It’s gotta be pretty crazy working for people who are super rich, don’t you think?
Because, let’s face it, they ain’t like the majority of us…not even close.
And today we’re gonna get the straight dope about what it’s really like!
Let’s get started!
1. Tales from the bank.
“I was a bank teller and have two stories here.
The first: A person my age, about 20, came in. He was a delight and came in once a year to take his trust, which was $100 million, and take the interest out, about $48,000. Once a year — that’s all he lived off. He was content and modest. I loved it.
The second: A girl came in with her mom. She actively whined at me for 10 minutes about how unfair it was that her mom had all this money in her account and was making her live in poverty — with all her university fees paid, her rent and car covered — as she was only getting a ‘tiny’ payment of $5,000 a month. She couldn’t fathom surviving off it. Th
e mother turns to me and says, ‘Well, I don’t know. I thought that would be enough to live off? Should I give her more?’ I meekly said, ‘That’s $60,000 a year. I make $20,000 a year, am going to college full time, and have a baby on the way…’ They both got really quiet and left. Never saw either of them again.”
2. Living like a prince.
“I briefly worked with one of the top Saudi Arabian crown princes in the ’80s.
He would buy out the top three floors of the best hotels (Four Seasons, etc.); two floors were for maids/help/security, and the top floor was for the royal family.
Once it was only the prince and his three wives. Wild.”
3. Wow.
“I used to do some financial work for someone who became very wealthy through their very popular chain of surf gear.
I had run through their tax position and found a way for them to save a little over $2 million in taxes a year by reshuffling some of their entities.
It would have taken them around an hour to sit down and change everything — lots of signatures on paperwork — and then maybe an hour extra of their time a year to administer. Their response? ‘Nah, I don’t want to waste that much time with paperwork; that’s what I pay you guys for.’
I can’t even imagine what it would be like to be in a position where a bit of paperwork wasn’t worth that much money. Heck, offer me $20, and I will gladly fill out paperwork in an hour for you!”
4. The nanny.
“I nannied for two upper-class social ladder climber families. The first family was awesome. They paid for me to accompany them to Disney World ‘in case they wanted me to watch the kids one evening so they could have dinner.’
They ended up buying me all the al**hol, and we got ridiculously wasted in Epcot and in our rental house every evening. They even paid me my salary while on the trip; they were very generous and sweet, and I miss them and their kids a lot. The second family wasn’t as well off, but still fairly wealthy — and they were awful.
I’d get passive-aggressive notes about not doing laundry correctly. The kids were bratty and made comments about how I made the beds ‘wrong.’ They underpaid me to not only nanny but do ‘light’ housekeeping, which turned into cleaning all four levels of their home every day.
They basically treated me like an appliance and had no regard for my time (I had several late nights, etc.). It was super uncomfortable.”
5. REALLY rich people.
“I used to work for a company that modified aircrafts for really rich people. (I’m talking 747s, not Gulfstreams.)
This company had made several aircrafts for this one customer, who purchased a new one solely because his spiritual advisor had told him that one of his current planes was bad luck. He still let his wife use it for her personal travel. To me, one of the most exquisite features of these planes wasn’t the gold-plated everything or rare wood veneers — it was the silk carpet.
That stuff cost over $1,000 per square foot and feels like walking on a bed of angel feathers harvested in the most inhumane way possible. Granted, these guys don’t deck out the whole plane, just their personal areas (the aft third is usually reserved for staff and such, and is more like a fancy economy class), but yeah…silk carpet.”
6. Chewed out.
“I used to work for a composer who is worth around $100 million. In general, he was a really nice guy and genuinely hilarious. Sometimes, he would be in a really bad mood and lash out at people, specifically when it came to preparing food for him.
One guy got chewed out for handing him a can of Coke by holding onto the top of it rather than around the side. And one specific incident that sticks out was when somebody got a whole lobster for his dinner and set it out on the table. Our boss hadn’t come out to eat it for hours, and it was probably around midnight at this point, so the kid just sat down and started eating…
Whaddaya know, big boss comes into the dining room to eat his lobster and sees an intern sitting down at the table, wearing a bib, eating his super-expensive (now cold) lobster dinner. That kid didn’t come into work anymore.”
7. Time to buy some cars.
“When rich people want to buy a Jaguar in the UK, they get assigned a special sales person who is incredibly knowledgeable, meet in a special fancy office, and special arrangements can be made. This was my friend Chris’s job; he had access to things that a normal Jaguar sales person wouldn’t have.
Once, a Saudi prince wanted to buy a new Jaguar that had been released, so they met up and spent a full day spec’ing the Jaguar out; the final price was, like, £125,000 for the vehicle. The factory had 16 different color options for this model, and the prince asked if he could sleep on it as it was getting late, so they set a time to meet tomorrow. The next morning, he decided to just order one of EACH color.
