Managers Reveal Times They Questioned An Employee's Excuse Until They Got Proof
Managers Reveal Times They Questioned An Employee's Excuse Until They Got Proof
[rebelmouse-image 18352385 is_animated_gif=Think of the most outlandish excuse you've ever had for screwing up at work. Could you prove it? Did your supervisor believe you? Either way, we all have to cover our butts at some point.
JacobTheHobo asked, Managers of Reddit, what was an excuse an employee gave that you thought was 'BS' till you saw proof?
Submissions have been edited for clarity, context, and profanity.
This is some serious dedication.
[rebelmouse-image 18352386 is_animated_gif=One of my colleagues said he would be late because of heavy rains. It turned out that he was living in a flood prone zone and he showed up to office shirtless because it was wet and soiled by muddy water, with a video of his car floating and totaled on the road near his house.
Dude either really loves his job or is already skidding on thin ice.
[rebelmouse-image 18352387 is_animated_gif=A family friend was trying to go to work a few years ago. Problem was, it was snowing so hard that he couldn't get his car out of the garage. His solution? Taking skis and skiing to work with them. Of course, there were parts he had to walk, but he skied a lot of it
Talk about having a crappy day...
[rebelmouse-image 18352389 is_animated_gif=When I managed a convenience store, a guy who was there didn't complete all his closing tasks until about 1 am (we closed at 11 pm). It usually only took about 15 minutes. He said it got super busy and someone had diarrhea in the middle of the store he had to clean up. He was known in the past for being lazy and finishing his job and milking his time to get more hours in so I really thought he was just saying stuff as an excuse.
Went back and watched the recording from the night before to be sure before I called him out though and I'm glad I did. You could clearly see about 20 people come about 10 minutes before closing (a dance or something in town was coming to an end) and one guy was leaving a stream of liquid poo around the store before running to the bathroom to try and clean himself up.
Hey, boss. I'm a complete liability.
[rebelmouse-image 18352390 is_animated_gif=Guy was scheduled to come in for his first day. Got a flat tire on the freeway on the way in, called in, manager was cool and told him to take care of it and come in the next day. Next day rolls around and he calls in again, this time because his radiator overheated on the freeway. Even took a picture and texted it to management and HR. Manager, still cool, told him to come in the following Monday to give him time to get his car repaired. New employee is, of course, grateful.
Monday rolls around, and my manager gets another call. New guy was on his way and got into a car accident on the freeway. Manager got pissed this time. New guy told him to look out the window since our building was on a hill that overlooked a large stretch of freeway. Sure enough, off in the distance was new guy's car burning merrily away.
When you have an accident and it causes another accident...
[rebelmouse-image 18352391 is_animated_gif=15 minutes before her shift is supposed to start I get a call from the employee saying she had just been in a fender bender but she was alright and would be at work in 45 mins to an hour after getting the insurance info sorted. 45 minutes later I get another call. She wasn't going to make it work that day because her car had been hit by another driver and was totaled.
I didn't believe her until I saw the pics of the three-car sandwich with her car firmly squished in the middle.
Scars are the best receipts.
[rebelmouse-image 18352393 is_animated_gif=A guy in my public speaking class stopped showing up for about a month. Suddenly he reappears and says he got jumped and was stabbed 6 times and that's why he missed class.
6 times?
He pulled up his shirt to show the group of people who had huddled to hear the story. It looked like a grenade had gone off with how fast the huddle of people torqued their bodies away from the sight.
Yeah, 6 times.
Pretty funny but doesn't the car have more than one door?
[rebelmouse-image 18352394 is_animated_gif=Not a manager, but a coworker showed up over an hour late because "A goose was guarding my car door."
He had a video on his phone. A Canadian goose, sitting in his driveway. Every time he'd approach the car it'd spread its wings, lower its head and begin charging at him honking.
Hilarious as hell and totally worth the almost two hours of solo work.
Uh... ouch.
