39 Horribly Out-Of-Touch Comments From Rich Bosses, Clients, And Colleagues That Will Prove Rich People Are Living On Another Planet
Recently, Reddit user Yiga_Blade_Master asked about the most out-of-touch comments people have ever heard, and people submitted a LOT about their rich bosses, coworkers, and clients. As someone who generally likes to gripe about both rich people and bad workplaces, I thought I'd seen it all, but...wow. Some of these are unbelievably bad. Like, this was my face reading them.
In case you want to know what I'm talking about, here are 41 of the worst, most offensively out-of-touch things people had to deal with at work:
1."A potential client talking about their work in an equatorial country: 'We're just about at the point where we can start charging the locals for water, which is very exciting.' I declined the job."
2."Coworker: 'You'll be able to buy a home once you get your inheritance.'"
"Me: 'I won't have an inheritance. My family isn't well off.'
Coworker: 'Of course you have an inheritance. Everyone's parents leave them an inheritance. I'm sure they're just keeping it a secret from you to surprise you.'
Said to me by my co-worker who's [sic] parents are both doctors, while my mom had recently been laid off and my dad was too sick to work."
3."My supervisor, immediately after letting me go, suggested that I would be so much happier now that I didn't have to commute every morning, and that I should take a few months of going on fun trips! She really thought I worked for fun. If I hadn't still been living at home, I would have been unable to pay rent starting next month. I found out later on that she was a trust fund baby and her brother (executor) forced her to work in order to collect her trust payments or whatever they're called, because she was such a spoiled brat when she started collecting from the trust."
4."At an old job, I had a breakdown because I had not been paid in six weeks. I literally was unable to eat and was walking to work because I could not afford gas. My boss found me crying and told me I was being 'petty' for wanting my money and asked me 'why don’t you just live off of your savings?.' I was a 21-year-old recent college grad who wasn’t getting my paychecks — what savings???"
5."The CEO of my last job won the lottery. It was a lot of money. She was already rich while the rest of the people in the office struggled to pay rent. She was complaining every day how stressful it was to win money and how she hoped it would never happen again while having her big winning check on the wall in her office. She came to me with a purse with holes in it and said, 'a gift for you! I don’t want it any longer but I’m sure you do.' She meant her trash was good enough for me. I told her to gtfo and I left my job that day."
6."I had a boss try to give me a hard time for taking most of my vacations as a day or two here and there, on a Saturday. They can't force me to take my vacation as a lump sum but apparently their accountant was complaining at the extra work. I explained I was using the vacation time to visit family on birthdays and such. She tried to say, 'Well, wouldn't it be nicer to take a week at a time? That way you can actually fly somewhere warm!' I just stared at her and said, 'The vacation pay just reimburses me for the wages lost. How am I going to pay for the flight, the hotel and literally anything else? You pay me minimum wage.' She just stared at me in shock and eventually dropped it. She and the other boss, that exact same day, had been discussing getting a SECOND cottage each in front of the rest of us peasants."
7."Many years ago, I was living in Philadelphia. I had a very nice colleague at the office, a young woman from a very privileged family. She’d lived all her life downtown (at least when she wasn’t summering in Bar Harbor or spending weekends at their place in Bryn Mawr). One weekend, we were going to meet for lunch. We spoke on the phone and I said I'd see her soon. I was out in West Philadelphia, so I grabbed the subway and got off a block from her apartment. 'You got here so quickly!' 'Yes, I took the subway.' 'Now, don’t tease me; there’s no subway here; we’re not in New York…' I had to walk her over one block, show her the stop, and even go down to the ticket level, at the subway one block from the place she’d lived for 30 years. I probably could have just told her I’d teleported."
8."My coworker, fresh out of school, was really confused why so many people took public transportation to commute into the city. Turns out her parents paid for a personal driver for her and that's how she got to work and back. Not an Uber, a car service. She had no idea what it cost and probably never thought about it; she just figured everyone else preferred the subway/bus to having a personal driver."
9."I worked at a deli in college and had a high school-aged coworker. She was so sweet but genuinely didn’t understand why I never had money…because, according to her, I could 'just use a credit card!' When my coworkers and I tried explaining that you have to pay those back, she dug her heels in even deeper and insisted she’d never had to pay them back so that must not be true. She was super quiet the rest of the shift and never brought it up again. I can only assume she asked her dad later that night. Hopefully he, uh, illuminated some things for her."
"The sad part is that I’ve heard similar stories from other folks working with (privileged) teens. Through limited fault of their own, sometimes they really don’t get it."
