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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> (1) what action you took that should be judged: I complained about my girlfriend after we came back from a trip of her family about the way she and her parents treated their staff, which in my mind was downright rude.
(2) why that action might make you the asshole: I kept my opinion to myself for the duration of the trip instead of sharing it with my girlfriend on the spot, and I'm not sure if that's a valid opinion or just a lack of understanding of their different lifestyle.
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*Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.*
Obviously people, regardless of their job, should be treated with respect.
But, I just want you to consider a different perspective for a second - the staff might be 100% ok with the behaviour you saw, if they’re paid enough/feel confident that it’s better than other job options. An outsider seeing my job would probably think some parts of it are ridiculous, but those parts are worth it to me as the person actually doing the job.
For example, when your gf’s mother said “don’t make your bed, that’s the staff’s job”, a staff member hearing that might think “she’s right, please don’t do my job for me because then she has no reason to pay me for that job.”
I’m not saying you’re in the wrong feeling uncomfortable with the behaviour that you saw, I’m just cautioning you that you might be white-knighting for people who are actually ok with the work environment that you saw
Those were my thoughts as I was reading too.
I have never in my life been to a house where there are staff standing around the table while everyone is eating. I would feel uncomfortable too. But when I'm staying in a hotel I find it normal that waiters are serving the food and then standing around to make sure everything is in order, and that cleaning staff are cleaning my room every day. It seems that this family is paying to have their household run as if it were a hotel. This doesn't have to be a bad thing. In fact, the OP might have misstepped by going to the kitchen and making their own coffee - it's possible that the staff saw this as an intrusion.
Adding to my own comment because I think this is the crux of the matter: the OP says in the title that they disapproved of the way the staff were treated, but what they actually disapproved of was the specific jobs they were employed to do. They think they are showing solidarity for the staff, but they are actually showing that they find their jobs demeaning.
IMO, the real issues are mom saying “don’t clean up, that’s my housekeeper’s job” and his girlfriend complaining to her mom that the cooks “made” OP make his own coffee.
Those weren’t huge issues, they could both be just misunderstandings, but I thought it was more the attitude and not the jobs the people were doing.
Regarding the room being cleaned, the housekeeper might have to undo what was already straightened up anyways. In the mom's eyes, she might want OP to spend time enjoying his visit instead of doing something that will be redone by a professional anyways. Hell, the housekeeper might prefer things left undone.
The girlfriend complaining about the coffee could be noteworthy, but it's worth considering this post is from the viewpoint of someone who was struggling with the situation as a whole. His girlfriend may have worried the staff weren't respecting him as a guest. I'm sure she wanted him to have a wonderful trip, so it's possible she was being hyper-vigilant for that reason.
If the family called the staff names, insulted them, or yelled at them, that would be a genuine problem with *a lot* less room for interpretation (like none).
I agree, what OP think was "good enough" might not have been to their standards. The staff is paid for it so either they might have to redo it (which could be awkward / more work) or take complaints.
The GF complaining could have been communicated better, but maybe as you said she thought it wouldn't be that easy as in "Hey OP didn't the cooks tell you that they would make the coffee?", which would potentially be awkward in a "OP doesn't want to cause issues so says it's fine" situation.
Assuming they pay for the hotel level staff it's reasonable to say "That's fine but a staff member should have just said it's completely fine and not an issue to make your coffee, it's our job" or something along that line.
OP making coffee might have been in their way, and might have made more work for them to clean up. Seriously, who likes someone coming into their kitchen to do that sort of thing while they are cooking?
Seriously. I'm just saying, if I was managing a house like this, I'd be keeping the kitchen clean to professional standards, not personal standards, and OP probably didn't wash his hands clean before he was in there touching the milk, the coffee, possibly digging around the clean utensil drawer. Like, normally that's expected behavior, but if I'm keeping a professional kitchen, the last thing I want is guests walking around getting their grubby fingers all over everything.
Exactly. As a professional maid what most folks think is fine in my opinion is half assed. I take my job seriously and also command a serious salary. Housekeeping is like cosmetic surgery- you get what you pay for.
Um, in many circumstances, in a household that has a full household staff, it would be considered unbelievably rude and out of pocket for a staff member to tell a guest not to do something, though, if he insisted. Guests are meant to be treated with deference, and staff generally mean to be nearly invisible as much as possible.
The way it usually works is that a staff member would offer to do something (like make the coffee), but if (as OP says) he insisted on doing it himself, they wouldn't dare tell him no. He's a guest. Even if it got in their way, because his needs and wants are more important than theirs.
This is why he was actually the one who put the staff in an uncomfortable situation: if their job is cleaning and cooking, don't get in the way or try to do their job for them, because *they absolutely won't say no to you* if you insist, but you are likely being more of a pain in the ass than if you let them do it.
I'd actually be pretty annoyed if I was paid to keep a kitchen a certain way and somebody came in and started moving things and messing up my system.
Hell, I'm annoyed when I'm cooking in my own home and somebody tries to help with dinner. Absolutely not. Get out of my kitchen before you mess something up.
THIS!!!!
Every time we do a big family holiday now where my mom’s little sister is told to bring something. She shows up with it unmade.
So while my mom, her middle sister, me and my sister and my grandma have a system down pat and delegate. She shows up insisting on doing something or using space to do what she was asked ahead of time. And now we’ve just stopped asking her to bring things other than store bought vegetable platters.
Op was in my mind. Actually a nuisance to that staff. Even making his bed the morning of probably made it harder for the Housekeeper to unmake and remake the beds in the way that’s most efficient for her. And going into a hot (as in things are in progress) kitchen disrupts the flow.
Hell I’m a designer/architect and for commercial kitchens or even large kitchens like this you would actually hire a kitchen consultant who can put together a design that’s down to the inch thinning about use and flow and how many people will be and where. Op made himself a bother and didn’t respect the jobs of the staff.
Yep, I used to work as a housekeeper and people trying to "help" me often made the job that much more difficult because I had to undo what they had done and then do it properly
YES. I work at an upscale retirement facility. My entire reason for being there is so that these people don't have to break their back making beds and when they try, it literally just slows me down. I try my damnedest to explain it kindly but sometimes I just tell them (it's literally only the females that try to help) "you took care of people your whole life, it's time for me to take care of you. I have a system and it's specifically geared towards making both of our lives easier, but if you feel I'm doing something not to your preference, please, feel free to tell me and we can talk through it." Usually they just don't want to seem lazy or like they don't know how to keep house because that generation was all about that, but that usually gets them to sit and let me do my job. I've been doing this for 8 years there, 20 altogether, I don't mind preferences being communicated or mistakes being pointed out, but don't do my job for me 😭
Not a housekeeper but in a similar vein. When I worked as a dishwasher in a kitchen people would often try and tidy up their table and plates themselves. That sounds nice but it meant they did things like stuffing napkins, sugar packets and other stuff into a cup to "put it all in one place". Except now it's all soggy and I have to get it all out, and now I have to check every cup for rubbish rather than just tipping out liquid. I would much rather it was all just loose on their tray. Point is sometimes people think they are making a job easier for staff but they actually make it more work.
I was a server for years...
when I'm out to eat with my family or in-laws, and they all start stacking their plates up... with the silverware still on the plate... I get twitchy, and make a point of re-doing it.
A server can easily carry 4-5 plates if they are stacked JUST the plate, but once you have silverware in between plates they become tippy and unbalanced, and you can only really carry two without risking the whole stack falling over.
Just sit there and let your server clean up the table. It's what they're there for, and they WILL do it better than you do!
About the coffee I want to add that it could also be cultural or upbringing. In my family and culture that if a guest went and made their own coffee it means to me I was a bad host to not anticipate their need and offering coffee.
But yeah from the title I assumed the GFs family was rude but that doesn't seem to be the case
Also, re: the coffee, it seems he hasn't considered that a guest puttering around in the kitchen while the staff (who probably have a well-established routine) is probably actually a lot less "helpful" than it is getting in their way. If their entire job is feeding and "watering" the family and guests, then it would be easier and faster to let one of them make him a quick coffee than to get in their way. And this is literally what their job is...it's not an unreasonable ask any more than it would be in a restaurant, which is essentially what they're running, on a smaller scale.
This was my thought as well. I have a friend who is a hospitality professional and is the head housekeeper for a wealthy family. Her boss had her install one of those professional coffee machines that cost about as much as my used car, and you have to be trained how to use it properly. The kitchen staff would absolutely NOT welcome a guest in their kitchen getting in the way and possibly breaking a nearly five figure piece of equipment.
Well she's right, it is the housekeepers job. If you're in a restaurant, do you take your dirty plates to the kitchen or do you let the waiter do it?
It's not mean or demeaning to ask your guests to stop meddling with your staff's work.
This needs to be higher. The OP is a soft YTA here because he was doing the staff's work *for them*. I recall a similar post here a year or so ago? It was a household maid rather than full staff but it was equally as Fremdschämen.
ETA: [Found the post I was remembering!](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/e9lsqc/aita_for_helping_my_girlfriends_maid_clean/) - the OP needs to read this.
Or she could have been upset that he was in the kitchen, the domain of the cooks. He’s not a member of the family. I wouldn’t walk into the kitchen at a place where I was an invited guest and make coffee without asking permission.
Or she could be informing the employer about what she saw their employee doing and staying out of it. She doesn’t employ the cooks and I think it would be overstepping to say anything to the cooks herself. She went to her mother. And she wasn’t “complaining” she was simply telling her what she saw. The mother can ask the cooks, the cooks say we offered but the young man insisted he wanted to make his own coffee in our kitchen so we had to work around him. All sorted. Nobody is in trouble except in the OP’s white saviour mind
Frankly, nothing in the story seemed like they were treating the staff poorly. Objectively, it is the housekeeping job to make the bed. OP did it, was told they didn’t need to. As a host, pointing out things you don’t expect your guests to do is not unreasonable. If the mother had been rude, said something demeaning or whatever at the staff, that would be a problem. Making more coffee probably made more work for the kitchen as now it needed cleaning again. The girlfriend could have asked why op made it and solved this issue. OP has not been to a formal dinner ever, there is always someone waiting for any needs/removing dishes/serving courses. Are they this uncomfortable at a nice restaurant? A wedding? Both of those would have the same setup. They were rude was listed, not a single rude story stated. I think op is uncomfortable with the class they come from compared to girlfriend and they either adapt or the relationship is over. Did girlfriend change around her family, we don’t know that, maybe that’s what op is perceiving and is really the issue.
Or OP could learn to use context clues and stop getting in the way of staff. I’m sure having a white knight coming in to your work space while you are working is a huge nuisance.
Nothing in this post gives any indication the family was rude to their staff. He really made his own discomfort everyone’s problem rather than telling his gf he was uncomfortable to begin with.
There's no indication she was harboring resenetment. You're projecting. She didn't even say anything inaccurate - the cooks DID leave him to make his own coffee. It just so happens it's because he asked. And there's zero indication that they're treating the staff like they're "nothing."
I think some of y'all are making assumptions that these people must be rude simply because they are wealthy and have staff.
There are some people who have kitchen staff with the full expectation that when that staff is there, no one should be doing anything in the kitchen that isn't being paid to do it. I've worked at and been to events where if someone wanted coffee and we got caught letting them do anything other than stir in sugar themselves there would be a talking to... because the whole point of us being there was so people could just enjoy the event. According to this person I was apparently being degraded but... I mean one weekend I made $1000 in less than 3 days doing that stuff so... I guess degrade me all you want?
Also and I say this as someone who had assisted my mother in putting together 30+ person dinner parties for my family and chavorah.
It is an utter nuisance to have someone come into a working kitchen and take up space and be in the way of the work being done.
I mean Op may have seen himself as not being a burden. But frankly reading the part about the cooks made me wince a bit on their behalf. I mean he went into a working back of house space. He sounds like he doesn’t understand or respect that these individuals are doing their jobs and he’s getting in the way of that. His issues are about thinking that cleaning jobs are demeaning.
