'AITA for reminding my friend he makes 8 times more than me?' 'I even housesit for FREE.'
"AITA for reminding my friend he makes 8 times more than me?"
Background: My job doesn't pay the best but I love the work, I obviously would like to be paid more. I was a listening ear to my friend a few years ago when he was looking for jobs. I heard him list all the pros and cons of each option, including the salary. So I know what his starting pay was at the one he settled on, it is literally 8 times more than my annual salary.
Our friendship is not influenced at all by our salary differences. We always split the bill, never pay for each other except birthdays, all of which has worked well. I even housesit (he has a cat) for him for free when he is away.
Now that he is settled into his job, a job he will probably have until retirement, he has been complaining about it to me more and more. I listen but I can't say I completely sympathize, mainly because I know I would happily deal with those problems if I got paid like him.
He definitely is aware of how little I get paid because he has tried to help me look for new jobs and I have commented on if the jobs paid more or less than my current salary. We do not work in the same fields.
The incident: When we were hanging out, we discussed about wanting to go to this particular thing on a weekday/workday. I brought up how my job is pretty flexible and I can be available after a certain time. He says: wow you are so lucky, I could never.
Then we kept discussing this thing, and he kept reiterating how lucky I was and how it sucks he can't. I eventually got annoyed and said: dude you literally make 8 times more than me, would you say to an unemployed person you are so lucky to have free time? After that things got awkward and he hasn't been messaging me. AITA for reminding him of that?
Later, OP made some edits for clarity:
By 8x I mean if I was making 30k a year, he is making 240k a year: my job isn't sunshine and butterflies, people who do exactly what I do have been actively trying to unionize. I just chose to look on the bright side but there are lots of complaints about my job.
Also it is not as flexible as commenters are perceiving it is. The flexibility comes from my good relationship with the boss (which I had to work super hard to cultivate in the first few years), and coming in on the weekends to make up for the work.
Here's what people had to say about this one:
Clubhouse9 said:
Regardless of being the AH or not, the lesson here is money isn’t even in the top 5 things that make a job great. Of course everyone wants more money, but often the trade off of time, flexibility and autonomy are far more important than maximizing earnings.
Street-Length9871 said:
Soft YTA because you are not unemployed. Just because he makes a lot of money does not mean he is happy. You are a little jealous of his salary and he is a little jealous of your happiness and free time. That is natural. He was calling you lucky and you acted extremely offended.
Why not just say "yes, that is one of the perks of the job I love" rather than snap at him and compare yourself to someone unemployed. Your response said, "you don't have any right to complain, you are loaded." and that is a salary difference influencing your friendship.
twelvedayslate said:
Would you have the same response if you didn’t know your friend’s salary? I’m betting that while his salary may be cushy, his job is probably really demanding. You sound jealous of your friend. YTA.
chiefVetinari said:
NTA I make a lot more than one of my friends and I'm self aware enough to realize that there would be certain types of job complaints he wouldn't appreciate.
ColdAndGrumpy said:
NTA. I've had jobs with bad pay and long stretches of unemployment, and I've heard plenty of stupid comments like that (especially the "free time" type). Griping about your job is fair enough, but your friend was a bit self-involved with that comment. It happens, no big deal. The reality check was warranted, imo.
GoodTodd1970 said:
YTA. He's allowed to be frustrated with his job even if he makes 8 times your annual salary. You're negating his feelings with your response, which is not a thing friends should do to one another. You said your friendship has not been influenced by the income difference. Well, now it is because you made your empathy toward your friend contingent on his income.