Anonymous
Post 04/25/2026 18:45     Subject: Were lots of DC-area professionals overpaid?

Anonymous wrote:My husband has always contended that salaries never make any sense and increasingly I agree with him.

We have a friend who is a state-level administrator for bridges. So she oversees hundreds of employees and her division is responsible for the construction, maintenance, and replacement of every state-owned bridge. She makes 200k and is restricted by statute from making more.

We have another friend who trades utilities? Not totally clear on his exact job, but it's finance related to the trading of like power and utilities? He has a staff of 3-4 people and makes 7 figures.

Does this make sense? Not really. They work similar hours. The state administrator is actually more educated.

But salaries don't always make sense. They are usually dictated by how close you are to the levers of capitalism, and someone working in finance is right in the mix of those levers, and someone working in a government job overseeing infrastructure is viewed within our economy as just running a cost center.

It never makes sense.

I think this is pretty accurate in a modern economy. But most people read the first few chapters of their microeconomics textbook and think they know everything.
Anonymous
Post 04/25/2026 16:10     Subject: Were lots of DC-area professionals overpaid?

Anonymous wrote:My husband has always contended that salaries never make any sense and increasingly I agree with him.

We have a friend who is a state-level administrator for bridges. So she oversees hundreds of employees and her division is responsible for the construction, maintenance, and replacement of every state-owned bridge. She makes 200k and is restricted by statute from making more.

We have another friend who trades utilities? Not totally clear on his exact job, but it's finance related to the trading of like power and utilities? He has a staff of 3-4 people and makes 7 figures.

Does this make sense? Not really. They work similar hours. The state administrator is actually more educated.

But salaries don't always make sense. They are usually dictated by how close you are to the levers of capitalism, and someone working in finance is right in the mix of those levers, and someone working in a government job overseeing infrastructure is viewed within our economy as just running a cost center.

It never makes sense.


You could make the argument that most Fortune 500 CEO's are overpaid, but by the logic of some in this thread if the company is willing to pay it, especially in an in-demand city, then they are, by definition, not overpaid. I'm sure that one will go over real well.
Anonymous
Post 04/25/2026 13:51     Subject: Were lots of DC-area professionals overpaid?

My husband has always contended that salaries never make any sense and increasingly I agree with him.

We have a friend who is a state-level administrator for bridges. So she oversees hundreds of employees and her division is responsible for the construction, maintenance, and replacement of every state-owned bridge. She makes 200k and is restricted by statute from making more.

We have another friend who trades utilities? Not totally clear on his exact job, but it's finance related to the trading of like power and utilities? He has a staff of 3-4 people and makes 7 figures.

Does this make sense? Not really. They work similar hours. The state administrator is actually more educated.

But salaries don't always make sense. They are usually dictated by how close you are to the levers of capitalism, and someone working in finance is right in the mix of those levers, and someone working in a government job overseeing infrastructure is viewed within our economy as just running a cost center.

It never makes sense.
Anonymous
Post 04/25/2026 13:44     Subject: Were lots of DC-area professionals overpaid?

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:A nonprofit? Wasn't USAID an agency? What am I missing?



OP are you ok? USAID isn't a nonprofit.

What was she doing for $272K a year that someone else couldn't do for say $120K or even $100K?

I do belive there are a ton of people being way overpaid in large cities like DC.

Do you live in DC? Do you have any idea the COL here? 100k would be criminal exploitation for an educated, experienced employee.


Based on what? Credentialism alone shouldn’t guarantee you a high paying job. What do you DO that commands a high salary? If you are fungible or easily replaceable for cheaper, tough luck.


$100k would get you someone with four years of experience here. You seem completely unaware of the job market here.


You are still focused on credentialism and rubrics rather than the value of what she actually DOES. You've been lost in the sauce for too long, you can't even see it. The whole premise of the thread is asking whether her skillset and was she DOES was actually worth it. Nobody is entitled to a high salary just because they went to some nice-sounding school and racked up years of service doing not much of anything.


No, I’m actually not “lost in the sauce,” I’m just aware that you can’t find someone to do senior-level nonprofit work in DC for $100k, which is laughable. Senior roles in nonprofits have significant responsibilities that take time and experience to be able to do. You can’t find someone that can do that for $100k. It’s not hypothetical. I know nonprofits here. No one is getting someone with the relevant skills and experience to manage large budgets and teams for $100k.

Again, you clearly don’t live here so not sure why you are commenting on what the job market is like.


You are lost in the sauce and still talking about an "job market" based on credentialism, cronyism and gatekeeping within a circumscribed, non-transferrable bubble. I know this world well and a lot of the senior people are absolutely useless, but they hid out in government, NGOs or contractors. It was turtles all the way down; the work isn't hard. The issue now is the rug has been pulled out from under that. What you are calling "skill" is really only germane to a niche that has been decimated and not really transferrable. It would appear that "program management" "strategic planning" and "budgeting" aren't as valuable as those of you lost in the sauce thought they were.


Imagine thinking "budgeting" was an irrelevant job skill. Have you ever run anything larger than a lemonade stand?

The companies (NGOs) collapsed and melted away. That doesn't mean the jobs these people were doing were fake or unskilled. After the 2008 crisis nobody declared "banking" a niche skill without value, even though bankers couldn't get jobs. When a tech company collapses and a lot of programmers are out of work all at once, you don't say they were overpaid before because they can't find jobs now.

PP has a problem with "government, NGOs, and contractors" which is a huge swath of the economy to declare fake. Tells us PP, which jobs qualify as "real" jobs - just the one you do?


You still don't get it. The reason it's in quotes is because they are not actually that skilled in it. Many places are notoriously, horribly mismanaged and that is being exposed. Not exactly masters of resource management, innovation and lean service delivery models here.

How do you know this?


I've seen it up close and personal; seen these organizations waste tons flying in consultants from out-of-country instead of hiring cheaper locals who know the country dynamics and political economy better; seen these workers prioritize racking up hotel and flight points and planning and timing itineraries to visit their friends abroad on the government dime; seen the horrible morale, favoritism and cronyism that drives actual useful talents away; seen them waste thousands if not millions on drafting "reports" that go nowhere and do nothing but give the illusion of activity; seen them stacking boards with personal friends to limit the accountability mechanism on how the place is actually run. I also know people who are executive directors who complain about how useless and entitled a lot of the workers in this sector are; whilst still having outsized self images regarding the gifts they bring to the table. T'hey'll only whisper it though, because many of these things are not to be spoken out loud.

