and hungry students - yep, they send me those emails) when I can’t pay off my student loans, and the Deputy Vice Provost of Student-Media Relations is bringing home hundreds of thousands of dollars a year - and there are dozens of them at every campus. Most instructors earn less than s**t, student housing is falling apart but God forbid some upper-level useless word salad of a title not get paid out the a**.
Professors and teachers, so important in passing on knowledge, are paid so little, nobody can afford to persue it as a career.
Hospital administrators. They don't bring s**t to the table in terms of medical knowledge or patient care, dictate to medical professionals with years of education and experience how to do their jobs, and get paid the most to do it.
Was at my old job for 16 years, at a primary office for big hospital corp., the big hospital administrators would always come up with these plans and wants us to follow , without asking if it’ll really work, they got paid so much money for unrealistic ideas, I could’ve told them in every level it’s not gonna work, but I’m just a peasant
University football coaches. They are often the top paid education employees in their entire state, sometimes by a wide margin. And 99.9% of their students will never be paid to use the skills they teach in any capacity-- on the contrary, they're basically doing slave labor for the school. Meanwhile, professors doing actual academic work toil for years and make peanuts. Yeah, that'll probably be an unpopular opinion but IDGAF.
In 48 states out of 50 the highest paid state employee is an athletics coach.
Board members.
Some get $70k to do a “part-time” job on the board with a work commitment of maybe 1 meeting per quarter. And many board members are on multiple boards because boards want people who are on other boards. These people then vote to raise their own and c-suite salaries. Source: worked at an executive search firm in admin on the board recruitment team. It’s disgusting the money/job incest that goes around.
I'm on the Board of Directors for our condominium. It's a lot of work and we don't get paid. Not even donuts at our monthly meeting!
Any sort of celebrity work, especially in the movie biz. Why is $4 million considered low?????
Private military contractors. They get paid significantly more than actual troops and are far less accountable.
Right now, travel nurses. I’m a travel nurse and I ain’t complaining at all, but we’re definitely overpaid. I’m taking home about $4000 a week at the moment for 36 hours. I do not do $4000 worth of work in those 36 hours. We’re overpaid because hospital greed finally bit them in the a** and I’m here for it baby. Underpay all your staff, everyone’s gonna quit and you’ll have to pay travelers insane rates. Treat people better or just live with this as a reality. I’ll take these rates as long as they’re there.
University administrations. They're constantly making up new positions with 6 figure salaries while raising tuition.
The cost to students for higher education has gotten completely out of control
I was recently a juror in a civil case where someone was trying to get money out of someone else from an accident. In my state, you have to have sustained a "permanent injury" in order to be awarded anything so both sides hired medical experts to provide testimony about the injury.
(Edit: I've gotten some comments about this part. This is after the "fault" case which is completely different. We were instructed that fault had already been determined and was not in the scope of the case. This was only about the "permanent injury" part of the case. Nothing criminal or at fault was a factor here. All of the initial medical bills and whatnot had been settled. This was about ongoing permanent damage.)
As part of the video testimony, they ask the doctors various questions like how many times they've done surgeries for injuries like this in order to prove they are experts, where they were trained, etc etc. All is well and fine.
THEN they ask them how much they are being paid for the testimony. BOTH doctors said $1000 an hour with a minimum of 5 hours. BOTH doctors said they record these kinds of testimonies several times a month. BOTH doctors said they only practice or do surgeries 50% of their time because they spend the rest making these videos.
Of course, the doctors then proceeded to provide completely opposite opinions based on who hired them.
These guys get paid hundreds of thousands a year, maybe millions, just to say they agree with whichever side hired them so as a juror it's up to us to decide who to believe on our own with zero medical training.
TL;DR: "Medical experts" providing testimony in personal injury cases charging $1000 an hour with a minimum of 5 hours... for EACH side of the case.
100% influencers. I understand the argument that they provide companies a ton of value and so that is why their pay is so high. However, the actual value they provide society, in general, is... negligible to none. I mean, you could argue they provide entertainment, but most influencers are making the majority of their money from sponsorships and brand deals, not views. Some still do rely mainly on adsense, and they're still making decent money, but not the bank that the ones who get sponsors on every video or post do.
School administration boards. Teachers do the heavy lifting, yet a lot of these bodies routinely deduct their pay for “resources” for the school.
Why is it that these academic politicians make more money than the people teaching our future? There would be no school without teachers, but there can be a school without administration bodies
Teachers just can't even make the median wage in this country. So sad
Lottery commissioner makes 500k a yr. Overpaid is understating.
What do they actually do?? Sometimes certain jobs seems self sufficient
Most upper management in an office setting. I have had jobs where I have multiple bosses and only one really understands what the people that work for them actually do.
I worked in a company where all the managers would go offsite for one week each year for a management retreat. Our productivity and profitability always skyrocketed during that week, according to all the reports -- because we didn't have these incompetent loons interfering with the operation for a whole week. The fact was clear that we could have those people still collecting their salaries and just refraining from dragging us down with their constant stupidity, and the whole business would improve dramatically.
