People Who Know Someone Super Rich Explain What Makes Them Different
Reddit user sunnybestie asked: 'To people who have also worked with multimillionaires or billionaires, what is something different they do from ordinary people?'
The super wealthy aren't like most people.
How can they be?
They live in a world of rarefied air most people will never even glimpse.
That privilege inevitably warps perspectives.
Reddit user sunnybestie asked:
"To people who have also worked with multimillionaires or billionaires, what is something different they do from ordinary people?"
To Drive...
"Years ago a friend of mine’s dad was trying to sell his start-up company and picked-up an investor at the airport."
"He was proud of his classic Rolls Royce and noticed the investor looking around, playing with the air vents."
"So he said 'Is this your first time in a Rolls Royce?'.”
"The guy said no, but it was his first time in the front seat."
~ LanceFree
...Or Not To Drive
"I used to do in person one on one market research interviews with luxury car owners and one thing that struck me after hundreds of interviews was that the only people who drove Rolls Royce's themselves were self made 'new money' wealthy people."
"The old money people all HAD Rolls Royce's but they were driven around in them because one of the reasons that you get a Rolls is the incredible back seat. If the old money were driving themselves, then they would have luxury cars but they very rarely drove Rolls."
"It may have been one of those social faux pax to wealthy old money to be in the same seat as their drivers or something like that but I never actually asked about it."
~ alwaysfailatlife
Sharing Is Caring
"Well the owner of my small company is incredibly wealthy but also rad as f*ck and he drives a literal tank on property all the time just for the fun of it."
"He also owns a very old, gorgeous estate from an extremely influential family (think Vanderbilts) and we throw parties there. But on top of it, he lets his employeees borrow it for events."
"So my husband and I are throwing an anniversary party (never had a reception) in 2024. We have the entire estate and all 10 bedrooms for a whole weekend and it isn’t costing us a single dime.
"If I didn’t work for the company, the cost of the venue would be upwards of $25k for the day."
"I never expected someone so incredibly wealthy to be so down to earth and generous. It’s exactly who I would strive to be at that level of wealth."
~ HistoricalHeart
"Hire a private chef for a casual Tuesday lunch with her girlfriends..."
"$2k, just like that."
~ Tall-Poem-6808
"About 25 years ago, a friend of my dad was turning 65 and treated 50 of his best friends to fly 1st class to London for 5 days, INCLUDING tickets to Phantom of the Opera for all."
"One of his products was just picked up by Walmart for exclusive sale, and he wanted to spend a small bit of his good fortune."
~ perfect_square
Time Is Money
"He managed time very differently than anyone I was used to. E.g., our meeting with him began precisely on schedule, lasted 30 minutes, and there was no chit chat."
"Before this meeting we had a pre-meeting with his admin to discuss expectations. The admin explained that we had to be on time, no introductions/titles just name, no small talk, no marketing, be prepared to answer technical and financial questions quickly and succintly."
"For this latter, if there were numbers we had to know precisely which page of the material had the information."
"When the meeting took place we were brought in exactly—to the second—at the start time. Sat down and within 30 seconds he was asking us all manner of questions."
"I had to field technical questions that appear to be asked not so much for whether my answer was right, but that I didn't hesitate. I also gained a healthy respect for my manager as he was SHARP and answered quickly and accurately."
~ frank-sarno
Simple And Not So Simple Pleasures
"When in elementary school my son's friend's dad was one of the 2 founders of Capital One."
"Mom had a secretary for play dates."
"Dad would fly to London to watch Tottenham football matches—had a permanent seat. Their London house was next to J.K. Rowling's."
"You couldn't tell by the way they dressed or their cars. But their vacations were the big difference."
"Their son loved a mango juice sold maybe 10-15min from their house. I always made sure we had some at mine."
"I send it to him via Amazon occasionally."
~ dcgradc
Higher Expectations
"One old money rich person treated me to a fancy meal and she was super polite and nice and tipped well, what struck me was the decisiveness and confidence that everyone there would cater to her, and they did. She wanted x dish that they didn't make that day and they made it.
