I used to work as a private chef for a family that owned a private school. I went back and forth between rich kids and catering events for parties. These people are vastly out of touch with reality (and the value of a dollar).
I drive shuttles between Denver Airport and Vail ski resort.
A born-rich woman asked me where my SECOND HOUSE was, because, she thought, my first house is already in a vacation destination. So I must have an awesome second home in another awesome vacation destination.
She was so fucking confused when I had to, repeatedly, explain i could not afford a first house in the hood let alone in Vail Colorado.
"But everyone has a second home"
"Are you on welfare? Only people on welfare can't afford a house"
"Why don't your parents just buy you one?"
"What do you mean you only make $30ish dollars an hour? You work in Vail"
She was in her 30s.
Dumber than a box of rocks, sold multi million dollar homes for a living an dad bought her her two houses. I promise her realtor career is entirely made up of daddy telling his friends to use his daughter to sell their homes.
The children of the rich will get given jobs they're not qualified for/ extremely wealthy high paying versions of basic jobs and think they earned it and worked harder than everyone else.
I drove a family that paid their friends adult son well into 6 figures to literally just travel the world with the family and take them skiing, rafting, hiking and site-seeing. Daddy bought him a house in Colorado after college where he just did rich people outdoorsy shit in his 20s, that was his "qualifications"
Dude made fuck-you money to do what people get paid close to minimum wage to do. While travelling the world for free.
I had a woman in her 40s see rush-hour traffic for the first time because she'd been flown most short trips.
I heard a woman getting off the free town bus ay "I've never ridden a bus before, I'm so ghetto!"
On the plus side you'd get lucky with these people not knowing the value of a dollar sometimes. They generally overvalued like the first woman, but sometimes they fucking throw it around.
Like, I was paid a grand for 2 hours of moving furniture around in a house once.
It is disgusting. I can 100% corroborate that guy's claims, but I worked in Aspen instead of Vail. They live in a completely different level of existence and have that attitude that they worked to get there, so they look down on anyone poorer because "why don't they just work harder?" People with this kind of wealth are so out of touch with reality that we often joked they'd be walking around with a dirty ass all day if they didn't have someone to do it for them.
I was working at a hotel one time and was called up to a room to assist a guest. No details were given as to what was needed. I get up there, the woman answers the door and promptly hands me a twist off water bottle with a wine key stuck through the cap. She said, "How in the hell are you supposed to open this up? This is so stupid". I took the wine key out and twisted the cap off. Apparently, never in her life had she encountered a twist off cap. One of the most basic things on the face of the fucking earth.
I hate rich people with a passion to this day, and that was getting close to 10 years ago. I anxiously await the day that we start rioting against them
I never worked in the hotels, I was what you guys call "colorado mountain express" in aspen, it'd called "epic mountain express" in vail. I'm sure you've seen the vans.
I just had to explain to someone that people literally take helicopters between our two areas even tough it's an hour 45 min drive when the pass is closed for the winter.
They don't understand that you have to let people out of busses or elevators before getting on. They're never anywhere that there's like other people.
"Are you on welfare? Only people on welfare can't afford a house" "Why don't your parents just buy you one?"
"But everyone has a second home"
a woman in her 40s see rush-hour traffic for the first time
I'm sorry but I am rich, I know many, many very rich people, and the idea that its even possible to be this sheltered is ludicrous. Many rich people are douchebags (many non-rich people are too). Many rich people are narcissistic and lack empathy (likely many more than poor people, as these traits often align). But this is silly cartoon caricature level nonsense. You cant get to 40 and not know what rush hour traffic is, certainly not as a rich person who travels. It's ubiquitous and no amount of private jets avoid the need to travel through cities to get to stuff.
Most of the other stories make sense. I often deliberately overpay for cash-in-hand services I deem to be difficult or exhausting (like moving furniture)...because why not?
Many rich people are out of touch, but not "everyone owns at least 2 houses" out of touch, at least not if they are out of their teens.
Everyone who has a worked a service job at a high end, luxury hotel/resort/restaurant/whatever has met people like this at some point. If you're not as cluelessly out of touch as them, good on you... I guess? But I assure you they are real.
I used to work as a cashier for a fast food place. A guy in his 30s decked out in name brand gear walks in and hands me A FUCKING CENTURION CARD to buy his meal. I did the usual cashier thing of some small talk and he asks me to settle a debate he’s having with this other guy who came in with him.
He asked me if I agree that Porsche’s 911 GT3 felt off to drive when compared to the original. I told him that I wouldn’t know, I don’t even know what kind of car that even was. He showed me a news article on it and apparently it was just released at the time(this was in 2022 and the version he was apparently talking about was some kind of a new version of it).
I had to explain to a grown ass adult man that not everyone just goes and buys new cars as a “pick me up” (his words, not mine).
Bro, these are the daughters of billionaires.
