Who's happier: actors or bankers?

As I am in week 6 of a 9 week theatre production (well, make that week 7 if we include the rehearsal period), I have been able to gain vital insights into comparing and contrasting both sides of an interesting divide. In the day, I am working in financial services and in the evenings, I am performing with actors. So today, I'd like to try to answer the question: who's happier, actors or bankers?

What is the secret to happiness? 

I suppose it boils down to this: is the grass greener on the other side of the fence? You'll be amazed how many people actually do believe that the grass isn't as green on their side of the fence. The first thing I want to point out is that very few people actually just do one thing and not the other. For example, I have two bosses - an American and a Kiwi. My American boss has a keen interest in martial arts and will go for plenty of martial arts lessons after office hours and during the weekend. My Kiwi boss plays in a band (bass guitar and drums mostly) and that occupies most of his free time. It is not like their entire lives are consumed by finance and they have no time for anything else: it is simply that they know they can make a lot of money in banking and they realize that the fun things in life (exotic holidays, nice clothes, fancy restaurants etc) don't come cheap. Sure, both of them could try to make a living from their hobbies - the American could become a martial arts instructor and the Kiwi could become a session musician, but why would they do that when they are making millions in banking?

Have you heard this saying before? If you find a job you truly enjoy, you will never ever do a day of work ever again. That means that work wouldn't feel like a chore - you will wake up in the morning all fired up, enthusiastic and happy to go to work. Indeed, I have met people like that in showbiz - they have found a particular niche they excel at and they are paid a lot of money to do what they love, what could be better? Do all actors always enjoy their work?

Certainly acting can be fun...

Acting does seem like fun to many people outside the industry - compare it to say an accountant who has to sit down at a computer all day staring at figures on the screen. Okay, that is a simplistic comparison, but you get the idea. After all, when I was in secondary school, participating in the drama festival was one of the most enjoyable experiences from my secondary school days. Contrast that with the maths lessons and endless maths homework, that was what fuelled my impression that acting was fun. But I guess it's down to the individual - some people get an adrenaline rush performing to a huge audience of thousands, others become downright terrified at the prospect of public speaking.

Whether an actor enjoys acting depends on so many factors - for a start, you have to be happy with the role you are playing. Imagine a production of Romeo & Juliet - all the male actors would want to play Romeo and all the female actors would want to play Juliet for they are the lead roles. Okay, if you don't get to play the lead, then you see how far down the billing you fall - are you Mercutio? The Nurse? Count Paris? Tybalt? Or are you all the way at the bottom of the pecking order - Abram, Balthasar, Peter, Samson, Gregory and the Apothecary?

If we're talking about the famous Baz Luhrmann 1996 screen adaptation, then it is easy to fall far lower down the food chain compared to a stage production. You could be "background artiste in crowded street" or "person on the beach". I have seen many disappointed actors who have spent a lot of time and money training, only to get a few insignificant parts over the years. They end up bitter and unfulfilled, saddened and frustrated by their failure to make it in the industry. For actors like that, acting is anything but fun when they end up playing a small part when they are really wishing they could play the lead instead.

Of course, the same thing could be said about banking. It is a fiercely competitive rat race and by the same token, I have also witnessed just as many frustrated executives in the banking industry who are passed over for promotions. Like those frustrated actors, they have also invested a lot of time and money in professional training and are undoubtedly highly skilled - yet somehow they are either stuck in a rut, wishing they were doing something better or worse, unemployed. Yup, given the number of financial institutions who have gone bust or have downsized since the current financial crisis started, there are indeed many unemployed people who used to have good jobs in the financial services sector. Times are hard, we're in a recession.

Not all bankers are doing that well today...

Would it surprise you that there are people who are doing badly in the financial services industry or acting? Why should that come as a surprise? After all, take any industry - engineering, healthcare, education, fashion design, tourism etc - you will have winners at the top of the food chain and loser at the bottom of the food chain. By that token, that puts actors and bankers in exactly the same boat - if you are good at what you're doing, then you will be happy, if not, then you're screwed. That's not rocket science, really.

