![cp-pexels-40Andrea-Piacquadio](https://thespicychefs.com/storage/app/media/thespicychefs/2023/03/cp-pexels-40Andrea-Piacquadio.jpg)
These individuals are living proof that class cannot be bought with money. Rich individuals can be the very worst, ranging from unreasonable jerks to out-of-touch brats.
1. Her Ego Causes Her To Carry More Weight Than She Should
pexels @Andrea Piacquadio
There was this incident I heard about a couple of years back about a local socialite, who married into one of the richest and most powerful families here. The story goes that she was at a bank’s main office to meet with the CEO. Instead of taking the elevator like a regular person, she had her bodyguards remove all the people inside the elevator so that she could go up alone without people bothering her.
She said something along the lines of, “Get out of my elevator.” Funny thing is, one of the people she had forced out the elevator was the bank owner’s wife, who decided to take another elevator with the rest of the people who were forced out. The owner’s wife got her sweet revenge. Once the socialite got to the office, the bank owner’s wife was already there and promptly told her to “get out of her building.”
2. Grasping Scale
pexels @Alexander Mils
I had a guy put a $20 on the table when I came to greet him and his wife and say, “This is your tip. However, every time you do something wrong, I will remove a dollar.” I thought he was joking, so I chuckled and asked, “Like, what?”
He takes the 20 off the table and replaces it with exactly $19. Who carries enough bills to do that? He responds with, “Like that.”
3. A Little Too Lax
unsplash @Cristina Anne Costello
My elderly, very well esteemed, uncle once invited my partner and I out to dinner at an exclusive country club. We were careful to ask what the dress code was and were told we’d be in the club’s more casual dining room and to “just wear anything.” So we showed up in jeans and polos. Big. Mistake. We arrived before him, and when we walked in we immediately felt like we were peasants.
The entire staff stared at us. The host, standing behind his little podium in a tux, said nothing for a long time, and then, drawing each word out as though it pained him to even those such as us, he said: “I’m sorry, we don’t serve people in… dungarees.” It was the most insulting and hilarious thing I have ever been told. Every single syllable was shaped with contempt and derision.
We told him whose party we were here for. Suddenly they were falling over to explain that, no, no, the jeans would be no problem at all. We waited until my uncle arrived, told them to get bent, and went for pizza.
4. You Can’t Fight the Sky
unsplash @Joakim Honkasalo
Upgraded to first class recently on a flight that ended up delayed on the ground for an hour. I wasn’t even mad. A woman in front of me turned to her husband at one point and said, “Why don’t you go have a word with the captain and see if you can get him to hurry up? Tell him who you are.” There was just one problem.
I had no clue who he was and I don’t think anyone else would have either. But at least the guy understood that that wouldn’t work even if the woman he was with didn’t. He refused.
5. The World Is Your Toilet When You’re Rich
unsplash @Giorgio Trovato
I was once a server at a high-end steakhouse in Newport Beach, California. A rich guy’s son comes in, probably in his mid-30s, with a big group. They get a private room and spend thousands on food and booze. The guy gets hammered and instead of climbing the stairs to take a leak, he just relieves himself in the hallway. On the floor.
He didn’t get kicked out, either. They just had a janitor come in and clean it up and the dinner kept going. Nice to have that kind of money, I guess.
6. Germ Freak
freepik @prostooleh
I worked as a valet for about a year at a really classy hotel. We routinely had Mercedes, BMWs, Range Rovers, football players candy colored cars, Porsches… Think of pretty much any kind of high end car and I must have driven one at some point. One time, a guy pulled up in a decent Mercedes, not anything super high dollar. He seemed cool at first, but then he did the rudest thing I have ever seen.
After I gave him the valet claim ticket, he casually went to his back seat and retrieved a newspaper. I was still holding the driver’s door open for me and he started disassembling the newspaper. Once he had 4-5 single sheets of newspaper, he began setting the newspaper on his driver’s seat, as if to protect it from my apparently dirty self. He didn’t even have to say anything, and it was still the rudest insult I had ever received
7. Load Of Money For A Burrito
pexels @Pixabay
When I was a cashier at Chipotle, I had a woman misunderstand the price of a burrito. She heard me say “that’ll be seven-twenty-eight” and without any hesitation, counted out eight $100 bills from a wad of cash that must have been several thousand dollars. We had a good laugh when she realized her mistake. She was carrying a suitcase and had a thick accent, so I think it may have been her first cash transaction in the US.
