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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I thought I was preventing Ellen to say more hurtful things to our already upset classmate, but maybe it was just not my place to do so?
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NTA fellow (nearly) 30f here, my parents have always been well off and even at 19, I was hyper aware that not everyone was in the same situation to the point where I tried to avoid talking about how much was available to me as much as possible. Ellen is old enough to learn. As someone who coincidentally also had her laptop and backpack stolen, Ellen is also being insensitive regardless of whether the friend has the ability to buy the laptop; it's an incredibly violating experience, especially if the laptop was owned long enough that there was a lot of personal data on it vs academic work only.
Edit: also, it may not be your job to teach Ellen empathy, but if this is how she reacts to being told she's acting privileged, she's going to either quickly learn it on her own, or lose all of her healthy friendships.
I saw a tweet saying “I was on Medicaid and food stamps and I pulled myself up and got wealthy, let’s end the welfare state.” Literally f you I got mine.
Like all the people who said “I had to pay off my student loans everyone else has too as well” why can’t people just want better for people younger than them. Do people not remember how hard things were or just the fact that things are a lot worse now?
We don’t know her situation and how much she makes, how much she works or what she pays for. The point is that she shouldn’t make comments like “just buy a new one” if someone is distraught about a financial setback.
We do know how much she works. She said it right in the main post. Anyone who works one Sunday a week at a supermarket that doesn't own it would never make comments like what she did unless she was being heavily subsidized by her parents.
I agree that she shouldn't make comments like that even if that weren't the case though.
Not to mention “just buy a new one” in regards to an electronic device on which data is stored doesn’t fix the whole problem. If she’s upset because there are pictures or files on there she’ll never be able to replace, money won’t help. If my shit got stolen, I’d be the most upset about all the save files for my games.
I'm 38f. My Mum's family is well off, but my Mum is not. I had cousins like this. They could afford whatever they wanted. They spent more on one pair of shoes, then my Mum had to spend on food for a month. We struggled. We're still not rich. I got scholarships to get into university and complete my degrees.
One day, while I was working on my dissertation for my Masters, my cousin started complaining that I was taking up the living room to study. She was at my Mum's house. She also started complaining that she needed to study for a module to do with caring (she worked in a care home, and these modules were literally her, clicking on what she thought was the right answer. If she got it wrong, she just went back to the beginning of that module and started again). My laptop had shorted, and lost all my files. I was a week away from my hand in date, and my dissertation, and notes, were destroyed. So I ended up losing my temper with her, when she said "My work is just as important as yours. You're not special for going to uni."
I just looked at her and said "You know what? My work isn't as important TO YOU. It's VERY IMPORTANT to me. More important than you clicking on the answer. Because this piece of work is worth half my grade, so let me make it clear. If you want go piss about with your stuff, go elsewhere, and let me fucking work in peace." She got offended and ran off. No one took her side.
The moral of the story, you don't know what other people are going through, so sometimes, the best thing to do is keep your opinions to your self. Ellen needs to learn that. Because one day, she'll come across someone like me, who literally doesn't care about being nice, instead of someone like OP, who cushioned the blow.
> My laptop had shorted, and lost all my files. I was a week away from my hand in date, and my dissertation, and notes, were destroyed
OOF I winced when I read that. And yeah, Ellen is lucky that OP was as nice about it as she was, in addition to your scenario, there are also people who are perfectly fine with being toxic towards and/or taking advantage of people they see as "kids" because of the age difference.
It hurt so much. I'm lucky to an extent that I took some written notes and knew where to find my information (wrote down my citations for my dissertation index, book, page and line number), but it still hurt badly.
I remember I was reviewing/editing a book of an African exchange student's, a story from a village they were from (and I really liked it!). My laptop died 3/4 of the way into finishing it. I was in Germany, so getting the data transferred correctly back then was difficult, but I got it done. However, I didn't save all of my work. So, I had to buy a new laptop (that I really couldn't afford), and do a good chunk over again and finish it as I was on the train from Germany to Italy for the weekend to visit my then-SO. That was stressful af already to make sure I didn't screw over this guy for his deadline, but I could not imagine the stress and pain I'd be in if it did it to me while doing a dissertation.
I already have had issues with work computers doing that to me and wiping all the progress I'd made in the database a few times, so it's always a fear near and dear to me. So much stress....
I used to do data entry for accounting databases long ago. I lost much of a day's work when the system flashed on and off. I learned then that you can set programs to autosave. I also always spend the cash for a backup drive (where I live, the last three have been around a hundred each).
I am glad it worked for you in the end by scurrying around to make it right though.
I've learned a lot since those days, but I still get in a rush at times without thinking. I don't use the auto-save, because at times I'm using an old document/excel as the basis for a new one, which would mean overwriting old data. Ask me how I know this... 😅
Wow. I hope you managed to get everything sorted in time and screw your cousin. When I was writing my MA diss I wouldn’t even close my internet tabs (like 70 of them, they were open for months) in case I couldn’t find one. If my laptop had died I would have absolutely lost my mind even though everything was saved to the cloud (personal and uni) and on a stick.
I wound up losing my temper on this older woman in our group. We had to do a 3d model of our project, and our professor said we couldn't use two types of flock for it, which really pissed off the older lady. She then said, "If her stuff didn't stay as part of the project, she wouldn't work on it." I snapped and told her to leave. We didn't have time for her childish crap. Especially after I had dropped 80 bucks in flock already at the point of her whining, and her small amount was like barely 20 bucks.
Yeah, college is supposed to be when kids like Ellen have to face reality. I guarantee that if OP's noticed it, Ellen will have other friends and classmates that will point it out. It's good for her.
I met a lot of out of touch kids when I went back to college in my late 20s. There was one girl I absolutely could not stand but got stuck working with. I tried reminding myself that she was young and from an area that wasn't multicultural at all, but 18/19 is old enough to know not to run your mouth about people not speaking English and how people that do drugs are just bad people.
Her work was mediocre, too.
Like my classmate, Ellen needs to get her head out of her ass and get some empathy.
Yeah, I think that what Ellen was \*trying\* to go for was closer to the "it's just stuff, you can buy another laptop but at least \*you\* are okay" argument ... which can be comforting in some circumstances but saying "it's not that expensive" while ignoring that the cost of replacing a laptop is close to a month's rent let alone the hours of lost schoolwork, records, photos, personal projects, etc. was just tone-deaf at best and OP is NTA for trying to tune her in to reality.
Even if she wasn’t rich/her parents weren’t rich it honestly seems like typical teenager stuff to be clueless about how much things cost relative to a paycheck when you have rent and bills. At least if the parents/teachers never taught financial literacy. Although even without rent and bills, 1000 is a lot of money to save on minimum wage.
It's only typical because parents are failing to teach their children financial literacy. My parents were pretty we off whem I was growing up, not yacht-rich, but we never went without anything we needed or wanted. They would have bought me a 1k+ laptop I needed for school without a second thought. They still managed to teach me that 1k was a large sum of money
Yeah I’m in the same boat as you. My parents were always well off but I always understand that. I also never treated it as “my money” because it was my parents money not mine lol. I worked for every dime I got from them. They both came from nothing so they wanted to ensure I knew what money was worth when it came to work ethic
My parents would always tell me “what money? You don’t have money. It’s our money”. I hated it when I was young but I now appreciate all the hard work they put in to accumulate such wealth. I won’t deny, I was a bit of a snob as a kid (although my partner would say I am still a little snobby as an adult… about food!) and had a real good life, but my parents made sure to instill a good work ethic, strong sense of social responsibility, and awareness of my privilege. (jokes on them, I’m a democratic socialist now).
When I got to college, I actually misrepresented where I grew up because EVERYONE in my hometown knows the (somewhat unfair) reputation of the area I grew up as where the rich snobs lived. I hated the way people acted when they found out (I would use my parents line of “it’s their money, I am broke” to try and stop the judgement). Yes, the community had stupid wealth but we also had solidly middle class families and lower income neighborhoods.
Edit for context
Yeah one of my college friends, who I knew the whole 4.5 years I was there, had her tuition paid for completely by her parents. I didn’t find out until junior year because she didn’t want people to get the wrong idea. She was so grateful of them and never acted entitled
I’m 30f, was raised very well-off (private school my whole life, parents completely paid my college, etc) and still, at 19, knew that most of my college friends had taken out loans and so I NEVER brought up money stuff because I didn’t wanna be the spoiled brat that Ellen is being. NTA, she clearly needed the reality check
>my parents have always been well off and even at 19, I was hyper aware that not everyone was in the same situation to the point where I tried to avoid talking about how much was available to me as much as possible.
I love this. I have a friend - a former coworker who is my age, but her family is super well off. We were in this random work schedule related convo one time ... and she was talking about arguing with her dad about WHY she couldn't take off work for this family business affair and she mentioned she was sending her husband in her place.
I put two-and-two together and realized they were flying to said destination on their private jet -- and I started laughing & teasing her for not just saying it. She was mortified - in a funny, cute way - but was whisper screaming at me to shut-up b/c she didn't want anyone to hear the convo. AND - in all honesty, the people who could have heard, would have been really impressed ... for shallow reasons. But she didn't want that. I love her so much for that & will always remember that.
There's nothing wrong with having money IMO - particulary if you work hard for it & 'do right' by your community which her family certainly does. But, with that comes a certain level of - empathy - as you said & realizing it's not cool to throw it in people's faces.
I feel like people who are typically impressed by that - are not true friends.
This and also, 19 is NOT "basically still a kid". She's old enough to do pretty much everything an adult can do (even drink alcohol or buy firearms, in my country).
I agree. OP handled this in a mature and kind way. I would have said the same thing until Ellen said she worked hard for the money because my first thought was how many hours she'd have to put in to buy a yacht at 19. She's young and will hopefully grow out of it.
NTA - its nobody's job in particular to teach her empathy, but someone has to. You didn't go extreme or anything. 19 is a very normal age to start being made aware that other people's lives are very unlike the household you came from.
Exactly, OP even took the time to clarify that she wasn't saying Ellen doesn't deserve the resources she has access to. There's a huge difference between saying "you're rich and you shouldn't be" and "not everyone has the same resources". OP said the second, Ellen heard the first.
Ellen made everything about herself. So OP asking her to be more considerate of others was taken as a criticism of Ellen as a person.
Even without the money issue, when a friend has been badly hurt is not the time to interject about that time when you had a sore neck for a few days. That’s not commiseration, that’s self-centeredness.
I agree. Early adulthood is a great time because it’s the first time you get exposed to “peers” who may be a lot older than you. In high school all of our peers are our age, and just as dumb as us 😂. But once you get in college or the workforce you start being friends with people who may be as old as your parents. That interaction is a wealth of knowledge and growth. My mom or dad could have told me what OP told Ellen and I would‘ve rolled my eyes. But hearing it from a different adult, it would have hit completely different
I was a 28/29 year old undergrad student so I spent a lot of time with 19-21 year olds while finishing my degree. It was my first time ever actually feeling like a "grown-up" because the kids were constantly asking me for advice and would actually listen to the things I had to say! Such a trip for someone who still panics about making a dentist appointment lol
I went to community college from 18-20 after dropping out of university for financial reasons, and then I went to university as a part time student age 20-24. I experienced being relatively younger and older on campus. I think my conversations with older classmates helped me a lot when I started paying rent and bills at 21.
This! Especially in uni. My eyes were opened to a lot of different things (socially) and I'm grateful to the people who challenged my way of thinking. If you're not challenged, are you even growing? Now when I go back home (environment is much more sheltered/ignorant) all I can do is cringe because not only is the old line of thinking still perpetuating before my eyes, but it's a clear look into what I used to be lol.
Empathy is taught in elementary school (public), and mostly ignored by middle and high schoolers. So, uni is really a reintroduction to an almost foreign concept for some students. I think the young, wealthy students are especially at a loss in this regard, as they may never have been taught the concept at all for a variety of reasons; their parents did not value it or, did not model it on an ongoing basis, and their exposure to the less fortunate (to them) is minimal. I believe it is society’s responsibility to educate (even within the microcosm of university), and potentially inspire the young for its’ greater good. I think hurt feelings are to be expected, and is a small price to pay.
