Salary to Effort Ratio: Who is King?
We all know one: the guy who does just barely enough not to lose his job but not one iota of effort more. "Retiring on the job" as they say.
I can say that in consulting there are plenty of little niches like this where you can do 2hrs of real work a week on a regular basis and not get shitcanned. The salary inspires no awe, but taking the ratio to be the measure of awesomeness:
Salary / Work*
where Work* = Actual Work - Nap time - Websurfing time - Time reading WSO - Bullshitting with officemates - long lunches
they have pretty awesome jobs.
OK you 30-year-old on-the-job retirees: tell me where you think the best ratios are.
You should calculate bonuses and future earnings into the salary
In this regard, sales guys with long-lived contacts at major corporates have in made. They just call up their buddies who have been working in the same corporate treasury for loads of years, do the same sorts of deals they have done a thousand times before, take 'production credit' and a little 'value added' on the deal, and occassionally take people out to lunch.
Also, desk heads on trading desks don't do shit. Seriously. Not on a regular basis anyway.
Also, I have NO IDEA what the head of the middle office does. I mean...it's like being Papa Smurf. You're the chief, but there's only one chick, and you're surrounded by moronic blue bell-ends.
Some consultants can do this if they get into a supervisory position on a project, but don't really have any business development responsibilities. At that point, you're basically a lower-level manager with no responsibility for analyst work who doesn't have to touch-base with his bosses on a regular basis.
Endowment/pension fund managers seriously don't do anything. If they're smart, they set up an 'investment management company,' and hire well qualified directors to run the asset allocation strategy the CIO concocts. They make $1M per annum working 20-30 hours a week (max), golfing whenever they feel like it, getting other people to take them to lunch and pay for their drinks when they feel like it, getting free tickets to major events whenever they feel like it, and only having to report to the board of directors of their organization once a quarter.
Parters at consulting firms do nothing. Principals/engagement managers do the shitty work of managing projects and winning new business. Partners are an overhead cost, and aren't really responsible for business development. They also never work on a project. Their only real job is to make sure most of the other partners like them.
Almost all people that work for the government. There are loads of guys out there that we look down on regularly that have us all beat. They have never worked more than 40 hours per week. They retired after 20 years from their first jobs, and receive a defined proportion of their final year's salary for the rest of their lives. They also got their health care, eye and dental taken care of for life. They then go back to working the exact same job from which they just retired, but now do it as a government contractor or civilian. And they work towards getting another retirement annuity. These guys can live in a lot of different geographies, and can make $200k per year (total comp post retirement from the first job). They don't do exciting stuff, but they live good, simple lives with minimal effort.
School teachers. I know some of you will disagree, but I would point you to the argument directly above this one. They work 180 days per year for 6 hours a day. They can retire with full pension after 30 years, and can then ride out the remaining 35 years of life expectancy they have left doing nothing. They'll never be rich, but they'll never spread comps for 100 hous in a single week either. Also, they don't have to worry about real problems. They live in a bubble.
Porn fluffers. It's kind of like a regular job - nothing but dicks and assholes all day long but it's a great fucking business to be in.
successful prop day traders
Almost any managerial-esque position can have a high ratio when you delegate your work out enough. Actually "managing" people is easy. Delegate that shit out! I work in an asset management arm of a major ny insurer and though I'm underpaid relative to my years/experience, I have plenty of people to assign work to. To be honest, my worklife is all about starting a project, delegating out pieces of work to other people, relax/think about future projects/goof off, collect everyone's pieces, take all the credit. Knowing that I work in "finance" people are often surprised when I can take very long lunches with them or meet them in the midle of the day. :) There was a time when I wanted to be an "innovator" or "special" but at this point I'm happy being a comfortable cog in the system.
I also liked brotherbear's example of salespeople with existing relationships. Definitely true. Might as well extend it to anyone with an existing system that keeps paying out with only a little tweaking/ maintainence.
Government Contractors. Period.
i can vouch for this. my friend works for a govt defense contractor, and on fridays, he does his job from home, nude and hungover. also, lobbyists have a pretty sweet gig. put in grunt time as a bitch on capitol hill, and if youre good, 10-15 years later, you can leverage connections and become a lobbyist where your job consists of correspondence, golf, and going out to dinner.
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