She was just so rich that it didn’t occur to her that $800 was a load of money to spend on a burrito.
8. Would’ve Been Loaf to Deny Her
unsplash @Laura Ockel
I worked at a very expensive and exclusive country club, the type you’d see the Bluths at. One of the members drove her golf cart over from her house. She said the help had forgotten to buy a loaf of bread, and she wanted to buy one from our kitchen. I told her that we couldn’t sell her a loaf of bread, so she asked how many sandwiches a loaf of bread can make.
I ended up selling her 10 sandwiches with nothing on it at $7/piece.
9. Mistaken Identity
unsplash @Miquel Ferran Gomez Figueroa
I was a sous-chef at a fancy country club and it was 10 minutes before we opened for the Easter buffet. Needless to say, it was going to be a very busy day. I was walking through the dining room and checking all the final details when suddenly a little girl of about two years old ran into the room. She had escaped from her mom who was at the front desk.
She comes to a stop about six feet in front of us and looks up with her eyes wide. I must have been quite a sight, I was wearing my tall white hat and white apron down to my toes. Her mom appears in a heartbeat, turns her daughter by the shoulder, and whisks her away saying: “Don’t talk to them, that’s the help, dear.”
10. No Respect
unsplash @Matthieu Comoy
My ex-husband worked as an artist for really rich people. He had a client who paid him in cash, but good god, the way he paid him was beyond awful. He’d wad up the bills and throw them at my ex one-by-one as he spoke disparagingly to him. The guy’s home won some awards so clearly my husband did a really good job with his work. But this guy still treated him with so much disrespect.
I can’t even imagine what is going on inside that guy’s head.
11. It’s The “Thought” That “Counts”
unsplash @Jay Wennington
I’m an event chef for a fine dining catering company. The wealthy customers tend to treat me well and with respect. I think I get slightly better treatment because I’m the one in the chef’s coat and hat and so they know I’m handling their food. The “best” insult I’ve had was the time I got a $2.50 tip for the whole night. Somehow that was worse than no tip.
12. Poor Attitude
freepik @yanalya
I was briefly an assistant to a CEO of a large company in my country (I live in Northern Europe), and this guy was a real jerk to everyone. I just made coffee, ran with mail, and copied things. I say “briefly” because I only worked there for three weeks. I made an honest mistake, copying the wrong documents, resulting in a brief embarrassment on his side in an in-house meeting with some of the other big guys of the firm.
I got called into his office and, knowing his history with previous assistants, I was visibly nervous. He then began absolutely shredding me for 15 minutes, completely red in the head, spit flying in my face as he stood above me, basically ripping me a new one. I started crying (This was my first job, and I was 15 at the time), and he stopped shouting. But that wasn’t a good sign.
He took one finger to my chin, lifted my face up so I looked straight at him, and then he said “You’re a nobody. Don’t you ever forget that.” And then he threw some paperwork at me to let me officially know that I was fired (which I then had to pick up from the floor), and then he yelled at me to get the heck out of his office.
13. We Must All Call Out Bad Behavior
unsplash @Nils Stahl
I saw an American woman who seemed to be a model out for breakfast at a nice hotel in Barcelona. She demanded the waiter walk the butter over to her table. It was 4 feet away at the breakfast buffet. I actually stood up, grabbed it, and handed it to her, as she was demanding this in English to the Catalonian staff. She actually said, “No, I want them to do it.”
I said she was an embarrassment, to which she stormed out. Doing my part!
14. Stay Humble
pexels @Jozef Fehér
My family is pretty well-off, and we lived in a really snooty area. My dad grew up poor and got incredibly successful through hard work. He didn’t want his kids to be lazy, rich brats so he raised us to never be snobs. I worked as a dog walker in high school because he encouraged it (and because I just love dogs). One day I walked into one of my new client’s house and she commented: “I’m sure someone like you has never even been in such a big house!”
When I said I actually had she laughed and told me that “Walmart isn’t a house!” I was so baffled at her rudeness, I thought everyone who was well-off was as classy and humble like my father. Nope.
15. Completely Worthless
pexels @Julio Irrazabal
I was opening a bottle for this table when I started getting chest pains. I was scared because the last time that happened I had a seizure. The pain hit so quickly that I almost dropped the bottle, so I put the bottle down on the table. One lady said: “Honey are you okay?” because it was clear something was wrong. The man who ordered the bottle said “We aren’t paying $50 a person for you to die here.”
