Nannies Who Worked For Extremely Wealthy Families Share The Craziest Parts Of Their Job

They didn't like how my car looked so they gave me a new one.
Thanks to all the awesome people on Reddit who shared their experiences. Source in each username.
1. I babysat for some neighbors when I lived in New Mexico. Very rich lawyers with a boy (about 8 years old, named Tyler, as in Tyler Durden, should've been a sign...), and a girl (about 5 years old).
Before the parents even left, the little girl was on the monkeybars in the backyard, and whipped her panties off to pee in the breeze. After the parents left, the boy let [himself] go full steam. He still peed the bed, so he was under orders to wear diapers. Refused to put them on. Refused to brush his teeth. Wanted another bedtime book, and another, and another, and another.....oh wait, he wants the book from daddy's shelf, with the topless Polynesian girls in it....no, he doesn't want tap water, he wants the special filtered water, he can totally taste the difference.
I figured out why the parents built their master suite 100+ ft from the children's rooms. Found out later Tyler claimed I beat him or some nonsense like that because I made him brush his teeth. Never again.
2. How tight they were with money. I would even go so far as to say selective rather than stingy.
3. My roommate nannied for a billionaire who had 7 kids. Only the first kid, a girl, was actually conceived and born from his wife. The other 6 were all carried by surrogate mothers, and they were all sex-selected so they're all boys. Yeah.
"It's SICK, right? RIGHT? Sometimes I look at him, and I hate him. He watched me grow up. Why did he want to marry me??" She only married him to make her family happy.
4. My younger sister nannies for an wealthy couple, and she's mentioned a few things that really threw her off at first.
The biggest thing was how uninvolved they are with their daughter's life. She was born early in October, and by the end of the month, my sister was already spending 80+ hours a week with her. The husband has only been home one day since she started working for them and the wife is gone from 6am-9pm every day.
Then, it was how casual they are with money. They've offered to pay for work on her car countless times, and the wife gave my sister all of her Christmas decorations from last year. Most of them still had their tags on them. She spent $20/ornament and didn't even use them.
5. A few things...
-The drama that is just like TV. The dad in the family I nannied for had a secret daughter and other family for 5 years.
- How money was just thrown around. A $500 rocking chair is the wrong shade of orange? Just throw it in the garbage and go buy a new one. Daughters are fighting with each other over their Barbie dream houses? Calm them down by taking them to the American Girl store for new dolls and then get them a blowout afterwards.
-And yet, despite this, they forgot to pay their bills for three months and got the gas turned off in their house.
6. I work for a middling-wealthy family, have been for two years. My girls don't think they're well-off because they don't have a tennis court or a rock wall, but they know kids who do. They just have no idea how much money they have. The younger one doesn't realize why it's innapproproate to joke about how much money she has stashed away for "chores." She doesn't realize that it's more than I earn in weeks, and that she didn't actually earn it.
7. I used to be an au pair for a super rich family in China. The funny thing was that they already had a nanny. She was extremely poor and had to give a bratty kid everything she couldn't afford for her own kids. The kid even kicked her and she simply tolerated it. The weirdest thing was that whenever we went somewhere as a family (Continue this story on the next page)
The weirdest thing was that whenever we went somewhere as a familyshe was the one taking care of the child while the mother was talking to others. She even slept in his room while his mom had her own bedroom. Personally, I just couldn't deal with how spoiled and entitled the child was. They literally told me it didn't matter if he respected me, he just had to like me.
8. A good friend of mine is a nanny for a very wealthy couple. They own and live in an entire brownstone type building. I think they're both lawyers. He is the source of the wealth, which is largely inherited. He has a job, but it's the kind of job where he never has to show up or do much work at all and it pays him hundreds of thousands a year.
Every day, the wife goes to her job. The husband goes to his floor of the house that nobody is allowed to bother him on. He spends the day smoking pot and lazing about like he's Jeff Lebowski.
That's it. That's all he does. But he doesn't want his kids bothering him, so he locks himself away to pretend he's still in college or something and pays my friend to raise his kid for him.
They're nice enough people. My friend likes her job. But I'll never be able to have much respect for a dude who has all the time and money in the world and he uses it to sequester himself away from his own kids, get high, and watch movies all day.
9. I do tutoring for a wealthy family, and despite the fact that they seem to have come from fairly average backgrounds, they really have no concept of how normal people think of money. I was talking about visiting the library after a session, and they were confused by the fact that I didn't just buy all the books I wanted to read. They also pay me every six months or so, and seem confused that I want money so often - they're good for it, after all. They fly their kids home from their high school sports tours (they play in tournaments all over the continent) to take a driving test and think nothing of it.
They're good people, but weird.
10. In 2013, I was a substitute teacher at a private high school in a very wealthy area. This allowed me to back into multiple tutoring opportunities. I was advised by the front office lady to not advertise an hourly rate. The rates suggested by the families baffled me. $50-100/hr. I also worked at a sporting goods store and made ~$9/hr. The main kid I tutored was embarrassed by his parents wealth (surgeon and family doctor) and where they lived.
Another family I worked for, had a Tesla before they were more common. They wanted me to work for them but I did not have a nice enough car (Ford five-hundred sedan), to drive their children. They were arranging a brand new Chevy Tahoe as a spare vehicle for them but for my use.