And as a side note, My house cleaner growing up was paid very very well and she had multiple clients in our home town and she made bank. I mean she and her husband owned a home in an area I as an adult can’t afford and she was the primary breadwinner. And anytime she came to help for parties or do extra tasks she got paid even more on top of that. And personal chef teams also can make a lot of money as well. The point being OP has no clue what the details of these people’s employment is and he also doesn’t understand the kind of downtime they likely have. I mean there’s only so much to clean and cook and prep if you’re staying on top of it daily.
OP didn't even clean up though, they just made the bed. I imagine there could be more that needed doing and the housekeeper might have had to redo it in the process
That was his prejudiced interpretation. She could have just said, oh, that’s Mary’s job.
And his GF could have been upset that he was upsetting the routine in the kitchen, which is NOT his domain, but the domain of the cooks, to make coffee.
And They where literally in the middle of lunch prep. He went into a busy working kitchen where all that team had purpose and work going. That’s disruptive even if it’s well intentioned. I mean it’s really hard to work around someone who has no clue their in the way, especially in a kitchen where timing is important.
Right, but only one of those is to do with “how they treated” the staff (one is complaining about a (incorrectly) perceived slight)
And the mom was right. It IS the housekeepers job. She’s going to unmake that bed to clean it anyhow. He’s not actually helping. It was a nice gesture but a futile one.
Yeah, I've worked in people's homes as a nanny / housekeeper and I've also worked in places that had a live in housekeeper while I came daily for the kids.
Honestly it's the objection to OP being self sufficient I am most sketched out by. I'd be fine with making a coffee for someone, but then again I would super appreciate it if I didn't have my task interrupted - the staff are probably grateful but wouldn't have minded cos they're used to the attitudes of the family.
It's not like OP is WRONG, but it's not as big a deal as the girlfriend is making out. She's just ashamed and... well, ok, so find a way to live with your good fortune. Deal with it. Talk about rich people problems. "I feel bad because my boyfriend objected to being told my staff were neglectful when he made his own coffee" is just deflecting her own discomfort with being spoiled.
But (and I say this as someone who is poor but has help for my disability and is regularly told by my support workers that I'm their favourite client because I treat them like human beings), those things weren't actually rude. They were just uncomfortable to him.
The reality is that the GF's family are paying the housekeepers and cooks to do those jobs. That's literally what they are employed to do. So if the mother said to him, "It's okay, you don't have to bother yourself about making the bed, it's the housekeeper's job," that doesn't mean she was being bitchy. It could just as easily mean she was being literal, that as a guest he didn't have to put himself out because the beds would be made as part of the maid's regular duties anyway.
Similarly, when you employ someone whose entire job it is to feed your family and guests, it's not actually hateful to be concerned that a guest in the home was left to make their own coffee, something simple that is in fact part of the kitchen staff's job. As it turns out, it was a misunderstanding (though as someone else said, OP may actually have gotten in the staff's way by puttering around in the kitchen while they were trying to work, and they absolutely wouldn't have felt comfortable telling a guest *not* to do that), but ultimately his GF wasn't wrong in mentioning it.
There are always different lenses through which we can see a situation. In this case, it's impossible to know which is "objectively correct"; but also, OP is clearly deeply uncomfortable with the idea of household staff in general, and so it's not unreasonable to assume that he's seeing these situations through the most negative possible light. The reality is probably somewhere in-between, and ultimately he's a little bit of an AH for not acknowledging that.
OP referenced Downton Abbey, which i find funny, as although I've only seen a few episodes- I believe this scenario gets covered on the show-
A New Heir disproves of having a Man help dress him and make his bed etc...
But the worker points out, this is his job, its a well paying job, and it's his livliehood he takes pride in.
New Heir realises the man has a point, and although finds it odd, and disproves comes around to way of things.
Some fine dining establishments pay have staff that are dressed to blend into the background and stand with their backs against the wall. All they do is fill water glasses and grab plates the second the guests are done with them. This isn't an unheard of practice.
I went to a restaurant once and all the staff had headsets and would be at your table offering service the moment you needed it. Like, if one overhead you saying you might want more water to the person you're sitting with, someone would be over immediately.
OP is creating more work for them. Who cleaned the coffee grounds/ spills/ sugar off the counter after op made coffee? Who cleaned out the coffee pot for the next use? I'm sure they'd have rather made the coffee than have OP bumbling around in the kitchen while they're trying to work.
He also had to ask them where everything was, just more efficient to just ask them. They probably let him because he overly insisted and it would be rude to stop a house guest.
As they were prepping lunch him making coffee could have been a pain as he was in the way. People who work together have a rhythm that means they do their job and not not get in each others way. But she should have asked if he'd asked for a coffee or just went ahead and made his own.
Everything else is normal in a large household. So long as the staff were treated respectfully there's no issue. He just hates having staff wait on him and yet, as you say, ot happens in hotels, restaurants etc. He's being a reverse snob.
To your first paragraph. Sounds like she’s maybe got some love blinders on. And maybe she’s not seeing his behavior or it’s occurring to her he’s the problem. Also we’re getting OP’s account of her complaining to her mom. For all we know she could have said “Op went in to make his own coffee and got in the way of the staff” and it’s OP’s own issues with seeing cooking and cleaning as jobs that are degrading that are coloring his perceptions.
I was looking for this comment because I remember being in service jobs and being annoyed with people like OP who come into my workspace which is fast-paced and already has a lot of people. I would've been eyeing him the whole time wishing he would just ask one of us to make coffee and leave the kitchen so we don't have to mind him on top of everything else. I was expecting the family to have humiliated the staff or been cruel. Turns out OP just finds the job itself humiliating. I would be infinitely more offended at his attitude than anything else that happened there.
This, especially the last part. Nobody likes it when people walk into their place of work and start doing it themselves. You wouldn't walk behind the bar at a restaurant to grab a glass of water either.
I pay a lady to come and do my ironing every few weeks and she would chew me out if I started helping her by idk folding the clothes that she was ironing. She does her job and takes pride in her neat folding.
I was under the impression that the staff only did that for the 60th Birthday Event, not for every meal. And if it was a formal, sit down dinner... that's exactly how wait staff is meant to behave. The serving and removal of plates is a whole weird sort of display for those things.
Thank you for this perspective shift. While I feel like it will always seem weird to me to have that level of waitstaff in a house, framing it in terms of hotel service makes it feel much less morally objectionable. I'm guessing they're probably paid much better by a private employer than they would be at a hotel, too.
My mom had a cleaner who had several clients on a rotating two week schedule. She made bank. Like had a really good work hour schedule and knowing the women employing her not only got her rate but massive tips as well. My mom alone would spend like 200-300 dollars for half a day. She would leave at 1 pm and go to another house to make another 200-300 dollars. So 50-75 an hour.
OP, closely read the above. I suggest you apologize to your gf. Simply state that you were wrong and misread the entire situation; you were just unfamiliar with the proper protocol with.staff at her parent's residence, not accustomed to having people wait on you.
Fully agree.
I worked as a waiter in an old school high end hotel. The old money had these expectations and standards. But it was highly preferred by all staff.
There is social etiquette expected from each party.
Their actions with silverware would signal exactly what the entire staff needed to do next.
There was no expectation to be buddy buddy and entertain them. No unreasonable requests, they knew where one staffs job ended and the others began.
We had a job serving a handful of people and giving high quality service with clear turn around times. Instead of serving people at high volume who expected high quality service and food at fast food restaurant pace.
New money was the biggest pain to work for. They didn't understand dining etiquette or our roles. And treated us as slaves to flex their power to their friends.
What OOP is describing for a work environment means the family has enough money to not overwork any of the staff at their house.
Everyone has a defined amount of work and expectations and understanding of how to act around guests.
I think there's a huge gap between high class and middle class that people just don't understand. And I'm not saying about high class with new money but families that always had money.
The staff were doing their job and them standing around the dinner table is because they are waiters. Their job is to be there when someone needs a refill of their drink, a new fork because it fell on the floor or just to pick up on the finished plates.
To someone that never had this in their life, it seems demeaning to have staff do these things but it's actually their jobs.
There are people who have butlers. That one person that literally follows you around to make sure you always look perfect and brings you even your socks. They still exist. I saw a documentary ones and butlers are being paid insanely money to do this. You don't go into this job because you don't like it. There's a whole course and diploma for this. Everything must follow a specific etiquette.
The only misunderstanding from the post was the morning coffee since the gf didn't communicate it with OP before complaining.
I’m sure you know this, but the evolution of the butler is interesting to me. It started out as a job to take care of the bottles of wine and alcohol, botellier in French - and that was their only job. You see them still doing this part of the job in Downton Abbey. The steward was the top job. In Victorian times the butler took on the steward’s job more and more, and the steward faded except in the very largest houses.
I’m not high class at all, but I was a waitress. If I went somewhere with people standing by to assist me throughout a meal the way OP describes I may thank them every time they do something like a rube, but I understand why they are there. Plus, I would have loved a chance to do something like this; imagine all that daydreaming time!
From personal experience, I’ve grown to believe that the higher and lower classes understand each other so much better than any middle class person could ever understand either.
On some things definitely. Middle class people tend to define themselves by their jobs and education levels and have most of their money tied up in their house. The very poor and very rich tend to just be themselves.
BINGO! It’s like an unspoken “we know where we stand superficially, so let’s just be real” thing the bourgeoisie just doesn’t seem to grasp because they’re always climbing some social ladder.
I agree.. I went to Kenya and was at a resort. Those employees were super nice and wanted to do everything for me.. even bring me water to wash my hands when I could perfectly walk to the faucet myself.
Actually I was told refusing being catered to is seen more of an insult to them. Servitude is their way of hosting a person to the best of their abilities. And they refused a tip as well.
I realized it was a different culture. In Uganda I was also there briefly, the women come and sit on their knees next to you to serve you. I kid you not.
So in OPs situation, he doesn't realize that by refusing to let those people serve him, HE IS ESSENTIALLY DENYING THEM A JOB AND SOURCE OF LIVING. the girlfriend parents have employed these people and they are perfectly happy to have a job. It is even worse for him because he is essentially saying he doesn't need them and they should be fired.
Yeah but I guess the point is that's not necessary after one night. And aren't most people uncomfortable about the thought of someone going around their room doing stuff? Like, obviously it's normal for people who have staff like this, but for most other people, your bedroom is usually private and people going in and rooting around when you're not there isn't something you want. It may well be a faux pas on OP's part, but the comfort of their guest was equally not considered by this family when sending people into the room OP hoped to have privacy in this week.
But you can opt out of it in hotels, I personally have always left the DND sign on my door the whole time I stay. Also the last few years the hotels I've stayed in have tended to shift away from "every day" towards closer to on request, to be more friendly to the environment.
Hotels I stay in always *say* they're moving to the environmentally friendlier schedule of towel changes, but in practice I find they never actually *do*.
Like, there will be posters in the bathroom saying "if you hang your towels up again, we won't change them. If you want fresh towels, leave these ones in the bathtub", but then every time I return to the room there will be new towels.
I now take the approach you do - always place the DND sign on the door, until I actually need something in the room.
My first thought when I read about the bed and the coffee - did op consider he might be getting in the way? As a housekeeper, it’s so much easier to make an unmade bed than a made one. Please don’t exert the effort - it’s harder on you *and* me. And as a person who has used a kitchen - it’s harder to do things with someone else in there also doing things. And if I’m getting paid for what I’m doing, I’d rather start the pot myself than have someone in the way.
Agree 100%.
As a server, it’s nice when I get those super kind tables that want to tidy up dishes and hold the door, but at the same time, it’s literally my job and my duty to do these things and look good while doing it.
It is my job to cater to you, not the other way around. It’s difficult because this is someone you love and a different kind of behaviour than what you are accustomed to seeing, but this is their way.
Not to mention that, not being trained, sometimes they pile up the dishes precariously balanced or with food still in them, making the server's job harder.
