Whether it’s making frivolous purchases, demanding outlandish requests, and just really off-putting behavior in general, rich people like to think that they can get away with anything. While some wealthy people do use their extra cash for good, the bad manners of the upper crust easily stick out like a jewel-encrusted sore thumb. Here we’ve compiled some truly outrageous accounts of “rich people behavior,” including the good, bad, and mostly very ugly.
43. Surprised the Spoon Was Even Taken Out of the Baby’s Mouth
I don't even work at that nice of a restaurant, but last month I got chewed out over the phone because some lady left her baby's actual silver spoon on the table. We didn't know where it was, so it must have been long gone.
42. A Truly Fancy Feast
I once had a customer who ordered $150 of caviar to go…for their cat.
41. Saying Please and Thank You Goes a Long Way
I am a cocktail server at the huge pool of a 4-star hotel. A woman once told me, in a monotone voice and without any eye-contact, “I lost my sunscreen. Find it.”
40. Non-Consumable Conspicuous Consumption
There’s a thing in Stockholm‘s rich kid district called “vaska.” Basically, you order an expensive bottle of champagne, pay for it, and watch the waiter pouring the bottle’s contents down the drain. Some places even let you do it yourself. Sadly, it’s an established thing in these kinds of circles. Like it’s on the menus and all that.
Honestly the dumbest way of flexing I’ve ever witnessed.
39. Guessing This Guy Never Listened to Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler”
I play poker for a living and every now and then some rich guy will sit down and start going all in every hand for $300-$500 without looking at his cards. I was in a game where a guy was betting $1,000-$3,000 without looking at his cards. It was insane to me, but for him I guess it wasn’t that much money. Really nutty.
38. We all Need to Call Out Crummy Behavior
I saw an American woman who seemed to be a model out for breakfast at a nice hotel in Barcelona. She demanded the waiter walk the butter over to her table. It was 4 feet away at the breakfast buffet. I actually stood up, grabbed it, and handed it to her, as she was demanding this in English to the Catalonian staff. She actually said, “No, I want them to do it.”
I said she was an embarrassment, to which she stormed out. Doing my part!
37. Hospitality is A Two-Way Street
I work at a very expensive hotel in Hawaii. Something that happens all the time with entitled or rich people is that they will just come up to the desk and yell words at you. Like no hello or please, just “Luau” or “ATM.” It's like they aren't even thinking of us as people.
36. I Only Love My Bed…I’m Sorry
I work at a luxury property in California and we once had the co-founder of a large payment processing company stay with us. He only liked to sleep on his own bed, so when he woke up that morning, he paid a team to load his bed into a truck and have it delivered to our property. We then removed the bed in his luxury suite and set up his bed that his team had brought us.
He only stayed with us one night and the process was done to send the bed back home the following day. It kind of blew my mind that he went through all that trouble, just so he could always sleep on his own bed. To each their own, I guess!
35. Whining About Wine Prices
My son-in-law was working as a waiter in a fancy restaurant in Dubai. A very tipsy customer ordered a bottle of a 1960 Pomerol Bordeaux valued at $15,000. He was trying to impress his lady friend. My son-in-law confirmed the price with him and asked him if he's sure that he wants to open their most expensive wine in the house. He replied yes.
The following day when the customer sobered up phoned in to say he made a mistake and wanted his money back. Naturally, it was too late for the restaurant to do anything. They also found out that his lady friend was, in fact, a call girl.
34. Do They Serve OJ at the Crossroads?
Bone Thugs-n-Harmony stayed in our hotel a few years back in Portland, Oregon and ordered room service. I think they just ordered orange juice. Not a weird order but, room service is like $10, plus the orange juice is $3, and with tip, that's like $15-20 per glass of orange juice. They ordered like 25 individual glasses of orange juice through the night.
No horror story here, just thought it would be fun to share that one of the most iconic hip hop groups of all time spent about $500 on orange juice in one evening.