Another issue which affects both parties equally is getting along with one's colleagues - if you work with people who are nice, then team work is not only a breeze, it can be a pleasure. But if you simply do not get along with those you have to work with, then oh dear, good luck to you. By that token, I have encountered both nice and horrible people in both industries and thankfully, I am very diplomatic. I know how to handle difficult people by hiding my emotions and telling them what they want to hear, so as to avoid confrontations. It all boils down to office politics - finding true allies amongst your colleagues, keeping your friends close and your enemies closer.

Office politics happens in every single industry. 

Many people imagine that actors have a far more relaxed working environment than bankers, that the environment backstage or in the dressing room is far more jovial than in the conference room or in the office - well, you're wrong. It is a very different environment, but is it more relaxed? No, not always. Let me give you an example from my current play. I have a director who is a micro-manager, ie. he wants to have final say on every aspect of the show because after all, it is his show, his creation, his baby. Last week, I was having a casual chat with the assistant director about a scene which she saw (but the director didn't) - I was simply asking her, "what did you think of what you saw?" The director got so angry with me for having the audacity to ask her that question in his presence. He blew his top off and shouted at me, "I am the director here, you should always ask me! Not her! You have questions you ask me, not her!" That was awkward to say the least for he had insulted the assistant director in the process, effectively telling her that her opinion didn't matter at all. You should've seen the look on her face. Believe you me, the working environment may be different but actors are still subjected to the same old office politics bullshit: pecking orders, egos, chain of command and all that crap. I'm now a lot more careful about what I say when he is in the same room.

Let's look at the issue of money - surely bankers earn more than actors right? Yes and no - it is not that simple. Now if you were to look at take home pay per se, on average, yes bankers do earn more, but let's break that down. In both industries, you have winners and losers, I'm sure we're all familiar with bankers who earn millions with large bonuses, but what about actors? If you were to look at the big stars in showbiz: Daniel Radcliffe, Jude Law, Daniel Craig, Sienna Miller, Judi Dench, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Madonna etc - they are all multi-millionaires. There are plenty of very rich actors in the industry and indeed, there are those who struggled for a long time making very little money before finally making it big. I'm not even talking about actors (like myself in fact) who worked in another industry before turning their hands to acting - many indeed do struggle on for years, even decades, in the hope that one day they will finally get that role which would make them famous. But in the meantime, they struggle on.

How many actors become truly successful?

When actors do get paid work, the money is usually pretty good - especially in the UK where most Equity contracts are very decent. Indeed, the issue here is not how much actors are paid, but the actor being able to get a constant stream of quality work. Let me look at the last ten jobs that I have done as an actor and show you how short the contracts are:

2013 Feb: Music video (1 day's work)
2013 Feb: Radio (1 day's work)
2013 Jan - Mar: Play,Theatre, West End (6 nights a week for 9 weeks + 1 week's rehearsal)
2013 Jan: TV Sitcom (1 week's work)
2013 Jan: Music video (1 day's work)
2012 Dec: Voice over (1 day's work)
2012 Nov: Radio (2 days' work)
2012 Oct: Photo shoot (1 day's work)
2013 Sep: Commercial (2 days' work)
2012 Sep: TV Comedy (2 days' work)

That's from a music video shoot last week.

So as you can see, apart from the current theatre stint, that's a day's work here and there with some slightly longer contracts here and there. So if you were to calculate how much I earn per working day as an actor, the figure is pretty impressive. However, if you were to calculate how much as an actor (excluding money earned from other work not related to showbiz) over the same period, then the amount earned per month as an actor is pretty low. That kind of work schedule you see above reflects what is pretty typical for an average actor who is always getting some work some of the time (can I stress how many actors there are who get no work or little work most of the time), so that leaves me with a lot of free time on my hands when I am not performing. What I do with that time is that I actually maintain a decent day job in finance, what other actors do with their free time varies. Many have day jobs or part time jobs to make sure they can pay the bills, some are studying, some prefer to spend time with their families whilst others simply take it easy and get a lot of sleep. (Can you put a price on getting enough sleep?)

