Things rich people dont know
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Anonymous
Yeah, because I'm sure you're willing to walk 1.5 miles roundtrip with your six year old in the dark after school to get fresh fruits and vegetables because she ate all the apples you planned to have last for the week, and there is no place close to home or work to buy fresh produce, and no time between putting her on the bus, getting to work, getting back to her school to pick her up to make an extra trip. And we do have a great, affordable outdoor market in the neighborhood-this past summer they set up 4 times, which isn't helping me now. |
Anonymous
That's the case in most places. I asked my son a few years ago and he thought AAs were about 30% of the population. Meanwhile my Catholic enclave cousins didn't know Jews celebrate Thanksgiving and friends from northern Minnesota considered Italians "minorities". |
Anonymous
You know, I wouldn't consider the way I grew up poor, but I learned how to do most of the above from my parents. They are immigrants, and this sort of resourcefulness comes with the territory, regardless of income. And food deserts, while real, impact different groups differently. I grew up in a food desert, but we still ate healthy home-cooked meals, because many immigrants have an actual food culture that they can look to (i.e. know how to cook, how to do inventory management, etc.)...its poor people from a non-immigrant background that are most in trouble with this. |
Anonymous
| How many more free things are available to the rich who don't need them. I was fortunate to grow up UMC in NJ but I totally noticed this when I arrived in NYC biglaw. My law firm -- free breakfast every morning; lunches at least 2x/wk through some CLE, lunch meeting etc; cookies in the afternoon. All of this is in the "attorneys lounge" -- so not available to the secretaries, support staff, janitors etc. who were living paycheck to paycheck on 40k or less in NYC. We didn't need the free breakfast -- associates can spend $5 on a bagel and coffee; yet for someone who is paycheck to paycheck, that $5/day savings is $25/week that can pay a half a month of electric. |
Anonymous
This is really true! I remember traveling with my boyfriend in Italy in our early 20s. He travelled a ton for his job, so lots of points, but not a lot of money. We stayed at the Cavalieri in Rome, which at the time was a Hilton property, in this giant suite (points paid for it). Because it was an honors floor, there was free breakfast and coffee, lunch snacks, happy hour snacks, free drinks. Loads of free stuff intended for well-heeled travelers as a convenience or a perk. We called it breakfast and some nights early dinner!  It was the perfect way to save some $$ for the rest of our trip, where we travelled like normal people in their early 20s (super cheap hotels and lots of pizza )
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Anonymous
| That many public school kids could get into Ivies, but they don’t go because none of the Ivies offers merit aid and only the top 2-3 Ivies offer really generous financial aid to cover the $70k tuition. |
Anonymous
+1 |
Anonymous
+1. Totally thought this in biglaw. Also -- when you travel for work -- which tends to be the higher end, white collar type jobs -- you end up building up points that can be used for personal travel/hotels/flights but reality is, you'd probably take a vacation anyway even if you had no points; meanwhile the type of people that are paycheck to paycheck have no chance for work travel and also never take vacations or maybe 1 vacation every 10-20 yrs is a BIG deal and they don't have anyone comp-ing them hotel or flights on points. Same thing for employers with per diem. Often it's quite generous and you don't spend much/all of it, which means you come back from a business trip with an extra $200 in your pocket, whereas that extra $200 for a secretary would pay for heat/electric for a month or two. And I've thought about this big picture too -- the more you have invested, the better you do in terms of growth of absolutely dollars in a 401k/brokerage account etc. bc of compounding. Someone already sitting on investment assets of $1 million on Jan 1 of this yr is up to 1.18 million right now, while someone who had scraped together $5000 in a 401k is up to $5900 -- with the 18% S&P return YTD. Yet that extra 180k "matters" less to the millionaire than it would to someone with 5k saved for retirement. |
Anonymous
| How awesome it is to work in an office all day with free air-conditioning and heat. |
Anonymous
Yeah, but the firm has a profit motive -- there's value in keeping the associates' noses to the grindstone, rather than having them pop out for their bagel and coffee or afternoon snack. I remember as an associate I totally thought the "free lunch" thing was a trap. |
Anonymous
Yes and no. It’s obviously for their benefit but let’s be real not every associate in every group is 100% busy at all times and bc you’re professional employees you can come and go as you please. Most times (except during trial and deal closing), there is time to go get a bagel esp in nyc where unlike dc you’re not walking blocks and pretty much every midtown building has a sbux/fast casual/deli in the building. |
Anonymous
you're an idiot, it's not free, you are paying for it |
Anonymous
Yeah ok bc people will just stop attending CLEs and lunch meetings if food isn’t provided. |
Anonymous
Right! That food is paid for by all those hours you're expected to bill. |
Anonymous
Re-fueling at the firm allows you to bill more & more! |