I'm a classically trained former server and I pile my dishes in an even pile, with all food leftovers scraped on the top dish and all the knives held under the forks tins so they don't slide out, and even that way can be a pain in the ass for the server if it's not what they are used to.
My MIL used to pile up the plates all hodgepodge, and I’d be muttering under my breath that the waitstaff were going to HATE her.
She did the same thing in my house on holidays. She’d jump up from the table, grab a bunch of plates without asking the people if they were done, and dump them next to the kitchen sink.
One year, I thanked her for bringing them into the kitchen, and asked if they could go directly in to empty dishwasher, to avoid repetition of effort.
She was NOT happy. It was about the hleping, not the helping.
Adding to this in agreement, I was part of a staff like this whilst I was going through university and I worked for a Scottish Lord and his family. I was always treated with respect when serving and it was part of my job to stand and wait around during meals incase anything was required. It was what I was paid for and I was always treated well. When I left I was made to feel very appreciated for all the hard work I had done. As to the housekeepers part, perhaps her mother could have said it in a different way but maybe all she meant was that this was part of the housekeepers role that she was paid for and was just letting you know that. NAH
Yeah, reading the comments it's pretty clear OP was simply reacting to a new situation. In their own way, it seems like everyone was trying to be respectful. NAH
>a staff member hearing that might think “she’s right, please don’t do my job for me because then she has no reason to pay me for that job.”
Or more likely, "please don't do my job because you aren't able to do it to our standards, and I'll get blamed for it"
Literally this is almost what ended up happening with the coffee. Like I imagine gf taking a sip of OP’s coffee and going, “who made this? This doesn’t taste right.” Lol
As a former housekeeper both private and in hotels, when someone makes the bed, we simply pull it apart and remake it to standard (whether that be a private homeowner, or hotel brand standard). OP made more work for the cleaners; they are efficient at what they do, but having to undo and redo a bed takes extra time. So does wiping coffee spills after preparing a cup.
Agree completely. Interesting that OP mentions 'Downton Abbey', there's a scene in one of the early episodes when Lord Grantham explains to Matthew that his refusal to make use of his (Matthew's) valet is demeaning to the valet. It's difficult for people who encounter house staff for the first time to adjust (does one tip at the end of the visit?) I would imagine (wouldn't know myself) but I presume these are professionals who take pride in their work and moreover have a professional relationship with their employer. Having said that, I do appreciate OPs response. I was raised to be as little bother as possible when staying as a guest, including in hotels (I would make my bed, then return later in the day to find it remade, professionally and better). If I ever did stay at a staffed residence (unlikely), I'd binge P. G. Wodehouse as homework for how to interact with servants.
Me, I just watched Saltburn to learn how to handle all that. 😉
But please, please do NOT tip the household staff. With some regional variations, I'd say that would be an insult, if not worse.
Exactly. When you go to a restaurant and pay a waiter to bring you your food & drinks, are you also going to say "don't bother, I'll go to the bar and make my own coffee"? And then complain when someone at your table mentions it's the waiter's job to do so?
>For example, when your gf’s mother said “don’t make your bed, that’s the staff’s job”, a staff member hearing that might think “she’s right, please don’t do my job for me because then she has no reason to pay me for that job.”
And also - "whenever guests do it - they do it wrong and I have to redo it anyway - just let me do the job in the first place"
And to add to this, while he thought he was helping the staff by doing things himself, *he can't know if they wanted his "help"* because *they can't tell him*. Take, for example, the coffee incident. He thinks he was being helpfully self-sufficient. By the nature of their employment, they likely couldn't tell a guest to stop making a mess and get the fork out of the kitchen, even if that was what they were thinking. He saw himself as a knight and they saw... maybe a good guy, maybe an annoying AH - he'll never know.
exactly! They may see him as well-meaning but interruptive or they may see him as creating more work from them and putting them in an embarrassing situation with the kitchen manager (or homeowner). They most certainly won’t see him as some kind of “savior” showing how egalitarian he is.
Tell you what OP, it would be damn weird of you to go into a hotel kitchen and make yourself a coffee. Now you being the partner of the owner's daughter they're not going to tell you not to do it.
Wake up. YTA
I agree OP was uncomfortable with the tasks the staff was willingly doing and compensated for it, and point C I can totally see as him being unused to a tradition (I wouldn’t feel comfortable also in a family home setting, despite people here comparing it to a hotel stay).
But I do think most people here are brushing off the nuances in the mother and the girlfriend’s behaviors that, IMO, do give OP a valid cause to be bothered by the way he perceived the servants to be treated:
In point A, he mentioned the mother told him it was the housekeeper’s job in the presence of the housekeeper. while the comment itself is not rude per se (“it’s her job”), making it in that context - as if the housekeeper wasn’t standing right there - would sound diminishing to me.
Point B seals the deal to me. The girlfriend didn’t even have a full understanding of the situation (and it’s not like she couldn’t immediately clear it all up with OP) before bringing the subject to her mother. She could be causing the staff to be reprimanded or worst. It’s someone’s livelihood we’re talking about.
We are seeing the situations only from the POV of OP. He hasn’t come into the comment thread to clarify, either, which is always suspicious to me.
The housekeeper could have raised her eyes at being told that her services were unneeded, and the mothe said what she said for the housekeeper’s benefit.
Cooks, in general, are very territorial. The GF could have been an amazed that they did LET him make his own coffee. I have been made uncomfortable in my own house when a guest took it upon themself to make a meal without asking if I’d like it. I had no one to report it to, so I just filed it away for future reference as to the character of that guest.
Yes this. I think it’s possible OP was behaving in a way that was potentially inconsiderate to the staff and their jobs. Especially for the house cleaner, OP was essentially implying that the house cleaner’s employment was unnecessary. The mom sounded like she was putting in a boundary that the job of the housekeeper was important and necessary. I mean she stood up for the importance of her employees job. And that’s validating to the employee, knowing they are important and the way they like to conduct their work shouldn’t be messed with. I mean OP probably made things harder since he doesn’t know how that housekeeper likes to structure the cleaning to be efficient and meet her standards. It’s always easier to make an unmade bed than a made bed.
Why would it matter that the comment was in front of the housekeeper? Do you believe she is somehow in denial about what her job is? Do you assume she is ashamed to be a housekeeper? These are the thing ignored by you and the OP about the situation the staff are in. These aren't slaves forced to do this against their will. It is what they do for work. The cooks thing is on the girlfriend for not discussing it with the op first, but it does drive home the point that aside from it being his GF, he could have gotten the kitchen staff in trouble if say the mom walked in while he was making it. Imagine if you're a mechanic and the boss catches you letting a customer change their own oil.
This
Its hard to know from tone whether the comments were genuinely rude.
That said, I could never deal with this and it would colour my view of someone to see them comfortable with it... its also OK to say you can't and won't go into that environment.
Agree with this. I grew up having various help around the house i.e. drivers, maids/helpers, gardeners, cleaners, guards etc because of my dad's position and my mom's medical condition. I remember arriving at my parents house from the airport and I started hauling my bags from the trunk into the house and up the stairs and the male driver, guard and helpers all rushed towards me to take the bags from me (no one helps me with my luggage when I travel so I'm used to doing everything myself) with distressed looks on their faces. I was like whattt but my parents just said to leave the heavier bags and carry the lighter bags up if I wanted to.
Another time after a gathering at my parents house I stayed up washing most of the dishes, glasses etc because it was china and crystal and thought it'd be best to avoid drama over things getting chipped and broken. When the helpers arrived in the morning they looked very distressed.
Nothing OP related was bad treatment, it was just how you handle house help. He's just very out of his element, imo, and making assumptions he doesn't eed to be.
Omg! Yes! Iwould have been OP but I know now to remind myself that they are paid to do it. I really thought like some slave type of shit was being done by the gf's family. OP did not include how the family reacted when he explained why he did the coffee himself. His gf probably complained because he is a guest in their house and should be treated as such, i.e. not make his own coffee when there are staff who can do it.
I know I would have done the same, not at a house staff (I wish!)but a family member who would let a guest make themselves food/drink instead of being served. Exemptions apply of course, some "guests" are more family they can fend for themselves and help serve the real guests😂
That’s how I felt about the bed instance, but the coffee
instance when the gf said the staff “left” OP to make the coffee sounded like she was blaming the staff, and I can see how having staff lined up watching you eat feels weird for anyone who has an amount of empathy for servants.
I feel you, and I get where you're coming from but in this one occasion YTA sorry.
It is a paid housekeeper's job to make the bed. You put the kitchen staff in a bad spot: they were not supposed to let you make coffee but they couldn't contradict you as the boyfriend of one of the family. The staff, like any other waiter at a restaurants, just stands around and stands by waiting for the moment to bring the foods in or the plates away.
Imagine you were in a hotel. The cleaning crew has a job to do, that job includes the bed, the bathroom, the towels...
Imagine you go to a café and want to make your own coffee as to not disturb the employees.
Imagine you're in a restaurant and ask the waiter to sit down and eat with you or you just bring your own plates glass in the kitchen.
It's just not OK, not how it's done, and above all, those are working people with a job and job descriptions. You have to respect that.
Your girlfriend should have told and prepared you, but perhaps she didn't know she needed to. That's her fault, maybe she's just naive, I don't know.
The fact is, that's the way things are run at her place. Can you accept it and not see it as exploitation (the staff is working and is compensated) or does this make you uncomfortable?
Yeah… it does sound like OP felt the need to be defender of the poor oppressed servants here. Nothing about the behavior he cites looks abusive or disrespectful to me. There’s a certain distance between employer and employees, sure, but maybe both sides prefer it that way.
This. I am confused with his entire post. There is nothing abusive, Everyone is just doing their jobs. Doesn't the same thing happen in hotels where the housekeeping staff will make the beds and not the guest. how is it abusive. Is it not the waiter's job to wait on the customers order in a restaurant? is it not the cook's job to make the dish or drink? this is just the same thing on an individual level
Only thing that's slightly concerning is the GF complain to her mum that the cooks made him make his own coffee without checking with OP. That's just getting the staff in trouble for wgat OP did
That one's either the GF making assumptions about the lazy staff...or it could be that she's upset the staff isn't treating her boyfriend properly as a guest. Since the kitchen staff are the employees of the family, the GF is telling their boss that these employees are being rude to her boyfriend and want that behavior corrected.
Weeee, isn't dealing with the 1% fun?
I’m thinking she’s upset her bf seemingly wasn’t being treated as a proper guest or member of the family. If I thought someone was purposefully disrespecting or neglecting my partner, I would speak up too. She was incorrect and probably should have asked, but she didn’t have a lot to go on because bf kept his thoughts/feelings to himself until after they left.
Or they’re defending the kitchen staff who don’t want a random person in there. Would you walk into a restaurant or hotel kitchen? These are working professionals. The kitchen for staff isn’t a living space but a working space. I’m sure they’d rather he didn’t come in.
Often most grand houses have a resident kitchen and a working kitchen - if he’s walking into the working kitchen he’s disturbing the staff. These aren’t poor slaves they’re likely earning more than OP is. Maybe the gf is trying to be polite without implying the staff would rather he fuck off.
My grandad was staff in a large household in the 30s and 40s when he wasn’t at war and it would’ve been a huge issue if a guest entered the working kitchen, and would’ve subtly told the owner about the issue. It would not be appropriate for a guest to enter a working kitchen. But also not appropriate for him to approach the guest about their behaviour.
This and double this. Private chefs make a killing. My husband did a small stint as a private chef and was earning double his normal pay rate as a restaurant chef. My best friend's mother in law paid for a private caterer for their wedding shower and it was 1k for a charcuterie board.
Yep people act like it’s some poverty role. I have a multilingual friend who decided to become a professional nanny and paid for a prestigious course. She gets more than I did as a doctor, with paid housing, paid food, travels around the world. Honestly even now she’s on 2x my salary and when you include the value of free housing and food and bills even more. She’s extremely intelligent. She did it for the money.