I'm sorry but citing some organizations that are themselves part of the non-profit industrial complex (which, btw, is benchmarking against other non-profits) is not some magic answer as to why these "skills" are transferrable and command a high wage outside of said sector. Some are good, but a lot are up to these shenanigans and are crumbling under the weight of even the tiniest bit of scrutiny, which they've skirted for so long. If you are in a closed ecosystem, it does not mean those "skills" stand up to scrutiny when you actually have to execute and compete under pressure and threat of being terminated rather than coasting on the largesse of a single, fat benefactor. Citing tech workers and bankers is also dumb. People assume those jobs knowing layoffs are part of the game and the jig could be up at any given moment. No one is writing reams of think pieces profiling Jared the Managing Director from Morgan Stanley or Chad the Principal Engineer from Meta and lamenting the difficulties of his job hunt and begging for sympathy. Plus, a lot of software engineers out of a job simply freelance or coast until they find a job of their liking because...their skills are in demand.


Tell us your name and job title, or STFU and go back to watching Fox News in your basement.


Convincing...

Sorry you are so bothered by a little bit of scrutiny.


Says the unemployed Russian troll…
Anonymous
Post 04/25/2026 12:58     Subject: Were lots of DC-area professionals overpaid?

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:A nonprofit? Wasn't USAID an agency? What am I missing?



OP are you ok? USAID isn't a nonprofit.

What was she doing for $272K a year that someone else couldn't do for say $120K or even $100K?

I do belive there are a ton of people being way overpaid in large cities like DC.

Do you live in DC? Do you have any idea the COL here? 100k would be criminal exploitation for an educated, experienced employee.


Based on what? Credentialism alone shouldn’t guarantee you a high paying job. What do you DO that commands a high salary? If you are fungible or easily replaceable for cheaper, tough luck.


$100k would get you someone with four years of experience here. You seem completely unaware of the job market here.


You are still focused on credentialism and rubrics rather than the value of what she actually DOES. You've been lost in the sauce for too long, you can't even see it. The whole premise of the thread is asking whether her skillset and was she DOES was actually worth it. Nobody is entitled to a high salary just because they went to some nice-sounding school and racked up years of service doing not much of anything.


No, I’m actually not “lost in the sauce,” I’m just aware that you can’t find someone to do senior-level nonprofit work in DC for $100k, which is laughable. Senior roles in nonprofits have significant responsibilities that take time and experience to be able to do. You can’t find someone that can do that for $100k. It’s not hypothetical. I know nonprofits here. No one is getting someone with the relevant skills and experience to manage large budgets and teams for $100k.

Again, you clearly don’t live here so not sure why you are commenting on what the job market is like.


You are lost in the sauce and still talking about an "job market" based on credentialism, cronyism and gatekeeping within a circumscribed, non-transferrable bubble. I know this world well and a lot of the senior people are absolutely useless, but they hid out in government, NGOs or contractors. It was turtles all the way down; the work isn't hard. The issue now is the rug has been pulled out from under that. What you are calling "skill" is really only germane to a niche that has been decimated and not really transferrable. It would appear that "program management" "strategic planning" and "budgeting" aren't as valuable as those of you lost in the sauce thought they were.


Imagine thinking "budgeting" was an irrelevant job skill. Have you ever run anything larger than a lemonade stand?

The companies (NGOs) collapsed and melted away. That doesn't mean the jobs these people were doing were fake or unskilled. After the 2008 crisis nobody declared "banking" a niche skill without value, even though bankers couldn't get jobs. When a tech company collapses and a lot of programmers are out of work all at once, you don't say they were overpaid before because they can't find jobs now.

PP has a problem with "government, NGOs, and contractors" which is a huge swath of the economy to declare fake. Tells us PP, which jobs qualify as "real" jobs - just the one you do?


You still don't get it. The reason it's in quotes is because they are not actually that skilled in it. Many places are notoriously, horribly mismanaged and that is being exposed. Not exactly masters of resource management, innovation and lean service delivery models here.

How do you know this?


Citing tech workers and bankers is also dumb. People assume those jobs knowing layoffs are part of the game and the jig could be up at any given moment. No one is writing reams of think pieces profiling Jared the Managing Director from Morgan Stanley or Chad the Principal Engineer from Meta and lamenting the difficulties of his job hunt and begging for sympathy. Plus, a lot of software engineers out of a job simply freelance or coast until they find a job of their liking because...their skills are in demand.


DP but no, it’s actually not dumb. If your argument is that an inability to find other work when your industry gets wrecked means you don’t have valuable skills, then that applies to other industries where it has happened too. I’m old enough to remember what the job market was like after 2008 for people in finance and it was terrible. It didn’t mean they were suddenly all useless-skilled deadweight. Same thing happened with more tech more recently, and with law in the early 2010s as a knock-on effect of the financial crisis.

But Musk fanboys are too young or too brainwashed to know any of those things.


It is dumb because those industries are not comparable. Are you really going to make the simultaneous case that an industry and the skills a part thereof are super, duper valuable and transferrable and simultaneously that they can be wiped out with a single tweet? Convincing...

Yes. Multiple people have explained this to you.


Boom, bust cycles are part of tech and banking and expected in those industries, which are subject to venture capitalists, market forces, hostile activist investors, and all sorts of other scrutiny. USAID NGO's worry about...maybe a congressional hearing that no one pays attention to or the "Washington Post test"


None of this is accurate - neither your description of the forces affecting tech and banking, nor your description of pressures in NGO work. You have no idea what you're talking about. Not that it will stop you.

I think we know the actual problem is that someone - specifically a woman - earned more than you do. Just own it.


All you have is ad-homs. Give it a rest.
Anonymous
Post 04/25/2026 12:54     Subject: Were lots of DC-area professionals overpaid?

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:A nonprofit? Wasn't USAID an agency? What am I missing?



OP are you ok? USAID isn't a nonprofit.

What was she doing for $272K a year that someone else couldn't do for say $120K or even $100K?

I do belive there are a ton of people being way overpaid in large cities like DC.

Do you live in DC? Do you have any idea the COL here? 100k would be criminal exploitation for an educated, experienced employee.


Based on what? Credentialism alone shouldn’t guarantee you a high paying job. What do you DO that commands a high salary? If you are fungible or easily replaceable for cheaper, tough luck.


$100k would get you someone with four years of experience here. You seem completely unaware of the job market here.


You are still focused on credentialism and rubrics rather than the value of what she actually DOES. You've been lost in the sauce for too long, you can't even see it. The whole premise of the thread is asking whether her skillset and was she DOES was actually worth it. Nobody is entitled to a high salary just because they went to some nice-sounding school and racked up years of service doing not much of anything.