[rebelmouse-image 18352395 is_animated_gif=Guy I knew lost the tip of his big toe on a building site, someone knocked over one of those large concrete slabs things they have.
He was ringing his boss, who didn't believe him, so his asked the ambulance driver to turn on the siren.
Definitely not how I'd want to start my day.
[rebelmouse-image 18352396 is_animated_gif=One of my team was off for a week holiday, called up to say he'd fallen off a bed and broken his neck.
Yup. Neck brace, several weeks off work, rehabilitation. Remarkable how he was able to recover so quickly.
Genius. Not all heroes wear capes.
[rebelmouse-image 18350773 is_animated_gif=Someone said they got a medical recommendation from the doctor for a sick leave, which legally will be giving them a paid day off... for.... wait for it..... being drunk.
Saw the medical chit "too drunk and hungover to work", called up the clinic, drove all the way to check out if the thing exists. Bravo, bravo.
People forget that jury duty often results in total sequestration from life.
[rebelmouse-image 18352397 is_animated_gif=I was temporarily fired for not showing up to work for a couple of days. I had been called up for jury duty and was selected for a court case so I filled out a time off request form and faxed it to my supervisor to approve. When I got to the office after finishing jury duty walked into my bosses office brandishing: 1) my jury summons, 2) the original time off request form and the fax sheet and 3) paperwork from the court to prove I had reported for duty and served. He called my supervisor into his office and asked her about the time off request form. Turns out my idiot supervisor not only forgot to hand the form in but for the past couple of months, she had been carrying it around with her.
Guess he had no box of scraps to help him escape...
[rebelmouse-image 18352398 is_animated_gif=I know a guy who said he was kidnapped by terrorists in the Middle East on vacations, he had the police reports and everything.
EDIT: for those asking why he would go on vacation in the Middle East, he said he was visiting family.
Apparently this is really a thing that happens...
[rebelmouse-image 18352399 is_animated_gif=I had a similar sort of experience working at a Ren Faire one year. Other employee and I strike out to grab lunch, do in fact help a little old lady walk up the (Fairly uneven) trail away. This takes us awhile so we're about 10 minutes late to call. Boss is pissed, demands to know where we were.
"Sorry, we were helping a little old Lady cross the road."
Boss is incredulous until one of the other performers pipes up:
"No, I saw them, they were literally helping a little old lady cross the road."
Uh... it's usually a good idea to not run over boxes on the highway. This guy got screwed.
[rebelmouse-image 18352400 is_animated_gif=I had a guy no-show one time. He called like an hour after he was supposed to be there, saying that he blew three tires while on his way to work.
Turns out, he saw a box in the road and assumed it was empty. So he ran over it... It was a box of drywall screws. They scattered, blowing not only the tire he hit it with but also both rear tires as well.
Apparently, lots of cars also picked up screws as they went around him before a fire truck was able to get there and block off the two lanes. He showed me a photo of him and a cop, standing next to a row of like 15 parked cars, all with flat/quickly deflating tires.
And that's the story of how my idiot coworker learned never to assume containers in the middle of the road are empty.
Points for honesty? No?
[rebelmouse-image 18352401 is_animated_gif=I had an employee call me saying he wouldn't be able to make it to work because he was in jail. HR called the jail, and sure enough, he was charged with possession of a controlled substance and domestic abuse.
He didn't work out.
Wait wait wait... he went back to SLEEP? Bruh...
[rebelmouse-image 18352402 is_animated_gif=This one was me.
A few years back my birthday was on a weekend. I had taken Monday off work, but then Thursday night something went wrong. I woke up sometime after feeling really messed up with a sticky face, so got out of bed and turned on a light. My room looked like a crime scene. Nightstand knocked over, blood soaking my sheets, on the floor, smeared on the walls and door frames heading towards the bathroom, all over the sink, and staining a towel horribly.