10."Years ago, I got a job as a waitress in a new fine dining restaurant opening in my town soon. ... Prior to opening, we did a number of trainings on proper service (how to set tables, proper wine service — stuff like that — and stuff I'd not learned as a server at a busy 24-hour diner in a college town. I was in my early twenties, as was the majority of the staff. I asked a question about the wine service protocol, and a girl training with me scoffed and said, 'Ugh, haven't you ever gone out for dinner with your family?' and then looked at all the other folks training with us like she'd just put me in my place."
"I was halfway through, 'Not to anywhere fancier than an Outback or Olive Garden because my family couldn't afford it... damn...' when the manager stepped in and schooled her that not everyone can afford fine dining and that me asking for clarification on something I hadn't had the chance to experience was legitimate. And everyone else looked at her like, 'what a snob...'
She still eye rolled at me. At then got mad later when I performed better and got the good shifts, lol. She didn't last long."
11."When I was interning at a museum early in my career, my husband and I were house hunting and put an offer on our home. One of the interns I worked with came from a very, very rich family (think old money oil baron type). He didn't have to work — he just enjoyed learning history and traveling around to different internships for fun. He asked me what steps I needed to take to buy the house and I mentioned our mortgage paperwork. He sneered and looked at me like I was the dumbest person alive and said, 'don't mess with a mortgage, just buy it outright! It will save you money in interest!' OK dude, as a 25-year-old supporting myself, I am just going to pull $400,000 out of my ass."
12."My manager was telling me about something that happens to your toilet when you don’t use it for awhile and said, 'you know when you’re on vacation for longer than a week?' And I just looked at her and said 'no.' I think she realized that someone getting paid as little as I am has never been privileged enough for that long of a vacation by the look on my face."
13."I was doing a low paid social service internship and a rich kid joined our team because he wasn’t allowed to access his trust fund unless he did a year of community service. We were all fresh out of college in shitty apartments and our boss encouraged us to apply for food stamps since we all qualified. Rich kid who was new to town turned to me and asked where I hired my housekeeper. I thought he was joking but he was serious. I pointed out I have never had one in my life and certainly cannot afford one on our wages. He asked how I keep my house clean without a housekeeper."
14."I worked as a landscaper for a client who spent $175,000 on our services every year. He was remodeling part of his house for shits and giggles and it was estimated to cost about $2 million to renovate. He talked to me about how easy young people have it these days because we all have cars, TVs, and cell phones. He was lamenting how 'no one wants to work anymore' and how young people just expect everything these days. I was happy to get a brief moment to explain to him how the basic necessities (housing, food, healthcare, education) are becoming unattainable for people, especially in large west coast cities."
15."I worked at a small family owned pizza place. The owner would routinely be late with our checks. When he started having marital problems, it got really bad (like supposed to be paid on Friday, not getting our checks until Tuesday). During one of these occurrences, where employees kept calling him, and he finally showed up, he said to me, 'You know, my son asked why everyone kept calling. He said they know they're going to get paid, why do they care when you drop off the checks?' And he thought that was so smart. I was shocked. We all made minimum wage. We all lived paycheck to paycheck."
16."I was working as an architect for a practice with High Net Worth Individual clients. I was making small talk with one of them (both of us in the mid-thirties, him born into one of the richest families in England). I was saying how the flat my husband and I were renting was being sold so we were looking for another flat to rent, but everything was very expensive. He then said something along the lines of: 'I don't understand why you don't buy a house. That way you will not have to pay rent every month and you will have much more space than in a flat.'"
17."There was a manager that would carry in two very large designer bags each day. You would never see the same bag twice a week. At an appreciation lunch for a side project, she complimented our group for doing so much that year on such a small budget. She said, 'The monthly budget for this project is what I spend on shoes each month. I know that sounds like a joke, but no, it's actually almost exactly my shoe budget.' Yeah, the monthly budget for that project was also almost exactly my take home pay."
18."My boss's wife is the child of a millionaire who married an 'heir to the throne' of a multimillion-dollar-a-year organization where I was working for $10 an hour. Her: 'Where are you planning on taking your honeymoon when you get married?'"
"Me: 'I dunno, a week on the beach or maybe a quiet cabin in the mountains.'
Her: 'Pfff. No one will ever marry you if you refuse to take them to Hawaii for a honeymoon!'"
19."Someone at work asked, "Every house has, what, three to five bedrooms?' I couldn't say anything but I could not stop my eyes from rolling."
"I was talking to a very rich client about houses, and she said, 'how can someone have only one bathroom in their house?' I’m constantly explaining to her what it’s like to be middle class."
20."I've had a boss try explaining to me that raises wouldn't improve employee morale because most of the staff don't actually care what they're paid and are more interested in rewards like a pizza party. I asked who her landlord was that allows rent to be paid in pizza parties."
