to think people who grew up with money haven't a clue sometimes??

[Herroyal]

I work in a profession which is traditionally full of MC or monied people. I'm from a regional,WC, scholarship background - grew up on an estate. Cos of the regional accent my 'class' isn't recognisable to most English people.

Anyway. Chatting with a colleague who's just been ski-ing, and it came up that I've never been skiing. He was properly - what NEVER? what about as a kid? What about with school? You MUST have been. I jokingly said 'not many mountains where I'm from' and he said, but that's why you go to the Alps, silly.
So I told him not only did I not going ski-ing as a child I'd also never went abroad til I was an adult. His response? Did you family have a place in the UK then? Is that where you summered? He had an eccentric uncle who insisted only only going to the hse in Cornwall etc
He then told me it was practically child neglect that we weren't taking our kids skiing now. EVERYBODY skis.

And this was the week after I told one girl at work I needed to try to pop to Argos at lunchtime, wasn't sure if I could get there and back though in time for a meeting. Her suggestion was to open an account at the Harvey Nichols and pop there ( it's closer) that where's she gets all her household stuff. An account?
Yes, just like at Argos. Turns out that she thought Argos let you put things on 'account' and pay at the end of the month. She'd never used one, been in one. Had no idea what a catalogue shop was. It's another world...

'It’s normal for people here to use the word ‘summered’ and inquiring where you are spending the summer?'

i guess for him it is. But then he's a 40 year old with gout so...

Op I understand exactly what you mean about the blind assumption text ‘of course’ you would have done x,y and z with an eyebrow raised. Faux surprise that anything else is just ‘unthinkable’.
It’s partially genuine in some cases, some people move in very tight circles, and in other cases they are simply highlighting their superiority. The latter is obscenely grotesque to watch. I have seen this play out so many times. Like a cat and mouse game. The WC mouse is almost always entertainment and to be blindsided by obnoxious assumptions designed to humiliate.

Our US colleagues ask things like 'Where are you going for the weekend or 'Where do you go on weekends' because they work and live in the city during the week, but go to their house in the country side most weekends. Total normal for them. Senior colleagues obvs, not the interns. Though actually if you can afford to be an intern or an asst in NYC or London on what we pay, you're parents probably have a weekend place anyway.

I've never come across people exactly like the one you're describing but I did used to work at a Consultancy firm where they only recruited from Oxbridge and it was like a totally different world, especially around bonus time and they'd be showing off their new cars and watches (I spent mine on wardrobes ;) Mostly they were nice enough but a few of them were utter dicks. I remember we used to have to go to one of the partners houses in Wimbledon for the summer party and his house was insane.

Also I think its unimaginable for some privileged people to imagine what it's like living without any kind of financial security blanket from family.

As someone living in the USA housing in many areas is a lot cheaper and it is much more normal to have a weekend cottage. These are often v basic and multi-generational.
It isn't the same vibe as the UK in relation to that.

It’s really difficult to manage this behaviour, if you snap back about privilege it will come across defensive. If you go along with it, it feels like you are selling yourself out to some degree.
I stick with the truth now. ‘We are not into skiing but enjoy x, y and z’ for example and move the conversation politely on. I think your point is that the privilege is off the scale, and there is very little awareness. In my experience so is lots of insecurity - there is almost always inferiority complexes. Boarding school syndrome and an inability to mix with others outside immediate circles creates an insular mindset - that becomes rigid into middle age.

Hmmm, well I’ve worked in two Magic Circle law firms and a couple of big corporations - never met anybody like this at all. Also studied at both Oxford and Cambridge and again never met anyone like this!

To be fair Oxford and Cambridge are packed full of state school kids from deprived area, it stopped being a beckon of upper class privilege a long time ago.

*areas

Did you post something nearly exactly the same a few weeks ago? I remember near enough the same issue.

I do wonder why people on here seem to find it so hard to understand people can be different and have different life experiences and that doesn’t make one right, one wrong.

So everyone who doesn't believe the OP, are you calling the rest of us liars too?

Do people not realise how silly they sound saying 'this never happened to me so couldn't possibly have happened to anyone else'

Yes it’s weird. Like no other universe could be true apart from their small bubble.

I think it’s more that we’ve all spent time around wealthy privileged people and in elite institutions and workplaces and… they aren’t like this.

Genuinely, they aren’t anything like this. Oxbridge isn’t like this. Magic circle firms aren’t like this. Finance (IB included) isn’t like this. FAANG companies aren’t like this.

I think that publishing and fashion may be like this? Those seem to be money losing industries mostly staffed by barely educated socialites.