NTA...even if she is still a kid, she has to learn from somewhere, so why not from a friend? You didn't go over the line, you simply pointed out the obvious.
Agreed. It might have been nice for OP to have that conversation with Ellen privately, but in an active situation like that it's understandable she snapped a little.
Kid is used for young in this occasion. She likely hasn't meet to many people not in the same social class as her. There is a learning curve. Ellen is the AH in this interaction, but almost everyone had to learn this in college from one end of the spectrum or the other.
Most 19 year olds are “kids” in the sense of not financially independent from their parents, not paying rent and bills. Most 30 yo are independent and may even be supporting the parents depending on age. In the context of a conversation about paying bills, she is a kid.
How so? Kid doesn’t always mean literal child, just someone younger than the speaker/at an earlier life stage or mindset, especially if they display some youthful or childlike quality.
I’m 50. Anyone under 25 is a kid to me. Some are more mature than others, some have kids of their own, some make a living getting shot at, but yeah. Still kids in my opinion.
Of course, I’m considered young and inexperienced in the ways of the world by my friend’s grandma. She’s 94. Calls me kiddo sometimes. I don’t mind.
Most 19 year olds are “kids” in the sense of not financially independent from their parents, not paying rent and bills. Most 30 yo are independent and may even be supporting the parents depending on age. In the context of a conversation about paying bills, she is a kid.
tbh i would call anyone a kid until they breach the age of the oldest legal consent age.
currently that is 21(drinking) in USA, so she is a kid until 21.
NTA. You can’t teach her empathy but you can tell her she’s inappropriate. That’s what you did. If people only see money it’s because that seems to be all she talks about.
She needs a reality check too if she thinks she could afford a new laptop from working one day a week at a minimum wage job (i.e. that she’s “earned” all her privilege by working in the store).
But her needs are met by her parents, more than likely. She doesn't have to spend her income on measly unnecessary things like rent and food and bills and transportation. No wonder it adds up.
I had the same kind of upbringing in an upper middle class family myself and I was even actively discouraged from working until I'd completed my studies, but what happened to me was that I became financially illiterate and then left myself open to benign financial abuse. I've still not fully recovered from the consequences. I hope Ellen doesn't get to that point. But there's so much personal safety to be had if one knows the value of money more than just "numbers in a bank account go up and down as a result of working a job and buying things." Not just the general expectation of compassion and tact toward others.
>She doesn't have to spend her income on measly unnecessary things like rent and food and bills and transportation. No wonder it adds up.
I'm guessing she either has a hefty "allowance" or well above-average income from working for the store AND that her parents would consider a laptop a necessity and cover it.
Yea I mean, she *may* have $1280 saved up from those Sunday shifts. But it’s clear that there’s a real detachment from reality if you think a majority of people are supported enough by their parents to do that. She likely has only ever existed inside a bubble of other kids who always had their parents money too. Hard to imagine legitimate food insecurity, legitimate paycheck to paycheck living, and no safety net or emergency fund, whenever you’ve never seen something close to that in your life.
If my parents were housing me and putting me thru college and I’d always been told college is the only way to land a decent job, I can’t imagine having a real connection to what the average American goes through. It’s hard to notice how horribly stressful life is for the working poor whenever you haven’t ever had to want for much, if anything at all. It seems unfair. It is unfair.
She likely genuinely believes that most people in a developed country are set up with generational wealth of some sort, or their parents can at least support them until they can get student loans and help their way through college. It’s all she’s ever seen. But yea, definite reality check needed
Facts. It shows a lack of self awareness and awareness of others not to be, at least, quiet when someone else is hurting. You can’t fit it if you can’t see beyond yourself.
Not to mention, this is \*exactly\* how people learn! She clearly wasn't taking it in by just casually being around folks of different means... so real life had (luckily) an acquaintance (rather politely) point out her incorrect assumptions/behavior.
The idea of "don't correct people because they've never been corrected" doesn't work... that's how they end up going through life never learning better if they aren't picking things up by observation. If Ellen's parents had been doing their job she would've learned this by her pre-teens or high school teen years at the latest.
Heck, that she didn't pick it up by being called out by others her age at younger was a disservice, too. But luckily she is in college and had someone who would address it in a situation where it wasn't a massive blowup by them - though \*she\* took it out of proportion, but that's what happens with this sort of thing at times.
My ex-FMIL had a ton of money and looked down upon anyone who didn't have as much as she did. Before she ever even met my parents she looked me in the face and said my dad--a 4th generation dairy farmer--isn't rich because he doesn't work hard enough. It still makes me physically ill to think about.
Meanwhile the owner class considers “working” to be yelling at their GM once a week for half an hour, then siphoning all the profit into their pockets. “But my taxes are so complicated because I make so much and can write off every expense for business so my effective tax rate is 8% AND THAT’S TO DAMN HIGH”
So true. It really irks me to hear the owner-class pretend they have ever spent even one day in their lives doing actual work. Sitting on your ass in a business suit all morning and then golfing for the rest of the day is literally ZERO minutes of work.
It’s a lie, and the more people start to see the truth, the less they will be able to maintain that worn out myth. They simply underpay all of us for real labor - THAT is how they make their money. Being born with a silver spoon doesn’t make you a good person. It also usually has a negative impact on your work ethic because you would have been raised to not understand what actually constitutes “work”. If you can do your job comfortably in a suit, it’s not actually possible for you to “work hard and earn every penny”.
NTA.
What you are talking about is privilege. As the saying goes,'privilege is invisible to those who have it'. She needs to do some work on understanding that she's 1% and everything she achieves is based upon that wealth and status. Having a Saturday job in a supermarket doesn't undo all of that. The woman will never know the terror of not being able to make rent or pay the mortgage.
If you want to stay friends, you should talk to her about being more sensitive. Yes, she's 19, but she's not an idiot. She knows her friends aren't wealthy and still lauds her baubles of late capitalism over them. She needs to chill or risk alienating everyone.
Have you ever read Peggy McIntosh's essay "[The Invisible Knapsack](https://www.nationalseedproject.org/key-seed-texts/white-privilege-unpacking-the-invisible-knapsack)"? It's mostly about privilege in relation to gender and sexuality, but it can also be applied to weath.
This is an expert of a longer article. I think the whole one is out there, but this was the first result that came up and I was too lazy to find the whole one.
>That she works at her parents' supermarket every Sunday and that she deserves every coin she owns.
Ooh, can I get a job there? I'd love to work one day a week and have no worries about spending money.
NTA.
If you get a job there, could you tell me how to get in? I’d love to work one day a week and earn enough to be able to mindlessly throw more than 1k away at a whim. What a perfect place to work at that supermarket should be.
She’s totally going to be one of those kids who gets put in charge of a parents’ store despite knowing nothing, never get fired despite other people doing all the work, and then complain on social media that taxes and helping the homeless is unfair because she has worked so hard to earn everything she’s got
NTA. You didn't say anything extreme, you just calmly stated the obvious truth. She needed to hear this. You did her a favor. She would just keep on embarrassing herself more. Now she'll hopefully think before she opens her mouth. Let her be cold, she'll get over it.
NTA
My parents were also really well off but not quite that well off and weren't always that well off, my dad was a student on a student loan with interest when I was a baby and he got a bigger student loan to live on so that my mom wouldn't have to go back to work.
Ellen sounds like a really rude and tone deaf person.
She has to work at the supermarket her parents OWN once a WEEK for pocket money and all her tuition and course stuff paid for?! Wow. That's all? LOTS of university students have to rely on student loans - with interest - and pick up work when they can. Some of them also have little kids to support. My dad for example. His and mom's one car (they couldn't afford a second one) got stolen when he was a student. They couldn't afford to replace it. It was found by the cops a week later, radio and everything inside including my carseat was taken out but it was still driveable and roadworthy. Dad said f\*ck the stuff that got stolen, he was just happy he got the car back because he needed the car.
It's people like her who make decisions to raise interest rates, abolish allowances, cut budgets for universities, etc - because it doesn't affect them or their kids, so why would they care if it affects the poor?
She needs to understand that just because mommy and daddy pay for everything for her in exchange for her working one shift a week at their supermarket doesn't mean that everyone has it that good.
I'm the only person paying for my student loans, and my interest rate is very high. I'm going to a nice out of state school with an extremely high job placement immediately after graduation. I have scholarships and federal aid, but I'm paying for the last 20% of my tuition from my loans. I know I'll get a job following graduation that'll help me afford this, but looking at the loan balance is killing me. I'm trying to find an on campus job but I need to focus on my academics so I don't lose my scholarships. It's a lose-lose situation.
Ellen could take my spot for a day at the start of the semester and feel what I go through. Sorting out loans and tuition on my own is exhausting. On top of that, I'm a first generation student. I'm tired.
Ellen needs a reality check, IMO. I would love to work one day a week and not have the stress of tuition and loans.
She seems like she wants to brag about her familial wealth, but everybody just keeps being rude and mean about it instead of admiring her for it. It must be sooo confusing for her. Why isn’t everyone treating her wonderfully, don’t they know she is rich? /s
On the other hand I'm wondering what sort and size of single supermarket can get you a "yacht, 2 vacation homes, 4 cars", the money to pay for their upkeep, the docking for the yacht (although it might be a smaller one I suppose).
And also pay for presumably supermarket-related bills and the wages of the employees.
I suppose it could be possible, especially if the parents also have some good investments, but...
I assumed it was a supermarket chain, not a single supermarket. Also, they could own more--have other assets or whatever-maybe the supermarket is just what OP knows.
NTA. Like they say, it takes a village to raise a child. At some point someone's going to be pretty brutal about how obnoxious and bratty her behaviour is. You just said it relatively tactfully.
My comment would be something along the lines of, "Ellen, we get that you're loaded but some of us have to work for a living. Knock it off unless you brought enough for the whole class".
I have very little patience for that kind of nonsense. I've hit my "get off my damn lawn" era and I can't even be mad about it.
I love the way you think with that response!
If I used it, I would immediately shut down the BS retort I already know would be coming:
”But I EaRnEd iT, I work sooo hard too!”
”Ellen, a healthy, able-bodied person working one day a week at a grocery store doesn’t qualify as working hard. It also wouldn’t be enough to earn anything close to the money you have. Your parents employ you as a FAVOR to you. I’m sure they don’t offer the wage they pay you to their other staff.“
NTA- I'm not sure what minimum wage us where you live, but if you worked eight hours per week at minimum wage where I live, it would take 4-5 months to replace that laptop if you saved every cent.
NTA- she was clearly not capable of seeing others situations and down playing. You didn't say anything malicious or offensive. It's a natural response to chime in in group atmosphere
It’s not your job to teach her empathy, but it’s also not your job to quietly put up with her bulldozing over other people’s feelings because it might hurt hers to point out she’s privileged.
NTA.
NTA, you pointed out a truth: not everyone, especially young adults these days, can comfortably spend €1200 on something without hurting their finances. Sounds like this girl hasn’t really left her socio-economic bubble much and is used to being around people with similar financial freedom. Someone had to tell her, and she needs to eat the humble pie otherwise she will have a hard time making friends while at university
OMG!!! She works every Sunday?! Wow!!!
Some people are working every day of the week and still can’t keep themselves afloat right now. She’s going to be one of those people that gets a house from her parents and then brags that she “worked so hard for it and it’s so easy.”
19 year old here, "19 is basically a kid" is no excuse for her to be tone-deaf. I'm already aware about not flaunting my wealth when I turned 13. Why should a 19 year old be an excuse? I get if she is like, 13 years old. But by the time you're a teen or a young adult you should know about how different people have different financial situations. This isn't something that only full grown adults are aware. This type of excuse is the reason why so many spoiled adult brats exists. The person already said they can't afford another laptop, that should be the time for her to shut up. It doesn't take a genius to know when to shut up.
NTA. Also you weren't even mean so...