I had had a grand mal seizure in my sleep, fell out of bed, and hit my head repeatedly on my nightstand, cutting it up real bad. Sometime after that, I got up and tried to clean myself up and went back to bed, but was still so messed up that I have no recollection of it (postictal). I then woke up sometime later to find the blood everywhere.
So I'm standing there, feeling miserable and looking at myself, thinking, "There's no way I can go into work tomorrow, but I have to let my boss know and I don't want him to think I'm just trying to extend my birthday weekend." So I snapped a picture of myself in the mirror, smeared with blood, face bruised and swollen, and texted it to him at like 2 in the morning with a message that I wouldn't be coming in due to having a seizure.
I then cleaned myself up, changed the sheets, and went back to sleep.
Heart surgery? Pfft. 'Tis but a scratch.
[rebelmouse-image 18352403 is_animated_gif=Heart surgery on Friday (ICD device fitted), in the office Monday. Got called a bullsh_tter until I showed him the wound.
I'm sure he has no issues at all.
[rebelmouse-image 18352404 is_animated_gif=Had an employee that took bereavement time because his mother passed away, okay it happens. Four or five months later he took bereavement time because his mother died, I was like WTF? He tells me he was adopted, his birth mother had just died, and the first one was his adoptive mother, okay wow yeah fine.
Six months later he takes bereavement time because his mother died, I was like your kidding me right? Nope his parents that adopted him divorced when he was 8, his father remarried when he was 12 and the new wife adopted him.
Locked IN the house? Yes please.
[rebelmouse-image 18352405 is_animated_gif=Had a guy call me 30 mins before his shift started to tell me he was locked in his house and couldn't get out. When he finally came in he had a receipt from a locksmith and the old lock, which had had to be drilled out.
When conversing, it's generally a good idea to make sure both you and the person you're speaking to get equal time.
So, if the focus has been on you for a fair amount of time, it's perhaps wise to ask your conversation partner a question and pivot the subject to them.
Unfortunately, some people have trouble talking about anything other than themselves and take every opportunity to pivot the conversation back to them if they sense it veering away.
"What is a tell tale sign that someone is a selfish person?"
"You Had It Bad, Well I Had It Worse..."
"When anything that happens to them is the worst thing in the world and whatever happens to you is not that bad and a waste of time talking about or dealing with."
"'I know your mom died a month ago but my best friend of 3 years died too so I don't see why you are so sad all of the time'."
"I think narcissism and selfishness go hand-in-hand so there you go."- AJM5K6
"They respond how worse their situation is when you’re sharing your problems with them."
"No try for help or listening, just trying to draw attention on their side."- seyfgs
"When every single bad thing that happens to another person gets spun around into their personal problem eg I'm really upset because my friend family member is going through."- Purrminator1974
Drama Queen GIF by Radiotelevisione svizzera (RSI)GiphySorry? I Don't Know The Meaning Of The Word...
"They feel no remorse for how they’ve hurt others."- avidhiker96150
"I'm Always Right!"
"Doesn’t think they’re wrong in the slightest bit."
"They can’t shoulder any bit of responsibility."- No_Key_6276
No Need To Thank Me, Because I Won't Thank You...
"They don't remember the times people helped them, but remember clearly all the times they have helped others."- GoodMerlinpeen
sexy youre welcome GIF by SatisfactionGiphyLive To Freeload!
"They bring nothing to the potluck but are first in line."- TRIGMILLION
Quid Pro NO!!!
"They gladly take any favors you do for them, but when asked if they could reciprocate once, they get defensive and or aggressive and act like you're the selfish one for daring to expect something in return."
"It doesn’t make you a bad person to expect reciprocation in a relationship with someone else, romantic or platonic."
"Relationships are give and take and that makes them healthy."
"It's not entitlement to expect kindness if you give kindness."
"If you're the only one giving, you're being taken advantage of."
"I'm not talking about narcissism and manipulation, I'm talking about the natural give and take in a relationship."
"It is not manipulative to expect certain things out of a relationship (depending on what kind of relationship it is)."
"The whole reason we make relationships is because they give us something - whether that be support, love, safety, or other advantages."