33. Why Are People so Terrible?
When I was a waiter, I once had a woman and her friends at one of my tables. The woman asked for a can of Coca-Cola. When I brought their drinks and gave the woman her Coke, she looked at me, and, in that typical rich person voice, said “Excuse me, honey? I asked for Fanta, not Coke.” So I apologized, wrote it onto my notepad, and went back to get her a can of Fanta.
Brought it to her, and again, she turned to me and said, “I didn't ask for Fanta, I asked for Cream Soda.” By this time, I was getting a bit annoyed, but went back and got her a Cream Soda anyway. And surely, when I returned to her table, she did the same thing again, “I asked for Sprite. Should I call the manager?”
So, for the last time, I smiled and I went back to the kitchen and packed one can of each: Coke, Cream Soda, Fanta, Sprite, Pepsi and Sparberry Soda, into a small plastic box and took it all to her and said “Here you go, miss, take your pick.” She looked offended and almost made a scene. She started lecturing me about how I'm incapable of getting the simplest order right and that she wants to talk to the restaurant's manager.
I told her that I can call him, and that I'll show him all the soda types I wrote on my notepad that she asked for, and we can get his opinion on the matter. She turned and took her damn Sprite out of the plastic box and said, “Just leave it.” Her friends were silent throughout the whole ordeal and none of them gave me any issues further on. I didn't receive a tip, as expected, but I shrugged it off.
32. Typical Karen
When I was a server I would always record my tables' orders. Even though my memory is good, my handwriting is bad so I didn’t want to take the risk of getting something wrong. My manager said it was ok and he even put a sign up stating that some of the staff may record your order for accuracy purposes. At the beginning, I ask each person for their name before I take any drinks or food orders. One of the people at the table orders a steak well done, which is gross but whatever.
Food comes and she said her steak was not medium rare like she wanted and I apologized and told her that she did order it well done. This sparked a big rant, lots of cussing, a call for the manager, etc. Again, I apologize and say let’s go to the tape. The look on her face when I played back the recording of “And Karen how would you like your steak?” was priceless. She tried to play off that it wasn’t her but nobody else ordered a steak at her table. Her friends just laughed at her.
31. That’s One Expensive Chicken Stew
I worked at a resort in Seychelles for four years. I have hundreds of stories of super-rich guests, but one that stands out was a very wealthy Canadian family, who stayed at one of the private residences for a couple of weeks. They brought their own staff including two personal chefs, but also asked for a hotel chef to assist their team with prep and local ingredient knowledge. A chef I was friendly with was selected to spend the two weeks with them.
One day, another member of their staff came down to one of the restaurants and purchased two bottles of wine for €11,000+ each. Now we had far more expensive bottles on the list but this was still a notable sale and later that night, I asked the chef I was friends with what they had cooked to accompany the wine. Turns out they had poured both bottles into the pot to make Coq au Vin.
30. Listen to the Grocery Store Clerks
I worked at a grocery store in uppity Gold Coast Chicago when I was a teen. We sold soup for lunch and when bagging them, we put it in a paper bag followed by a plastic bag to make sure it was secure. This one time, a woman came in to buy soup. I proceed to bag the soup and she says no, “I’ll just put it in my bag.”
I ask her, “Ma’am are you sure?” After all, her bag was a Louis Vuitton bag that looked brand spanking new. However, she insisted that she didn’t need the extra protection. Of course, 15 minutes later she comes in raging that she has minestrone juice all over her Louis Vuitton and demands to speak to a manager.
Giggling Goose Productions
29. Some People Are Not Totally Corrupted by Money
One of my best friend’s fathers is very successful in the tech industry and she has what we call “the magic credit card.” Her dad’s financial manager pays the bill, and who knows if there’s a limit. They weren’t always this rich, and she really is a down to earth person who doesn’t spend extravagantly except when it comes to traveling or eating at fancy restaurants.
When I visit her, she often likes to take me to the nicest restaurants in whatever city she lives in. She likes to order almost everything on the menu because she can’t decide what she wants, including all the cocktails. Sometimes for the more expensive items or things that are priced by weight, the staff remind us of the cost to make sure we can pay.