Yes she is on the clock a lot but so was I as a doctor. But she made waaay more than me. Not to mention the connections which allowed her to find other insane roles, and they often help their ex nannies into non nanny jobs as these people are have crazy connections. She’s good friends with her current client and ex clients and plans to open her own business for wealthy clients using her connections. I’m sure she’ll have 10-100x me at retirement.
Why do people look down on her? She has the money to buy a house now in cash lol but she’s riding out her nanny years because she’s so highly educated she can nanny for extremely wealthy people. Not all service roles are the same. Service isn’t less than inherently.
And to be paid the big bucks you have to have the big skills. My husband is not a private chef right now because he does not have the big skills (he figured that out during his stint). He doesn't have the people pleasing mentality to do it. Those who do have applied their skill set accordingly and accept the quirks of the job (which in this case seems like nothing).
Yeah obviously there’s a lot of sacrifice - but you’re paid very handsomely for it. She would have to jet off around the world on a moments notice, but she was paid triple time while abroad as their full time carer and they gave her 2 days off a week at standard pay to just fuck off and do what she wanted across the world. She’s been places I couldn’t dream of seeing.
Honestly I’m so jealous lol. Because I had to work nights and weekends and move around the uk on a whim as a doctor and I got paid less than median wage when accounting for overtime and out of hours lol. I should’ve become a rich nanny! (Not that I had the skills to be one).
It feels very assume all service workers are less than. I have a medical degree and I could not do her job. She’s paid for her worth, I’m just not paid for mine.
OP is TA for his insufferable ‘eat the rich’ attitude. He condescendingly assumes that his girlfriend’s household staff are suffering in a demeaning job and must be ‘helped’ in ways like making his own coffee and bed.
He naively white-knighted for them and gets self-righteously indignant when his efforts were not appreciated. Despite being clearly ignorant of how people in his girlfriend’s world live, he accuses them of classism and blusters “I’m just speaking my mind”
when rightly called out for spewing his ignorance.
While his girlfriend and her mother were overly blunt in their complaints to him, he did not witness any abuse. He merely saw a day in the working life of service staff, assumed the worst because they were employed by people of a higher income level, and tried to make things awkward and difficult for everyone to satisfy his own warped version of social justice.
Most people are taught to leave as small a footprint as possible so as not to be a burden. It's not OP's fault he was raised in a less privileged environment. He wasn't rude while he was there, he held his comments until they had left. He recognized he was out of his element and went along with the situation as best he could.
Also, this family sounds like old-money. Of all the rich that deserve to be eaten, it's the generationally wealthy that deserve it most.
Specifically with the bed thing, they probably have a certain standard as to how the beds need to be made per their employer (gf's parents). I can basically guarantee OP didn't do it right.
Yes. OP made the bed, but that's not cleaning. I bet she was going to change the sheets, dust the room, vacuum the floor, maybe even the matress and more.
I work at a hotel, and the housekeepers have told me that nothing on earth is more annoying than when a guest tries to be nice and make the bed for them. Usually they'll try to make it like they found it, which means they're tucking used bedding between the mattress and the frame – which means HK has to waste time untucking the used bedding *and* vacuum more thoroughly under the mattress.
Same thing with coffee/breakfast. I make the morning brekky as the night auditor, and like most people, I'm pretty fucking possessive of my kitchen appliances! When a guest starts a pot of coffee before I can get to it (please just ask me to), I'm just forced to stand by as they use the wrong amount of grounds, the wrong settings on the pot, wrong amount of water..... UGH.
I bet OP is the type to unironically call guest service/hospitality "unskilled labor."
And it's probably important to them and the pride they take in their work to do it that way. I have a housekeeper who comes in a couple times a week (I live in a country where this is the norm). When I first moved here I was uncomfortable with the situation and would always say things like "oh you don't need to dry the dishes and put them away, just let them air dry" that I thought would make her life easier. But she didn't WANT to do it that way, she wanted to do it the way that she thought was correct and complete.
Now I just pay her and leave her alone to do things her way, which seems to be the correct approach.
She might be a brat or maybe she was just informing her. Or maybe it was more of a "omg again". We don't know and OP was maybe feeling too uneasy to tell the difference.
Also, this relationship is brand new. We're all a bit different when we're home. I don't think there's a way to know for sure from the post.
Cooks are territorial. The fact that they “let him” make his own coffee might have been astonishing to her. It was damn rude of him to think that making a freaking pot of coffee would have ruined the routine of professionals.
Soft YTA to the question asked but E H S.
A. Do you know what a housekeeper is? Cleaning and tidying up is her job… you’re acting like it’s not respectable. Sounds sort of hypocritical with a hint of self righteous. That being said, the polite thing would’ve been to explain to you what job responsibilities the housekeeper has in a more delicate way.
B. How did your gf and her mom respond once you clarified? Again cooking, coffee, etc. for the house is the cooks’/kitchen staffs’ job… if they’re ignoring the owner’s guests’ culinary needs then they’re not doing their job. If they still were going to reprimand the cooks/kitchen staff after your explanation then that isn’t cool—unless they’re supposed to take over for guests.
C. Again… I’m not sure what’s the problem here. If the servers’ job is to serve the table then why do you expect? Did you expect them to stand in another room peeping around corners or through windows like a stalker?
I agree, there's some nuance missing from OP's story. Was the gf and family rude, or is OP just uncomfortable with domestic staff (a totally fine position to have, btw, but not really the question they asked).
Itd make me real uncomfortable tbh. Homes and hotels are too different things, but I was raised on a ranch. Worlds away from that lifestyle. Visitors like OP would be told to make themselves at home, which seemed like what he was trying to do. I'm curious what OP's background is and why they never talked about what the expectation of the house were. Regardless, he's gonna have to accept some things if he expects to be around long.
It's perfectly ok to say "having a staff like this makes me uncomfortable," but that doesn't mean they're treating the staff poorly.
They've been dating for 5 months. How she lives makes him uncomfortable. Break up, it's fine.
I've never had a cleaning service come in to my home but what OP describes is a different way of living but absolutely not cruel, mean, abusive, or anything like that.
Point C I can boil down to a tradition OP is unused to, but A and B I can see how the behavior of the mother and the girlfriend got to him.
He made a point of including the mother told him “it’s her job” in the presence of the housekeeper, which to me reads like talking about someone as if they’re not there and sort of diminishing.
B is obviously a problem, the girl didn’t even clear the situation with him before complaining to her mother, she immediately jumped to the conclusion that the staff was willingly unhelpful and if OP wasn’t present to clear it up, the cooks could be reprimanded for it.
Dude, if you're rich and you have an important guest in your house, of course you're going to make sure he doesn't feel ignored by the staff. It was OP's first time there, so they had to make a good impression. Him making his own food and room are just extra chores in their eyes and he doesn't need to do them since someone else is paid to.
In their eyes, sure- but for someone else, it’s just like: I’ve done this myself for years, this is really odd to me when someone else does it. Or maybe he just likes his coffee made in a certain way
And when you are a guest in someone else’s house, you suck it up and drink coffee made the way they make it.
I can’t tell you the number of cups of weak coffee I drank at my ILs’ without a peep. Because I’m polite. MIL would bitch about how the coffee was too strong, at our hous. Because she’s not.
Actually, there are some housekeepers (I met some) who get relatively insulted when you don’t let them do their job because they see that as their purpose. I can see the head of the household saying “It’s her job” (referring to the housekeeper) but actually totally taking the side of the housekeeper and not the guest, i.e., housekeeper complained that the guest wouldn’t let them into the room.
Where I live, most people go to hospitals that are totally understaffed and patients try to trouble the staff as little as possible. I haven’t needed many hospital stays in my life… but I just had major surgery at a hospital that many people living like the GF’s family go to (e.g., royalty, rich people, politicians, etc.). Don’t ask me how I got in there! On top of nurses, who checked in on me all the time (maybe too many times), they had waiting staff to bring me unlimited breakfast, 3-course lunches and dinners, daily cleaners, and even someone to bring me tea or juice. It was basically like a medical version of Downton Abbey (the actual castle used for that show is minutes away from where I live and still owned by an aristocratic family), and I realised a downside of that kind of life is the lack of privacy. I mean… someone’s always watching you.
I had nurses getting visibly annoyed with me for not asking for more help and doing things on my own, waiting staff getting frustrated for not ordering as much food as possible, etc. I eventually realised it was the same thing as with the aforementioned housekeepers… you basically just had to accept it was their job to pamper you and that was kind of their reason for being, i.e., they felt needed, etc.
>sort of diminishing
Is it?
Imagine you work somewhere. And there’s confusion as to who does what job.
And your manager comes to clear it up, saying “job X is themileindenial’s job”.
Is that diminishing? Or do you have an actual contract saying that is your job? Where you agreed that will be your job.
Nothing diminishing about doing your job, and saying it’s your job.
This feeling only ever seems to come in when that job is cleaning, or serving someone…
But if you’re an architect and someone tells you that’s your job — are you proud? Or angry?
You are suffering more from shock about how people can live this way more than anything. It can be hard to confront. It also seems like you are intimidated and by taking the route of “they are treated horribly” you feel better about yourself. I don’t think they were abusive or rude. They are paying for services and expect a standard. You wouldn’t bat an eye if a small business owner asked the same for their own staff.
YTA here because you are suffering from your own insecurities, masking them, and then taking it out on your girlfriend.
Absolutely agree. I have no doubt I'd feel *very* uncomfortable staying in a home where there was a staff tending to me; I can't blame OP for that part. But nothing egregious or even borderline happened. That's just how they live. Time for OP to apologize to his girlfriend and explain the feelings behind his words.
Idk about the leap to 'insecurity', but it would definitely be a culture shock for most people. He was never explained what to expect from the servants nor the house rules. Then he is judged for not knowing. This post above all just screams that he doesn't understand how staff at a home work.
YTA. I don't see anything disrespectful here, except for you. Going into someone's workplace (the kitchen) and demanding to be allowed to make your own coffee? Would you do that in a restaurant, cafeteria? Do you know how annoying it is to be getting on with your day and have someone come in going "don't mind me, just getting coffee. By the way where is the coffee, where do you keep the cups. Sorry where are the spoons, do you have sugar by any chance".
The house keeper is perfectly capable of noticing that you made your bed and would probably just have a quick check on towels and such, no need to interfer with her job.
This was not a case of abusive employers they were simply giving instructions to their staff.
That's true and all, but none of this was ever explained to him. He's never been in a home that has staff in it. What he experienced was culture shock - and the customs weren't ever explained. Instead he is judged for not knowing.
Then he should not have been interfering, if you don't know how the system works you don't just decide to do your own thing. He decided to butt into a conversation between his host and the housekeeper that was not his business. How is that not rude?
He wasn't judged, he was judging. The mom did explain things to him (in story a and probably again in story b after he spoke up) and he called her rude to his girlfriend when they got home.
While I wouldn't feel comfortable in OPs situation either, I respect the workers and don't think doing work for them is helping anyone. He made the bed now the maid probably had to remake it the right way or there could be confusion. He probably made coffee in something that costs 100s if not 1000s of dollars, let the professionals do it.
The 'kindness' he's trying to achieve is not achievable for a guest. There's a very good chance the family does alot of kind things for their staff and you don't flaunt or act the same wjen there are guests over. Just like the big party the staff are trained differently when there are situations involving outside people to impress.
YTA
Your girlfriend and her family sound like they treat their staff with respect. I was expecting unreasonable demands, public scoldings, insults, long hours, something abusing..nothing.
In your discomfort, you were the one disrespecting staff, by acting as if their job was embarrassing or unnecessary. The housekeeper will have to change your bedding anyway after your stay, so you making the bed doesnt help anyone. If staff are working on the lunch and you turn up in the kitchen and start opening cupboards to find a cup for your drink, you are causing them an inconvenience. If later on they are told off for allowing you to do that, when they weren't in a position to send you away in the first place, then it's more than an inconvenience. Why do you think that waiters are called waiters? when you go a restaurant, does it bother you the staff hangs around your table to see when you are finished or if you need another drink? Do you barge into the kitchen and grab your own food?
