Name your job, hours, pay, happiness 'level'

Precious Roy wrote:

Attorney. I make the industry average for my years and location. Six figures starting with a "1". 50 hours a week is a minimum. I am pretty efficient at getting things done and rarely have to come in on weekends or evenings. Job is a grind.

I should have added that a lot of this comes from jobs on the side in the style of 'better call Saul' if you catch my drift.

Overall pretty happy apart from ED which is a right pain but I'm not exactly young these days.

High School Teacher

35 "official" paid hours per week, work 5-10 more than that, ~185 paid days + summer school (16 days, 4 hrs/day).

$67k last year including stipends and bonuses (summer school, department head, National Board certification, club adviser, etc) + decent benefits

8.5/10 - I love teaching, but I think it has a shelf life because it is so emotionally taxing (assuming you really put in the effort to care). Wife currently makes about the same as a doctor in a fellowship, but that ends this summer and she just started negotiating for her next job with a clinic whose initial offer was $200k/year.

asdfgasdkk wrote:

Got cut off:

We plan to be retired in about 10 years and save the majority of our income. Our peers all have the giant house, giant commute, giant cars and giant kids. We have a small house, small commute, one small car and no kids. We wonder how they do it.

They probably don't plan on retiring before they are 50.

Dude/dudette,

I have a couple quick questions for you that if you would see, I woul really appreciate answered (though cannot give anything but thanks in return).

1. When you say financial management consultant, what do you mean? Are you the standard big 3 type consultant (in one man shop form), are you of some sort of financial specialization, are you a personal financial wealth mgmt consultant, or something else entirely? If something of the first option, that is an independent big 3 type consultant, I would love to hear more about your business and clients.

2. For young graduates lucky enough to get to the PE / hf / investment mgmt world, do you have any advice as it relates to career progression?

3. What do you have to say about geographic diversity as it relates to those with the finance/consulting skill set? To work outside of a very major city must one start his own shop or is it possible to find corp or even strictly finance/consulting jobs in areas under day 200K pop.?

Thanks in advance for all and any advice, I'll be watching this thread closely.

Assistant Grocery Manger

45 hrs week - Shifts range 1st 2nd & 3rd shift, Work pretty much every weekend

40k with Benefits , 4wks Vac, Heath & Dental, 401k,

Happiness Lvl: 5, once I get off 3rd shifts probably 7-8

30 yrs old

Nurse practitioner

30 hours/wk

$110k/year, full benefits

7/10 Stressful job but all in all it's been a great career and I generally love the staff I work with. 10/10 for work/life balance. I've been able to work as many/little hours as I've wanted so lots of family time.

runnermama wrote:

30 hours/wk

$110k/year, full benefits

I'm going to nurse practitioner school!

Yes, I am well paid although I am probably at the top of the pay scale for the job.

Teacher

35 hours a week. I DON'T take work home.

60K not including extra duty pay or coaching.

Miserable. My school has a cu#t of a principal.

Software Engineer

35-50 hours a week (plus 4 weeks vacation and 11 holidays)

140-200k - 140k salary, 17-24k bonus, RSU valuing 24-34K each year

5/10 at work - been doing this a long time. It seems time for something new, but the pay makes it difficult to call it quits at times (also makes it easier since I've been able to save a tremendous amount). I'm 55 hoping to retire in next 1-3 years.

8/10 out of work

WW Sales Operations Manager for a medium sized company

40-45 hours per week

$110K and about $20-25K in bonuses depending on the year + extremely good benefits, 401K matching and frequent golf with the boss.

Happiness is about a 9. I'm nearly 40 and I love the people I work with and have been treated much better than I deserve over the last 15 years. I'm not naturally passionate about the industry we're in but find lots of projects and things that I enjoy learning and completing. From where I grew up (poor and in the middle of the woods) I've done better than my imagination could conceive when I was a kid. My biggest fear now that I have kids is somehow losing what I've got.

Late 20s

Visual Marketer Including: web design, print material design, copy writing, videography, photography, strategy creation, project management)

35-55 hours a week

Salary is 40k + ~8k in bonus + ~4k road racing. (~52k overall)

Single, live in one of the most beautiful parts of the country

9/10 on happiness

Advertising Sales

40-50 hours a week, but accessible on cell phone all the time (sucks about my job)

$188k last year (75% of that is commission not guaranteed), average about $155k total the past 5 years

32 years old

8/10. I like what I do sometimes, but being in the office from 8:30-5:30 every M-Fr gets tough. Have a wife who stays home with our 2 kids at home. I day-dream about not having to worry about money probably 20 times a day, every day.

JOB: Owner, private healthcare businesses

HOURS: 50 hours--I include 8 hours of traffic jam commuting in this number.

I choose to consider all hours I am away from home as work--all tasks I would NOT be doing if I was independently wealthy. I think this gives us a clearer glimpse of our quality of life, and prevents us from fooling ourselves over how much work is asking of us.

Also, as owner, thinking about work never stops, and "on call" is truly 24/7.

PAY: netting $350k the past few years

36 yo.

HAPPINESS: 6/10.

I am incredibly thankful for my blessings. I have a beautiful wife and kids.

I have my health, and am able to make time for exercise several times per week, which is my biggest source of stress relief. We live in the beautiful SF bay area.

Lowering my happiness score: Private healthcare is on the way out. My consultants tell me 70% of doctors are now employees of larger institutions. I would be shocked if my particular niche was still there in 10 years. My specialty can do well as business owner, but maxes out in low $100k as an employee--nothing to cry about, but quite a comedown from current levels.

We live in the SF bay area, where the costs are huge, and also causes one to constantly second guess one's life choices if you're not a millionaire by 25.