"It isn't a bad thing, it's a human thing."
"Typically, with give and take, if you notice a pattern of one person consistently taking without giving, the one taking is the problem, not the one giving."
"The kind of people who use this as a manipulation tactic aren't the ones who stick around in a relationship for years, doing favors and kind things without being asked to."
"They're more likely to do one favor and demand twice as much in return."
"Why do I know this? I've had these people in my life, which is what gave me the realization I commented above."- random-shit-writing
Season 4 Question GIF by 9-1-1 on FOXGiphy"I'll Never Forgive You!"
"Every bad thing you do to them is drama-worthy."
"Every bad thing they do to you are details and should be moved on from, and why can't you just do that? You're so dramatic!"- Pasdusername
"If I Could Just But In..."
"If you are in a group and there is one person that is constantly interrupting the middle of what you or anyone else is saying generally to brag about themselves with a 'one-upper' story, is generally a precursor to stop associating with them."
"I've met too many of them in my days and they are more often than not happy to throw you under the bus whenever the opportunity arises."- Philay_shio
But Enough About Me, What Do You Think About Me?
"If they always talk about themselves."- Effective-Craft-1173
"They have that superpower to lead everything back to themselves."
"Even when you're actually talking about your own life or a specific problem of yours, they somehow make it that you start talking about them instead without even changing the topic."- Anskin12
Look At Me Reaction GIF by WWEGiphy"Ugh, Work Is So Boring... Can You Do It For Me?"
"Complaining at work to coworkers doing your work for you while you complain."- Minimum-Tea-9258
Perhaps the most frustrating thing about dealing with a selfish person, is getting through to them about changing their behavior is probably a no-go.
For they'll be too self-absorbed to ever think they were doing anything wrong.
While ignorance may be bliss for the ignorant, it can annoy the heck out of everyone around them.
Ignorance can come from both a lack of information or too much incorrect information.
Redditor rockytheboxer asked:
"What common misconception infuriates you?"
I try to be calm. But anything can infuriate me.
So let's chat.
Lies
Cat Zoom In GIF by Paul TrilloGiphy"That you can zoom in on a digital picture and it gets more clear."
skotgil
Not Simple
"The Dunning-Krueger Effect."
"It's not as simple as dumb people overestimating their intelligence while smart people underestimate it. Once you feel 100% certain in your knowledge, all new information looks like misinformation. Once you believe yourself an 'expert,' you're far less receptive to facts that contradict your position. Self-doubt is what keeps your mind open; the nagging sense that what you 'know' might not be true is what motivates intelligent people to keep pursuing knowledge."
"Studies even show the DK Effect actually horseshoes."
"People at the very bottom and the top tend to over-emphasize their own intelligence. When leading scientists are disproven by new discoveries, it's not uncommon them personally reject the new science. The 'Nobel Disease' describes when Nobel Prize-winners go on to become quacks, believing their 'genius' qualifies them as experts in things outside their expertise."
Rowan-Trees
37
"Life expectancy. People think hundreds of years ago you died at 40. Completely false. Infant mortality was extremely high so the average is skewed. If you made it out of infancy you had a pretty good chance of becoming old."
boludo1
"So much this. If half the people born die at age 2 and the other half die at 72, the average life expectancy is 37, but that doesn't mean 'everyone died at 37.'"
bulbaquil
Higher Levels
"'If they give me a raise at work, I'll bump up a tax bracket, and I'll actually make less!!'"
Mymoggievan
"Oh man, I just came here to say this. Had a high-level staff meeting last week to discuss how our company will be changing from weekly checks to bi-weekly."
"The uproar, because they were gonna get 'taxed more' was hilarious. I literally had to draw a crude graph for folks who’ve been on this Earth for decades longer than I have in order to explain how a progressive income tax works. My eyes are still rolling."
Bokuden101
Ruined
Angry Season 3 GIF by Paramount+Giphy"O.C.D. is not some cute obsession with cleanliness and order. It can ruin lives and comes in many forms."