They quoted delivery time, the prince agreed, and he was presented with ocean travel options, to which he said, ‘What about air cargo?’ In the end, 16 of the same Jaguars in different colors ended up being loaded on a plane and flown to Saudi Arabia — and the total cost was around £2.5 million.”
8. Weirdos.
“My dad is a mid-level hedge fund manager, so he’s probably worth like $8 million to $10 million, but some of the higher-ups at his firm are probably worth nearly a billion. I also go to private school, so I’ve been exposed to my fair share of super-rich individuals.
Rich people are weirdos. Everyone has small quirks and odd habits, but for the ultra rich, they can actually alter situations around them so that these strange desires can always be fulfilled. For example, the founder of my dad’s firm, probably worth around $900 million, refuses to get gas in his car. This guy is totally self-made, grew up poor, and obviously had to deal with getting his own gas for a while, but now he just has his ‘butler’ do it.
This ‘butler’ is more his personal assistant, managing his other house employees and making sure everything is to his liking. Hedge fund billionaire has six different cars, but only likes driving his Porsche Macan, so he has two identical ones; he alternates them every few days so his butler can always keep one gassed up.
Other than that, he’s a super-nice, down-to-earth guy, always very generous by giving gifts for my birthdays and bringing stuff when he comes to my house for dinner, but he has this weird hatred of gasoline.”
9. Fine art.
“I’m an art student working as a gardener. We work in one of the wealthiest areas in my country.
Some customers are really eager to show me their collection of artwork that they have hanging on their walls once they find out that I study it.
I remember one time standing in a bathroom — with my dirty gardening clothes — and there was a Picasso above the toilet.”
10. Is anyone here?
“I used to do pool and spa maintenance in my 20s.
I worked on one property with a mountainside, 10-bedroom, 14-bath mansion with a saltwater pool, tennis courts, a guest mansion, and a servants’ house that was 4-bedroom, 5-bath.
The property had so much more stuff, but here’s the wildest thing: I worked on this property for two years, year-round, five days a week, and not a single person was ever there. The middle-aged, single woman who owned it lived in a city about four hours away and just didn’t come to the property, because she was so busy with work. A multi-multi-multi-million dollar compound, just empty. All the time.
Finally, after two years, my boss called me on my day off and asked if I could go to the house to put some pool floats away. He apologized, because it was my day off, but said the owner would pay me $500 for the job. I was confused as to why there were even pool floats out anyway, because nobody was ever there, but I figured why not — $500 for 10 minutes.
I show up to the house, and the woman’s adult children were staying at the house with about 10+ kids between them all, and they were having a massive pool party/cookout. I awkwardly walked up and said to one of the parents, ‘Sorry, it must have been a mistake, but I was told to come put pool floats away, but you’re obviously here so I’ll leave.’
The woman’s adult son said, ‘Oh, no, we’re getting ready to leave. You can take them.’ Then, he instructed the kids to push them toward me. I literally grabbed one inner tube float and four pool noodles, brought them 10 feet into the pool house, and put them away. Then, I told them they were all set and went to leave. The son thanked me and handed me a folded mass of $20 bills; it was $400.
I was expecting $500 from my boss for payment, but I figured $400 cash was still overpayment, so I didn’t mention it. The next day at work, my boss gave me $1,000. I told him the son had already paid me $400, which was fine. He said the son told the woman how great a job I did, so she wanted to pay me $1,000 instead of $500, and the $400 was a tip from her son — for 10 minutes of work.
She actually called my boss the next day to ask if she should reimburse me for gas, since it was 15 minutes from my house. I told him that I was all set.”
11. Just forgot about it…
“”I’m a driving instructor, and one group rented the track to drive their supercars for the day.
At the end of the day, they all partnered up and got into their cars to leave.
After they were gone, we realized that they had forgotten their Lamborghini Aventador at the track.”
12. Here’s your tip.
“An old high school teacher of mine is an extremely successful private tutor and does a lot of work in the wealthy neighborhoods in the area.
Once, he was tutoring a kid and helped him get prepared and pass his college-level physics class; at the end of their last session, the kid told him to wait there and went into his dad’s office and came out with his payment and an extra $1,000.
My teacher tried to refuse it, saying it was too much, but the kid said his dad asked him to give a tip.”
13. Weird stuff.
“I used to ‘work’ for an Arab billionaire’s son, a ‘Daddy’s money’ guy and terrible, garbage human being.
Once, saw him spend $16,000 on a wallet…a fancy one with little gold spikes on it and stuff. He had shoes with gold on them. One year for his birthday, he received, like, 30+ cakes — big fancy cakes — and he told us to leave them on the floor in the hallway outside his room
We walked by those cakes every day for two weeks waiting for instruction, and after the two weeks, we were told to throw them away.”