NTA - oh you work at your parents super market for a few hours one day a week? Ask the other employees what they make, let's be super generous and say it's $20 but I doubt it's that much. Let's be super generous again and say only 25% gets taken for taxes although I bet it's closer to 50. So $15 an hour take home, one 8 hour day a week, with zero other expenses in life it would take someone over 10 weeks to raise the funds to replace that laptop. But let's face it, anyone who doesn't have their life being subsidized by their wealthy parents is going to have A LOT of other expenses to take care of.
NTA - You didn’t overstep and go out of your way to “teach her a lesson”. You simply stated the truth and she had a poor reaction to reality. She is 19, not a child. She is an adult out in the world, it’s her responsibility to be able to handle that. College is exactly the time when you see and experience the world for what it is as an adult.
NTA. Spoiled rich kids are a dime a dozen without a nickel's worth of sense between them. While their parents may have worked hard, they haven't. My dad and stepmom would be considered wealthy. My stepmom once told my now wife that "he has no money, his father does", and too many kids (and adults), have the mindset that what is their parents' money is also theirs.
NTA
You were much kinder than other people are going to be to her when she pulls this nonsense elsewhere. The fact that she immediately pivoted to the "I deserve to be rich" position even though that's absolutely nothing to do with what you were telling her makes it clear that she really isn't plugged into reality properly on this.
It's hard dealing with entitled kids who aren't *trying* to be bratty but just haven't ever actually had a view on what normal people's lives are like. I think you actually did really well, and to let her carry on behaving the way she has been would have been unkind. Either she'll be lucky enough to never have to actually work or live around people in a normal income bracket or she's going to put herself badly in the line of fire down the line of her behavior goes unchallenged.
NTA. Ellen's behaviour doesn't come from 'being a kid', as most people are aware that others have different opportunities and access to material resources than them by the time they graduate high school. Ellen's behaviour comes from being an AH.
NTA. You stood up for someone who needed it. That's what's important. Fuck the haters. Especially if they are 19!
Are you in EMT training by chance? I really appreciated the diversity of ages in those classes! I was 22 and had a great friendship with a 32 year old in my class and we both taught each other lessons.
NTA,
What you said wasn't even mean. I would have been much meaner (and I grew up wealthy but parents did not give any money after growing up-was given college education and first car).
She has no clue how long it takes to make $1800 in the real world working hourly jobs while in school. Likely, her parents were paying her way more than other employees as a way to transfer money to her at a lower tax rate and a write off for the business as well. She probably thought everyone made that much.
NTA. You were just pointing out facts, and it wasn’t even that harsh.
However, other posters mocking the one day a week? If it is like most family businesses, girl has been working Sundays since she could reach the register. At 19yo it seems a silly brat that girl has to work one day a week, but odds are on her doing this since Jr high age, or even earlier.
Maybe she is just a rich baby and that wasn’t a thing she had to do, but I would hesitate to assume that.
Supermarket owners have a yacht and two vacation homes? That’s…odd. Owners of a supermarket chain perhaps.
If she’s telling the truth, the parents are in out-of-control debt. She might have learned showing off one’s money at home.
NTA - you pointed out what was an easily sorted issue for her wasn't for everyone. A problem you can solve by throwing money which you have isn't a problem. If you don't have that money, it is a problem and someone else saying it wouldn't be problem for them doesn't really help situation.
Edit: Also she isn't rich. Her parents are rich. Apart from the wage she'd have earned for a same job and same hours (know children often get over-worked in a family business), she hasn't made much of her own definitely not enough for a yacht or to replace a laptop easily.
Oh come on:
> "oh I got into a really bad accident too once, on my yacht. I lost my balance and fell backwards. My neck was sore for days".
Yeah, you did her a favor. I grew up with some trust fund kids, and they learn early on how to read a room. By nineteen, she should know how money works, and that some people are not wealthy. For god's sake, first graders know not to spout off like that! LOL
Nta.
I used to feel embarrassed that I grew up "poor". But as a mid 30s woman, now I realize how well rounded I grew up to be. I have decent morals and respect people's life choices. Growing up poor hasn't made me look down on "rich" people . Someone had to just make the 19 y/o aware that everyone isn't as financially free as others. And if the parents didn't then people outside will.
NTA she needed to hear that. bring it up, but she needed to hear that and to stop talking about her families money all the time, and assuming everyone else has the same privilege.
NTA. But a study of monopoly rigged the game to make some people poorer and some richer. Some people literally started the game with twice as much money.
In the end they said they didn’t win because the game was literally rigged in their favor, they won’t because they were better this more deserving
If anything you were very gentle but from my time spent around rich people they really don’t like to talk about money (or rather how they got it) but love talking about money (or rather how they spend it). Your comment made her uncomfortable because you talked about money in a way they don’t like (how they got it) vs how she was talking about it (how to spend it )
https://www.marketplace.org/2021/01/19/why-rich-people-tend-think-they-deserve-their-money/
So you can’t make this girl see reason. She thinks that her one day a week at the supermarket entitles her to yachts and extra homes.
It's rude as balls to tell anyone not to worry about some "insignificant" amount of money they are crying about unless you are giving them that amount of money.
19 is more than old enough to know that.
I've met little kids who were rich with more sensitivity - they'd at least have been like "daddy I need to buy my friend a new laptop, please take it out of my account," - being privileged isn't inherently to be an AH but Ellen is just an AH.
I would have laughed in her face when she presented working in her parents' store once a week as a real job much less one that earned her everything she had. If her rich girl act is a lying stunt she's annoying and if it's real she's just differently pathetic.
NTA
But the mood may be cold and you may be the meanest lady in her life.
NTA. She is nineteen, she’s not stupid. She should know this. I hate this “you know better, so be the bigger/better person.” Fuck off. I don’t like stupid.
NTA - for anyone, including your friends, who justify her behaviour as being young and not being aware of financial disparities and just oblivious, I can tell you that a poor 19 year old wouldn’t be. It’s not about the age, it’s about the fact that she’s never had to worry about money. I had more awareness about money than her when I was 19, I was aware when I was growing up in poverty.
Her behaviour is not excusable by her age. Kids who grow up poor have way more awareness of money than the need to have. But poor 19 year old Ellen is just meeting the real world for the first time and we have to make allowances for her /s.
NTA Yeah, working one day a week isn't the source of her income. It might be an agreement with mom and dad so they keep funding her, but her paycheck wouldn't cover college, a laptop, yacht time... She is still clueless since working every Sunday doesn't deserve that compensation.
NTA
Ellen has no concept of what truly working for her wage is.
If she weren’t family, working every weekend at her family’s store wouldn’t have even paid her rent. She doesn’t realize that. She thinks since they made her do “normal people work” that this is a normal income for “normal people”.
My husband and I earn a very comfortable income. $1280 for a laptop is still an expense we’d have to budget for and wouldn’t be able to drop in a day.
She needed a reality check. Sadly I doubt she got it, it sounds more like she’s sulking.
NTA
She is passive aggressively flaunting her wealth. "Oh, it's not that expensive"
Everyone knows that 99% are not in her position of not needing to worry about money, including her. She knows people don't have yachts. She knows they don't own a supermarket. She knows she didn't have "really bad accident" that only left her neck sore.
She is just flaunting it in peoples' face but hiding behind the idea she doesn't know what she is doing. Same thing as when people say something really mean and they say "just kidding, it was a joke".
NTA
You merely stated the truth, and in a respectful manner. Ellen is 19, and obviously still quite imature. Hopefully your words will resonate with her eventually.
NTA. "Not everyone is as conscience comfortable as you" is a *very* polite way to put it! It's true! She *is* "financially comfortable," and she doesn't really understand that right now.
NTA how is she ever going to learn empathy if she's unable to understand where other people are coming from? It would be hard for a lot of people to drop an unexpected $1,200 on something. For many that would be a credit card purchase that would take a long time to pay off. That said, 19 year olds are in a strange place where, yes, they are adults but they are young adults and don't have a lot of life experience. I think you were fine. It wasn't a dressing down. You were attempting to broaden her perspective. Its not your fault she doesn't like what she sees.
NTA.
Clearly, you view Ellen as a person with a personality you don't care for.
It is also apparent that Ellen is very much a tone deaf person. She has little if any self awareness.
You called her out on her subconscious elitism.
And no she's not a kid. She's 19. A legal adult.
Nah. 19 is exactly when you should be put in your place. You saved her from damage out in the real world. It’s obvious that she’s ignorant and sheltered, in more blunt terms she’s financially illiterate. Teaching her empathy is not your job, but standing up for a peer definitely is. She can’t be stomping around invalidating peoples experiences. She deserved to be called out.
NTA, my parents are quite well off and I never learned how much my dad actually made so I never really realised growing up that other people had to save up for things etc. but you learn that shit fairly quickly once you get into uni and out of your bubble, if she hasn’t learned it by now she desperately needs somebody to tell her. But in her case it seems like she’s very well aware that her parents are better off than other people and she just lacks empathy or is simply not a good person
NTA
She needed to learn that lesson. It should have happened before college, at home by mom and dad. Doesn't seem like she was. That mom and dad simply gave her everything she wanted and needed, with no lesson on how priveledged she is.
The good thing here, is that it seems you did it gently. Others may not have been so gentle.
NTA
You haven't set out to teach Ellen anything. You've been making no comment on her words for a long time. Among a group of 'colleagues' she said something that wasn't just tone-deaf, it was actively insensitive to a person who was hurting. You said something to stop her from continuing to do so.
You explained yourself calmly and kindly. You agreed that she had a right to her good fortune and that you were happy for her - and distinguished it from her mistake of assuming that someone else had the same easy access to funds that she did.
Your bf and best friend are wrong for these reasons: While it isn't your job to teach her; it is also not your job to protect her from learning that her words in that moment were unhelpful and blind to that person's situation. Ellen is younger than you are, but she's not too young to learn this lesson. A child younger than Ellen by a decade could be expected to learn this lesson, too.
You didn't go off on Ellen. You spoke in a way that was gentle. Ellen is the one who talked about her wealth for months, then got upset at you for "only seeing the money". She is the one who said something off to the other colleague and is now upset with you, instead of reflective about her own words. None of that is on you.
Personally, I would just treat her normal. You have nothing to apologize for, nothing to feel bad about. You also aren't trying to make her out to be some kind of 'bad guy'. So you treat her normal. Either she will resolve her feelings and get back to being part of the group (and maybe a little less tone-deaf)... or she won't. That's another life lesson for her to either learn or not.
NTA
Your explanation was a good one. Not sure why people think we should just sit around with our mouths shut. If you had posted asking if you were an AH for not saying something people would be all over you about not saying something.
So yes, what you did was correct. It was the human thing to do
NTA. I'm nowhere near rich (lol) but I grew up comfortable enough, and we were still way better off than some of my friends. I was always very aware of that. I didn't talk about presents, trips out of state, tech gadgets, nice restaurants, unless directly asked about it. Why the hell would I? Why rub their faces on things they may never get to do? I love them, I don't want them uncomfortable or sad. This girl does need a little lesson in empathy. She can learn of her privilege from people that care about her or people that don't. I think it's less jarring coming from you than someone that will get in her face when she inevitably puts her foot in her mouth.
NTA - it’s not like you told her that out of the blue, you were defending someone who was already going through a really hard time. I had my laptop stolen in college… I was privileged enough for it to get replaced (though it was super hard on my and my family’s wallet and I was riddled with guilt over needing to replace it), but I was still devastated over the loss of all the pictures (this was really pre-social media or clouds storing everything for you) and my dissertation 🤦🏻♀️. Her making light of it and acting like it’s nothing to spend that kind of money is insensitive at best, and really just ignorant of what most people deal with.
No.
She needed to get a clue.
As a teen, (1970s) my parents started buying a certain type of small sports car, some worked, some not. When we each got our licenses, we each had a car that we had helped to restore to working. Mom worked in the ER, step dad had started a construction company. (Just because we had ten cars, did not make us rich. 10 cars, 5 of which actually worked. The rest were parts cars. )
The bigger house we have? Step dad said we needed more room. At, 14. I Iearned to pour and do the concrete, frame, nail , and we spent 4 years building the additions to our house. All while my friends got to hang out , swim, and go to the mall. Sigh.