All about the status symbols I guess.
11. I briefly worked with a wealthy family a few months ago before I had to leave the job because it was just unbearable. They were pretty nice to me, but terrible to their kid. The kid was 6, for context. These things were more sad than crazy.
The saddest thing I saw was how much money they spent on themselves and paying me, and how little they spent on their kid. I was being paid pretty well (enough to almost match what I was making at my primary job while working half as many hours), the parents would be buying new iPhones, new clothes, wine, etc. Their kid however, had clothes that didn't fit, broken toys that were "too expensive to replace", wasn't enrolled in any after school activities either because it "cost money".
Some other things I noticed was how uninvolved and bad at parenting they were. The kid was 6 still wearing diapers because he hadn't been fully potty trained. When I asked about it, they actually said (Continue this story on the next page)
"Oh we just never fully got around to it, he's scared to go to the bathroom because one time we spanked him because he peed on the floor". He was completely undisciplined and whenever I told him no, he would try and hit me, scream at the top of his lungs, try and bite himself. One time I was with the mom and him in the store, and he tried to take a bunch of candy from a shelf and eat it, and I said he has to wait for his mom to pay for it first, and he LOST it. Tried knocking over shelves, ran around screaming, tried hitting OTHER people, and swearing up a storm. His mom LEFT the store, and said oh that's too much for me to handle, that's why you're here.
In the end I just quit because I couldn't stand them as parents or people. They were so arrogant, always neglecting their children. The day I left, they wouldn't even let me say goodbye to their son, who was crying watching me from a window as I walked to my car. I guess they trained him not to say hi to me and give me nasty looks when I see them in town, because they'll go out of their way to avoid me if we make eye contact in town.
12. How much help they have, and how little time they spend with their own kids! It's gotten a bit more normal now but when I started (kids were 5 months and 3) the mum had 7 more months of maternity leave, I worked 2 days per week, they had another uni student part time for another two days, a full time nanny on Fridays and a house cleaner that came twice a week.
Sometimes I go to work and BOTH parents are there just hanging out while I play with the kids - and they pay me well so it's not like it's cheap! Idk I often get the feeling that they just had kids because they got older and it's expected, not because they actually wanted them.
13. Not really part of the job, but that customer's (yacht cleaning) didn't care how poor the cleaner was. I pull out my flip phone to answer a call and they just kinda turn away like it's gross. One guy dropped his iPhone in the ocean by mistake, said "oops" and grabbed another from a kitchen drawer.
14. Not a nanny but I used to work at a golf club in a very rich community and people would just drop their kids off at the club and we would end up essentially babysitting them in the restaurant. We had one kid who was probably 11 and he was so stingy. He would complain about any upcharge, how our meals didn't give enough for their price, and how what we sold was way cheaper at the store. (which obviously he was way too young to understand overhead costs)
One time after about 10 minutes of his ranting over how he had to pay more for milk than you would in a store I just pointed out to him "I get that its annoying, but we couldn't even buy one meal with an hours worth of pay before taxes."
The LOOK on this kids face was just shock. You could tell he had not true concept of money and earning it and that some people got vastly more than others. He never complained to me about cost again and would often tell them adult golfers how unfair it was that we weren't paid enough. (in his opinion)
Makes me wonder how affluent people teach their children about money beyond to complain about having to use it.
15. The family I work for right now is very wealthy- the live on fifth ave right across from central park. Three things. The first is the clothes. The girls have numerous name brand clothing items- Burberry, Ralph Lauren, Vineyard Vines, Lilly Pulitzer, etc. The 6 year olds backpack was 85 bucks. I get wanting your kids to have nice things to wear, but they're growing fast, and that [stuff's] expensive. The 3 year old outgrew her wardrobe last year, it was all replaced with the same expensive stuff.
Next would have to be scheduling. They want there children to be successful in life, I get it. But every day is (Continued on the next page!)
something- piano, ballet, tennis, Chinese lessons and squash. They have no time to play.
The last part, which is a bit more sad if you ask me, is the lack of connect in the girls and their parents relationship. It could be as simple as scheduling- for instance, the mom doesn't know when ballet and tennis is, I do, or as intense as worries and fears. They confide in me and when I bring it up with the mom she's surprised to learn they're not just always happy because they have nice things. There's definitely something missing there and it shows. The 3 year old slips up and calls me "mama" constantly and it breaks my heart.
16. How incompetent they are. I worked as a nanny for a few months for a wealthy family with two kids to make extra money while in college. I had to get up every morning to get the kids ready for school and then walk them to school because the mom couldn't do it herself. Also the mom wouldn't go anywhere without a nanny present for the kids. Play date at the playground with another family? I would go and watch her kids while she would just sit there and chat with the other parent. It was so weird. Unsurprisingly I was one of 5 nannies they had coming around every week. They spent close to $1000 a week on nannies but didn't want to commit to getting a live in.
17. My mom was a nanny for a couple of rich corporate lawyers years ago. I always remember her saying that at Christmas the kids would get tired from opening so many presents. The unopened gifts would get put away and some weren't opened until months later.
