Redditors Reveal the Best and Worst Experiences of Working for Super Rich People

September 29, 2015

A popular thread that appeared on Ask Reddit earlier this week posed this question to users:

“Redditors that work directly for the super wealthy (let’s say net worth $20 million and up) what are some of your best/worst stories?”

Redditors were more than eager to share their encounters with the top 1 percent of society on the site. Their experiences are eye-opening and telling of some of the people within the elite class. In many instances, status and power clearly came into play.

One user worked on a family’s megayacht and described the experience:

“They also consumed exclusively Fiji bottled water. Everything from their lemonade to the water the pasta was boiled in all came from those damn square Fiji bottles.

“The biggest time I ever got chewed out on the job was when I filled their dogs water bowl with tap water and was promptly and forcefully told that if I ever gave the dog anything other Fiji bottled water I would need to find another job.”

In a second instance, an attorney worth over $20 million fired one Redditor for buying the wrong printer paper for the office. Another common sentiment was echoed about the children of the wealthy:

“Also, the children of the mega rich are generally terrible entitled twats.”

One user was reprimanded by her bosses when their children made a complaint:

“The kids were bratty and made comments about how I made the beds wrong (wtf kid doesn’t make their own bed?!) and I need to correct it because ‘that’s what our mom pays you for.’ ”

The absurdness of what some rich kids believe they’re entitled to was illustrated by another user’s story:

“My good friend mows lawns for some multi-millionaire. Apparently the dude’s son thought it would be fun to get drunk and shoot at my friend with an airsoft gun [a replica firearm which shoots plastic bullets].

“When the dad (who was super chill) made his son apologize, the son said ‘but dad he’s poor and we’re paying him, why can’t I shoot at him with an airsoft gun.’ ”

A recurring thread among the comments centered upon how cheap rich people could be. One user told of an incident where an elderly man worth well over $20 million made his personal accountant fix his McDonald’s coffee order to apply his senior discount card. The man was not about to give up his four cents on a coffee worth $1.06.

It turns out that multi-millionaires fussing over coffee may actually be a thing, one user describes:

“Super, super cheap is some sort of badge of honor for some people. One woman I worked for when I was a PA used to tell me to return her Starbucks cup the next day and tell them that they’d made it incorrectly, so they’d give her a new drink.

“Since there was no way I could go and say that, what it really meant is that she was just getting me to buy her drinks. (I was 18 and terrified of her, so I did it.)”

Another user offered some pretty good generalizations about the different types of wealth out there:

“I found the people worth a lot of money $20 million+ were easy going, generous and a pleasure to deal with.

“The people worth $1-2 million were c***s. They acted like they were super rich, put their employees down, wanted unrealistic time frames and were really cheap.

“The lower millionaires (up to 5) are d**ks because they are fresh to the upper class therefore they’re a**holes. The upper millionaires are awesome though.”

A subgroup of mega-rich people stood out for their idiosyncratic ways, one user wrote:

“I worked for a guy who had some pretty major stakes in the oil business, he was pretty cool, but very weird about his money. He wanted these crazy projects done but he always hired local kids to work for him, I was his landscaper (only had a 2 year landscape degree at the time) and didn’t make all that much money. His wife owned like 100+ sheep, just because she found it fun. His basement was full of survival supplies for when the world ends.

“He once asked me to price out installing a helicopter landing pad in his backyard in case anyone ever has a heart attack at one of his dinner parties. He had a second house on site, which he used to house his German Shepherds.”

Not all experiences working for the super rich are bad, however. One user wrote:

“I work for a law firm. They have a client who six years ago won $52 million in Powerball. He called wanting a copy of one of his original documents. He told me he would be in later that day to collect it. When I handed him his document, he handed me a gift bag that had a bottle of very expensive champagne and chocolates in it. First time I had ever met the guy.”

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