My God, who are these people? Have I seen them in public and just not noticed?
A curious click on a listing for a nanny job brought be to the insane world of EstateJobs.com. This is what I learned about the uber-rich.
"The Tudors" Meets the Modern World
If you've ever seen a TV show or movie about the nobility or royalty, you saw the incredibly large houses in which they lived, and the dozens, sometimes hundreds, of people who worked for them as servants. Shows like "Downton Abbey" and "The Tudors" are good examples of this, though there are plenty of others.
If you think that world is just for old European titled families, you'd be wrong.
When I clicked on that nanny link, spurred on by its description of free travel around the world with the family and health insurance to boot, I had no idea there were people like these in the United States. And, after reading some of the other job listings on EstateJobs.com, I'm left wondering just who they are and how they got their vast fortunes.
I'm also thinking these extreme one-percenters can't possibly be giving back to society as much as they should if they're paying for these ridiculously elaborate lifestyles.
Inside the Secret World of the Insanely Rich
Okay, so I get onto the EstateJobs website, and it's this entire site devoted to connecting people who want to be servants with people who want to hire servants. You can't see exactly WHO is posting a job listing unless you (the would-be servant) sign up with the site. Since I didn't actually WANT to apply for a job as a domestic, I didn't create an account. But, from what I saw of the site, it's free to register there.
The people who create job listings on this site are looking for all kinds of domestic workers, such as:
- Nannies
- Private tutors for their kids
- Housekeepers
- Chauffeurs
- Butlers
- Private chefs
- Executive housekeepers
- Groundskeepers
- Maintenance personnel
- House managers
- And more
What Does Today's Modern "Super Rich" Person Want in a Household Staff Member?
Some of the listings came right out and said how many other people were working for a particular employer. For example, in the nanny job I looked at, the job poster said they employed a household staff of 38 people.
Thirty-eight people! Can you imagine that? Why on earth would someone who does not live in a castle need that many people working for them at their house?
Most of the jobs I looked at while browsing the site paid between $20 an hour and $60,000 a year. Most also came with benefits, like health insurance, paid time off, and even retirement accounts. Other jobs were live-in, while some were not. It seemed like most of the job posters employed both live-in and live-out staff at their homes.
Imagine the kind of money you'd need to employ that many people, at those wages, with those benefits.
And those are just the people who work at your house. What about the people who work for your company (assuming you have one)?
I kept coming upon the words "the principal." It took me a while to figure out what this meant, but one job posting put it into context for me...."candidate must be willing to work closely with the principle to coordinate her schedule with the rest of the staff and the family."
The principle is apparently the wife or husband of the home....whoever is in charge of the actual family.
Many of the jobs required travel at a moment's notice, either to one of the family's other homes, or to vacation areas around the world. The family with the nanny job had homes in Boca Raton, Aspen, NYC, and London.
Other jobs specified the need to help other household staff do their jobs if needed, even if it had nothing to do with the job for which one was hired. A private chef job I saw had this requirement. It also required the chef to do all the household shopping, make three meals a day, only use whole, fresh, organic, unprocessed foods, and to be able to throw a dinner party for a hundred or more guests on the spur of the moment.
Just about every job I saw also required the applicant to be able to move swiftly through a large home.
EVERY job posting I read required anyone who was hired to show the utmost discretion regarding not only the schedule and activities of the family doing the hiring, but to also not talk about the family at all to anyone outside of the home.
Honestly, I was kind of creeped out by it all. I kept wondering, "Who ARE these people?"
For Real...Who ARE These People?
I assumed most of them must be celebrities or diplomats, possibly politicians, high level CEO's of multi-national companies, or even just people who came from "old money" and still had it. But, who knows? There could be some seriously dangerous crime families in there, too (Mafia, drug lords, those Nigerian princes who keep emailing us, etc).
All I know is I wouldn't want to work for them.
If you get a chance, read some of those job listings. The employers are extremely demanding, even for the most menial work, and seem like they would be pain-in-the-ass bosses. There's also a very noticeable and distinct note of "we're better than you" in nearly all of those postings.
Would you want to work for someone who thinks they're better than you, just because they have small cottages stuffed to the ceilings with cash?
I know I wouldn't.
Can Someone Really Be a Good Global Citizen With This Lifestyle?
I don't get the mindset that would prompt someone to create a personal household that needed to be run like a business. I've been to actual businesses with less people working there than some of these ultra-rich people employ. To me, it's weird.
How can you really enjoy your family life when the servants outnumber the family? When the house is big enough to comfortably shelter four or five families of equal size to yours? When you have to schedule visiting with your spouse and/or children with a personal assistant who manages the other household staff members?