After a couple of seconds—which felt like it lasted forever—the pain gradually went away and I apologized and explained what happened to me the last time. Then the man replied with the cruelest words: “At least you didn’t drop the bottle—it costs more than your life.” Tears started to well up in my eyes as I poured their drinks. I never went back to that table.
The lady who asked if I was okay came up to me later and apologized for the man and gave me a $100 tip. But still I remember feeling completely worthless at that moment. The bottle cost $300.
16. Did I Really Do That?
unsplash @Jp Valery
Somewhat distant relative spent all of his university years and twenties partying hard with the ~$100-120K allowance his rich company-owning father gave him each year. He’d travel the world each year going to Bali, Thailand, Europe, every year Oktoberfest, just rampaging. At 32 or so he decided to settle in an upscale ski resort area of the US and open a business with his hot gold digger fiancé.
When he went to transfer his money to his US bank account, he noticed it only came to a few thousand dollars. He angrily asked the bank worker why she hadn’t transferred the entire amount only to be told that that was the entire amount. His father had cut him off without saying anything and he just hadn’t noticed. Absolute flatline.
17. Excellent Attempt
pexels @Manit Seekhao
I was a host at a local mom-and-pop breakfast place in San Francisco for 7 years. Despite being small it catered to a lot of high-end people like the Mayor and professional football players. So we’d end up with an hour or more wait sometimes on busy brunch days. My favorite thing that people would do is pull the “I know the owner” card to try and get a table. But there was just one problem.
They were totally unaware that the owners both worked the line everyday and were right next to us. So I would respond by saying: “Oh, let me get them. I’m sure they’d love to say hello!” The looks on their faces when the owner would come out and say: “I’m sorry where have we met?” was priceless. It was one of the only restaurants I’ve ever worked at that cared more about their staff than the customer always being right.
18. Can You Help Me With That?
pexels @Edgars Kisuro
I used to work as a valet at the Fashion Show Mall on the Las Vegas strip. I remember accompanying this old lady (who was wearing one of those stereotypical “old woman with old money” hats) to her Lexus. The wind was gusting a bit and she looked at me and said: “This wind is unacceptable.” I nod in agreement and then she just stands there and gives me this look like “Well?”
So I say “Well, unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do…” She glares at me and repeats: “UN-ACCEPTABLE” and then gets in her car and drives off.
19. Born to Splurge
pexels @Andrea Piacquadio
I had a classmate in college who was apparently some wealthy diva. Marries a guy whose parents were millionaires as well. Both eventually flunk out and tour the world on mommy and daddy’s account, soon getting married and have a child. They lived with his parents in a mansion at the time. It seemed like a dream, but it was actually a nightmare.
She gets tired of living with them and blackmails her mother-in-law to buy them a house or she will never see her grandchild again. His family refuses. Weeks of tantrums, Facebook and Twitter rants, eventually she moves out…to her own parents’ vacation home…oh, but it turns out she was actually just getting started.
A few years go by, and she is about to get cut off. So she has a brilliant solution: She gets pregnant again then goes back on social media to complain about how her family would abandon a pregnant woman and her child. Her parents crack and continue pouring money in. Husband’s family cracks and buys the home.
Now years down the line, I still see regular social media updates from her about overcoming adversity, triumphing over hardship, beating the odds, chasing your dream etc. etc. The married couple to this day has never worked or gotten a paycheck.
20. Do You Know Who I Am?
pexels @Jerome Govender
I used to live in Whistler, BC, so we saw a lot of athletes during the winter and summer, and offseason when they did training camps. I don’t really follow sports. One run-in with a guy, I’m assuming pro snowboarder by the looks of him. I think we accidentally bumped into each other in a club or something. He pulled the, “Do you know who I am” thing at me, and I just responded with, “Do YOU know who I am!?” right back.
He looked shocked. I added, “Half the people in this town are famous, bud. Get over yourself.” The look on his face was priceless. I am essentially a nobody but my facade seemed to work.
21. Rules Apply
freepik @freepik
When I was working at a public library, we had a few local celebrities come in from time to time. Most of them were nice, but one had a real stick up his butt. He would whine about having to stand in line, about late fees, and about everything else. We would just say, “Sorry, those are the rules,” or, “Thank you for being patient,” even though he wasn’t.
One day, he and I were apparently both having a bad day, and when I told him there was a limit on how many DVDs or video games he could check out at a time, he slammed his hands on the desk and raged, “Do you know who I am?!” This is a fully grown man, mind, and I was a little college student who barely looked old enough to drive—so I finally just snapped.