Paparazzi. Some get paid thousands to harass people trying to go about their everyday life.
I have never seen a hardworking competent HR department, but they get paid the same or more like folks who do 10x the work.
I work in HR so I might be biased but I'm severely underpaid and always have to deal with the sh*t show after the executive mess up.
Real estate agents, especially for buyers. Literally every piece of information a buyer's agent can give you is readily available on Redfin.
Their only real responsibility is to unlock the front door and provide a checklist of things that need to be done before closing (which is exactly the same for 95% of purchases). For this, they get paid 2-3% of the purchase price, meaning it's in their best interest for you to buy the most expensive house possible.
Not necessarily true. In a seller's market, the realtor's ranking and reputation can heavily influence whether your bid gets accepted or not. And in a buyer's market, a great realtor spends tons of time helping get the house ready for sale. But I can see this bring true for crappy realtors who just got into it for the money.
I am a handyman that charges $50/hr with a 3hr minimum, a couple of months ago I got a call for service that consisted of changing 9 smoke detector batteries, 2 light bulbs, and re-hanging a picture. I felt bad taking the money but the guy couldn’t have been happier to have that stuff finally done. He asked for my card and is now a very good client
So I lifeguard in an upper-class neighborhood. I charge 50$/hr and usually stay around 3 hr. All the kids can swim, and if they can’t they are with their parents. It’s awesome
Selling online sleep training courses. Write up an e-document on “how to get baby to sleep,”-sell said document for 10-20$- pray on sleep-deprived desperate parents, rack in the cash.
In college, I housesat often for a little wiener dog in a pretty fancy house. Being in college, I usually napped during any free time, so the dog would sleep on my chest when I lay on the floor to sleep. His "mother" typically paid me at least $100 for maybe 4-6 hours of sitting every time.
Marketing people. My wife makes almost $200,000 and is just a director. She hires people out of college at $70,000. I went into the wrong business.
Hedge fund manager
Should roast in hell every time they cheat someone out of money. I mean like now not after you die.
HR gets Paid pretty well for what they actually do.
Agree with this one. Useless to you in any situation where you need them to step in and help you with a work-based grievance which would actually justify their pay.
Realtors. South Park episode summed up how easy the job can be.
It is hard for real estate agents to earn a living, unless they are well-connected with very rich clients and sell only top dollar properties in the most exclusive neighborhoods. Only the top 2% reach this level. The broker's agent's main job is to find a buyer. Then they handle the negotiations so the two parties can work together. Then they work with the title company to provide the endless stream of forms that have to be signed by both parties. Then they help with the loan process. Then they help expedite the closing. Some states require that a lawyer be involved in the process, so you have to put up with their uppity lawyer crap. This may take several days every month for months to make this all happen. If they list a $100,000 house and see it through to closing, an agent may only net out a whopping $1500 for all that work. The rest goes to the agent's managing broker and to the buyers brokerage firm. The agent has to pay all expenses for listing out of their own pocket, so deduct another $200 to $500 for all the listing expenses. And you think your little sales agent is overpaid? Get real.
My mother's friend (who is a very elderly lady) once paid me $200 to just spend the day with her at her house. I didn't even have to clean or do anything like that. Just sit and keep her company. I felt kinda bad honestly. Haven't seen her in a while and I wonder how she's doing sometimes.
Edit: I just wanted to add that I was still in high school at the time and was pressured into by my mother. I regret taking the money but it DID help pay for college. She was very rich so spending the 200 didn't hurt her but I still regret it and I never really reached it again because life kinda got in the way.
If you ever see an elderly person out and about in any scenario, and they start up a conversation and keep on going, please don’t ignore them, they just need company and a conversation, most of them are alone
I started working in a liquor store and tbh I think sommeliers are waaaay overpaid. At least in the states, where most people just drink boxed wine. Lol.
The famous "Two-buck Chuck" test gave unmarked samples of cheap and expensive wines to a panel of 'experts' who failed again and again to tell the difference between them.
A lot of people are saying influencers but don’t realize most of them are broke and it’s just a fabricated image.
Data scientist in big tech boyooooo (especially product/analytics side instead of ML-focused)
Not nearly as technically demanding as software engineering and not as taxing on time as product management, but paid in the same ballpark.
Plenty of other roles/careers bring a relevant skill set so it's doable to break-in
Easy 200-300k+ for 30 hrs/week
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 overpaid job ever lol.
As a parent I don't agree. We pay for tranquility knowing that someone we trust is there for our children while we are out. Worth every penny.
IT consultants. I’m about to get 100k USD a year, and that’s 37.5h work weeks and about 30 days of vacation per year.
As an IT consultant I can say you are wrong! In order to get to do consulting jobs you need to get to a level of understanding that requires a lot of years (more than 10) of experience and know how. This on top of a university degree and masters. Then it's the overall factor, how much does it cost a company to have "problem" and fix it. I can spend 10minutes on something and fix it, while their department spends hours. Depends on the country too, what does it get to be able to call yourself an IT consultant. This is valid for all jobs, education and experience require allot of time but are paid well because of the impact.
