The Rich Get Bitcher
A couple others I discussed the tipping issue with also proposed the “rich people keep their money in their pockets” theory, but I’m not sure I’m convinced. I’ll have a lot more evidence to build a theory as the year goes on, but I’m hypothesizing it’s more about entitlement on the part of the rich, and empathy, as Jen and Linda suggested, on the part of the middle class. From age 10 on I grew up around (let’s say, kind of disturbingly surrounded by) rich people, and let me tell you, they’re not necessarily thrifty. They spend boatloads on cars, clothes, houses, yachts, golf carts, vacations in Fiji, cocaine, winter sports, and whatever else. Most don’t seem to mind throwing money around. Lawyers in particular love to throw down their Am Ex to buy dinner for the table–as I’m sure most of us have appreciated from time to time. And let me just say that I’m confident most of my current rich friends–ahem, lawyer friends–tip decently or better.
Nevertheless, in my experience, especially in any service job I’ve ever had, the difference between rich and middle-class people is mostly that rich folks, particularly those that grew up fairly well-off, just expect other people to wait on them. They feel like they deserve it, and that everyone in the room who is paid to be in the room exists to make them comfortable. Javi, our friend who waits tables at an unpretentious gourmet spot in Denver told me, for example, that those big buyers, the ones who like to pick up a $300-$400 bill for the table, often chintz-out on the tip, laying down less than 15%, sometimes less than 10.
Or here’s an example closer to my heart. At that law firm holiday party I mentioned, the Big Wig in charge was this 60-something broad (name partner, I presume) who glided in in a white mink coat a half hour early and had us stop setting up our bar to make her “Sapphire martini, stirred not shaken, with a half twist,” a drink she afterwards had waiters carry to her all night, because she was apparently too special to belly up to the bar like everyone else. The bright side to that was us bartenders not having to deal with her. But at the end of the night, as the party is winding down, she comes up to me with a rabid-poodle look in her eyes, presses two white bony hands on the bar and hisses:
“My PURSSSSE is missing!”
“Your purse is missing?”
“Yesssss. It’ssss not under the chair where I left it!” Big Wild-Angry Rich Lady Eyes.
Long pause.
“What…would…you…like…me…to…do?” I ask slowly, given that I am, in fact, behind the bar and there are numerous waiters and floor managers she could be asking who would gladly help her locate said purse. Of course, I realize she’s not seeing half of them because they are what you might call brown.
“Help me FIND it,” she glowers, and so I actually leave the bar, walk through the kitchen and hallway and circle around to the ballroom to meet her.
“Are you sure,” I ask, “that you didn’t leave it under another chair? Where did you last see it?”
“It was in THAT room!” she accuses, thrusting an arm behind her with those dart-throwing eyes fixed on me.
I peer in the direction she’s pointing, where, without any effort at all, I see a red purse under a chair.
“Would it be that purse, the one under the chair where you, perhaps, left it?” I ask gingerly (ok, perhaps a tad sarcastically).
Now she looks over her shoulder, sees it, and with a toss of her frosted head, stomps off to retrieve it without a word of thanks. Clearly, the room was filled with criminals wanting nothing but to sift through the contents of her red purse. Because she is She.
Nice lady.
I was really missing my Florida vacation right about then.
