Satanic Clock

So, my summer job is working for my dad's plumbing company. Ive been everywhere are New York fixing shit, cleaning shit, and putting in shit. Not to mention dealing with a lot of shitty people.

Today we were working in this million dollar house in Dewitt and I was just stunned. A 2 story (with a basement) 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, HUGE kitchen/dining room. This house is GIANT. The thing that upset me was the fact that I had to install 8 faucets in this house today. and each faucet cost between 200-300 dollars. Why the hell do you need to spend that much on FAUCETS! They dispense dirty tap water. Who cares. You can get a good looking one for like 50 bucks.


The best part, these 300 dollar Faucets were absolute pieces of shit. We had to take them apart and put all new gaskets in them and rebuild everything because they leaked like mother fuckers. Now, my dad and I almost never get leaks on anything we do, and Ill be damned in near every single faucet we put in leaked terribly.

Its beyond me why people would pay so much money for shit like that. Hey, I guess, if you've got it, why not waste it. Better yet, instead of buying these shitty faucets why dont you give me half the money so I can pay the rest of my way through college and never have ANYTHING to do with plumbing EVER AGAIN!


BTW: Im a newb, feel free to flame for no reason at all.

hotdogg

I doubt they thought they were buying junk...They probably felt that if they spent more they would get a better product, and if you can afford a mecedes why buy a kia? By the way in my neck of the woods good plumbers make a heck of a lot of money.

MacGnG

thats why i'd much rather become rich than be born rich. at least if you become rich you still have a brain in your head and know what to do with it. and you know what it's like not to be rich. sometimes i just cant stand those people, for whatever reason, well the ones that think they are better than everyone else anyway.

platypus

Hell, in my neck of the woods (Westchester County, NY) a million dollar house isn't that impressive nor out of the ordinary. Mine is probably worth near that and I don't consider it big nor me rich. My faucets leak, but then they were installed in the '20s. I wasn't born into money and what I do have I work hard for and spend wisely (usually). That's why when I get around to replacing my faucets, I won't spend a couple hundred on them. An $80 Price Pfister suits me just fine. Probably even install them myself as I've done it before.

BTW, who made the shit faucets you installed? Just so I can stear clear.

Oh and the last time I hired a plumber, I found out his house cost more than mine. But, so what?

__________________
Out the 10Base-T, through the router, down the T1, over the leased line, off the bridge, past the firewall...nothing but Net.

boink

heh, I've worked on custom metalwork for the rich for about 17 years !! I once made a latch for a $50,000.00 dog house!! the person that owned the main house and the dog was a lady that lived alone on the waterfront.

I made 35 or so doorhandels for a guy at about $2000.00 per set. he wanted the owner of Sony to know he was holding the doorhandel of the richest man in the world.... I wonder why he wanted phone jacks in his six foot tall medicine cabnets !?!?
he was cool though and paid his bill without a gripe. heh, I also had to cut apart and rebuild his faucets because they didn't reach all the way to the tub. it's the architects, not the rich customers selling all the fancy stuff to them.

some rich ( some !??!? heh near all ) rich are total fuckers, especially world wide coffie makers who FUCK poor craftspeople out of the money they are owed by bringing lawyers in to help hack down the bill.

eh, I dunno. I make my living from these people and the architects orgy they fund, but it does seem sick sometimes when I drive back into town and see the people begging by the freeway off ramp.

__________________
when you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer. Superstition ain't the way.

tikki

My dad is a homebuilder and builds those big homes like you were working in. I used to do work for him, and usually the expensive stuff does promote aesthetics over function. Hell, in my house we have these fancy doorknobs that look great, but the damn things fall apart all the time. I have never had a cheap brass one fall apart though

__________________
Take notice. Take interest. Take me with you.

Ashton

mbolding

I work on computers for a living (among other things) and it is just insane what people will spend just to be able to send email or open some word.doc about 5 years ago I set up a web server for some guy that gets about 50 hits a day. It cost 14,000 USD. dual processors, external SCSI raid 5 1 gig of ram (in 1999) and it ran windows NT with IIS serving up mostly static pages. It cost more than my car. It made me kind of sick. so I set up my desk top to serve the pages and used the machine as my desk top for a while...

