People Are Saying These 19 Jobs Are Unnecessary And Overpaid, And I Want To Know If You Agree
In the words of The Beatles, "It's been a hard day's night, and I've been working like a dog." Relatable, right? WRONG. Some jobs are so easy that no one would ever write a song about them — but they WOULD write a Reddit comment.
Recently, u/Airsinner asked, "What job position is 100% overvalued and overpaid?" Here are some of the best responses:
1."Hospital CEOs and most hospital upper management. There are so many layers of management that many of them barely step foot into a healthcare facility, let alone speak to a patient. Yet they make seven-figure salaries PLUS mega bonuses. That’s hundreds of millions of wasted dollars paid to the people screwing medical staff out of decent pay and screwing patients into paying big bills."
2."If someone has the title of Regional Vice President, they probably do absolutely nothing at work other than collect a check."
"I call it the Michael Scott theorem. In any company of sufficient size, there is at least one layer of management that is completely useless, but they're kept around as a dumping ground for people who earned a promotion but really should’ve stuck to non-management work, nepotism hires, and people who definitely shouldn’t have been hired but are kept around so the person who hired them doesn’t get embarrassed."
3."Ferrari strategist. You'd think out of pure dumb luck they'd eventually make a correct call, right? You'd be wrong."
"It's almost uncanny! There's the standard strategy, the risky one, and whatever the fuck Ferrari is doing."
4."US government contractors requiring high security clearances. Entry level pay isn't that high, but once you're initially cleared, other contractors will offer bigger bucks because you can get cleared with them quickly. Jump from one to another, wait two years, and do it again. Lather, rinse, repeat."
"I have a very close friend with a job like this. He literally sits at a desk overlooking a beautiful lake and once a month drives 60 miles to visually inspect a dam. He always jokes that 'if you want to see your tax dollars wasted, come visit me at work.' His previous job? Road construction."
5."My mum is the Vice President of Reward at an international company. She basically arranges contracts so millionaires can get more money, and she's paid £189,000 a year for it. Even she thinks it’s ridiculous."
6."Almost all of the upper-level administrators at the university I work for."
"I work in payroll at a state university, and I completely agree with this. The people in upper management aren’t even in union-protected jobs. In theory, they should be the first ones gone when we need to settle budget problems. Instead, they were the only ones who got raises during COVID."
7."My uncle was a commercial airline pilot. He described his job as vastly overpaid in normal circumstances and vastly underpaid in emergency situations."
"Firefighters and paramedics are in the same boat. They make a whopping $60-80k a year in some places to pick up old people off the floor, but they ONLY make a measly $60-80k to manage the pulseless and dying child at 3 a.m. in the morning."
8."I'm a consultant. It's just outsourced office work and creating fluffy PowerPoints to give executives an excuse to authorize spending."
9."I know a life coach who charges $300-500 per person for a 'seminar' that's just four hours of her leading yoga and breathing exercises and telling everyone they're doing great. She makes $2,400 per weekend. Fucking wild."
"Honestly, there seems to be a TON of money in online coaching, especially if you can be likable on camera. Get a few thousand YouTube followers, make quality videos, tell them they can learn even more if they buy your $500 course. It's not exactly easy, but it's relatively simple."
10."Do car salesmen really do any work? Last time I bought a car, I looked online, did my research, and basically showed up ready to buy. The dealer just gave me the keys for a test drive, then did the paperwork for me and pulled a commission."
11."My IT director. He's never around, automates his email, and runs his own company on the side."
12."Gillette engineers. They took five years to go from three blades to four."
13."I am a software development and operations engineer at a startup. I write server configurations for a $125,000 salary, and I work less than 40 hours a week. I keep thinking they’ll figure out how easy my job is and decide to fire me. Instead, they tell me I’m doing a great job and promote me."
14."TV preachers."
15."Pharmaceutical or medical sales. I’m a small-scale clinician who deals with medical sales representatives every day. They’re usually not even medically qualified to determine what patients need and can’t answer most medical questions relevant to their products. Every rep we deal with earns over three times the combined salary of my office staff of four people."
16."Commercial property managers."
"They call themselves Portfolio Managers sometimes to sound more important."
17."Ex-politicians on the lecture circuit who get paid astronomical speaking fees."
"It’s just another method of hiding bribes. 'Vote against this bill, and we’ll hire you to give a speech.'"
18."A hedge fund is just a gambling house that makes no positive contribution to society. They just move money from one deep pocket to another. We don't need hedge fund managers — we need doctors."
19."College football coaches. They're the highest paid public employees in many states. It's ludicrous for Alabama or Mississippi, for example, to sink so much money into their football programs when the rest of the two states struggle in almost every other metric."
"It's even more egregious considering that for decades, the students were not allowed to make money from endorsement deals."
As one user put it, "Don't mind me, I'm just here taking notes for a potential change of career."
H/T r/AskReddit
Some replies have been edited for length and clarity.