18. I once nannied for a family who had a small room with board games/table top games lining the walls (as an indication of wealth) I was called in on weekends to spend time with the 6 year old and play games with him - basically do anything he asked of me. A majority of the time the mom and grandma were home and in their own room. Once the mom and dad were home and napping. I was basically being paid good money to play with the kid. Of course, the kid was incredibly bossy and fussy when he didn't get his own way. I also received a text after my first few sessions saying that I could bring my own lunch and use their fridge; don't worry, no one has any allergies.
19. The woman played WOW all day and ate spaghetti-o's, the husband was always away, and she was never with her baby. Also, she had a surrogate with twins on the way! I never understood their family or why she wanted more kids.
20. I worked for an extremely wealthy family and when I was going to eat lunch with the kids, I was told "the help" eats in the kitchen. I quit soon after that.
21. I was not nanny, but rather a sort of a personal 'fun activity' guide for three extremely rich children. As in these kids were four places removed from literal royalty.
They held a party to celebrate when one of the kids 'graduated' from P5 which would be the American equivalent of 5th or 6th grade. This was not anything like a birthday party or a trip to Chucky Cheese's. It was held on one of their estates and involved three different caterers. One was for the hors d'oeuvres, one for the main course and one for the desserts. This is not counting the two bartenders - one for adults and another for the underage crowd. By my estimate, they spent over $20,000 on this affair. It was mind boggling.
They invited my father who lives with me as a matter of etiquette, though I was not sure if they expected him to actually attend. I used half my paycheck to buy him something that would not look like he was there as the gardener's tool carrier. He protested that he would not know anyone there but I told him it did not matter. I would introduce him to the parents, their children and the immediate staff and that is all he would need to worry about. He grudgingly accepted.
So we are there and I am working with one of the DJs on setting up the equipment. My dad was enjoying the immense swimming pool and the amazing food. Once he got there, he lost all sense of self consciousness and somehow fit right in. Maybe it was the fact that he changed into a bathing suit and that is sort of an equalizer for everyone.
Anyway, we got the sound system setup and then I was asked to help with the bounce house. This was one that could have been straight out of a Class A Theme Park. It was a huge castle that had a dragon lying on the ground with his tail curled all the way around it. That took well over an hour to get staked down, inflated, and tested out.
So then they tell me I am OK to take a 30 minute break for some food. By this time the place is packed. Easily a hundred adult and child guests. I go over to the buffet and fill my plate. Here is where I finally realized how far apart our worlds were. I was shocked to find ()
I was shocked to find that there were no paper plates one might expect to find. They were literally using these Royal Albert china dishes at a kid's party. I had my food and was about to sit down when this kid throws a huge beach ball my way, yelling "Think fast!" Well I did not, and I ended up dropping the plate on the ground. It shattered into thousands of pieces. I felt horrible. No one even blinked once. Someone came by, swept it all up and the day carried on as if nothing happened. That plate cost 60.00. I turned around and someone else had already grabbed another one and filled it up with the same food I had chosen before.
That night I asked my dad what he thought of that whole scene. He muttered something about a huge waste of money. But then he said he was extremely disappointed with me because he said I embarrassed him in front of his "new friends". That was 2 years ago, and he still blames me that they never call him back. Somehow I think he does not get it yet.
23. The craziest part was this ultra wealthy couple, whose bedroom is about as big as my house, stiffed me my last pay check.
24. I have a close friend who was a nanny for a couple years. She routinely called me to vent about the parents. She was paid well and had many perks but she was a live in so she was always there and was frequently asked to help on her days off.
I flew out to visit her for her birthday weekend for birthday shenanigans. She had previously asked her employers if she could have that Friday off seeing as she had company coming in. They gave her this huge guilt trip then refused. The dad ended up having the day off and spent it alone up in his study then proceeded to go to the gym and meet friends while I helped my friend watch the kids.
25. I once worked for a billionaire family and there were a ton of weird things that went on in the family. It was only the mom bringing in most of the money. Anyway, the dad was stay at home, but didn't really want to be responsible for his two kids, so I was hired! There were entire rooms of the house that the kids weren't allowed inside, and I never saw anyone else go in either. They must have had at least 5 regular staff members at the house (landscape, cook, nanny (me), and other people who were there for god knows what). The kids were never given any rules, and sometimes the dad would randomly get bored and come hang out with us for a couple hours, just wanting a friend (me) to hang out with. It was kind of like I was hired to be a nanny for the kids and a standby friend for the dad. Very weird. The weirdest part? The parents often texted me bizarre requests after hours to pay me to do extra things here and there. I didn't mind, because I needed the money and they paid well, but it was usually things that they just couldn't be bothered to do Here are a few:
- "Our son can't finish his project and we don't have time to help him. If we send you the papers do you think you could do it for him tonight?" Took me 10 minutes, 50 bucks.
- "Do you think you could look up a good recipe for soup?" No specificity here, just soup. I sent them my grandma's recipe. Made 50$ thanks Grandma!
- "We're thinking of ordering new blinds. Could you pick them out?" 30 minutes, 200 bucks.
-"We think our son might be looking at porn. Could you go through our internet history and let us know?" (this one wasn't off hours, I just did it while the kids were doing their homework. Instead of ratting him out, I had a conversation with the boy about how it's perfectly natural but how porn creates very unrealistic expectations of what sex is. Then I taught him how to delete his internet history. Yeah, I'd like to think I'm a cool nanny."
