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.
People Explain Which Piece Of Information They've Learned That Almost Feels Illegal To Know
Everyone loves a juicy secret or insider knowledge.
From knowing about a secret love affair happening between colleagues to understanding how to cheat the system when booking a table at a hot restaurant.
There are times, however, when holding onto a valuable piece of knowledge comes with a fair share of stress.
Indeed, sometimes knowing something which isn't common knowledge to everyone feels like it could get you in pretty serious trouble.
Almost as if the simple act of knowing what you do was illegal.
"What piece of information did you learn, that feels illegal to know?
Contraband Music!
"Sometimes you can play around with URLs and find clean copies of watermarked previews."
"Helps a lot when trying to learn a song that you don’t have sheet music for."- funkycat75
Sheet Music Animation GIFGiphyNot Illegal To Know, But Possibly Illegal To Use
"You can order maintenance keys on Amazon for most models of coin op laundry machines."- Reddit
"You can buy many keys online."
"Among them are:"
"There's the Ford fleet keys, which can get you into cops cars."
"There's firefighter and maintenance elevator keys which let you control elevators."
"You can turn them off, or turn it to fire evacuation mode (it just goes to main floor and is then unusable) and even firefighter/maintenance mode which the elevator will only go where you want it to go.''
"It won't stop at other floors to pick up other people."
"Keys for bulldozers, backhoes, and other heavy equipment."
"Often one key will open many models from the same manufacturer."
"There's also something called a Lishi Tool."
"It can be used to pick locks, but it's also set you to tell you the position of each pin in the lock."
"That allows you to have another key cut from code (useful if you lose your keys and don't want to replace the whole lock.)"
"And of course, handcuff keys."
"I've used a real handcuff keys in toy cuffs, so I'd imagine toy keys could work in real handcuffs."
"Generally these would all be legal to own (except the Lishi which is a type of lockpick and has various legalities around the US.)"
"All you need is an internet connection, a credit card to pay for it and an address to send it to."- David2022Wallace
diy colour GIFGiphyI Mean, They Weren't Going To Use Them...
'If you go to the plant section of a store and walk around, you will likely find a few clippings on the ground."
"You can pick those up and take them home with you and stick them in some dirt and illegally download a plant for free."- periyyas
Can Delete The File, Not The Info
"One time I received an email from my boss with an attachment that he clearly didn’t mean to send."
"It was an Excel file showing the compensation of everyone in my extended department."
"I gawked at it for a few minutes before he showed up at my desk."
"He made me delete it while he watched.'
"He couldn’t delete it from my brain though."- DWright_5
shift gmail GIF by Product HuntGiphyGood To Know, I Guess?
"If you use a natural gas then fire fighters will think it was a gas leak whereas if you use something like gasoline, it leaves identifiable burn marks."- Crash_Junior-
A Helpful Glitch
"Doesn't seem to work anymore, but there was a restaurant chain app that I realized that after I had used rewards points that gave me $6 off one of my orders."
"My usual order was about $12, so about half off."
"I then noticed next time if I selected re-order previous order it would still include that $6 off every time, even though I had nowhere near the rewards points to keep getting that amount off, it just copied all the specifics of the previous order."- turkeysandwich1982
Always Look For The Loophole
"In Australia, no electrical apprentice can work within 600mm of green domes ( where houses are connected to underground power) but you can work as close as you want if you don't have any electrical license."- thorpie88
When You're Dealing With Something Bigger Than The Law...
"Jury nullification is something every U.S. citizen should know about."
"Disseminating information about it could actually lead to charges being pressed in certain circumstances, so it kinda is illegal at times."- Mrgoodtrips64
When You Don't Feel Like Paying
"You can just create a new email and extend your trial limit."- HolyFire-
Giphy...Make Friends With A Gardener?...
'In Brazil, it's not illegal to consume and grow hallucinogens mushrooms though it's illegal to sell them."- MuriloJCD
It's always exciting to hold on to secrets or privileged information.
And all the trouble it has the potential to get you into might make it only more exciting.