I was sick of his low-key teasing, so I looked at him and said, “Yes, I do, Mr. X, and the rules still apply to you. Which of these would you like me to put back?” He was stunned. I don’t think anyone had ever actually told him that the rules for everyone else did in fact apply to him as well. He was a little nicer after that. Not a lot nicer, but still.
22. Spend As If You’re Broke
freepik @freepic.diller
The rich guy I know was completely delusional. He walked around and bought items like he was a prince. Spent $1,000s on clothes in one sitting and would buy drinks for people at the bar. His bills were examples of the “rich and don’t care” attitude. Then one day he asks me to print out his banking info and credit score. Turns out he was $100,000 in debt, despite pulling in a six-figure salary. His spending habits were insane.
23. Go Die And Be Forgotten
unsplash @Giuseppe Famiani
This story happened while I was working on a yacht in South America. A lady had helicoptered in a bunch of stuff for a party, and I guess her helicopter violated someone’s air space. The coast guard followed the helicopter to the yacht and boarded the vessel looking to arrest someone. She tossed her checkbook at them and as she walked away she said: “Fill it out, then go die and be forgotten.”
24. Geography Class
pexels @Christina Morillo
I worked at this fancy event center where a bunch of yuppies host their weddings. My job was so easy; I literally just opened doors or clicked buttons on the elevator. One time, a man who I had previously opened the door for had come back to talk to me. He proceeded to ask me where I am from and what I thought about him adopting a daughter from Korea.
I am an Asian American, born and raised in the United States, so I responded with something along the lines of: “Yeah that’s really cool..good for you.” He kept asking me uncomfortable personal questions about living in Korea and made offensive comments. For example, he said the fact that I could fluently speak English was amazing.
The funniest thing is that I’m not even Korean, I’m Cambodian! I told him this, and that Korea and Cambodia are very different places even though they are both in Asia. I come from a very educated and upper middle-class family and in times like these, I literally feel like they think I came straight from the slums or something.
25. Happy Wishers
pexels @ELEVATE
I live in Florida so this table I was serving asked me how I fared during Hurricane Irma. I told them that we just had some minor damage to our roof but were lucky that none of the oak trees in our backyard fell on our house. This lady goes on to say something on the lines of “Well, I hope your landlord is taking care of that soon”.
I go on to tell her that my fiancé and I own the house and her mouth dropped. She says, “Wow aren’t you lucky to be with someone who makes enough money to own a house.” I simply replied by saying “I actually make more money than her” and walked away.
26. Sorry, I’m Not Interested
freepik @Drazen Zigic
I worked for the University Mail Services in college, it was mostly just sorting mail but I occasionally helped out with deliveries and pickups on campus. One day I was running the route and picking up mail from one of the admin offices. There was a FedEx package to pick up, and for those, I had to sign the paperwork, note the time, and leave the carbon copy.
I had left my pen in the van, so I asked a couple who were passing by if they had a pen I could borrow for a second. They both looked at me like I’d asked to take his Ferrari for a spin. The guy looked down at his pen and then up at me before handing me the pen in the most condescending manner I’ve ever seen. Yes, he managed to make the act of handing me a pen condescending.
Then the lady said: “You should ask your boss for a raise so you can afford your own pen.”
27. Set the Bar High
unsplash @Kalle Stillersson
I used to work in this totally yuppie bowling alley. You might laugh at that, but an hour and a half of bowling and a pitcher is about $90 for two people. I went to check on a lane when a group was getting set up. They were a couple of well-dressed older white ladies with two Asian ~six-year-old girls, both in fancy little kimonos.
I greeted them warmly and asked, “Can I get y’all a pitcher of soda?” And one of the ladies gave me a dirty look and sneered: “You mean you all. I already worry about the girls growing up with an accent, and I don’t want them learning bad grammar as well.” I couldn’t believe it! She also made the girls practice their ‘bow’ for me and I was just generally weirded out by almost everything that happened.
28. Smile It Off
pexels @Pixabay
I was 21 and bartending in a snooty restaurant often frequented by yachties. One customer commented: “Oh you look about my daughter’s age, except she’s away at college. A career is really important to her.” Little did they know, I was graduating that year and off to grad school the following year. I just smiled and said, “Wow, that’s great. Can I get you another cocktail?”