'To be fair Oxford and Cambridge are packed full of state school kids from deprived area, it stopped being a beckon of upper class privilege a long time ago.'

Ahahahhhahahaha. hhahahahahahaha.ha.
Yes, packed. Famously packed. 6.5% of privately educated children took 37% of Cambridge places, and 40% of Oxford places. That's a LOT of privilege in one place. And the other places are NOT being taken up by kids from deprived areas - overseas students and students from those 'excellent' state schools and grammars that wealthy people buy houses to be in the catchment for take up most of the others.
That's the reality. It'll take along time to change. The fact is my MC kids, at a decent state school, with parents who have the money to pay for tutors, activities, sports coaching, music lessons are far more likely to get into Oxbridge than the kid from the estate Secondary a few miles from us.

I worked at a magic circle law firm and then a very stuffy city law firm where most people were MC (or even UC)! And everyone went to oxbridge or ivy league

in my view the traditionally richer people didn’t really talk about their wealth openly - it was the more nouveau rich people who talked about it when they started earning more

but I’ve come across lots of people who don’t get buses or the tube but rather taxi it

By 6.5% I mean that the percentage of privately educated kids in the UK versus 93.5% state educated

It's a trending thing on tiktok at the minute. The skiing story. The original tiktok I mean. Since then people have stitched it and recounted their similar experiences. I'd assumed this thread was inspired because you'd seen those and remembered your skiing story.

I once met a woman who couldn't understand why women went back to work after having their children. Was so far removed from what she'd have been prepared to do when she had hers in the 50s etc. "Why have children if you're not prepared to look after them?!" "Well funnily enough, my kids quite like eating and living in a house, Jean, so it's a bit of a necessity" 🤣

Yes, I recognise what you described here. Some people are totally oblivious of the world around them. It is quite disturbing to think some end up in politics....

All anyone seemed to talk about from Xmas til now was bloody skiing, at our place. Not boasting, just when they were going, where they were going, any tips on resorts. Though the majority seem to have established places or grps they went with year in year out.
They're be more ski-ing chat re Easter, then it'll turn to summer hols chat. As most of the kids are private schooled there's a lot more holiday to get through.
My boss for eg hires somewhere for 8 weeks and decamps there with the family, flying back if necessary for meetings or conferences.

'It's a trending thing on tiktok at the minute.

I don't do Tiktok. I leave that to the kids in marketing. They're always pissing around with cameras and dances or whatever - wanted to film each of us coming into work (?) to see what time everyone arrives at the office. God knows why.
They're pretty much barred from the SLT floor!

I think the ony WTF middle class wanker moment I have had was a few years ago working at a well known charity. We had not long bought our flat in London when Mr Monkey's dad sadly fell ill and died.

I mentioned sorting things out in Mr Monkey's dad's house and how it was taking lot of my time to travel and do it in the time allowed. She started to say whilst we were probably keen to get the money to upsize from our "little flat" perhaps we should think about whether we needed to put Mr Monkey's dads place on the market quickly. She looked shocked when I tolder her quietly we needed to clear it quicky you only get a few weeks to clear out council flats and hand back the keys.

Not sure about your example OP but highly likely. Equally, for the very ordinary they will have no real idea just how very very rich some people are. Yes, they know people are, but the sheer scale of wealth some people have.

Couldn't agree more.
I earn the same as my colleagues and yes, we are very comfortably off. My children are privileged in comparison with most, and certainly compared to me at the same age, but our lifestyle is nothing like that of my colleagues from wealthy backgrounds. My parents didn't start investments for me when I was in nappies, buy my first house for me, pay my children's school fees etc, and I have colleagues who have had all this and more.
There's one guy who started the same job on the same day as me who at first I couldn't understand - how did he afford his extravagant lifestyle on the same salary as me ? He in fact was living way outside his means but he told me he wasn't worried as he was going to inherit millions when his father died and could then pay everything off. Which is exactly what happened some years later. I know that wil never happen to me and that I need to be completely self sufficient. Nobody is coming to bail me out if my circumstances change hence I ensure we live within our means and have tried to create a cushion, just in case.
I'm not hard done by. I have a very good life and am grateful, but I am nowhere near as wealthy as many of my colleagues despite having the same earned income.

Following

Began to wonder if I’d picked the wrong industry 20 years ago when I sat in front of my Harrow educated double-barrelled named boss who’s family owned a well-known shopping chain explaining why I deserved a pay rise ( working all hours for peanuts to break into the industry)and how I literally couldn’t live off the current pay.

He looked me dead in the eye and told me money wasn’t everything, and that I really needed to think about my ‘values’ in life if Inthought I could blackmail him with a ‘sob story.’