No, I’m actually not “lost in the sauce,” I’m just aware that you can’t find someone to do senior-level nonprofit work in DC for $100k, which is laughable. Senior roles in nonprofits have significant responsibilities that take time and experience to be able to do. You can’t find someone that can do that for $100k. It’s not hypothetical. I know nonprofits here. No one is getting someone with the relevant skills and experience to manage large budgets and teams for $100k.

Again, you clearly don’t live here so not sure why you are commenting on what the job market is like.


You are lost in the sauce and still talking about an "job market" based on credentialism, cronyism and gatekeeping within a circumscribed, non-transferrable bubble. I know this world well and a lot of the senior people are absolutely useless, but they hid out in government, NGOs or contractors. It was turtles all the way down; the work isn't hard. The issue now is the rug has been pulled out from under that. What you are calling "skill" is really only germane to a niche that has been decimated and not really transferrable. It would appear that "program management" "strategic planning" and "budgeting" aren't as valuable as those of you lost in the sauce thought they were.


Imagine thinking "budgeting" was an irrelevant job skill. Have you ever run anything larger than a lemonade stand?

The companies (NGOs) collapsed and melted away. That doesn't mean the jobs these people were doing were fake or unskilled. After the 2008 crisis nobody declared "banking" a niche skill without value, even though bankers couldn't get jobs. When a tech company collapses and a lot of programmers are out of work all at once, you don't say they were overpaid before because they can't find jobs now.

PP has a problem with "government, NGOs, and contractors" which is a huge swath of the economy to declare fake. Tells us PP, which jobs qualify as "real" jobs - just the one you do?


You still don't get it. The reason it's in quotes is because they are not actually that skilled in it. Many places are notoriously, horribly mismanaged and that is being exposed. Not exactly masters of resource management, innovation and lean service delivery models here.

How do you know this?


Citing tech workers and bankers is also dumb. People assume those jobs knowing layoffs are part of the game and the jig could be up at any given moment. No one is writing reams of think pieces profiling Jared the Managing Director from Morgan Stanley or Chad the Principal Engineer from Meta and lamenting the difficulties of his job hunt and begging for sympathy. Plus, a lot of software engineers out of a job simply freelance or coast until they find a job of their liking because...their skills are in demand.


DP but no, it’s actually not dumb. If your argument is that an inability to find other work when your industry gets wrecked means you don’t have valuable skills, then that applies to other industries where it has happened too. I’m old enough to remember what the job market was like after 2008 for people in finance and it was terrible. It didn’t mean they were suddenly all useless-skilled deadweight. Same thing happened with more tech more recently, and with law in the early 2010s as a knock-on effect of the financial crisis.

But Musk fanboys are too young or too brainwashed to know any of those things.


It is dumb because those industries are not comparable. Are you really going to make the simultaneous case that an industry and the skills a part thereof are super, duper valuable and transferrable and simultaneously that they can be wiped out with a single tweet? Convincing...

Yes. Multiple people have explained this to you.


Boom, bust cycles are part of tech and banking and expected in those industries, which are subject to venture capitalists, market forces, hostile activist investors, and all sorts of other scrutiny. USAID NGO's worry about...maybe a congressional hearing that no one pays attention to or the "Washington Post test"


None of this is accurate - neither your description of the forces affecting tech and banking, nor your description of pressures in NGO work. You have no idea what you're talking about. Not that it will stop you.

I think we know the actual problem is that someone - specifically a woman - earned more than you do. Just own it.
Anonymous
Post 04/25/2026 12:39     Subject: Were lots of DC-area professionals overpaid?

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:A nonprofit? Wasn't USAID an agency? What am I missing?



OP are you ok? USAID isn't a nonprofit.

What was she doing for $272K a year that someone else couldn't do for say $120K or even $100K?

I do belive there are a ton of people being way overpaid in large cities like DC.

Do you live in DC? Do you have any idea the COL here? 100k would be criminal exploitation for an educated, experienced employee.


Based on what? Credentialism alone shouldn’t guarantee you a high paying job. What do you DO that commands a high salary? If you are fungible or easily replaceable for cheaper, tough luck.


$100k would get you someone with four years of experience here. You seem completely unaware of the job market here.


You are still focused on credentialism and rubrics rather than the value of what she actually DOES. You've been lost in the sauce for too long, you can't even see it. The whole premise of the thread is asking whether her skillset and was she DOES was actually worth it. Nobody is entitled to a high salary just because they went to some nice-sounding school and racked up years of service doing not much of anything.


No, I’m actually not “lost in the sauce,” I’m just aware that you can’t find someone to do senior-level nonprofit work in DC for $100k, which is laughable. Senior roles in nonprofits have significant responsibilities that take time and experience to be able to do. You can’t find someone that can do that for $100k. It’s not hypothetical. I know nonprofits here. No one is getting someone with the relevant skills and experience to manage large budgets and teams for $100k.

Again, you clearly don’t live here so not sure why you are commenting on what the job market is like.


You are lost in the sauce and still talking about an "job market" based on credentialism, cronyism and gatekeeping within a circumscribed, non-transferrable bubble. I know this world well and a lot of the senior people are absolutely useless, but they hid out in government, NGOs or contractors. It was turtles all the way down; the work isn't hard. The issue now is the rug has been pulled out from under that. What you are calling "skill" is really only germane to a niche that has been decimated and not really transferrable. It would appear that "program management" "strategic planning" and "budgeting" aren't as valuable as those of you lost in the sauce thought they were.


Imagine thinking "budgeting" was an irrelevant job skill. Have you ever run anything larger than a lemonade stand?

The companies (NGOs) collapsed and melted away. That doesn't mean the jobs these people were doing were fake or unskilled. After the 2008 crisis nobody declared "banking" a niche skill without value, even though bankers couldn't get jobs. When a tech company collapses and a lot of programmers are out of work all at once, you don't say they were overpaid before because they can't find jobs now.

PP has a problem with "government, NGOs, and contractors" which is a huge swath of the economy to declare fake. Tells us PP, which jobs qualify as "real" jobs - just the one you do?


You still don't get it. The reason it's in quotes is because they are not actually that skilled in it. Many places are notoriously, horribly mismanaged and that is being exposed. Not exactly masters of resource management, innovation and lean service delivery models here.

How do you know this?


Citing tech workers and bankers is also dumb. People assume those jobs knowing layoffs are part of the game and the jig could be up at any given moment. No one is writing reams of think pieces profiling Jared the Managing Director from Morgan Stanley or Chad the Principal Engineer from Meta and lamenting the difficulties of his job hunt and begging for sympathy. Plus, a lot of software engineers out of a job simply freelance or coast until they find a job of their liking because...their skills are in demand.


