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HOW much are you worth? How do you place a value on your life?
No, I’m not about to try and sell you life insurance. I’ve been mulling over this question thanks to a few random online searches (I’m not using that word in its modern sense – “Hey, man, that film was really, like, random!” – but rather in its dictionary sense: Having no specific pattern, purpose, or objective).
I was stabbing purposelessly at my mouse, trying to avoid some urgent work. This, in case you don’t understand it, is standard practice for writers. Unless you’re really, really good at the esoteric arts of procrastination, please don’t even think of becoming a writer.
You have to find a way to fill in all the time between, “Well, that’s nice, I’ve got two days to deadline!” and “&@#*!!@!! That’s the editor, DON’T ANSWER THE PHONE!”, which is the point at which all the best work is done.
One of the best writers I know had the whole of yesterday to lay down one thousand words. If you’d asked her why she was trying on clothes in colours she didn’t even like at 5.30pm, she probably wouldn’t have been able to articulate her drive to fill time.
But I happen to know that the words got done around pumpkin time, and I’d wager my incisors they’re absolutely brilliant ones, singly and collectively.
My laptop fidgeting took me to some of Tim Minchin’s comedy, a perfect way to while away hours as the deadline looms ever closer. After a while, I remembered another Australian singer who has a way with words, Kate Miller-Heidke.
Remember her? She was responsible for that wonderful song about Facebook friends, the one that has the chorus: “And now, you wanna be my friend on Facebook… are you ******* kidding me?”
Just after I’d listened to the song once more, I heard a radio host ask whether Lebo M had earned what he deserved for his role in developing The Lion King, one of the top showbiz earners of all time, a question phrased in such a way as to make it clear the host expected the answer No.
And I found myself wondering what Kate Miller-Heidke earned… or Tim Minchin… or the local singers and actors who got rave reviews years ago for Not The Midnight Mass… or Jonathan Roxmouth, who performed so wonderfully in Hats Off!, a tribute to Flanders and Swann which canny Joburgers flocked to see not long ago.
Perhaps those at the very top of their particular field make enough when the roles are pouring in to buy a house and stash something away for the future.
But most entertainers just get by – like the talented and hilarious man who made generations of children shriek with laughter but now, in his late fifties, wears suits and does PR, or the woman who reliably got secondary parts in all our musicals, who now does voice-overs for bank ads.
I know that the top income earners in South Africa are people like Whitey Basson at about R40m a year, and the execs from Richemont, BHP Billiton, SABMiller, Anglo and MTN.
If you look at the top-earning professions, you’ll see that it’s highly rewarding to be at the top end of financial services, oil and gas, mining and so on.
If you go into medicine, aim for neurosurgery or anaesthesiology, because other medics don’t even feature till about halfway through the list. Whitey Basson is earning about 600 times what your GP gets a month – and the GP’s earning double what the average physiotherapist gets.
And that’s why I ask how you value yourself. And how we value others.
Because while the top earning brackets are crammed with accountants and auditors and lawyers and marketing fundis (and please don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying these aren’t necessary roles worthy of at least some of the reward they get), the lists show something quite clearly: the people who make our lives liveable are on the low end – some of them very low indeed.
Those who care for our health, those who are supposed to keep us safe (police and firefighters, for example), those who educate our children, earn salaries that are chump change for a Richemont exec.
And those who enrich our lives fare as badly (except for the very, very rare few who manage to become stars or bestsellers of one kind or another): actors, singers, clowns, acrobats, writers of fact or fiction, artists, musicians, comedians, gardeners, potters… the people who create beauty, who delight, inspire and inform us.
“It’s a calling,” you’ll hear people say. Well, maybe that’s true. But why does having a calling to help abused children, or write up vital information that informs the way people live their lives, or sing songs that bring tears to the audience’s eyes, need to translate into a life of miserable financial stress?
I’m sure the average hospice nurse doesn’t find much comfort in the notion of being called to higher duty as she looks at her four-figure pay slip and wonders how to make the car payments this month.
We simply accept that this is the way life is. But should it be? Could we do things better?
Could we find a way to ensure that those who do much to provide the rich colours of our society benefit from some of its riches too?
- Fin24
*Mandi Smallhorne is a versatile journalist and editor. Views expressed are her own.
