When this CEO said that he didn't know of any 24 year olds in the business who worked longer hours than he does, did he comment on how many 24 year olds in the business are paid more than he is? Or does he believe that the pay he receives now should be for how hard he used to work? I've had long term experience in 2 workplaces and been in a senior management role in one. My understanding of the way it works is the following. The boss/CEO does absolutely nothing. The managers (my previous level) do next to nothing but periodically listen to the interminable personal problems of their staff, and if things are particularly disasterous in the business try and implement some sort of strategy to set things right. Amongst the staff themselves the more lowly position they hold the more work they do, while being derided as lazy or incompetent by the more senior staff while as managers we would sit around and talk about how to extract more work from them. The hardest workers of all were the people who would come around and clean the office we sat around in for next to no money and not a word of thanks.