DP but no, it’s actually not dumb. If your argument is that an inability to find other work when your industry gets wrecked means you don’t have valuable skills, then that applies to other industries where it has happened too. I’m old enough to remember what the job market was like after 2008 for people in finance and it was terrible. It didn’t mean they were suddenly all useless-skilled deadweight. Same thing happened with more tech more recently, and with law in the early 2010s as a knock-on effect of the financial crisis.

But Musk fanboys are too young or too brainwashed to know any of those things.


+1. No one is inherently safe from this.

The pushback against well-paid former USAID or USAID-adjacent people isn't because they didn't spend a decade in grad school and training. Neither did software developers. And it's not because they're taxpayer-funded. Doctors are not just highly-subsidized, their wages are artificially high because of the AMA labor cartel. It's because you dislike their politics and you assume you're smarter and more competent than them based on about the same level of information as the people who killed USAID had.


No. Some of the DOGE guys that killed USAID programs were absolute idiots devoid of any relevant experience for the job they were tasked with doing. Didn't one idiot kill forestry and biological conservation programs because they mentioned "diversity" of the ecosystem lol.

These folks just need to stop with the entitlement, sanctimony and sleight-of-hand regarding the "impact" of many of these programs and their shoddy M&E practices. Everyone knows that bankers, lawyers and tech bros are a-holes.
Anonymous
Post 04/25/2026 12:39     Subject: Were lots of DC-area professionals overpaid?

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:A nonprofit? Wasn't USAID an agency? What am I missing?



OP are you ok? USAID isn't a nonprofit.

What was she doing for $272K a year that someone else couldn't do for say $120K or even $100K?

I do belive there are a ton of people being way overpaid in large cities like DC.

Do you live in DC? Do you have any idea the COL here? 100k would be criminal exploitation for an educated, experienced employee.


Based on what? Credentialism alone shouldn’t guarantee you a high paying job. What do you DO that commands a high salary? If you are fungible or easily replaceable for cheaper, tough luck.


$100k would get you someone with four years of experience here. You seem completely unaware of the job market here.


You are still focused on credentialism and rubrics rather than the value of what she actually DOES. You've been lost in the sauce for too long, you can't even see it. The whole premise of the thread is asking whether her skillset and was she DOES was actually worth it. Nobody is entitled to a high salary just because they went to some nice-sounding school and racked up years of service doing not much of anything.


No, I’m actually not “lost in the sauce,” I’m just aware that you can’t find someone to do senior-level nonprofit work in DC for $100k, which is laughable. Senior roles in nonprofits have significant responsibilities that take time and experience to be able to do. You can’t find someone that can do that for $100k. It’s not hypothetical. I know nonprofits here. No one is getting someone with the relevant skills and experience to manage large budgets and teams for $100k.

Again, you clearly don’t live here so not sure why you are commenting on what the job market is like.


You are lost in the sauce and still talking about an "job market" based on credentialism, cronyism and gatekeeping within a circumscribed, non-transferrable bubble. I know this world well and a lot of the senior people are absolutely useless, but they hid out in government, NGOs or contractors. It was turtles all the way down; the work isn't hard. The issue now is the rug has been pulled out from under that. What you are calling "skill" is really only germane to a niche that has been decimated and not really transferrable. It would appear that "program management" "strategic planning" and "budgeting" aren't as valuable as those of you lost in the sauce thought they were.


Imagine thinking "budgeting" was an irrelevant job skill. Have you ever run anything larger than a lemonade stand?

The companies (NGOs) collapsed and melted away. That doesn't mean the jobs these people were doing were fake or unskilled. After the 2008 crisis nobody declared "banking" a niche skill without value, even though bankers couldn't get jobs. When a tech company collapses and a lot of programmers are out of work all at once, you don't say they were overpaid before because they can't find jobs now.

PP has a problem with "government, NGOs, and contractors" which is a huge swath of the economy to declare fake. Tells us PP, which jobs qualify as "real" jobs - just the one you do?


You still don't get it. The reason it's in quotes is because they are not actually that skilled in it. Many places are notoriously, horribly mismanaged and that is being exposed. Not exactly masters of resource management, innovation and lean service delivery models here.

How do you know this?


I've seen it up close and personal; seen these organizations waste tons flying in consultants from out-of-country instead of hiring cheaper locals who know the country dynamics and political economy better; seen these workers prioritize racking up hotel and flight points and planning and timing itineraries to visit their friends abroad on the government dime; seen the horrible morale, favoritism and cronyism that drives actual useful talents away; seen them waste thousands if not millions on drafting "reports" that go nowhere and do nothing but give the illusion of activity; seen them stacking boards with personal friends to limit the accountability mechanism on how the place is actually run. I also know people who are executive directors who complain about how useless and entitled a lot of the workers in this sector are; whilst still having outsized self images regarding the gifts they bring to the table. T'hey'll only whisper it though, because many of these things are not to be spoken out loud.

I'm sorry but citing some organizations that are themselves part of the non-profit industrial complex (which, btw, is benchmarking against other non-profits) is not some magic answer as to why these "skills" are transferrable and command a high wage outside of said sector. Some are good, but a lot are up to these shenanigans and are crumbling under the weight of even the tiniest bit of scrutiny, which they've skirted for so long. If you are in a closed ecosystem, it does not mean those "skills" stand up to scrutiny when you actually have to execute and compete under pressure and threat of being terminated rather than coasting on the largesse of a single, fat benefactor. Citing tech workers and bankers is also dumb. People assume those jobs knowing layoffs are part of the game and the jig could be up at any given moment. No one is writing reams of think pieces profiling Jared the Managing Director from Morgan Stanley or Chad the Principal Engineer from Meta and lamenting the difficulties of his job hunt and begging for sympathy. Plus, a lot of software engineers out of a job simply freelance or coast until they find a job of their liking because...their skills are in demand.


Tell us your name and job title, or STFU and go back to watching Fox News in your basement.


Convincing...

Sorry you are so bothered by a little bit of scrutiny.
Anonymous
Post 04/25/2026 12:35     Subject: Were lots of DC-area professionals overpaid?

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:A nonprofit? Wasn't USAID an agency? What am I missing?



OP are you ok? USAID isn't a nonprofit.

What was she doing for $272K a year that someone else couldn't do for say $120K or even $100K?

I do belive there are a ton of people being way overpaid in large cities like DC.

Do you live in DC? Do you have any idea the COL here? 100k would be criminal exploitation for an educated, experienced employee.


Based on what? Credentialism alone shouldn’t guarantee you a high paying job. What do you DO that commands a high salary? If you are fungible or easily replaceable for cheaper, tough luck.


$100k would get you someone with four years of experience here. You seem completely unaware of the job market here.