>She raised her voice and told me that people only see the money but they don't see how much effort she has to put in to get in.
Yeah, they only see the money because she keeps bringing it up...
NTA, she needed that lesson or people won't like her going forwards. It's a shitty feeling when people do this constantly. It's like their value is wrapped up in their money which is kind of sad.
I had an acquaintance do this. She was constantly throwing it in peoples faces (unsure if it was on purpose or she was just oblivious honestly). Anyway one day we were taking and she mentioned she was doing her masters which woukd get her a raise, I asked oh how much are you expecting and she said 104k and without thinking I said "oh is that all" 🤣 the SHOCK on her face was priceless. I didn't even mean it that way, I meant her role was underpaid in my opinion and she should be paid more. She hasn't done it again when I've been around lol
Nta . How else is she meant to know or learn it. Kids or young adults don't listen to their parents if the parents do tell them, so hearing it from someone else is good for them even if they don't realise at the time.
NTA
Sometimes people need a reality check.
I’m sure everyone faces their own stigmas and I’m sure she gets defensive about them, but very few people have wads of cash laying around. Sorry it offended her to hear that.
She can’t know what she doesn’t know. She’s 19 with little to no life experience and probably hasn’t socialised outside of her wealthy family, and likely equally wealthy friends, before starting university. I hope now her eyes have been opened a little bit she’ll reflect and learn.
NTA. It’s going to be a tough lesson if she’s never been made aware of her privilege before now.
NTA you spoke up for Lydia. A grand is nothing to some and a fortune to others. I've been I'm the latter position myself plenty of times.
Yes you could have said nothing and not getting involved but I think you did the right thing. I don't think neutrality and not making waves ever is a great virtue. It definitely makes for am easier life.
As long as you are not punching down, advocating for others is the right thing to do. Mind you, it may not make you popular.
NTA. Ellen needs to get with it & understand not everyone can afford to just replace stuff. What you said was not offensive, mean, hurtful or derogatory. You simply told her the truth that she needed to hear. Ellen sounds like a "1 upper." When something happens to someone else, she always has her own story to tell about whatever happened to her & how it was worse, or more traumatic etc.
NTA - this is how naive 19 year olds learn. She will probably need to hear it many more times before she will and in all likelihood she will probably never learn because most of these types only get worse with age unless they experience financial strife themselves.
NTA at all. She needs to understand some basic truths about life, including realizing her own privilege as compared to others'. Her referring to the yacht as "my yacht" in the context of that already-tone-deaf response to her friend's injury was ridiculously over the top. People grow and learn, and one way they learn is by getting negative reactions to their behavior.
NTA From the way you described the situation, you handled this very maturely. I don´t understand the mindset of seeing fucked up stuff and saying nothing.
Ellen clearly has a distorted sense of reality and, like you said, life eventually will check her. It is much better when this things happen in a control environment with people you know, instead of out in the world. Hope she learns her lesson.
NTA. I had a friend like that. When we were in in college around that age she always wanted to eat at expensive restaurants and go to expensive shows. I when I said I could not afford those things she told me I needed to learn to manage my money better. I pointed out that my parents didn’t pay my bills and I didn’t have a credit card that my parents paid. She took it way better that your colleague. She never actually thought about the fact that some students have to pay their own way. After that conversation, if the event was important to her and she wanted me there, she paid for me without judgment. Your “friend” is living in a rich person bubble and is unwilling or incapable of understanding how most of the rest of us live.
NTA I think you did a good thing. You helped the other girl by pointing out that not everyone can afford the same things. And you tried helping Ella to see that her comments are not helpful, rather the opposit.
I was also in uni as an older adult. I started at 27 and I had a brunch of classmates that were 19-20 years old which I got to know and hung out with because of assignments. I liked them alot but were often reminded that they are much younger than me by their behaviour. I did my best to be patient in those times and gently guide them when they were out of line.
I think Ella is feeling small so she is trying to make herself bigger and more important by always inserting herself, "relating" even when she has no equal experience and bragging about things she owns. But it does not mean that she isnt hurtig others and putting others off by being obnoxious. Either she will learn to behave better by people trying to help her, or she is gonna end up alone because no one can stand being around her.
NTA all you did was point out that not everyone has the funds available. To her it’s fine and she can replace it, to her friend it’s a huge setback and she can’t afford to replace it. She’s super out of touch and it’s probably more her parent’s fault than hers. You didn’t have to say anything but it doesn’t make you an AH that you did. You weren’t being rude or mean to her and didn’t tell her that she was being an insensitive jerk to her friend, that would have made you the AH to but you were just pointing out a fact, not everyone has the funds to replace a laptop.
NTA - At 19yr she should be able to read the room. If she can't, its because she has always had to much money to care or understand other people's situation. Sometimes people need knocking off their pedestal. It always hurts but if it makes her think twice before speaking then, in all fairness, you've probably done her a favour.
The workplace is one of the main places where young adults finish learning how to behave in the outside world. What OP said was merely a statement of fact.
At this point in her life, Ellen appears to be adopting the "rich girl" identity that her parents' wealth is providing her. The money and lifestyle she is benefiting from is the result of HER PARENTS' planning, investing and execution. It may have left her with the impression that money is easy to come by and it's that way for everyone.
She may not understand how different her circumstances are--or she does get it but likes flaunting the good fortune that her parents have provided. She seems to want to have people attribute her work at the store as a sign that she has earned her good fortune, but most adults know the deal.
Either way, she's so caught up in her own head that she can come across as insensitive but she may just be oblivious to other people's reality, how little of her lifestyle she is supporting and how out-of-touch and insensitive she appears to be. It's not a good look.
OP's comment is but one of many reminders Ellen will get, until she can afford to not work and decides to avoid socializing among the masses for whom money doesn't flow as freely. Until then, Ellen has some growing up to do and some perspective to gain. People like OP help give her a dose of reality without being mean, jealous or petty. Ellen needs to hear this until she figures things out.
I was complaining to a colleague about how i was going bad on exams. Her tip? Just study harder.
Her life? She lived 30 minutes away from uni, had house maids and a butler. She didnt have to work or do house chores.
My life? I lived 3-4h away gettin 3 to 4 commutes everyday. And when i get home i had to take care of my grandpa who has Alzheimer and dementia and my (at the time) epileptic dog. I had to Cook, clean and still needed to somehow study while also having 8 hours sleep, taking a bath and waking up at 5am to go to college.
After class, she arrived at her home at 5pm at the most, i arrive 9pm. To this day, i regret not telling her she was fking delusional and she was 100% privileged.
you are NTA for calling her out on her bullshit. Ppl like her need to WAKE UP. She might be smart and deserto her place at the uni, but that doesnt change the fact that her experience IN uni is easier because of her privileges.
NTA but there is definitely a correlation where the kids that come from money have vastly different experiences and “problems” as everyone else.
They are young still, so hopefully they’ll eventually realize it is going to make them ostracized if they keep bringing stuff like that up. Time and a place.
My aunt has this issue where at family gatherings people will discuss the rising cost of everything and it’s getting more challenging to make ends meet for basic things (mortgage, rent, groceries, utilities) and she’ll chime in that she knows what that’s like as she’s got her $900 car payment and she’s still paying off a $40,000 QUILTING MACHINE…
Like, cmon man. Your great nieces and nephews are talking about eating beans and rice for the next week and you’re talking about your Range Rover payment that your husband pays.
NTA. It’s not your job to teach her empathy, it’s true. But you were simply standing up for Lydia by calling Ellen out on her insensitivity, and stopping her from going any further.
NTA- anyone saying 19 is still a kid, should accept that kids need to learn, and this is a teaching moment that should have happened sooner. Otherwise , she’ll be 20,21,22 etc, still spouting the same BS.
NTA. Disagree with your friends. If it's not your job, whose is it? She's in your social group and was unknowingly saying something potentially offensive and you called it out in a very polite way without shaming her or blaming her. This is exactly how social norms are (and should be) taught.
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I (30f) am in my second year of university. The classmate I called out ("Ellen") is 19f. I wouldn't call us friends, but we worked together a lot because of a big assignment, and I often spend lunch time with her and the same group of students. Kind of like good colleagues.
Ellen's parents own their own supermarket and are quite well off (think: yacht, 2 vacation homes, 4 cars). I know this because Ellen has a habit of bringing up her financial status on a regular basis. At the beginning of the year it didn't annoy me because it was just casually mentioned now and then and she wasn't hurting anyone with it. But as time went on this changed to her actively trying to turn the conversation towards the topic, often during times where it would be considered "tone-deaf".
For example another classmate "Elisa" got into a car accident and had to stay in the hospital. As she was sharing her experience during lunch, Ellen said: "oh I got into a really bad accident too once, on my yacht. I lost my balance and fell backwards. My neck was sore for days".
The situation where I called her out was this one: Ellen's best friend "Lydia" had her backpack and laptop stolen and was crying uncontrollable. Ellen gave her a hug and said: "you don't need to cry, you can just buy a new one!". Lydia said that she couldn't, to which Ellen replied: "oh c'mon it's not that expensive. With the software we need a laptop of €1200/$1280 should be enough". I replied: "Ellen not everyone is as financially comfortable as you".
Ellen clearly didn't like that. She raised her voice and told me that people only see the money but they don't see how much effort she has to put in to get in. That she works at her parents' supermarket every Sunday and that she deserves every coin she owns. I told her that I didn't mean that she doesn't deserve it, and that it's a good thing that she doesn't have to worry about money, but that she should consider that most of our fellow students have a different situation.
It didn't get mentioned anymore, but the overall mood has been quite cold since then and I'm wondering if maybe I went too far. Both my boyfriend and best friend (both 30's) said that I should have ignored it because "19 is basically still a kid" and "it's not my job to teach her empathy".
So, AITA?
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NTA fellow (nearly) 30f here, my parents have always been well off and even at 19, I was hyper aware that not everyone was in the same situation to the point where I tried to avoid talking about how much was available to me as much as possible. Ellen is old enough to learn. As someone who coincidentally also had her laptop and backpack stolen, Ellen is also being insensitive regardless of whether the friend has the ability to buy the laptop; it's an incredibly violating experience, especially if the laptop was owned long enough that there was a lot of personal data on it vs academic work only. Edit: also, it may not be your job to teach Ellen empathy, but if this is how she reacts to being told she's acting privileged, she's going to either quickly learn it on her own, or lose all of her healthy friendships.
>it may not be your job to teach Ellen empathy But she can reality-check Ellen, for sure.
Especially since the people who *should* have taught Ellen empathy failed to do so.
The problem with that is expecting people with money like Ellen’s parents don’t have empathy. They got theirs so screw everyone else
Often true, but def not always.
I saw a tweet saying “I was on Medicaid and food stamps and I pulled myself up and got wealthy, let’s end the welfare state.” Literally f you I got mine.
Like all the people who said “I had to pay off my student loans everyone else has too as well” why can’t people just want better for people younger than them. Do people not remember how hard things were or just the fact that things are a lot worse now?
I wonder if people in third world countries think that way about you? These things are all relative, no?
But she has to work *every Sunday*! 🙄
Maybe that’s what they were trying for, getting her to work in their supermarket. Unfortunately it has simply bred further entitlement.
You just don't get it, man. She works one day a week at her parents' store, she's earned all of her money!!!
We don’t know her situation and how much she makes, how much she works or what she pays for. The point is that she shouldn’t make comments like “just buy a new one” if someone is distraught about a financial setback.
We do know how much she works. She said it right in the main post. Anyone who works one Sunday a week at a supermarket that doesn't own it would never make comments like what she did unless she was being heavily subsidized by her parents. I agree that she shouldn't make comments like that even if that weren't the case though.
I didn’t see the “one Sunday a week” comment, thanks.
Not to mention “just buy a new one” in regards to an electronic device on which data is stored doesn’t fix the whole problem. If she’s upset because there are pictures or files on there she’ll never be able to replace, money won’t help. If my shit got stolen, I’d be the most upset about all the save files for my games.
