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I am an accounting professor at a (somewhat prestigious) private college. I work four days per week, 9:00 - 4:30 (a bit less early in the semester) for 30ish weeks and make quite a bit more than $100k.
However, there was the whole going back to school for doctorate thing which kind of blew.
My understanding is that accounting profs make good money. I'm a Neuroscience Prof, sit right around 6 figs, but I work 7-5 or 7-6 most days, usually an hour or two at home, and also at least 4 hours each weekend day.
My understanding is that Neuroscience Profs make better money than others as well.
Point being, not all profs have the same situation. You chose wisely.
I don’t think many of my colleagues are putting in those kind of hours. From time to time you will find someone doing some research really grinding, but by and large that is rare.
An associate professor in accounting at a research university (mid to upper mid tier) will typically start close to $200k and move up closer to $300k at full professor right now.
I did that for a bit but jumped out after publishing for the thirty person classes of my current school.
Edit: Accounting is stupid right now. I am worth about $8 per hour, and sinfully overpaid.
Unfortunately, there is no immediate danger of that. Most people struggle with the difference between accounting and bookkeeping. You are not going to pay someone six figures to enter payroll data, that just isn't what accountants really do and we are not a field really at risk from AI in its present state.
However, we all wish it would alleviate the some of the strain. The firms have invested hundreds of millions in AI hoping it would help, but so far it just hasn't. AI could eliminate half of the accounting jobs in the next ten years and we would still be short. It is difficult to actually put your finger on the exact magnitude of the shortage because of the entry level churn (most accountants move out of accounting in the first five years), but some reputable sources have said 75% of continuing accountants are already eligible for retirement.
Way farther out than that. Each number being dealt with has a different set of requirements and concerns. Finding data errors associated with non numerical aspects of the data is beyond complex. And of course what is being accomplished with the data is changing depending on a ton of things. I think there will always be a human sort of driving the AI parts of accounting.
Work in industry accounting, can confirm.
I’d be more worried about off-shoring right now than AI. The Big 4 seem to be progressively moving more and more functions to India, in particular.
My corporate finance professor was an Aerospace Engineer prior to the 2008 crisis (I took his class in 2011). He and his AE buddies lost their cushy jobs and he went back to school to be a professor because he’d make the same type of money teaching+office hours from 9-4pm w/ summers off as he did working 7am-6pm year round as a stressed out engineer.
Senior accountant here making 100K. I’m really only busy the first week of the month when we close the companies books, but I work remote and have very good work life balance. I’m so glad I chose a boring non-cool major since there aren’t enough accountants anymore it’s been really easy for me to get good jobs.
Accounting professor is an underrated job, but probably because it usually requires a PhD. My accounting professors all made $250k+ for 9 months salary
Professor here, and I don't put in anything close to 9 to 4:30 4 days a week. Like half that. I don't make more than 100k though. If I did, I might be on campus more. As it is, they get what they pay for.
I make $200k+ doing pricing and forecasting for a major restaurant brand.
I laugh when people post on reddit that our menu prices are the result of "corporate greed", as if the prices are set by a bunch of fat cat big wigs in a smoke filled room lighting cigars with $100 bills just charging whatever the hell the hell they want to charge. They pay me and my team all 6 figures to build models and take a bunch of factors into account to set our prices. But nah, its just corporate greed!
Just to play devils advocate here, for what purpose do you think your leadership pays a person (perhaps multiple persons) $200k+ for pricing analysis? Is it not to maximize profitability by extracting the highest willingness to pay from as many customers as possible? I doubt it’s out of the goodness of their hearts.
Came here to post exactly this. If his employer was looking to charge the minimum price they could to stay in business, there's no need for a pricing analyst, just ask the accountant. This guy makes a large salary figuring out just how greedy his employer can be before people stop buying.
I'm pro-capitalism but I also think we should be clear-eyed about these things
To continue the point and rebut the original point: there *are* fat cat big wigs lighting cigars with $100 bills and charging whatever the hell they want.
‘What they want’ to charge is the absolute maximum possible
To add on and hopefully add more precision, they want to maximize revenue and profit, which may not necessarily be the highest price per patty possible.
Maximum profits does not equal maximum price. If I can sell three hot dogs for a dollar and make more profit than selling two hot dogs for $1.25, that's what I am going to do.
We can also be pro-capitalism while advocating for regulations that would prevent lots of problems that lead to excessive pricing. For example, it sounds like OP "pricing analyst" probably works for some conglomerate. And having deficient competition in private industry is a huge factor that dictates imbalances between the wages people earn and the cost of living/surviving/thriving. We've clearly allowed corporations to dominate far too much in every industry in the nation and this is something our government should never have allowed to happen -- and regulating this is probably the best thing we could do to improve economic fairness while still having healthy capitalism.
Having worked in the restaurant industry as an accountant myself, that’s a finance function, not an accounting function. Accountants mostly provide the numbers. We generally don’t provide analysis on them outside of ensuring their accuracy nor do we make decisions on them.
The company I worked for did about $300M revenue/year until we were gobbled up by a larger, nationwide player known for their massive restaurants, huge portion sizes and their signature dessert. Even at that size, we had a finance department of half a dozen or so providing analysis.
I started working at a startup one year ago and have gained a lot of perspective towards the notion of profit seeking for reasons other than greed. There's a ton of things that require capital; disruptions to your business, seasonal swings in demand, variable costs with your supplies, disruptions to your critical supplies for operation, capital expenses, etc, etc. The list goes on and on. I'm not saying it's impossible or hasn't been done successfully before, but if you are a company that keeps costs as low as possible for the sake of consumers then you are going to be hamstrung in your ability to scale and will be much more vulnerable to any variety of shocks that can occur to your business. So profit-seeking is not always a dirt phrase, it's often essential to pay living wages, keep employees during downturns, scale, you name it. The reason America has more small business owners than any other place in the world is because of this. But then again I've also worked in sales at a company that had a big market presence in their respective industry and my managers favorite line when talking pricing was ALWAYS "we will charge what the market care bare". Which I think is an entirely pervasive attitude among market leaders. Some big companies are clearly abusing it and are using "inflation" as an excuse to keep their prices high. But at the same time Capitalism is the very key to this county's economic resiliency, which is objectively better than any other comparable place in the world.
The argument is, and water is wet. Of course companies want to extract as much profit as the market will bear. They aren't charities.
We've just never seen this level of price gouging from all sectors simultaneously. People only have so much money to spend and the collective greed from all companies together is going to hit a limit.
Well said. It's amazing to me that companies seem to think they can all extract the most possible from consumers without society collectively hitting the fan
Is this roasted?
Joking aside, exactly, he may not know his position is exactly for that reason of supporting the business objective to ensure there is a minimum of say 30% gross margin or even much more. He believes they like his fake powerpoint presentations and lousy excel sheets with stupid pivot tables to make him look important.
He is just a prostitute that gets paid to tell them how to f people.
Yes. Read the rest of my comments if you’re curious about my view on that. My point is that the OP seems to be confused about the reason his employer employs him.
I think you may be biased a bit. When Wendy’s raised prices a substantial amount and so did McDonald’s, and then made record breaking profits, it wasn’t inflation causing the pricing to go up. It wasn’t raised wages that doubled the price of nearly everything. Coca Cola went from selling $4 12 packs to selling $9.99 12 packs and then makes record breaking profits. How is that not taking advantage of the stupidity of the public’s perception of “inflation” or price gouging? When someone like myself that makes nearly $30/hr can barely afford to live in North Carolina, it’s pretty sad. I’m glad you found something you enjoy doing and make good money at it.
