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I was your age (24 or 25) making same salary as OP. A friend told me I can hit the milestone of 6 figure by 30. I thought he was crazy and never dreamt about 6 figure. I was happy making slightly over national average. But without trying too much, I must say by 30 I crossed over 100K including my small bonus. Without Bonus I am 5K shy off 6 figure. So its not unrealistic.
I had 2 promotion since I was 25 all in same company same department
I didn't say it was "impossible". Just rare you're going to be making 6 figures without working a ton of additional hours. Especially in today's workplace climate. Sure there are exceptions here and there when you may end up with that rare position of optimal hours and great pay but those are being a thing of the past. Especially as employers have found they can operate on a much smaller workforce saving money and slaving the poor schlubs that are leftover into the groun. People are doing the work of of 2-3 workers as its STILL an employer's market and in an employer's market, the employer gets to call the shots.
If you are making 6 figures and putting in 40 hour work weeks you are the definite EXCEPTION. Not the rule. The odds are very much against someone making 100K and working 40hrs/week.
You're not always going to be rewarded for going above and beyond either. Depends on the company and how much they value their employees. Most companies don't today. Some do. But its few and far between
You're wrong. It's not even all that rare. By the way, I didn't say 40hours/week. But 42-45? Sure thing. Would I invest an extra hour a day to make that big a difference in my salary? I did. It just didn't cut into my lifestyle one bit. And having sold one business and owned two, the number of times I made my employees work any considerable overtime could be counted on two hands.
The truth of the matter is if you're a clock watcher, the person in the sprinter's blocks at 4:59pm, then you miss out on a great deal. The planning for the next day. The rewarding conversations that take place after the phones stop ringing. The simple ability to collect your thoughts. I mean, that in itself is huge. If I wanted to get something done, I showed up at 6 a.m. rather than 8 a.m. I still walked out the door at 5, but I had been twice as productive that day.
You know how I made that kind of coin at the tender age or 28? I put myself out there. I studied my business. I came up with ideas independently. I was not afraid to bring those ideas forth in a fully-developed way. By the time I was 28, I was running a $3 million account and getting out the door by 6 at night. Was there the occasional late night? Sure. But, on average, it wasn't the 60-hour-week grind that you keep referring to. Not even close. Want to know how I did it and do it today?
- Meetings are the biggest time suck in the work day. That means eliminating as many as possible. I worked under the presumption that 90% of all meetings require 15 minutes or less and 99% of all meetings require less than 60. Even the weekly status meeting, the one with three pages of projects, was done in twenty minutes or less. If one item on the list required longer discussion, we didn't make the other 15 employees sit around listening to it get hashed out. So unless it's strategic planning, any meeting that lasts more than 60 minutes is a meeting with a disorganized planner.
- Never overcommit. And if you're facing a situation where you have two separate, competing priorities, sort out which one takes precedent and defer the other. It is very rare when something isn't negotiable.
- Show up on time and insist others do, too. If one person is ten minutes late to a meeting with five other people, that means a full hour of company time has been wasted.
- Never start a project until you have an actual strategy for completing it.
- Likewise, never start a project without knowing who the real decision maker is. And make sure you're talking to that person.
- Know the difference between what is actually important and what is not.
- Unless it is a full-blown emergency, such as a death or the client's factory burning down, there is zero excuse for a rush project. Zero. Show me a rush project and I'll show you someone who didn't do their job.
- Know what your time is worth, for time is the only thing you have to offer. That means knowing what to delegate and what to send to a vendor rather than doing yourself. Sometimes sending it downstream to someone else who can do it for less. I mean, there's no such as thing as work that's beneath you in a pinch. But if you're a manager, your chief job is to think at a higher level, not make copies.
So if, on the other hand, you're burning the midnight oil and not getting rewarded, the fault boils down to either a) you or b) the company. If it's A, it's because you're either not asking for help or you're not organized. And if it's B, then it goes back to being your fault for either not developing your professional skills to merit that kind of salary or not having the courage to either ask for more or change employers. And if one has been out in the workforce for ten years and still working those sweatshop hours, then that's a special brand of dumb.
You're wrong. It's not even all that rare. By the way, I didn't say 40hours/week. But 42-45? Sure thing. Would I invest an extra hour a day to make that big a difference in my salary? I did. It just didn't cut into my lifestyle one bit. And having sold one business and owned two, the number of times I made my employees work any considerable overtime could be counted on two hands.
The truth of the matter is if you're a clock watcher, the person in the sprinter's blocks at 4:59pm, then you miss out on a great deal. The planning for the next day. The rewarding conversations that take place after the phones stop ringing. The simple ability to collect your thoughts. I mean, that in itself is huge. If I wanted to get something done, I showed up at 6 a.m. rather than 8 a.m. I still walked out the door at 5, but I had been twice as productive that day.