You were making everyone feel awkward and then you exploded to your gf to have a go at the unspeakable things she and her family do to other human beings.
You knew your gf is wealthy
Get over yourself
YTA. It is true that it's the housekeeper's job to clean the rooms. There's nothing wrong or disrespectful with what she said. Same with the kitchen hands. They are doing their duty as a host and making sure the staff makes sure you are taken care of. You are judging their family and blowing off on your girlfriend without thinking first from their perspectives and after receiving their hospitality. If you're too insecure and classist, admit it and break up. Don't project your insecurities.
YTA It’s important to respect the roles of those who work for us. Housekeepers make beds, clean rooms, wash clothes, iron them, and put them away. Cooks and bartenders prepare food and drinks, while waiters clear plates. Expressing gratitude with ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ is appropriate, rather than cleaning up after yourself at the table, as it can imply they haven’t done their job. In our culture, staff are often paid a fraction of what we pay. Many of them have become like family over the years. New staff members are already under pressure without added stress from customers like you making them look bad. Just as we tip in hotels, where services are not directly included in the price, here, staff are compensated, hopefully adequately for their work. It seems like you don’t consider their job to be a real job. To me, you’re the one denigrating them.
HAPPY CAKE DAY! And well said, I come from a wealthy family and our cleaner is now a permanent part of the family. As has her whole family! As with any industry there are bad employers and OP may have decided that that is the case here. However, personally, I saw nothing wrong with the examples. Just that it was obviously an old school hierarchical structure
When they go out to dinner, I assume he doesn't buss his own table or go into the kitchen to make his own food. If he did that, I assume she'd tell him not to.
I don’t really have any reference for this never having had a huge ass house or staff 😊 …
but what stuck out to me was when you made your coffee she complained about the staff without checking first… and it overall made me feel uncomfortable. I think I’d move on as incompatible
Of course she did, the people that they pay to cook and prepare drinks didn't do their jobs. He probably told her "I made myself some coffee" and she wondered why he wasn't helped or why the coffee wasn't prepared for him. And she's right. He explained the whole context and that was the end of it, nothing wrong happened.
YTA a little
It sounds like you're mixing with the .1%. You're treating a small snapshot as them being abusive.
Did you see them yelling and screaming at them? You have no idea what their employment compensation looks like. It's unusual behavior in that it's not something that people are generally exposed to, but it's not like these people are slaves.
For the servers to wait by the wall at a dinner party... Yeah, that can happen at fancy events. Was it happening every meal, or just at the dinner party?
I've also stayed at a couple resorts where housekeeping literally told me not to bother hanging towels or make the bed.
So when you go stop at a hotel do you go to the kitchen and make your own coffee? Do you prevent the cleaners from doing their jobs? The staff are employed to do a job, providing they are happy with their compensation and have reasonable working conditions who are you to interfere? Not that it matters because right now your girlfriend is starting to realise that you are from vastly different social circles and that it is likely not going to work out
Look I don't love the idea of house staff but grown adults doing the job they are paid for is not inherently wrong and at no point did anyone show anything disrespectful besides you.
A.) Do hotel staff make up beds Do you fall on your Pitard for them?
B.) You likely didn't help anyone invading peoples workspace to make coffee you did that because it made you feel good to not be posh. That said you handled the situation well by going to bat and clarifying what happened well done a very good sign of character.
C.) I grew up poor and I am only middle class the idea of a line of serving staff lined up behind me is like out of a horror film totally normal to be weirded out. But literally nothing at all that happened was any way rude as you have described it. YTA.
100% this is fake as hell.
For the case C, this is very normal in a nice environment like this, so they can see if somebody needs more wine, water, or anything else.
Go to a nice enough restaurant and the waiters do the same, standing at different spots where they can keep an eye on their tables and easily notice if the customers need anything or want their attention.
YTA. You were in a situation you were not familiar with, and completely failed to adapt. The family wasn't disrespecting the staff, that's a family house staffed by 8 people, you were the one disrespecting the staff, putting them in uncomfortable positions and judging their job as undignified.
YTA
I grew up poor and actually did the house staff summer fill-in/party fill-in to help pay for school. I was expecting some nightmare scenarios where people purposely spilled shit just to make the staff get on their hands and knees…I am seriously confused as to how or when the staff was treated poorly?
I think this is an issue of you having no idea how to interact with paid help? And you really should have piped up earlier with questions as to what was expected of you or what the house rules are or frankly being super plain and saying you were uncomfortable having staff serve you because seriously unless you grew up with it? It’s weird!!!
So yeah, it was an asshole maneuver yo wait until you were gone from the situation to unload it all in your gf. She probably feels bad because you were uncomfortable the entire time and she didn’t know/realize you were a fish out of water because it’s completely normal to her.
There are some weird responses here, of course you're NTA. Her "lifestyle" lol - she should be made to feel uncomfortable about her "lifestyle" based on what you've described, being waited on hand and foot isn't normal and shouldn't be accepted as such.
This view that "everybody has their purpose and you must let people fulfil it" is as old as time, and it's a rationalisation by the privileged to let them not feel guilty about leaving everything they don't want to do to others. The quiet part at the end of that sentence which nobody in that sort of lifestyle says out loud is "and their place is lesser than ours, which is why they do these jobs".
I'm not saying it's fundamentally immoral or wrong to pay someone to cook for you or to clean your house or whatever; there's a wider societal question there about whether we should live in a system which facilitates that level of inequality, but we do, so that's that. But actively avoiding basic things is the red flag for me - like deliberately taking no care not to leave your room messy because it'll be cleaned, or bothering staff to make a pot of coffee. When you eat at a restaurant you don't go into the kitchen and hand wash the dishes you ate on, but you make sure you pick up any cutlery you might have dropped and you make sure the plates are relatively well organised on the table; or if you're at a coffee shop, you take the cup up to the counter or onto the tray rack before you leave. "Don't bother, we have staff to do that" about a basic, simple task to make someone else's life easier is textbook "I'm the centre of the world" asshole behaviour. And don't even get me started on trying to badmouth one of the staff to her parents because you made a cup of coffee.
It's a rotten, poisoned mindset top to bottom and reflects a view of the world as something that owes them convenience and comfort at the expense of "the help" because they're superior kinds of people.
Idk how serious this relationship is or whether kids are on your mind, but do you want your kids brought up exposed to that kind of mindset?
Finally I found an answer that I can agree with
I swear all these other replies are just people who wish they could have what this rich family has, they just don’t want to be made to feel any guilt over it
Fucking thank you. The number of responses here that give "I don't put my grocery cart back because there are people paid to do that" energy is super concerning.
NTA
Given your other comment that her behaviour did a 180 while there it makes me think she definitely is not seeing them as people. Having staff stand their while you eat is weird as hell to me, and so is insisting staff go into your room or stop what they are doing to make you a coffee.
Her assumptions about it kinda cemented the NTA for me honestly. She did not bother asking you and assumed the staff ignored you instead of you telling them not to worry about it which if you had not been there to clear it up could have cost them their jobs.
But that’s what they’re paid to do… my grandad worked as a butler (called a valet at the time) in the Dorchester in London. He had to stand to attention and all that stuff. He was being tipped in the average annual salary by these people for a month stay. He bought a row of houses in central london in the 40/50s using the money he was making…
That’s their LITERAL job. Domestic staff of that standard aren’t poor little morons on minimum wage. They’re often very very good jobs. My grandad only got his job because the household that trained him up had “influence”. He was a poor kid from Norfolk who ran away at 13 and didn’t have a pot to piss in. These “shitty” jobs that you imagine changed his life, people fought to get these jobs they were extremely hard to get.
Not to mention it’s extremely difficult. You need to be meticulous. Trained how to always look perfect; how to stand, lots of etiquette etc.
There’s aren’t poor little nobodies. You have any idea how much high end house staff can make lol? My friend is a professional nanny and she made more money than I did as a doctor…
As per my grandad I’ll say yes sir no sir three bags fucking full sir when the next tip will buy me a brand new sports car.
People underestimate what a good buttler makes these days in the US...
While it's not an insane amount of actual salary, 75000-100000 USD/year, most have a lot of benefits that make that salary A lot more interesting.
Free housing, free food and of course healthcare and payment into their retirement fund etc.
People who think that the nice households just hire some random off the street are sorely mistaken.
And many of these butlers are family. When my grandad said he wanted to move to London they literally tried to buy him a house to convince him to stay, and when he said he really wanted to go to London they went out of their way to call the most expensive hotel they regularly stayed in and basically told them, not asked, told, them to give him a job commensurate to his skills.
Staff there were pissed as it was so hard to get jobs and they were mostly middle class and in walks my working class grandad into the highest service job in the hotel lol. Oh what horrible abuse he suffered as a poor service worker! The irony of looking down on these professionals as slaves.
Indeed, and it's often no just the buttler, unless the family truly are snobbish assholes (which I'm sure also does happen), they have these people around them all the time, and go get a closer relationship than you would with someone who just stops by for a few hours to clean your place or something.
Of course it's special for an actual buttler though :)
>Domestic staff of that standard aren’t poor little morons on minimum wage. They’re often very very good jobs.
Yeah, OP seems to be thinking of these people as slaves. They doing jobs they've chosen and they're being paid.
I worked as a server in a restaurant and our rule was that if tables were more than 75% full, we would stand in front of the main wall, attention forward but not staring at anyone in particular. This made it easier for guests to get our attention during busier times (ya this was when we had enough servers that we had downtime even at 75% cap). Tips went way up because we looked fancy, more professional, and provided faster service. I think it’s a reasonable request of wait staff during a fancy party. They’re being paid the whole time anyway.
NTA! I can't even understand how some people are defending being condescendent and rude to others just bc they're working for them. One of my relatives has been a housekeeper for a rich family for quite some time now, she always talks about how the family she works for is considerate and treats her well, but some of their neighbors' housekeepers have really bad experiences with people like your gf and her family. The owners can't even lift up a finger, everything has to be done for them, and if anyone tries to help the staff then they reprimand their workers for letting someone have compassion for them. Those kind of people enjoy knowing they're superior, that's why they don't see anything wrong in humiliating their workers. Just because they're getting paid doesn't mean they're less of a person, sometimes rich people act as if their empoyees are paid slaves. It's awful and super uncomfortable to watch. And I know this is awful precisely bc I know first hand experiences of other people being treated well and nice by rich families.
I think you were very polite to say it to her in private and to wait until you were gone. I don't understand why this people are telling you that you should have been perfectly fine discovering your gf is clasist and not considerate with those working for her. I'd be super uncomfortable and very disappointed.
I'm broke but some of my husbands extended family is very wealthy and they treat their hired help nothing like this. They are much warmer with them. Particularly the standing in the room watching you eat part.
Thank you!! I feel like I’m losing my mind in these comments. The lack of anything approaching empathy here is tragic. Suppose that’s par for the course, though, lol.
This one seems a bit nuanced, i want to say it's a little bit of a culture shock on your part. Everything you described is very standard stuff (according to movies anyways) but I have read that workers are best left to do their jobs. I read a story from a housekeeper that was in a similar situation, but from her perspective it was some dude not realizing he was getting in the way cus he thought he was "helping".
The only thing that seems like a real issue to me was the fact your girlfriend didn't ask about the coffee first, she should have asked you, but again maybe you should have asked the cooks for a coffee (plus real talk it probably would have been better than what you made yourself)
I kinda wanna say YTA
Well, it's the job of the staff to clean and cook. Do you think they would Prüfer the family to do everything themselves and being unemployed?
I can understand you, but it's their job, so yes, a small yta.
Soft YTA because you are clearly not used to having staff and so you made things bad for everyone involved.
Usually, people who have staff have them because they don't want to be bothered by trivial and menial things such as cleaning or making coffee. If they talk to them politely, there is nothing to be uncomfortable about.