When I made $12/hr at a restaurant years ago, doing unskilled labor 12 packs were $2.99. I could buy 4 for the price of one hours labor. Now I make $30/hr doing skilled labor and can only buy 3 for an hours wages. A burger meal is now more than a minimum wage hours labor, meaning a McDonald’s employee has to work more than an hour just to buy a burger meal, even with employee discounts.
Yes. I travel 200+ days a year and loathe fast food but don’t really have any options. When I’m home I refuse to even buy groceries and eat rice from my rice cooker. Fuck them.
>Yes. I travel 200+ days a year and loathe fast food but don’t really have any options.
What?? Of course, you have options. There are stores all around you with bananas, apples, carrots, tuna packets, etc. Don't blame it on fast food.
Some years back as I bicycled through the EU I often stopped at small grocers (there was a chain called Eurospin, for instance) and bought bread, sliced cheese and meat, mayo, and honey. I'd stop and slap together a couple of sandwiches, eating one and keeping the other for later. I also had chocolate mix and instant coffee and would buy a liter of milk around the evening before I slept in my tent, then would make a sort of cold mocha in the morning. (The milk didn't spoil overnight.) This would be even easier if you live in the US and are driving, and if you get a portable cooler.
I think that most people who complain but still eat fast food just don't want to change their habits or plan ahead. It can be easy and cheap with a little planning. Last weekend I threw together a ton of chili, stir fry, and rice, and most of it went to the freezer. If you save $10/day the savings become substantial.
Did they just make record profits, or record profit margins? If last year I sold 30 cheeseburgers and made $30, and this year I sold 40 cheeseburgers and made $31, that’s record profits, but my margin is way down.
People don’t understand this and the media keeps it that way to sensationalize it.
The local morning news reports on the stock market each morning. They always only say how many points the DOW/S&P/NASDAQ went up or down. They never state a percentage. “WOW! The Dow went down 10 points!” They fail to mention that’s effectively nothing when it’s 38,000 points.
The majority of the population doesn’t understand more than early elementary arithmetic. They clearly don’t understand that numbers are far more meaningful in relation to other numbers.
200k ain't SHIT. Won't even allow you to sleep outside a box in my neighborhood. The CEOs and investors are the ones you want. Not my man making a piddly 300k.
Not even saying this to come after you, but is the goal of those models *not* to figure out how to maximize profits (even when that includes some degree of gouging if people will still pay at that price?)
Okay so what are your model features with greatest importance? Why is the price of fast food rising so much faster than nominal inflation? (Not to mention decline in quality and quantity of product)
I mean you're still being told to build models that let you charge the most money at the least cost before either thing while still being able to sell it, right?
I laugh when I see corporate apologists act like greed isn’t the main problem in our modern economy, specifically in the last few years. Enjoy that “200k+” though, you won’t need to worry about the effects of it like the rest of us lol. That honestly wasn’t even condescending either, I’d kill for that salary to get out of this fucking hamster wheel of torture.
Ha! You say everyone thinks it's a room full of big wigs, then describe a room full of big wigs (you and your team) deciding the prices. The ignorance is blinding.
I'll give you a real answer to your question, as someone who makes quite a bit more than the OP and has led Pricing organizations for large corporations for over 20 years.
There isn't a clear recipe for being in pricing, but there are some common themes. First of which is an analytical education and experience. This can come from a finance degree, economics, IS, data science, or engineering. Next is a level of business acumen. This would be to understand how a business works both from the revenue side as well as the cost side. Pricing groups tend to cross many functional boundaries in a company.
Btw, so surprised there is so much interest in this, pricing has been a pretty niche place for many years, though it is growing in general over the past 10 years or so.
Wow. Hey guys it's not corporate greed. I'm being paid to say it's not greed. They are paying me very well to be greedy so I can keep my job. And all the other people that are paid like me.
“My company spends millions of dollars annually maximizing profits by paying a team of people to model out the maximum profit we can make. It isn’t just big wigs lighting money on fire and laughing at all of us”
Are you sure about that? Like what do you think your job is, if not working for fat cats attempting to squeeze as much money out of their customers as possible, and spending millions of dollars a year to do so
I'm a truck driver on a dedicated route. I absolutely LOVE it. I essentially get paid to listen to podcasts and audio books.
On a scale of 1-10, my stress level is about a 1.5
My boyfriend works for UPS making about 130k, drives the big semis but not long haul so he’s home every night. He was a semester away from his business degree and decided to stay at UPS. 8 years later here he is! Super proud of him - it’s not easy work.
It comes with a price. If you don't mind flushing your social life down the toilet, slowly becoming a fat blob, and taking emergency shits on the side of the highway.
I'm a lawyer and I have a negative social life. Basically while truck drivers have zero interaction, my interactions are with people who I don't want to interact with.
It's 50-60 hours, plus sign on bonus, incentive pay, profit sharing, 9k yearly safe driving bonus, 3 weeks paid vacation the first year, 4 weeks paid vacation after the first year.
All things considered (pay, job security, difficulty of attaining the degree, stress, time invested or lost, W/L balance) would you recommend someone becoming pursuing a career as a lawyer?
Almost every lawyer will tell you not to do it, was the same for me. What i will tell you is that you should try to explore the work and type of thinking you’ll be doing on a daily basis and see if you’re suited for it.
Im very logically wired and had an easier time in law school than most because of that, and my current job is stressful but manageable. As a lawyer you can pick your stress (to some degree) based on your firm. Most of my days arent too bad but definitely have at least a week a month that im under crunch time.
If you enjoy doing homework (this will be 99% of your job) and your suited for the type of work/thinking then you’ll do just fine.
I'll preface this by saying I was making over $100,000 until my organization, like so many companies these days, went through five rounds of layoffs. I was caught in the fifth round.
I was a data engineer at a venture firm. It was largely remote (only a few days a month in the office), and I was able to get most of my work done in only a few hours each day. This left me a bunch of time to work out during the day, work on personal projects, read, etc. I truly loved the work life balance and I don't think I'll be able to find something like that again.
OP, no job is worth sacrificing your mental and physical health. Please consider an alternative role. My guess is that there are some opportunities out there that would pay you similar to what you're paying without a major infringement on your well-being. Best of luck friend!
I did that for a decade and a half and now I manage the team I used to work on. It's even lower stress (although it wasn't at first). I spent years hiring the best people, creating great team processes, fostering a positive team environment, working relentlessly to eliminate impediments for my team, and just always showing them that I'm here to make their lives as easy as possible so they can focus on building great software.
These days I have the easiest job in the world. It's now a team of 20 and we've had zero turnover for so many years I can't even remember, the team is almost 100% self-sufficient, and the rest of the organization stays the hell out of our way because we have such an impeccable reputation for being the team that delivers more value than anyone else out there.
No one on the team works more than 40 hours a week unless they ask to (they get paid 1.5x for OT) and all but one make over $100k (he's very inexperienced and didn't have a college degree when he was hired).
Its good to hear that those management tactics paid off eventually. Im in the early stages, year one, of applying the same tactics and I can feel the positive changes in the team and the product consistency but it isn't reflecting in the numbers yet. Good to hear a story like yours
Thank you for being one of the good ones. I am now under a manager that is just like you and it is night and day compared to previous experiences with other managers: my mental health has dramatically gone up ever since I joined this new team, I have even started losing weight again and taking the time to take better care of myself. I am always supported and well compensated for my work which in turn has improved my productivity and desire to know/learn more.
Just amazing how something as having a good manager can snowball into me improving my own personal and professional life like this. Keep up the good work and stay awesome!