"The one that sticks with me was at the end she said "I want a cappuccino with (something) I want them to put a design on it" like I've gotten cute cappuccinos in my life, it doesn't even cost extra."
"It never occurred to me to just ask for everything I want all the time."
"This was the same person that on a business trip hugged me after the flight 'I did it!' Me: 'Oh was this your first time in economy' and she goes 'No, flying commercial'."
~ woman_thorned
"The expectation that someone else will always cater to you is spot-on."
"I work at a really fancy hotel within walking distance of an ivy league university, and the super wealthy people just... expect certain things."
"Most people around them who aren't their friends or family are considered 'the help' (even if they don't say it out loud)."
"They also feel pretty entitled to things, like they will just walk up behind the bar and grab a bottle of wine that they want."
~ Dana_Scully_MD
Fines Are Payment To Do Whatever You Want
"In SoCal there's been a little problem with water so fines were instituted for overuse. $10k/month for really excessive use—water management thought this would really put a stop to wasting water!"
"Folks with enormous lawns at their 2nd or 3rd home in Palm Springs considered $120k/year a 'gardening expense' and continued on as before. It wasn't even a blip on their radar."
"Things did improve a bit when the whole situation was 'named & shamed' in the media... but I bet they're back to the lawns again by now."
~ qpgmr
"For a rich person, anything illegal that results in a fine can be ignored because they do it then just pay the fine."
"Lawyers and political donations are there for the rest."
~ bk2947
"Punishable with a fine' means 'legal for a price'."
~ fightingfish278
"Wealth allows people to express their pre-existing antisocial tendencies."
"Some of us go out of our way not to make life harder for others. Others just don’t give a damn."
"We let the wealthy ones get away with it because of their money."
~ iuseallthebandwidth
Delegate The Mundane
"That's the thing with the extremely wealthy, an overwhelming portion of the time and effort that ordinary people expend just maintaining their lives are taken care of by other people."
"It's very easy to find the time for social and leisure activity when someone else is taking care of all of the mundane sh*t for you."
~ tacknosaddle
"That's the real answer: they have people who handle things for them."
"I dated a gal whose family was 'well off'—dad had sold a company you've heard of for about $600,000,000."
"The whole family had a 'professional assistant', Janice. If someone needed something arranged, text Janice."
"Seven course catered dinner on Christmas Eve? Text Janice. Prep the semi-private jet for a flight cross-country? Janice will set it up."
"Need the oil changed in the Chrysler Town & Country minivan (seriously)? Janice will have it done. Need access to the family's private ranch outside of Aspen? You'll work with the caretaker, and Janice will coordinate."
"I got to spend some time with Janice and she was paid very fairly for her work."
~ persondude27
It's certainly an entirely different way of life. Wish we could text Janice for some things, though!
Do you have any stories to add? Let us know in the comments below.
People Who Earn Six Figures Explain What They Do For A Living
Reddit user Luffy_Tuffy asked: 'For everyone making six figures, what do you do for work?'
Brock Wegner on Unsplash
"I work all night, I work all day to pay the bills I have to pay
Ain't it sad?
And still there never seems to be a single penny left for me
That's too bad" ~ "Money, Money, Money" ABBA
Money is either the root of all evil or the key to happiness, largely depending on whether you have any.
So how do people with money get it? One method is a job that pays the bills.
Reddit user Luffy_Tuffy asked:
"For everyone making six figures, what do you do for work?"
Fly the Friendly Skies
"Air Traffic Control"
~ yadayadab00
"That was a super popular job in the Army when I joined in 2007."
"They stopped letting active duty sign up because they’d get just one enlistment (so 3-5 years) out of them before they’d bounce and go to the civilian side making a lot more money."
~ Affectionate-Arm9547
0/10 Would Not Recommend
"Pharmacist."
"250k student loan. Super stressful job that I hate. Would not recommend."
"When I was starting school, even Walgreens took care of their people and had plenty of tech hours."
"Now you don’t even get enough help to staff the window, the cash register, entering, and filling scripts."
"I’ve worked weekends at the busiest store in the district with only one tech. It’s ridiculous."
~ XThePariahX
What Life?