21."I had an old boss that grew up very wealthy. During the pandemic, when everyone was working from home, we had a lot of employees mentally struggling because they lived in small apartments and didn’t have the room nor ability to have a good office setup, and were in general going stir crazy. My boss, on the other hand, moved out of his apartment into one of his parent’s large homes on a lake so he’d have more space while being stuck at home. He said, 'I don’t know what you’re all complaining about. If you want a bigger place to live, just move. I did and it was easy. It’s not as hard as you think.'”
22."About 20 years ago my boss sat us all down and talked about an investment that he thought would be good for us. I don't remember what it was. The thing I remember is him saying, 'You can put that spare $100 each week into the investment.' Crickets chirping. Meeting ended. Nobody had a spare $100 a week. I was living hand to mouth myself and I did the payroll so I knew what everybody else was earning."
"Another one back in the late '80s/early '90s — boss's wife worked in the office too. She commented one day that a certain shop had 'lovely blouses' that were only $100. Lol. That was a third of my weekly pay. I suspect the comment came because we didn't wear 'lovely blouses'...because we could not afford them."
23."My boss asked me to put together a recruitment package for a prospective out-of-town employee and to include rental units. I asked if a salary had been determined, because that would obviously impact the listings I included, and he said, 'well, the average rent is what, $800 a month?' I was actually speechless."
24."I am a consultant. Once I had the opportunity to have a meeting with someone who was the head of a massive family business — she was a billionaire. We were discussing selling candy in large amounts on the internet and a couple of us were discussing pricing. She said out of nowhere, 'Well, people buy bananas on the internet, right? What does a bunch of bananas cost? $25? It'll be fine.' And then she went back to her phone and never said another word."
25."Bunch of head office folks came into work one day to do a presentation on customer service and they wanted to talk about how the Ritz Carlton does exceptional customer service. One of them looked out across this room full of minimum wage workers and asked 'who here has stayed at a Ritz Carlton?'”
26.“'I pay you enough that your wife shouldn’t have to work.' I was making, in 2016, the same as what he made in 1983. I showed him an inflation calculator that said the $50k he made in ‘83 was the equivalent of $117k in 2016."
27."I was making about $65k at a corporate job, and was chatting with one of the C-suite executives one day. I mentioned that there was a specific property that I was day dreaming about buying — until I found out it was listed at $1.3M. She told me I should just 'go for it! Money isn’t everything!' I was so floored I didn’t even try to explain to her why that was entirely financially infeasible."
28."Owner of the restaurant told a coworker she didn’t have to go furniture shopping when she moved, she should just come over and look through her stuff as she was moving soon. Coworker awkwardly went and looked. She didn’t see anything she liked, but she needed lamps, so she said she would take two. Owner asked coworker how much she wanted to pay for them, coworker asked how much she wanted to charge (she was thinking $20–$50). Owner looked her dead in the face and said $600. 💀"
"Forgot to add — her daddy bought her the restaurant."
29."I was working as a tour guide at a museum and a visitor asked if I had visited a remote location we had an exhibit about. I said I hadn’t but would love to someday. He recommended I 'take a sabbatical' to make the trip. I think I was making $17/hr at the time and they wouldn’t even give me full time hours, let alone a sabbatical."
30."I don’t know about heard, but I can share the most out of touch thing I saw. Years and years ago I worked for a digital marketing company that was very much in that awkward teenage stage of wanting to act like a startup but getting a little too big for that. The CEO was a nice guy, very tech bro-y but seemed committed. One day I was working late and saw a piece of paper in the office cafeteria. Said CEO had been on his honeymoon recently. Now remember, this was startup culture. Lots of hustle, work as late as you need to get things done but here’s this cool ping pong table — that kind of vibe. This piece of paper was a bill. For his honeymoon trip. His honeymoon was a safari to Africa. It cost more than my entirely yearly salary."
"I remember being totally stunned. I had no idea he was so deeply out of touch with his employees that he was going on five-figure African freaking safaris while encouraging all of us to put in unpaid overtime. I remember hovering there for a while, wondering if I should try and take a pic to post anonymously or something.
I ended up just leaving it. I was one of the only people left in the building and scared of retaliation. It was gone in the morning.
I’ve never forgotten it. All the C-suite bullshit about us being a team and a family was MUCH funnier after that."
31."I used to work in a cafeteria of a tech building. I was chatting with one of the lowest level staff about how bank cards had come out with tap option. He and I were both avoiding getting it added to our banking plans because the limit was $100 and we were worried about how easy it would be for someone to empty our accounts before we even knew our cards were missing."
"We were both making minimum wage, living paycheck to paycheck and every penny was essential.
The CEO heard us talking and asked what about and I said, 'Oh just about the new tap option and how the daily limit is $100 so we don't want it for fear that someone could steal our money!' And this guy laughed and said, 'It's only $100! That's nothing!' And HIS employee just looked annoyed and stayed quiet but I was not his employee so I said '$100 is more than either of us makes in a full day's work and would be a huge loss, even if the bank was able to get us our money back within a week we would have to go without something, most likely food.' And he looked at both of us and had the decency to look ashamed before he paid for his lunch and walked away.