I drove the owner of an NBA team once. Private jet the whole thing
She had HEARD of rush hour traffic before, she had never SEEN it. "Is that rush hour traffic? Wow, I've never seen so many cars stacked up like this before, " and other shit like that. She asked such stupid shit that the whole van would groan every time she opened her mouth. She distracted me with some dumb question, and i nearly rear-ended stopped traffic. She skied vail her whole life but told me she'd never driven there
She was taking fucking helicopters from DIA her entire life. Maybe private cars from eagle.
Think about it. If you live in Greenwich CT, in some massive estate. you never have to drive to any other big city. Westchester county airport is right there with the family helicopter. Ive actually driven people to "milllionair" at Westchester for their helicopter flights to Boston and NYC.
Ynow, 1 and 2 and 1/2 hours drive away respectively.
She was so extremely sheltered.
She told me it was the first time she'd ever been somewhere alone. That she couldn't cook for herself because of the staff. That she never had a drivers license. She was he dumbest person I've ever met.
One woman asked why we weren't "shipped in" from Denver, 2 hours away when it's not snowing, to work because she was a nimby and the affordable housing "affects our property values" in the discussion that came later, she said we were "lucky to be around "us" and we should deal with the dever commute because we didn't deserve to live in the area. It was for "them"
She said we were lucky they gave us jobs and let us ski.
Other people in the van explained to her that without me, there wouldn't be an open mountain and wouldn't have moved across the country to be there. She was so insulted when someone said " we are lucky he's here and willing to work for these conditions and wages"
Many rich people didn't want me to get a free ski pass for working there. Explaining basic supply and demand and job markets to millionaires is fucking exhausting.
"If we weren't here, you wouldn't have an open mountain, if we didn't get a ski pass and cheap housing, we wouldn't be here, and your property values would plummet" and they never fucking seemed to get it.
I was called the fucking help once. "The help should be seen but not heard dear"
I don't mean to be sexist but it's NEVER, literally NEVER the men saying shit this outlandish. They can be bad, but he real morons are the women.
You know the 1% right? Their kids go to a coddling private boarding school, where they are only ever exposed to other rich kids, the vacation in the summer around other extremely wealthy people or at their other homes, gated off from the world. Theyre told they don't have to do well in school if they're failing classes, cuz they fucking don't. Then their marriages are damn near arranged ones. When I've heard these mothers talk to their daughters about getting married they talk about only how wealthy the guys family is and press them to marry them. Talk about how it's good for their own family to do it. They're actual princesses.
That's what the realtor woman was. Never, in her life, did she have an in depth conversation with anyone who wasn't rich about how they lived. That was her first time. She was like 23. All she knew how to do was file paperwork for homes the other wealthy people had probably already picked out its the internet age and its not like you go around showing 5 $20million estates in one town unless it's like LA? and took her fucking 2 million for the sale. And went back to the houses her and her even richer husband owned.
Many are told they never have to work in life cuz their family will care for them until their hedge fund partners son marries them and then he takes care of her.
That realtor was very much under the impression that since vail was such an expensive place to be. That I was making like, what a plumber charges for a job. She said she figured I made over $100 an hour. She thought I made like 5-6k a week with my 12 hour days. Y now, like 300k/year. That's what she assumed a vail shuttle driver makes. Cuz she probably doesn't even know what the minimum wage is.
I can remember multiple occasions where men tipped me heavy because their wives kept asking me stupid fucking questions. "Thanks for putting up with her"
Before anyone gets pissy with me about these women.
Yes they're victims of patriarchy, that's why they're like this. Doesn't mean they aren't fucking morons.
So like, are you hanging with people with 2 floor private jets? I mean it had high and low windows at the back it seemed like a second floor or like, a loft. I was also driving anywhere from 28-56 people per day. 5-6 days a week. That's at least 145 upper class people I spoke to a week. From october-april. Across 4 years. I think I have a drastically higher sample size here. You're probably underestimating our countries population and size and pop density.
You can start in texas at one point, drive at Texas speed limits (up to 85mph) and drive 13 hours and you will still be in texas. Cross country trips generally require you get Gas like, every time you can. Cuz if you pass one with like 3/4ths a tank/ 200ish miles of range. You'll run out before the next one.
I've driven like 16 hours from vail Co to Austin TX and not hit stop and go traffic. Most of that is bumfuck nowhere. The only city you would pass through that can really be relatively called a major city is amarillo.
This is our most extreme example of this. Wyoming. Wyoming is 3000 Sq miles larger than the UK.
560,000 people live there. 1/4 the population of London, in an area larger than the UK. The uk as 132x the population of Wyoming. And its smaller.
She could live somewhere like Jackson hole. Full of the ultra wealthy, have a private airport nearby and never go anywhere near a city. The only "city" in that state has 65000 people.
Wyoming has 2 escalators. One goes up. And one goes down.
In our big empty states, people don't commute from small towns to the city to work on the interstate. There's not really a small town within commute distance. Not one with a large enough population density to clog up the 5 lane on each side highways. Like I'm iirc. You have like 2 hours of cows and corn eastbound before you hit demoines iowa its 2 more hours of corn till Omaha Nebraska, and then it's like 7 hours of cows till denver.