My old job. It was for the government to set up audio-visual equipment. I literally got paid to sit on my a** and do absolutely nothing for around $30 an hour. Maybe a good 20-30 minutes out of the day on average I would be on my feet doing something. Usually, I was just watching videos on YouTube or doing things on the computer. I could literally leave and no one knew I was gone. I would George Castanza it up and sleep under my desk. Yes, it sounds great but I was extremely undervalued as an employee and my supervisors (aside from one who was absolutely awesome) really could care less about me. Also, the other employees in the building thought that we were stupid so they always looked down on us. Sometimes I would have to sit in this dark room that had a computer but it was very depressing. I finally changed jobs a couple of years back for something more challenging and rewarding. I can finally say that I am in a position where my input is valued and I am really accomplishing something. Every day brings something new and I am pleased with my current compensation.
I worked in the area and I can say if you know how to solve a problem when it shows up, you're a good professional. I love being in a dark room on a computer... I actually do that (and work my ass off from 9 AM to 11 PM editing, composing audio and video). People depresses me
Software Sales. I did it for 20 years. You are a glorified secretary for software engineers who do all the real selling to other engineers. It’s a complete joke
You did it wrong -- most of the successful ones sell software to the engineers' managers, who don't know a damned thing about IT and force their engineers to implement the bad software they just bought. The magic words are "it will make a million dollars a minute and you don't have to hire any additional staff or spend a second setting it up!" It doesn't matter that is complete horseshit, the manager will get mad at his staff and accuse them of laziness when they try to tell them the software does nothing, costs a lot to set up, is poorly supported, is incompatible with existing systems, and even requires constant expensive maintenance. The manager's ego will trump all of that.
After high school when I was job hunting, I was strolling around on indeed when I saw a job opportunity to be a dog poop scooper. You literally drove around in a company van going to big homes scooping people's dog's turds for 20 something an hour. I was in shock and almost applied immediately.
This is not underpaid but sounds like a great thing if you know someone who needs decent paying work. Certainly would beat hell out of many other difficult and poor-paying jobs.
Marriage counseling.
Marriage counselor here.
If you have a good therapist, they really can make a difference. Therapy isn't about just talking, it's about setting goals and making plans to get to those goals.
As a Software Engineer. I would say us. I went to a Bootcamp I make between 100-200k and I didn't even graduate college. As someone who used to work for 15 an hour pouring concrete, I will tell you they are not even close to equal my job is pretty dope.
That being said you have to be driven to do it and have a mind for it or at least the stubbornness to push through the learning curve. I would not say the work is hard but I won't say it's for everyone and there are other ways to make money. This is just the one I found for myself. I do think it's a mistake to try to get a job in tech if you hate it because you will probably burn out long before you ever start making money.
I can't believe nobody said CEO. The most overpriced employee in any business
Just an example of disparity in the work places. In most of these jobs, for everyone that is overpaid there is several who are working for less than they are worth. For every preacher, hospital worker, HR worker, lifeguard, even influencers that are driving a new sports car there are 5 or 10 that are driving a clunker and trying to raise a family on a paupers wage.
Why are there no bankers on top of this lists? CEOs that make six digit salaries plus bonuses. And when they f*ck somethign up, the get a six digit figure as a parting payment. insane.
For better or worse, it's the inherent nature of capitalism to charge whatever the market will bear.
TICKETMASTER! Charging me a handling fee for an already overpriced ticket! They used to have an office to actually hand you a ticket, now on the internet they don't even do that . . . AND THEY GET PAID A LOT! Knock it off!
Upper management in general is way overpaid and generally unnecessary.
i see a lot of people being annoyed at people who make more money than them
Curious: Which one of these jobs do you have?
Load More Replies...
All these comments seem to forget that all these, except politicians, make money because they have clients. There is no supply if there is no demand.
I can't believe nobody said CEO. The most overpriced employee in any business
Just an example of disparity in the work places. In most of these jobs, for everyone that is overpaid there is several who are working for less than they are worth. For every preacher, hospital worker, HR worker, lifeguard, even influencers that are driving a new sports car there are 5 or 10 that are driving a clunker and trying to raise a family on a paupers wage.
Why are there no bankers on top of this lists? CEOs that make six digit salaries plus bonuses. And when they f*ck somethign up, the get a six digit figure as a parting payment. insane.
For better or worse, it's the inherent nature of capitalism to charge whatever the market will bear.
TICKETMASTER! Charging me a handling fee for an already overpriced ticket! They used to have an office to actually hand you a ticket, now on the internet they don't even do that . . . AND THEY GET PAID A LOT! Knock it off!
Upper management in general is way overpaid and generally unnecessary.
i see a lot of people being annoyed at people who make more money than them
Curious: Which one of these jobs do you have?
Load More Replies... All these comments seem to forget that all these, except politicians, make money because they have clients. There is no supply if there is no demand.