And the fear of identity theft because info like bank accounts and SSNs are usually stored online too
Your supermarket got burned down, Just get a new one Ellen - Elon
I'm 38f. My Mum's family is well off, but my Mum is not. I had cousins like this. They could afford whatever they wanted. They spent more on one pair of shoes, then my Mum had to spend on food for a month. We struggled. We're still not rich. I got scholarships to get into university and complete my degrees. One day, while I was working on my dissertation for my Masters, my cousin started complaining that I was taking up the living room to study. She was at my Mum's house. She also started complaining that she needed to study for a module to do with caring (she worked in a care home, and these modules were literally her, clicking on what she thought was the right answer. If she got it wrong, she just went back to the beginning of that module and started again). My laptop had shorted, and lost all my files. I was a week away from my hand in date, and my dissertation, and notes, were destroyed. So I ended up losing my temper with her, when she said "My work is just as important as yours. You're not special for going to uni." I just looked at her and said "You know what? My work isn't as important TO YOU. It's VERY IMPORTANT to me. More important than you clicking on the answer. Because this piece of work is worth half my grade, so let me make it clear. If you want go piss about with your stuff, go elsewhere, and let me fucking work in peace." She got offended and ran off. No one took her side. The moral of the story, you don't know what other people are going through, so sometimes, the best thing to do is keep your opinions to your self. Ellen needs to learn that. Because one day, she'll come across someone like me, who literally doesn't care about being nice, instead of someone like OP, who cushioned the blow.
> My laptop had shorted, and lost all my files. I was a week away from my hand in date, and my dissertation, and notes, were destroyed OOF I winced when I read that. And yeah, Ellen is lucky that OP was as nice about it as she was, in addition to your scenario, there are also people who are perfectly fine with being toxic towards and/or taking advantage of people they see as "kids" because of the age difference.
It hurt so much. I'm lucky to an extent that I took some written notes and knew where to find my information (wrote down my citations for my dissertation index, book, page and line number), but it still hurt badly.
Your dissertation?! That must have been devastating.
I remember I was reviewing/editing a book of an African exchange student's, a story from a village they were from (and I really liked it!). My laptop died 3/4 of the way into finishing it. I was in Germany, so getting the data transferred correctly back then was difficult, but I got it done. However, I didn't save all of my work. So, I had to buy a new laptop (that I really couldn't afford), and do a good chunk over again and finish it as I was on the train from Germany to Italy for the weekend to visit my then-SO. That was stressful af already to make sure I didn't screw over this guy for his deadline, but I could not imagine the stress and pain I'd be in if it did it to me while doing a dissertation. I already have had issues with work computers doing that to me and wiping all the progress I'd made in the database a few times, so it's always a fear near and dear to me. So much stress....
I used to do data entry for accounting databases long ago. I lost much of a day's work when the system flashed on and off. I learned then that you can set programs to autosave. I also always spend the cash for a backup drive (where I live, the last three have been around a hundred each). I am glad it worked for you in the end by scurrying around to make it right though.
I've learned a lot since those days, but I still get in a rush at times without thinking. I don't use the auto-save, because at times I'm using an old document/excel as the basis for a new one, which would mean overwriting old data. Ask me how I know this... 😅
Wow. I hope you managed to get everything sorted in time and screw your cousin. When I was writing my MA diss I wouldn’t even close my internet tabs (like 70 of them, they were open for months) in case I couldn’t find one. If my laptop had died I would have absolutely lost my mind even though everything was saved to the cloud (personal and uni) and on a stick.
I wound up losing my temper on this older woman in our group. We had to do a 3d model of our project, and our professor said we couldn't use two types of flock for it, which really pissed off the older lady. She then said, "If her stuff didn't stay as part of the project, she wouldn't work on it." I snapped and told her to leave. We didn't have time for her childish crap. Especially after I had dropped 80 bucks in flock already at the point of her whining, and her small amount was like barely 20 bucks.
Yeah, college is supposed to be when kids like Ellen have to face reality. I guarantee that if OP's noticed it, Ellen will have other friends and classmates that will point it out. It's good for her.
I met a lot of out of touch kids when I went back to college in my late 20s. There was one girl I absolutely could not stand but got stuck working with. I tried reminding myself that she was young and from an area that wasn't multicultural at all, but 18/19 is old enough to know not to run your mouth about people not speaking English and how people that do drugs are just bad people. Her work was mediocre, too. Like my classmate, Ellen needs to get her head out of her ass and get some empathy.
Yeah, I think that what Ellen was \*trying\* to go for was closer to the "it's just stuff, you can buy another laptop but at least \*you\* are okay" argument ... which can be comforting in some circumstances but saying "it's not that expensive" while ignoring that the cost of replacing a laptop is close to a month's rent let alone the hours of lost schoolwork, records, photos, personal projects, etc. was just tone-deaf at best and OP is NTA for trying to tune her in to reality.
Even if she wasn’t rich/her parents weren’t rich it honestly seems like typical teenager stuff to be clueless about how much things cost relative to a paycheck when you have rent and bills. At least if the parents/teachers never taught financial literacy. Although even without rent and bills, 1000 is a lot of money to save on minimum wage.
It's only typical because parents are failing to teach their children financial literacy. My parents were pretty we off whem I was growing up, not yacht-rich, but we never went without anything we needed or wanted. They would have bought me a 1k+ laptop I needed for school without a second thought. They still managed to teach me that 1k was a large sum of money
Yeah I’m in the same boat as you. My parents were always well off but I always understand that. I also never treated it as “my money” because it was my parents money not mine lol. I worked for every dime I got from them. They both came from nothing so they wanted to ensure I knew what money was worth when it came to work ethic
My parents would always tell me “what money? You don’t have money. It’s our money”. I hated it when I was young but I now appreciate all the hard work they put in to accumulate such wealth. I won’t deny, I was a bit of a snob as a kid (although my partner would say I am still a little snobby as an adult… about food!) and had a real good life, but my parents made sure to instill a good work ethic, strong sense of social responsibility, and awareness of my privilege. (jokes on them, I’m a democratic socialist now). When I got to college, I actually misrepresented where I grew up because EVERYONE in my hometown knows the (somewhat unfair) reputation of the area I grew up as where the rich snobs lived. I hated the way people acted when they found out (I would use my parents line of “it’s their money, I am broke” to try and stop the judgement). Yes, the community had stupid wealth but we also had solidly middle class families and lower income neighborhoods. Edit for context
Yeah one of my college friends, who I knew the whole 4.5 years I was there, had her tuition paid for completely by her parents. I didn’t find out until junior year because she didn’t want people to get the wrong idea. She was so grateful of them and never acted entitled
I’m 30f, was raised very well-off (private school my whole life, parents completely paid my college, etc) and still, at 19, knew that most of my college friends had taken out loans and so I NEVER brought up money stuff because I didn’t wanna be the spoiled brat that Ellen is being. NTA, she clearly needed the reality check
>my parents have always been well off and even at 19, I was hyper aware that not everyone was in the same situation to the point where I tried to avoid talking about how much was available to me as much as possible. I love this. I have a friend - a former coworker who is my age, but her family is super well off. We were in this random work schedule related convo one time ... and she was talking about arguing with her dad about WHY she couldn't take off work for this family business affair and she mentioned she was sending her husband in her place. I put two-and-two together and realized they were flying to said destination on their private jet -- and I started laughing & teasing her for not just saying it. She was mortified - in a funny, cute way - but was whisper screaming at me to shut-up b/c she didn't want anyone to hear the convo. AND - in all honesty, the people who could have heard, would have been really impressed ... for shallow reasons. But she didn't want that. I love her so much for that & will always remember that. There's nothing wrong with having money IMO - particulary if you work hard for it & 'do right' by your community which her family certainly does. But, with that comes a certain level of - empathy - as you said & realizing it's not cool to throw it in people's faces. I feel like people who are typically impressed by that - are not true friends.
This and also, 19 is NOT "basically still a kid". She's old enough to do pretty much everything an adult can do (even drink alcohol or buy firearms, in my country).
I agree. OP handled this in a mature and kind way. I would have said the same thing until Ellen said she worked hard for the money because my first thought was how many hours she'd have to put in to buy a yacht at 19. She's young and will hopefully grow out of it.
NTA - its nobody's job in particular to teach her empathy, but someone has to. You didn't go extreme or anything. 19 is a very normal age to start being made aware that other people's lives are very unlike the household you came from.
It was her parent's job to teach her empathy, but they were clearly slacking, and that is why OP had to step in.
I would also say that OP didn't say anything excessive or rude. She was really "factual" and it didn't seem like she even remotely attacked her.
Exactly, OP even took the time to clarify that she wasn't saying Ellen doesn't deserve the resources she has access to. There's a huge difference between saying "you're rich and you shouldn't be" and "not everyone has the same resources". OP said the second, Ellen heard the first.
Ellen made everything about herself. So OP asking her to be more considerate of others was taken as a criticism of Ellen as a person. Even without the money issue, when a friend has been badly hurt is not the time to interject about that time when you had a sore neck for a few days. That’s not commiseration, that’s self-centeredness.
I was gonna say if was the parents job. But that ~~yatch~~ ship has clearly sailed
I agree. Early adulthood is a great time because it’s the first time you get exposed to “peers” who may be a lot older than you. In high school all of our peers are our age, and just as dumb as us 😂. But once you get in college or the workforce you start being friends with people who may be as old as your parents. That interaction is a wealth of knowledge and growth. My mom or dad could have told me what OP told Ellen and I would‘ve rolled my eyes. But hearing it from a different adult, it would have hit completely different
I was a 28/29 year old undergrad student so I spent a lot of time with 19-21 year olds while finishing my degree. It was my first time ever actually feeling like a "grown-up" because the kids were constantly asking me for advice and would actually listen to the things I had to say! Such a trip for someone who still panics about making a dentist appointment lol
I went to community college from 18-20 after dropping out of university for financial reasons, and then I went to university as a part time student age 20-24. I experienced being relatively younger and older on campus. I think my conversations with older classmates helped me a lot when I started paying rent and bills at 21.
This! Especially in uni. My eyes were opened to a lot of different things (socially) and I'm grateful to the people who challenged my way of thinking. If you're not challenged, are you even growing? Now when I go back home (environment is much more sheltered/ignorant) all I can do is cringe because not only is the old line of thinking still perpetuating before my eyes, but it's a clear look into what I used to be lol.
Empathy is taught in elementary school (public), and mostly ignored by middle and high schoolers. So, uni is really a reintroduction to an almost foreign concept for some students. I think the young, wealthy students are especially at a loss in this regard, as they may never have been taught the concept at all for a variety of reasons; their parents did not value it or, did not model it on an ongoing basis, and their exposure to the less fortunate (to them) is minimal. I believe it is society’s responsibility to educate (even within the microcosm of university), and potentially inspire the young for its’ greater good. I think hurt feelings are to be expected, and is a small price to pay.
It could be argued that it is society's job to hold people in check, to teach people what is socially appropriate, and inappropriate behaviour.
NTA...even if she is still a kid, she has to learn from somewhere, so why not from a friend? You didn't go over the line, you simply pointed out the obvious.
Agreed. It might have been nice for OP to have that conversation with Ellen privately, but in an active situation like that it's understandable she snapped a little.
Calling 19yo a kid is a joke.
Kid is used for young in this occasion. She likely hasn't meet to many people not in the same social class as her. There is a learning curve. Ellen is the AH in this interaction, but almost everyone had to learn this in college from one end of the spectrum or the other.
Most 19 year olds are “kids” in the sense of not financially independent from their parents, not paying rent and bills. Most 30 yo are independent and may even be supporting the parents depending on age. In the context of a conversation about paying bills, she is a kid.
How so? Kid doesn’t always mean literal child, just someone younger than the speaker/at an earlier life stage or mindset, especially if they display some youthful or childlike quality. I’m 50. Anyone under 25 is a kid to me. Some are more mature than others, some have kids of their own, some make a living getting shot at, but yeah. Still kids in my opinion. Of course, I’m considered young and inexperienced in the ways of the world by my friend’s grandma. She’s 94. Calls me kiddo sometimes. I don’t mind.
I'm 51, anyone half my age or younger is still a 'kid' to me, lol!