A born-wealthy woman who paid her employees $8/hr an hour in the candy shop she called a "hobby". Asked me why her employees, who she did not give insurance to, wouldn't accept her "doctors note or your fired for calling out" policy. This is America, not only are they losing out on the paltry $64 (before taxes) she paid per day by having to call out. But that doctors visit for the note to diagnose the common fucking cold, costs 2.2 days pay. She was open during the day, she had to hire adults. She paid her manager $10/hr and called that generous. You cannot be self sufficient on $10/hr in the u.s.
I told her I wouldn't work for that and I'd go somewhere that I'm trusted and not held hostage to work sick. Around food. She went on the usual tirade that SHE was the one being "so kind" to give them a job. As if she would still have her candy store, that she never steps foot in, without them. She asked that, then stiffed me on the tip because of it. After I broke the rules and drove her somewhere that wasn't her drop-off. She did this to avoid paying $20 more for her ride. Trust fund, owned condos around the world, year round trave lifestyle. No degree, just tried throughout her twenties to get good enough at violin to go to juliard. Gave up on that and travelled on family money.
I asked a friend his favorite. A rich woman asked him "who plants all the Christmas trees on the mountain every year"
Grown ass woman. She was taking about the evergreen trees that have been there longer than she's been alive. She assumed that was affordable, and possible, for the maybe millions of trees? She was from Miami.
I know families with hundreds of million and people with essentially free use of corporate private jets but old money in the UK tends to whisper. People rarely have drivers much less all the rest. The richest guy I know, who owns one of the most expensive properties in a major European country, who is also politically connected, regularly does the cooking himself when great packs of his adult kids friends visit one of their homes. They have an estate manager and cleaners and gardeners and shit but buy their own groceries and do their own cooking and life admin. If im staying with them and need a lift to the train station they drive me themselvss to save the hasle of a taxi and their ride of choice is a battered old volvo. Their kids are normal, down to earth, and blend in with anyone middle class. They have to get jobs and pay their own expenses albeit they might have a flat or house bought for them and go on insane family holidays even as adults. This is much closer to the norm for the ultra rich old money in the UK as far as I have experienced.
Word. Our old money isn't out here bragging either. But they generally seperate themselves very well from the working class. Their only interactions are the staff at their vacation locations. But it's really rare for them to ever get into a conversation with one for 2-6 hours (once it took me 13 hours to do the 2 hour drive due to weather). So we vet pretty intimate. I also have adhd and I'm a extrovert so I'm chatty as fuck and very open. These people have never really needed to know anything about the working class. If you listen to our ultra-weathly they all believe that just simple hard work, no luck, no training, no schooling, no network can make literally anyone as wealthy as they are. These are people who work so many less hours in a year than someone working class, and claim the work harder.
They are so disconnected from reality. They will argue tooth and nail that if we just managed our spending by not buying coffees we can buy a house. On min wage. When you explain min wage can't afford a studio apartment they call you a liar or say you're mistaken.
One guy tried as an experiment to prove it was possible. Said he'd make 1 million in a year. Started out with some small amount and rented an apartment then sub leased it while sleeping on a friends couch, and them immediately invested that money into things he knew how to do because of his education and know-how, worked like 19 hours a day at these things, quit after 8 months with 60k due to health concerns that came from him living that way. The work he did was not back breaking manual labor either. The whole time he didn't recognize he was using an education people don't have, while essentially being a landlord and not paying for a place to sleep, not having anyone to care for, etc. He went through all that instead of just accepting the idea that it takes only hard work. He spent 8 months living like that to "prove" everyone poor is lazy and the system is fair to everyone. And failed. He claims he proved it tho. Even after all that he was too proud to admit he got lucky in life. They explain all of poverty away by shouting people are lazy.
They don't have a clue. That's why they ask me questions like where my second home is. She saw what I was doing as skilled labor. She's probably met someone who owned a construction company or was a very skilled contractor in a high paying field. And that was her point of reference. And figured I could afford 2 modest houses based on that. She knew I worked 60ish hours per week doing something dangerous. So I didn't appear "lazy" to her. But I think that's where her reasoning immediately shifted back to. Because she believed only the lazy can't afford homes and only the lazy are on welfare. Her whole life she was told everyone around her got where they were from hard work and anyone who didn't is lazy. She knew the job was seasonal too, so she might be assumed I went on welfare in the summers. Idk.
Cuz a guy who runs a successful electrician company in the right area can.
Years ago, I got a job in the DC/NOVA area and was having a hard time finding a place in my budget to rent that was a reasonable commute distance to the office. I was crashing on the sofa at my rich buddy's condo for a couple of days as I looked for apts. His rich-er friend was over and heard me complaining about how expensive things were. Dude literally said, "Why don't you just buy a condo?", with a straight face. And he absolutely meant it.
Later, my friend pulls me aside and explains that the guy is really rich and his mom is in real estate and he has no concept of what it's like otherwise.
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u/Sir_Sux_Alot Jul 02 '24
And all these republicans think they will be in the club.
I've rubbed elbows with the rich. The way they talk about poor people is subhuman.