I've realized I like making good $$$ much more than I care about my current job, so if the gravy train stops, I would need to do something else, but what? My skills are very narrowly tied to my current career.

So I would be at 9/10 happiness if I thought my future was secure, but the massive sense of foreboding weighs on me heavily each day, and brings me down to 6/10. I have a constant sense of being in an engine-less glider, floating along as best as possible, but hyper-aware that the music is going to stop.

Engineer

20 hours / week

$64K with decent but not great benefits

8/10

I am much happier since I went to half-time. I think engineering is an excellent career (with the possible exception of civil), but the money and benefits are probably better in programming if you are very good.

junior military officer

40 hrs/wk

$85k/yr after tax

9/10 - can't stay in one place for too long since officers are required to progress into senior management and need breath of experience

This will be my first anonymous post since my New Year's Resolution around 7 to 8 years ago.

Job: Rancher, raise cattle, pigs and sheep on 500 plus acres for direct to consumer, retail and wholesale sales/ Pay: $15/hr/ Hours: between 20 and 40 hrs/week

Job: Consultant, Owner of a telecommunications/corporate restructuring practice of 1 to 4 professionals/ Pay: $150/hr/ Hours: average anywhere from 500 to 1000 billable hours per year - add about 10% for admin time

Job: Owner, Manager of Real Estate holdings/ Pay is around $75k per year gross not sure how many hours...let's say 5 to 10hrs/week

Job: Tax Accountant for all our holdings/ Pay: is the reward for being a cheapskate/ Hours: is about 5 to 10 hours/week

Job: Board Member Treasurer of a local non profit/ Pay: is negative as we have to contribute to the effort but the parties are fun/ Hours: is 10 hours per month

Overall, I work all day, everyday, and then some. Work is very satisfying, I set my own schedule, we're teaching our 4 kids how to work and play hard (I've got a couple of budding Virginesque runners in the queue but am trying to slow play it), my wife loves the lifestyle (but doesn't like the stress of cash flowing the ranching bit). We don't really take vacations or have much of what others would call a normal life. My wife and I travelled a fair amount pre and post kids so, sort of, been there done that. I'm injured so can't run much anymore but am swimming quite a bit. Am fairly competitive in the reasonably long in the tooth division.

Overall I'd give it an 8.5 to 9/10. There's really no way I could have asked for more.

Union Organizer

50-60+ hours/week

$50k, no overtime, excellent benefits

9/10 the job is awesome, I get to connect with people every day but the hours can make it very difficult to find a good work/life balance

Thanks for taking interest.. as you read my responses below consider that I've had an abnormal career path and 10 yrs of experience so far. I majored in accounting and went for my MBA immediately after. I worked at a big 4 firm for 4 years (CPA), then moved to a large bank as a junior controller and then moved within the bank to the strategy seat. That was basically internal management consulting, working with the global head of trading to improve the business and identify and implement initiatives. I was bored in an accounting role and moved out after significant networking. The accounting skills helped tremendously in the strategy seat and I gained other more "businessy" skills. I left to open my own firm knowing I would have at least one large consulting project, also through the network I had built within the bank.1. It's a mix of standard big 3 and financial specialization. I advertise a general suite of services, but my projects have been mainly focused on building out and optimizing client's operating models. I have also helped a few start-ups create their business plans from scratch and pitch to investors. Two of those engagements were successful and I charged high fees ($400-$450/hr range plus % bonus for successful capital raise). I also have been connecting with boutique i-banks in these types of engagements, free networking. This is definitely an area of opportunity. To be honest just about anything I've touched in my firm has been new to me, but now I can talk the talk more and am much more comfortable venturing into the unknown. I posted a year ago about starting my own firm and a few people said I would be bound to fail since I wasn't even sure what I was selling. They were wrong. Also, accounting work is everywhere but it's not as profitable, so I am keeping that in my back pocket for now.2. There is some luck involved here, including market conditions and overall firm strategy. Obviously, if you get in with a profitable and growing shop you will have tremendous earning opportunity, which will trump career progression. In a revenue producing role your main sell will be your track record and your comp (this will speak for itself if high). The larger firms like Blackstone offer a great progressive career track and still will compensate and quickly promote the best performers. This is what has changed in banking so stay away. You will end up grinding away and will likely get dinged with a bad bonus as has been the case across the industry since the recession. That is not changing as banks have become more regulated and bureaucratic. Everything is about ROE and there is no way banks will ever go back to paying 50+% of their revs in comp. That has been in the 25%-30% range in recent years and will never go up again. As far as small shops, your experience will be much more broad but you will be exposed to smaller transactions. Money and advancement should be good though. After 8-10 years you could be managing your own pool of assets and leading on top transactions within a small shop and if it's a good place you will be in a "director" role. It is extremely rare to go from a small shop to a big place, but if you're successful you won't care for that anyway.3. I can speak for NYC/Chicago only, but do know that if you're doing work for tech clients it's pretty good out West. I am in the heart of Manhattan and haven't had to market myself yet, it's been all referrals and I'm getting busier. I've come across some project opportunities outside the city but the rates would not have been worth it. If you're willing to travel/telecommute though you can be even more lucrative living in a lower-cost area and servicing big city clients. I have landed clients in Chicago and Houston. I worked with on tech client out west but luckily haven't had to go out there.All in all I think a one man show, especially if you're young, will develop into a very organic experience, where you just keep the ball rolling and learning on the job every day. I spend a lot of time researching and brushing up on my communication skills. I have also met a bunch of other consultants, some successful and expensive, others small and cheap. This comes in handy when there are large projects to collaborate on. I will not hire anyone when things pick up more, because I can subcontract so easily. It's a good gig but definitely messes with your identify a bit and there really are no guarantees. I am constantly reassessing and open to landing a good employee position again if I find one. So far so good.What's your background and current situation?