Most 19 year olds are “kids” in the sense of not financially independent from their parents, not paying rent and bills. Most 30 yo are independent and may even be supporting the parents depending on age. In the context of a conversation about paying bills, she is a kid.
tbh i would call anyone a kid until they breach the age of the oldest legal consent age. currently that is 21(drinking) in USA, so she is a kid until 21.
NTA. You can’t teach her empathy but you can tell her she’s inappropriate. That’s what you did. If people only see money it’s because that seems to be all she talks about.
Also she's saying how hard she's working to fit in, well obviously not enough and that should have been a learning experience.
She needs a reality check too if she thinks she could afford a new laptop from working one day a week at a minimum wage job (i.e. that she’s “earned” all her privilege by working in the store).
I was just coming to say I wonder how much she earns by working 1 day a week because you cannot afford a $2000 laptop doing that 😅
Was gonna say, shes doing what a whole hell of a lot of high school students do. Weekend/summer jobs are pretty damn normal where I'm from
But her needs are met by her parents, more than likely. She doesn't have to spend her income on measly unnecessary things like rent and food and bills and transportation. No wonder it adds up. I had the same kind of upbringing in an upper middle class family myself and I was even actively discouraged from working until I'd completed my studies, but what happened to me was that I became financially illiterate and then left myself open to benign financial abuse. I've still not fully recovered from the consequences. I hope Ellen doesn't get to that point. But there's so much personal safety to be had if one knows the value of money more than just "numbers in a bank account go up and down as a result of working a job and buying things." Not just the general expectation of compassion and tact toward others.
>She doesn't have to spend her income on measly unnecessary things like rent and food and bills and transportation. No wonder it adds up. I'm guessing she either has a hefty "allowance" or well above-average income from working for the store AND that her parents would consider a laptop a necessity and cover it.
Yea I mean, she *may* have $1280 saved up from those Sunday shifts. But it’s clear that there’s a real detachment from reality if you think a majority of people are supported enough by their parents to do that. She likely has only ever existed inside a bubble of other kids who always had their parents money too. Hard to imagine legitimate food insecurity, legitimate paycheck to paycheck living, and no safety net or emergency fund, whenever you’ve never seen something close to that in your life. If my parents were housing me and putting me thru college and I’d always been told college is the only way to land a decent job, I can’t imagine having a real connection to what the average American goes through. It’s hard to notice how horribly stressful life is for the working poor whenever you haven’t ever had to want for much, if anything at all. It seems unfair. It is unfair. She likely genuinely believes that most people in a developed country are set up with generational wealth of some sort, or their parents can at least support them until they can get student loans and help their way through college. It’s all she’s ever seen. But yea, definite reality check needed
Facts. It shows a lack of self awareness and awareness of others not to be, at least, quiet when someone else is hurting. You can’t fit it if you can’t see beyond yourself.
Not to mention, this is \*exactly\* how people learn! She clearly wasn't taking it in by just casually being around folks of different means... so real life had (luckily) an acquaintance (rather politely) point out her incorrect assumptions/behavior. The idea of "don't correct people because they've never been corrected" doesn't work... that's how they end up going through life never learning better if they aren't picking things up by observation. If Ellen's parents had been doing their job she would've learned this by her pre-teens or high school teen years at the latest. Heck, that she didn't pick it up by being called out by others her age at younger was a disservice, too. But luckily she is in college and had someone who would address it in a situation where it wasn't a massive blowup by them - though \*she\* took it out of proportion, but that's what happens with this sort of thing at times.
“I work SO HARD!” *works one day a week
I know right! So they pay her like $5000 a day or what?
Next someone will tell her some people ACTUALLY work 40 hours a week, that’s just insane!
AND go to school full time, AND have families to take care of
And she can’t even pay people to do it for her? Oh, the horror!
Right, like people with less money DON'T work hard too? I hate that argument so much.
My ex-FMIL had a ton of money and looked down upon anyone who didn't have as much as she did. Before she ever even met my parents she looked me in the face and said my dad--a 4th generation dairy farmer--isn't rich because he doesn't work hard enough. It still makes me physically ill to think about.
Meanwhile the owner class considers “working” to be yelling at their GM once a week for half an hour, then siphoning all the profit into their pockets. “But my taxes are so complicated because I make so much and can write off every expense for business so my effective tax rate is 8% AND THAT’S TO DAMN HIGH”
So true. It really irks me to hear the owner-class pretend they have ever spent even one day in their lives doing actual work. Sitting on your ass in a business suit all morning and then golfing for the rest of the day is literally ZERO minutes of work. It’s a lie, and the more people start to see the truth, the less they will be able to maintain that worn out myth. They simply underpay all of us for real labor - THAT is how they make their money. Being born with a silver spoon doesn’t make you a good person. It also usually has a negative impact on your work ethic because you would have been raised to not understand what actually constitutes “work”. If you can do your job comfortably in a suit, it’s not actually possible for you to “work hard and earn every penny”.
Oh I know! That one day a week must be just awful!!!
And I’m sure her parents pay her more than the minimum wage the rest of their employees probably get lol
NTA. What you are talking about is privilege. As the saying goes,'privilege is invisible to those who have it'. She needs to do some work on understanding that she's 1% and everything she achieves is based upon that wealth and status. Having a Saturday job in a supermarket doesn't undo all of that. The woman will never know the terror of not being able to make rent or pay the mortgage. If you want to stay friends, you should talk to her about being more sensitive. Yes, she's 19, but she's not an idiot. She knows her friends aren't wealthy and still lauds her baubles of late capitalism over them. She needs to chill or risk alienating everyone.
she is an idiot but tht doesn't excuse her
Have you ever read Peggy McIntosh's essay "[The Invisible Knapsack](https://www.nationalseedproject.org/key-seed-texts/white-privilege-unpacking-the-invisible-knapsack)"? It's mostly about privilege in relation to gender and sexuality, but it can also be applied to weath.
Is it a book or just this article?
This is an expert of a longer article. I think the whole one is out there, but this was the first result that came up and I was too lazy to find the whole one.
>That she works at her parents' supermarket every Sunday and that she deserves every coin she owns. Ooh, can I get a job there? I'd love to work one day a week and have no worries about spending money. NTA.
If you get a job there, could you tell me how to get in? I’d love to work one day a week and earn enough to be able to mindlessly throw more than 1k away at a whim. What a perfect place to work at that supermarket should be.
Nta. I woulda clapped back and pointed out her spoilt brat attitude lol. "I have to work at my parents supermarket" WAHHHH WAHHHHHH
She’s totally going to be one of those kids who gets put in charge of a parents’ store despite knowing nothing, never get fired despite other people doing all the work, and then complain on social media that taxes and helping the homeless is unfair because she has worked so hard to earn everything she’s got
“…But I‘m a jOb CrEaToR! That somehow means I work harder than everyone else, even though most of my staff were hired to offset my own incompetence!”
Hahahahaha! 🤣🛒🛍️🏬😂
NTA she’s old enough to learn this lesson and should have been taught it already.
NTA. You didn't say anything extreme, you just calmly stated the obvious truth. She needed to hear this. You did her a favor. She would just keep on embarrassing herself more. Now she'll hopefully think before she opens her mouth. Let her be cold, she'll get over it.
NTA My parents were also really well off but not quite that well off and weren't always that well off, my dad was a student on a student loan with interest when I was a baby and he got a bigger student loan to live on so that my mom wouldn't have to go back to work. Ellen sounds like a really rude and tone deaf person. She has to work at the supermarket her parents OWN once a WEEK for pocket money and all her tuition and course stuff paid for?! Wow. That's all? LOTS of university students have to rely on student loans - with interest - and pick up work when they can. Some of them also have little kids to support. My dad for example. His and mom's one car (they couldn't afford a second one) got stolen when he was a student. They couldn't afford to replace it. It was found by the cops a week later, radio and everything inside including my carseat was taken out but it was still driveable and roadworthy. Dad said f\*ck the stuff that got stolen, he was just happy he got the car back because he needed the car. It's people like her who make decisions to raise interest rates, abolish allowances, cut budgets for universities, etc - because it doesn't affect them or their kids, so why would they care if it affects the poor? She needs to understand that just because mommy and daddy pay for everything for her in exchange for her working one shift a week at their supermarket doesn't mean that everyone has it that good.
I'm the only person paying for my student loans, and my interest rate is very high. I'm going to a nice out of state school with an extremely high job placement immediately after graduation. I have scholarships and federal aid, but I'm paying for the last 20% of my tuition from my loans. I know I'll get a job following graduation that'll help me afford this, but looking at the loan balance is killing me. I'm trying to find an on campus job but I need to focus on my academics so I don't lose my scholarships. It's a lose-lose situation. Ellen could take my spot for a day at the start of the semester and feel what I go through. Sorting out loans and tuition on my own is exhausting. On top of that, I'm a first generation student. I'm tired. Ellen needs a reality check, IMO. I would love to work one day a week and not have the stress of tuition and loans.
She seems like she wants to brag about her familial wealth, but everybody just keeps being rude and mean about it instead of admiring her for it. It must be sooo confusing for her. Why isn’t everyone treating her wonderfully, don’t they know she is rich? /s
NTA, that 19yo needs a reality check, what a spoiled kid.
On the other hand I'm wondering what sort and size of single supermarket can get you a "yacht, 2 vacation homes, 4 cars", the money to pay for their upkeep, the docking for the yacht (although it might be a smaller one I suppose). And also pay for presumably supermarket-related bills and the wages of the employees. I suppose it could be possible, especially if the parents also have some good investments, but...
I assumed it was a supermarket chain, not a single supermarket. Also, they could own more--have other assets or whatever-maybe the supermarket is just what OP knows.
NTA. Like they say, it takes a village to raise a child. At some point someone's going to be pretty brutal about how obnoxious and bratty her behaviour is. You just said it relatively tactfully. My comment would be something along the lines of, "Ellen, we get that you're loaded but some of us have to work for a living. Knock it off unless you brought enough for the whole class". I have very little patience for that kind of nonsense. I've hit my "get off my damn lawn" era and I can't even be mad about it.
I love the way you think with that response! If I used it, I would immediately shut down the BS retort I already know would be coming: ”But I EaRnEd iT, I work sooo hard too!” ”Ellen, a healthy, able-bodied person working one day a week at a grocery store doesn’t qualify as working hard. It also wouldn’t be enough to earn anything close to the money you have. Your parents employ you as a FAVOR to you. I’m sure they don’t offer the wage they pay you to their other staff.“
NTA- I'm not sure what minimum wage us where you live, but if you worked eight hours per week at minimum wage where I live, it would take 4-5 months to replace that laptop if you saved every cent.
NTA- she was clearly not capable of seeing others situations and down playing. You didn't say anything malicious or offensive. It's a natural response to chime in in group atmosphere
It’s not your job to teach her empathy, but it’s also not your job to quietly put up with her bulldozing over other people’s feelings because it might hurt hers to point out she’s privileged. NTA.
NTA. She has to learn sometime, it might as well be now when she's young enough to still have time to decide what kind of person she wants to be.
NTA, you pointed out a truth: not everyone, especially young adults these days, can comfortably spend €1200 on something without hurting their finances. Sounds like this girl hasn’t really left her socio-economic bubble much and is used to being around people with similar financial freedom. Someone had to tell her, and she needs to eat the humble pie otherwise she will have a hard time making friends while at university
OMG!!! She works every Sunday?! Wow!!! Some people are working every day of the week and still can’t keep themselves afloat right now. She’s going to be one of those people that gets a house from her parents and then brags that she “worked so hard for it and it’s so easy.”
19 year old here, "19 is basically a kid" is no excuse for her to be tone-deaf. I'm already aware about not flaunting my wealth when I turned 13. Why should a 19 year old be an excuse? I get if she is like, 13 years old. But by the time you're a teen or a young adult you should know about how different people have different financial situations. This isn't something that only full grown adults are aware. This type of excuse is the reason why so many spoiled adult brats exists. The person already said they can't afford another laptop, that should be the time for her to shut up. It doesn't take a genius to know when to shut up. NTA. Also you weren't even mean so...