29. Exaggeration
pexels @cottonbro studio
I worked in the VIP area of a now-defunct stadium. I was in high school and was working a summer job washing dishes. We served various VIP staff including the stadium owner. The owner was actually okay. He even thanked us one time, which was more than we usually got from our guests. His relatives, however were another story…
One day we hear a shriek coming from one of the guests, it sounds like someone was being attacked. My boss, the head chef, runs out to see what just happened. Turns out there was some dressing on the handle of the label. And one of the owner’s relatives was shrieking like a rat had just popped out of her food!
30. Job Opportunity
pexels @Christina Morillo
Just a couple of days ago I was serving a very important business meeting, important enough that one of the gentlemen flew in from Hong Kong. I guess they left some documents on the table that got thrown away and they came back in a couple of hours later and was frantically looking for them. He pulled me aside and said the most entitled thing I have ever heard: “Look, I make more in a week than you do in a year. Find me those papers or I’ll have you shining my shoes just to make a little extra.”
31.Demonstrate it!
unsplash @sjcbrn
I work at a pretty high-class seafood restaurant in Rhode Island and one evening I had a table of people who had all ordered a lobster dish. I went to clear their table and one of the men complained that the lobster was not fresh and was frozen. I politely informed him that the lobster was never frozen, but he was very adamant.
So I said I was sorry and walked off, and I passed my manager and mentioned it to him. He stormed off and came back five minutes later with a cardboard box full of live lobsters and said: “Go show them!” I walked back out to the table and set down a box full of 10 or so lobsters and said “See. Fresh.” The guy’s dumbstruck face was so satisfying. The tip…not so satisfying.
32. Show Maturity
unsplash @Chris Chow
I umpire little league baseball and was calling a game between a couple of pretty snooty leagues. After I called strike three on a kid, the mom yells from the stands: “Don’t worry honey, he’s just some fat loser with nothing better to do!” I looked back to see who said it and saw that she was a young, rich looking mom, probably about 35 years old.
I knew then that I’d make her regret her words. This woman clearly prided herself on how she looked, considering she was pretty dolled up for her kid’s little league baseball game. So between innings, I leaned back against the fence and said to her “Ma’am these are children. I’d expect a woman in her 50s to have a little more class than that.”
33. The Delicious Smell of Financial Stability
pexels @Josh Sorenson
When I was a supervisor for Starbucks, we had a regular who ordered the same (extra modified) Frappuccino every day, three times a day. She had to have it all the time and only liked getting them from a few stores. When she would go on road trips to her cabin, she would come in the night before and we would pre make a whole bunch of Frappuccino’s and not add ice or blend them.
This would be so she could blend them in her car on the way there and back. Did the math, she spent over $8,000 per year on this stuff. For the record, she was an heiress and only stayed home all day watching soap operas.
34. You’ve Lost
unsplash @Nick Karvounis
My wife and I had a gift card for this high-class restaurant that we got as a gift from a well-off friend. So we go to the restaurant and have a lovely meal. But when our meal was over, things went sour. My wife wondered out loud if we’re supposed to pay at the front or at the table. The waitress comes by and overhears us talking about our gift card and she says, “You can give your COUPON to the gentleman over here.”
Then she ROLLS HER EYES. My wife and I felt really embarrassed and we sheepishly left our table. We went to the gentleman at the front, and he was very polite and gracious. I can tell from his behavior that she does this a lot. We left a standard tip to the waitress, but we left the gentleman 25 bucks and the chef 50. Too bad for her!
35. Yikes!
freepik @master1305
I used to work in a “high-end” tea room, and we had this regular who was absolutely awful. I was on my knees cleaning up a drink that another customer had spilled and the woman needed to get past me. I said “Sorry, I’m almost done!” and she said, in the most condescending way possible, “That’s quite alright, I like having people at my feet.” It took all my self-control not to trip her.
36. VIP Attendee
pexels @Pixabay
I was working as a server, and one night I brought water and menus to a table and asked if the guests would like to order drinks right away. The man glared at me and told me that I’d have to do better than that if I expected a tip. He wanted the best service. I was a little befuddled, smiled, and said that I’d do my best to make his visit an enjoyable one.
He said loudly: “Do you know who I am?!” When I admitted that I did not he was really offended. He then informed me that he was a professor at the community college the next town over. Seriously. The community college. His wife was shushing him, turning beet red, and face-palming the entire time. That poor, poor woman.
37. Infamously Impolite
freepik @fabrikasimf
We had a famous guest in our private dining room once, he would come to our place every time he was in town. One of my server assistants, who was pretty young, was pushing a cart of bottles when it accidentally fell over right in front of him. He said “Hey you. Why don’t you pour me another drink before you clean up that mess you made.”