- "Would you mind doing the Christmas shopping this year?" They sent me a list that the kids had written. It included an iphone each (they're 6 and 9), about 20 random toys, designer clothing, and a real vending machine. I went on Amazon and ordered everything to their neighbour's house, (who was a total sweetheart) and brought it over the next day. They told me to order whatever I wanted for myself up to 1000$. Took approximately 1 hr of my time.
27. My friend's son is an exceptionally well paid banker in NYC. His grandchild (just one) has 4 nannies. At 2 this child couldn't walk because it gets carried everywhere, can only speak Spanish because that is the only language it hears. The walking thing is a problem because if the kid can't stand up properly how on earth is it going to learn to ski?
Vegans Who Started Eating Meat Again Share Their Experiences
Reddit user Capital_Brain2676 asked: 'Vegans that started eating meat again, what happened?'
Most restaurant menus have caught up with the times to offer plenty of options to patrons with various dietary restrictions.
Vegan dishes tend to be a top priority, with gluten-free options being a close second.
Thanks to these options, groups of family and friends can dine together and not be limited by restaurant choices.
But when there's a sudden break in routine on the next outing, it can be jarring when the vegan in your group suddenly orders prime rib or a juicy burger that is not a plant-based patty.
What the whaaat?
Curious to hear from those who did a dietary 180 after routinely nourishing themselves with food grown from the earth's soil, Capital_Brain2676 asked:
"Vegans that started eating meat again, what happened?"

Some people were told what's good for them.
Point Made
"I know someone who was a vegetarian for 13 years simply because someone told them they couldn't do it. I guess he figured 13 years was enough to prove a point and went back to eating meat after."
– ottersandgoats
"I feel like 2-3 years would be enough though??"
– WebBorn2622
On A Dare
"I knew a girl in college who did that. She was dared in middle school to become a vegetarian and... she just stuck with it. More power to them."
– ComplexWest8790
Some people were left with no choice but to ditch veganism.
Thanks, Mickey Ds
"Got cancer. Ate whatever my body would take without throwing up and that just happened to be chicken nuggets."
– BratS94
When Choices Are Limited
"Homeless and pregnant = eat what I was given."
– anon
"I’ve always wondered this actually. If a homeless vegan eats what they’re given. I’ve given homeless people subs in the past because of veggies, protein, and carbs (all necessary things) and wondered if they would eat it if they’re vegan. I’m sorry you’ve been on that road. I hope things are better for you now."
– Saltwater_Heart
The Saying Goes
"There is a reason for the saying 'beggars can’t be choosers,' you give what you can/have and you can’t always accommodate the person you are giving it to, don’t think too hard about it. Also, hope OP is doing better."
– Reikotsu
Certain medical conditions prevented these Redditors from sticking to their restrictive diets.
Cooking For Two
"I still eat mostly vegetarian food and have done all my life. However my husband was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and coeliac which means that a high fibre/lower iron diet is not an option and a lot of the substitutes aren’t gluten free. More often than not when he has meat I’ll leave it or have the veggie equivalent but there are just not enough hours in the day to make 2 separate lasagnes and sauce etc."
– Chanel-Chic
Troublesome Ailment
"As someone who has UC, that's very cool of you to cook a more UC friendly diet. I dated a woman for 6 months who was a pescatarian. Every time I cooked, it was something we both liked and could eat. Every time she cooked, she focused on what she wanted and it didn't seem to matter whether I could eat it or not. She was nuero divergent and had it in her head that veggies = good regardless of what it did to my insides. For anyone who doesn't know, UC is inflammation due to my immune system attacking the lining of my colon. So it's inflamed (unless you're in remission, which a fair amount of people aren't). Large amounts of fiber makes the food sit there longer and get more packed, which hurts like all hell being tight up against inflamed tissue. And certain ones create gas of an unimaginable magnitude and strength."
"Anyway, a fair amount of the time, I had to order delivery or takeout because otherwise, I would have been farting or sh*tting my brains out overnight. So I appreciate what you've done like you wouldn't believe."
– Wishilikedhugs
Bye Bye Veggies
"My gastroparesis diet led me off my vegan diet as well. I can’t handle legumes, leafy greens, and most vegetables. Hard to be a healthy vegan without any of those."
– Jefauver
When Vegan Ingredients Turn On You
"Yup. Crohn’s Disease ended my 17 year vegetarian stretch. I’m in remission now and don’t eat red meat but I am sensitive to several vegan friendly ingredients like garlic, onions, cauliflower family and now I can avoid them without starving."
–friscodayone
Cooking For A Full House
"Back when COVID had everyone in lockedown, myself and my roommate's family would take turns cooking dinner and it was fine. Then my roommate went on the NOOM diet, her daughter was diagnosed with GERD and couldn't have anything acidic, and her husband was diagnosed with celiac. Oh, and another family member disliked potatoes. I finally had to bow out. It was way too much of a pain in the @ss to cook a meal that met all of those restrictions."
– panda388
Sometimes, you just gotta have meat.
Costco Chicken
"Not my story, but a good friend of mine was vegetarian, very nearly vegan for over 10 years. One day she was in Costco and walked past the rotisserie chickens. Without thinking she put it in her cart. When she got home she stood over the sink and ate it with her bare hands. She had no idea what came over her. Her telling me this story is still one of the funniest things I've ever heard. She is still very plant forward in her eating, but she won't hesitate to order a burger or a steak when she wants it now."