Conclamo Ludus

bah! More money. More bills. Money doesn't buy happiness, but it buys freedom of choice. For some that means flashy faucets make them happy. I'll keep my lime-encrusted screenless tap. Its all relative.

__________________
Lord, have mercy on my wicked soul
I wouldn't mistreat you baby, for my weight in gold.
-Son House, Death Letter Blues

MSD

I worked at Radio Shack, a guy came in and asked for a cell phone headset. I showed him one for $25, our best quality, best seller.
him: "Do you have anything more expensive?"

me: "Here you go." handed him a $45 set
What I was thinking: "Well, the $25 set works better and I get more good feedback about it, but hey, I work on commission."


The thing that really upset me was when a girl got drunk, crashed her new BMW, and got a new one from mom and dad two weeks later when she got off the crutches. It was a 5-series, not cheap.

I have no problem with rich people, especially if they work their asses off to get it, but when they take it for granted, it pisses me off.

Rodney

I agree with the guy above who said that the best thing about having a lot of money is freedom of choice. The more money you have, the more options you have in any situation. The people who waste tons of money on appearances don't have any self-image outside of having their money; they have to spend it self-consciously to look important. Without their money, they'd have no identity. Wouldn't know who they were.

Then there are the other kind. I had a friend who grew up in a very affluent area, and he knew this guy who was worth 30 or 50 million, and he always drove around in this old flatbed truck. If you asked him why he drove an old truck instead of a Mercedes or something, he'd just smile at you and say, "It's a really GREAT truck," and open the hood and natter on about the engine for ten minutes. There are a lot of rich people out there who don't look rich, because they've got a self-image which doesn't require them to impress others with possessions.

Soggybagel

I just hate rich people who are stupid Seriously though...first car I bought I had to work and borrow money and what not. I paid 1200...then I recall tons of people who were rich had there mommies and daddies buy them cars worth easily 10000 plus. I mean its kind of disheartening when I work my ass off as well as having to pay off other things to get a 1200 dollar car when other people are getting way better and they don't even realize that they are so damn lucky.

zero2

I think most people think that when they buy something that usually the most expensive thing is better in quality, the faucets probably add some esthetic value to the house. Im sure if you told them that it would be in their best interest in putting one those $ 50 faucet they would listen to the logic behind installing a faucet for its lifelihood rather than its esthetic then again it's their money they are after all allowed to do with it what they want.

I understand your position, because when those expensive faucets breaks down, it reflects at the work you've done. It almost never is the products fault.

dogma13554u

you want sad. The house they blew up in the new movie, bad boys 2, is REAL. they blew up a house worth $50+ million . . . i can't even begin to fathom that kind of stupidity and waste

Buk

yah the people wanted the house blown up so they could build an even bigger more extragant one, and they don't get a dime for having it blown up, just free demolition and cleanup...

I always believe that the only way to stay wealthy once you are is to spend it wisely, otherwise you will end up back where you started one way or another.

Cynthetiq

I'm renovating my place and it's costing me a good deal of scratch to get it to where I want it to be. I'm not poor, but I'm not rich either... so what kind of faucets are these? I don't wanna get those for my bathroom by accident...

and BTW.. we don't flame n00bs or anyone for that matter for any reason...

Have fun!

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

DeviouslySimple

Again it's the assumption that more expensive = more properly made product.

Think of it like this, possessions/things are valued to you in how much utility you can get out of them relative to your income.

Say, if you make $12,000 a year, a $100 Christmas dinner for 2 will seem like a big deal. You would not necessarily want to buy the $100 of wine because it won't taste 5 times better than the $20 bottle of wine.

However, if you up the scale to say $100,000 annually, at this point, buying a cheap nasty burger for $3.50 or whatever at McDonald's seems kind of a waste of your health, especially since you can easily blow $50 a day on food and not blink much. While you can stomach and drink a $20 bottle of wine it feels a little cheap to you and the difference between that and the $50 is small enough in cash that you'll prefer the flavor. You might stretch but go for the $100 knowing that it's not really twice as good as the $50 but decent enough, and within your budget.

As you say though, people who grew up in priviledge, and especially those who have no identity besides their wealth/power, and no respect for others or themselves, those are the people who give the well off a bad name.