She usually (sincerely) says, “Wow that is kind of expensive... but let’s treat ourselves!” The kicker is at the end when we obviously have all this food we can’t finish she asks for boxes to take it home. They usually try to tell her that it won’t taste as good reheated, but she just tells them that it was so good the first time and she knows she will love it again.
She’s very sweet and a huge tipper, but it cracks me up because I know people are thinking what is up with this chick.
28. Holding Those in High Positions of Power Accountable
I work at the country club where Reince Priebus goes. Every Friday night is “Pasta Night,” where you pay $5-$10 or so to go to the pasta bar where a chef will make you a pasta dish to order. Priebus, upon getting the bill, turned to the server—a girl who was being perfectly polite to him—and demanded to know why he was charged for three adult meals.
He was there with his wife and kid, and the kid was 12 years old. 12 is the cut-off for getting the $5 kid’s pasta, so the server had charged him the $10 for an adult pasta dish. He insisted his kid was 11, so the server apologized and went to the server station in the back where there’s a computer that would let her change the bill.
I and a couple other staff members were standing back there, giving her questioning looks as we’d seen Priebus look angry and gesture to his kid. Had she screwed up the kid’s order or something? She relayed the whole story so far to us and then turned to the computer. Curious, she looked up the Priebus family’s record.
The kid was 12 years old. Still is, probably, as this was only last July if I recall correctly. The server’s older sister pointed out that the server had every right to charge Priebus for a $10 adult meal, and Priebus was the most highly paid White House staff member of all time before getting fired, and could definitely pay the $5 difference.
A determined look is set in the server’s eyes, and she goes out and tells Priebus she knows his kid is 12, to which he responds (and this is a direct quote), “Oh, so that’s how it’s gonna be?” He paid the bill in a huff, didn’t tip her, and left. To be clear: The man who was the most highly paid member of the White House staff of all time tried to lie about his kid’s age in order to save $5 at a country club where most entrees will run you about $25-30.
27. Don’t Enable Rich Jerks
I worked at a restaurant in the lobby of a rather nice hotel. There was a rich dude that basically lived there. He would eat in our restaurant every night. Our chef had to handpick his steaks from a local butcher. The steaks were massive. It was always specially prepared just for him. Every single time this person would take two or three bites and complain to everyone in earshot that his steak was terrible. Every. Single. Time.
This dude was odd. He would only drink the cheap wine that we served by the glass. However, he would request that you open a fresh bottle just for him. He couldn't possibly drink a glass of wine out of a bottle that was first opened for someone else. Even if I just opened the wine and poured a glass to the person next to him.
That bottle was considered “tainted” to him. If you are that annoyingly picky, just buy your own damn bottle of wine. Oh, and one last thing. He parked in the handicapped spot out front, even though he was not handicapped. But because he spent so much damn money at the hotel, the managers refused to make him move his car or have it towed.
26. Later Years Steinbrenner was Never Afraid to Spend
I was at a restaurant in Houston in 2004 during the MLB All-Star Week. Yankees owner George Steinbrenner rented out a large area of the restaurant and brought players, coaches, and staff to eat brunch. We got there and were seated as all the MLB folks were leaving. I’m a huge baseball nut, so seeing all of the players was really cool.
Anyhow, our waiter came to our table to welcome us and get our drink orders, and just had the happiest look on his face. I said, “Man, must be cool to be on schedule when these guys come in.” He proceeded to tell us that he and his wife were the two servers for the baseball group, and that Mr. Steinbrenner left them a $50k tip. I’m not a Yankee fan, but looked at Mr. Steinbrenner a little differently from then on.
25. All That for a Table?
The one story that comes to mind was when I had this awful encounter with this guest who didn't have a reservation and wanted the best seat in the house, which was already reserved for another guest, a regular who was coming within the hour. She was probably in her 80s, smelled wealthy, and was drenched in diamonds.
