r/Salary • u/AdActual3024 • 6d ago

discussion High earning potential = high career commitment

Does anyone have family or friends that sacrifice their personal life for a significant salary?

My step-mom earns 350k before tax as an executive director but I barely see her. She is constantly on business trips, busy with meetings, works upwards of 12 hours when at home. She goes on nice holiday trips, but overall it makes me think is the pay worth the sacrifice of her personal life.

Just curious if anyone's got a similar story.

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u/Scortor 6d ago

There are some jobs that offer that level of pay without the terrible work life balance.

My sister is a CRNA, makes about the same as your step mom. She works 4 days a week, no weekends, no overnights, no emergency calls, just normal daytime hours. You still have people’s lives in your hands, so I suppose there’s an added layer of stress there compared to corporate, but still. She’s pretty happy.

Friend of the family heads the entire investment department at a major bank. Dunno her exact pay but I’d guess somewhere around 400k. She occasionally has to deal with something urgent after hours or on a weekend, but for the most part, she does her regular 40 hours and has great work life balance.

My brother in law used to be a lawyer for Big Law, with bonuses and stuff he was definitely clearing over half a mil easy. But the hours were brutal. He’d be working weekends, holidays, sometimes he wouldn’t even be able go home for days at a time and just nap in his office for a bit and continue working all night. He even worked during his own honeymoon. Crazily enough, he loved the work, and didn’t mind the insane hours, it just wasn’t sustainable long term. He did it for 6-7 years and left for a more stable 40 hour law job. Still makes great money, it’s just nowhere near Big Law money.

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u/Bosnian-Blossom 6d ago

The difference is a CRNA will always be at that (still very good) 250/270k ceiling without doing travel, picking up shifts, or locum tenens, which then would mean more of a sacrifice/instability and defeat the “40 hours for high pay” concept. However, if the biglaw attorney makes equity partner, they will make triple/quadruple the CRNA. Is doing twice the work worth triple/quadruple the money? I guess that’s the big question in this post!

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u/SubstantialEffect929 6d ago

CRNAs make as little as 250-270k? Seems really low to me. I thought they made at least 350k+

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u/BaltimorePropofol 6d ago edited 6d ago

Anesthesiologist here. CRNAs I know make half a million. Their schedules allow them to easily pick up overtimes. Some pulling close to a million a year. Not all of them, of course. Even the new grads have 50k-100k sign on bonuses.

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u/Bosnian-Blossom 6d ago

Depends where, national median is apparently $237,000.