People Who Work For "The Super Rich" Are Sharing Their Wildest Secrets And Stories, And It's Unbelievable
If you've ever wondered what life is like behind the scenes for the ultra rich, don't worry, the internet's got you covered.
NBC
In these two viral Reddit threads from a while back, people who work for the super wealthy are spilling secrets about what their experiences were like with them, what rich people spend their money on, and how wildly different some of them actually live.
Here are some of the most fascinating — and shocking — responses:
1."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."
2."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."
3."My dad works in shipping and has a lot of friends who have worked on super yachts. In the '90s, one of his mates got a call to bring the yacht of a particular Australian media tycoon billionaire (not that one) from Sydney to New York — with instructions to be anchored in a particular bay at an exact time with a lunch spread for 50 people ready. So, they got there, set up the food, and the guy never showed up. Turns out, he was having a rich dude party in a building overlooking the harbor and just wanted to be able to point down and say, 'That’s my boat.'"
"He wanted the lunch in case he decided to take his rich friends down to his yacht, but he didn’t feel like it that day, so all the food got wasted, and they sailed back to Australia without seeing him."
4."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. The 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."
5."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."
6."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!"
7."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 alcohol, 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."
8."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."
9."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."
10."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."
11."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."
12."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."
13."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."
14."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."
15."My dad used to work for a private airfield. They had a ton of people fly in. but most of the richer clients always flew in at night. One time in high school, I had to do a 'job shadow' thing and went to work with my dad. They had the owner of a California airport fly in for the weekend, and my job was to stand outside with an umbrella. His wife tipped me $20 and said, 'The sandwich trays are real silver — have at it, kid.' After they got in their car, I asked my dad what she meant. Apparently, when some richer folks fly, they let the people who detail their planes have the platters and other serving items. I always wondered how we got so many weird serving trays."
"Another time I visited my dad at work, I got to hold an albino kangaroo. Most adorable and softest animal I've ever touched."
16."I worked graveyards as a valet at an ultra-luxury boutique hotel. It's quite shocking how some of these people live, and you'd never have a clue by just looking at them on the street. One weekday at 2 a.m., a guest asked to bring around his Bentley; he was a regular-looking dude, came out with a backpack, got in, and left. Not even 30 minutes later, the same dude pulls up in a Ferrari and now has a briefcase instead of a backpack. An hour later, he orders five shot glasses to his hotel room. I go up, and it's two guys in robes and two naked women on the couch. They have lines of coke and booze on the coffee table."
"They tip me $50 for the shot glasses, and I leave. Two hours later, just as the sun was rising, the two guys come out together in suits looking like they were heading to the office. The women left shortly after. Drugs and sex workers were nothing new, but the car swap middle of the night was a bit strange."
17."I used to work for a billionaire Russian family as a tutor for their daughter. One day, we’re in her room studying, and suddenly, she yells, 'Daddy’s home!' and runs to the window. She’d heard a helicopter and knew it was about to land on the lawn."
18."This was ages ago; I worked in a DVD store, and a woman came in with five, double-sided A4 pages of movie titles and just asked me to fetch what we had. I ran about and collected DVDs and Blu-rays close to $1,000 worth. I asked what they were for — she was a PA for a billionaire and getting them for his yacht."
19."My grandfather died with a $20 million portfolio. He lived in a one-bedroom condo that was build in the '50s, drove a rusted-out Honda, and his entire wardrobe came from Walmart and was 10 years old. At his will reading, a bunch of distant relatives showed up hoping to get a piece. In his will, he made fun of all of them, then spent 10 pages detailing how and where he wanted all of his money donated to specific charities and foundations."
"Some of it was even really surprising, as nobody besides him was aware that he casually owned 160 acres of land in Vermont that was just forest. The land was donated to a land trust, and turned into hiking trails."
20."I tutored a wealthy 5-year-old. I got paid good money to spend an hour drawing, coloring, and playing with this kindergartener — but all in French. He had been to more places in the world by 5 than I’ll ever go to in my lifetime, probably. The best part of the job were the perks, though. They would take me and my S.O. out to dinner at fancy restaurants and pay the bill no matter what it was. They would invite us over to eat some delicacy they prepared, and they’d always have some house guest staying with some wild résumé; for example, one time they had a diplomat for the Netherlands there to do business."
"They also had houses in my city and in San Francisco and would fly there all the time. I was invited on several occasions, but I never had time to go."