You are still focused on credentialism and rubrics rather than the value of what she actually DOES. You've been lost in the sauce for too long, you can't even see it. The whole premise of the thread is asking whether her skillset and was she DOES was actually worth it. Nobody is entitled to a high salary just because they went to some nice-sounding school and racked up years of service doing not much of anything.


No, I’m actually not “lost in the sauce,” I’m just aware that you can’t find someone to do senior-level nonprofit work in DC for $100k, which is laughable. Senior roles in nonprofits have significant responsibilities that take time and experience to be able to do. You can’t find someone that can do that for $100k. It’s not hypothetical. I know nonprofits here. No one is getting someone with the relevant skills and experience to manage large budgets and teams for $100k.

Again, you clearly don’t live here so not sure why you are commenting on what the job market is like.


You are lost in the sauce and still talking about an "job market" based on credentialism, cronyism and gatekeeping within a circumscribed, non-transferrable bubble. I know this world well and a lot of the senior people are absolutely useless, but they hid out in government, NGOs or contractors. It was turtles all the way down; the work isn't hard. The issue now is the rug has been pulled out from under that. What you are calling "skill" is really only germane to a niche that has been decimated and not really transferrable. It would appear that "program management" "strategic planning" and "budgeting" aren't as valuable as those of you lost in the sauce thought they were.


Imagine thinking "budgeting" was an irrelevant job skill. Have you ever run anything larger than a lemonade stand?

The companies (NGOs) collapsed and melted away. That doesn't mean the jobs these people were doing were fake or unskilled. After the 2008 crisis nobody declared "banking" a niche skill without value, even though bankers couldn't get jobs. When a tech company collapses and a lot of programmers are out of work all at once, you don't say they were overpaid before because they can't find jobs now.

PP has a problem with "government, NGOs, and contractors" which is a huge swath of the economy to declare fake. Tells us PP, which jobs qualify as "real" jobs - just the one you do?


You still don't get it. The reason it's in quotes is because they are not actually that skilled in it. Many places are notoriously, horribly mismanaged and that is being exposed. Not exactly masters of resource management, innovation and lean service delivery models here.

How do you know this?


Citing tech workers and bankers is also dumb. People assume those jobs knowing layoffs are part of the game and the jig could be up at any given moment. No one is writing reams of think pieces profiling Jared the Managing Director from Morgan Stanley or Chad the Principal Engineer from Meta and lamenting the difficulties of his job hunt and begging for sympathy. Plus, a lot of software engineers out of a job simply freelance or coast until they find a job of their liking because...their skills are in demand.


DP but no, it’s actually not dumb. If your argument is that an inability to find other work when your industry gets wrecked means you don’t have valuable skills, then that applies to other industries where it has happened too. I’m old enough to remember what the job market was like after 2008 for people in finance and it was terrible. It didn’t mean they were suddenly all useless-skilled deadweight. Same thing happened with more tech more recently, and with law in the early 2010s as a knock-on effect of the financial crisis.

But Musk fanboys are too young or too brainwashed to know any of those things.


+1. No one is inherently safe from this.

The pushback against well-paid former USAID or USAID-adjacent people isn't because they didn't spend a decade in grad school and training. Neither did software developers. And it's not because they're taxpayer-funded. Doctors are not just highly-subsidized, their wages are artificially high because of the AMA labor cartel. It's because you dislike their politics and you assume you're smarter and more competent than them based on about the same level of information as the people who killed USAID had.


Disagree with the bolded. These people actually *know* these non-profit folks are smarter and more competent which is a big part of the reason why they hate them.
Anonymous
Post 04/25/2026 12:32     Subject: Were lots of DC-area professionals overpaid?

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:A nonprofit? Wasn't USAID an agency? What am I missing?



OP are you ok? USAID isn't a nonprofit.

What was she doing for $272K a year that someone else couldn't do for say $120K or even $100K?

I do belive there are a ton of people being way overpaid in large cities like DC.

Do you live in DC? Do you have any idea the COL here? 100k would be criminal exploitation for an educated, experienced employee.


Based on what? Credentialism alone shouldn’t guarantee you a high paying job. What do you DO that commands a high salary? If you are fungible or easily replaceable for cheaper, tough luck.


$100k would get you someone with four years of experience here. You seem completely unaware of the job market here.


You are still focused on credentialism and rubrics rather than the value of what she actually DOES. You've been lost in the sauce for too long, you can't even see it. The whole premise of the thread is asking whether her skillset and was she DOES was actually worth it. Nobody is entitled to a high salary just because they went to some nice-sounding school and racked up years of service doing not much of anything.


No, I’m actually not “lost in the sauce,” I’m just aware that you can’t find someone to do senior-level nonprofit work in DC for $100k, which is laughable. Senior roles in nonprofits have significant responsibilities that take time and experience to be able to do. You can’t find someone that can do that for $100k. It’s not hypothetical. I know nonprofits here. No one is getting someone with the relevant skills and experience to manage large budgets and teams for $100k.

Again, you clearly don’t live here so not sure why you are commenting on what the job market is like.


You are lost in the sauce and still talking about an "job market" based on credentialism, cronyism and gatekeeping within a circumscribed, non-transferrable bubble. I know this world well and a lot of the senior people are absolutely useless, but they hid out in government, NGOs or contractors. It was turtles all the way down; the work isn't hard. The issue now is the rug has been pulled out from under that. What you are calling "skill" is really only germane to a niche that has been decimated and not really transferrable. It would appear that "program management" "strategic planning" and "budgeting" aren't as valuable as those of you lost in the sauce thought they were.


Imagine thinking "budgeting" was an irrelevant job skill. Have you ever run anything larger than a lemonade stand?

The companies (NGOs) collapsed and melted away. That doesn't mean the jobs these people were doing were fake or unskilled. After the 2008 crisis nobody declared "banking" a niche skill without value, even though bankers couldn't get jobs. When a tech company collapses and a lot of programmers are out of work all at once, you don't say they were overpaid before because they can't find jobs now.

PP has a problem with "government, NGOs, and contractors" which is a huge swath of the economy to declare fake. Tells us PP, which jobs qualify as "real" jobs - just the one you do?


You still don't get it. The reason it's in quotes is because they are not actually that skilled in it. Many places are notoriously, horribly mismanaged and that is being exposed. Not exactly masters of resource management, innovation and lean service delivery models here.

How do you know this?