– NotAlwaysGifs
Ravenous
"I went on a weekend backpacking trip with a girl who had been religiously vegan for a few years. It was a pretty physically intense trip, and the last day heading back was in pouring rain the whole way, so by the time we got back to our car, we were absolutely exhausted, filthy, and starving."
"There was only one restaurant anywhere nearby, one of those highway diners. We get there and I notice she's got this kind of crazy look in her eyes. I ask if she's okay, and she just says 'I need a steak.' I laugh, but she goes 'I'm serious. I can't help it. I need a big greasy piece of meat right now or I'm going to die.""
"Sure enough, she orders the biggest steak on the menu, and wolfs it down in minutes, and the crazed look goes away. After that, she went right back to being vegan like nothing had happened. The look in her eyes was a little scary to be honest."
– AxelShoes
Unless it's a matter of life or death, there's no way I can survive being a vegan.
I don't have a strong enough will power to avoid eating meat.
So if that day ever comes when I'm forced to make a major change in my diet that won't include red meat and you're around me all the time, apologies in advance for my perpetual state of being hangry.
When getting together for dinner with friends, there isn't a more convenient, economical, or (hopefully) fun way to do it than having a potluck.
That way, one person isn't responsible for cooking everything, not to mention cleaning all the dishes afterward.
And everyone can contribute something they love, be it handmade or store-bought.
Of course, the ongoing risk with potluck meals is that one dish proves to be much less popular than others, possibly even going completely untouched all night. Perhaps the only thing worse than a dish going completely untouched is only one person touching it and then warning others to avoid it.
Redditor aquamarinetangerines was eager to hear about the most disgusting dishes people have ever seen or tasted at a potluck, leading them to ask:
"What’s the grossest thing you’ve ever seen someone bring to a potluck?"
Disgusting AND Lazy...
"Has a guy bring in his 'specialty corn'.”
"It was legit canned corn in a crockpot with spices."
"Thing is, he tells us 'ya, my wife took it to her pot luck on Tuesday, they didn’t eat it so I saved it on low in the crockpot and brought it here'.”
"It was Friday."
"Corn was brown."
"Nobody ate it."
"He kept eating it saying it was so good."
"The following Monday his new name at work was Corn Cob Rob."- ComparisonHonest
"She opened a can of tiny shrimp and poured it out, liquid and all, on top of a block of cream cheese."
"That was it. I guess we were supposed to eat it with crackers."- cherrybounce
Check The Dates...
"My grandmother-in-law."
"Everything she brings."
"The first time was stale cake in a bowl of syrup(?)."
"It was both cake and soup, while also being neither."
"She has meat in her deep freezer older than some of her grandchildren."
"She’s a depression-era cook, so expiration dates don’t apply to medicine, cupboards, or freezers."
"Once she tried to give my daughter (2yo at the time), cough medicine that expire 9 years before she was even born."- dirtandstarsinmyeyes
"We had a potluck today and someone brought some Doritos."
"People started eating them and complaining that they tasted like dirt."
"We looked at the bag and it had a promo for 'Mockingjay part 1'."
"The chips expired in 2014!"
"This was a mixed department pot luck and we haven’t found the person that brought the 9 year old chips."- Chicken_Scented_Fart
Beef In Place Of Walnuts? Makes Perfect Sense...
"Someone made brownies with ground meat in them to a church potluck."
"My vegetarian friend discovered this when she bit into one."
"She was more confused and horrified about their existence than she was upset about eating meat-."
"It was the concept of this abomination itself that was disturbing and baffling."
"I thought she had to be wrong."
"'You haven't had ground beef in years, you don't know what it tastes like anymore, it's probably something else'."
"I tried them."
"It was beef."
"I was disgusted and really, really, really confused."
"Years later, I found out that apparently this was a thing."
"Someone came up with this-- putting beef in brownies-- as a substitute for walnuts for people with nut allergies."
"While this explains it a little, in theory, I'm still confused about why someone would assume that people who can't eat walnuts would prefer to eat ground beef brownies over just regular nut-free brownies."
"My sister reminded me that she was also there for this and she had tried the brownies first, and that they were actually the reason she stopped wanting to come to church."
"'I started doubting the entire establishment', she says."- Unfey
Honest Mistake? Or Adventurous Experiment?
"Someone brought Deviled eggs and instead of sprinkling paprika on them they used cinnamon."- TinyWifeKiki
Veering From The Recipe Doesn't Always Pay Off...
“'Homemade fried chicken'.”
"Which translated to ‘chicken that I covered in pancake batter and breadcrumbs and dropped into a frypan until the outside looked cooked'."
"It wasn’t even seasoned."- Tying_pyrope
Not Everyone Likes Things Spicy...
"An apple pie, but they didn't have apple pie spices, like clove, cinnamon, or nutmeg, and said they used taco seasoning by accident and expected people to eat it."
"I, a dumb b*tch who likes to torture themselves tried it, and promptly tossed it into the trash when they looked away."- jirohen
At A Restaurant No Less!
"A Korean-American coworker brought homemade kimchi, but she admittedly didn't know how to make it and just 'winged it'."