Leeser
"I also hate when people play armchair psychologist."
Leeser
There is such a thing as too clean. Right?
Colors
season 1 friends GIFGiphy"As a colorblind person, I don't see in black and white. I have no problem driving. And I will never play the 'What color is this?' game. Not ever."
Midnight-Ran
'women’s work'
"The quote 'well-behaved women seldom make history' is frequently misquoted. Professor Laurel Ulrich stated this in a 1976 essay that details how women in early America have been lost to history as their stories weren’t considered important by those who wrote history."
"Her quote is not meant to minimize the lives of women who perform stereotypical 'women’s work' such as mothers and wives, but to stress the issue of women’s voices being lost in history."
"I think it’s important to support women who do not live within these archetypes, but not at the expense of women who enjoy being within these roles. Ultimately, having the voices of diverse women and gender-diverse people documented in history is incredibly important - which should include both 'well-behaved' and rebellious women."
littlepinch7
Communication
"Introversion and social anxiety are NOT the same things."
"Not every introvert has social anxiety or is a poor communicator. Stop lumping people together and just calling it introversion."
"I’m introverted. I know how to communicate well. I just don’t want to with you."
bumpty
Evil
"That the symbol of the upside-down cross is satanic, evil, witchcraft, etc. I see so many Catholics and Christians going off on people who have upside-down crosses on clothes and stuff because it’s 'evil.' No, it is not. The upside-down cross comes from Peter, who decided to be crucified upside down because he felt he was not worthy of dying in the same fashion that Christ did. It is a symbol of honor, love, and respect for Jesus."
Love Dies
In Love Hearts GIF by SpongeBob SquarePantsGiphy"People like to believe 'there's someone out there for everyone' but honestly this just isn't true. Or that we only have 'one true love.'"
awkward-fox-patrol
Everything makes me mad.
But life goes on.
While we all have to do it so that we can pay our bills, some of us would definitely not work if we didn't have to.
But that has less to do with our work ethic and more to do with some of the terrible work experiences we've had.
Redditor 7Earth7Energy asked:
"In all seriousness, what's the worst job you've ever had?"
Heartbroken Santa
"Store Santa during my college years."
"Sometimes I enjoyed being 'Santa.'"
"But many times, children were sad and asked for things that likely would never happen, like, as I once commented, 'A new boyfriend for Mommy because she was so lonely ever since Daddy died.'"
- Back2Bach
Retail Managers
"Cashier at a grocery store. The work was fine. My manager was a nightmare."
- Dwight_Bright
Fast-Paced Kitchen
"Fast food... I know everyone knows its a bad job, but nobody knows the stress that goes round in that kitchen, it's insane."
- AnnaEatBanana
Unpredictable Cleaning Schedules
"I used to work for a carpet cleaning company. You never knew what you were going to come across that day. There are basically two types of people that use carpet cleaning services:"
"Type One: Pretty much spotless clean house. Perhaps they spilled a glass of wine on the carpet, and they want the stain out. Easy job..."
"Type Two: They had four dogs and never let them out, and there is more s**t in the carpet than carpet."
- Euphoric-Beat-7206
Thankless Job
"Dishwasher. I’ll go to my grave saying that it is the worst possible job you can have."
"Dishpan hands are a real thing and suck a**. You’re the last to leave the restaurant, the least paid, and least respected person in the building."
- Cognitive-Shadow
Plants and Cars
"I can't decide between two, so I'll share both:"
"First, I was 19 and had just dropped out of college. I decided to take a job over the summer building scaffolding in the chemical plants around the Houston ship channel. I lasted exactly two weeks doing that work."
"12-hour days, carrying long metal posts and hammering them together in the hot Texas sun, with the smell of burning chemicals all around you, and a foreman who can't speak English so communicates to you with hand signals and whistles."
