[throwaway713]

A lot of this list just reads that they have coworkers who are jerks. Not interacting with cleaning staff? That seems like a personal problem. And I’ve seen plenty of frugal VPs that drive 15 year old cars and make their own lunch.

That said, I was also pretty horrified once when I was waiting in the lunch line and heard the person in front of me complaining that their six month $100k bonus wasn’t as high as they thought it would be right as the person making their plate of free food handed it over to them. There’s always going to be at least some rude, thoughtless people; the best thing you can do is to try to avoid hiring them.

[ryanbrunner]

I think an important aspect is that, even if you're frugal, there's signifiers of class that you can easily 'turn on'. I'm pretty frugal myself (I drive a 15 year old hand-me-down from my parents, have the cheapest phone that will still function, and generally avoid buying anything new ever), but my upbringing was fairly comfortable. But I can definitely recognize that I'm able to fit in upper class settings, and can recognize easily when people can't.

I think it's fair to say that an SF-based tech startup is a place where you're going to see a lot of these upper class signifiers.

[fallingknife]

You shouldn't be horrified at that complaint. If a company hints that it's going to be 150k when they hire you and it ends up being 100k that is a valid complaint. You are just perpetuating the don't talk about pay rule which benefits the company over the workers.

[roryokane]

I agree that one shouldn’t discourage one’s coworkers from making such complaints.

I think the person you replied to was not necessarily horrified at the complaint to a fellow engineer. They were horrified that the complaint was made within earshot of a cafeteria server, who might envy the engineer for even having the chance to make that much money. I think the principle behind that horror is “it’s rude to avoidably inspire envy in others”.