"Doctor. But I sold my life and my youth. It’s not worth it."
~ euphoric-alpaca
"My husband wants to be a doctor. He's 43."
"I tell him it's not worth it because he would be paying off his student loans until or after retirement. At least that's how I imagine it would go."
~ Public_Honeydew_8997
Belly Up
"Bartender for 16 years, started making around $80k and have slowly moved up to $110k."
"I recently made a pivot to a new career but still bartend to pay the bills for now."
~ dj_destroyer10/10 Would Recommend
"I'm in heavy construction. Class A Driver/Equipment Operator."
"My CDL (Commercial Drivers License) got me in the door, and I slowly learned to operate everything from excavators to directional drills."
"I can give some advice to anyone interested in trying it out, the money is there if you're willing to try."
"The trick to succeeding in heavy construction is to be confident. Not necessarily outwardly (though it does help), but confident in YOURSELF."
"Do not be intimidated by any tool or machine. Raise your hand and ask to learn EVERY chance you get.
"You'll see a lot of miserable old 45-year-olds that have been swinging a shovel or broom for 25 years and complain all day about their situation. Don't be that guy, treat this job as an education."
"Remember, the more you can do, the more you're worth."
"Keep your nose clean. Stay off the drugs and alcohol. Failing a drug test will ruin your reputation in the industry, companies talk to each other."
"And showing up hungover every morning will effect your performance and cognitive function. You do not want that."
"Never, EVER get a superiority complex about your rank/position. Operators can help use a shovel or broom too."
"Don't ever be that guy sitting in his truck/excavator watching everyone else work. Be the stud that will hop out and help carry something when you're not operating."
"Even if it's just cleaning the interior of your rig while on standby, it shows that you're part of the team."
"Going union will ALWAYS be your best bet, but its not necessary at first. I've seen guys work their a** off at private companies for a couple years, work their way up to foreman, then jump into the union as a foreman."
"It would have taken 10x as long if they had done that within the union, seniority slows things down. Go operators union. Laborers is good too, but operators make much more money."
"IBEW is also great, especially on the west coast. If you're not scared of electricity, try it out."
"Remember, this is a field that you can get into with a GED and no experience and make a damn good living, but you cannot slack. You'll pay your dues and endure some rough days."
"You'll go through some sh*tty companies and meet some sh*tty people, but eventually it will pay off. You'll meet the good people, find the good company, and be comfortable in your job. It's worth it."
~ EatMyGrandma
Let's Try It
"Staff scientist at a national lab, but don't get too excited. You go to college for 9 years first, and lots of analysis shows the better money is taking an undergrad engineering job, getting paid sooner, and working up the corporate ladder."
"I basically get to chase down whatever cool ideas I want though, within reason."
"Shoot positrons through magnets to make X-rays? Let's do it."
"Can we make a better jet engine using //redacted// for compression blades? Here's 20 million dollars, go find out."
~ Pr0methian
Crane Mode
"Crane operator in the oil industry. Easiest job I've ever had."
"$3000 to get your NCCO and $6500 to get your CDL."
"I work 12hr days but only on the crane 1-1.5hrs a shift. The other 10.5-11hrs is spent sleeping, playing Xbox, watching movies, etc..."
~ wildarcher69
"Yeah my dad is a crane operator, too."
"Six figures in his salary alone but also gets $150 per diem, since he has to live in whichever city his crane is, and his crane is nowhere near his state of residency."
~ Affectionate-Arm9547
All The Nuts And Bolts
"Aircraft mechanic."
~ gimplegs
"I work as a machine mechanic and my uncle's best friend works in aircraft."
"His schedule and on-call pay makes me suuuuper envious."
~ meetmeinthebthrm
Grow Your Own
"I own a commercial gourmet mushroom farm bringing in high six figures. Zero student debt, no wage ceiling."
"I have land right outside of a large metropolitan city where the farm is. It’s a small/medium sized farm, I have two guys working for me."
"We do four large farmers markets in the city per week and sell at around 20$ a lb and also wholesale sell directly to many restaurants in this city at 10$ a lb with deliveries going out two days a week."