His tone was awful and it really irked me. She started crying out of embarrassment and he just turned to me and said: “Well, why don’t you pour me a drink then.”
38. Brat Dad
pexels @Melvin Wahlin
I was working a catering job for a 4th of July party at an exclusive yacht club. I went about my business and was clearing used plates from tables. After stacking as many plates as humanly possible, I turn and start walking back to the kitchen. Next thing I know I feel something hit me in the back of the head. It was a chicken bone.
A grown man had been watching me the entire time, with his four-year-old son at his side. Apparently, he decided he didn’t want to wait the five minutes it would take for someone else to come by and clear his table, so he chucked his garbage at my head. And then he pointed at me and cracked up. I calmly set down my tray and just walked out of the restaurant without saying a word.
39. Unprompted Response
freepik @master1305
I’ll never forget this nasty woman in NYC. Her party was so loud and obnoxious that other guests keep giving them dirty looks. I remember her friends trying to shush her and her laughing “What do I care? I’m rich!” Just a vile, vile woman. I was taking her order and she said something like “..makes my head feel like it’s in a sieve” then glared at me and said: “Before you even ask, a sieve is a device used to drain fluids.”
Please! That was the day I learned money can’t buy class.
40. Lonely Bachelor
unsplash @Emre Alırız
I knew someone who traded in his Porsche and bought a new one every year. His parents were wealthy, died when he was in his teens and left him a multi-million-dollar trust fund. What was sad was that he felt that he couldn’t pick up women without flashing his cash and expensive sports car, but he would dump them all in a couple of weeks because “they were only into me for my money.” Loneliest guy I ever met. He is not Batman, by the way. His parents died in a car accident and his butler’s name is Davin, not Alfred.
41. Membership For All
pexels @William Choquette
I live in Hong Kong. Back in the early 2000s, a local gym/fitness club changed their regulations so that only people with paid up membership could enter the premises. Why? Because tai tais (a colloquial term in Hong Kong for a wealthy married woman who doesn’t work) were bringing their maids to the gym to help them undress and dress.
The (mainly) Filipino maids would sit in the changing rooms for an hour or more while their employer did a class, then help them dress (dry hair, etc.) when they came back. The gym basically wanted to get rid of the Filipinos sitting around in the change rooms, but the tai tais simply bought them memberships!
42. Before You Complain Better Know What Goes Into It
unsplash @Lynda Kechiche
Someone once ordered the dessert on special—it was tiramisu that day—and sent it back, saying that “Mascarpone cream doesn’t go along well with coffee and your recipe should be changed.” That is literally the original and classic recipe. Then get this. She asked for tiramisu with Victoria sponge. First, we had no Victoria sponge, second, just because someone asks for it we are not going to make something we won’t end up selling, and third, I think the chef would’ve rather carved his own eyes out with a fork.
Just because you have the money to pay for a 200€ meal doesn’t mean you are entitled to whatever you want. We are workers who want to turn a profit at the end of the damn day, not your personal staff of cooks and waiters.
43. Rich People’s Oddities
pexels @Andrea Piacquadio
I worked as a busboy at a restaurant in a hotel that was at the end of its life. The owner, a reputed mob boss, and his eccentric wife lived in a top floor suite that was two stories tall and lined with white marble, Italian statues, a red carpet, etc. The wife would do her grocery shopping from the restaurant’s kitchen, and it would be us busboys who took it up.
However, she made very specific demands on how the food should be prepared. Once, she asked for seven pieces of American cheese, and it needed to be on a plate in a star pattern. Another time, she wanted five raw eggs, each wrapped in a napkin and then wrapped in plastic, placed inside a large Styrofoam cup. Failure to prepare the food to her exact specifications meant being fired.
On top of all that, she never once met us when we brought the food—she would buzz us in and instruct us to put the tray in their private elevator, and send it up to her. I was once berated because I put a plate of bread on the left side of a tray instead of the right. After the husband died, they closed the hotel. For a couple years after, she lived in that penthouse alone, and it was creepy to drive past at nights and see this 14-story hotel completely dark except for her couple lights on the top floor.
44. Angry Trip
pexels @Rene Asmussen
I drive a limousine, often for wealthy clients. My least favorite are the children. One of my spoiled trust fund clients once insisted on picking up four friends from different areas of town. He convinces these people to go to the bar with him, but when we get there, he kicks them out and has me drive him to the airport, where he picks up a last-minute flight to Vegas.