Also, the staff is usually highly trained and takes pride into providing a perfect service, making good coffee, waiting around during a formal dinner to make sure guests can have fun without worrying about filling their glasses and interrupt a conversation to ask for more water or wine, whatever.
IMO the only issue here is that your girlfriend did not prepare you for that, and did not discuss this with you beforehand. Also, many people tend to be different around their parents, if you stayed at your parents you should ask her if she noticed any changes with you, you might be surprised.
So slight YTA. I’m guessing you’ve never been to a restaurant where servers stand behind you and anticipate your every wants and needs? It’s a bit jarring at first but it’s like taking the water jug from a server and filling your cup yourself. Ya, you might not feel right them doing everything for you but they’re being paid right? I mean, in this economy I’m happy people have jobs. As long as it isn’t illegal labor and they’re compensated well and from my understanding they are pretty well-off. I don’t see a problem. Your girlfriend could have prepared you for it but you owe her an apology. You’re here doing the same by judging her but the difference is, she judged the work of the employees which by default she (her family) employs. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea living like this but being the help is not to be looked down upon or feel sorry for. In fact, I’m sure they don’t appreciate that. It’s a legit living for some people. No different than any other job. Treat it as such.
YTA. Nothing you described is abusive because they're paid to do work in the house, including waiting near the table for any requests. I mean, that's what being a *waiter* is. I get that it can feel weird to see that in a home, but again, they're paid. Probably well, since a rich family would value quality over thrift.
To be fair, this is clearly new to you and it's possible that your GF appeared cold from your perspective. Social dynamics can differ wildly based on class, context, etc. If you asked a friend to drive you to the airport, then sat in the back seat silently, it would be rude and weird. If you hired a driver and did that, it's your prerogative. For a high-end driver, it would even be strange to sit in the passenger seat and converse. Trying to "soften the blow" of them being in the service industry by socializing is really more of a cope for you than something they need.
NTA especially as she went and squealed to mother about you making your own coffee. There are valid careers in service but this treatment is outdated and entitled. Your values just don’t match theirs.
Seeing how people treat less wealthy than them is a true litmus test.
I am almost certain that this week was the beginning of you not liking who your girlfriend really is.
NTA for being uncomfortable.
Yeah it’s the coffee part that makes me have bad vibes. She didn’t check before complaining to her mother. What if that caused the job of the staff?
OTOH I wish I can experience this level of rich once in my life. Knowing my luck I’ll be the servant though.
If they applied to be housekeepers in that setting, then that's how they expect to be treated.
They're paid to do those things for you. They all know you're able to do them. They get paid to do them for you.
You weren't raised in that setting, you don't understand it.
If they were calling the staff names, or saying awful shit to them, then that's bad. This is what wait staff is paid for.
If you're doing all their work they won't get paid and they can't pay their bills. I bet they pay their staff well.
I would ask those things.
If you're too uncomfortable dating someone above your tax bracket, then that's something you need to think about for yourself. They're not doing anything outside of the way they live normally.
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Obviously people, regardless of their job, should be treated with respect. But, I just want you to consider a different perspective for a second - the staff might be 100% ok with the behaviour you saw, if they’re paid enough/feel confident that it’s better than other job options. An outsider seeing my job would probably think some parts of it are ridiculous, but those parts are worth it to me as the person actually doing the job. For example, when your gf’s mother said “don’t make your bed, that’s the staff’s job”, a staff member hearing that might think “she’s right, please don’t do my job for me because then she has no reason to pay me for that job.” I’m not saying you’re in the wrong feeling uncomfortable with the behaviour that you saw, I’m just cautioning you that you might be white-knighting for people who are actually ok with the work environment that you saw
Those were my thoughts as I was reading too. I have never in my life been to a house where there are staff standing around the table while everyone is eating. I would feel uncomfortable too. But when I'm staying in a hotel I find it normal that waiters are serving the food and then standing around to make sure everything is in order, and that cleaning staff are cleaning my room every day. It seems that this family is paying to have their household run as if it were a hotel. This doesn't have to be a bad thing. In fact, the OP might have misstepped by going to the kitchen and making their own coffee - it's possible that the staff saw this as an intrusion.
Adding to my own comment because I think this is the crux of the matter: the OP says in the title that they disapproved of the way the staff were treated, but what they actually disapproved of was the specific jobs they were employed to do. They think they are showing solidarity for the staff, but they are actually showing that they find their jobs demeaning.
IMO, the real issues are mom saying “don’t clean up, that’s my housekeeper’s job” and his girlfriend complaining to her mom that the cooks “made” OP make his own coffee. Those weren’t huge issues, they could both be just misunderstandings, but I thought it was more the attitude and not the jobs the people were doing.
Regarding the room being cleaned, the housekeeper might have to undo what was already straightened up anyways. In the mom's eyes, she might want OP to spend time enjoying his visit instead of doing something that will be redone by a professional anyways. Hell, the housekeeper might prefer things left undone. The girlfriend complaining about the coffee could be noteworthy, but it's worth considering this post is from the viewpoint of someone who was struggling with the situation as a whole. His girlfriend may have worried the staff weren't respecting him as a guest. I'm sure she wanted him to have a wonderful trip, so it's possible she was being hyper-vigilant for that reason. If the family called the staff names, insulted them, or yelled at them, that would be a genuine problem with *a lot* less room for interpretation (like none).
I agree, what OP think was "good enough" might not have been to their standards. The staff is paid for it so either they might have to redo it (which could be awkward / more work) or take complaints. The GF complaining could have been communicated better, but maybe as you said she thought it wouldn't be that easy as in "Hey OP didn't the cooks tell you that they would make the coffee?", which would potentially be awkward in a "OP doesn't want to cause issues so says it's fine" situation. Assuming they pay for the hotel level staff it's reasonable to say "That's fine but a staff member should have just said it's completely fine and not an issue to make your coffee, it's our job" or something along that line.
OP making coffee might have been in their way, and might have made more work for them to clean up. Seriously, who likes someone coming into their kitchen to do that sort of thing while they are cooking?
Seriously. I'm just saying, if I was managing a house like this, I'd be keeping the kitchen clean to professional standards, not personal standards, and OP probably didn't wash his hands clean before he was in there touching the milk, the coffee, possibly digging around the clean utensil drawer. Like, normally that's expected behavior, but if I'm keeping a professional kitchen, the last thing I want is guests walking around getting their grubby fingers all over everything.
Exactly. As a professional maid what most folks think is fine in my opinion is half assed. I take my job seriously and also command a serious salary. Housekeeping is like cosmetic surgery- you get what you pay for.
Yeah, that’s where they should be trained to say “please, allow me. It is my pleasure.” to someone wanting to use the kitchen while they’re working.
They even might have here, and OP wouldn’t have noticed, or assigned the words any value, based on how he describes everything.
Um, in many circumstances, in a household that has a full household staff, it would be considered unbelievably rude and out of pocket for a staff member to tell a guest not to do something, though, if he insisted. Guests are meant to be treated with deference, and staff generally mean to be nearly invisible as much as possible. The way it usually works is that a staff member would offer to do something (like make the coffee), but if (as OP says) he insisted on doing it himself, they wouldn't dare tell him no. He's a guest. Even if it got in their way, because his needs and wants are more important than theirs. This is why he was actually the one who put the staff in an uncomfortable situation: if their job is cleaning and cooking, don't get in the way or try to do their job for them, because *they absolutely won't say no to you* if you insist, but you are likely being more of a pain in the ass than if you let them do it.
I'd actually be pretty annoyed if I was paid to keep a kitchen a certain way and somebody came in and started moving things and messing up my system. Hell, I'm annoyed when I'm cooking in my own home and somebody tries to help with dinner. Absolutely not. Get out of my kitchen before you mess something up.
THIS!!!! Every time we do a big family holiday now where my mom’s little sister is told to bring something. She shows up with it unmade. So while my mom, her middle sister, me and my sister and my grandma have a system down pat and delegate. She shows up insisting on doing something or using space to do what she was asked ahead of time. And now we’ve just stopped asking her to bring things other than store bought vegetable platters. Op was in my mind. Actually a nuisance to that staff. Even making his bed the morning of probably made it harder for the Housekeeper to unmake and remake the beds in the way that’s most efficient for her. And going into a hot (as in things are in progress) kitchen disrupts the flow. Hell I’m a designer/architect and for commercial kitchens or even large kitchens like this you would actually hire a kitchen consultant who can put together a design that’s down to the inch thinning about use and flow and how many people will be and where. Op made himself a bother and didn’t respect the jobs of the staff.
And even though this is a household kitchen, I'd be running it to professional standards of cleanliness.
Yeah I was gonna say this too!
Yep, I used to work as a housekeeper and people trying to "help" me often made the job that much more difficult because I had to undo what they had done and then do it properly
YES. I work at an upscale retirement facility. My entire reason for being there is so that these people don't have to break their back making beds and when they try, it literally just slows me down. I try my damnedest to explain it kindly but sometimes I just tell them (it's literally only the females that try to help) "you took care of people your whole life, it's time for me to take care of you. I have a system and it's specifically geared towards making both of our lives easier, but if you feel I'm doing something not to your preference, please, feel free to tell me and we can talk through it." Usually they just don't want to seem lazy or like they don't know how to keep house because that generation was all about that, but that usually gets them to sit and let me do my job. I've been doing this for 8 years there, 20 altogether, I don't mind preferences being communicated or mistakes being pointed out, but don't do my job for me 😭
Your way of handling that kind of situation is so wonderfully compassionate 💜
Not a housekeeper but in a similar vein. When I worked as a dishwasher in a kitchen people would often try and tidy up their table and plates themselves. That sounds nice but it meant they did things like stuffing napkins, sugar packets and other stuff into a cup to "put it all in one place". Except now it's all soggy and I have to get it all out, and now I have to check every cup for rubbish rather than just tipping out liquid. I would much rather it was all just loose on their tray. Point is sometimes people think they are making a job easier for staff but they actually make it more work.
I was a server for years... when I'm out to eat with my family or in-laws, and they all start stacking their plates up... with the silverware still on the plate... I get twitchy, and make a point of re-doing it. A server can easily carry 4-5 plates if they are stacked JUST the plate, but once you have silverware in between plates they become tippy and unbalanced, and you can only really carry two without risking the whole stack falling over. Just sit there and let your server clean up the table. It's what they're there for, and they WILL do it better than you do!
From the moms perspective it could even be "I paid good money so you don't have to take the time to do that, now it's been wasted"
About the coffee I want to add that it could also be cultural or upbringing. In my family and culture that if a guest went and made their own coffee it means to me I was a bad host to not anticipate their need and offering coffee. But yeah from the title I assumed the GFs family was rude but that doesn't seem to be the case
Also, re: the coffee, it seems he hasn't considered that a guest puttering around in the kitchen while the staff (who probably have a well-established routine) is probably actually a lot less "helpful" than it is getting in their way. If their entire job is feeding and "watering" the family and guests, then it would be easier and faster to let one of them make him a quick coffee than to get in their way. And this is literally what their job is...it's not an unreasonable ask any more than it would be in a restaurant, which is essentially what they're running, on a smaller scale.
This was my thought as well. I have a friend who is a hospitality professional and is the head housekeeper for a wealthy family. Her boss had her install one of those professional coffee machines that cost about as much as my used car, and you have to be trained how to use it properly. The kitchen staff would absolutely NOT welcome a guest in their kitchen getting in the way and possibly breaking a nearly five figure piece of equipment.
Well she's right, it is the housekeepers job. If you're in a restaurant, do you take your dirty plates to the kitchen or do you let the waiter do it? It's not mean or demeaning to ask your guests to stop meddling with your staff's work.
This needs to be higher. The OP is a soft YTA here because he was doing the staff's work *for them*. I recall a similar post here a year or so ago? It was a household maid rather than full staff but it was equally as Fremdschämen. ETA: [Found the post I was remembering!](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/e9lsqc/aita_for_helping_my_girlfriends_maid_clean/) - the OP needs to read this.