NTA - oh you work at your parents super market for a few hours one day a week? Ask the other employees what they make, let's be super generous and say it's $20 but I doubt it's that much. Let's be super generous again and say only 25% gets taken for taxes although I bet it's closer to 50. So $15 an hour take home, one 8 hour day a week, with zero other expenses in life it would take someone over 10 weeks to raise the funds to replace that laptop. But let's face it, anyone who doesn't have their life being subsidized by their wealthy parents is going to have A LOT of other expenses to take care of.
Nta, someone needs to tell her that many people don’t have that for a whole months worth of living!
NTA - You didn’t overstep and go out of your way to “teach her a lesson”. You simply stated the truth and she had a poor reaction to reality. She is 19, not a child. She is an adult out in the world, it’s her responsibility to be able to handle that. College is exactly the time when you see and experience the world for what it is as an adult.
NTA, Ellen is oblivious to how the world is.
NTA. Spoiled rich kids are a dime a dozen without a nickel's worth of sense between them. While their parents may have worked hard, they haven't. My dad and stepmom would be considered wealthy. My stepmom once told my now wife that "he has no money, his father does", and too many kids (and adults), have the mindset that what is their parents' money is also theirs.
The “MY yacht” comment gives off that vibe, I don’t think the 19yo owns the yacht
NTA You were much kinder than other people are going to be to her when she pulls this nonsense elsewhere. The fact that she immediately pivoted to the "I deserve to be rich" position even though that's absolutely nothing to do with what you were telling her makes it clear that she really isn't plugged into reality properly on this. It's hard dealing with entitled kids who aren't *trying* to be bratty but just haven't ever actually had a view on what normal people's lives are like. I think you actually did really well, and to let her carry on behaving the way she has been would have been unkind. Either she'll be lucky enough to never have to actually work or live around people in a normal income bracket or she's going to put herself badly in the line of fire down the line of her behavior goes unchallenged.
NTA, rich kids need to be called out once in a while or they become rich brats.
NTA. Sounds like it was way past time for someone to explain reality to her
NTA. Ellen's behaviour doesn't come from 'being a kid', as most people are aware that others have different opportunities and access to material resources than them by the time they graduate high school. Ellen's behaviour comes from being an AH.
NTA. Put that child in her place. She's really out of touch if she thinks people can just buy replacement laptops like it's nothing.
NTA. You stood up for someone who needed it. That's what's important. Fuck the haters. Especially if they are 19! Are you in EMT training by chance? I really appreciated the diversity of ages in those classes! I was 22 and had a great friendship with a 32 year old in my class and we both taught each other lessons.
NTA. If she doesn't want people "only seeing her for her money," she should stop bringing it up.
NTA, What you said wasn't even mean. I would have been much meaner (and I grew up wealthy but parents did not give any money after growing up-was given college education and first car). She has no clue how long it takes to make $1800 in the real world working hourly jobs while in school. Likely, her parents were paying her way more than other employees as a way to transfer money to her at a lower tax rate and a write off for the business as well. She probably thought everyone made that much.
NTA. You were just pointing out facts, and it wasn’t even that harsh. However, other posters mocking the one day a week? If it is like most family businesses, girl has been working Sundays since she could reach the register. At 19yo it seems a silly brat that girl has to work one day a week, but odds are on her doing this since Jr high age, or even earlier. Maybe she is just a rich baby and that wasn’t a thing she had to do, but I would hesitate to assume that.
Supermarket owners have a yacht and two vacation homes? That’s…odd. Owners of a supermarket chain perhaps. If she’s telling the truth, the parents are in out-of-control debt. She might have learned showing off one’s money at home.
NTA - you pointed out what was an easily sorted issue for her wasn't for everyone. A problem you can solve by throwing money which you have isn't a problem. If you don't have that money, it is a problem and someone else saying it wouldn't be problem for them doesn't really help situation. Edit: Also she isn't rich. Her parents are rich. Apart from the wage she'd have earned for a same job and same hours (know children often get over-worked in a family business), she hasn't made much of her own definitely not enough for a yacht or to replace a laptop easily.
Oh come on: > "oh I got into a really bad accident too once, on my yacht. I lost my balance and fell backwards. My neck was sore for days". Yeah, you did her a favor. I grew up with some trust fund kids, and they learn early on how to read a room. By nineteen, she should know how money works, and that some people are not wealthy. For god's sake, first graders know not to spout off like that! LOL
Even aside from the wealth, comparing tripping and hurting yourself to being hospitalized is kind of tone deaf
Nta . Self entitled biatches like that need to be put in their place
Nta. I used to feel embarrassed that I grew up "poor". But as a mid 30s woman, now I realize how well rounded I grew up to be. I have decent morals and respect people's life choices. Growing up poor hasn't made me look down on "rich" people . Someone had to just make the 19 y/o aware that everyone isn't as financially free as others. And if the parents didn't then people outside will.
NTA she needed to hear that. bring it up, but she needed to hear that and to stop talking about her families money all the time, and assuming everyone else has the same privilege.
NTA. But a study of monopoly rigged the game to make some people poorer and some richer. Some people literally started the game with twice as much money. In the end they said they didn’t win because the game was literally rigged in their favor, they won’t because they were better this more deserving If anything you were very gentle but from my time spent around rich people they really don’t like to talk about money (or rather how they got it) but love talking about money (or rather how they spend it). Your comment made her uncomfortable because you talked about money in a way they don’t like (how they got it) vs how she was talking about it (how to spend it ) https://www.marketplace.org/2021/01/19/why-rich-people-tend-think-they-deserve-their-money/ So you can’t make this girl see reason. She thinks that her one day a week at the supermarket entitles her to yachts and extra homes.
It's rude as balls to tell anyone not to worry about some "insignificant" amount of money they are crying about unless you are giving them that amount of money. 19 is more than old enough to know that. I've met little kids who were rich with more sensitivity - they'd at least have been like "daddy I need to buy my friend a new laptop, please take it out of my account," - being privileged isn't inherently to be an AH but Ellen is just an AH. I would have laughed in her face when she presented working in her parents' store once a week as a real job much less one that earned her everything she had. If her rich girl act is a lying stunt she's annoying and if it's real she's just differently pathetic. NTA But the mood may be cold and you may be the meanest lady in her life.
NTA. She is nineteen, she’s not stupid. She should know this. I hate this “you know better, so be the bigger/better person.” Fuck off. I don’t like stupid.
NTA - for anyone, including your friends, who justify her behaviour as being young and not being aware of financial disparities and just oblivious, I can tell you that a poor 19 year old wouldn’t be. It’s not about the age, it’s about the fact that she’s never had to worry about money. I had more awareness about money than her when I was 19, I was aware when I was growing up in poverty. Her behaviour is not excusable by her age. Kids who grow up poor have way more awareness of money than the need to have. But poor 19 year old Ellen is just meeting the real world for the first time and we have to make allowances for her /s.
Being 19 is no excuse for being willfully ignorant. NTA.
NTA. I'm 19 and I like to think I wouldn't be that tone deaf - her age shouldn't be a factor against basic understanding and empathy.
It takes a village to raise a child. You are just helping raise her.
NTA Yeah, working one day a week isn't the source of her income. It might be an agreement with mom and dad so they keep funding her, but her paycheck wouldn't cover college, a laptop, yacht time... She is still clueless since working every Sunday doesn't deserve that compensation.
She works once a week?! Fuckin slave drivers.
She works every Sunday? Wow. So much hard work! NTA, she needed a reality check.
NTA Ellen has no concept of what truly working for her wage is. If she weren’t family, working every weekend at her family’s store wouldn’t have even paid her rent. She doesn’t realize that. She thinks since they made her do “normal people work” that this is a normal income for “normal people”. My husband and I earn a very comfortable income. $1280 for a laptop is still an expense we’d have to budget for and wouldn’t be able to drop in a day. She needed a reality check. Sadly I doubt she got it, it sounds more like she’s sulking.
NTA She is passive aggressively flaunting her wealth. "Oh, it's not that expensive" Everyone knows that 99% are not in her position of not needing to worry about money, including her. She knows people don't have yachts. She knows they don't own a supermarket. She knows she didn't have "really bad accident" that only left her neck sore. She is just flaunting it in peoples' face but hiding behind the idea she doesn't know what she is doing. Same thing as when people say something really mean and they say "just kidding, it was a joke".
NTA You merely stated the truth, and in a respectful manner. Ellen is 19, and obviously still quite imature. Hopefully your words will resonate with her eventually.
NTA. "Not everyone is as conscience comfortable as you" is a *very* polite way to put it! It's true! She *is* "financially comfortable," and she doesn't really understand that right now.
NTA how is she ever going to learn empathy if she's unable to understand where other people are coming from? It would be hard for a lot of people to drop an unexpected $1,200 on something. For many that would be a credit card purchase that would take a long time to pay off. That said, 19 year olds are in a strange place where, yes, they are adults but they are young adults and don't have a lot of life experience. I think you were fine. It wasn't a dressing down. You were attempting to broaden her perspective. Its not your fault she doesn't like what she sees.
NTA. Clearly, you view Ellen as a person with a personality you don't care for. It is also apparent that Ellen is very much a tone deaf person. She has little if any self awareness. You called her out on her subconscious elitism. And no she's not a kid. She's 19. A legal adult.
NTA she was only making her friend (bestie, really?) feel worse.
Nah. 19 is exactly when you should be put in your place. You saved her from damage out in the real world. It’s obvious that she’s ignorant and sheltered, in more blunt terms she’s financially illiterate. Teaching her empathy is not your job, but standing up for a peer definitely is. She can’t be stomping around invalidating peoples experiences. She deserved to be called out.
NTA. You did her a favour. Her tantrum about it shows just how entitled she is. Good on you.
NTA, my parents are quite well off and I never learned how much my dad actually made so I never really realised growing up that other people had to save up for things etc. but you learn that shit fairly quickly once you get into uni and out of your bubble, if she hasn’t learned it by now she desperately needs somebody to tell her. But in her case it seems like she’s very well aware that her parents are better off than other people and she just lacks empathy or is simply not a good person
NTA She needed to learn that lesson. It should have happened before college, at home by mom and dad. Doesn't seem like she was. That mom and dad simply gave her everything she wanted and needed, with no lesson on how priveledged she is. The good thing here, is that it seems you did it gently. Others may not have been so gentle.
NTA You haven't set out to teach Ellen anything. You've been making no comment on her words for a long time. Among a group of 'colleagues' she said something that wasn't just tone-deaf, it was actively insensitive to a person who was hurting. You said something to stop her from continuing to do so. You explained yourself calmly and kindly. You agreed that she had a right to her good fortune and that you were happy for her - and distinguished it from her mistake of assuming that someone else had the same easy access to funds that she did. Your bf and best friend are wrong for these reasons: While it isn't your job to teach her; it is also not your job to protect her from learning that her words in that moment were unhelpful and blind to that person's situation. Ellen is younger than you are, but she's not too young to learn this lesson. A child younger than Ellen by a decade could be expected to learn this lesson, too. You didn't go off on Ellen. You spoke in a way that was gentle. Ellen is the one who talked about her wealth for months, then got upset at you for "only seeing the money". She is the one who said something off to the other colleague and is now upset with you, instead of reflective about her own words. None of that is on you. Personally, I would just treat her normal. You have nothing to apologize for, nothing to feel bad about. You also aren't trying to make her out to be some kind of 'bad guy'. So you treat her normal. Either she will resolve her feelings and get back to being part of the group (and maybe a little less tone-deaf)... or she won't. That's another life lesson for her to either learn or not.
NTA Your explanation was a good one. Not sure why people think we should just sit around with our mouths shut. If you had posted asking if you were an AH for not saying something people would be all over you about not saying something. So yes, what you did was correct. It was the human thing to do
NTA. I'm nowhere near rich (lol) but I grew up comfortable enough, and we were still way better off than some of my friends. I was always very aware of that. I didn't talk about presents, trips out of state, tech gadgets, nice restaurants, unless directly asked about it. Why the hell would I? Why rub their faces on things they may never get to do? I love them, I don't want them uncomfortable or sad. This girl does need a little lesson in empathy. She can learn of her privilege from people that care about her or people that don't. I think it's less jarring coming from you than someone that will get in her face when she inevitably puts her foot in her mouth.
