My wife and I make okay money in a middle class area, but, due to a combination of good luck, and contrived to circumstances, we recently got to watch a college football game in the stadium’s super executive corporate sponsor level suite. It was awesome. Open bar, amazing catered food, and people networking all around me who are clearly in the c-suite of their respective companies. I had a list of crazy things I was going to say if someone asked me what I did, but it never came up.
I went with a friend to Vegas. He was going to one of those super-posh conferences for his line of work, and just casually wanted to split the hotel bill (because he’s cheap; the dude could afford to live in one of those hotels year round). At the end of the conference, all of his colleagues were throwing some party at the top of one of the hotels on the strip. He helped me through the security screen and we left the elevator. We went from a world of bright lights and gaudiness to dark passion and sultry beats where each seat at their reclined cushion alcoves was worth thousands of dollars. Prostitution may be illegal in Vegas, technically, but escorts that looked like world-famous supermodels (male and female, to be clear) were writhing across every lap at those recessed tables.
My friend got me to the balcony, where I got a picture of the entire strip at night. Then my friend casually mentioned that getting a drink would be about $1200 and we went back down to the normal floors for the free booze and $2 blackjack.
Not mine, but my uncle’s story. In the late 70s or 80s, can’t remember, my uncle was a young man in Boston, MA. New transplant to the US with limited English working minimum wage at a famous hotel in town, by famous I mean all the rock and roll stars stayed in this hotel when they were in Boston. There are other wild stories for another day.
On this day his manager was scrambling to look for him and told him that he had to drive a VIP somewhere. He was speechless, and asked wtf is going on ? He had a humble tiny hatchback manual drive ford fiesta? with only a driver’s side mirror. The artist was Blondie and she was late for the show. They wanted the most non descript car to zip halfway through the clogged city to the venue.
He was like wtf, but fuckkit here we go.
He drove the Blondie singer from the hotel to the venue quick and easy like superman and saved the day.
I have to go back and ask what conversation they had.
Debbie Harry! I wonder what she thought of the whole thing haha
Me too. Thanks goodness he’s still alive. Barely. I’ll ask him and post followup. I wish she could read this post and give some background
Ohhhhn Blondie, I thought you were just being weirdly descriptive
I was working the booth at a conference and the sales guys closed some big deal there and took everybody at the conference out to a four star restaurant. Since it was in a legal state me and the woman from marketing got really baked before we went in and had $200 steaks with a $400 bottle of wine. There were like 10 people, too so the whole bill must have been at least $4,000.
She was high as hell the whole time and trying not to hide it, which was hilarious for me to watch.
If they called it a “4 star” restaurant, they scammed you, that does not exist.
I never saw any stars. I just saw the prices.
Years ago my dad took me with him to a business trip in downtown LA. He finished his meeting and we wanted some dinner so started looking around for somewhere to eat. It was in the financial district though, and by 5 or 6 every fast food place around was already closed (which is still weird to me). We were about to give up and go back to our hotel and just get room service until we saw a plain ass sign pointing down an alley that just said “steakhouse.” So we followed it into the alley, down some stairs into a sketchy looking basement door that led us into the fanciest fucking restaurant I have ever been in.
Shit was straight out of a movie. The waiters had tuxedos. Everything was finished in nice looking wood, silver or gold. They had an actual maitre d! We immediately felt under dressed and had to ask if there was a dress code.
Well? Did you get food? Was it any good? Did they call you a peasant and tell you to buzz off?
They didn’t have a dress code, so we ate there. Pretty decent steakhouse; prices were a bit higher than, like, a Texas Roadhouse, but not as high as an Outback. I remember the baked potato was fucking enormous and they were all you could eat. But you probably wouldn’t even finish 1 because it was fuckin’ gigantic.
I wish I knew its name. They didn’t have a name on the menu, anywhere inside or on the outside. Literally the only thing even marking it as a restaurant was the little sign pointing into the alley that just said “steakhouse.” It’s like a sweet little secret.
That was no steakhouse. You straight up walked into a Mafia front. Like out of Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal music video.
Flew half-way across the country on a private plane for a business meeting.
The mayor used to know my name. Hollered at me at Mardi Gras!
Went to a party at the woman’s house who owns a vast chunk of downtown. Got to see the Mardi Gras parade from above.
I was an active duty surgical tech in the US military; promoted fairly quickly and ranked up to Staff Sergeant at about 3 years. Shortly after taking that rank, we had a perfect storm of deployments, a retirement, a medical separation, etc that left me as the highest ranking enlisted in the surgery unit, which made me (a still-kinda-newby-surgical-tech) taking the responsibilities of basically a charge nurse. Chief among these was attending morning morning briefs with the top dogs of the hospital (high ranking officers) and giving report. Fortunately I knew where to access the OR’s metrics, so my report was always just a summary of our case load, average times, etc.
