So I’m at the East Bank Club (humongous, incredibly nice fitness club in downtown Chicago) right now because my cousin has, let’s say, connections, and she hooks me up. It’s an amazing club, and I’m getting spoiled rotten by it, since I come down and workout for a while, and then sit and work from their cafe, which has incredible food.
However, the clientele for the most part here are rich white people. I do my best to blend in, but I’m pretty sure I still stick out, though not as much as the staff, which is about 80% Hispanic, I’m betting.
Well sitting next to me were two middle aged women who ordered just as you would imagine – “I’d like egg whites scrambled well, with mushrooms, tomatoes, and brie, and could I please have that baked for 2 minutes exactly so that the mushrooms are approximately 120 degrees, but the tomatoes should remain cool….” whatnot. Then the same waiter approaches me and I say “I’ll have the Blackened Chicken Wrap,” to brief knowing glances from the two women.
Well a little bit later in the meal, the waiter came out and while trying to put something on the table, accidentally knocked one of the coffee cups over, spilling coffee directly on top of one of the women’s ipods. Now the ipod is in a case, and I’m sure it will be just fine, as she snatched it up and started drying it off right away. However, immediately when the spill happened she started shouting “Oh my God. Oh my God.” The waiter tried his best to help her out, but he was slightly stunned and unsure of what exactly to do. I would be too.
So eventually she calmed down and called a manager over, telling him that this waiter was “completely ignoring us, got stuff wrong, and then spilled coffee on my ipod.” I should say only the last thing there was true. They actually got waited on almost immediately when they sat down, and he appeared to get their order correct, as they had not complained yet. But the coffee was apparently just the final straw, and all these previous complaints suddenly became fully realized.
So the manager moved them to another part of the same room, with a new server. So this waiter loses out on that tip, and has to look at the same two women eat the same meal in a slightly different part of the room, which he has to walk by to get to my table. All because of knocking over a cup of coffee.
I swear rich white people are the worst people in the world.
Did you tip big?
I just tipped my normal amount. Which is 20%. I didn’t have a ton of cash or else I would have tipped more.
Very interesting brief narrative, complete with thesis, which, I believe, you proved satisfactorily. Thank goodness Mom and I were astute enough to spare you the tragic fate of growing up rich and winding up like those inappropriately haughty ladies. I’m glad we thought ahead so well.
Laura from Nemo’s says “congrats” on your song hitting the charts. She told me to say “hey” and wishes you and the band the best.
Hope to get into the big city sometime soon; not sure when.
Pop
Another story involving Morgan and a damaged iPod?
That story reminds me of something that just happened at work. I work at a conference center attached to what is essentially a country club (gym, pool, restaurant and bar, all members only). They were putting on a healthy fajita cooking class for all the rich whiteys so there are all kind of “Mexican” decorations around. Big maracas, sombreros, panchos, normal stuff, but then the ol’ “3 ft tall ceramic statue of a Hispanic sitting on the ground head buried in his arms resting on his knees and hat pulled over the eyes obviously taking a nap” catches my eye.
I ask the supervisor who is another guy just a little younger than me “Maybe I’m being hyper-sensitive, but is that offensive?” (I’m pretty sure it’s not good, I saw a George Lopez show once that gave me perspective.) The Supervisor kind of agrees but doesnt’ know what to do. Unintenionally the decorator who is on charge of the display and is still working on it overhears us.
“Offensive?!? What? That statue? No that’s what they do down there.”
*both the supervisor and I visibly react to this in a smiling but “WTF?” manner but don’t say anything*
The decorator seeing the re-action attempts to backpedal and says “It’s part of their culture, naps, uh um….”
“Siestas?” I offer trying to help her out.
“Yeah, yeah, it’s not bad, it’s just what they do, it’s their culture.”
So the statue stayed up, and probably it didn’t make any difference at all since everyone going to the class was a whitey whitey honky face who didn’t even give it a second thought. And then class ended, and the cleanup crew came in after their refreshing naps and probably weren’t offended themselves or just ignored it like they probably have forever.
Wow man, wow. That’s amazing.
Odd to me that I feel like making this point… but it strikes me, from the rich folks I’ve known in the past… the good and the bad, that the active annoying part of the “rich white people” construction is the “rich” part yeah? I have no idea why I thought of this and surely they are are scores more rich white pains in the but than black or brown, pains in the but… but the part that drives me nuts is that arrogance and materialism rooted in the adjective “rich.” Just a thought.
When I was working in West Bloomfield (which is a well-off majority-Jewish neighborhood in the Detroit area, for those keeping score), I found that the best customers were actually the upper-middles. They weren’t rich enough to be horribly demanding (we had those, too), and they were largely patient, content to wait, and just generally happy to be served. I have no idea whether the dividing line there was actually econimic or just in attitude. But the folks who had enough money to not be worried were generally kind and generous folks who let the world treat them well, but didn’t demand the world treat them better.
Then I moved to a store in Boston and everyone was rude and demanding to everyone, regardless of economic class. (Granted, I was working in the Prudential Center, so we’re probably looking at upper-middle to upper-upper again–but the homeless people who came into the store were mean and demanding too. So I think it’s just a that-part-of-the-country thing.)
I was thinking about this as I read this. Rich to me means “a person having wealth and no manners” or in short “a bitch with lots of money.” However, I think a “wealthy” person or a “well-off” person means “someone who was born with a lot of money or achieved a lot of money while still being a nice person with manners”
I actually believe there are more of the latter than the former – the latter go unnoticed.
“I swear rich white people are the worst people in the world.” — while I’d imagine this was hyperbolic, I’d still like to point out that, as Tyra Banks is still alive, this statement seems faulty.
“A sea of waiters and I can’t get a drink.”
– Lucille Bluth
Natalie and I have been talking this point over a lot, lately. With the new uproar over illegal aliens being able to claim social security (which they have earned while working in the states), this point has come up again in our conversations.
Observations: people come to the United States, hundreds of miles from their loved ones, to work for a sub-standard wage, be treated like animals in our society and live an impoverished life in the States… and yet they still do it. The obvious reason is that it’s better to do that than to put up with the corrupt system and poor living conditions with no work opportunities. So they come to the United States to work and be treated like sub-humans.
If you don’t believe me, walk into a Walmart and watch the Mexicans who have just gotten off shift. No one looks them in the eye and the staff follows them around to make sure they don’t steal anything.
The answer isn’t to take away social security treat them so terribly that they wish they could go back home to an even worse environment… the answer is to make their home good enough that they want to go back.
It’s a big job for a little man like me in my station. …so I pray for revival every day at noon.