"A lot of my classmates went and had full careers working in the plants. I knew then I had no desire to chase that living. That s**t sucked. I hated the work, I hated being there, and I hated that I had no time to do anything because I was always at work or sleeping."
"Second, Car sales. When I first got out of the Navy and was looking for my first civilian IT job, I was having a hard time getting hired anywhere. I took a job selling cars because it's pretty much what I could find aside from barista work."
"Long, long days. Like 14+ hours, calling 'ups' and calling people on the phone to harass them into coming into the store for some 'once in a lifetime deal.' Having to try and get people to buy a car they won't like because that's the one that would get me the bigger spiff, or trying to f**k them on the price because I'd get a higher commission if I did."
"And it was causing so much grief at home because I was never home, and my wife and son were never seeing me, and we were still not making enough money to get by, despite me selling out my own morals every day and hating myself for it."
"And I was so busy at work, I didn't have time to apply and interview for the jobs I actually wanted. I ended up taking a loan from my gramps to help me pay the bills for a few months while I quit this job so I was able to find IT work, which finally paid off."
- SweetCosmicPope
Out in the Lumberyard
"Working on a lumber mill. I was literally the only employee with all my teeth and all my fingers. Watched a guy take a 14” splinter through his thigh. Board came off the saw and split, half of it opened the guy's leg like stabbing a balloon full of blood. The owner was on the line before medics arrived, yelling at us to get the saws working again."
"I was a medic in the Army and an EMT, so I was working on the injured man. The boss yelled at me to get back to the chain and let the injured man lay there till the medics arrived. I loudly told him to go f**k himself and stayed with the victim."
"He threatened to fire me and I told him I was calling OSHA. He shut up."
- Outlander56
World Runs On...
"Dunkin. Literally new staff each week. They don't pay their employees. And they screw you over so bad, they make you quit. Not to mention they don't even put you into the system on purpose, not expecting you to last long."
"Also, it's not Krispy Kream. They don't make their donuts fresh. They wait for a truckload and they gotta microwave them so they're not stiff and frozen."
"Don't buy from Dunkin. They overwork and severely underpay their staff."
- LueWinchesterSPN
The Family Clique
"A small town family-owned diner. It was my first job, they took advantage of me for being young and inexperienced, I was underpaid, and the family who worked there was very cliquey."
"They made jokes at my expense, excluded me from certain things, and overall just didn't treat me well."
- Lilah_Vale
Fast Food Woes
"McDonald’s was a s**t show. I worked there for nearly two years back in high school. I’ll never forget the cheeseburger lady."
"She would always order a cheeseburger with no cheese (hamburger, but she wouldn’t take that for an answer) One day, she got cheese on her burger. Note that this wasn’t an allergy thing, she just didn’t like our ‘fake cheese.' When she checked her burger at the window, she saw the ungodly sight of cheese staring back at her."
"She slammed the burger on her lap and screamed at the top of her lungs. She just sat there screaming. I awkwardly tried to consult her but instead, I got the burger thrown at me."
"I was 16 at the time, and I knew I wasn’t getting paid enough for that psycho s**t."
- deathmetalish
Call Center Life
"Customer Service call center. No one can pay me any reasonable amount of money to go back."
"It’s been six years since I left and I still hate talking on the phone for any reason whatsoever."
"Whoever invented that stupid metric where if your satisfaction is eight or lower is considered a failure, I hope you get stuck with a thousand pine needles and are set on fire."
- DJVanillaBear
Instant Karma
"This was about 25 years ago. It wasn’t an actual job, but I got roped into volunteering for a St. Patrick’s Day dinner at a catholic church where I lived. There were about 10 of us teenagers and our job was to serve food to the people who’d bought tickets. Corned beef, mashed potatoes, and like, steamed carrots…some s**t like that."
"Anyway, like 100 people showed up and they were the rudest sacks of s**t I’d ever encountered in my life. They treated us like dirt. Total disrespect. And I’m sure their treatment was made worse by the fact that we were kids."