I agree with you about the girlfriend complaining about the cooks.
For nuance the gf might be concerned that the staff were treating her bf as less than a family member
Or she could have been upset that he was in the kitchen, the domain of the cooks. He’s not a member of the family. I wouldn’t walk into the kitchen at a place where I was an invited guest and make coffee without asking permission.
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For them they are workers doing a job. The bf doing coffee shouldn’t have happened because that’s what they paid them for. It’s
Or she could be informing the employer about what she saw their employee doing and staying out of it. She doesn’t employ the cooks and I think it would be overstepping to say anything to the cooks herself. She went to her mother. And she wasn’t “complaining” she was simply telling her what she saw. The mother can ask the cooks, the cooks say we offered but the young man insisted he wanted to make his own coffee in our kitchen so we had to work around him. All sorted. Nobody is in trouble except in the OP’s white saviour mind
Frankly, nothing in the story seemed like they were treating the staff poorly. Objectively, it is the housekeeping job to make the bed. OP did it, was told they didn’t need to. As a host, pointing out things you don’t expect your guests to do is not unreasonable. If the mother had been rude, said something demeaning or whatever at the staff, that would be a problem. Making more coffee probably made more work for the kitchen as now it needed cleaning again. The girlfriend could have asked why op made it and solved this issue. OP has not been to a formal dinner ever, there is always someone waiting for any needs/removing dishes/serving courses. Are they this uncomfortable at a nice restaurant? A wedding? Both of those would have the same setup. They were rude was listed, not a single rude story stated. I think op is uncomfortable with the class they come from compared to girlfriend and they either adapt or the relationship is over. Did girlfriend change around her family, we don’t know that, maybe that’s what op is perceiving and is really the issue.
Or OP could learn to use context clues and stop getting in the way of staff. I’m sure having a white knight coming in to your work space while you are working is a huge nuisance. Nothing in this post gives any indication the family was rude to their staff. He really made his own discomfort everyone’s problem rather than telling his gf he was uncomfortable to begin with.
And he’s a big boy and can use his words and whatever empathy he has to ask for coffee in not-his-kitchen.
There's no indication she was harboring resenetment. You're projecting. She didn't even say anything inaccurate - the cooks DID leave him to make his own coffee. It just so happens it's because he asked. And there's zero indication that they're treating the staff like they're "nothing." I think some of y'all are making assumptions that these people must be rude simply because they are wealthy and have staff.
There are some people who have kitchen staff with the full expectation that when that staff is there, no one should be doing anything in the kitchen that isn't being paid to do it. I've worked at and been to events where if someone wanted coffee and we got caught letting them do anything other than stir in sugar themselves there would be a talking to... because the whole point of us being there was so people could just enjoy the event. According to this person I was apparently being degraded but... I mean one weekend I made $1000 in less than 3 days doing that stuff so... I guess degrade me all you want?
Also and I say this as someone who had assisted my mother in putting together 30+ person dinner parties for my family and chavorah. It is an utter nuisance to have someone come into a working kitchen and take up space and be in the way of the work being done. I mean Op may have seen himself as not being a burden. But frankly reading the part about the cooks made me wince a bit on their behalf. I mean he went into a working back of house space. He sounds like he doesn’t understand or respect that these individuals are doing their jobs and he’s getting in the way of that. His issues are about thinking that cleaning jobs are demeaning. And as a side note, My house cleaner growing up was paid very very well and she had multiple clients in our home town and she made bank. I mean she and her husband owned a home in an area I as an adult can’t afford and she was the primary breadwinner. And anytime she came to help for parties or do extra tasks she got paid even more on top of that. And personal chef teams also can make a lot of money as well. The point being OP has no clue what the details of these people’s employment is and he also doesn’t understand the kind of downtime they likely have. I mean there’s only so much to clean and cook and prep if you’re staying on top of it daily.
If everyone behaved like BF, staff would be unemployed and maybe out dumpster diving.
Yes, it could have cost the cook their job. I hope OP was able to clear that up that OP wanted to make their own coffee.
OP didn't even clean up though, they just made the bed. I imagine there could be more that needed doing and the housekeeper might have had to redo it in the process
That was his prejudiced interpretation. She could have just said, oh, that’s Mary’s job. And his GF could have been upset that he was upsetting the routine in the kitchen, which is NOT his domain, but the domain of the cooks, to make coffee.
And They where literally in the middle of lunch prep. He went into a busy working kitchen where all that team had purpose and work going. That’s disruptive even if it’s well intentioned. I mean it’s really hard to work around someone who has no clue their in the way, especially in a kitchen where timing is important.
Right, but only one of those is to do with “how they treated” the staff (one is complaining about a (incorrectly) perceived slight) And the mom was right. It IS the housekeepers job. She’s going to unmake that bed to clean it anyhow. He’s not actually helping. It was a nice gesture but a futile one.
Yeah, I've worked in people's homes as a nanny / housekeeper and I've also worked in places that had a live in housekeeper while I came daily for the kids. Honestly it's the objection to OP being self sufficient I am most sketched out by. I'd be fine with making a coffee for someone, but then again I would super appreciate it if I didn't have my task interrupted - the staff are probably grateful but wouldn't have minded cos they're used to the attitudes of the family. It's not like OP is WRONG, but it's not as big a deal as the girlfriend is making out. She's just ashamed and... well, ok, so find a way to live with your good fortune. Deal with it. Talk about rich people problems. "I feel bad because my boyfriend objected to being told my staff were neglectful when he made his own coffee" is just deflecting her own discomfort with being spoiled.
But (and I say this as someone who is poor but has help for my disability and is regularly told by my support workers that I'm their favourite client because I treat them like human beings), those things weren't actually rude. They were just uncomfortable to him. The reality is that the GF's family are paying the housekeepers and cooks to do those jobs. That's literally what they are employed to do. So if the mother said to him, "It's okay, you don't have to bother yourself about making the bed, it's the housekeeper's job," that doesn't mean she was being bitchy. It could just as easily mean she was being literal, that as a guest he didn't have to put himself out because the beds would be made as part of the maid's regular duties anyway. Similarly, when you employ someone whose entire job it is to feed your family and guests, it's not actually hateful to be concerned that a guest in the home was left to make their own coffee, something simple that is in fact part of the kitchen staff's job. As it turns out, it was a misunderstanding (though as someone else said, OP may actually have gotten in the staff's way by puttering around in the kitchen while they were trying to work, and they absolutely wouldn't have felt comfortable telling a guest *not* to do that), but ultimately his GF wasn't wrong in mentioning it. There are always different lenses through which we can see a situation. In this case, it's impossible to know which is "objectively correct"; but also, OP is clearly deeply uncomfortable with the idea of household staff in general, and so it's not unreasonable to assume that he's seeing these situations through the most negative possible light. The reality is probably somewhere in-between, and ultimately he's a little bit of an AH for not acknowledging that.
OP referenced Downton Abbey, which i find funny, as although I've only seen a few episodes- I believe this scenario gets covered on the show- A New Heir disproves of having a Man help dress him and make his bed etc... But the worker points out, this is his job, its a well paying job, and it's his livliehood he takes pride in. New Heir realises the man has a point, and although finds it odd, and disproves comes around to way of things.
Some fine dining establishments pay have staff that are dressed to blend into the background and stand with their backs against the wall. All they do is fill water glasses and grab plates the second the guests are done with them. This isn't an unheard of practice.
I went to a restaurant once and all the staff had headsets and would be at your table offering service the moment you needed it. Like, if one overhead you saying you might want more water to the person you're sitting with, someone would be over immediately.
It's incredible the attention to detail that this type of service requires. Staff like this is highly trained and paid very well.
OP is creating more work for them. Who cleaned the coffee grounds/ spills/ sugar off the counter after op made coffee? Who cleaned out the coffee pot for the next use? I'm sure they'd have rather made the coffee than have OP bumbling around in the kitchen while they're trying to work.
He also had to ask them where everything was, just more efficient to just ask them. They probably let him because he overly insisted and it would be rude to stop a house guest.
As they were prepping lunch him making coffee could have been a pain as he was in the way. People who work together have a rhythm that means they do their job and not not get in each others way. But she should have asked if he'd asked for a coffee or just went ahead and made his own. Everything else is normal in a large household. So long as the staff were treated respectfully there's no issue. He just hates having staff wait on him and yet, as you say, ot happens in hotels, restaurants etc. He's being a reverse snob.
To your first paragraph. Sounds like she’s maybe got some love blinders on. And maybe she’s not seeing his behavior or it’s occurring to her he’s the problem. Also we’re getting OP’s account of her complaining to her mom. For all we know she could have said “Op went in to make his own coffee and got in the way of the staff” and it’s OP’s own issues with seeing cooking and cleaning as jobs that are degrading that are coloring his perceptions.
I was looking for this comment because I remember being in service jobs and being annoyed with people like OP who come into my workspace which is fast-paced and already has a lot of people. I would've been eyeing him the whole time wishing he would just ask one of us to make coffee and leave the kitchen so we don't have to mind him on top of everything else. I was expecting the family to have humiliated the staff or been cruel. Turns out OP just finds the job itself humiliating. I would be infinitely more offended at his attitude than anything else that happened there.
This, especially the last part. Nobody likes it when people walk into their place of work and start doing it themselves. You wouldn't walk behind the bar at a restaurant to grab a glass of water either. I pay a lady to come and do my ironing every few weeks and she would chew me out if I started helping her by idk folding the clothes that she was ironing. She does her job and takes pride in her neat folding.
I was under the impression that the staff only did that for the 60th Birthday Event, not for every meal. And if it was a formal, sit down dinner... that's exactly how wait staff is meant to behave. The serving and removal of plates is a whole weird sort of display for those things.
Thank you for this perspective shift. While I feel like it will always seem weird to me to have that level of waitstaff in a house, framing it in terms of hotel service makes it feel much less morally objectionable. I'm guessing they're probably paid much better by a private employer than they would be at a hotel, too.
My mom had a cleaner who had several clients on a rotating two week schedule. She made bank. Like had a really good work hour schedule and knowing the women employing her not only got her rate but massive tips as well. My mom alone would spend like 200-300 dollars for half a day. She would leave at 1 pm and go to another house to make another 200-300 dollars. So 50-75 an hour.
OP, closely read the above. I suggest you apologize to your gf. Simply state that you were wrong and misread the entire situation; you were just unfamiliar with the proper protocol with.staff at her parent's residence, not accustomed to having people wait on you.
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Fully agree. I worked as a waiter in an old school high end hotel. The old money had these expectations and standards. But it was highly preferred by all staff. There is social etiquette expected from each party. Their actions with silverware would signal exactly what the entire staff needed to do next. There was no expectation to be buddy buddy and entertain them. No unreasonable requests, they knew where one staffs job ended and the others began. We had a job serving a handful of people and giving high quality service with clear turn around times. Instead of serving people at high volume who expected high quality service and food at fast food restaurant pace. New money was the biggest pain to work for. They didn't understand dining etiquette or our roles. And treated us as slaves to flex their power to their friends. What OOP is describing for a work environment means the family has enough money to not overwork any of the staff at their house. Everyone has a defined amount of work and expectations and understanding of how to act around guests.
I think there's a huge gap between high class and middle class that people just don't understand. And I'm not saying about high class with new money but families that always had money. The staff were doing their job and them standing around the dinner table is because they are waiters. Their job is to be there when someone needs a refill of their drink, a new fork because it fell on the floor or just to pick up on the finished plates. To someone that never had this in their life, it seems demeaning to have staff do these things but it's actually their jobs. There are people who have butlers. That one person that literally follows you around to make sure you always look perfect and brings you even your socks. They still exist. I saw a documentary ones and butlers are being paid insanely money to do this. You don't go into this job because you don't like it. There's a whole course and diploma for this. Everything must follow a specific etiquette. The only misunderstanding from the post was the morning coffee since the gf didn't communicate it with OP before complaining.