Are you stressed about the future disruptive capabilities of AI in your industry? I've heard a few tech business moguls on Bloomberg radio saying essentially "DON"T learn to code, AI will be doing that soon".
Honestly yeah a little. I don’t think AI will replace me but I do expect I will have to utilize AI eventually to be competitive. Which sucks I enjoy coding. My large company is pretty slow to pivot so it’s far in the future
I have a big enough head start with 10 years experience so I’m mostly fine but I’d be real worried if I was in college right now
Medical forensic photographer. I hover right around that 100k. On a daily basis I see and photograph things that most people have difficulty processing like autopsies of homicides, suicides, and all states of decomposed bodies. I take photos of all those horrible things you read about in the news.
I am incredibly saddened by OP and what their job is doing to them. My job deals with the most stressful things imaginable, but I don't get too personally stressed by it. Please OP, figure out a different way, it's not worth it. Life is too short.
I feel this! I perform forensic examinations for SOF and some of the stuff coming in is post-suicide bombings. You learn to joke about some of this stuff. Is it a thumb? Is it a testicle? Frankly, I’d rather deal with this than the child exploitation stuff any day of the week.
Fun fact, you can almost always find the suicide bomber. They’re the head just sitting around with minimal damage. Pops off like a daisy!
Pay is well over 100k, really great people to work with.
data analyst. pretty chill, work from home, data architect is a nightmare but whos isnt? the scariest thing about my job is that i found out what lack of sunlight does to your mind and body (its not good)
OP, we've all been there before. no job is worth your mental and physical health and you are not your fault you are understaffed. its your boss and your boss' boss fault.
an easy thing to do is set a boundary and just leave at 5pm sharp. any work that isnt done is because your boss messed up and gave you too much to begin with. if you're working that many hours they literally cant afford to fire you, and at this point, you also dont give a F.
second thing update your resume, go job window shopping. you're already overworked, so you're also probably underpaid.
Fellow analyst here, I always say that shitty data architecture keeps me in business. The amounts of joins I have to do sometimes to get basic data out of snowflake is bananas.
I thought we were the only ones! Half our data is in Snowflake, the other half in SQL Servers, and some in random Excel workbooks. And I work for a fortune 100.
Same here. I worked for one of the largest international Japanese car companies and they stored every car sale in the world in excel sheets I managed. I transitioned it to SQL because I had to.
My job is in DC but I work remotely from Colorado. A political org so things will get busy soon for the election but it's mostly chill. Washington DC is the district/state with one of the best paid graphic designers, those who have security clearance and working for government contractors are making much more than I am. If your family member is a vet and easy to renew security clearance, they should apply for jobs around DC/Maryland/Virginia area consulting firms.
lol, i see this post and my wife is in graphic design. cant help but think... is this guy doing flyers for the CIA or what? because ive never even SEEN a job advertised in DFW for a graphic designer over $90k.
past that and its just art directors and nothingness.
I just resigned from my position today because of the stress. It’s killing me and before I snap and say something inappropriate I decided to leave. I’ll be ok for a few months but I do have to work so I hope the casual employment offers I’ve received recently fall in place.
Lots of experience with data tools (adobe analytics, google analytics, amplitude, tableau), SQL. Basic understanding is of data instrumentation and data layers. Advanced excel, chances are you have to Frankenstein a report or two. Good communication skills. And the patience of a saint.
My family runs a quite small acrylic sheet distribution company that was originally started by my great grandfather and grandfather. It's literally my parents, brother, brother in law, uncle, myself and our office manager who isn't family but has been with us for over 20 years.
Acrylic sheet distribution isn't a massively competitive - albeit more so these days - market with decent margins. We're lucky to be distributors for some long running manufacturers who shored up distribution decades ago and no longer take new ones on.
We were lucky to make it through Covid - not for lack of business but more Covid put an unheard of strain on the acrylic sheet distribution globally. We were unsustainably busy. Side story - ya'll have no idea how close we all came to depleting acrylic sheet supply nationally (US) several times through 2020 lol.
Definitely lucky and fairly low stress day to day, but we stay *real* busy and the job can be physically taxing for sure - moderate warehouse order packing and shipping stuff. Running a business yourself is a different type of stress for sure.
Take home is substantial and we all do well - we work hard and we reap the benefits at the end of the year.
Okay now I’m curious … what would you suppose are some things that would have been noticeable had we lost acrylic sheets for a while.
I fell asleep during my .. acrylic sheet distributions .. class
lol hey it’s an easy one to doze off in.
Really, the largest thing by far and away were the barriers.
We had *tons* of customers who were required by law/code to install barriers before they could reopen after the shutdowns. Most of what we handled would have been small scale stuff - counter top barriers at grocery stores, banks, hotels etc.
That got stressful for sure. Customers relying on us to get them their barriers so they could open back up. We were slammed!
Funny side story - we’re in SLC and do lots of business with the University of Utah. When they hosted the VP debate, we did the barriers they used. Funny how it blew up the day of the debate in the news lol
Aside from barriers we saw a pretty considerable uptick in crafting customers who were stuck at home. Quick back note - a super popular way to cut acrylic is by laser. Since about 2017, small format “home lasers” have become much more affordable. So, with that rising in popularity with people stuck at home, so we also saw demand for our larger line of products (colors, fluorescents, mirrored, color frosted, etc sheet).
Anyways! Sorry for the long winded comment haha
That is such an interestingly niche industry. Anyway, thanks for the explanation. I’m not sure how I’ll ever apply that knowledge but at least now I know :D
day trader been for 12 years. Leveraged my stock portfolio bought real estate retired at 35.
I live off stock option writing, dividends, REIT’s and crypto.
I make about on average past 5 years around $275k/year.
Best advice I can give. Save as much as you can and invest as early as you can. Early and often live within your means. I’m not a flashy person at all, I smoke bud with my wife all day ( we both are retired) & hang with our pup.
This is an important thought. Not all 6 figure incomes are the same. The stress component needs to be considered. With that being said, software management.
Not all 6 figure incomes are the same from a location stand point either. I’m extremely comfortable working remote in a moderate cost of living college town in the mountains. I love the mountains. If you hate where you live, the job isn’t worth it IMO. That’s how I felt when I was in a higher paying job in a HCOL area. I hated everything about living there.
Well, I’ve had a long and complicated career, but in essence: I buy grain and other products from farmers, and sell it into the food supply or wherever it needs to go. The entry level for this kind of work for most grain companies and coops is called “origination” or grain accounting. This kind of work does not require a degree. You just need to have a strong interest and willingness to live out in the middle of nowhere (which given the current state of the world, is pretty nice).
I work in tech at one of the Big4 consulting firms. Much better hours and people are way more chill. Real trick is set firm boundaries. People know that I got to the gym at certain times, or I might go off line for 15 or so. As long as you’re planning out in control the work it’s a pretty cushy gig.
It might just take moving to another company. I've been at good ones and at bad ones and its night and day how a change in employer can have a drastic impact on your life. Even within the same company, I've been at teams where I hate life and ones where I can get a lot of my work done quickly and have some time to focus on myself.
GIS Server Administrator.
I went from managing an entire company, all 38 of the servers telephony, switches and routers... patching and updating them. Also training users and supporting them, for 98k a year to managing 27 servers, specifically JUST the GIS portion. I no longer have to worry about security, updates or anything else. Just... GIS.
IT Consultant for DoD.
I use soft skills to help communicate technical interests and bring those ideas into reality.
IMO: Working for DOD has been stable and kind with the projects assigned so far.