"We produce around 1000 lbs a week but my goal is for that number to keep going up. My overhead is very low because the farm is on my property and all expenses I have are tax write offs making my taxes extremely low."
"I started the farm two years ago and it’s growing very fast. I’m pretty capped out at the moment with what I can directly sell to my community so I’m working on connecting with a local distributor at the moment to keep growing."
~ Brave_Badger_6617
Banking On It
"My best friend is a senior underwriter for Chase Bank. He makes about $115k."
"What's really a slap in the tits is he's a high school drop out."
~ cjtripp1433
"It seems like there is a lot of room to grow at a bank."
"A friend started an entry level job at a local bank and a few years later got hired by a mortgage broker and made $750k in 2021."
"They're having a bad year now and only making $200k. Wild."
~ 2050orBust
A Fresh Coat
"I own a house painting company. 20-30hrs a week of manual labor a week and about 10 of office/paperwork. 2 employees."
"From my perspective it is a very rewarding and fun job. I work with two of my friends, or rather one of my friends and one guy who became my friend after being hired."
"I do the jobs we want to do when we want to do them and generally have fun most days. There is a lot of stress too but I honestly like that as well, I love problem solving."
~ FlowBjj88
Reading Is Fundamental
"Public librarian in California."
"I’m at the top of our salary scale for non-managers, since I’ve been here (current job) for 11+ years."
"Gross salary is right around $100K + full benefits and a pension."
"And I actually enjoy the work, too!"
~ ZoyaZhivago
Seen Things
"I'm a court reporter/stenographer in the US."
"I was researching being a paralegal then saw an ad for this."
"I looked into it more and found a school nearby and decided to try it."
"A big part was that it was something I chose and not something I felt I was being forced into."
~ paramore814
While 6 figures isn't the boon it once was, it's still enough to live comfortably in most places.
Were you surprised by any of the jobs earning over $100k?
People Describe The Dumbest Thing They've Seen A Coworker Do On The Job
When I was in college, I worked at a restaurant as a hostess. Since I previously only babysat and tutored, a restaurant was a whole knew world to me.
Two of the girls who worked the same days as me were the ones to train me. They were a couple of years older than I was and had been working there for a year already, so they had a lot of experience. They not only taught me how to do the job, but gave me a lot of tips to make some of the more tedious tasks easier.
They both seemed like responsible girls, so when I came in the week after my training was over, I was shocked to hear they were both fired. According to a server I'd become friends with, the girls had snuck in some alcohol on what was supposed to be a slow day (it was a Tuesday, which was always our slowest day) and decided to have a "party at the host stand."
They got completely wasted and basically kept tripping as they led guests to their seats, even as they told the guests to watch their step. When one of the girls accidentally poured a milkshake over one guest and had to call a manager to smooth things over, they were caught and fired on the spot. I was cringing at their stupidity!
Apparently, I'm not the only one who has had to deal with co-workers doing something utterly stupid while they were on the job. Redditors have borne witness to this and are eager to share their stories.
It all started when Redditor Adrian0091 asked:
"What‘s the dumbest thing you‘ve seen a coworker do on the job?"
Such A Pretty Display
"I asked one of the new kids to stack the shoe department."
"Easy if but a bit boring. I showed her, stack by brand then size, big at the bottom, small top yeah?"
"She decided to organise it by the color of the boxes instead because it looked prettier."
"Took me hours to fix that mess."
– Lizzy_Of_Galtar
Oooh, Burn! (Quite Literally)
"In high school, working at a Chinese restaurant, was there basically to take orders and bus tables. Another dude I vaguely knew from high school got hired there. Nice, popular dude, but not much common sense. Within his first two weeks, he went to make himself some food (we were allowed to do that to a certain extent), and he dropped some wontons into the deep fryer. When he decided they were done, and as we were having a conversation, he just REACHED HIS HAND into the oil to retrieve it. I don’t think I even reacted for a moment or two, and then rushed forward. He somehow ALSO didn’t react for a moment or two before pulling his hand out and yelling out a cartoon-style “YEEOUCH!”"
"He went to the hospital, and quit the job."
– CwAbandon
Umm...Huh?
