She brings home the bacon, so who cares whether she’d be able to handle hard labor? 

If you live in NYC, you come to meet a lot of normal people with abnormal jobs. I have friends who work on Broadway and for celebrities. Heck, to my friends, I am a normal person who has an abnormal job! I have never met anyone else (except my coworkers) who answers the question, “What do you do?” With the answer, “I work for a meme company.” I also have my fair share of friends with super normal jobs you’d find anywhere: nurses, lawyers, and government employees live in the greatest city in the world in droves!

The more you learn about other people’s jobs, the more you might start to become resentful. I know so many people who make incredible salaries, work from home, and basically do nothing all day long. I don’t know if I would thrive in that kind of work environment long term, because I would feel like a phony who didn’t deserve the compensation I was getting for basically doing nothing. On the other hand, I don’t think I would say no to a job that paid me six figures to do absolutely nothing. You can get a lot done if you have no responsibilities and no boss looking over your shoulder!

You really can’t tell exactly how hard someone is working just by glancing at their computer screen. What they’re doing might look like nonsense, but they could be working on billion-dollar deals or collaborating with the pickiest people in the world on a project that cannot fail. You have to be honest with yourself that although someone else’s job might look easy, it’s probably not something that you could do yourself. Sometimes I’m jealous of my bestie because she naps on the floor of her office, but her job requires her to speak fluent German! I’m not qualified for her job, so maybe I should refrain from judging her office habits. 

It’s easy for blue-collar and white-collar workers to judge each other for not being cut out for the other’s work. In white-collar professions, acting the part of a professional who doesn’t say anything off-color is a huge part of the job. In blue-collar professions, you have to plan your life around the reality that you’ll probably seriously hurt yourself on the job, even just from wear and tear from years of working, and won’t be able to do your trade forever. Some people aren’t willing to be “fake” for 40 hours a week, and they find professions that reflect that. Others aren’t willing to put their bodies on the line to make a living, so they choose a field that fits. 

Anyone who tells somebody making $300K a year in any profession that they aren’t cut out for doing the exact opposite of what they’re doing clearly has some kind of complex about their work. Why would you complain when your wife is bringing home $300K a year? Who cares what her work looks like?