My dad used to tell a story when as a kid he worked at a gas station. Guy shows up with a Ferrari, asks for a full tank, pays with a large note and my dad asks him to keep the change.
The guy replied
- boy, I got a lot of money
Really, a lot. You know how I got them? I never gave anything away for free. Hand that change over.
That just illustrates that a lot of rich guys are entitled assholes. The correlation between assholery and driving an expensive car in particular has been studied.
I worked in the service industry in UK for a few months for the richest and most privileged people out there. I got the chance to work in events where members of the royal family were present or events where the most famous and rich people in the world were the guests.
My observation is, the assholes are everywhere but also the nice and polite people. I can't really generalize it for rich or poor, I did not see that simple pattern.
At that time my hourly wage was about 8 pounds and a lady at an extravagant event gave me 5 pounds and told me to keep extra good care of the table. She somehow expected to have private waiter for the night for 5 pounds sterling but I took extra good care for about 45 minutes and when she asked me why I wasn't working for her specifically any longer, I explained that 5 pounds will do just that much and she agreed.
I recall once a very rich person screaming at the waiter because did not like the foam of the coffee and a few instances of rudeness but overall these were rarities.
If anything, the managers were much much bigger arsholes towards the employees because they could afford it(because the employees were mostly students or immigrants like me who need the money to sustain life until they find a proper job). Employees with higher status were big assholes towards the more junior ones.
Most social interactions with the rich or famous that I had or have seen were very positive and polite.
In some instances I was at fault and they were very understanding and tolerant. Once I failed to deliver the coffee of a famous F1 racer at breakfast and he didn't make a big deal of it(If I was him, I would probably be much more rude). Victoria's Secret models were just fine too when received flat champagne.
I'm not convinced that rich people being assholes in social interactions is a real thing. IMHO the pattern is, people who are privileged in their own social group are the assholes.
> I can't really generalize it for rich or poor, I did not see that simple pattern.
My SO works as a consultant in a bank here in Rome, Italy.
She moved from a bank in the periphery to a very central one in the Parioli neighborhood.
There was a night and day difference between her old and new clients in wealth (with the Parioli ones being largely millionaires).
Old clients would treat her with the utmost respect and call her doctor, "dottoressa", and always listen to what she had to say. New ones were on average much more rude, pretending and overall uneducated. She would have to explain them that she couldn't activate them some service because she needed their signatures and they would go all mad and call her director or some friend in the bank.
They are on average much worse people and they're also much more money aware.
Another anecdote she recalled me was how some rich woman wanted to set up a bank account for a no profit to send money to some african country. Not only there was no way to explain her that it was not that easy to do such operations, especially for large sums because this would have to automatically trigger money laundering controls, she would just not listen and blame her, but the client was MAD she had to pay 8 euros commissions on 60k+ euros wire transfer, pretending it to be free because it was a "no profit".
Yes, there's good and bad people in each wealth tier, but rich people on average are much worse assholes. There's no comparison.
When working with money, the rich are also more likely to hit the countless rules and limitations the banking regulations impose on us "for our own good".
Just like as a programmer I am going mental when encountering absurd and ineffective account password rules lets say (one special char, one upper case, one non-letter, etc) while a lay person would just sigh and comply.
exactly, on the other side of this, the rich person should have learned how to get better banking service that doesn't encumber them with these fund movement limitations
most “anti money laundering” or “security” stuff is actually just that one bank’s poor and inaccurate implementation of a law. most of it is just company policy and nothing related to the law.
with electronic funds, the entire banking system relies on assuming that the prior and next bank has already done the checks necessary
because the law only creates a firewall of reporting at the deposit and withdrawal of physical notes (its same across europe, across us, and elsewhere)
People in privileged positions often have the support of others like themselves. "Enablement" is probably a more accurate term.
There's an old family in my town that came from the kind of wealth that had each of their children for a few generations married into important or powerful families across the state. Today, the main family has no income other than from what they inherited, but they maintain their position and membership in society through being horrible to deal with. The center of the family is a vile gossip and has nothing but time to hear about everything that happens and think up ways to use it to her advantage.
They're notorious for showing up to functions uninvited, sitting at your table and ordering, and leaving before the bill comes. They hire the best local artisans and builders, complain to everyone about how shoddy the work is until they get extra for free, and then never pay, threatening to sue for imagined problems. When the grand children were in school, the family would try to walk into functions without tickets because "their child was performing", as if no one else's were.
When their daughter married a pro athlete, no one in town would build them a house, so they had to hire from other parts of the state. Their reasoning? No one in town was skilled enough to build them what they wanted.
They wrote a letter of complaint to the White House about a cavalcade driving through town during a family member's wedding reception and were sent an apology and a bottle of champagne by the POTUS. The family apparently sent back a letter letting him know that they didn't vote for them.
No one here even needs TV. Just hold a dinner party at a place they like and they'll show up and entertain for the cost of a few drinks and a meal.
Instead, computers will keep the change without asking and point you to an unreachable (or unhelpful) customer support number. You’ll either give up on trying to recover your change or you’ll regret not having done it sooner, after spending more of your time and sanity than the money was worth.
When you are kicked out of an establishment, more often than not they will first ask you to leave and give you an explanation. It’s in their best interest to handle the situation as calmly as possible so you don’t cause a scene and make them lose business. You have leeway to contest the decision. Even if you’re banned, it doesn’t affect your life much.
Getting kicked out of your Google account can mean losing access to all your other online accounts. That’s disruptive to your life and you might waste weeks or months dealing with a situation where you have no recourse because you can’t reason with a human.
It’s routine that people get their Google accounts banned without understanding why, and thus can’t fix it. When you’re kicked out of a physical location, you’ll know why.
Interesting. Was it common in the past, or in your region, for the service worker to actually ask for the change? I've never heard of that, or experienced it in my own life. Usually the customer plays the only active part in the "keep the change" interaction.