"One dude once photocopied a slice of pizza. We found cheese and stuff inside the machine for weeks. Was pretty funny though."
– LinusMeindl
"Inside? Did the idiot put the pizza into the document feeder or something?"
– MechanicalHorse
"How else would you feed the machine pizza."
– andtheIToldYouSos
Spelling
"I saw a tattooist I worked with tattoo "Laugh now cry Ladder" across a guy's chest..."
"He was let go, and a few years later, a guy came in with "Warior" across his upper back in bold letters, wanting it fixed. Same tattooist lol."
– hurrythisup
"Cry me a ladder."
– Deleted User
"Cry me a liver."
– iqtrm
"Crimea river."
– MagicSPA
Yikes!
"Telling the manager on duty, “I’m not the one eating it, so why should I care?” when the manager was trying to explain to her how to correctly prepare a customer’s food."
– 2gecko1983
"Watched a coworker of mine at a Pizza Hut (1976) clean off the food prep counter with a gross floor broom. The kitchen was open, so people at the tables could see the food being made, and someone saw him and yelled out to the other customers, and people started walking out."
"Cleared it out."
"Once the manager figured out what happened, he fired the guy on the spot."
– big_d_usernametaken
Misstep After Misstep
"Admitted to not having spoken to any of the business stakeholders, but instead "made up their own story.""
"This was at the end of what was supposed to have been a four-week information-gathering phase of the project."
"That afternoon, when one of the managers went to escort her from the premises, they found her by the printer with a stack of confidential documents."
– WitShortage
No Cell Phones At Work
"Worked with a lot of hazardous chemicals. Had a coworker who was notorious for being on his phone. We had to use a pump to put a hazardous chemical into a tank. Problem was you couldn’t look at the destination and pump the pump at the same time. Someone had to pump and someone had to watch. So I specifically asked said coworker to not look at his phone this one time. Tank overflowed and spilt the chemical everywhere because he was staring at his phone. Took hours to clean up."
– BigTiddyOstrogothGF
"A coworker of mine was fired for using his cellphone in an electrically classified area, cell phone wasn't explosion proof, not to mention the fact no cell phones on the floor, they gave him a warning, second time they walked him out."
"Bad part for him was that his wife found out he was talking to his girlfriend."
"Twenty years down the tubes."
"As we liked to say, "He fired himself.""
– big_d_usernametaken
Ewww!
"A guy I worked with sent a spreadsheet round with all the women in the office ranked in a spreadsheet and graded overall based on 1-5."
"He was somehow shocked he didn’t pass his probation."
– downfallndirtydeeds
Thank God He Was Fired
"My best friend, he took his mop bucket and poured it down a water fountain instead of using the closet with a sink that was literally right next to the water fountain. He got fired the next day."
"He told me he was in “f**k it” mode with the job and he didn’t care. We worked at a hospital."
– MrFavorable
""Who cares if sick people get exposed to a little bit of antibiotic-resistant flesh-eating bacteria.""
– Brett42
Get Right Back Up
"There were 2 of us installing an air conditioner. He had a bit of work outside that required him going up a ladder about 3 or 4 feet, not high. I was inside doing wiring."
"I heard a loud thud and scream, so I ran out to see what happened. He fell off the ladder. I've seen gruesome injuries from stupid thing like this before, so I ran outside to help him out. No injuries, he picked himself up and got back at it, I went back inside."
"Five minutes later, same thing. I walked out to check on him again after a small fall. He was ok again, but I told him to chill out and watch what he's doing. I went back inside."
"Heard another thud from outside. He fell again. I just looked out the window the third time and went about my business."
– DrVanNostrand6
*Cringing*
"He opened a Skype window (yes, this was ~10 years ago) and started messaging me to sh*t-talk a person who was in the same call as us."
"Except, he forgot he was sharing his screen."
– zyygh
R.I.P. Press
"After checking the correct lock-out tag-out procedure was followed, I assured an employee that it was safe to change dies on a horizontal press. But he was skeptical so unbeknownst to anyone he put a piece of tooling steel about the size of a coffee can under the die base. Some of you know where this is going. He made the tooling change, forgot his “safety measure”, and cycled the press. We all heard a $400k press eat itself in a fantastic swan-song of a noise that would take Stephen King four pages to describe."