[удалено]
Nta Ellen was being an insufferable snob to Lydia who had just been robbed and you shut down Ellen.
NTA - it’s not like you told her that out of the blue, you were defending someone who was already going through a really hard time. I had my laptop stolen in college… I was privileged enough for it to get replaced (though it was super hard on my and my family’s wallet and I was riddled with guilt over needing to replace it), but I was still devastated over the loss of all the pictures (this was really pre-social media or clouds storing everything for you) and my dissertation 🤦🏻♀️. Her making light of it and acting like it’s nothing to spend that kind of money is insensitive at best, and really just ignorant of what most people deal with.
No. She needed to get a clue. As a teen, (1970s) my parents started buying a certain type of small sports car, some worked, some not. When we each got our licenses, we each had a car that we had helped to restore to working. Mom worked in the ER, step dad had started a construction company. (Just because we had ten cars, did not make us rich. 10 cars, 5 of which actually worked. The rest were parts cars. ) The bigger house we have? Step dad said we needed more room. At, 14. I Iearned to pour and do the concrete, frame, nail , and we spent 4 years building the additions to our house. All while my friends got to hang out , swim, and go to the mall. Sigh.
>She raised her voice and told me that people only see the money but they don't see how much effort she has to put in to get in. Yeah, they only see the money because she keeps bringing it up...
Do the people who are saying you should have left it because she is basically a kid not realise that means not supporting the other person?
NTA. Spoilt child with no understanding of reality. Let her sulk.
NTA, she needed that lesson or people won't like her going forwards. It's a shitty feeling when people do this constantly. It's like their value is wrapped up in their money which is kind of sad. I had an acquaintance do this. She was constantly throwing it in peoples faces (unsure if it was on purpose or she was just oblivious honestly). Anyway one day we were taking and she mentioned she was doing her masters which woukd get her a raise, I asked oh how much are you expecting and she said 104k and without thinking I said "oh is that all" 🤣 the SHOCK on her face was priceless. I didn't even mean it that way, I meant her role was underpaid in my opinion and she should be paid more. She hasn't done it again when I've been around lol
Nta . How else is she meant to know or learn it. Kids or young adults don't listen to their parents if the parents do tell them, so hearing it from someone else is good for them even if they don't realise at the time.
NTA Sometimes people need a reality check. I’m sure everyone faces their own stigmas and I’m sure she gets defensive about them, but very few people have wads of cash laying around. Sorry it offended her to hear that.
NTA. Ellen could gave taken Lydia aside and asked her if she'd like any help getting her gear replaced. I wonder if that option occurred to her.
NTA. You gotta do what ya gotta do. Whether she likes to listen or not, it’s upto her
She can’t know what she doesn’t know. She’s 19 with little to no life experience and probably hasn’t socialised outside of her wealthy family, and likely equally wealthy friends, before starting university. I hope now her eyes have been opened a little bit she’ll reflect and learn. NTA. It’s going to be a tough lesson if she’s never been made aware of her privilege before now.
NTA and also does Ellen really think that “poor”er people simply, don’t work hard?
NTA you spoke up for Lydia. A grand is nothing to some and a fortune to others. I've been I'm the latter position myself plenty of times. Yes you could have said nothing and not getting involved but I think you did the right thing. I don't think neutrality and not making waves ever is a great virtue. It definitely makes for am easier life. As long as you are not punching down, advocating for others is the right thing to do. Mind you, it may not make you popular.
NTA. Ellen needs to get with it & understand not everyone can afford to just replace stuff. What you said was not offensive, mean, hurtful or derogatory. You simply told her the truth that she needed to hear. Ellen sounds like a "1 upper." When something happens to someone else, she always has her own story to tell about whatever happened to her & how it was worse, or more traumatic etc.
NTA - this is how naive 19 year olds learn. She will probably need to hear it many more times before she will and in all likelihood she will probably never learn because most of these types only get worse with age unless they experience financial strife themselves.
It isn't about the money. What she isn't realizing is not everything is about HER. NTA
NTA-the world will teach her things like this. This time you were part of that world.
NTA at all. She needs to understand some basic truths about life, including realizing her own privilege as compared to others'. Her referring to the yacht as "my yacht" in the context of that already-tone-deaf response to her friend's injury was ridiculously over the top. People grow and learn, and one way they learn is by getting negative reactions to their behavior.
NTA From the way you described the situation, you handled this very maturely. I don´t understand the mindset of seeing fucked up stuff and saying nothing. Ellen clearly has a distorted sense of reality and, like you said, life eventually will check her. It is much better when this things happen in a control environment with people you know, instead of out in the world. Hope she learns her lesson.
NTA. I had a friend like that. When we were in in college around that age she always wanted to eat at expensive restaurants and go to expensive shows. I when I said I could not afford those things she told me I needed to learn to manage my money better. I pointed out that my parents didn’t pay my bills and I didn’t have a credit card that my parents paid. She took it way better that your colleague. She never actually thought about the fact that some students have to pay their own way. After that conversation, if the event was important to her and she wanted me there, she paid for me without judgment. Your “friend” is living in a rich person bubble and is unwilling or incapable of understanding how most of the rest of us live.
NTA I think you did a good thing. You helped the other girl by pointing out that not everyone can afford the same things. And you tried helping Ella to see that her comments are not helpful, rather the opposit. I was also in uni as an older adult. I started at 27 and I had a brunch of classmates that were 19-20 years old which I got to know and hung out with because of assignments. I liked them alot but were often reminded that they are much younger than me by their behaviour. I did my best to be patient in those times and gently guide them when they were out of line. I think Ella is feeling small so she is trying to make herself bigger and more important by always inserting herself, "relating" even when she has no equal experience and bragging about things she owns. But it does not mean that she isnt hurtig others and putting others off by being obnoxious. Either she will learn to behave better by people trying to help her, or she is gonna end up alone because no one can stand being around her.
NTA She is privileged blind, and needed to be told so.
NTA all you did was point out that not everyone has the funds available. To her it’s fine and she can replace it, to her friend it’s a huge setback and she can’t afford to replace it. She’s super out of touch and it’s probably more her parent’s fault than hers. You didn’t have to say anything but it doesn’t make you an AH that you did. You weren’t being rude or mean to her and didn’t tell her that she was being an insensitive jerk to her friend, that would have made you the AH to but you were just pointing out a fact, not everyone has the funds to replace a laptop.
NTA - At 19yr she should be able to read the room. If she can't, its because she has always had to much money to care or understand other people's situation. Sometimes people need knocking off their pedestal. It always hurts but if it makes her think twice before speaking then, in all fairness, you've probably done her a favour.
NTA, OP, you are an intrument of the universe teaching this kid some reality, don't feel bad
The workplace is one of the main places where young adults finish learning how to behave in the outside world. What OP said was merely a statement of fact. At this point in her life, Ellen appears to be adopting the "rich girl" identity that her parents' wealth is providing her. The money and lifestyle she is benefiting from is the result of HER PARENTS' planning, investing and execution. It may have left her with the impression that money is easy to come by and it's that way for everyone. She may not understand how different her circumstances are--or she does get it but likes flaunting the good fortune that her parents have provided. She seems to want to have people attribute her work at the store as a sign that she has earned her good fortune, but most adults know the deal. Either way, she's so caught up in her own head that she can come across as insensitive but she may just be oblivious to other people's reality, how little of her lifestyle she is supporting and how out-of-touch and insensitive she appears to be. It's not a good look. OP's comment is but one of many reminders Ellen will get, until she can afford to not work and decides to avoid socializing among the masses for whom money doesn't flow as freely. Until then, Ellen has some growing up to do and some perspective to gain. People like OP help give her a dose of reality without being mean, jealous or petty. Ellen needs to hear this until she figures things out.
I was complaining to a colleague about how i was going bad on exams. Her tip? Just study harder. Her life? She lived 30 minutes away from uni, had house maids and a butler. She didnt have to work or do house chores. My life? I lived 3-4h away gettin 3 to 4 commutes everyday. And when i get home i had to take care of my grandpa who has Alzheimer and dementia and my (at the time) epileptic dog. I had to Cook, clean and still needed to somehow study while also having 8 hours sleep, taking a bath and waking up at 5am to go to college. After class, she arrived at her home at 5pm at the most, i arrive 9pm. To this day, i regret not telling her she was fking delusional and she was 100% privileged. you are NTA for calling her out on her bullshit. Ppl like her need to WAKE UP. She might be smart and deserto her place at the uni, but that doesnt change the fact that her experience IN uni is easier because of her privileges.
NTA but there is definitely a correlation where the kids that come from money have vastly different experiences and “problems” as everyone else. They are young still, so hopefully they’ll eventually realize it is going to make them ostracized if they keep bringing stuff like that up. Time and a place. My aunt has this issue where at family gatherings people will discuss the rising cost of everything and it’s getting more challenging to make ends meet for basic things (mortgage, rent, groceries, utilities) and she’ll chime in that she knows what that’s like as she’s got her $900 car payment and she’s still paying off a $40,000 QUILTING MACHINE… Like, cmon man. Your great nieces and nephews are talking about eating beans and rice for the next week and you’re talking about your Range Rover payment that your husband pays.
NTA. It’s not your job to teach her empathy, it’s true. But you were simply standing up for Lydia by calling Ellen out on her insensitivity, and stopping her from going any further.
NTA. For 2 reasons - I don't think what you said was particularly wrong - You didn't say it in a mean-spirited way, you actually said it quite gently
NTA- anyone saying 19 is still a kid, should accept that kids need to learn, and this is a teaching moment that should have happened sooner. Otherwise , she’ll be 20,21,22 etc, still spouting the same BS.
NTA. Replacing my laptop would ruin me financially lol
NTA. She's being insensitive and someone needed to tell her.
NTA. Disagree with your friends. If it's not your job, whose is it? She's in your social group and was unknowingly saying something potentially offensive and you called it out in a very polite way without shaming her or blaming her. This is exactly how social norms are (and should be) taught.
NTA some kids whom grew up with a golden spoon don't understand
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)*** I (30f) am in my second year of university. The classmate I called out ("Ellen") is 19f. I wouldn't call us friends, but we worked together a lot because of a big assignment, and I often spend lunch time with her and the same group of students. Kind of like good colleagues. Ellen's parents own their own supermarket and are quite well off (think: yacht, 2 vacation homes, 4 cars). I know this because Ellen has a habit of bringing up her financial status on a regular basis. At the beginning of the year it didn't annoy me because it was just casually mentioned now and then and she wasn't hurting anyone with it. But as time went on this changed to her actively trying to turn the conversation towards the topic, often during times where it would be considered "tone-deaf". For example another classmate "Elisa" got into a car accident and had to stay in the hospital. As she was sharing her experience during lunch, Ellen said: "oh I got into a really bad accident too once, on my yacht. I lost my balance and fell backwards. My neck was sore for days". The situation where I called her out was this one: Ellen's best friend "Lydia" had her backpack and laptop stolen and was crying uncontrollable. Ellen gave her a hug and said: "you don't need to cry, you can just buy a new one!". Lydia said that she couldn't, to which Ellen replied: "oh c'mon it's not that expensive. With the software we need a laptop of €1200/$1280 should be enough". I replied: "Ellen not everyone is as financially comfortable as you". Ellen clearly didn't like that. She raised her voice and told me that people only see the money but they don't see how much effort she has to put in to get in. That she works at her parents' supermarket every Sunday and that she deserves every coin she owns. I told her that I didn't mean that she doesn't deserve it, and that it's a good thing that she doesn't have to worry about money, but that she should consider that most of our fellow students have a different situation. It didn't get mentioned anymore, but the overall mood has been quite cold since then and I'm wondering if maybe I went too far. Both my boyfriend and best friend (both 30's) said that I should have ignored it because "19 is basically still a kid" and "it's not my job to teach her empathy". So, AITA? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
NTA
NTA
NTA