Why DONT you want to be well paid?

Wrong poster?

Yup sorry i'm new here.


Posted from TSR Mobile

This statement is generally reserved for one of two categories of individuals: The underclass and those who have under-performed in formal education.

I really find it hard to understand why people go for low paid jobs when they seem to have the intellectual capability to aim for industries which are relatively well-paid.

I see students who have the credentials and the profile potential to enter industries such as law, investment banking being etc.. but instead choose to go into places such as teaching. Are they just lazy?

So if you do intend to get out of bed for a job that pays less than £50k a year and you're smart (i.e flawless grades/credible uni/strong ECs), why? what's your motivation?

inb4, "it's my passion".

I'd like to become a teacher when I graduate. My sister earns £100k year working for Tesco. She's in work 9AM to 5PM every day and only has 2 weeks holiday a year.

Having been to so many places abroad (as a student), I don't think I could sacrifice my freedom by being constrained by a job like my sister. I value my freedom above money.

While I do enjoy teaching, I'm also attracted to the long holidays and although £30k is nothing to you, it's certainly enough to live in a nice apartment somewhere and go abroad travelling many times throughout the year.

Because office jobs are so boring they make you want to launch yourself out of the top floor window.

I always hear people saying office job is boring. This may be because I've just left college (basically spent 2 years behind computer). I wouldn't mind a office job (temporary ofcourse).


Posted from TSR Mobile

Imagine typing some numbers into Excel, correcting minor punctuation errors in presentation slides, sitting in endless meetings full of corporate babble about 'adding value' and the 'deliverables' for the day. Then imagine when you finish your work, you print it out, no one reads it, and all you do is store it in a file. Every 7 years, said file gets destroyed and a new one started.

That's office work.

And people do this full time?! Is the pay good?

I won't mind doing it as a part time job or temporary job but not full time.


Posted from TSR Mobile

You think as a teacher you won't work 9-5? That's laughable. My mum is a teacher. Her day starts at 6.30am when she leaves the house, and ends at 2am when she goes to bed after her planning. If you think being a teachers is easy think again.

Just because Anonymous has thrown it out there, I will also say I am heading towards IB.

If you're earning a ton of money then you are improving the world in some way. Who is anyone to say that someone is not improving the world if people are competing to pay them for what they are doing?

Actually I don't understand why I bothered replying to someone who says " If I went into an industry like Oil & Gas, I wouldn't be able to live with myself". You have benefited more from that industry than nearly every other. Do your parents drive? Exactly.

Also, some people may just want a high earning job so as to provide financial security for their family and to give their children/grandchildren a better life.

Posted from TSR Mobile

I'm hoping this is a troll but anyway...

Some people actually care about achieving something in their life. If you genuinely think so lowly of yourself that you're willing to spend your life on a career you don't particularly enjoy or a career that doesn't actually improve the world, I think that's incredibly sad. I am perfectly happy to accept that I am never going to earn much in my life if it allows me to pursue the subject I love (Earth Sciences) and almost more importantly, make a positive difference to the world (by improving our understanding of the planet and helping humans to live more sustainably and create a healthier future for our species and others). If I went into an industry like Oil & Gas, I wouldn't be able to live with myself. Who cares if you're earning a ton of money if you know that you're spending your life screwing over future generations? I cannot understand how people are happy to spend their lives dedicated to the detriment of human welfare, just for the sake of some kind of short-term consumerist satisfaction. Having a job you feel is important and a job you enjoy is an infinitely stronger motivator than a fat paycheck. If you genuinely mean what you said in your OP you'll dismiss this as a load of BS but it's true.

I'm in Oil & Gas. You know I support environmental policy the same as you do, but whether we like it or not we still rely on fossil fuels.

I've heard that excuse too many times. I respect you a lot, miser and I'm not going to start judging you because of your job but I think a lot of people justify going into the Oil & Gas sector by telling themselves that somebody has to do the job, so they might as well do it. If everyone thinks that then the sector is going to continue to do what it always has done - polluting the earth without any kind of regard for the health of the planet or humans, unless forced to by governments.

The solution to environmental problems is not going to come from the petroleum corporations and whilst it is true that an instant switch to renewables won't happen instantly, that switch is never going to happen unless the extractive industries that are causing most of the world's environmental damaged are forced to either change, or (in Naomi Klein's preference) destroyed. Neither of these moves are in the slightest bit favourable to that industry so as far as I'm concerned, people going into that industry are at the very least unresponsive bystanders. There was a very good scene in the film "The Corporation" where the film makers visit the then-CEO of Shell (if I remember correctly). He was a very pleasant person and genuinely looked nice and claimed that he cared about the planet - which might even have been true, possibly. Yet his life is still dedicated to leading a company that is one of the leading causes of the planet's degradation. I do not think "but we still need them" is an excuse, just as "but other countries have nukes" isn't an excuse for preventing nuclear disarmament.

I'm mainly targeting the above at people who go into the industry specifically because they want to get wealthy when there are plenty of other alternatives available to them. Obviously, there are plenty of people who are in areas where Oil & Gas is the only industry where you can get a job that pays a salary high enough that you can live off it and they clearly don't have a choice. The aim there is to provide those people with alternative, cleaner industries they can go into.

Ah, that's a very different kind of argument. Saying xyz will happen anyway so I might as well go along with it is a very morally weak argument in my opinion, and I don't accept that (for example, it can be applied to eating meat, and I am vegetarian). What I said was that we rely on fossil fuels, and we do - schools, hospitals, businesses, etc., can hardly function without them at present. In the future when we have a viable alternative, then sure, we should use that, but for now we use fossil fuels.

That's true. Change needs to come from advances in technology and policy. I don't think being in the industry makes a person complicit in stifling that technology and policy any more than purchasing oil or using products and services which make or rely on those purchases. If a person was a lobbyist, or involved in strategy, etc., then sure, but I don't think the same can be said for the average-joe employee. The argument that we need fossil fuels is true, unless we're willing to forgo everything that they presently provide us with until a viable replacement becomes available. And if we decided to do that, that would have to be a decision of policy.

I see. I've just kind of stumbled into it.

I really find it hard to understand why people go for low paid jobs when they seem to have the intellectual capability to aim for industries which are relatively well-paid.

I see students who have the credentials and the profile potential to enter industries such as law, investment banking being etc.. but instead choose to go into places such as teaching. Are they just lazy?

So if you do intend to get out of bed for a job that pays less than £50k a year and you're smart (i.e flawless grades/credible uni/strong ECs), why? what's your motivation?

inb4, "it's my passion".