I’ve been mulling over a discussion I stumbled across recently about people earning $300-500k+ annually. The original question was simple enough: what do these high earners actually do, and do they feel lucky or just like they’re doing $300k worth of work? What followed was one of the most honest conversations I’ve seen about success, privilege, and the role of luck in our careers.

The response that really stuck with me came from someone earning in that bracket who laid it all out: “Luck, timing and working hard.” They went on to acknowledge their good health, supportive family, lack of major misfortunes, being in the right place at the right time with the right boss, and marrying well. Most importantly, they recognised that while they work hard, “a lot of people work hard and they don’t earn that sort of money.”

Reading about someone’s experience with department-wide one-on-one meetings scheduled with HR present brought back memories that made my stomach churn. The scenario is painfully familiar to many in the corporate world: the carefully worded email, the mention of a “support person,” and that ominous phrase about “changes to the department.”

Let’s be honest - corporate communication around restructures and redundancies often feels like it’s designed to create maximum anxiety. The moment you see that calendar invite for a one-on-one with both HR and senior management, your mind starts racing. Having been through this dance myself during the tech downturn of the early 2000s, I know exactly how it feels.

Reading through online discussions about workplace satisfaction feels like wading through an ocean of discontent. The prevailing narrative seems to be that everyone absolutely loathes their job, their boss is terrible, and corporate culture is soul-crushing. But is this really the complete picture?

Recently, someone started an interesting discussion by admitting they actually enjoyed their job in risk management. The responses were fascinating - a mix of skepticism, agreement, and everything in between. It reminded me of conversations I’ve had over coffee at Hardware Lane, where friends would look at me oddly when I mentioned not hating my work in tech publishing.