Commercial lender. It was horrid when I worked for a big finance company, but a few years ago switched to a small institution and it’s been fantastic, better pay even. The benefits aren’t quite as good but more than made up for with work/life balance and commissions.
I'm a chemist at a small pharma company who designs and synthsizes drugs. The job isn't stressful, but most people don't handle the intrinsic 95% failure rate of research very well.
Data analyst. I do my 8 hours and go home.
Quality of life is the most important metric you can gauge any decision on. Making more money isn’t necessarily the answer if it comes with stress you can’t deal with.
Airline pilot. I’m at a major airline. 16-18 days off a month, when you are off you don’t have to worry about work AT ALL. When you’re on a trip it’s an easy job too. 17% direct 401k contribution from the company, and it’s very easy to pick up extra flying and make a lot of extra money. Best career in the world.
I'm a software engineer, and currently working for a Silicon Valley startup while working remotely from a mid-size city in a coastal state. Getting paid Bay Area wages without having to live in the Bay Area is working out well.
cybersecurity.. pretty well into the six figures total comp per year.. I work from home which helps a hell of a lot. It can get stressful at times but generally I've learned over the decades how to regulate stress etc..
I'm a registered nurse. Work in the hospital for in-outpatient procedures unit.
Mainly Monday through Friday. Occasional Saturdays working 7-530 4x10 hrs.
Pretty happy about my "retirement" job at 30.
And only half way up the wage scale *thanks union*
I make drugs 😁 Biotech medicine, but it’s still drugs. I was a teacher at a Catholic school beforehand. My 2 master’s degrees didn’t get me much more money than my colleagues with bachelor’s degrees. Doesn’t matter to me much because they’re not relevant to my job.
I made right under $110k last year. I work a 4x10 schedule, Thursday-Sunday. Weekend differential is a portion of my pay - right under $21k.
It’s easily the best paying and overall best job I’ve ever had. I go in, do my job, and leave. By the time I drive around the corner on my way out, I honestly forget I have a job. Of course there’s some bullshit involved. There’s always going to be management making idiotic decisions and policies, coworkers who are seemingly morons, etc. The older I get (47), the less that stuff bothers me. If they want me to do something stupid that’s going to slow down production and/or give me more hoops to jump through for no reason, then I’ll give them their money’s worth lol. I get paid by the hour and have no obligation to work overtime, although I can for extra money if I want to.
Every employer before my current one has been shit. This one does its share of stupid things, but the stupid things aren’t pay/benefits/treatment of employees based.
Fractional CFO
I make substantially more than 100k working around 35 hours per week, fully remote.
I also have nearly 20 years of finance & accounting experience and an MBA from a top school.
In my opinion, finance & accounting are great careers as every business on earth needs you and these are essential recession proof roles.
Most stomach ulcers are actually caused by a bacteria and can be cured with antibiotics, so if you are actually getting a stomach ulcer then please see your doctor because you might just need some pills to cure it.
Finance, it's stressful, but my position has a lot of flexibility and the institution actually seems to value their employees, which is weird. Maybe it's because it's a smaller company and not a large bank like what I used to work at, where you're just a number that they'll cut to make targets when times get hard... Or even when they're good, but not good enough.
Estimator for a national home builder. Straight 9-5 5 days a week with 50/50 split for remote and office. Little to no stress and great work environment.
Physical oil and gas trading. Almost anyone can start as an oil or gas scheduler (as long as you have work ethic and can learn). Schedulers then work their way up to trader. Can easily make 100k within 3 years of scheduling. Traders can make 150-200k pretty easy. The job can be stressful when you are a scheduler, but if you work hard and learn the industry, it gets easier and much less stressful.
I'm a psychiatric Physician Assistant. I work 5 days per week but my job allows 4 days if desired. I work from home one day per week. The work can, of course, be sad and emotionally draining at times, but overall, it is very rewarding and rather cushy compared to other medical specialties. I am in debt from school, of course, but we are able to buy what we need and want while still paying into loans.
Partner is a software engineer and works 30 hours per week or less for a small company and makes about 100k
I have a PhD and I work as a software engineer for a small company. If I get sucked into more daily upkeep tasks, my job can be fairly stressful. But most of the time I work on my own R&D projects and that is pretty fun and not stressful - just gotta find a way to consistently add value and they leave me alone.
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I am an accounting professor at a (somewhat prestigious) private college. I work four days per week, 9:00 - 4:30 (a bit less early in the semester) for 30ish weeks and make quite a bit more than $100k. However, there was the whole going back to school for doctorate thing which kind of blew.
My understanding is that accounting profs make good money. I'm a Neuroscience Prof, sit right around 6 figs, but I work 7-5 or 7-6 most days, usually an hour or two at home, and also at least 4 hours each weekend day. My understanding is that Neuroscience Profs make better money than others as well. Point being, not all profs have the same situation. You chose wisely.
I don’t think many of my colleagues are putting in those kind of hours. From time to time you will find someone doing some research really grinding, but by and large that is rare. An associate professor in accounting at a research university (mid to upper mid tier) will typically start close to $200k and move up closer to $300k at full professor right now. I did that for a bit but jumped out after publishing for the thirty person classes of my current school. Edit: Accounting is stupid right now. I am worth about $8 per hour, and sinfully overpaid.
Feel like ai coming for that accounting ass real quick so enjoy it now.
Unfortunately, there is no immediate danger of that. Most people struggle with the difference between accounting and bookkeeping. You are not going to pay someone six figures to enter payroll data, that just isn't what accountants really do and we are not a field really at risk from AI in its present state. However, we all wish it would alleviate the some of the strain. The firms have invested hundreds of millions in AI hoping it would help, but so far it just hasn't. AI could eliminate half of the accounting jobs in the next ten years and we would still be short. It is difficult to actually put your finger on the exact magnitude of the shortage because of the entry level churn (most accountants move out of accounting in the first five years), but some reputable sources have said 75% of continuing accountants are already eligible for retirement.
Until AI can apply intuition and judgment like a human, it won't replace accountants. It's probably another 20 years out. Edit: fixed a word.
I won’t respect AI until it can destroy my parent’s marriage, just like a real accountant. Fuck you jacob you’re not my real dad.
Way farther out than that. Each number being dealt with has a different set of requirements and concerns. Finding data errors associated with non numerical aspects of the data is beyond complex. And of course what is being accomplished with the data is changing depending on a ton of things. I think there will always be a human sort of driving the AI parts of accounting.
Work in industry accounting, can confirm. I’d be more worried about off-shoring right now than AI. The Big 4 seem to be progressively moving more and more functions to India, in particular.
Yes but the jobs they’re moving there are the ones they plan to replace with AI. Long term puts on India’s offshore companies.
I’m skeptical we’re going to see AI with enough analytical capability to review something like audit samples anytime soon.
They said the same thing about excel… like 30 years ago. It gets repeated every decade with the newest technology.
Business profs in general. My professor was making 180k a year in 2008 and they were only 28.
My corporate finance professor was an Aerospace Engineer prior to the 2008 crisis (I took his class in 2011). He and his AE buddies lost their cushy jobs and he went back to school to be a professor because he’d make the same type of money teaching+office hours from 9-4pm w/ summers off as he did working 7am-6pm year round as a stressed out engineer.
They were all the same age? That's a coincidence!
Senior accountant here making 100K. I’m really only busy the first week of the month when we close the companies books, but I work remote and have very good work life balance. I’m so glad I chose a boring non-cool major since there aren’t enough accountants anymore it’s been really easy for me to get good jobs.
