Employees Of The ‘Ultra-Wealthy’ Witness Some Really Out-Of-Touch Behavior, But These 5 Purchases Take The Cake
Volodymyr TVERDOKHLIB | ShutterstockFor those of us living average lives with average incomes, it’s easy to think that super rich people are like an anomaly, and not that many of them exist. America’s top 1% is actually made up of an estimated 1.6 million households, though.
That means many of us have had the chance to interact with very wealthy people, even if we didn’t realize it at the time. One Reddit user asked those who worked with “ultra-wealthy” people what “out-of-touch” purchases they had seen them make, and the answers were mind-boggling for all the regular Joes out there.
Employees of the ‘ultra-wealthy’ witness some really out-of-touch behavior, but these 5 purchases take the cake:
1. A terrarium penthouse
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Technically, this report came from a man who dated a rich man’s granddaughter, not from someone who actually worked for him, but it’s outrageous all the same. The grandfather lived in a luxury apartment, but that wasn’t enough for him. He also purchased the penthouse above him to use as a “terrarium type of environment for his cactuses.”
Obviously, the price of a penthouse is going to vary by location. A quick look at real estate in New York shows penthouses that can cost anywhere from $1 million to $35 million. If he had some particularly exotic cacti, those could have been expensive too. It feels a bit offensive to know there are people who are homeless, while this man had a luxury home just for his plants.
2. Cloned dogs
Yes, you did in fact read that right. Another commenter shared that they used to work as a chef for a family with a net worth of over $10 billion. When their beloved dog died, they decided it wasn’t time to move on yet and had two clones made. Both had health problems, presumably from whatever the cloning did to them, so the chef was often inconvenienced by needing to make dietary accommodations.
Similarly, wealthy vineyard owner Arthur Murray shared his own experience with having his dog cloned by ViaGen, a company that claims they can clone pretty much any mammal, although they work primarily with dogs, cats, and horses. The whole process cost Murray $50,000 for one dog.
Aside from the fact that this is a new level of bizarre, it’s not surprising that groups like PETA take issue with it because it could cause the original animal to suffer.
3. A custom vehicle to use as an office
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Some people really mean it when they say they want to work remotely, like one rich woman who shelled out $400,000 for her own “mobile office.” According to one of the men who made it, it included “satellite TV, internet for video calls, streaming TV or movies, armor, [and a] custom interior.”
I doubt that I’m alone when I say that this vehicle, which must have been huge, sounds nicer than my house. The real kicker came from the indifference of the owner’s husband, though. Two weeks after she got the vehicle, he used it after a mountain biking excursion.
“Throws mountain bikes in the fully custom leather and wood interior made up like a Rolls Royce living room,” the builder recalled. “Leather ripped, wood scratched, carpets with axle grease in them … disaster.” For reference, the custom car he trashed was worth about six times the average American’s salary.
4. The biggest jar of Nutella
I will admit that I do love Nutella an awful lot, but I think I pale in comparison to one wealthy person who would settle for nothing less than a 40-ounce jar. Nutella does come in various sizes, with the biggest one listed on Amazon being a 35.3-ounce jar that is equivalent to 2.2 pounds.
The person who left this comment was sharing a story they heard from a high school friend. He worked as a private chef, and one of his clients insisted on nothing less than the 40-ounce jar of Nutella. One day, the chef was picking up some groceries, and the store was out of the 40-ounce jar, so he got two 20-ounce containers. Although that is the exact equivalent, it was a big mistake that cost him his job.
5. 150 pounds of fish
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Our last shocking example came from a pilot who flew corporate jets before joining a big airline. He said that people who owned private jets regularly rented them out, which gave him the chance to pick up some overtime and extra money. His most memorable job came from a “very rich celebrity” who was in desperate need of fish.
The star was having a party in California, and they wanted to serve 150 pounds of a specific Chilean fish. The pilot and his co-pilot traveled from Louisiana to Chile to Santa Barbara, which was a total of 17 hours in the air. Each of them was paid $10,000 and given a $3,000 tip. The plane cost about $250,000, and he guessed the fish, with packaging and customs included, was $350,000.
The price of purchasing your own business jet can fall anywhere in the wide range of $3 million to $90 million, so I guess this celebrity really did get some bang for their buck by chartering someone else’s plane since they probably spent less than $700,000.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