Can you really say you're doing anything for the world but consuming when you live like this? Are you giving anything back to the global community? If you are, is it enough to let you sleep well at night, knowing you're going out of your way to make sure your excess wealth makes a difference in the world, or do you just give a few small donations here and there and then brag about all the money you give to charity?
I just can't help but think anyone who lives this kind of lavish lifestyle isn't being a good global citizen.
That's another reason I wouldn't want to work for any of these people....unless I really and truly knew they were givers and genuinely doing their best to make a difference, I couldn't respect them.
Money doesn't equal respect, at least not for me.
It's Okay to Have a Lot of Money. It's What You Do With it That Counts
Don't get me wrong. I'm not against people being wealthy. Not at all. I aim to join their ranks one day, myself (though, I've certainly never had ambitions of employing a cast of thousands....a nanny, a housekeeper, and maybe someone who would help me shop and cook would be all I'd ever consider hiring if I had the cash).
Being rich is okay. A lot of rich people even create jobs for other people, such as what these people are doing with their vast domestic staffs, I suppose. It's how you treat other people, both in person and by giving to good causes as generously as you can, that makes the difference between a decent rich person and a douchebag, in my opinion.
Yes, those who have a ton of money should enjoy it. Taking trips, buying themselves nice things, having nice houses and cars....all of that is okay. They have the money, they've presumably worked for it, they deserve it (I have a whole other opinion of rich kids who are born into money and then inherit it all later without ever knowing what the real world is like, and it is not all that favorable in most instances). When I have excess cash one day, I'll enjoy it, too. It's part of the joy of having it.
However, there's another, equally important part that I think a lot of outrageously wealthy people tend to forget.
Enjoy Your Money if You're Rich, but Don't Forget You're Part of the Human Family, Too
Part of the reason I'd like to be among the ranks of the wealthy (or at least moderately well-off enough that I don't have t be concerned about money) is because I'd like to give generously to the causes I support now, and add new causes to that list. I want to use the money to make a difference to my family, my friends, my local community, and the world. I couldn't just spend it all on myself and feel good about it.
Unfortunately, some people can do just that. They don't feel like they need to give back at all, and they have no empathy for those who are in need, even their own family members who may not be as rich as them. I've seen it with even moderately wealthy people I know.
For every Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, who are well-known for their charitable work and donations to worthy causes, there are a dozen equally rich people who don't think of others at all. Instead, they spend their money on increasingly lavish lifestyles that use up the earth's valuable resources and give nothing back to those who are less fortunate.
I'm sorry, but when you have a solid gold swimming pool that you fill up with champagne (or some similarly silly thing), you're just showing off. At that point, yes, you CAN be obnoxiously rich. In fact, if that's what you're doing with your money, when there are people starving in the world, and you're not giving anything (or anything of significance) back to your fellow humans, you should be ashamed of yourself.
If there's an uber-wealthy person reading this who gives generously to charity and doesn't have a lifestyle that can ONLY be for showing off and bragging, then I'd like to shake your hand. You're one of the good ones. We need more people like you in the world.
Conclusion--Would YOU Work for an Absurdly Wealthy Person? Could You Feel Good About it if You Did?
Maybe when I was in my early 20's, a job like that would have excited me. Being good with kids, I'd go for a nanny position. I could get free room and board, likely free meals from the household personal chef, and free travel. I'd get to see all these fancy houses, and kind of vicariously experience what it is like to live the lifestyle of the uber-rich. It might be a good job for someone just out of college.
But, I grew up doing charity work. Even in junior high, I was participating in community clean-up days, where volunteers got together in teams to clean litter off of our streets. In high school, I volunteered with kids at the local recreation center.
In college, I volunteered for Meals on Wheels. I've also volunteered for the Humane Society, an elderly "day care" center, an environmental protection group, and more as an adult. Plus, I give some of my hard-earned cash to charitable causes that mean a lot to me.
I'm not rich....yet....but I still know the importance of giving to others if we are going to create a world that is a good place for everyone. I don't think all, or even most, of these people posting for household staff on EstateJobs.com understand this. If they did, their job ads, and their descriptions of their lifestyles, would read a lot differently.
I believe with great wealth comes a great responsibility to others (to borrow and amend a phrase from "Spiderman").
I couldn't work for someone who was obnoxiously rich, who didn't care about others, who wasn't giving back to the rest of the world, and who was plainly selfish. I'd feel like I was enabling them, and was part of the problem.
Could you do it?