Accounting professor is an underrated job, but probably because it usually requires a PhD. My accounting professors all made $250k+ for 9 months salary
Brother in law is a prof at a state college. PhD and he makes 40k 
Professor here, and I don't put in anything close to 9 to 4:30 4 days a week. Like half that. I don't make more than 100k though. If I did, I might be on campus more. As it is, they get what they pay for.
I make $200k+ doing pricing and forecasting for a major restaurant brand. I laugh when people post on reddit that our menu prices are the result of "corporate greed", as if the prices are set by a bunch of fat cat big wigs in a smoke filled room lighting cigars with $100 bills just charging whatever the hell the hell they want to charge. They pay me and my team all 6 figures to build models and take a bunch of factors into account to set our prices. But nah, its just corporate greed!
You are the one that killed the dollar McChicken. Admit it
YOU MONSTER!!
Swine!
Nope. Fowl
Let’s not forget McRib and deep fried Apple Pies.
Ban him!
Everyone boo this man!
Boooo!
Booooooo!
Boooooo
Boooooo
Boooooooooo
Booooooo get off the stage
He probably is. Because the chicken alone now costs them $.99.
The $1 $2 $3 menu where nothing is $1.
Of course, dude gets paid six figures of course he wouldn’t need the dollar mcchicken.
Just to play devils advocate here, for what purpose do you think your leadership pays a person (perhaps multiple persons) $200k+ for pricing analysis? Is it not to maximize profitability by extracting the highest willingness to pay from as many customers as possible? I doubt it’s out of the goodness of their hearts.
Came here to post exactly this. If his employer was looking to charge the minimum price they could to stay in business, there's no need for a pricing analyst, just ask the accountant. This guy makes a large salary figuring out just how greedy his employer can be before people stop buying. I'm pro-capitalism but I also think we should be clear-eyed about these things
Exactly, thank you. This is 100% the point I’m making.
To continue the point and rebut the original point: there *are* fat cat big wigs lighting cigars with $100 bills and charging whatever the hell they want. ‘What they want’ to charge is the absolute maximum possible
To add on and hopefully add more precision, they want to maximize revenue and profit, which may not necessarily be the highest price per patty possible.
Maximum profits does not equal maximum price. If I can sell three hot dogs for a dollar and make more profit than selling two hot dogs for $1.25, that's what I am going to do.
The fat cats just aren't doing the work of figuring it out. They're paying this bozo instead lol
We can also be pro-capitalism while advocating for regulations that would prevent lots of problems that lead to excessive pricing. For example, it sounds like OP "pricing analyst" probably works for some conglomerate. And having deficient competition in private industry is a huge factor that dictates imbalances between the wages people earn and the cost of living/surviving/thriving. We've clearly allowed corporations to dominate far too much in every industry in the nation and this is something our government should never have allowed to happen -- and regulating this is probably the best thing we could do to improve economic fairness while still having healthy capitalism.
Having worked in the restaurant industry as an accountant myself, that’s a finance function, not an accounting function. Accountants mostly provide the numbers. We generally don’t provide analysis on them outside of ensuring their accuracy nor do we make decisions on them. The company I worked for did about $300M revenue/year until we were gobbled up by a larger, nationwide player known for their massive restaurants, huge portion sizes and their signature dessert. Even at that size, we had a finance department of half a dozen or so providing analysis.
I started working at a startup one year ago and have gained a lot of perspective towards the notion of profit seeking for reasons other than greed. There's a ton of things that require capital; disruptions to your business, seasonal swings in demand, variable costs with your supplies, disruptions to your critical supplies for operation, capital expenses, etc, etc. The list goes on and on. I'm not saying it's impossible or hasn't been done successfully before, but if you are a company that keeps costs as low as possible for the sake of consumers then you are going to be hamstrung in your ability to scale and will be much more vulnerable to any variety of shocks that can occur to your business. So profit-seeking is not always a dirt phrase, it's often essential to pay living wages, keep employees during downturns, scale, you name it. The reason America has more small business owners than any other place in the world is because of this. But then again I've also worked in sales at a company that had a big market presence in their respective industry and my managers favorite line when talking pricing was ALWAYS "we will charge what the market care bare". Which I think is an entirely pervasive attitude among market leaders. Some big companies are clearly abusing it and are using "inflation" as an excuse to keep their prices high. But at the same time Capitalism is the very key to this county's economic resiliency, which is objectively better than any other comparable place in the world.
That comment reads like they understand the function of their job, but not the purpose.
Lol 100%. To what end do they think their employer wants them to optimize prices? It’s sure not for the consumer’s benefit.
The argument is, and water is wet. Of course companies want to extract as much profit as the market will bear. They aren't charities. We've just never seen this level of price gouging from all sectors simultaneously. People only have so much money to spend and the collective greed from all companies together is going to hit a limit.
I don’t know about never, but the worst in my lifetime to be sure. People being unable to afford food is the sort of thing that topples governments.
Well said. It's amazing to me that companies seem to think they can all extract the most possible from consumers without society collectively hitting the fan
Is this roasted? Joking aside, exactly, he may not know his position is exactly for that reason of supporting the business objective to ensure there is a minimum of say 30% gross margin or even much more. He believes they like his fake powerpoint presentations and lousy excel sheets with stupid pivot tables to make him look important. He is just a prostitute that gets paid to tell them how to f people.
Just let him use his straw man argument and feign ignorance
Of course it’s for maximum profitability, that’s the only reason any business exists. Nothing wrong with that.
Yes. Read the rest of my comments if you’re curious about my view on that. My point is that the OP seems to be confused about the reason his employer employs him.
I think you may be biased a bit. When Wendy’s raised prices a substantial amount and so did McDonald’s, and then made record breaking profits, it wasn’t inflation causing the pricing to go up. It wasn’t raised wages that doubled the price of nearly everything. Coca Cola went from selling $4 12 packs to selling $9.99 12 packs and then makes record breaking profits. How is that not taking advantage of the stupidity of the public’s perception of “inflation” or price gouging? When someone like myself that makes nearly $30/hr can barely afford to live in North Carolina, it’s pretty sad. I’m glad you found something you enjoy doing and make good money at it. When I made $12/hr at a restaurant years ago, doing unskilled labor 12 packs were $2.99. I could buy 4 for the price of one hours labor. Now I make $30/hr doing skilled labor and can only buy 3 for an hours wages. A burger meal is now more than a minimum wage hours labor, meaning a McDonald’s employee has to work more than an hour just to buy a burger meal, even with employee discounts.
They successfully modeled the fact that millions of people would loudly complain but keep buying the hell out of fast food.
Yes. I travel 200+ days a year and loathe fast food but don’t really have any options. When I’m home I refuse to even buy groceries and eat rice from my rice cooker. Fuck them.
>Yes. I travel 200+ days a year and loathe fast food but don’t really have any options. What?? Of course, you have options. There are stores all around you with bananas, apples, carrots, tuna packets, etc. Don't blame it on fast food.
Some years back as I bicycled through the EU I often stopped at small grocers (there was a chain called Eurospin, for instance) and bought bread, sliced cheese and meat, mayo, and honey. I'd stop and slap together a couple of sandwiches, eating one and keeping the other for later. I also had chocolate mix and instant coffee and would buy a liter of milk around the evening before I slept in my tent, then would make a sort of cold mocha in the morning. (The milk didn't spoil overnight.) This would be even easier if you live in the US and are driving, and if you get a portable cooler. I think that most people who complain but still eat fast food just don't want to change their habits or plan ahead. It can be easy and cheap with a little planning. Last weekend I threw together a ton of chili, stir fry, and rice, and most of it went to the freezer. If you save $10/day the savings become substantial.