45. You Obtain What You Invest
unsplash @Fallon Travels
A very wealthy couple I was friends with some years ago offered to take me to a legendary, top star Italian restaurant in the city with my best friend and her husband. They offered to foot the whole bill since there’s no way that I or my friends could afford that kind of place. I didn’t think my best friend would be so affected by the experience.
She told the waiter she didn’t understand why she needed a menu when they should just “intuitively design her food experience for her.” I thought I would die of embarrassment. I had to hand it to the waiter though, he said “Very well ma’am”, took the menu and came back with a plate of spaghetti and meatballs for her. We all laughed out loud.
46. New Hire
unsplash @Roméo A.
I’m a server now, but I started off as a server assistant and food-runner at a real ritzy steakhouse. I was super nervous when I first started and one time I asked to clear a guy’s plate. His plate was empty so clearly, he was done. I said, “May I clear your plate, sir?” The guy looks up at me and says, “You got any other bright ideas?”
I took his plate and smiled. Then I went to the first aid kit in the back for my burn wounds.
47. Unkind Gathering
unsplash @shawnanggg
The father of a friend I grew up with is the department chair in a prestigious field at the nearby university. It’s publicly available that he makes over $400k a year and all of his children went into successful careers straight out of college. One day the friend walks into my restaurant, looks at me, looks around the restaurant, and says, “So…this is your life now?”
48. Out of the Loop
unsplash @Kharl Anthony Paica
I bartend at a Ritz Carlton. There was this solo businessman from New York sitting at my bar. He was deep into his work so I left him alone. This other gentleman came up to me and held out a 20, asking me to make change for him. Without missing a beat, the businessman looked up at him and said, “That is change.” I love that guy.
49. Never Heard A “No”
unsplash @Kharl Anthony Paica
I used to work for a company hosting luxury car driving events, where the customers came for a week or a weekend to learn to drive the latest models on ice. Most of the customers were polite or even nice, but whenever we hosted the Russian groups, everyone knew all bets were off.
These guys had never heard a “no” that couldn’t be turned into a “yes” with a wad of cash. The most memorable incident was when two of them flew in three (assumed) Russian prostitutes, and had their driver drop said prostitutes off at the airport the next morning just before picking up these guys’ wives from the same airport. I was told by the cleaning staff that the room they’d used was covered in blood and waste, amongst other things.
50. When Your Manager Has Your Back
unsplash @Nguyen Dang Hoang Nhu
My wife used to work at a high-end clothing store in Manhattan—the kind with really expensive pieces of clothing you had to make an appointment to just see. She said 90% of people there would return all kinds of clothes. Saying rich people are the cheapest or would get it just for show. One guy got in a huge argument and rudely called her fat, because she wouldn’t accept 6-month-old satin socks that he wanted to return.
My wife was clearly pregnant at the time, the manager was a sassy dude that wouldn’t tolerate that and cursed him out into the street.
51. My Amazing PE Teacher
pexels @Keira Burton
At my old school, there was this kid who thought he was hard as nails just because his parents were rich and on the school board, despite being very average physically and an idiot. Dude tried to pick a fight with me when we got off the bus to satisfy his ego, and I picked him up and threw him on his butt like a sack of bricks.
When he whined to his mum and dad, there was jack they could do because it was outside of school hours. This guy kept going at me for the rest of the year, and each time I’d wave him off, until he got so freaking annoyed he started beating my head against the table, spewing race-based and anti-gay slurs at me in the middle of the cafeteria.
Never before have I seen my PE teacher tackle someone so freaking fast. It was impressive.
52. Paid Parking
freepik @evening_tao
I work at a classical music and theater venue. It’s in the middle of the city so we ask a small fee for parking. It’s significantly less than what you would pay to park in the street and it’s clearly marked at the entrance. A guy came up to me with his parking ticket and the first words out of his mouth were “Paid parking? Do you know who I am?”
I did not, none of my colleagues knew, and to this day it’s still a mystery. But he was parked in our parking lot, so yes, paid parking.
53. Swipe Your Worries Away
pexels @Mikhail Nilov
A friend of mine was dating a super-wealthy girl in college. Not sure how they got together, it was some internship thing or something. He grew up pretty poor, and he told me a story about how they were at Wal-Mart and he was considering buying a pair of flip-flops, but they were like $10 and he wasn’t so sure it was something he could afford at the time.