– Idontfeelold-much
The Stupidity Of The Human Race
"Late 90’s, I was a custodian in a NYC public school to pay for college. One of my coworkers accidentally spilled about 15 gallons of gasoline in the school parking lot. He didn’t want to get in trouble for spilling that much gas so he thought the best course of action was to burn off the gasoline. Of course gasoline burns with huge billows of black smoke so he panics and tries to put out the fire BY DRIVING HIS CAR OVER THE GIANT PUDDLE OF BURNING GASOLINE. Fire department shows up within minutes and sees him doing donuts in the giant fire and they spend a whole hour screaming at my coworker about how f**king stupid he was."
"Edit: and in 1997 when this happened, gas was 97¢ a gallon. He could have replaced all the gas for less than $15."
– -Words-Words-Words-
"I'm a veteran of the Internet, and enjoy reading accounts like this. I must have read thousands."
"This is, hats off, quite literally one of the most stupid decisions I ever heard anyone make."
– MagicSPA
I really don't want to believe that last one really happened!
Do you have any great stories? Let us know in the comments below.
Possessed Photography on Unsplash
Artificial intelligence (AI) is defined as:
"the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making and translation between languages."
AI is broken down into four types—from most basic to most advanced:
- Reactive machines
- Limited memory
- Theory of mind
- Self-awareness
The first two—reactive machines and limited memory—currently exist.
Reactive machines AI have no memory—it responds directly to current information. An example is a recommendation based on your streaming activity.
Limited memory looks into the past and monitors specific objects or situations over time, and adds the information to adapt responses. Self-driving cars are a good example of limited memory AI.
The other types—theory of mind and self-awareness—don't exist yet.
Theory of mind AI would be able to understand intentions and predict behavior while adjusting its own responses, simulating human interpersonal relationships.
The final step in AI is self-awareness. These would be systems that have a sense of self, a conscious understanding of their existence.
As AI advances, some human work functions will be done cheaper or more efficiently by AI.
Reddit user othersimon asked:
"Those who actually had their jobs replaced by AI, what was the job? What replaced it? What do you do now?"
Not Me!
Redditors definitely had feelings about businesses implementing AI.
"To everyone who argues that AI isn't capable of doing their job yet I say, so what? All that matters is your boss thinks it can do the job."
"Laughing at their failure is small solace when you're unemployed."
~ obscureferences
"I mean how many people were fired because they had been working for 10 or 20 years and earned high pay, to be replaced by some minimum wage worker who completely botched the job and took twice as long?"
"Lots."
~ Black_Moons
WUT U MEEN IZ RONG SPELD?
"My entire editing team was replaced by a robot that was supposed to write and edit text like a human can."
"They didn't test the robot first—it was terrible, and their entire project failed."
"No tears were shed."
~ IllustriousNight4
"My wife was a copywriter/wrote blogs for internet optimization online primarily for legal and medical fields."
"AI took over and her company either fired everyone or severely reduced the amount of pay that was offered per job—wife is still unemployed."
"But we heard just last week that it sounds like the company is now going under."
~ The_SchnitzelMan
"AI-written articles are obvious from a mile away and they’re terrible."
"I think Google should penalize search rankings for AI generated content as it’s often not valuable to the reader who is looking for useful information."
"And these articles bastardize Google’s own value in a sense as the info showing up in search results is materially less valuable than genuine content."
~ mokikithesloppy
1, 2, 3...
"Worked at Amazon for a few years. Did inventory basically all night."
"Then they installed cameras, scanners, AI, etc..."
"Still need a human, but yup, a lot of us were no longer needed."
"SBC (simple bin count, just count everything in the bin, easy) is redundant."
~ somecow
Unexpected Development
"I was on a very small software development team at a relatively large company."
"We were often tasked with not only working on our project, but utilizing new cutting-edge technologies to test whether they would be viable before rolling them out to the rest of the dev teams."
"We were asked to start leveraging AI to help us with our development and we gave it pretty high praise."