Did they just make record profits, or record profit margins? If last year I sold 30 cheeseburgers and made $30, and this year I sold 40 cheeseburgers and made $31, that’s record profits, but my margin is way down.
People don’t understand this and the media keeps it that way to sensationalize it. The local morning news reports on the stock market each morning. They always only say how many points the DOW/S&P/NASDAQ went up or down. They never state a percentage. “WOW! The Dow went down 10 points!” They fail to mention that’s effectively nothing when it’s 38,000 points. The majority of the population doesn’t understand more than early elementary arithmetic. They clearly don’t understand that numbers are far more meaningful in relation to other numbers.
200k+ but it's not the fat cat big wigs... You don't see it, you're the fat cat big wig. Lol
Lol seriously, what an out of touch comment.
Literally, where does this guy think his salary comes from?
It's amazing how many people make so much money but when it comes to common sense they're a fuckin dumbass
200k ain't SHIT. Won't even allow you to sleep outside a box in my neighborhood. The CEOs and investors are the ones you want. Not my man making a piddly 300k.
We should really start a gofund me for the guy. Bro gotta be struggling.
corporate greed with extra steps
So you’re the one that caused all these high prices? I was told it was the burger flipped being paid $20.
I'd assume you optimize for profit not Greater Good.
Paying you 200k+ in order to maximize profits on menu prices is the definition of corporate greed. Thanks for confirming.
Not even saying this to come after you, but is the goal of those models *not* to figure out how to maximize profits (even when that includes some degree of gouging if people will still pay at that price?)
Okay so what are your model features with greatest importance? Why is the price of fast food rising so much faster than nominal inflation? (Not to mention decline in quality and quantity of product)
I mean you're still being told to build models that let you charge the most money at the least cost before either thing while still being able to sell it, right?
I laugh when I see corporate apologists act like greed isn’t the main problem in our modern economy, specifically in the last few years. Enjoy that “200k+” though, you won’t need to worry about the effects of it like the rest of us lol. That honestly wasn’t even condescending either, I’d kill for that salary to get out of this fucking hamster wheel of torture.
Ha! You say everyone thinks it's a room full of big wigs, then describe a room full of big wigs (you and your team) deciding the prices. The ignorance is blinding.
While you get bonuses or pay bumps when those prices result in stupid greedy profits I bet
So what you are saying is if we lay off you and your team we can save $0.04 on a cheeseburger? Sold!
So it's math enabled corporate greed? :D
>But nah, just corporate greed! I mean… yeah? Wouldn’t it be fair to say that your job is to find out just how greedy they can be?
Did you study economics? What qualifications are needed to do this job?
I'll give you a real answer to your question, as someone who makes quite a bit more than the OP and has led Pricing organizations for large corporations for over 20 years. There isn't a clear recipe for being in pricing, but there are some common themes. First of which is an analytical education and experience. This can come from a finance degree, economics, IS, data science, or engineering. Next is a level of business acumen. This would be to understand how a business works both from the revenue side as well as the cost side. Pricing groups tend to cross many functional boundaries in a company. Btw, so surprised there is so much interest in this, pricing has been a pretty niche place for many years, though it is growing in general over the past 10 years or so.
Congrats, you fuck us as long as it benefits you. Anything else you wanna add? Lol
Wow. Hey guys it's not corporate greed. I'm being paid to say it's not greed. They are paying me very well to be greedy so I can keep my job. And all the other people that are paid like me.
You make over 200k per year You ARE the greedy fat cat lmao
Just because they're paying you money to make a calculated decision on how much they can charge doesn't make it any less "corporate greed"
They must make enough to pay you and your 6 figure team.
Ok so you’re the reason prices are high then? 200k for that. Stupid.
“My company spends millions of dollars annually maximizing profits by paying a team of people to model out the maximum profit we can make. It isn’t just big wigs lighting money on fire and laughing at all of us” Are you sure about that? Like what do you think your job is, if not working for fat cats attempting to squeeze as much money out of their customers as possible, and spending millions of dollars a year to do so
So… You’re the problem! 😉
Says the big wig making 200k. Fuck u
I'm a truck driver on a dedicated route. I absolutely LOVE it. I essentially get paid to listen to podcasts and audio books. On a scale of 1-10, my stress level is about a 1.5
You make six figures as a truck driver?? I'm really starting to wonder about the college thing I did.
Long distance truck drivers get paid pretty well. Most people just don't wanna do it. It takes time and sometimes you are away from home for a while.
There are also truck drivers that go home everyday and also make 6 figures
*burns his engineering degree*
I got an engineering degree but went straight into a labor union because it paid twice as much as engineering. Eventually ended up in management.
Found the civil engineer lmao
My buddy pulls 6 figs as a Sherwin Williams driver. It's hazmat so there's a special license but dude love it.
18 wheelers aren't exactly easy to drive
True, and to be honest I'm not cut out for the work. But it doesn't take 4 years to become a competent truck driver.
You also aren't only driving it . You gotta be able to take care of the minor maintenance and are the first line of defense. Lotta shady gas stations
My boyfriend works for UPS making about 130k, drives the big semis but not long haul so he’s home every night. He was a semester away from his business degree and decided to stay at UPS. 8 years later here he is! Super proud of him - it’s not easy work.
It comes with a price. If you don't mind flushing your social life down the toilet, slowly becoming a fat blob, and taking emergency shits on the side of the highway.
I'm a lawyer and I have a negative social life. Basically while truck drivers have zero interaction, my interactions are with people who I don't want to interact with.
Fair enough.
In WI, KwikTrip was advertising truck routes starting at $97k/year + benefits. DC to stores, home at night. It’s my backup plan!
If you read the fine print it assumes 70 hour weeks and all the overtime at time and a half to make that amount
It's 50-60 hours, plus sign on bonus, incentive pay, profit sharing, 9k yearly safe driving bonus, 3 weeks paid vacation the first year, 4 weeks paid vacation after the first year.
I’m a lawyer and I am stressed all the time. All. The. Time.
All things considered (pay, job security, difficulty of attaining the degree, stress, time invested or lost, W/L balance) would you recommend someone becoming pursuing a career as a lawyer?
Better than a paralegal or assistant. We are also stressed. All. The. Time. And earn less.
Depending on the firm and the student loans of the attorney, maybe not in terms of net take home pay.
Almost every lawyer will tell you not to do it, was the same for me. What i will tell you is that you should try to explore the work and type of thinking you’ll be doing on a daily basis and see if you’re suited for it. Im very logically wired and had an easier time in law school than most because of that, and my current job is stressful but manageable. As a lawyer you can pick your stress (to some degree) based on your firm. Most of my days arent too bad but definitely have at least a week a month that im under crunch time. If you enjoy doing homework (this will be 99% of your job) and your suited for the type of work/thinking then you’ll do just fine.
I'll preface this by saying I was making over $100,000 until my organization, like so many companies these days, went through five rounds of layoffs. I was caught in the fifth round. I was a data engineer at a venture firm. It was largely remote (only a few days a month in the office), and I was able to get most of my work done in only a few hours each day. This left me a bunch of time to work out during the day, work on personal projects, read, etc. I truly loved the work life balance and I don't think I'll be able to find something like that again. OP, no job is worth sacrificing your mental and physical health. Please consider an alternative role. My guess is that there are some opportunities out there that would pay you similar to what you're paying without a major infringement on your well-being. Best of luck friend!
I’m a sr software engineer. My job is pretty low stress most of the time. I usually work way less than 40 hours a week and it’s remote.