I've seen it up close and personal; seen these organizations waste tons flying in consultants from out-of-country instead of hiring cheaper locals who know the country dynamics and political economy better; seen these workers prioritize racking up hotel and flight points and planning and timing itineraries to visit their friends abroad on the government dime; seen the horrible morale, favoritism and cronyism that drives actual useful talents away; seen them waste thousands if not millions on drafting "reports" that go nowhere and do nothing but give the illusion of activity; seen them stacking boards with personal friends to limit the accountability mechanism on how the place is actually run. I also know people who are executive directors who complain about how useless and entitled a lot of the workers in this sector are; whilst still having outsized self images regarding the gifts they bring to the table. T'hey'll only whisper it though, because many of these things are not to be spoken out loud.

I'm sorry but citing some organizations that are themselves part of the non-profit industrial complex (which, btw, is benchmarking against other non-profits) is not some magic answer as to why these "skills" are transferrable and command a high wage outside of said sector. Some are good, but a lot are up to these shenanigans and are crumbling under the weight of even the tiniest bit of scrutiny, which they've skirted for so long. If you are in a closed ecosystem, it does not mean those "skills" stand up to scrutiny when you actually have to execute and compete under pressure and threat of being terminated rather than coasting on the largesse of a single, fat benefactor. Citing tech workers and bankers is also dumb. People assume those jobs knowing layoffs are part of the game and the jig could be up at any given moment. No one is writing reams of think pieces profiling Jared the Managing Director from Morgan Stanley or Chad the Principal Engineer from Meta and lamenting the difficulties of his job hunt and begging for sympathy. Plus, a lot of software engineers out of a job simply freelance or coast until they find a job of their liking because...their skills are in demand.


Tell us your name and job title, or STFU and go back to watching Fox News in your basement.
Anonymous
Post 04/25/2026 12:31     Subject: Were lots of DC-area professionals overpaid?

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:A nonprofit? Wasn't USAID an agency? What am I missing?



OP are you ok? USAID isn't a nonprofit.

What was she doing for $272K a year that someone else couldn't do for say $120K or even $100K?

I do belive there are a ton of people being way overpaid in large cities like DC.

Do you live in DC? Do you have any idea the COL here? 100k would be criminal exploitation for an educated, experienced employee.


Based on what? Credentialism alone shouldn’t guarantee you a high paying job. What do you DO that commands a high salary? If you are fungible or easily replaceable for cheaper, tough luck.


$100k would get you someone with four years of experience here. You seem completely unaware of the job market here.


You are still focused on credentialism and rubrics rather than the value of what she actually DOES. You've been lost in the sauce for too long, you can't even see it. The whole premise of the thread is asking whether her skillset and was she DOES was actually worth it. Nobody is entitled to a high salary just because they went to some nice-sounding school and racked up years of service doing not much of anything.


No, I’m actually not “lost in the sauce,” I’m just aware that you can’t find someone to do senior-level nonprofit work in DC for $100k, which is laughable. Senior roles in nonprofits have significant responsibilities that take time and experience to be able to do. You can’t find someone that can do that for $100k. It’s not hypothetical. I know nonprofits here. No one is getting someone with the relevant skills and experience to manage large budgets and teams for $100k.

Again, you clearly don’t live here so not sure why you are commenting on what the job market is like.


You are lost in the sauce and still talking about an "job market" based on credentialism, cronyism and gatekeeping within a circumscribed, non-transferrable bubble. I know this world well and a lot of the senior people are absolutely useless, but they hid out in government, NGOs or contractors. It was turtles all the way down; the work isn't hard. The issue now is the rug has been pulled out from under that. What you are calling "skill" is really only germane to a niche that has been decimated and not really transferrable. It would appear that "program management" "strategic planning" and "budgeting" aren't as valuable as those of you lost in the sauce thought they were.


Imagine thinking "budgeting" was an irrelevant job skill. Have you ever run anything larger than a lemonade stand?

The companies (NGOs) collapsed and melted away. That doesn't mean the jobs these people were doing were fake or unskilled. After the 2008 crisis nobody declared "banking" a niche skill without value, even though bankers couldn't get jobs. When a tech company collapses and a lot of programmers are out of work all at once, you don't say they were overpaid before because they can't find jobs now.

PP has a problem with "government, NGOs, and contractors" which is a huge swath of the economy to declare fake. Tells us PP, which jobs qualify as "real" jobs - just the one you do?


You still don't get it. The reason it's in quotes is because they are not actually that skilled in it. Many places are notoriously, horribly mismanaged and that is being exposed. Not exactly masters of resource management, innovation and lean service delivery models here.

How do you know this?


Citing tech workers and bankers is also dumb. People assume those jobs knowing layoffs are part of the game and the jig could be up at any given moment. No one is writing reams of think pieces profiling Jared the Managing Director from Morgan Stanley or Chad the Principal Engineer from Meta and lamenting the difficulties of his job hunt and begging for sympathy. Plus, a lot of software engineers out of a job simply freelance or coast until they find a job of their liking because...their skills are in demand.


DP but no, it’s actually not dumb. If your argument is that an inability to find other work when your industry gets wrecked means you don’t have valuable skills, then that applies to other industries where it has happened too. I’m old enough to remember what the job market was like after 2008 for people in finance and it was terrible. It didn’t mean they were suddenly all useless-skilled deadweight. Same thing happened with more tech more recently, and with law in the early 2010s as a knock-on effect of the financial crisis.

But Musk fanboys are too young or too brainwashed to know any of those things.


It is dumb because those industries are not comparable. Are you really going to make the simultaneous case that an industry and the skills a part thereof are super, duper valuable and transferrable and simultaneously that they can be wiped out with a single tweet? Convincing...

Boom, bust cycles are part of tech and banking and expected in those industries, which are subject to venture capitalists, market forces, hostile activist investors, and all sorts of other scrutiny. USAID NGO's worry about...maybe a congressional hearing that no one pays attention to or the "Washington Post test". GMAB. Nobody was whining for big lawyers post-GFC and Latham, nobody is whining for investment bankers and software engineers aren't receiving much sympathy. There is no expectation of or entitlement to perpetual employability and high salary.
Anonymous
Post 04/25/2026 12:26     Subject: Were lots of DC-area professionals overpaid?

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:A nonprofit? Wasn't USAID an agency? What am I missing?



OP are you ok? USAID isn't a nonprofit.

What was she doing for $272K a year that someone else couldn't do for say $120K or even $100K?

I do belive there are a ton of people being way overpaid in large cities like DC.

Do you live in DC? Do you have any idea the COL here? 100k would be criminal exploitation for an educated, experienced employee.


Based on what? Credentialism alone shouldn’t guarantee you a high paying job. What do you DO that commands a high salary? If you are fungible or easily replaceable for cheaper, tough luck.


$100k would get you someone with four years of experience here. You seem completely unaware of the job market here.