"Apparently we talked it up too much though and they decided to see if they could simply bypass needing software developers and have the business analysts generate code from their requirements and then send that code straight to QA."
"They didn't really test if that would work before laying off our entire dev team, and a couple of months later they laid off the remaining members of the team because it wasn't working out."
"It was just one of many bad decisions they made around that time and they're currently struggling and losing market share because of it."
"I'm still working as a software engineer and use AI as a useful tool, but I'm sure to always let my supervisors and managers know what its pitfalls are and how its just supplementing my work, and not completely doing my job for me."
~ karma_aversion
"Software dev here, new exec came in and replaced me (only dev) with 'no-code' software."
"From what I hear from my friends still there, they shot themselves in the foot."
~ tanMud
"In order to get AI to work well for you, you’d have to spell out your specs in great detail and spoon feed it. Of course, in order to do that one would need to know exactly what they want first."
"Unless they have a helluva business analysis team, that is a fantasy."
"Oh, and how are they going to update the AI generated code down the line? There is a guy on my team who is sharp as a tack but his code is actual mental gymnastics. I make him spell it out to me because it simply makes no sense."
"Turns out he was writing code that was assisted by ChatGPT. AI writes code that computers can read, devs need to write code that other devs can maintain/expand."
"AI can create stuff from scratch, sure, but I don’t think it’s prepared as of yet to digest complex code, interpret it, and then add to it with more complexity. They could try to run everything we do with AI but will hit some dense walls quickly."
~ skyphoenyx
No Injuries If There's No People
"Some warehouses have some self driving high reach forklifts."
"Someone said that their warehouse has only 2 human high reach drivers & 9 self driving high reaches."
"Crazy stuff."
~ wistteria_
"Lights off manufacturing is getting closer by the day."
"I work in a facility that’s about 800k sqft. It has 20 employees in it and hundreds of not thousands of robots. We make millions of widgets a week."
"Single use medical devices. All plastic. Huge boom in business during Covid, back down to earth now! But still very profitable."
"All the lights are on sensors because there are areas people don’t go into for weeks at a time. It’s eerily quiet and creepy. If there’s an issue we fly someone in from another location."
"Trucks unload raw material into large totes. Robots collect the totes and deliver to the material storage area. A human inspects quality and quantity."
"Machines mold the widgets, a robot pulls them out, cameras inspect the parts. Data is sent to a central quality facility in Mexico."
"When the lot is approved, robots pick up the totes and delivers to packaging lines where it gets boxed up, weighed, labeled, and taped shut—all by robots."
"Then the completed pallets get delivered back to the warehouse where a truck picks it up and delivers to the customer."
"We have a few engineers (I am one) that maintains, inspects, and reports out on the systems. We have three security guards—one whose job is a ‘buddy’ to escort people to dangerous areas."
"If you had an accident we wouldn’t know about it until your shift ended."
"There’s a plant manager, a pair of quality techs, a couple material handlers. And two maintenance folks."
"That’s the entire operation."
~ bondsman333
Digital Age
"I used to be a projectionist."
"Now a movie is on a hard drive and it's programmed to run remotely."
~ FlintWaterFilter
Facing the Future
"I'm about to lose my job to a layoff, but I will be replaced by 2025."
"Working in semiconductor manufacturing, most of production is fully automated already with plans to automate more. My job is basically to babysit idle machines right now."
"The maintenance crew will always be necessary but as soon as AI can do the rest of my job, I am not necessary at all."
"I can be replaced by code, the company would love to get all the product made without paying people for their time. I know I am expendable to them but it's the best paycheck in the county."
"Sad but it's the truth. Gonna have to try and stick it out while I apply to new jobs."
~ DERtheBEAST
It Is What It Is, But Isn't What It Isn't
"I feel like this is going to happen a lot in the next few years."
"Don't get me wrong, AI is an incredible technology, and depending on the specific implementation, it's capable of great things."
"But the unveiling of ChatGPT and AI art bots started a bubble of sorts, which we're currently still in."