"This was the moment I realized I could never ever work in the food industry. I learned a huge lesson that night and have always gone out of my way to be kind to servers and tip extra. It changed my life."
"But also, the joke's on them. The church refused to let us eat anything until all these a**holes had finished their meals (we were told we had to clean up, too), so we kids just started eating off the plates before serving them. We didn’t give a s**t anymore. Had they treated us better, we wouldn’t have done that. F**k those people."
- idkidc9876
Hospital Volunteer
"I volunteered at a hospital ICU, I was by myself and no one would talk to me. The nurses are pretty quiet and the doctors are major douchebags, and the patients are old and sick."
"Because I was volunteering, I got like $15 credit every day for cafeteria food, but my shift ended right when the cafeteria closed, so sometimes I'd ask if I could leave early."
"The nurses would get p**sed about that and make me stay to the very end, even though my job was literally just to sit there and draw grids for their future logbooks... which I already did all day. Jerks wouldn't even let me get some food."
- blackhistorymonthlea
Telemarketing Drama
"Telemarketer. They moved me from an outside sales position into a telephone sales one where I would be reporting to the boss's 19-year-old side piece. Part of the job was keeping it secret from his wife."
"That's the only job I didn't give two weeks' notice at."
- AdmiralBofa
Deeply Exhausting
"This is not even remotely as bad as others, but babysitting a three-year-old who was obsessed with stairs."
"The kid lived on the first floor of an apartment building and had never really gotten to play on stairs until I was looking after her at my place while her mom was working late and their regular babysitter was unavailable."
"I was 13 or 14 at the time, I think. You can only chase a kid up and down the stairs for so long before you want to curl in a ball and sleep for two days. I played several sports at the time too."
"But after literal hours of her wanting me to chase her up and down the stairs, I wanted to die. Even our dog, a hyper lab mix, had long since pooped out and went off to sleep somewhere, lol (laughing out loud)."
- KittyObsession
Everyone has their workplace horror stories, but there typically will always be that one workplace that was particularly bad with one day that served as the ultimate deal breaker. At least these experiences help us to appreciate the better opportunities that come along!
No matter how empathetic we are, or how hard we try, there are just some things we can't understand without walking in someone else's shoes.
That said, people who live with more privilege can say some especially out-of-touch things.
Prepared to side-eye, Redditor BananaBR13 asked:
"What was the most out-of-touch with reality thing a rich person ever said to you?"
Invest in Property
"My boss asked me why I didn’t just buy a house in her neighborhood instead of renting an apartment. The houses there were $300-500,000 (very pricy for my area), and she was paying me nine dollars per hour…"
"I had literally just applied for food stamps."
- Far-Owl1892
Dress Shopping
"A coworker of mine was talking with a parent once (summer camp in a rich town). The parent mentioned how she loved my coworker's dress, and wanted to know where she bought it, with the stipulation that it cost under $10,000…"
"It turns out she had bought the dress on clearance for something like $10."
"When she explained this, the parent just laughed like it was a joke, saying, 'No really, how much was it?'"
"I've never seen someone thaaat out of touch."
- _Decal08_
What Paid Vacation?
"Not a quote from the person, but my sister and I were planning a weekend trip with our two cousins, and one of them just could not understand why we couldn’t make the trip longer and couldn’t seem to understand the concept of taking time off work and that we can’t just not show up whenever we feel like it."
- SensitiveCycle1098
Yeah, Because That's the Same.
"I was complaining about mortgage payments, and she said, 'I know, I finally just took the money out of savings and paid mine off so I wouldn't have to worry about it every month.'"
- Frosty-Shower-7601
Yay for Trust Funds
"I overheard a girl (one of my wife’s cousins, whose dad is very, very wealthy) say, 'Yeah, things got really rough for a bit there, I even had to pull money from my trust fund.'"
" I actually laughed out loud and she looked at me disapprovingly because I wasn’t in the conversation."