He tipped a bit better after that, but I doubt his low level employees saw an extra penny! My friend who worked there didn't last even a whole year."
32."I work in automotive repair. I had a woman come in a few years ago who said her windshield wipers weren’t working. This was directly after a snow storm. I’ve been around the block enough times to already have an idea: she tried to run the wipers to clear a foot of snow and ice instead of brushing most of it off and freeing the blades first. That overloads the wiper motor, or some part and breaks something, or just tears the rubber on the blade itself. So we check it out, yep…the wiper linkage (that connects the electric motor that moves everything to the actual arms that wipe and keeps them in sync) came apart. I told her the situation and she was exasperated."
"She asked how this happened and how to avoid it…I was like, 'well, you really gotta brush the snow off and make sure the blades aren’t frozen to the glass before you turn them on.' She honestly looked at me, made an 'ugggh' sound, and said, 'Like… with my hands??' I said yes, or a brush or something. She said, 'god damn it, this is something the help should really be taking care of, I shouldn’t have to deal with this bullshit.' Then while we fixed the wiper linkage, she was outside yelling at someone on her cell phone. I will remember this event for the rest of my life."
33."I had just gotten my first teaching job fresh out of university. I'd moved cities, rented an apartment on my own, and student loan payments were coming up. A mistake was made and I didn’t get paid for the first few weeks. I approached the principal to ask if she knew who I could contact to get it fixed. Her response: 'Oh well, think of it as forced savings.' I had no savings. Rent was due. She knew I had just moved. I remember thinking, wtf?, but I didn’t say anything. At the time, I didn’t want her to think I was rude."
34."I had a customer at work (where we make barely above minimum wage) tell me to not bother buying a second house and it’s more hassle than it’s worth. I’m sorry mate, but I can’t actually afford to buy a first house, never mind anything else. They are lovely people but have too much money and no idea."
35."I used to work in a QA department with two teams, each 7 people. At this company, it was HEAVILY encouraged to work through lunch (you’d be docked an hour pay even as a salaried employee if you left) so we did. This was among other wildly overbearing rules. Anyway. One day, investors were visiting to check out our company. Our HR was giving them a tour that happened to be during our lunch. When giving his speech about the lab, in front of all of us, he said, 'While we’re out for lunch sitting down at a restaurant, enjoying our meals, these guys are in here testing 24/7.' I was literally in shock. My coworker and I just stared at each other in horror."
36."I was sitting with a coworker in our lunchroom. She was venting about having to work two jobs, not being able to afford all her bills, and in general how exhausted she was. One look at her and you could tell she was at a breaking point. One of the bosses replies with 'I can relate, I had to spend Saturday taking my sailboat in and Sunday closing up the cottage for the winter, nothing but work...' That was the quietest the lunchroom had ever gotten."
37."My boss cut all our hours in half in order to gain the COVID supplemental payments then bragged that he didn't make a loss. (You were supposed to be making a loss to be eligible for the supplemental payment. We are an essential service.) We all lost half our wage a week for him to do this. I, as a manager, still had to do my full job in less hours. When he brought it up very casually because he's so out of touch with us — who need our wage to survive — I very flatly let him know I was literally losing my hair due to the financial stress. ‘Really!?’ ‘Yes. I work hard to ensure I have a job but this was completely out of my control. There's nothing I can do. I can't get a second job in this climate. It was very stressful.'"
38."I was a teacher making $35k before taxes, and one of my student's parents was a stay-at-home wife whose husband made over a million dollars a year as an energy company CEO. She came in one afternoon and told me about how stressed she was over renovating their home's 3,000 square foot BASEMENT...a basement that was three times as large as my entire home. In my effort to connect with her, I told her I was so sorry and that I was also dealing with some stress, having to replace all the exterior plumbing of my house. I added that I was grateful that my tax return would cover most of it."
"Her response: 'Oh honey, be glad you even GET a tax return. We haven't gotten ANYTHING back for 20 years!' All I could say was, 'Well that's one way to look at it.'"
39.Finally..."I’m a public defender. This happened to my colleague and not me, but I was there. A client (who the court deemed indigent in order to get a public defender) was in court for failing to pay a fine. Her lawyer (my coworker) explained to the judge that the client was out of work and did not have the money. The judge told her just to go to the ATM upstairs. Like…she couldn’t understand people not having money. Or she thought that ATMs just gave anyone money. No idea. Local gossip says that her daddy bought her her seat on the bench when she finally passed the bar after failing it at least three times."
What's the most out of touch thing you've heard or seen in a workplace? Let us know in the comments.
Submissions have been edited for length/clarity.