You are still focused on credentialism and rubrics rather than the value of what she actually DOES. You've been lost in the sauce for too long, you can't even see it. The whole premise of the thread is asking whether her skillset and was she DOES was actually worth it. Nobody is entitled to a high salary just because they went to some nice-sounding school and racked up years of service doing not much of anything.


No, I’m actually not “lost in the sauce,” I’m just aware that you can’t find someone to do senior-level nonprofit work in DC for $100k, which is laughable. Senior roles in nonprofits have significant responsibilities that take time and experience to be able to do. You can’t find someone that can do that for $100k. It’s not hypothetical. I know nonprofits here. No one is getting someone with the relevant skills and experience to manage large budgets and teams for $100k.

Again, you clearly don’t live here so not sure why you are commenting on what the job market is like.


You are lost in the sauce and still talking about an "job market" based on credentialism, cronyism and gatekeeping within a circumscribed, non-transferrable bubble. I know this world well and a lot of the senior people are absolutely useless, but they hid out in government, NGOs or contractors. It was turtles all the way down; the work isn't hard. The issue now is the rug has been pulled out from under that. What you are calling "skill" is really only germane to a niche that has been decimated and not really transferrable. It would appear that "program management" "strategic planning" and "budgeting" aren't as valuable as those of you lost in the sauce thought they were.


Imagine thinking "budgeting" was an irrelevant job skill. Have you ever run anything larger than a lemonade stand?

The companies (NGOs) collapsed and melted away. That doesn't mean the jobs these people were doing were fake or unskilled. After the 2008 crisis nobody declared "banking" a niche skill without value, even though bankers couldn't get jobs. When a tech company collapses and a lot of programmers are out of work all at once, you don't say they were overpaid before because they can't find jobs now.

PP has a problem with "government, NGOs, and contractors" which is a huge swath of the economy to declare fake. Tells us PP, which jobs qualify as "real" jobs - just the one you do?


You still don't get it. The reason it's in quotes is because they are not actually that skilled in it. Many places are notoriously, horribly mismanaged and that is being exposed. Not exactly masters of resource management, innovation and lean service delivery models here.

How do you know this?


Citing tech workers and bankers is also dumb. People assume those jobs knowing layoffs are part of the game and the jig could be up at any given moment. No one is writing reams of think pieces profiling Jared the Managing Director from Morgan Stanley or Chad the Principal Engineer from Meta and lamenting the difficulties of his job hunt and begging for sympathy. Plus, a lot of software engineers out of a job simply freelance or coast until they find a job of their liking because...their skills are in demand.


DP but no, it’s actually not dumb. If your argument is that an inability to find other work when your industry gets wrecked means you don’t have valuable skills, then that applies to other industries where it has happened too. I’m old enough to remember what the job market was like after 2008 for people in finance and it was terrible. It didn’t mean they were suddenly all useless-skilled deadweight. Same thing happened with more tech more recently, and with law in the early 2010s as a knock-on effect of the financial crisis.

But Musk fanboys are too young or too brainwashed to know any of those things.


+1. No one is inherently safe from this.

The pushback against well-paid former USAID or USAID-adjacent people isn't because they didn't spend a decade in grad school and training. Neither did software developers. And it's not because they're taxpayer-funded. Doctors are not just highly-subsidized, their wages are artificially high because of the AMA labor cartel. It's because you dislike their politics and you assume you're smarter and more competent than them based on about the same level of information as the people who killed USAID had.
Anonymous
Post 04/25/2026 12:15     Subject: Were lots of DC-area professionals overpaid?

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:A nonprofit? Wasn't USAID an agency? What am I missing?



OP are you ok? USAID isn't a nonprofit.

What was she doing for $272K a year that someone else couldn't do for say $120K or even $100K?

I do belive there are a ton of people being way overpaid in large cities like DC.

Do you live in DC? Do you have any idea the COL here? 100k would be criminal exploitation for an educated, experienced employee.


Based on what? Credentialism alone shouldn’t guarantee you a high paying job. What do you DO that commands a high salary? If you are fungible or easily replaceable for cheaper, tough luck.


$100k would get you someone with four years of experience here. You seem completely unaware of the job market here.


You are still focused on credentialism and rubrics rather than the value of what she actually DOES. You've been lost in the sauce for too long, you can't even see it. The whole premise of the thread is asking whether her skillset and was she DOES was actually worth it. Nobody is entitled to a high salary just because they went to some nice-sounding school and racked up years of service doing not much of anything.


No, I’m actually not “lost in the sauce,” I’m just aware that you can’t find someone to do senior-level nonprofit work in DC for $100k, which is laughable. Senior roles in nonprofits have significant responsibilities that take time and experience to be able to do. You can’t find someone that can do that for $100k. It’s not hypothetical. I know nonprofits here. No one is getting someone with the relevant skills and experience to manage large budgets and teams for $100k.

Again, you clearly don’t live here so not sure why you are commenting on what the job market is like.


You are lost in the sauce and still talking about an "job market" based on credentialism, cronyism and gatekeeping within a circumscribed, non-transferrable bubble. I know this world well and a lot of the senior people are absolutely useless, but they hid out in government, NGOs or contractors. It was turtles all the way down; the work isn't hard. The issue now is the rug has been pulled out from under that. What you are calling "skill" is really only germane to a niche that has been decimated and not really transferrable. It would appear that "program management" "strategic planning" and "budgeting" aren't as valuable as those of you lost in the sauce thought they were.


Imagine thinking "budgeting" was an irrelevant job skill. Have you ever run anything larger than a lemonade stand?

The companies (NGOs) collapsed and melted away. That doesn't mean the jobs these people were doing were fake or unskilled. After the 2008 crisis nobody declared "banking" a niche skill without value, even though bankers couldn't get jobs. When a tech company collapses and a lot of programmers are out of work all at once, you don't say they were overpaid before because they can't find jobs now.

PP has a problem with "government, NGOs, and contractors" which is a huge swath of the economy to declare fake. Tells us PP, which jobs qualify as "real" jobs - just the one you do?


+1 to all of this. PP will have to get back to you after Fox News and the brain worm tell him how to respond though.

Based on his comments I suspect the job he does is some low productivity, easily disposable job.


You revert to a "Fox News'' talking point because you are a lazy thinker, yet you try to denigrate others. I would tell you to do better, but I'm not sure you are capable.


And your sensitivity to it is how we know it’s true.


Get back to Indeed and LinkedIn, lazy…


Why? I’m employed in a job with a salary that I’m sure you would find much too high, loving every minute of it.
Anonymous
Post 04/25/2026 12:14     Subject: Were lots of DC-area professionals overpaid?

