Hello, hello, after last week I skipped the English Friday, today I want to post an answer for BEC’s – EF#31 Challenge – Undervalued or Overvalued. This challenge is about putting your mind into words, your own opinion about the following quote:
Some people feel that certain workers like nurses, doctors and teachers are undervalued and should be paid more, especially when other people like entertainers (e.g. film stars, pop musicians or sports stars) are paid huge sums of money that are out of proportion to the importance of the work that they do.
Opinion: Undervalued Or Overvalued
The quote was presented by one of the admins of BEC two weeks ago (you can read the challenge here) taken from IELTS Essay. Let’s see, hmmm…
It was said that certain workers such as nurses, doctors and teachers are undervalued and should be paid more compared to entertainers. I agree with the notion. Especially in here, in Indonesia, some professions are considered as a second layer compared to the entertainers.
I’ve heard about a singer who got paid for one hour show for about 30 million Rupiahs. If we compared to the doctors, I was working in hospital before in Cirebon, the rate was about 75 thousand Rupiahs for one consultations. Each day, the doctor work for about 3 hours and had roughly 20-30 patients (max). So the total he took for one day was around 1,5 – 2,25 million Rupiahs for 3 hours work.
Really? Are They Really Undervalued?
In terms of payment per hour, in example above, clearly those doctors are underpaid a.k.a. undervalued. A singer (one of entertainers) got 30 mill per hour but a doctor only got 2 mill per 3 hours. So they DO UNDERVALUED.
Read also: Value of Your Time (written in Indonesian)
Like I said above, I am agreeing the notion that those professions are undervalued but only in terms of money per hours – compared to the entertainers. But let us see again behind the scene of those two.
A Singer Performance
When an agency or a company or whatever whom booked a singer or any other performers, they tend to have things asked to the singers or any other entertainers to achieve. For instance, when a singer perform in one hour show in television, they are supposedly bring audiences to watch the show.
What if that singer and his/her management unable to attract people to watch? Next time – the singer for sure – will be paid less. The television network has their own rating to say this particular person paid XXX amount of money or paid less.
If the singer can’t attract audience to watch, the show ratings drop and no company would pay for the commercial breaks. No money flowing in – less money flowing out. Thus, the singer actually paid for his/her performance and also the audiences. If he/she can’t keep up with it… bye bye baby.
Doctor
If we talk about doctor, they do consultations, giving prescription for the illness and done. No “extra” audience asked by the hospital for that particular doctor, even though usually a well-known doctor has his/her own “audiences”. For that kind of doctor, believe me – hospital would pay more.
And the common practice in here in Indonesia (I don’t know whether this also applied for abroad or not), a doctor also get commission or a fee for the prescriptions (either from the hospital or from the drug manufacturers).
Also, one thing for sure, some doctors (especially those who permanently work in one hospital) are receiving monthly salary also, CMIIW. And their job is actually an on going basis compared to the entertainers.
Entertainers who get paid more for one show, could not have any other job for the rest of the week (even for the whole month), but doctors? They still have it.
Services
So, do doctors are really underpaid or not? Many considerations need to be put in the statement above. It is not just comparing two kinds of professions and then say: A is undervalued or overvalued compared to B. Yes, both has one thing in common, which is SERVICES, and actually in my opinion, this is the root of the problem.
Read also: About Service (written in Indonesian)
Who can measure the right amount of money to be paid for one kind of services? We don’t need to compare between two different kind of professions. For instance, actually, if we compared one doctor with other doctors, they have different rate for the services themselves right?
And when we talk about services, many professions that provide services paid lesser than those professions mentioned in the statement. How much do you pay for a barber? For a helper in restaurant? Waiter, even for the cleaning service boy or girl at your office? Do they considered undervalued or overvalued?
16 Comments
It’s a bit tricky to compare how much someone should be paid for what they do–especially when it involves different areas of expertise or field of work. So I believe it’s not gonna be easy to determine whether someone is underpaid or overpaid in terms of particular profession.
As regards your example–doctor vs singer–we’ll have to deploy some definite measures and we may find it difficult to come to a fair comparation. One of the reasons, probably, is that the first profession embraces social and humanitarian values whereas the latter carries more than what we can comprehend physically–it entails image, more emotional connection with fans, capital gain based on a symbiotic relation, personal charisma, and media coverage.
This discussion may lead to a more difficult situation when we compare doctor and, say, editor, or between an author and a religious preacher.
But yes, some professions are undervalued, at least based on my personal opinion. Garbage collectors, for example, should be paid more.
Wowww.. Thank you for your comment mas. Really love reading it.
Yes, it is difficult to compare between professions, even among one profession itself, the comparison would be tricky to explain. That’s why I said – agree in term of hours of works of the doctor and singer. But then, the process behind it – all the things that matter in each work should be considered also. Because the value of the profession would be different again.
The garbage collectors – I DO TOTALLY AGREE on this…
I heard some marketing pundits like Hermawan Kartajaya and Rhenald Kasali receive at least 40 million rupiah per three hour — how amazing! My ex-employer once hired Dorce Gamalama to host a program at our company and she got similar payment for her service. Indeed, some professions are higher in reward than others in terms of hourly basis.
For Hermawan n Rhenald it is obvious mas. They are the highest expert for now. To get to that position isn’t easy though.
Totally true, they are indeed awesome in their respective field, especially Rhenald
Poinnya menarik. Terkadang kita mengukur value dengan penghasilan di depan mata dan tidak begitu melihat value prosesnya… Thank you mas…
Komenmu kenapa masuk ke spam ya San?
Makasih yak… memang seringkali kita gak lihat proses – yang penting hasil
Eh masuk spam?
iya. kmrn masuk spam. 😀
etapi aku jadi cek spam aku, ternyata banyak komen kemarin2 yang masuk spam… wah itu kenapa ya???
Banyak yak? Hahaha. Biasanya memang ada kata2 tertentu yang jd keyword buat spam. Tp aku gak terlalu perhatiin San.
Eh kmrn itu komen pertamamu di blog lagi setelah sekian lama gak? Kalau iya bisa jadi karena itu
Iya banyak… ada yang panjang ada yang pendek, ada yang udah balasan dari komen tingkat dua. Wakakak aku nggak ngerti.
Nggak kok, itu udah komen kesekian kalinya sejak seminggu yang lalu.
oalahhh… mungkin ada peningkatan sekuriti di wp San. Ayo diunspam terus balasin satu-satu. 😀
Apa karena aku komen pake smartphone? Kemarin sekali-kalinya komen lewat smartphone. *gaptek
hmm, proses memang lama ya, mas. dan itu menentukan apakah undervalued atau overvalued.
Iya mbak. Salah satu yang menentukan under or over