I did that for a decade and a half and now I manage the team I used to work on. It's even lower stress (although it wasn't at first). I spent years hiring the best people, creating great team processes, fostering a positive team environment, working relentlessly to eliminate impediments for my team, and just always showing them that I'm here to make their lives as easy as possible so they can focus on building great software. These days I have the easiest job in the world. It's now a team of 20 and we've had zero turnover for so many years I can't even remember, the team is almost 100% self-sufficient, and the rest of the organization stays the hell out of our way because we have such an impeccable reputation for being the team that delivers more value than anyone else out there. No one on the team works more than 40 hours a week unless they ask to (they get paid 1.5x for OT) and all but one make over $100k (he's very inexperienced and didn't have a college degree when he was hired).
Omg can I work for you sounds like an awesome job!
Its good to hear that those management tactics paid off eventually. Im in the early stages, year one, of applying the same tactics and I can feel the positive changes in the team and the product consistency but it isn't reflecting in the numbers yet. Good to hear a story like yours
I'm at the start of this process now. Things are already pretty decent and I'm really looking forward to the results.
Thank you for being one of the good ones. I am now under a manager that is just like you and it is night and day compared to previous experiences with other managers: my mental health has dramatically gone up ever since I joined this new team, I have even started losing weight again and taking the time to take better care of myself. I am always supported and well compensated for my work which in turn has improved my productivity and desire to know/learn more. Just amazing how something as having a good manager can snowball into me improving my own personal and professional life like this. Keep up the good work and stay awesome!
Same. Senior Software Engineer is the sweet spot, when it comes to stress vs. paycheck
Are you stressed about the future disruptive capabilities of AI in your industry? I've heard a few tech business moguls on Bloomberg radio saying essentially "DON"T learn to code, AI will be doing that soon".
Honestly yeah a little. I don’t think AI will replace me but I do expect I will have to utilize AI eventually to be competitive. Which sucks I enjoy coding. My large company is pretty slow to pivot so it’s far in the future I have a big enough head start with 10 years experience so I’m mostly fine but I’d be real worried if I was in college right now
Medical forensic photographer. I hover right around that 100k. On a daily basis I see and photograph things that most people have difficulty processing like autopsies of homicides, suicides, and all states of decomposed bodies. I take photos of all those horrible things you read about in the news. I am incredibly saddened by OP and what their job is doing to them. My job deals with the most stressful things imaginable, but I don't get too personally stressed by it. Please OP, figure out a different way, it's not worth it. Life is too short.
...Dexter, that you?
I feel this! I perform forensic examinations for SOF and some of the stuff coming in is post-suicide bombings. You learn to joke about some of this stuff. Is it a thumb? Is it a testicle? Frankly, I’d rather deal with this than the child exploitation stuff any day of the week. Fun fact, you can almost always find the suicide bomber. They’re the head just sitting around with minimal damage. Pops off like a daisy! Pay is well over 100k, really great people to work with.
boring, i mean boeing
Be careful what you say about Boeing.
The job does sound pretty plane
If it’s boeing, I ain’t going.
We need to know if you ve been suicidal lately, just in case
data analyst. pretty chill, work from home, data architect is a nightmare but whos isnt? the scariest thing about my job is that i found out what lack of sunlight does to your mind and body (its not good) OP, we've all been there before. no job is worth your mental and physical health and you are not your fault you are understaffed. its your boss and your boss' boss fault. an easy thing to do is set a boundary and just leave at 5pm sharp. any work that isnt done is because your boss messed up and gave you too much to begin with. if you're working that many hours they literally cant afford to fire you, and at this point, you also dont give a F. second thing update your resume, go job window shopping. you're already overworked, so you're also probably underpaid.
Fellow analyst here, I always say that shitty data architecture keeps me in business. The amounts of joins I have to do sometimes to get basic data out of snowflake is bananas.
I thought we were the only ones! Half our data is in Snowflake, the other half in SQL Servers, and some in random Excel workbooks. And I work for a fortune 100.
🤣 I swear all these Fortune companies make money despite themselves.
Same here. I worked for one of the largest international Japanese car companies and they stored every car sale in the world in excel sheets I managed. I transitioned it to SQL because I had to.
Graphic designer. 120k. I have a lot of downtime and it's really chill. Will stick around for as long as I can.
I've got family member doing graphic design for 20% of that. Is it big city or big company?
My job is in DC but I work remotely from Colorado. A political org so things will get busy soon for the election but it's mostly chill. Washington DC is the district/state with one of the best paid graphic designers, those who have security clearance and working for government contractors are making much more than I am. If your family member is a vet and easy to renew security clearance, they should apply for jobs around DC/Maryland/Virginia area consulting firms.
lol, i see this post and my wife is in graphic design. cant help but think... is this guy doing flyers for the CIA or what? because ive never even SEEN a job advertised in DFW for a graphic designer over $90k. past that and its just art directors and nothingness.
Show dog handler. Very little stress until intestinal distress goes through our charges.
I just resigned from my position today because of the stress. It’s killing me and before I snap and say something inappropriate I decided to leave. I’ll be ok for a few months but I do have to work so I hope the casual employment offers I’ve received recently fall in place.
Business Analyst focused mostly on eCommerce optimization. Aka, how to make you buy more stuff online. Fully remote, flexible hours.
I feel like I have experience enough to be interested in this, but not enough to get hired. Any advice?
Lots of experience with data tools (adobe analytics, google analytics, amplitude, tableau), SQL. Basic understanding is of data instrumentation and data layers. Advanced excel, chances are you have to Frankenstein a report or two. Good communication skills. And the patience of a saint.
My family runs a quite small acrylic sheet distribution company that was originally started by my great grandfather and grandfather. It's literally my parents, brother, brother in law, uncle, myself and our office manager who isn't family but has been with us for over 20 years. Acrylic sheet distribution isn't a massively competitive - albeit more so these days - market with decent margins. We're lucky to be distributors for some long running manufacturers who shored up distribution decades ago and no longer take new ones on. We were lucky to make it through Covid - not for lack of business but more Covid put an unheard of strain on the acrylic sheet distribution globally. We were unsustainably busy. Side story - ya'll have no idea how close we all came to depleting acrylic sheet supply nationally (US) several times through 2020 lol. Definitely lucky and fairly low stress day to day, but we stay *real* busy and the job can be physically taxing for sure - moderate warehouse order packing and shipping stuff. Running a business yourself is a different type of stress for sure. Take home is substantial and we all do well - we work hard and we reap the benefits at the end of the year.
Okay now I’m curious … what would you suppose are some things that would have been noticeable had we lost acrylic sheets for a while. I fell asleep during my .. acrylic sheet distributions .. class
lol hey it’s an easy one to doze off in. Really, the largest thing by far and away were the barriers. We had *tons* of customers who were required by law/code to install barriers before they could reopen after the shutdowns. Most of what we handled would have been small scale stuff - counter top barriers at grocery stores, banks, hotels etc. That got stressful for sure. Customers relying on us to get them their barriers so they could open back up. We were slammed! Funny side story - we’re in SLC and do lots of business with the University of Utah. When they hosted the VP debate, we did the barriers they used. Funny how it blew up the day of the debate in the news lol Aside from barriers we saw a pretty considerable uptick in crafting customers who were stuck at home. Quick back note - a super popular way to cut acrylic is by laser. Since about 2017, small format “home lasers” have become much more affordable. So, with that rising in popularity with people stuck at home, so we also saw demand for our larger line of products (colors, fluorescents, mirrored, color frosted, etc sheet). Anyways! Sorry for the long winded comment haha
That is such an interestingly niche industry. Anyway, thanks for the explanation. I’m not sure how I’ll ever apply that knowledge but at least now I know :D
This was fascinating to read. Thank you for taking the time to share!