Actually, the latter is actually quite common. In my current production, my director has actively discouraged us from doing any other paid work during the 10 week period of the show. His rationale is that if we put in a full day's work, we would show up in the evening for the show feeling exhausted and unable to perform well. He would be mortified if he knew how many hours a week a worked outside the show - but hey, that's just me because I want to hold down a regular job. I'm not typical (I'm an Asian workaholic) - let's look at my colleagues who do depend on acting and nothing else. Whilst they earn far less than bankers, they are putting in far less hours of work - so they are actually rich in terms of the free time they enjoy and they certainly get more hours of sleep a night. Not enough people actually count how many hours of sleep they get a week but IMHO, if you do get more than 60 hours of sleep a week, you're doing pretty well. If you're getting by on less than 50, then that's barely enough and anything below 45 is just downright unhealthy. (How many hours a week do you sleep? Leave a comment below.)

How do you measure your job satisfaction and the quality of your life? 

Now in contrast, your average banker who earns a lot more money does actually put in many more hours a week - my Blackberry alerts me to work emails that comes through throughout my weekend and it is evident that many of the clients I am dealing with are often at work in the evenings and also the weekends. So they are putting in 60 or even 70 hours a week, the amount of money they actually earn per hour goes down when you work out just how many hours a week they have to work.

Time is a precious resource - by working that many hours a week, many sacrifice time with their loved ones and they actually see more of their boss than their spouse. They spend more time in meetings with their colleagues than playing with their children - so whilst they are richer in terms of the amount of money they earn, are they happier? What is the point of working so hard to provide for your children when you barely even get to see your children?

Parents: do you spend time with your colleagues or your children?

In sharp contrast, many of my actor friends who have a lot more free time on their hands are actually so poor that they cannot dream of starting a family! It costs a lot of money to raise a child and such a commitment does rely on the parent(s) having a reliable source of income. It seems that you can only have one or the other: a lot of money or a lot of time but not both - the former would mean that you can afford to have children but have no time to see them, the latter would simply mean you can't even afford to have children even if you have all the time in the world to play with them. The grass is certainly not green on either side of the fence when it comes to children - but if you don't want to have children, then this wouldn't bother you either way.

I find it ironic that so many parents out there are working so hard to provide for their children, but in putting in so many hours, they are missing out on parenthood. Being a parent isn't simply funding a child's education, it is actually being there for your child. One of my sister's maid actually does have a child of her own in Indonesia and she is working in Singapore a a maid just so she can afford to send her child to school. You may think that is noble - but I do wonder what the point is, in having a child that you can't see (cos you're working so hard in another country) but are then financially responsible for until they reach adulthood and by the time they've completed their education, you finally return home to meet a stranger you barely know? Is that what parenthood is about? Duh.

What is parenthood about, really? 

The harsh reality of earning little is that you can't afford the nice things in life - never mind the financial commitment to start a family. So sue me, I am materialistic. I like to be able to walk into a shop, see something nice and say, "Ooh I'd buy that, I love it." It is not nice to have to deny yourself the nice things in life - I remember when I went on a short holiday to Austria last year. A actor friend of mine was keen to come along with us but ultimately, he couldn't find the money. I was like, come on it's just £300 or so, it's not that much money for a long weekend in Austria, you mean to tell me you don't have £300 in the bank? Evidently not. Which was a terrible shame as I had a brilliant time in Austria and he missed out on what would've been a lovely experience. And here's the thing - I did also ask a banker friend of mine to come along and I knew he had plenty of money, but guess what? "Sorry, I couldn't get the time off work, we're just too busy for me to take any time off as much as I'd love to go skiing with you."

So there you go my friends, at the end of the day, I don't think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. There are problems for both actors and bankers - but those who are the happiest are those who are the most successful ones on both sides of the fence. That's the bottom line really - if you're successful at what you do, you're far more likely to be happy. Now that ain't rocket science, is it?

Do you wish you were doing something else with your life?