Job with the largest discrepancy between pay and effort

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Who gets paid the most for doing the least? Who gets paid the least for doing the most?

― David Allen (David Allen), Friday, 8 October 2004 19:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Least for doing the most: public school teachers? (though three months of summer vacation...)

― n/a (Nick A.), Friday, 8 October 2004 19:38 (twenty-one years ago)

But that's unpaid, no?

― Huk-L, Friday, 8 October 2004 19:39 (twenty-one years ago)

More realistically, probably some kind of hard labor, i.e., sanitation or construction.

― n/a (Nick A.), Friday, 8 October 2004 19:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Third WOrld Child Laborers to thread!

― Huk-L, Friday, 8 October 2004 19:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Construction workers get paid a lot. Most tradesmen do actually.

― David Allen (David Allen), Friday, 8 October 2004 19:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Movie stars

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Friday, 8 October 2004 19:42 (twenty-one years ago)

People who insert catheters, unless they're just medical supply fetishists.

― Satan's Onion (twowaydream), Friday, 8 October 2004 19:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Paid most for doing least = CEOs or Movie Stars.

Paid least for doing most = whoever made your shirt or picked the strawberries you are eating or works in the meat-packing plant your ground beef comes from or. . .

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 8 October 2004 19:49 (twenty-one years ago)

x-post
obviously they are.

"Why are you a mortician?"
"I like to play with dead bodies."

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Friday, 8 October 2004 19:50 (twenty-one years ago)

The pay rate for construction workers varies wildly and even the well-paid ones should come out on the high end of the scale. Bike messengers don't get paid well, do they?

Least-work/best-money - CEOs of major corporations, easy.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Friday, 8 October 2004 19:51 (twenty-one years ago)

Construction workers get paid a lot. Most tradesmen do actually

Only the unionized ones do. I don't think the day-laborers around here get paid very much. There's a booming market for them in the town where I work. Groups of Mexican men who congregate on certain street corners and the local contractors just stop by when they need workers and take as many as they need for the day. I'm sure they make more than they would flipping burgers, and they probably don't pay any taxes so they get to keep everything they're paid, but I don't think they're paid all that well. However, since many of them are not documented, their job options are limited.

― o. nate (onate), Friday, 8 October 2004 19:52 (twenty-one years ago)

this is strange, but I think fast food managers make diddly shit and work rediculously long hours.. and obviously they have to put up with a ton of bullshit on a daily basis.

but yeah I go with the field worker/meat packing plant gig. especially those people who are on the line or do the cleanups that you read about in fast food nation.

― still bevens (bscrubbins), Friday, 8 October 2004 19:53 (twenty-one years ago)

jobs should be balanced for empowerment and desirability

― Sébastien Chikara (Sébastien Chikara), Friday, 8 October 2004 20:02 (twenty-one years ago)

totally agree with the fast food manager observation above. fast food management work really fucking hard, long, sweaty hours for usually around the mid-20's in salary. and they permenantly smell like a french fry, that alone should garner 30 grand! when, on the rare occasion i eat fast food and i see one of these intrepid souls they are inevitably middle-aged and look so fucking tired, it really makes me want to cry. seriously.
also, to add weight to the case for public school teachers, consider the return on investment for what is generally 5 years of pricey college education.

― j.m. lockery, Friday, 8 October 2004 23:01 (twenty-one years ago)

Who gets paid the most for doing the least?

In the Washington area, every so often you hear about federal government employees who report to their office every work day, and spend the day reading the paper, for want of any work to do. (Scream about government waste if you are so inclined. However, these are usually whistleblowers who have been reinstated in their jobs over their managers' objections. The managers apparently are trying to bore these people into resigning, but as long as the employee comes to work and makes himself available to do any tasks he is offered, he's meeting the terms of his continued employment.)

― j.lu (j.lu), Saturday, 9 October 2004 00:21 (twenty-one years ago)

College instructor.
Definitely. I worked it out once and Starbuck's paid better than temporary non-temure track lectureships.

― Orbit (Orbit), Saturday, 9 October 2004 01:56 (twenty-one years ago)

THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND. The bitch, worth fucking billions, and all the bitch does is wave.

Also pandas - they now have biscuit factories, heated huts and 1st class trips around the world to mate. fucking hey thats a good life.

http://www.letpandasdie.com

― L.P.D! Webmaster (letpandasdie.com), Saturday, 9 October 2004 03:07 (twenty-one years ago)

Believe it or not -- Journalists, at least at the starting level.

Entry level reporters make $18-22,000 a year at smaller papers, and you usually need a 4-year degree. Many of them work 50-60 hour weeks to fill their story demands.

― Hurting (Hurting), Saturday, 9 October 2004 13:53 (twenty-one years ago)

On thursday I was paid £120 for djing (not proper mixing, just putting cds in a cd player) for 3 hours. £40 an hour.. not bad.

― jellybean (jellybean), Saturday, 9 October 2004 13:56 (twenty-one years ago)

In terms of physical effort - Garry Kasparov.

― Markelby (Mark C), Saturday, 9 October 2004 20:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Orbit is close - try GRADUATE STUDENT. The ones aiming for that plum tenure-track job in the humanities or social sciences. Teach a course and take others and write papers and go to conferences and scope out your field and read for exams/dissertation on like $15K/year. If you are working for Gayatri Sp1vak, maybe you get to fetch your professor's laundry on top of it. Fun!

― daria g (daria g), Sunday, 10 October 2004 04:39 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm not sure being a student is technically a "job".

― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 10 October 2004 04:42 (twenty-one years ago)

No, it's a job. You have to treat it like a job. The university caters to the undergraduates because they pay lots of money to go there; (most) graduate students in the fields I'm talking about are basically on a very long apprenticeship and are paid by the university.

― daria g (daria g), Sunday, 10 October 2004 07:16 (twenty-one years ago)

jlu - I've seen stuff like that happen. Sometimes someone gets moved into a bs job because firing them would be too "obvious" (discrimination, firing a whistleblower)

The local paper a few days ago, in a sidebar to a story on Sammy Sosa's pay, listed a day's pay for local professional jobs. Newspaper reporters were one of the lowest, but I didn't realize that firemen make less than I thought. Anyone who risks life and/or limb should get much more than they do.

― k3rry (dymaxia), Sunday, 10 October 2004 11:23 (twenty-one years ago)

I got paid £50 for handing out flyers for a couple of hours. I could've easily just thrown them in the bin and still been paid.

― Cathy (Cathy), Sunday, 10 October 2004 11:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes, but an "apprenticeship" -- it's a job in the sense that you have to work, but really it's a means to a job. If you're a grad student your whole life then something has gone terribly wrong.

I mean, obviously interns and volunteers work hard for low pay, but that hardly counts as well.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 10 October 2004 15:11 (twenty-one years ago)

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