"It was fermented wrong and was covered in mold, which she didn't seem to understand was bad."
"The vegetables were basically half liquified and it smelled like dumpster juice."
"The thing is...half of the chefs at work had learned to make kimchi correctly and safely since various different kimchis used to be on the menu before she was hired."
"So we all instantly knew it was wrong and unsafe, but no one wanted to tell her."- No_Pear_2326
Cross Contamination...
"At my previous job, I had a coworker that would frequently cook food because it was his 'passion' and he would bring it in to share with everyone."
"On a few occasions, someone would get ill after, but infrequently enough that people wrote it off as a coincidence."
"This coworker goes out on PTO and asks another coworker to feed his 12 cats while he is gone/scoop the litter boxes."
"Unfortunately, it was discovered the coworker was cooking/serving us food in the same pans he was also sometimes using as litter boxes for his bushel of cats."
"When confronted, he stated he thought this was fine because he washed them after."
"We never ate his food again."- Kitten_spawn
Surprise Ingredients Rarely Pay Off...
"Casserole with a side of roaches."
"Not even kidding."
"They crawled out of the bag she brought her dish in."
"I stopped participating in potlucks after that."- CanUFeelItMrKrabs
Yesterday's Delicacies/Today's Atrocities...
"Grandma's Jello salad, made with cottage cheese and celery."- GoatEatingTroll
No two people share the same taste in food, hence why we shouldn't always be hurt or offended if our contribution to a potluck doesn't prove popular.
There's also nothing wrong with choosing to pop by a supermarket instead of preparing something yourself.
As a store-bought lasagna will always go over better than homemade kimchi covered with mold or ground beef brownies...
The way people spend money has always fascinated me.
For many years I waited tables.
I worked in high-end, low-end, and all of the in-betweens.
And what would shock me most (besides all of y'all's BAD behavior) was the waste.
The waste of food, but more importantly the waste of money.
How does someone order a $50 steak, only eat half and toss out the rest?
No doggie bag. No leftover.
It must be nice to have that much coin to toss away.
Redditor StalkSmash wanted to discuss everyone's shopping habits, so they asked:
"What is one thing that you flat out just don’t know how people afford?"
Premium liquor choices always stun me.
When a certain friend can just casually order a $30 martini because of the vodka choice, without blinking, I'm stunned.
Jealous first, then stunned.
Stay Home
"People who eat exclusively by ordering takeaways or delivery from restaurants. It's mind-bogglingly expensive."
woke_agenda
Secrets
"Secret hidden families. I can barely afford 1."
judgeeveryonesbiznes
"At my last job, a woman told me her (ex)husband had a secret family. She found out when I guess the mortgage company called to ask about some documents for the new house. No idea what he did for work. Wife, two kids, a house, and whatever the bonus family consisted of."
Tomacxo
"My dad did this. He had started a company in another city within the state, as that was where the industry prospects were better. Aaaaaaaand time rolled on past and I guess he missed having family around, just not ours."
luckycaller13
Bad Upkeep
"Eyelash extensions and the upkeep of them."
CollegeFabulous3535
"I got them. They took 2 hours to put on initially and then you have to go back every two weeks to get them filled or you look like you have mange."
"You also have to brush them every single morning or they will point in every direction, and God help you if you have a cold or allergies where your eyes get even slight build-up. You can't just pick any crusty s**t from your eyelashes because the fake ones are glued on and this acts as a stopper so you can't just slide it off your lash."
"I spent so many mornings standing in front of the mirror cleaning and arranging one f**king eyelash at a time. I couldn't deal."
Purple_Chipmunk_
Overpaying
"I still don't know how we afforded daycare. At one point had two kids in daycare for a year before oldest went to kindergarten."
PJ_lyrics
"We have two kids in full-time daycare, the daycare that we go to is slightly below market rate for the area, we're going to pay around 25k this year. Thank God my oldest goes to kindergarten next fall."
"We overpay on our mortgage because we're trying to pay it off quicker, but if we paid the actual loan amount daycare would cost more than our house."
"And let me be clear, my wife and I are the lucky ones. We waited to have a kid until our late 30s, and I was 40 when kid 2 was born. We both have good careers and make good incomes and it's a serious, serious financial stretch for us to be able to afford it, I honestly don't know how other people do it and there's no way I would have been able to afford two kids even 7 or 8 years ago."
topcide
For Fun
"A boat or RV (or both)?! I can barely afford to exist much less spend all this money on recreation."
Korashime
Boats have always been an issue.
Just remember the Titanic.
Upkeep
"Women who keep up with nails, lash extensions, Botox etc. That crap is expensive as f**k!"
GingerMeTimberMate
Up in the Air
"First-class airfare... it’s just so overwhelmingly expensive in comparison to regular seats I can’t imagine anyone ever having that amount to spare unless you’re incredibly wealthy."
Fit-Vanilla-3405
International Worth
"International First Class tickets. I'm going to Japan in a month and was thinking of going in style. I got a nice raise and a bit of vacation time saved and wanted to treat myself. Forget it all. $17k was the cheapest I found. Absolutely insane!"
trapNsagan
"Buy economy than wait. They will send emails out to bid on the business and first-class seats that are not sold. Or you can check on the airline's app for seat upgrades closer to the departure date and upgrade cheaper."
brosiedon7
Special Days
"Multiple-family foreign holidays per year. To be clear, I'm not criticizing anyone on this, and I appreciate that if you leave in mainland Europe, it's easier than here (Scotland)."
