The Weeping and the Gnashing of Teeth

[coppertop]

I am the financial manager of my workplace, and one of my jobs is to prepare payroll.  The partners' distributions are based on the receipts from each month less expenses, and the 'profit' is divvied among them according to their ownership shares.  January was a particularly low month, and they were unhappy with their paychecks.  They have been carrying on over it all month.  Today one of them came in lamenting the 'small' size of his January check and said he can't make ends meet if February is just as 'bad.'  The amount of this particular guy's January check was more than twice what I take home in any given month.  I asked him seriously how he thinks the staff manages with the size of their paychecks and told him if he saw my checks, he would be shocked.  He truly did not know what to say.  I find it hard to feel sorry for these guys who make $200,000 and up who say they can't make it on that kind of pay.  This guy doesn't even put much into his retirement account; they must spend every dime he gets if things are that bad for him. 

[2ndTimer]

Sounds like he's an ass.  Also sounds like it might be unwise to say so too loudly

[coppertop]

LOL ... he has no power.  He's not one of the higher-performing guys.  It's interesting that it's all of the hangers-on who are doing the complaining; the higher-grossing people are too busy working to come down here and bizzotch about the size of their checks.  They never stop to think how their secretaries are making ends meet; it's all about them.  It's stuff like this that makes me long for retirement.

[DrF]

Yeah, I'd be careful. You'd be surprised at how much trouble douchebags can make (even those with no power).

I hear you though. It's shocking what lifestyle inflation leads to. Private school, club membership, 2nd homes, etc.

Who needs it. Live in a nice neighborhood where the public schools are good and enjoy the free activities in your community.

[yandz]

I once had a boss who, in a serious (but not work related) moment, said emphatically (to her two employees), "I CANNOT even FATHOM how ANYONE makes it on less than $75k per year."

Um, hi. Do you know what we make? Of course you do. You hired us. We don't make 75k combined.  Rude.  My co-worker immediately asked for a raise and saying "You are right. I don't know how I am making it. Can you make it right?"  Shut the boss up quickly.  Hilarious. We were both doing fine financially and it just got better from there.

[slugline]

Those costs to maintain the secret second and third wives and families add up!

[Retired To Win]

... I find it hard to feel sorry for these guys who make $200,000 and up who say they can't make it on that kind of pay...

Remember MMM's blog post about hedonistic adaptation?  That guy Coppertop wrote about is a prime example -- a poster boy, even -- for what MMM was driving at in that post.

[PatStab]

We used to have a manager over our office where I worked years ago.  He would come in bragging
about his most recent vacation or some art work he bought.  I was doing ok, no money like him though
but I'm sure the secretaries and clerks he bragged to sure felt resentful.  If they didn't they should have.

[Capsu78]

"He truly did not know what to say."

Either that or he couldn't believe that a peasant had the gall to address his lordship with such insolence.  :-)
 

[rocketpj]

I just had a meeting with a client yesterday.  One of the two partners in their business was away in Asia on a 7 week vacation.  Which led us, in conversation, to ask if the other partner had taken any trips.  'No, just a couple weeks in Mexico, and a weekend in Paris for a 40th birthday.'

I don't particularly envy the trips (though they sound nice), but I am damn tired to not being able to responsibly afford them even if I wanted to.  And have zero sympathy for the 'poor me' attitude coming from that client in particular.

[RFAAOATB]

I just had a meeting with a client yesterday.  One of the two partners in their business was away in Asia on a 7 week vacation.  Which led us, in conversation, to ask if the other partner had taken any trips.  'No, just a couple weeks in Mexico, and a weekend in Paris for a 40th birthday.'

I don't particularly envy the trips (though they sound nice), but I am damn tired to not being able to responsibly afford them even if I wanted to.  And have zero sympathy for the 'poor me' attitude coming from that client in particular.

Indeed, I'm full of envy for the people making less money than me going on nice vacations and struggling with responsibilities, and I'm envious for the people making more money than me going on nice vacations like it ain't no thang.

[RetiredAt63]

Two weeks in Mexico isn't a trip?  Across the Atlantic to Paris isn't a trip?  Where are their heads? 
And if I were going to Paris, I would want to spend more than a weekend there.

I think I spent my 40th birthday at home with an almost 1 year old.  Fun, but not Paris.

I just had a meeting with a client yesterday.  One of the two partners in their business was away in Asia on a 7 week vacation.  Which led us, in conversation, to ask if the other partner had taken any trips.  'No, just a couple weeks in Mexico, and a weekend in Paris for a 40th birthday.'

[coppertop]

This brings to mind a different partner who told me the lift tickets alone were $12,000 for the ski trip he took his adult kids on.  I must have had a shocked look on my face, because then he quickly said, "Well, you have to take them to those places so they'll spend time with you." 

I remember thinking, how sad.  Here this guy has more money than most of us will ever see in a lifetime, and he has to bribe his kids with ski trips to get them to spend time with him.  My kids are young adults too; and they certainly don't expect ski trips from me.  They spend time with me anyway.

[rocketpj]

Two weeks in Mexico isn't a trip?  Across the Atlantic to Paris isn't a trip?  Where are their heads? 
And if I were going to Paris, I would want to spend more than a weekend there.

I think I spent my 40th birthday at home with an almost 1 year old.  Fun, but not Paris.

Indeed, I had a BBQ with lots of friends and family on my 40th.  I wouldn't trade it for Paris.  But I would happily go spend a few months there at some point.

[zurich78]

Wrong thread.

[Dimitri]

Two weeks in Mexico isn't a trip?  Across the Atlantic to Paris isn't a trip?  Where are their heads? 
And if I were going to Paris, I would want to spend more than a weekend there.

I think I spent my 40th birthday at home with an almost 1 year old.  Fun, but not Paris.

I just had a meeting with a client yesterday.  One of the two partners in their business was away in Asia on a 7 week vacation.  Which led us, in conversation, to ask if the other partner had taken any trips.  'No, just a couple weeks in Mexico, and a weekend in Paris for a 40th birthday.'

A weekend in Paris is impressive.  But if you really want to make a statement you might just go there for breakfast.

As inelegant as snorting anything seems to be, most people who can afford cocaine are not the kinds of people one is likely to find in public hospitals or listed on police registers. More likely they are to be found coming out of the Athletic Club or the rear door of a Rolls. To snort cocaine is to make a statement. It is like flying to Paris for breakfast. These are people who raise the pedestrian procedure of inhaling to the formality of a tea ceremony. Chop up the crystals, divide the pile into ‘lines,’ one for each nostril–call it a one and one–and with a bank note of impressive denomination rolled into a straw… snort.

-- Snowblind: A Brief Career in the Cocaine Trade p. 73

[Blindsquirrel]

   ahhhh,  that brings me back to the break room at the plant I once worked at as a packaging supervisor.  Our site manager was in there bitching to me and my operators about paying $7000 for a new transmission for his Mercedes.  Given that most of the folks he was bitching to made between $10 and $14 an hour, it was an impressive display of douchebaggery.