When you really boil everything down to basics, what is there is that in reality, none of the royal family has to "work" at anything at all. It is my understanding that it is the royals, themselves, that have chosen to sponsor, visit, support and become patrons of various charitable organizations because they wish to aid and bring attention to causes that affect their people. Their main roles in life are the preservation and support of the monarch as the head of state in a non political role. The traditions and the pomp and circumstance of a very long history is preserved and honored and kept alive. The Queen is a living, breathing connection to everything that is British that has far reaching roots in its past as well as she holds the continuity of a nation into the future with her family.
There is no pay scale. There are no set hours to report to work. There are no real perks. Instead there is the sacrifice of personal privacy, constant scrutiny of what they do and what they don't do and a need to have personal security around them at all times due to being a high target for any crazed idiot out there. This entire family could live very well into the future on their own private means and go on a permanent vacation for the rest of their lives if they chose to. Charles wasn't required to carve out the role he did as the Prince of Wales. He chose to and started the Prince's Trust with his pension from the Navy. William and Harry could very well have decided that the hot spots of the Med or the slopes and the finest eateries in the world were to be their prime focus in life. They didn't.
Perhaps instead of focusing on "work ethics" which to me is trying to fit the royal family into the mold of the everyday man that earns his living at a career or employment, it would be wiser to focus on what the royal family is accomplishing and giving to the people by the various things that they do. Think of it this way. Should the UK decide to go republic and deem the royal family no longer a necessity, the royal family itself will not be hurting but there will be a huge gap where the contributions made by the family used to be.
Sometimes we really don't know how good something is until its gone. Its my opinion that the British Royal Family gives to the nation far more than what it receives from them.
(jumps down off her soapbox and heads for the donut and coffee table)
That's true what you say, but with this logic they are nobody's who have money and we wouldn't bother talking about them on such a thread.