Reverse Snobbery

"Be careful how you interpret the world: it is like that." Erich Heller

We worked at a fast food restaurant in a somewhat upscale community. My supervisor was not what you would call a people person. I believe she failed to make this important connection: you have a job because you have customers. If you have no customers, you have no job. Treat the customers well, they will return and you will have job security. She believed that most of the customers looked down their noses at us, because of what she viewed as a lowly station in life. She often commented that the town was full of snobs. I interacted directly with customers much more often than she did, and that was not at all my experience. The vast majority of our customers were nice, reasonable people. Occasionally there was someone who was less than pleasant, but I didn't take it personally. Maybe they were in a hurry that day, perhaps they had pressures or problems I knew nothing about. Sure; every once in a while someone would patronize me, but I assumed the person's own insecurity caused that behavior.

It might have been what my boss brought to her interactions: that giant chip on her shoulder that she just dared people to knock off. She often had negative interactions with customers, but really she was the one who started it with her bad attitude. She expected our customers to judge her, but in reality she was the one doing the judging. She was the snob, in sort of a reverse fashion. It is just as blatantly unfair to treat someone badly because you envy him, as it is for a successful person to treat someone else as beneath him. My own experience has been that those who are well off financially are normal, down-to-earth people. Those who are pretentious would likely be that way regardless of their bank balance. And of course, not everyone who appears to be wealthy is. It could be they are simply in a great deal of debt.

How we view the world in general and how we view people in particular has a lot to do with whether we are happy or miserable. My former supervisor was a very unhappy person. She disliked her job and it showed. But I learned something useful from her, and here's what it is. Not all wealthy people are snobs, and not all snobs are wealthy.

Susan