She pointed her crooked finger to the table in the corner and said, “I want to be seated there now.” I apologized and offered her another table that was just as desirable to my VIPs. She slammed her hand on the podium and croaked, “I dine here all of the time—I live here on the island! I know Chef Daniel Boulud (she pronounced it as boo-lard) and that table isn't taken, so I will sit there!”
My years working in fine dining taught me that I had to be confident, assertive, yet gracious. If the clientele sniffed weakness from you, then you were done for. So I explained to the guest that the person who reserved the table, reserved more than two weeks prior and that perhaps next time she visits, she can reserve that table, and in the meantime, I had a number of exclusive tables for her to choose from.
I knew she was lying about being a regular, and many clones of her say they know the owner just to save face in front of their elite friends. So I wasn't impressionable at that point. But when I told her that, she responded by glaring at me and sneering “You're treating me like a black woman!” Fuming, I uttered, “Excuse me?”
Before I totally lost it, my manager came to the rescue. I had to go to the break room and regroup from her audacity—all over a table! Palm Beach is something else.
24. Bravo to Having Your Workers’ Backs
I worked in a five-star hotel for a number of years. One wealthy guest was throwing a fit claiming a maid had stolen a diamond earring. The owner and entire management team told the guest that the maid had not stolen anything and they were sure she'd find it when she packed to leave. Her room was a mess of strewn clothing.
Sure enough, she found it when she packed to leave, but she did not offer the maid her deserved apology. Always admired how management from the top down had the maid's back and never thought for a minute she'd done anything wrong.
23. Rich and Wasteful
I once had to accompany a few rich tourists for a day. We went to an expensive restaurant, they ordered every single dish on the menu.
With the six of them, it was around 15 full meals. They took some bites of the food and left. Maybe 20% of the food was eaten. I felt very embarrassed.
22. Was His Boss a Bull?
My former boss was insanely wealthy. He used to stay in presidential suites at hotels and would order the staff to have any and all red removed.
He was a high roller at several casinos and they made special chips just for him, as a substitute to red chips. He hated the color red because when you’re losing money, you’re “in the red.”
21. Power Trippin’ at a Suburban Marriott
I work at a Marriott, one that is more expensive than your typical hotel, but by no means a place that millionaires or celebrities would come to, especially because of our suburban location. However, that doesn't mean I don't often get people who think that because they are paying $150 a night on a Marriott hotel room—honestly not that much but it feels a lot to them—that they can be just as rude and entitled as a patron of a swanky upscale hotel.
My favorite little story is the guy who was shooting hoops at our sports court way too early in the morning. When I asked him to stop, he just looked at me and threw the ball as far as he could into the parking lot, saying, “I'm paying too much to be treated this way. I'm talking to your manager.”
20. Rich and Judgmental—A Terrible Mix
During our honeymoon, my husband and I came back to our very nice hotel from a day full of hiking looking like homeless people. We were waiting for the elevator with another couple who were both giving us the side eye. Once on the elevator, the couple pressed the button for the top floor, which was the same as ours.
After about 30 seconds of silence and glares, the woman turns to me and condescendingly says, “You need to press the button for your floor.” I told her our floor was already selected and she had the audacity to ask, “You have a suite on the top floor!?”
19. Rich and Racist—An Even More Terrible Mix
My parents have been pretty successful in the last decade or so. However, they’re very humble and hardworking people. My dad has dark skin and wears cheap sweatpants 90% of the time. They once treated themselves to an upgrade to first class on a vacation. When my dad was taking his seat, another passenger tapped him on the shoulder and told him, “Economy was further down the plane.”
I reckon she was lucky my mom didn’t slap her.
18. This Woman is the Literal Worst
I work at a ridiculously upscale steakhouse in Manhattan as a hostess while juggling being a college student. We have some of the most demanding and exclusive clients come in daily and I have a lot of stories. Our guests range from Michael Cohen, Steve Madden, Anderson Cooper to lesser-known Real Housewives stars and just filthy rich businessmen and women.