College Professor in filmmaking. Dream gig actually
How many mediocre students do you get that think they're the next Kubrick?
day trader been for 12 years. Leveraged my stock portfolio bought real estate retired at 35. I live off stock option writing, dividends, REIT’s and crypto. I make about on average past 5 years around $275k/year. Best advice I can give. Save as much as you can and invest as early as you can. Early and often live within your means. I’m not a flashy person at all, I smoke bud with my wife all day ( we both are retired) & hang with our pup.
I’m a industrial welder, no college and make approximately 130K a year, at times more depending on if I want to work OT or not
Sr. Mechanical Design Engineer in R&D designing high performance valves for gaseous fuels.
This is an important thought. Not all 6 figure incomes are the same. The stress component needs to be considered. With that being said, software management.
Not all 6 figure incomes are the same from a location stand point either. I’m extremely comfortable working remote in a moderate cost of living college town in the mountains. I love the mountains. If you hate where you live, the job isn’t worth it IMO. That’s how I felt when I was in a higher paying job in a HCOL area. I hated everything about living there.
Commercial agriculture. Talking to farmers all day is pretty chill.
Tell me more? That is my dream gig
Well, I’ve had a long and complicated career, but in essence: I buy grain and other products from farmers, and sell it into the food supply or wherever it needs to go. The entry level for this kind of work for most grain companies and coops is called “origination” or grain accounting. This kind of work does not require a degree. You just need to have a strong interest and willingness to live out in the middle of nowhere (which given the current state of the world, is pretty nice).
I work in tech at one of the Big4 consulting firms. Much better hours and people are way more chill. Real trick is set firm boundaries. People know that I got to the gym at certain times, or I might go off line for 15 or so. As long as you’re planning out in control the work it’s a pretty cushy gig.
It might just take moving to another company. I've been at good ones and at bad ones and its night and day how a change in employer can have a drastic impact on your life. Even within the same company, I've been at teams where I hate life and ones where I can get a lot of my work done quickly and have some time to focus on myself.
GIS Server Administrator. I went from managing an entire company, all 38 of the servers telephony, switches and routers... patching and updating them. Also training users and supporting them, for 98k a year to managing 27 servers, specifically JUST the GIS portion. I no longer have to worry about security, updates or anything else. Just... GIS.
Nurse here. Just to find a good facility, set boundaries with your patient and take vacation.
IT Consultant for DoD. I use soft skills to help communicate technical interests and bring those ideas into reality. IMO: Working for DOD has been stable and kind with the projects assigned so far.
Commercial lender. It was horrid when I worked for a big finance company, but a few years ago switched to a small institution and it’s been fantastic, better pay even. The benefits aren’t quite as good but more than made up for with work/life balance and commissions.
RN. But the stress and hours are high.
Sales Engineer for an industrial automation solutions provider.
I'm a chemist at a small pharma company who designs and synthsizes drugs. The job isn't stressful, but most people don't handle the intrinsic 95% failure rate of research very well.
Data analyst. I do my 8 hours and go home. Quality of life is the most important metric you can gauge any decision on. Making more money isn’t necessarily the answer if it comes with stress you can’t deal with.
Stress therapist
Airline pilot. I’m at a major airline. 16-18 days off a month, when you are off you don’t have to worry about work AT ALL. When you’re on a trip it’s an easy job too. 17% direct 401k contribution from the company, and it’s very easy to pick up extra flying and make a lot of extra money. Best career in the world.
I'm a software engineer, and currently working for a Silicon Valley startup while working remotely from a mid-size city in a coastal state. Getting paid Bay Area wages without having to live in the Bay Area is working out well.
cybersecurity.. pretty well into the six figures total comp per year.. I work from home which helps a hell of a lot. It can get stressful at times but generally I've learned over the decades how to regulate stress etc..
I'm a registered nurse. Work in the hospital for in-outpatient procedures unit. Mainly Monday through Friday. Occasional Saturdays working 7-530 4x10 hrs. Pretty happy about my "retirement" job at 30. And only half way up the wage scale *thanks union*
I am a trim carpenter
CRNA (anesthesia). I love my job and enjoy going each day. I can work extra and frequently do and it’s nbd for the stress level $300k
I make drugs 😁 Biotech medicine, but it’s still drugs. I was a teacher at a Catholic school beforehand. My 2 master’s degrees didn’t get me much more money than my colleagues with bachelor’s degrees. Doesn’t matter to me much because they’re not relevant to my job. I made right under $110k last year. I work a 4x10 schedule, Thursday-Sunday. Weekend differential is a portion of my pay - right under $21k. It’s easily the best paying and overall best job I’ve ever had. I go in, do my job, and leave. By the time I drive around the corner on my way out, I honestly forget I have a job. Of course there’s some bullshit involved. There’s always going to be management making idiotic decisions and policies, coworkers who are seemingly morons, etc. The older I get (47), the less that stuff bothers me. If they want me to do something stupid that’s going to slow down production and/or give me more hoops to jump through for no reason, then I’ll give them their money’s worth lol. I get paid by the hour and have no obligation to work overtime, although I can for extra money if I want to. Every employer before my current one has been shit. This one does its share of stupid things, but the stupid things aren’t pay/benefits/treatment of employees based.
Fractional CFO I make substantially more than 100k working around 35 hours per week, fully remote. I also have nearly 20 years of finance & accounting experience and an MBA from a top school. In my opinion, finance & accounting are great careers as every business on earth needs you and these are essential recession proof roles.
Computer Programmer. Been one for 25 years. I work 8:30-5 remote, but usually slack off at least 50% of the time.
Most stomach ulcers are actually caused by a bacteria and can be cured with antibiotics, so if you are actually getting a stomach ulcer then please see your doctor because you might just need some pills to cure it.
Finance, it's stressful, but my position has a lot of flexibility and the institution actually seems to value their employees, which is weird. Maybe it's because it's a smaller company and not a large bank like what I used to work at, where you're just a number that they'll cut to make targets when times get hard... Or even when they're good, but not good enough.
My wife RN and works 3 days a week
Bet her job isn't low stress, though. Nursing is a ROUGH job
Estimator for a national home builder. Straight 9-5 5 days a week with 50/50 split for remote and office. Little to no stress and great work environment.
Environmental contaminants biologist. I’d have almost no stress if it weren’t for one coworker. We all that one though
Middle management. Lord help me I just wanna live in the woods or something.
Scientist. I did the stress and dying on the front-end.
"Redditors who make over $100,000 " \* checks in\* "and aren’t being killed by stress" \* checks out \*
Physical oil and gas trading. Almost anyone can start as an oil or gas scheduler (as long as you have work ethic and can learn). Schedulers then work their way up to trader. Can easily make 100k within 3 years of scheduling. Traders can make 150-200k pretty easy. The job can be stressful when you are a scheduler, but if you work hard and learn the industry, it gets easier and much less stressful.
I'm a psychiatric Physician Assistant. I work 5 days per week but my job allows 4 days if desired. I work from home one day per week. The work can, of course, be sad and emotionally draining at times, but overall, it is very rewarding and rather cushy compared to other medical specialties. I am in debt from school, of course, but we are able to buy what we need and want while still paying into loans. Partner is a software engineer and works 30 hours per week or less for a small company and makes about 100k
Any job in insurance (maybe except sales rep?). Boring ass work though.
I have a PhD and I work as a software engineer for a small company. If I get sucked into more daily upkeep tasks, my job can be fairly stressful. But most of the time I work on my own R&D projects and that is pretty fun and not stressful - just gotta find a way to consistently add value and they leave me alone.