"This same girl gets an allowance (separate from the trust) of $6k per month. When she turned 21, she posted on Facebook, 'Hooray everyone, I finally got a raise this week!'"
"Everyone was congratulating her on her hard work, which is funny because she doesn’t have a job, it just meant her monthly allowance increased because she got older."
- masterpate
Tales from the Gift Closet
"One time a client’s kid gave a coworker an iPad. Brand new, unopened box. My coworker was a little uncomfortable receiving such an expensive gift from a kid."
"The kid just said, 'Don’t worry, I just grabbed it out of the gift closet.'"
"We were confused, so we asked him what a gift closet is."
"Apparently, their family keeps a whole closet loaded with stuff like this - Apple Watches, cameras, iPads, etc so that whenever they need to give a gift, they always have something on hand."
- El_mochilero
Dishwashers
"In college, I was washing a bowl in the sink and someone said, 'That's the weirdest thing about college for me, not having a dishwasher.'"
"I said, 'Man, I didn't have one until high school and it was s**t so it couldn't clean pans.'"
"Him: 'Oh, I meant like someone to wash the dishes for us...'"
"Me: 'You're joking, right?'"
"He was not joking, but I got invited to their upstate place for spring break so that was cool."
- Bron_3
Oh Yes, the Nanny...
"My husband was on a business trip w some rich people in Hawaii. They asked why I didn’t come."
"He told them I was home with the kids."
"The guy said, 'Well, couldn’t the nanny just stay with them?'"
"Nice enough guy. Just out of touch for sure."
- Xceptionalcmonplcness
Gotta Have That Car
"Back when I worked in payroll, a doctor yelled at me because his administrator didn’t process his bi-monthly incentive on time so it missed his check"
" He was supposed to go pick up his new Mercedes with that money (it was 6 figures) so he threw a fit to have a check cut that day."
"Two weeks later, that same doctor did not approve a check to be cut for an hourly employee whose hours (two weeks' worth) didn’t get approved on time because it was only $1000 and they wouldn’t miss it."
"I had to go above him to get it approved because I knew that employee would definitely be negatively impacted by not being paid on time."
- jtuley77
Tell Me Something I Don't Know
"2008, Great Recession: My job was cut from full-time salary to hourly, and then my hours were cut regularly."
"My boss, the business owner who was in the midst of a company-paid whole home remodel, handed me my paycheck and said, 'Wow, you don’t make s**t!'"
- toomuchisjustenough
So Closeminded
"I didn't go to college for seven years after high school due to struggles with alcoholism and bipolar disorder."
"A kid I worked with asked me what I was doing working and going to school at 25, and when I said I took time off due to personal issues, his response was, 'Wow, if you're not making at least 100 K a year at 25, you've basically f**ked your life up.'"
- D**nGoodOwls
Why Didn't We Think of This?
"Why have roommates at all? I don't think anyone I knew had roommates. Seems like too much trouble. Just spend the extra hundred on rent and live in peace."
"Said by an 80-year-old man."
- DarthDregan
Cheaper to Replace Than to Fix
"'If your car is broken, why don't you just go buy a new car?'"
"He was dead-pan serious."
- waywardcowboy
Travel Those Feelings Away
"'Oh, you get seasonal depression? Why don’t you just go to the Caribbean for a week and the Mediterranean the next? It always helps me.'"
- spicyhooligan
Five-Figure Months
"I have a friend and she is very wealthy. She was talking about finding a charity for Christmas."
"I mentioned that there were people going places and paying off Christmas layaways. I mentioned a town I grew up in as a possibility. I told them the per capita income is 9k."
"And she said, '9k a month!!!! How do those people live!'"
"Then I had to tell her it was 9k a year. She was floored."
"She is actually a very very sweet and caring person and donates millions a year to so many wonderful places and causes."
- Aromatic_Mission_165
While these people likely meant well, it's eye-opening to see how little financially privileged people understand about how people in lower income brackets live.
Hopefully some of the people in these stories had their eyes opened and were able to make a difference, especially that last one.