Last winter while at work, we had three hostesses at the podium. One for seating people, one for checking in, and one for checking coats. I was checking coats (tips are unbelievable) around 7, when our place is incredibly busy and hectic. Well, a lady checks in with her husband and hands me her coat. I hand her the ticket number for her coat and then proceed to hang it up and mark it with all of the other coats in the closet.
In the closet, it was mainly mink coats during the winter, easily upwards of $15,000 from brands like Moncler, Burberry, Gucci etc. Her coat was a Moncler. It’s easy to remember in the moment who had what coat, but after checking in 200 other coats I totally forgot what kind of coat this woman had, and she was not a regular client so I didn’t make a special note.
Fast forward two hours later they’re leaving. She hands me her ticket and I go to get her coat. I come back to hand it to her and she looks at me puzzled and goes, “That’s not my coat.” I go, “Oh okay, are you positive? What did your coat look like by chance?” She sniffed and said “Seriously isn’t it your job to know that?”
So I asked her to come to the coat closet with me so we could locate her jacket. She wrinkled her nose and told me I was a joke for not being able to do such a simple job! I apologized and walked her to the coat closet. We searched high and low for about an hour for her coat and at that point, she was screaming at me, every nasty name in the book.
I stood there, calm as could be, because the money was worth it. I finally decided to involve the manager because I just did not know what to do. He didn’t know what to do either, he said we would reimburse her for the cost of her coat and we would write a check but she refused. She must have tried on all 200 coats in our closet and claimed that none of them were hers.
I was petrified at this point that I had given her coat away to someone else, as many look the same. She then told me I would be getting a bill personally from her lawyer and I was actually scared because I knew how expensive those coats were. She berated me and degraded me in front of the manager and told him that I need to be fired.
Finally, she had enough and said since you gave my coat to someone else give me the coat you initially gave me because I can’t go outside without a coat. And at that point I didn’t care anymore. So, she takes the coat I initially gave her, puts it on, and says, “Wow it fits perfect.” She reaches in the pockets and asks, “How did this coat happen to have my wallet and keys in it too?”
I looked up and literally had no words. I wasted about two hours being belittled by the woman, when I was right the whole time. The lady was like, “I don’t know what to say” and my manager said, “You owe her [me] and apology.” And the lady handed me her wine glass, a $1 tip, no apology, and left like nothing happened!
I sat down on the closet floor and cried my eyes out. I had been awake since 5 AM for school and was the closing host that night, which meant I wouldn’t be leaving until about 2 AM, getting home around 3 AM, and waking back up at 5 AM for school! She wasted what little energy I had left and made me feel so worthless. My coworkers were awesome though, the bartender made me a drink and they all gave me a hug.
17. New Meaning to Having Good Taste
I used to work at an upscale hotel restaurant and one of the regulars there would always order very expensive bottles of wine. I'm talking about expensive, rare, and delicious wine. He would always go through the same routine. He orders the first bottle, tastes it, and declare it either corked or just plain bad.
He would then call the manager and tell him he would still pay for the bottle on the condition that all the serving staff would take turns at his table with a glass to taste it and “learn what makes a wine taste bad.” We're talking about wine bottles worth in the hundreds if not thousands. He would then order his own bottle and drink the new one.
The thing is, the first bottle was perfect! The sommelier and the waiters were in on it. Only the manager didn't officially know about it—but he probably did. So every now and then, we could have a taste of wine worth a couple of dozen dollars a sip just because this guy knew his vintages, wanted to share the pleasure with us, and was loaded with money.
16. You’ll Never Look at Squid Ink Pasta the Same Again
I worked at a nice little shop that sold fresh house-made pasta and ready-to-go sauces. We got the stereotypical rich people due to our location in the middle of Marin County, California. This was in the late 80s and food trends were plentiful and rapidly evolving. Many people were very interested in being on the cutting edge of the latest trend, be it the latest hot restaurant or that month’s fabulous must have menu item.
