There are some jobs that are both highly regarded and well-paid, but there are also jobs that are only one or the other. A user asked on the forum, “What job position is 100% overvalued and overpaid?”
The readers didn’t hold back on their responses.
GILLETTE ENGINEERS
“Gillette engineers took five years to go from 3 blades to 4.”
“And they got the idea from reading The Onion.”
MEMBERS OF THE INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE
“Member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). They’ve had a lengthy history of excessive demands ($4 million US spent on “entertainment” in Nagano, traffic lanes dedicated to IOC members during the games, etc.) They make very few decisions, all of which are politically motivated. They travel extensively and are paid well for it.”
MY IT DIRECTOR
“He’s never around, automates his email, and has his own company.”
“So many IT directors are not techs by any stretch, but just management that filled the void. They end up hiring MSPs to do the work. They balance the budget and approve requests for permissions or product purchases.”
REGIONAL VP
“If someone else is “Regional VP,” they are either drowning in responsibilities working 70 hrs a week, or they have absolutely nothing to do other than collecting a check.”
FERRARI STRATEGIST
“It’s almost uncanny, there’s the standard strategy, and the risky one, and then there’s whatever Ferrari are doing.”
VICE PRESIDENT OF REWARD
“My mum, from whom I am estranged, works as the vice president of reward at an international company. She arranges contracts so millionaires can get more money and gets paid 189,000 pounds a year. Even she thinks it’s ridiculous.”
UPPER-LEVEL OF ADMINS AT UNIVERSITIES
“About two-thirds of the upper-level admins at the university I work for.”
“I am the payroll person at a state university, and I completely agree with this. The people in upper management aren’t even in union-protected jobs, which, in theory, should be the first ones gone when we need to settle our budget problems. Instead, they were the only ones who got raises during COVID.”
UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT
“The president of the university I work for makes over half a million a year + bonuses. Any time we’ve hosted an event he’s supposed to show up to, we get a last-minute email from his assistant saying something came up, and he can’t make it.
This university also refuses to pay staff/graduate students more because they claim it’s impossible due to the budget not being high enough.”
COMMERCIAL AIRLINE PILOT
“My uncle was a commercial airline pilot. He described his job as vastly overpaid in normal circumstances and vastly underpaid in emergency situations.”
HOSPITAL CEO
“Hospital CEOs and 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, or 8-figure salaries plus mega bonuses. My hospital network CEO makes an $11 million salary, not including bonuses, which bothers me. What bothers me even more, is all the board members and those directly under him making nearly as much. It’s hundreds of millions of wasted.”
CONSULTANTS AT BIG FIRMS
“I still don’t know what big-firm “consultants” do.”
“I do consulting. It is just either outsourced office work or creating fluffy PowerPoints to give executives an excuse to authorize spending. It’s not a bad gig.”
“Sometimes it’s to tell executives to do what their internal folks already told them to do, but the execs don’t trust their own people.”
LIFE COACH
“This girl I know became a life coach, and she charges $300-500 per person for a 4-hour “seminar” that a friend of mine used to help her set up for. The friend said all it was was 4 hours of her saying these people are great and doing yoga+breathing exercises. And she had repeat customers and often 4-8 people per class. $2400 per weekend to tell people they are awesome and do a few yoga stretches.”
IN-HOUSE LEGAL
“In-House Legal for a corporation. I browsed the internet most of the day in my office, reviewed one or two standardized contracts, and occasionally sat in during a firing. I made $80k a year plus benefits.
To clarify, I am a paralegal, not an attorney, and the work was limited to contracts and entity formation.”
DEV OPS ENGINEER
“Mine. I am a DevOps engineer at a fintech startup, I write server configurations for $125K/year, and I work about 10 – 20 hours a week remotely. I keep thinking they’ve figured out how easy my job is and decided to fire me, and then instead, they tell me I’m doing a great job and promote me. I smoked weed all through college and got a degree in philosophy, and did not go to grad school.”
PHARMACEUTICAL OR MEDICAL SALES
“I’m a small-scale clinician who deals with medical sales reps five days/week who are the [apparently] sweetest, bubbliest, most seemingly accommodating people on earth— if you buy their thing. Since your patients need theirs, except they’re usually not even medically qualified to make those determinations. They can’t answer medical questions relevant to their products. Every rep we deal with can be googled and earns >3x the combined salary of my office staff comprising four people.”
Anika Jindal
Anika is a CPA and founder of What Anika Says. She shares simple and actionable frugal living, money management and money-saving tips to live a debt-free financially independent life. She has been featured on popular websites like Bankrate, Forbes, Mint ,and Authority Magazine. Byline: MSN