No, I’m not about to try and sell you life insurance. I’ve been mulling over this question thanks to a few random online searches (I’m not using that word in its modern sense – “Hey, man, that film was really, like, random!” – but rather in its dictionary sense: Having no specific pattern, purpose, or objective).
I was stabbing purposelessly at my mouse, trying to avoid some urgent work. This, in case you don’t understand it, is standard practice for writers. Unless you’re really, really good at the esoteric arts of procrastination, please don’t even think of becoming a writer.
You have to find a way to fill in all the time between, “Well, that’s nice, I’ve got two days to deadline!” and “&@#*!!@!! That’s the editor, DON’T ANSWER THE PHONE!”, which is the point at which all the best work is done.
One of the best writers I know had the whole of yesterday to lay down one thousand words. If you’d asked her why she was trying on clothes in colours she didn’t even like at 5.30pm, she probably wouldn’t have been able to articulate her drive to fill time.
But I happen to know that the words got done around pumpkin time, and I’d wager my incisors they’re absolutely brilliant ones, singly and collectively.
My laptop fidgeting took me to some of Tim Minchin’s comedy, a perfect way to while away hours as the deadline looms ever closer. After a while, I remembered another Australian singer who has a way with words, Kate Miller-Heidke.
Remember her? She was responsible for that wonderful song about Facebook friends, the one that has the chorus: “And now, you wanna be my friend on Facebook… are you ******* kidding me?”
Just after I’d listened to the song once more, I heard a radio host ask whether Lebo M had earned what he deserved for his role in developing The Lion King, one of the top showbiz earners of all time, a question phrased in such a way as to make it clear the host expected the answer No.
And I found myself wondering what Kate Miller-Heidke earned… or Tim Minchin… or the local singers and actors who got rave reviews years ago for Not The Midnight Mass… or Jonathan Roxmouth, who performed so wonderfully in Hats Off!, a tribute to Flanders and Swann which canny Joburgers flocked to see not long ago.
Perhaps those at the very top of their particular field make enough when the roles are pouring in to buy a house and stash something away for the future.
But most entertainers just get by – like the talented and hilarious man who made generations of children shriek with laughter but now, in his late fifties, wears suits and does PR, or the woman who reliably got secondary parts in all our musicals, who now does voice-overs for bank ads.
I know that the top income earners in South Africa are people like Whitey Basson at about R40m a year, and the execs from Richemont, BHP Billiton, SABMiller, Anglo and MTN.
If you look at the top-earning professions, you’ll see that it’s highly rewarding to be at the top end of financial services, oil and gas, mining and so on.
If you go into medicine, aim for neurosurgery or anaesthesiology, because other medics don’t even feature till about halfway through the list. Whitey Basson is earning about 600 times what your GP gets a month – and the GP’s earning double what the average physiotherapist gets.
And that’s why I ask how you value yourself. And how we value others.
Because while the top earning brackets are crammed with accountants and auditors and lawyers and marketing fundis (and please don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying these aren’t necessary roles worthy of at least some of the reward they get), the lists show something quite clearly: the people who make our lives liveable are on the low end – some of them very low indeed.
Those who care for our health, those who are supposed to keep us safe (police and firefighters, for example), those who educate our children, earn salaries that are chump change for a Richemont exec.
And those who enrich our lives fare as badly (except for the very, very rare few who manage to become stars or bestsellers of one kind or another): actors, singers, clowns, acrobats, writers of fact or fiction, artists, musicians, comedians, gardeners, potters… the people who create beauty, who delight, inspire and inform us.
“It’s a calling,” you’ll hear people say. Well, maybe that’s true. But why does having a calling to help abused children, or write up vital information that informs the way people live their lives, or sing songs that bring tears to the audience’s eyes, need to translate into a life of miserable financial stress?
I’m sure the average hospice nurse doesn’t find much comfort in the notion of being called to higher duty as she looks at her four-figure pay slip and wonders how to make the car payments this month.
We simply accept that this is the way life is. But should it be? Could we do things better?
Could we find a way to ensure that those who do much to provide the rich colours of our society benefit from some of its riches too?
- Fin24
*Mandi Smallhorne is a versatile journalist and editor. Views expressed are her own.