Not that they were actually into food, but just to be “in the know” and brag about how you simply must try the most fabulous tiramisu at the buzziest place in town. We regular folk would stoically refrain from rolling our eyes in their presence and carry on. So at the pasta shop one evening, a typical Marin matron arrived in her gemmed slippers, clattery jewelry and a cloud of perfume.
She pushed past the other patrons in front of her and said she needed some squid ink pasta. “I’m sorry,” I replied, “we don’t actually make a squid ink pasta, but you may be able to find it at another fancy grocery store in the same plaza. They carry several quality imported items.” She gaped at me and started moaning, “OHHHH NO NO NO NO NOOOOO.”
Of course, now everyone in the place was staring at her. She then told me that she had to have squid ink pasta because she had her “gourmet friends” coming for dinner and they had to have squid ink pasta. I apologized again, explaining that we didn’t make squid ink pasta and again suggested the fancy grocery store, only to be cut off by her loud wailing “OHHHH NO NO NO,” again.
I just stood and watched along with everyone else in the place as she paced up and down before the display case, clutching her head and repeating, “Squid ink pasta...gourmet friends! SQUID INK PASTA...GOURMET FRIENDS!” over and over at the top of her lungs, as if this incantation would magically call forth a hidden cache of squid ink pasta.
Needless to say, we could not provide said squid ink pasta, so I don’t know what she served to her gourmet friends that fateful evening. The whole thing was just so bizarre and over the top. Anytime we encountered some delusional, entitled weirdo, we’d mutter “Squid ink pasta!” and cackle to each other.
15. Glad to See that Money Doesn’t Adversely Affect Everyone
I worked at a nice steakhouse in Houston. Once a year, one of the biggest telenovela stars from Mexico would come in to town to shop at the Galleria, and she always ended up eating at our restaurant. After dinner, she would walk through the kitchen spending about a half hour laughing, taking pictures, and talking with the kitchen staff—in Houston, about 90% of back of house staff are Hispanic.
She was very aware of her status, very well dressed, and very kind to the hardest working and worst paid staff at that restaurant.
14. Rich People Can Buy Things You Didn’t Even Know Were for Sale
I worked at a 5-star hotel. A pretty normal looking guy came in one day and inquired about the price of a piece of art on our wall.
It cost $200, 000 and he bought it on the spot, all within 20 minutes.
13. Disappear This Miss, Please
I may or may not have carried a heavily intoxicated girlfriend and a large amount of substances out of my bosses house (CEO of a very large company) while she was covered in her own filth so his wife wouldn't catch him as she arrived home from her sister's house a day early.
Full story:
My old boss regularly cheated on his wife with any number of women. Well, he calls me one day, because we are friends away from work, and asks me to come to his apartment ASAP. I drive over there, and he's blitzed, and this chick is laying naked in her own filth mumbling about something.
He says he has to shower and clean up because his wife is ten minutes away so please "Get that out of here." I grab the girl and help her to her feet and cover her up with a t-shirt. As I'm walking her out he yells for me to grab the party bag. The only bag is a Dopp kit. I grab it, jump in my car and drive off.
This chick is blasted! She doesn't know where she lives and is sure she's having a heart attack. So, I calm her down somewhat and reach in her purse and find her ID. Luckily, she has her current address on it and I take her home. I drive back to my house and pull into the driveway and remember the Dopp kit.
I open it up and there's a LOT of illegal substances in there. I got a steak dinner and a few beers later that week from the boss. Needless to say, I no longer work there.
12. Always a Bonus When Your Manager Has Your Back
My wife used to work at a high-end clothing store in Manhattan—the kind with really expensive pieces of clothing you had to make an appointment to just see. She said 90% of people there would return all kinds of clothes. Saying rich people are the cheapest or would get it just for show. One guy got in a huge argument and rudely called her fat, because she wouldn’t accept 6-month-old satin socks that he wanted to return.
My wife was clearly pregnant at the time, the manager was a sassy dude that wouldn’t tolerate that and cursed him out into the street.