21."I befriended and stayed with the daughter of Russian oligarchs who lived in Paris. The mom was a famous writer, and the dad did something in business. Their grandfather was a famous Soviet writer, and so in general, they lived a very cultured life. They lived in the richest part of Paris called Neuilly-sur-Seine and had houses in the Alps, Crimea, and Moscow. The rather sad part was that the daughter only had a few options for a career; she could be a doctor, a lawyer, or a businesswoman. In this family, if you didn’t have a natural artistic talent, you only had those three career prospects to chose from."
"Their son was lucky enough to study at the Geneva Conservatory, but that was only because he was really talented. I had the impression that the daughter was rather depressed about how limited her options were and how much pressure was put on her to succeed."
22."Worked at a restaurant where a few of the regulars were the children of billionaires. After being asked how she has so much money, I once heard a student say, 'I told my parents that my tuition costs $500,000.' Another time, I was serving a table and was asked to bring a tray of 60 Patrón shots ($600 for a 19-year-old student). I must have had an incredulous look on my face because his only response to assuage my concern was, 'My father owns diamond mines in Africa.'"
23."I became personal friends with my boss and his wife; they were super-nice people. The wife turned out to be an heiress and would buy me whatever I mentioned, like in passing during a conversation. I learned gifts were how she was raised to show love. I’ve trained myself to only talk about things I already own, unless I find something useful she might like and suggest it for her."
24."I've been working for the super rich for sometime. Wildest thing I've seen was a brand-new 90-meter multimillion-pound (GBP) yacht that was built in Netherlands. Maiden voyage to Antibes in France. The owner came on board and left after a few hours. Next week, we got sent to Genoa, Italy, where all the bathrooms on board were ripped out and upgraded. I'm talking about brand-new marble sinks, showers, floors, and lobbies all crowbarred out and chucked in skips. New, polished marble colors and patterns arrived in the weeks following."
"There's feed-me money, there's f**k-you money, and there's it's-not-even-a-thought money."
25."I worked for a super-wealthy Russian family. I had (mostly) only good interactions with them, but I had the 'benefit' of being an American. They hired a maid from Nepal and were terrible to her. At times, their wealth would be super apparent, but at other times, when we'd be stacking firewood or foraging in the forest for mushrooms to cook that night, I really never thought about their money."
26."I worked for an upscale condo complex, starting at $500,000 and up, so most of these people were pretty wealthy. Most of them were really nice; I got all kinds of Christmas gifts and even leftovers I didn't care about, like clothes and food. Once, I was [asking] a guy why he drives a beat-up car compared to everyone else (it was, like, a 1998 Yukon), and he said his thing was jets. Then, he proceeded to take me to his private hangar after work, showed me his three private jets, and offered to fly me anywhere, anytime I needed. Never took him up on it, unfortunately."
"The worst was a lady who was never happy with anything we did — just hated all employees. We were too nice, took too long to get her car, got her car too fast and was wasting gas, took too long to say hi...stuff like that. Everyone hated her. Other than that, these people were really cool."
27."My sister-in-law worked on the maid staff for a mega-wealthy (over $1 billion) guy for several years. She was pregnant for a bit, and then gave birth two months premature. You can imagine this was time-consuming and expensive. The rich family gave her all the time she needed and paid for the entire process (wound up costing over $100,000). My niece is now 33 years old. So, my experience was pretty positive."
28."I have a good one. I interned for this wealthy CEO in Houston. He was traveling to Mexico and had forgotten his laptop, which had all of his stuff that he needed on it. When he called the company and asked to have it sent to him, they said it would take three days to ship it, even with priority. He paid me $500 — plus a plane ticket and for a hotel for me to stay in for the night — to fly his laptop down there so he could have it within 12 hours."
29."I used to pet-sit. I remember a rich person asking me to watch their cat. There was a lot of TVs, in almost every room. The weirdest was the bathroom — sorry, the cat bathroom. There was a TV playing cat cartoons, an overly fancy litter box, and paintings of cats."
30."Some family friends were having marital issues. Their marriage counselor figured out a lot of their problems were over cooking meals. The counselor reminded them that they are rich and can just cater all their meals, and it would be cheaper than getting a divorce. They listened to the counselor and now are happily married again."
And finally...
31."My dad worked for an extremely wealthy man as his personal accountant. One day, my dad was driving him to a meeting (he was super old), and the man asked to swing by McDonald's. After ordering a coffee for $1.06, they began pulling forward. The man asked my dad to reverse his car to the speaker to let them know he had a senior discount card. A man worth well over $20 million, in a massive and nice luxury car, was not about to miss out on saving 4 cents at McDonald's."
WOW. If you've ever worked for the super rich, do you have any wild stories? What was your experience like? Let us know in the comments below!
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