"People seem to be over-conflating and misunderstanding how AI works, what AI is, and what AI is capable of, and for that reason, I think we're going to see a lot of misguided layoffs coming."
~ AbyssalRedemption
Technological advancements have eliminated human labor forever.
This isn’t a new dilemma created in the computer age.
All we can do is pay attention and adapt.
The realization you're getting older can smack you in the face at any given time, and boy-howdy is it fun!
It can be in the morning when you get up out of bed, and your body makes crackling noises, or when you can't seem to keep up at the gym and you cut short your running time on the treadmill.
That's just the physical.
When you suddenly have the epiphany that you're suddenly the oldest one in a group setting, it's humbling.
Curious to hear from strangers online who are no longer the young whipper-snappers they imagined themselves to eternally be, Redditor redmambo_no6 asked:
"Redditors with younger coworkers, what was your 'I’m officially old' moment?"
These moments of realization never get old. But people do.
Senior Kitty
"My childhood cat lived to 21.5 so teaching (freshman biology lab, so students were ~18) became very weird when I realized my cat was older than my students."
– mollusck_magic
Aging In Reverse
"I'm a preschool teacher. It's been a TRIP to watch parents go from Soooo much older than me, to the same age as me, and now they're younger than me!?!?"
– Smart_Alex
The Shook Pediatrician
"My kids pediatrician was also my husband's pediatrician when he was a kid. He was the first kid she had to come back as a parent and she was SHOOK."
– trixtred
Older Together
"See, that's what really kinda drives it home for me."
"I'm not bothered that I'm 48. But that means my school friends are 48, and that's weird for some reason. Like, I went to school with a guy who was wild and crazy. That guy is 48 now, and has a new grandbaby. Somehow, he's old, and I'm just 'getting up there '."
– ThatWeirdTexan
Relics of the past don't just pertain to humans.
Dialing It In
"Had a co-worker ask me, 'Back before cell phones, did you just have to wait around at your house for a call?' Uh, yeah, pretty much."
– Status-Effort-9380
"Reminds me of having to explain the concept of collect calls to my kids. The whole speed speaking where you were for pick up during the recording so your Mama never accepted the collect call."
– DaraScot
Legendary Aircraft
"Various colleagues were debating whether the Concorde had been real. They couldn’t fathom that supersonic civilian aircraft used to exist and now they don’t anymore."
"The Concorde last flew in 2003, when these colleagues were toddlers."
– geckos_are_weirdos
Foreign References
"We were talking about where we were on 9/11, and my coworker went quiet. He wasn’t even born."
"We also had a band that was famous in the 90s stay at the hotel, and he had no idea who they were, meanwhile I was so star struck as they were my entire childhood!"
– Itsagabby
Gravity is not our friend, and not just because of its effect on our faces.
The Day It Went Downhill
"When i fell down the last couple of steps on a stairway. No one pointed and laughed like I expected, instead they helped me up and asked me if I was okay. That’s when I knew."
– day_of_duke
It's About The Recovery
"F'k. That has to be a bummer."
"You fall. You know you're fine. You feel like an idiot. You get ready to wave to the crowd as they laugh and clap. But then... a hand is placed on your arm and you hear 'that was a big fall, are you ok?' You stay in shock for a moment. Of course, you're fine. Everyone is looking at you. They all have concerned faces. Sh*t. Two weeks later, the soreness finally subsides."
– minimalfighting
Ice Slip, You Slip, We All Slip
"This happened to me as well....walking my dog the day after a huge snowstorm. There were some rowdy teenage boys having a snowball fight across the street (schools were closed that day, of course). I slipped on the ice, my feet flew over my head and I landed solidly on my backside. As I struggled to get up I braced myself for the laughter and catcalls, but all I heard was "Are you OK Ma'am??' 'Do you need help??' I was in my early 50s and had never felt 'old' until that moment."
– Ouisch
Conversations with younger coworkers can be fun.
You can quote lines from your favorite TV shows and talk about the latest CD you bought at Target and brag about your new digital camera that takes better pictures than a smartphone.
And then you can watch the blank expressions on your coworkers' faces because they haven't a clue about what you speak.
Yeah. This has never happened to me...
Old.