"I am just genuinely amused/bemused when I see people on their 2/3/4 foreign holiday of the year on social media."
"We went to Portugal last year (Fantastic country, btw). 2 adults 2 kids (the eldest boy was playing in a football tournament), and it was probably £3.5k and that was done cheaply. We don't go into debt for a holiday ever, though."
MelmanCourt
Getting on in Years
"Eldercare. $300 a day is about typical for most states, and it goes up if they need special care (dementia, etc)."
"3/4 of Americans who live to 21 live to 65, of which 2/3 will need long-term care for an average of 3 years. Maybe not all long-term care is nursing level, but some of it is even more expensive -- memory care, etc. Comes out to roughly $150k per person-- and almost double that if you limit it to those who need any at all. Somewhere between a generous down payment and a new house. Who can afford that -- especially after decades not working?"
Opening_Cellist_1093
First-class has always been an intriguing aspect of mine.
But that extra coin can get crazy.
I'll stick to coach.
I have no aesthetic or emotional issues with getting older as it certainly beats the alternative, so I freely admit I have reached a certain age.
It's the age of sound effects when I get up from a chair and asking younger people to pick things up off the floor for me.
It's the age of having to use Urban Dictionary daily to understand messages I get from younger friends and relatives.
But as much as I don’t understand their language, music or hobbies, there's a lot they'll never understand about my childhood and adolescence.
I was reading an article by writer Eric Chilton who pointed out Gen X—the generation born between 1965 and 1980 of which I'm a part—was the last to live in a world without the internet, cellular phones and social media.
And those are only a few examples of the paradigm shifting innovations in our lifetimes.
Reddit user WeirdJawn asked:
"Older Redditors, what do young people get completely wrong about past decades?"
As a young person, I was fascinated with the idea my maternal Grandmother lived through the transition from horses to combustion engine vehicles, the inception of commercial air travel, the creation of the motion picture industry and the invention of television.
But I've lived through vinyl LPs and 45s, 8-tracks, cassettes, CDs and digital music players.
If I wanted to see a movie as a kid, I went to a theater—or drive-in—or waited for an often heavily edited version to air on TV. Then cable movie channels were introduced, followed by LP size video disc players, then Betamax and VHS, DVDs, HD and Blu-ray and now?
Digital downloads and streaming services—I haven't been to a theater in years.
TV
"Up until video rental stores in the early 80's, at school the next day every kid was talking about what was on TV the night before, as every single family was watching tv together every single night."
"With some exceptions, most people watched the same thing as their schoolmates or co-workers, just to be a part of the conversation."
~ Grimjack2
"There's something very isolating about modern media.
"You can be into a TV show, or YouTube series, and nobody else you know has heard of it."
"I'm a fan of aYouTube series—RedLetterMedia—that's pretty popular and very well regarded amongst its fans, and only one of my friends has heard about it.
~ SlashThingy
Unanswered Questions
"Probably just how often you had to accept that you couldn't find out the answer to something."
"If you had a question you could ask your family, maybe your friends, maybe your teachers, and your last chance was the check the library."
"But if the library didn't have the answer, then you just had to accept that you weren't going to get an answer (or you'd have to hope to come across that answer someday in the future)."
"Now you just ask Google and get 10 answers in just seconds."
~ john_jdm
One & Done
"How on-time you had to be for your favorite shows because there was little to no chance you’d see that same episode again until they (hopefully) did re-runs during summer."
"I remember waiting anxiously for the nightly news to be over so I could watch my favorite TV shows."
"Commercial breaks were just mad rushes for the bathroom, or to the kitchen to get something quick to drink."
~ ladyeclectic79
"Once it was done, it was gone."
"The happy tears I cried when they finally released The Stand miniseries on DVD about a decade after airing."
~ Barrys_Fic
"I feel I was in the last generation of this, even though channels were much more prevalent and reruns of everything was the norm."
"I remember rushing off the bus with all my friends because we were absolutely SURE Goku was gonna defeat Frieza this episode. And it was a crap shoot whether or not the driver would be fast enough for us to make it."
"Years later when DVDs started becoming more prevalent, they STILL didn't put shows on collectable media regularly. You couldn't just get an entire season of a show and binge it."
"At most you could find a 'best-of' compilation of five or six of the most popular episodes, and that was only if the show was incredibly popular."
"And what I am describing here was considered 'having it good' compared to older people."
~ McFlyyouBojo
Say Cheese!
"That it was incredibly common to just not have pictures of events or other things we see as important now."
"Not only did we have entire vacations where no pictures were taken, we could go months without a single picture being taken of any member of our family unless it was particularly notable."
"A trip to St Louis? No pictures. A trip to Disneyland? Maybe a picture at the entry gate or one of the souvenir pictures of us with a character."
"A trip to zoo? No pictures. An average day? Forget about it!"
"Frequently, the only pictures taken were at major holidays like Christmas or on someone's birthday."
~ bbbbbthatsfivebees
"I explained that to my kids the other day."
"What if every picture you took cost a dollar?