11. The Classic “Do You Know Who I Am?”
I work at a classical music and theater venue. It’s in the middle of the city so we ask a small fee for parking. It’s significantly less than what you would pay to park in the street and it’s clearly marked at the entrance. A guy came up to me with his parking ticket and the first words out of his mouth were “Paid parking? Do you know who I am?”
I did not, none of my colleagues knew, and to this day it’s still a mystery. But he was parked in our parking lot, so yes, paid parking.
10. Rich People Quirks
I worked as a busboy at a restaurant in a hotel that was at the end of its life. The owner, a reputed mob boss, and his eccentric wife lived in a top floor suite that was two stories tall and lined with white marble, Italian statues, a red carpet, etc. The wife would do her grocery shopping from the restaurant’s kitchen, and it would be us busboys who took it up.
However, she made very specific demands on how the food should be prepared. Once, she asked for seven pieces of American cheese, and it needed to be on a plate in a star pattern. Another time, she wanted five raw eggs, each wrapped in a napkin and then wrapped in plastic, placed inside a large Styrofoam cup. Failure to prepare the food to her exact specifications meant being fired.
On top of all that, she never once met us when we brought the food—she would buzz us in and instruct us to put the tray in their private elevator, and send it up to her. I was once berated because I put a plate of bread on the left side of a tray instead of the right. After the husband died, they closed the hotel. For a couple years after, she lived in that penthouse alone, and it was creepy to drive past at nights and see this 14-story hotel completely dark except for her couple lights on the top floor.
9. If You’re Going to Complain About a Dish, You Better Know What Goes Into It
Someone once ordered the dessert on special—it was tiramisu that day—and sent it back, saying that “Mascarpone cream doesn't go along well with coffee and your recipe should be changed.” That is literally the original and classic recipe. Then get this. She asked for tiramisu with Victoria sponge. First, we had no Victoria sponge, second, just because someone asks for it we are not going to make something we won't end up selling, and third, I think the chef would've rather carved his own eyes out with a fork.
Just because you have the money to pay for a 200€ meal doesn't mean you are entitled to whatever you want. We are workers who want to turn a profit at the end of the damn day, not your personal staff of cooks and waiters.
8. You Probably Know What Evian is Spelled Backwards
I worked at a private villa in Bali. One guest stood out because she only drank and bathed in Evian. So one day I spent almost an hour filling a large tub from tons of Evian bottles. The same young woman complained that the path from her villa gate to her room wasn't well lit. This was probably because she wore sunglasses at night.
7. VIPs: Very Irrelevant People
I worked at a nice restaurant in downtown Portland and one day a lady called to make a dinner reservation for a large group. But first, she starts asking all these questions about “security” (we had none) and how I thought the staff and patrons would handle a “celebrity” dining there. Is there enough space to be private? They like to be private. Would it be okay if they brought their own security, to stop people from taking pictures and such? But of course, she couldn't name names.
I rolled my eyes, gave her the go-ahead to do whatever they needed to do, and booked the date and time. Yes, I was super curious who it would be, and stayed past my shift to see who walked through the doors when the big night came. The group arrived, and it was... no one. Not one of us who worked there recognized a single member of their party.
They sure acted like they were someone, but all we saw was a loud group of douchey-looking twentysomethings. They actually did bring a “bodyguard,” who stood in the corner with sunglasses on the whole time. The only attention they got from other diners was the occasional side-eye because they were being such rude and obnoxious nitwits. Shock of shocks, they treated our staff horribly and tipped even worse. I will never know who that person thought they were.
6. A True Diamond in the Rough
I operated a premium chain restaurant in Canada. One day a very generous gentleman we’ll call Mr. S, started coming in. On the first day he spent $200 on wine and tipped $1,000. The next day he did the same. When he came in for the third time, I had servers fighting over him. Anyway, one evening he got drunk on wine and Brad the busboy made the mistake of complimenting him on his watch. Mr. S. takes off his Tag Heuer and gives it to Brad.
