Random thought of the day. I'm sure I've been told the "common wisdom" is that you can take a job with a lower salary and enjoy a better work-life balance, or go gung-ho for the inner city jobs and earn way more but sacrifice your quality of life.

Anyone else found the complete opposite? The higher the salary I've had over my career, generally the *better* the working environment and the more the employer seems to care for, and value its employees. Not universally true I'm sure, and perhaps I'm just lucky about where I pick, but I've certainly had way more "high stress" situations in some of my lower paid, rather than higher paid roles.

The stress I do unto myself already. I'd rather look for a company that pays me high and will not forget to continually pay me higher.

Lots of ways to look at this.

But very generally... I worked harder at the pizza place, and ass end tech support job I worked at as a kid and got paid jack squat.

Other jobs have since paid more and were far "easier".

Generally being poor involves more hard work ... for less.

Now as for equivalent jobs, yeah you could maybe find one that works you to the bone for big money while there may be one you're happier in where you make less / work less...but that also depends on the person.

I've had mixed results. My first software job paid very little but if I decided I was done for the day at 3, I could leave. And I wasn't expected to use PTO to go to the doctor. Of course it helps that I was usually ahead of schedule. I had one job that paid extremely well relative to my responsibilities and rarely worked a full 40 hours. Had twice as much PTO as I have now. But where I'm at now I make more but I have to explicitly refuse to work overtime. And most of my colleagues work 80 hour weeks.

@N00bPancakes I feel the same. I worked at a pizza place and made $5 an hour (technically we were waiters so they didn't have to pay minimum wage). And I worked third shift pouring concrete for a while. But if I took all of my manual labor jobs and combined the hourly rate, I'd still make significantly less than I do now. And I work less.

It's always a give and take. I'm the person who grabs the rope and tows the load out of frustration, so I always take the higher salary assuming my workload will be equivalent no matter where I am.

"ధనం మూలం ఇదం జగత్"
- its a saying in my religious texts

roughly translated to
"Money forms the root of this world"

@linus-torvald
As much as I'm not Christian, I tend to lean more, "the love of money is the root of all evil."

I definitely broke my ass the hardest at the smaller be place I worked at. There it was more likely that stuff "just had to be done by next week" and the only thing I got from trying to address that I'm working over 60 hours a week was an awkward change of subject.

My best paying job was horrible. My worst paying job was just plain fun and dicking around. My ok paying jobs have been ok for the most part.

I would rather have the stress of working late, rather than the stress of not having enough money for the future. That's pretty much modern markets exist.