booboobear said:
I don't agree with this, I believe what you are saying might apply to those making $ 250m plus but not those just over $ 100 m.
I know for a fact that at the companies I have worked for the top management was not working 12 - 15 hr days and was making well over $ 100m. I also know of several companies that although the company was losing money the executives continued to collect fat salaries.
First of all, the part that you edited out of my response was the part where I acknowledged that there are a few bad apples out there. Of that there is no doubt.
Secondly, unless you're following these sr managers home at night and staying with them on weekends how do you know what hours they are and aren't working?
Third, just because a company is losing money does not mean that sr. management is doing a poor job. It may be that a particular company has had a track record of successive losses and sr management are following a plan to bring a company back to profitability. That plan may have several key annual milestones of positive growth that may not actually involve profitability for several years. Point is, they are invaribly being measured against targets and, if they are not being measured or they are missing those targets, they are on a VERY short road to the unemployment line.
As one of the, undoubtedly several people on this board in the $100K + category, I know that I make an exceedingly small hourly wage and, in looking at my colleagues I can honestly say that every one of them works their asses off.
Unfortunately, sometimes staff see us coming in at 10:30am in the morning and form an opinion. They fail to understand that the evening before, we may have been getting a proposal completed and emailed it to a client at 5:30 am before going to bed to get a couple of hours of sleep. Sometimes my staff sees me leave at 4pm. What they don't see is the fact that I was up for a conference call at 3:00am with a colleague over in Paris and decided to come straight into the office. Sometimes I may take a Wednesday off to golf with some asshole client but that doesn't mean that my workload decreases. It just means that I work a few extra hours on Saturday and Sunday to make up for it.
I get four weeks vacation and have NEVER taken more than two nor have I gotten paid for what I didn't take. Most importantly though, with the exception of my most recent job, I love what I do. what spare time I do have I cherish and spend with friends and use it to work on my book.
Chivas you hit the nail on the head. It isn't the money that is the driver. If it were people in this category wouldn't survive. They'd either become dead wood and be out of work or they would die of a heart attack by 40. A high salary does not create job satisfaction. One must love what they do and get their drive from watching something that they have created and built come to fruition.