"And you don’t know if it’s even good until probably weeks later, as long as the photo lab doesn’t f*ck up processing."
"Or your film or pictures don't get lost in the mail going to or from the developer or they don't send you someone else's photos by mistake."
~ beebsaleebs
"You had to plan ahead to take a photo."
"'Did you remember the camera? Did you remember to buy film or flashbulbs?”
~ brazilliandanny
So Few Options
"It's an exceptional AMOUNT of media to consume now. In the 90s, you had 3-4 super popular channels, and 4-5 low rated channels. They all showed one show at a time."
"Now we have a dozen streaming services with infinite media options."
"It's becoming increasingly difficult to engage in office conversation because so much content is available, people do not have to stray as far from their interest to consume content they want to consume."
~ MemeTeamMarine
Smoking Or Non?
"They understand restaurants had 'smoking sections' and that bars & clubs were filled with cigarette smoke. But I don't think many understood how pervasive smoking was."
"Non-smoking areas or sections didn’t exist before the 1980s. There were ashtrays and people smoking literally EVERYWHERE."
"Jury boxes had ashtrays in front of every juror. Judge smoked, lawyers smoked, the gallery smoked."
"You smoked on planes, trains, busses, taxicabs, and in all transportation centers."
"You smoked at the library, the PTO meetings at schools, the town hall and all city offices. Hell, you could smoke at the courtyard at my High School as a student."
"You smoked in the elevator and on the escalator. The mall. The grocery store. Sports venues. Doctor's offices. Hospitals. Sitting at your desk at work even if you were in a cubicle or open area."
"The movies. The plays, opera, concerts and every other public performance, people smoked."
"A non-smoker would come home often smelling like smoke. One was constantly surrounded by smoke. It was insane."
~ parkerjh
"You literally made ash trays as a grade school art project, that’s how common it was."
~ _Poffertje_
What Choices?
"Probably under estimating how few choices there were."
"Today, it seems like everything imaginable is available in a variety of sizes, delivered to your door over night."
"Catalogs and mail order had 4-6 week delivery."
"Malls were the best thing ever—all the stores in one place, a wide variety of products and sizes and not downtown."
~ 2Loves2loves
"And also just how little people knew they were missing out. If it wasn't on network evening television (Channels 2, 4, 7, 9, and 11), or on a store shelf in your town, or in the Sunday newspaper... it simply didn't exist for you."
"If you had an inkling something existed—say, tin foil that comes in sheets instead of one giant roll—you could go around asking people, if you wanted. But you were more than likely to just get a shrug and, 'Why would you want such a thing?'."
"Let's say you were particularly enterprising, so you dial '0' and ask the operator for the number for corporate headquarters of Reynolds Aluminum Foil, if you knew the city it was in. Because there was no internet, and the only way to find a number was by dialing '0' and speaking to a telephone operator."
"But even if you spoke to someone at Reynolds, they had no way to exchange money for goods at that level, and they probably would just tell you they sell it in the Ohio area, and that would be that."
"You went to the market. They have one brand of pancake mix, and no one had ever heard of anything different, and why would you want a different brand, anyway?"
"Then you go to the hardware store, and they carry one brand of paint, and no one had ever heard of any other brand of paint."
"And it was that way for a long, long time."
~ nOwsL-ACEna-pe2323
One For the Road
"How common drinking & driving was."
"Until MADD came along, people did this routinely."
"It's where 'one for the road' originated."
~ HailRoma
"Yes! When my friends and I had our 18th birthdays in late 1979, the thing to do was to celebrate by driving through Beer Barn, where you could literally drive-through to get beer, wine, wine coolers, whatever."
"Then open them up and drive while drinking. At 18. This was in Texas."
"It also was not uncommon for my dad to drive while drinking when he was taking us wherever at night."
"Zero education on why you should not do that."
~ emeraldcity4341
Good & Bad
"I am definitely older (born in 1949 so Baby Boomer)."
"What today's young people don't appreciate is how, growing up, we had to invent our own sources of fun."
"There were no video games (which I enjoy playing), just 3 channels on a black-and-white tv (we didn't get color until 1967), and no real entertainment aimed at kids."
"All we could do is interact with each other and play established games like marbles or maybe an organized sport like Little League baseball."
"There was a baseball diamond, overgrown with weeds, across the street from us, but mostly we played in the woods that surrounded us, climbing trees pretending to be pirates or some such.
"I loved the bookmobiles that would visit my street, and I must have read every biography (all bound in blue covers) in my elementary school library."
"It was a different era with many fewer distractions and much more time for sustained imagination."
"Being a different place and time, we developed different skills for interacting with the world and each other than young people do today."
"Was it better? That's hard to say. We tended to have an insular view of our own little world, while today it is hard to escape what it happening everywhere on Earth."
"We had to wait days for a letter to arrive, and we shared a party phone line with our neighbor's phone. That is a far slower pace than today's instantaneous texting culture. (Yes, I do text.)"
"Some things have been lost while others have been gained. That's the way it always will be. Just wait."
~ BOBauthor
In Chilton's article—referenced at the beginning—he stated:
"We [Gen X] will be the last generation to know the world without...
- Cable TV
- Cell Phones
- The internet
- Seat belt laws
- Remote controls for the TV"
What would you add to the list?