You know how I made that kind of coin at the tender age or 28? I put myself out there. I studied my business. I came up with ideas independently. I was not afraid to bring those ideas forth in a fully-developed way. By the time I was 28, I was running a $3 million account and getting out the door by 6 at night. Was there the occasional late night? Sure. But, on average, it wasn't the 60-hour-week grind that you keep referring to. Not even close. Want to know how I did it and do it today?
- Meetings are the biggest time suck in the work day. That means eliminating as many as possible. I worked under the presumption that 90% of all meetings require 15 minutes or less and 99% of all meetings require less than 60. Even the weekly status meeting, the one with three pages of projects, was done in twenty minutes or less. If one item on the list required longer discussion, we didn't make the other 15 employees sit around listening to it get hashed out. So unless it's strategic planning, any meeting that lasts more than 60 minutes is a meeting with a disorganized planner.
B
- Never overcommit. And if you're facing a situation where you have two separate, competing priorities, sort out which one takes precedent and defer the other. It is very rare when something isn't negotiable.
- Show up on time and insist others do, too. If one person is ten minutes late to a meeting with five other people, that means a full hour of company time has been wasted.
- Never start a project until you have an actual strategy for completing it.
- Likewise, never start a project without knowing who the real decision maker is. And make sure you're talking to that person.
- Know the difference between what is actually important and what is not.
- Unless it is a full-blown emergency, such as a death or the client's factory burning down, there is zero excuse for a rush project. Zero. Show me a rush project and I'll show you someone who didn't do their job.
- Know what your time is worth, for time is the only thing you have to offer. That means knowing what to delegate and what to send to a vendor rather than doing yourself. Sometimes sending it downstream to someone else who can do it for less. I mean, there's no such as thing as work that's beneath you in a pinch. But if you're a manager, your chief job is to think at a higher level, not make copies.
So if, on the other hand, you're burning the midnight oil and not getting rewarded, the fault boils down to either a) you or b) the company. If it's A, it's because you're either not asking for help or you're not organized. And if it's B, then it goes back to being your fault for either not developing your professional skills to merit that kind of salary or not having the courage to either ask for more or change employers. And if one has been out in the workforce for ten years and still working those sweatshop hours, then that's a special brand of dumb.
If i am wrong, worker disengagement wouldn't be an all time high would it nor would turnover rates at companies be as astronomical as they are. The proof is is in the pudding as they say. What you mention is great in an optimal work environment but the REALITY is those don't exist to some great degree this day in age. Employers know they have the upper hand and have had since the recession of 07-08. As a result, they have all the power to work their employees to the bone at all levels. In terms of meetings, generally there is no choice. Those are mandatory.
In terms of "clock watchers". A lot of employees weren't always that way. At one point they went "above and beyond" the call of duty chances are found all their extra efforts, No one gave two hoots about, no one appreciated it, and it never led to any career growth. Can you blame employees for that? I can't.
Bottom line there are just more greedy, mismanaged, unscrupulous, TRAINWRECK of companies out there than there are legitimate ones, with proper management and better worker engagement and better employee morale.
Maybe some day, we will get back to the 90s-00s type of market where there was more power in the hands of the employee where employees have plentiful options of great positions with great hours coinciding with good work/life balance but I don't see it happening any time soon sadly.
Go to most private sector companies today, ask around with the employees you're going to get the same old answers:
1. Overworked
2. Too many hours
3. Not enough help (Operating on skeleton crews due to budget cuts, "More like Greed")
4. No direction (Mismanaged etc)
5. No work/life balance
Its the same crap everywhere in the private sector for the most part these days..
Sure, are they great jobs out there with good pay and great hours? A few. But not many. At least not like there used to be. Finding a great paying job with a standard 40-45 hour week today is like trying to find a golden unicorn that craps platinum.
Well, I started in 2001 at 22K (little less than 30K in today's dollars). Now, not counting my health insurance benefits and 403B match, I make about 53K. Since I work in academic scientific research, I MIGHT make 100K before I retire....at 125.
To make it worse, out of my 29K in increases over the past 15 years, almost 25K of that came in the first 6 years. Recession sucks. Our university cut out actual raises almost 10 years ago. Now, they give a university wide increase each year, if we are really lucky, it's 3%, but it's usually 1%.
If you are making 6 figures and putting in 40 hour work weeks you are the definite EXCEPTION. Not the rule. The odds are very much against someone making 100K and working 40hrs/week.
This is really going to blow your mind. I put in less than 30 hours most weeks. I get to work at 9:00 and I leave at 4:00. I don't think I have ever, even once, worked more than 50 hours in a week. I've worked for 5 different companies in my career, also, so it isn't as though I'm working for the only decent company out there or anything. The compliance field cannot find qualified people.
So, based on my experience, I have to say you are wrong. The only one here putting in crazy hours is my boss, and honestly, I think he enjoys it. It's totally unnecessary. No one is ever going to die in a compliance emergency. I don't even have the ability to check my work email from home without my laptop, and that thing never comes home with me.
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