APAD: above my pay grade

Meaning:

   Something which is "above my pay grade" is something which is above your

   level of professional responsibility. It is used most often when someone is

   declining to take on work for which they aren't qualified or paid.

 

   The expression is most often used in a jocular way when referring to anything

   that someone has no expertise about or doesn't really care about. For

   example, "My neighbour's cat has disappeared and he wants me to go out with

   him in the rain to hunt for it - but that's way above my pay grade".

 

   The phrase is often expressed as "beyond your pay grade".

 

Background:

 

   The expression hovers halfway between being a figurative idiom and a literal phrase.

 

   The literal aspect derives from the fact that US military, and this phrase is

   American, used to pay each rank according to specific pay grades. This

   payment system was later extended to many federal employees. An early example

   of that literal usage is found in the US Cases Court of Claims, 1883:

 

     The law... indicates pay grades by description. Together they give to the

     retired chief engineer 75 per centum of the sea-pay of the pay grade which

     he held at the time of his retirement.

 

   The first example that I can find of the figurative use, that is, when no

   actual pay was involved, is in the romantic novel Doctor Sandy, 1965, by the

   British author Margaret Malcolm:

 

     This isn't like an ordinary marriage sweetie. With royal families involved,

     it's as much a treaty as anything else. The politics are above my pay

     grade, but even I know everything could fall apart in a blink.

 

 

- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]

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"Above my pay grade" is useful when the time comes to say no. It's true at many

scales. In things big and small, there is a place where you draw the line. I was

only able to say "It's above my pay grade" around the time I paid off the mortgage.