The next morning, Mr. S comes back to get his car and asks if Brad is there. I say yes and go get him. Brad knows what's up and is removing the watch as he walks over to Mr. S. Mr. S says, “Brad I'm really sorry I got drunk last night and gave you my watch.” Brad is chuckling as he is removing the watch and says it's no problem and he was just holding the watch until Mr. S returned.
The next thing Mr. S. said, I could not believe: “Brad, you don't understand, I'm sorry because it was very rude of me to give you a used gift.” And at that moment Mr. S pulled out a box with a brand new Tag Heuer inside and handed it to Brad.
5. Sliding Scale
I had a guy put a $20 on the table when I came to greet him and his wife and say, “This is your tip. However, every time you do something wrong, I will remove a dollar.” I thought he was joking, so I chuckled and asked, “Like, what?”
He takes the 20 off the table and replaces it with exactly $19. Who carries enough bills to do that? He responds with, “Like that.”
4. When You’re Rich, the World Is Your Toilet
I was once a server at a high-end steakhouse in Newport Beach, California. A rich guy's son comes in, probably in his mid-30s, with a big group. They get a private room and spend thousands on food and booze. The guy gets hammered and instead of climbing the stairs to take a leak, he just relieves himself in the hallway. On the floor.
He didn't get kicked out, either. They just had a janitor come in and clean it up and the dinner kept going. Nice to have that kind of money, I guess.
3. You Can’t Always Get What You Want
I work retail at an electronics store and it was launch day for a new product. A guy and his 13-year-old son and asked if we had the biggest and baddest model in a certain color in stock. I told them we had that model in a different color. The father gets a phone call and tells his kid to talk to me. The kid pulls out a wallet full of credit cards and snidely asks, “How much would it take to get me that phone?”
I told him I couldn't sell him something we didn't have, but that he could order it online. The father comes back and the kid tells him the news. The father looks at the kid and says, “I have to go to a meeting, I'll have the driver come get you. Don't back down.” And walks away. I look at the kid. Challenge freakin’ accepted.
He says, “I read on Mac Rumors that you hold 4% of your inventory for DOA phones out of the box. I want one of those phones.” To which I replied, “We don't have any for that model because we didn't get any actual stock for it in.” Long story short, the kid starts screaming in the middle of the jam-packed store.
My team leader, who happens to be there, comes out and the kid tells her that I called him a snobby little jerk. She looks at me like he was a crazy person and somehow convinces the kid to buy a different color. As it turns out we couldn't sell him the phone because the cardholder wasn't present to show ID. I was mad about the whole thing at first, but felt that he got what he deserved.
2. When the Rich Do Good
I’m a soldier. We held an annual ball for people in the service in our region at a local marina hotel restaurant/bar. We had the whole place reserved for the evening. The barkeep/host grabs our commander a few hours into the event and says “There's a guy, he's a daily regular for the past 15 years and he wants to grab his usual nightcap. Do you mind?”
The commander agrees and the gentleman comes in, sits at his spot, and proceeds to enjoy the show while “occasionally” covering costs for those of us grabbing drinks, in exchange for a little small talk about what we do. After about three hours, he grabs his coat and heads out. He then returns about an hour later and proceeds to shut down the joint with us, still covering drinks here and there.
The next day when I came in as part of the clean-up crew (grabbing drunkenly abandoned uniforms or materials), the host gave me the breakdown after I asked how long their charges normally take to process, as I hadn't seen my bar tab hit my account yet. It turns out the regular owned a chunk of the marina, and covered a combined $12,000 bar tab as “Thanks to the servicemen and women.”
I had a tab of over $450 waiting on my card and it was completely covered that. It was glorious.
1. The Nerve of Some People
Someone had a heart attack on the patio of our restaurant. Paramedics came and were assessing the situation and trying to prep the guy to go to the hospital. This woman dining with her husband decided very loudly to ask my manager in her best condescending rich person tone, “Is this going to take much longer, we were enjoying lunch.” The restaurant goes dead silent and her husband looks like he’s about to puke from embarrassment. They were politely asked to leave and never come back.
Sources: Reddit, ,
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