The Professor, Ken Borough et al,
What sort of ridiculous industry do we work in where people are critical of others for earning $X amount of money. Should we not all be striving for the same conditions as the "top earners". I feel like I've written something like this on pprune before so I'm probably better off banging my head against the wall but here goes anyway.
Just as an example, can you imagine an accountant working for a large accounting firm finding out that a co-worker with the exact same qualifications in another office was earning more. He/she wouldn't be trying to bring the other's salary DOWN to their level but rather bring his/hers UP to the same level.
Is this just the good old Australian tall poppy syndrome at its worst?
P.S. FWIW, $180k (which would be a small minority of S/Os) would be including allowances and 9% super and actual gross income without those two add-ons would be closer to $145k.