Apparently, she said to him “What do you mean, you don’t know if you should get them? Whenever I want new clothes, I just ask my daddy for the money card.” She literally used the phrase “The Money Card,” as if it was some weird artifact that magically made all clothes free for her (which, I guess it kinda did). He also told me she felt the need to take a full shower every time she pooped, which… I mean, that’s a different thing, but still funny.
54. So Isolated
pexels @Baryslau Shoot
In college, as I was making dinner one night, my wealthy roommate expressed surprise that you could get vegetables in a can—like totally in shock at the idea of canned vegetables. It turns out that in his house the cook simply went down to the market every afternoon to pick up fresh veggies, and he’d never known it could be done any other way.
This was not a post about the virtues of canned vegetables, but about the idea of someone so isolated by money that they had never been in a grocery store.
55. Will Spoiler
unsplash @Álvaro Serrano
Two sons of a really wealthy couple go to the family lawyer to have their recently deceased parents’ will read. The lawyer is super nervous because he has known them both since they were kids. One son gets the entire inheritance, and the other gets nothing. The explanation was that it should be passed through to blood relatives only. So that was the day he found out he was adopted.
56. Some People’s Nerve
unsplash @Mat Napo
Someone had a heart attack on the patio of our restaurant. Paramedics came and were assessing the situation and trying to prep the guy to go to the hospital. This woman dining with her husband decided very loudly to ask my manager in her best condescending rich person tone, “Is this going to take much longer, we were enjoying lunch.” The restaurant goes dead silent and her husband looks like he’s about to puke from embarrassment. They were politely asked to leave and never come back.
57. Just For The Show
pexels @jae park
There was a kid at my high school. When he was 14, he had a learner’s permit, but his parents got him a Mercedes-Benz G-Class. Every day, he drove it to school and was determined to park it in the parking lot to show it off. So, he had his housekeeper drive to school with him and the housekeeper’s son drove a car behind her to take her back home—which was only about two miles away from our school.
58. Mind Tricks
unsplash @Petr Sevcovic
Back when I was a server, there was a woman with a group of friends at one of my tables who asked for a can of Coke. When I brought their drinks and gave the woman her Coke, she looked at me and said, in that typical rich-girl voice,”Excuse me, honey? I asked for Fanta, not Coke.” I apologized, wrote it onto my notepad, and went back to get her a can of Fanta.
I brought the drink to her but again she turned to me and said: “I didn’t ask for Fanta, I asked for Cream Soda.” By this time, I was getting a bit annoyed, but I went back and got her a Cream Soda anyway. Sure enough, when I returned to her table, she did the same thing again. “I asked for Sprite. Should I call the manager?” Oh, honey. She should have stopped testing me when she had the chance.
So, for the last time, I smiled and I went back to the kitchen and packed cans of Coke, Cream Soda, Fanta, Sprite, Pepsi and Sparberry Soda, into a small plastic box and took it all to her and said: “Here you go, miss, take your pick.” She looked offended and almost made a scene. She started lecturing me about how I’m incapable of getting the simplest order right and that she wants to talk to the restaurant’s manager.
I told her that I can call him, and that I’ll show him all the soda types I wrote on my notepad that she asked for, and we can get his opinion on the matter. She turned and took her Sprite out of the plastic box and said “Just leave it.” None of them gave me any issues after that!
59. So Tempted
unsplash @M.S. Meeuwesen
Once I had a job as a cocktail waitress at a bar in Hollywood. It was very “A-List.” We served movie stars and celebrities there all the time. It was a very busy Thursday night and I was running drinks back and forth from the bar to the tables. One of my tables had about five glammed up women that looked like they were on a girls’ night out.
They were probably in their late 20s and they obviously had money, I could tell by the purses, shoes, and snotty attitudes. I put their order in for their second round of drinks and I’m rushing by their table holding a tray full of drinks including martinis going to another table. The one girl decides she wants to change her drink order so as I pass by her, she turns and grabs the back of my dress to stop me so she can change her order.
Of course my tray tips over when I’m jerked back and the drinks crash all over me and onto the floor. I turn and give her a withering look but she barely makes eye contact and says: “Instead of a cosmo I want a vodka on ice” and turns back to her friends as if nothing happened. I was very tempted to spill some drinks on them next!
60. Top Down Perspective
pexels @Chan Walrus
I once worked at a super-expensive restaurant in Boulder, CO. It was a beautiful place on top of a mountain that overlooked the town. There was this older couple that visited at least twice a month, sometimes weekly. I once overheard them talking about how they love coming up to the mountains and looking down at all of the “trash” in the town below. They were good tippers though.