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:A nonprofit? Wasn't USAID an agency? What am I missing?



OP are you ok? USAID isn't a nonprofit.

What was she doing for $272K a year that someone else couldn't do for say $120K or even $100K?

I do belive there are a ton of people being way overpaid in large cities like DC.

Do you live in DC? Do you have any idea the COL here? 100k would be criminal exploitation for an educated, experienced employee.


Based on what? Credentialism alone shouldn’t guarantee you a high paying job. What do you DO that commands a high salary? If you are fungible or easily replaceable for cheaper, tough luck.


$100k would get you someone with four years of experience here. You seem completely unaware of the job market here.


You are still focused on credentialism and rubrics rather than the value of what she actually DOES. You've been lost in the sauce for too long, you can't even see it. The whole premise of the thread is asking whether her skillset and was she DOES was actually worth it. Nobody is entitled to a high salary just because they went to some nice-sounding school and racked up years of service doing not much of anything.


No, I’m actually not “lost in the sauce,” I’m just aware that you can’t find someone to do senior-level nonprofit work in DC for $100k, which is laughable. Senior roles in nonprofits have significant responsibilities that take time and experience to be able to do. You can’t find someone that can do that for $100k. It’s not hypothetical. I know nonprofits here. No one is getting someone with the relevant skills and experience to manage large budgets and teams for $100k.

Again, you clearly don’t live here so not sure why you are commenting on what the job market is like.


You are lost in the sauce and still talking about an "job market" based on credentialism, cronyism and gatekeeping within a circumscribed, non-transferrable bubble. I know this world well and a lot of the senior people are absolutely useless, but they hid out in government, NGOs or contractors. It was turtles all the way down; the work isn't hard. The issue now is the rug has been pulled out from under that. What you are calling "skill" is really only germane to a niche that has been decimated and not really transferrable. It would appear that "program management" "strategic planning" and "budgeting" aren't as valuable as those of you lost in the sauce thought they were.


Imagine thinking "budgeting" was an irrelevant job skill. Have you ever run anything larger than a lemonade stand?

The companies (NGOs) collapsed and melted away. That doesn't mean the jobs these people were doing were fake or unskilled. After the 2008 crisis nobody declared "banking" a niche skill without value, even though bankers couldn't get jobs. When a tech company collapses and a lot of programmers are out of work all at once, you don't say they were overpaid before because they can't find jobs now.

PP has a problem with "government, NGOs, and contractors" which is a huge swath of the economy to declare fake. Tells us PP, which jobs qualify as "real" jobs - just the one you do?


You still don't get it. The reason it's in quotes is because they are not actually that skilled in it. Many places are notoriously, horribly mismanaged and that is being exposed. Not exactly masters of resource management, innovation and lean service delivery models here.

How do you know this?


Citing tech workers and bankers is also dumb. People assume those jobs knowing layoffs are part of the game and the jig could be up at any given moment. No one is writing reams of think pieces profiling Jared the Managing Director from Morgan Stanley or Chad the Principal Engineer from Meta and lamenting the difficulties of his job hunt and begging for sympathy. Plus, a lot of software engineers out of a job simply freelance or coast until they find a job of their liking because...their skills are in demand.


DP but no, it’s actually not dumb. If your argument is that an inability to find other work when your industry gets wrecked means you don’t have valuable skills, then that applies to other industries where it has happened too. I’m old enough to remember what the job market was like after 2008 for people in finance and it was terrible. It didn’t mean they were suddenly all useless-skilled deadweight. Same thing happened with more tech more recently, and with law in the early 2010s as a knock-on effect of the financial crisis.

But Musk fanboys are too young or too brainwashed to know any of those things.
Anonymous
Post 04/25/2026 12:11     Subject: Were lots of DC-area professionals overpaid?

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:A nonprofit? Wasn't USAID an agency? What am I missing?



OP are you ok? USAID isn't a nonprofit.

What was she doing for $272K a year that someone else couldn't do for say $120K or even $100K?

I do belive there are a ton of people being way overpaid in large cities like DC.

Do you live in DC? Do you have any idea the COL here? 100k would be criminal exploitation for an educated, experienced employee.


Based on what? Credentialism alone shouldn’t guarantee you a high paying job. What do you DO that commands a high salary? If you are fungible or easily replaceable for cheaper, tough luck.


$100k would get you someone with four years of experience here. You seem completely unaware of the job market here.


You are still focused on credentialism and rubrics rather than the value of what she actually DOES. You've been lost in the sauce for too long, you can't even see it. The whole premise of the thread is asking whether her skillset and was she DOES was actually worth it. Nobody is entitled to a high salary just because they went to some nice-sounding school and racked up years of service doing not much of anything.


No, I’m actually not “lost in the sauce,” I’m just aware that you can’t find someone to do senior-level nonprofit work in DC for $100k, which is laughable. Senior roles in nonprofits have significant responsibilities that take time and experience to be able to do. You can’t find someone that can do that for $100k. It’s not hypothetical. I know nonprofits here. No one is getting someone with the relevant skills and experience to manage large budgets and teams for $100k.

Again, you clearly don’t live here so not sure why you are commenting on what the job market is like.


You are lost in the sauce and still talking about an "job market" based on credentialism, cronyism and gatekeeping within a circumscribed, non-transferrable bubble. I know this world well and a lot of the senior people are absolutely useless, but they hid out in government, NGOs or contractors. It was turtles all the way down; the work isn't hard. The issue now is the rug has been pulled out from under that. What you are calling "skill" is really only germane to a niche that has been decimated and not really transferrable. It would appear that "program management" "strategic planning" and "budgeting" aren't as valuable as those of you lost in the sauce thought they were.


Imagine thinking "budgeting" was an irrelevant job skill. Have you ever run anything larger than a lemonade stand?

The companies (NGOs) collapsed and melted away. That doesn't mean the jobs these people were doing were fake or unskilled. After the 2008 crisis nobody declared "banking" a niche skill without value, even though bankers couldn't get jobs. When a tech company collapses and a lot of programmers are out of work all at once, you don't say they were overpaid before because they can't find jobs now.

PP has a problem with "government, NGOs, and contractors" which is a huge swath of the economy to declare fake. Tells us PP, which jobs qualify as "real" jobs - just the one you do?


+1 to all of this. PP will have to get back to you after Fox News and the brain worm tell him how to respond though.

Based on his comments I suspect the job he does is some low productivity, easily disposable job.


You revert to a "Fox News'' talking point because you are a lazy thinker, yet you try to denigrate others. I would tell you to do better, but I'm not sure you are capable.


And your sensitivity to it is how we know it’s true.


Get back to Indeed and LinkedIn, lazy…