This lasted only about a week until we got a new Master Sergeant and Tech Sergeant. Apparently I got some pretty high praise from those top dogs for stepping up (not like I had a choice) and doing a decent job – but that was PURE luck lol. I only did well because things went relatively smoothly on their own. If there was an emergency or something I would have had no fucking clue what to do; and all the junior enlisted seemed to just know that I wouldn’t have been able to do shit for them during that time, so everyone kept the smaller fires to themselves during that time.
It was a weird time.
Similar. Two cases. First was taking charge of the entire Bases secure network upgrade because I was the only one who knew how the new devices worked. I ended up having to attend a meeting with a General and his staff and had to be chaperoned by an E5 because I was only an E3 at the time.
The second was my entire time working in White House Comms. Can’t talk much about it but I’m sure you can imagine how out of place it would feel.
A girl I dated was friends with the daughter of one of Microsoft’s founders and we got invited to their house to watch Seafair. I think it’s be safe to call in a small mansion right on the water with a dock. The kitchen was as big as my whole apartment. The technology was a bit dated but must’ve been state of the art when it was built. Switches for automated everything. On the water we had front row seats to the Blue Angels. They are incredibly loud up close.
The guy was super down to earth. Had a good conversation where he showed genuine interest in me and what I did. 9.9/10, the hot tub was broken
No helicopter food delivery? She was definitely holding back on the super foods. She must have liked you, to not spook you away with the show of wealth.
Bill Gates definitely hit the late burger and roast beef joints in Cambridge and Boston back in the day.
Bill Gates seems like a chill dude to talk too. Maybe one of these days.
Though I wouldn’t suggest bringing up open source software around him. Unless it’s to bitch about people doing things for free when you want to charge lots of money for it.
“Oh yeah I contribute to Linux branches every once in a while”
“…You what?”
Paul Allen had no kids so you could just say one of Bill Gates’ daughters.
My dad once told me how he won a bunch of money betting on a horse race and spent it all that night in the fancy suite type area that overlooked the racetrack.
I got the chance to visit the penthouse at the top of the Chrystler building. The guy opened the topmost windows and let me partly hang out of it for a photo (I have to dig it up though)
Never anything like that but my brother in law got tickets to a major league game close enough to see the umpires calls which is a big deal for me.
I got very randomly bumped up to first class on a transatlantic flight for business. I do not travel much for business, especially internationally. So, I definitely should not have had priority over more regular accounts. I have to assume I just got lucky, and that flight happened to have no frequent flyers.
It was an eye opening experience. I got to hang out in a secret lounge. When my flight was ready to board, multiple staff escorted us to the gate. When we landed, we took a private van to a secret side entrance, which had its own first class only passport check. We were brought to another secret first class lounge through hidden back hallways to wait for our connections. The lounge looked down over the terminal, and the exit was a nondescript door you’d assume was a maintenance entrance.
Being around that level of service and the other people in first class, it’s clear the wealthy live in another world. I looked up how much that ticket normally goes for after, and full price is for many people a yearly salary. It was nice, but it seems like a crazy way to divide resources.
Some of the tax firms my wife has worked for have hosted extravagant Christmas parties in mountain-top restaurants in Banff and the like. We get to pretend we’re fancy people and order the most expensive menu items for a night.
Good for you! Steak with a lump of crab please !
Best I had was a Nova Scotia lobster roll with fries cooked in truffle oil. Also way too much wine.
Got an extra legroom seat in the airplane by chance.
These days I almost always buy that upgrade. I’m not tall or anything but for $50-100 extra it makes the flight so much more tolerable. That’s easy money on top of a $3000 vacation in my book.
Depends on the flight really. In your case I’d say yeah, it makes sense to upgrade; in my case I’m talking about a sub-1-hour flight that costs $60 in total without any upgrades. I’m on the taller side, but I’m still fine with a regular seat for such a short flight.
And that’s how they get those fees. Effective, isn’t it.
Seat upgrades have been an uncharged for as long as I can remember. At least 30 years. I find it hard to believe they ever gave them away for free.
You bought coach, business, or first. Those were your upgrades from coach. There were no “tiers” in coach like coach “plus” or whatever extra legroom or no checked bag coach is called these days.
Seat pitch was the same for everyone.
They would charge more for window or aisle, that’s been a thing for a really long time.
Not work related, but I used to do pickup games with the players on the best Tribes Ascend team in the world every day!
I’ve lived in more than one trailer. Including a trailer park. I once slept over at a friend’s trailer in a different park. We had a pinecone war with kids from the other side of the trailer park. Pre-bedtime entertainment was Billy Ray Cyrus performing Achy Breaky Heart live on TNN.
I also worked on Capitol Hill, a finance firm worth dozens of billions, etc. My degree is from a shitty Christian college, but I just accepted a job at a prominent research university (staff, not faculty, but still).
I guess I feel like most of my life is relevant to this question.
Was gonna say everyone with impostor syndrome thinks their life is this.
Good job remembering where you came from my friend. Keep up the good work. You should also remember to pat yourself on the back every once In a while. Be honest and true to yourself. Help the next generation move in the right direction.
