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Did somebody say second Gilded Age?
By adamg on Thu, 03/07/2013 - 10:17am
The Wall Street Journal reports on the trend of Boston-area college students hiring concierges who will wash their dick, sir "find and decorate apartments, get academic tutoring, snag coveted restaurant reservations and handle a litany of other bothersome chores."
The newspaper of the monied class naturally talks to one of the modern-day butler agencies:
AJ Rich, the 30-year-old founder of BCCG, says his service offers a "seamless transition" to college life in a new city. For many clients, he says, "It's not looked at as an indulgence, but a need."
H/t Michael Ratty.
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Comments
Oh fuck these people.
Oh fuck these people.
Word.
Word.
uhhhh
"For many clients, he says, "It's not looked at as an indulgence, but a need."
To me, that is a problem...
So hard to find good help
"Jeeves, would you please shake up that Bud and aim it straight down my throat? "
Please don't be jealous of
Please don't be jealous of these valuable job creators.
I can't be bothered
I will hire one of these people to be jealous for me.
Big Deal
My reaction at first was I worked 40 hours a week during college, 70 in the summer and I was able to take share of my needs and roughly 40% of my tuition and that these people are scum.
Then I remembered that this has been going on forever. Dig up Teddy Roosevelt and ask him about his servants when he was at Harvard in the 1880's.
There will always be the rich and always be the poor. My goal has always been to move from poor upward. Would it be fun to urinate on the carpet of the renovated apartment in the picture, which from the looks of it is high up at the south tower at the Ritz? Yes, it would be fun to urinate on some rich kids carpet. After that though, all I've accomplished is having him hire some poor schlub who has too clean it up, like this concierge service.
Somebody has had the smart idea to make money off of these sperm lottery winners, fair play to that person. I just hope the sperm lottery winner's G5 spins into the Atlantic on the way home from Spring Break.
Yes but...
If Teddy Roosevelt had to decorate an apartment, he would have gone out and shot a bear and a moose and had Jeeves stitch up the rug and mount the head on the wall.
Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with enabling these kids. After four years they get shipped back to Asia anyway, and it's practically a Boston tradition to bilk them of as much money as possible while they're here.
Let me guess, foreign
Let me guess, foreign students moving into the Ritz, Taj, Mandarin, Prudential Apartments, etc? You know the 'students' which spend most of their time at Newbury Street cafes instead of in class or studying.
And do these "kids" need
someone to wipe their nose and their ass, also?
"It's their money, why do you
"It's their money, why do you care?"
Because
when you have them living in the same building as you, you want to kick them in the teeth. These kids are the same ones who think nothing of having a party on a Tuesday at 3am with stereo's blaring and drunk 20-year-olds running down your hallway screaming at that hour.
They have never heard the word "no" and have no clue that other people exist and that the world doesn't revolve around them.
"So move; it's a free
"So move; it's a free country," said Trolly McTroll. I'm sure they wouldn't deign to live in your building anyway.
Don't you know that wealthy people are the most sacred elements of our society, providing all that is worthwhile to us wretched parasites? Insulting or making fun of them is like Hitler + Stalin x infinity.
Why an infinite number of
Why an infinite number of Stalins, but only one Hitler? Is Hitler like the cherry on top or something?
Yes
Stalin was a dirty commie.
Left-associative operators
I'm guessing in that system "the operators have the same precedence and are left-associative," but I like your explanation better.
A Lot of you commenting on here
are the same A-Holes who moved into “Up and Coming” neighborhood a few years ago and pushed out lower-middle class families, who I assure you would LOVE to kick you in the teeth. It’s like residents from JP who talk about gentrification while being the cause of said gentrification….
It's cute that you can't see
It's cute that you can't see the difference between "gentrification" and "entitled college assholes who have butlers to buy them beer pong supplies". Good work.
I Anticipated
that you wouldn't see the similarities between Yuppies gentrifying lower-middle class neighborhoods and the super wealthy lavishly out spending your yuppie counterparts.
I'll explain it to you.
I'll explain it to you. Gentrification is a result of property values being depressed relative to the surrounding area. There's absolutely no relation to douchebags with college butlers. One is an economic force that is virtually inevitable, and the other is just people being ridiculous. Now sit down.
Naw
That is a rather skewed view on gentrification. Gentrification is due to the influx of monied folks into a working-class or downtrodden neighborhood. This has a tenuous connection to the monetary well-being of a locale's "surrounding area".
For example: Charlestown is surrounded by East Boston, Chelsea, Everett, East Somerville, East Cambridge and the North End...none of which were tony neighborhoods in the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's and early 90's. Then the economy went gang-busters, and there was a rush into the city from folks raised in the suburbs. Same thing with JP, the South End, and South Boston.
While literal princes and princesses from Saudi Arabia might not be the main driver of gentrification in Boston, spoiled college boys and girls attending ever expanding universities have played a HUGE part.
So, I do see the point of the previous commenters post.
