As a child I used to get rather irritated whenever my nanny or butler complained about their impoverished circumstances.

People definitely love telling these stories. Hearing them, maybe not so much.

What you may not have considered is that people like even less when someone complains about trivial problems during their wealthy upbringing.

"Mother! The staff is whinging again!"

I'll assume your comedy detector is mis-calibrated, I have a hard time thinking someone could post here about the "tiresome whining of their servants" in anything but a joking manner.

I surely hope so. It was such a derivation from the topic at hand (rags to riches vs. complaining servants) that, if it was satire or irony, I don't get what the joke or lesson was supposed to be.

Edit: Perhaps the lesson it that they are tired of reading hard work your way to fortune stories? That does make sense, I was probably wrong in my comment above.

I don't mean to put down any rags to riches people but if we were to believe the often repeated lessons, then we should be shipping ourselves to Africa in order to become the next billionaire.

I smell survivorship bias.

Did you also wet your bed and have affinity for setting things on fire?

Not quite. What I got from it was that being in a kitchen is like learning how to learn how to work quickly and efficiently.

I worked through college dishwashing in a kitchen, cleaning hot pans and preparing food for impatient customers. This line immediately resonated with me:

> I still haven’t forgotten what I learned that summer. I learned the best way to sort silverware, dumping it out on the counter with each hand independently grabbing for knives, then forks, then spoons. I learned that I could work my way out of despair.

Based on how you sort silverware, I can tell whether or not you've worked in a kitchen. If you do it the correct way, then I'm also willing to bet you know how to work smart under pressure.

The American Dream right there

welcome to 60% of HN :(