My $.02.
I don't know why this is hard
I don't know why this is hard for you to grasp. Gentrification is an economic force that corrects for depressed property values relative to the market as a whole. So up until the late 90s, you had low property values in places like Charlestown and Southie, but then people who wanted to live in the city wanted to move there and demand went up, along with prices. What does any of that have to do with some rich kid who needs Jeeves to fetch him a case of Natty Light?
And those places without "gentrification" problems?
I'm sure you would be much happier in Baltimore or Detroit.
Ah yes, because there is no middle ground
between gentrification and communities filled with poverty and violence. Now I get what people on here mean when they say your comments are a running joke.
Running Joke?
That would be "cowardly anons who think their attempts at insults are clever".
But feel free to provide a list cities where there are still enough jobs that pay enough for most residents to own homes that don't have gentrification issues. I'd be happy to hear those places still exist.
No response yet
They must still be looking for the location of Fantasy Land.
Children of diplomats?
It's curious - I was going to ask whether there was anyway we could find out how many of these students also have diplomatic immunity - in which case, they have heard the word "no" - as in, "don't worry, you'll be doing no time for having 2 keys of coke and 15 hookers in your apartment."
Only diplomats?
I don't think that should be jail time for anybody.
Eat the Rich
Because it should be my money. That's why I care.
Don't need someone to wipe your ass...
...when you have a bidet.
Yeah, but we use that as a
Yeah, but we use that as a beer cooler.
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Groom of the Stool
Do they have anyone who specializes in that position? During Henry VIII's time not just any Tom, Dick or Harry enjoyed the privilege. You had to be perched pretty high up to be able to reach down so low.
Wonder where they get the smug attitudes from?..
A few years back, one of my drivers was hired by a local luxury hotel to park on Memorial Drive from midnight on until the hotel guest who requested the car checked out and got to the driver who was only holding a parking space for the Head of the Charles.
How's that for first world problems??!!
Actually...
That is so ridiculous that it is kind of a boss move. Hiring a car service to hold a parking spot? Baller.
jeeves!?!?! oh dear jeeves!!?!!?
please go outside and break a few mirrors off the neighbors cars!!
Damn!
Did you send him down Hillside st. about 6 weeks ago?
I don't care. This is a news
I don't care. This is a news story because it's so unusual.
$300? OK, paint my house
I can do a fairly good impersonation of a Euro-trash graduate student. So ... if I hire these people for the going rate, can I get them to paint my house? Deal!!!!
Did you notice.....
That most of the kids quoted in the article come from countries (Colombia. Mexico, Saudi Arabia) which are not models of equal opportunity? There are probably people in their home countries who are starving. And here's betting that their family didn't come into their fortunes from hard work and gumption.
The kids are obnoxious but they're used to this treatment. My contempt is saved for the idiots here who start concierge services to cater to them. If we all banded together as a society to disapprove of such disgusting excess, maybe they'd change their attitude. But there will always be some cynical bottom-feeder who ruins it for the rest of us.
Likely
Likely that the clients of this service don't live
Sorry
Sorry, didn't complete comment link didn't get included.
"...don't live here":
http://www.theonion.com/articles/something-wrong-w...
Rich people spend money.
Rich people spend money. Shocker. I assume that none of you ever drop off your laundry for some minimum wage working woman to do, Or, God forbid, ever eat in a restaurant instead of cooking your own food.
Envy is not a virtue.
You are so funny.
Plenty of folks drop their laundry off to be washed, dried and folded and/or eat at restaurants and they can handle their own landlord problems and/or know how to clean their butts without a bidet.
And equating these well off "kids" to restaurant workers (or laundry workers) is, in my opinion, quite insulting to the restaurant and laundry workers.
Oh, and by the way, I do my own laundry.
To put this in college
To put this in college student terms:
Gtfo of Boston.
We don't want you here. We've never wanted you here.
Third world problems.
Third world problems.
That's life ...
I am rolling my eyes, to be sure, but still - if that's how they want to spend their money, I'm glad to see it taken from them.
Also of interest around Boston...
Also of interest around Boston... >"What officiant services do you provide? Civil Union, Interfaith Ceremony, Non-religious Ceremony
>
> What religious affiliations do you serve? Agnostic, Baha'i Faith, Buddhist, Christian (no denomination), Christian - Anglican, Christian - Baptist, Christian - Catholic, Christian - Episcopalian, Christian - Lutheran, Christian - Methodist, Christian - Mormon, Christian - Orthodox, Christian - Presbyterian, Christian - Quaker, Evangelical, Hindu, Islam, Jainism, Jewish, Muslim, Shinto, Sikhism, Taoist
>
> Can you accommodate the hearing impaired? No"
http://www.weddingwire.com/biz/rosaria-salerno-jus...
Good for the guy who started the businesss
There have always been students like this. I remember meeting students my first year of college 20+ years ago who were horrified that our dorm didn't have cleaning and laundry service.