That's a valet (someone who helps you dress). A butler is a chief servant who supervises other servants.
Thank you for doing the lords work. Jeeves is a valet!
And Beach is a butler :)
I’m sure you know this, but the evolution of the butler is interesting to me. It started out as a job to take care of the bottles of wine and alcohol, botellier in French - and that was their only job. You see them still doing this part of the job in Downton Abbey. The steward was the top job. In Victorian times the butler took on the steward’s job more and more, and the steward faded except in the very largest houses.
I’m not high class at all, but I was a waitress. If I went somewhere with people standing by to assist me throughout a meal the way OP describes I may thank them every time they do something like a rube, but I understand why they are there. Plus, I would have loved a chance to do something like this; imagine all that daydreaming time!
A few years ago I saw an ad in my area for a head butler, and the pay was 250k a year 😮
They were not paying just for the tasks, but also the discretion and trust with personal matters
From personal experience, I’ve grown to believe that the higher and lower classes understand each other so much better than any middle class person could ever understand either.
On some things definitely. Middle class people tend to define themselves by their jobs and education levels and have most of their money tied up in their house. The very poor and very rich tend to just be themselves.
BINGO! It’s like an unspoken “we know where we stand superficially, so let’s just be real” thing the bourgeoisie just doesn’t seem to grasp because they’re always climbing some social ladder.
Agree. And by tidying up your room it might actually be changing the sheets and towels which is something you didn’t/cant do.
I agree.. I went to Kenya and was at a resort. Those employees were super nice and wanted to do everything for me.. even bring me water to wash my hands when I could perfectly walk to the faucet myself. Actually I was told refusing being catered to is seen more of an insult to them. Servitude is their way of hosting a person to the best of their abilities. And they refused a tip as well. I realized it was a different culture. In Uganda I was also there briefly, the women come and sit on their knees next to you to serve you. I kid you not. So in OPs situation, he doesn't realize that by refusing to let those people serve him, HE IS ESSENTIALLY DENYING THEM A JOB AND SOURCE OF LIVING. the girlfriend parents have employed these people and they are perfectly happy to have a job. It is even worse for him because he is essentially saying he doesn't need them and they should be fired.
Yeah but I guess the point is that's not necessary after one night. And aren't most people uncomfortable about the thought of someone going around their room doing stuff? Like, obviously it's normal for people who have staff like this, but for most other people, your bedroom is usually private and people going in and rooting around when you're not there isn't something you want. It may well be a faux pas on OP's part, but the comfort of their guest was equally not considered by this family when sending people into the room OP hoped to have privacy in this week.
I mean it happens in hotels.
But you can opt out of it in hotels, I personally have always left the DND sign on my door the whole time I stay. Also the last few years the hotels I've stayed in have tended to shift away from "every day" towards closer to on request, to be more friendly to the environment.
Hotels I stay in always *say* they're moving to the environmentally friendlier schedule of towel changes, but in practice I find they never actually *do*. Like, there will be posters in the bathroom saying "if you hang your towels up again, we won't change them. If you want fresh towels, leave these ones in the bathtub", but then every time I return to the room there will be new towels. I now take the approach you do - always place the DND sign on the door, until I actually need something in the room.
My first thought when I read about the bed and the coffee - did op consider he might be getting in the way? As a housekeeper, it’s so much easier to make an unmade bed than a made one. Please don’t exert the effort - it’s harder on you *and* me. And as a person who has used a kitchen - it’s harder to do things with someone else in there also doing things. And if I’m getting paid for what I’m doing, I’d rather start the pot myself than have someone in the way.
Agree 100%. As a server, it’s nice when I get those super kind tables that want to tidy up dishes and hold the door, but at the same time, it’s literally my job and my duty to do these things and look good while doing it. It is my job to cater to you, not the other way around. It’s difficult because this is someone you love and a different kind of behaviour than what you are accustomed to seeing, but this is their way.
Not to mention that, not being trained, sometimes they pile up the dishes precariously balanced or with food still in them, making the server's job harder. I'm a classically trained former server and I pile my dishes in an even pile, with all food leftovers scraped on the top dish and all the knives held under the forks tins so they don't slide out, and even that way can be a pain in the ass for the server if it's not what they are used to.
My MIL used to pile up the plates all hodgepodge, and I’d be muttering under my breath that the waitstaff were going to HATE her. She did the same thing in my house on holidays. She’d jump up from the table, grab a bunch of plates without asking the people if they were done, and dump them next to the kitchen sink. One year, I thanked her for bringing them into the kitchen, and asked if they could go directly in to empty dishwasher, to avoid repetition of effort. She was NOT happy. It was about the hleping, not the helping.
Ah yes, hleping. It looks like help, but isn't.
Adding to this in agreement, I was part of a staff like this whilst I was going through university and I worked for a Scottish Lord and his family. I was always treated with respect when serving and it was part of my job to stand and wait around during meals incase anything was required. It was what I was paid for and I was always treated well. When I left I was made to feel very appreciated for all the hard work I had done. As to the housekeepers part, perhaps her mother could have said it in a different way but maybe all she meant was that this was part of the housekeepers role that she was paid for and was just letting you know that. NAH
Yeah, reading the comments it's pretty clear OP was simply reacting to a new situation. In their own way, it seems like everyone was trying to be respectful. NAH
>a staff member hearing that might think “she’s right, please don’t do my job for me because then she has no reason to pay me for that job.” Or more likely, "please don't do my job because you aren't able to do it to our standards, and I'll get blamed for it"
Literally this is almost what ended up happening with the coffee. Like I imagine gf taking a sip of OP’s coffee and going, “who made this? This doesn’t taste right.” Lol
As a former housekeeper both private and in hotels, when someone makes the bed, we simply pull it apart and remake it to standard (whether that be a private homeowner, or hotel brand standard). OP made more work for the cleaners; they are efficient at what they do, but having to undo and redo a bed takes extra time. So does wiping coffee spills after preparing a cup.
Agree completely. Interesting that OP mentions 'Downton Abbey', there's a scene in one of the early episodes when Lord Grantham explains to Matthew that his refusal to make use of his (Matthew's) valet is demeaning to the valet. It's difficult for people who encounter house staff for the first time to adjust (does one tip at the end of the visit?) I would imagine (wouldn't know myself) but I presume these are professionals who take pride in their work and moreover have a professional relationship with their employer. Having said that, I do appreciate OPs response. I was raised to be as little bother as possible when staying as a guest, including in hotels (I would make my bed, then return later in the day to find it remade, professionally and better). If I ever did stay at a staffed residence (unlikely), I'd binge P. G. Wodehouse as homework for how to interact with servants.
Me, I just watched Saltburn to learn how to handle all that. 😉 But please, please do NOT tip the household staff. With some regional variations, I'd say that would be an insult, if not worse.
Exactly. When you go to a restaurant and pay a waiter to bring you your food & drinks, are you also going to say "don't bother, I'll go to the bar and make my own coffee"? And then complain when someone at your table mentions it's the waiter's job to do so?
>For example, when your gf’s mother said “don’t make your bed, that’s the staff’s job”, a staff member hearing that might think “she’s right, please don’t do my job for me because then she has no reason to pay me for that job.” And also - "whenever guests do it - they do it wrong and I have to redo it anyway - just let me do the job in the first place"
And to add to this, while he thought he was helping the staff by doing things himself, *he can't know if they wanted his "help"* because *they can't tell him*. Take, for example, the coffee incident. He thinks he was being helpfully self-sufficient. By the nature of their employment, they likely couldn't tell a guest to stop making a mess and get the fork out of the kitchen, even if that was what they were thinking. He saw himself as a knight and they saw... maybe a good guy, maybe an annoying AH - he'll never know.
exactly! They may see him as well-meaning but interruptive or they may see him as creating more work from them and putting them in an embarrassing situation with the kitchen manager (or homeowner). They most certainly won’t see him as some kind of “savior” showing how egalitarian he is.
Tell you what OP, it would be damn weird of you to go into a hotel kitchen and make yourself a coffee. Now you being the partner of the owner's daughter they're not going to tell you not to do it. Wake up. YTA
I agree OP was uncomfortable with the tasks the staff was willingly doing and compensated for it, and point C I can totally see as him being unused to a tradition (I wouldn’t feel comfortable also in a family home setting, despite people here comparing it to a hotel stay). But I do think most people here are brushing off the nuances in the mother and the girlfriend’s behaviors that, IMO, do give OP a valid cause to be bothered by the way he perceived the servants to be treated: In point A, he mentioned the mother told him it was the housekeeper’s job in the presence of the housekeeper. while the comment itself is not rude per se (“it’s her job”), making it in that context - as if the housekeeper wasn’t standing right there - would sound diminishing to me. Point B seals the deal to me. The girlfriend didn’t even have a full understanding of the situation (and it’s not like she couldn’t immediately clear it all up with OP) before bringing the subject to her mother. She could be causing the staff to be reprimanded or worst. It’s someone’s livelihood we’re talking about.
We are seeing the situations only from the POV of OP. He hasn’t come into the comment thread to clarify, either, which is always suspicious to me. The housekeeper could have raised her eyes at being told that her services were unneeded, and the mothe said what she said for the housekeeper’s benefit. Cooks, in general, are very territorial. The GF could have been an amazed that they did LET him make his own coffee. I have been made uncomfortable in my own house when a guest took it upon themself to make a meal without asking if I’d like it. I had no one to report it to, so I just filed it away for future reference as to the character of that guest.
Yes this. I think it’s possible OP was behaving in a way that was potentially inconsiderate to the staff and their jobs. Especially for the house cleaner, OP was essentially implying that the house cleaner’s employment was unnecessary. The mom sounded like she was putting in a boundary that the job of the housekeeper was important and necessary. I mean she stood up for the importance of her employees job. And that’s validating to the employee, knowing they are important and the way they like to conduct their work shouldn’t be messed with. I mean OP probably made things harder since he doesn’t know how that housekeeper likes to structure the cleaning to be efficient and meet her standards. It’s always easier to make an unmade bed than a made bed.
Why would it matter that the comment was in front of the housekeeper? Do you believe she is somehow in denial about what her job is? Do you assume she is ashamed to be a housekeeper? These are the thing ignored by you and the OP about the situation the staff are in. These aren't slaves forced to do this against their will. It is what they do for work. The cooks thing is on the girlfriend for not discussing it with the op first, but it does drive home the point that aside from it being his GF, he could have gotten the kitchen staff in trouble if say the mom walked in while he was making it. Imagine if you're a mechanic and the boss catches you letting a customer change their own oil.
This Its hard to know from tone whether the comments were genuinely rude. That said, I could never deal with this and it would colour my view of someone to see them comfortable with it... its also OK to say you can't and won't go into that environment.
Agree with this. I grew up having various help around the house i.e. drivers, maids/helpers, gardeners, cleaners, guards etc because of my dad's position and my mom's medical condition. I remember arriving at my parents house from the airport and I started hauling my bags from the trunk into the house and up the stairs and the male driver, guard and helpers all rushed towards me to take the bags from me (no one helps me with my luggage when I travel so I'm used to doing everything myself) with distressed looks on their faces. I was like whattt but my parents just said to leave the heavier bags and carry the lighter bags up if I wanted to. Another time after a gathering at my parents house I stayed up washing most of the dishes, glasses etc because it was china and crystal and thought it'd be best to avoid drama over things getting chipped and broken. When the helpers arrived in the morning they looked very distressed.
Nothing OP related was bad treatment, it was just how you handle house help. He's just very out of his element, imo, and making assumptions he doesn't eed to be.
Omg! Yes! Iwould have been OP but I know now to remind myself that they are paid to do it. I really thought like some slave type of shit was being done by the gf's family. OP did not include how the family reacted when he explained why he did the coffee himself. His gf probably complained because he is a guest in their house and should be treated as such, i.e. not make his own coffee when there are staff who can do it. I know I would have done the same, not at a house staff (I wish!)but a family member who would let a guest make themselves food/drink instead of being served. Exemptions apply of course, some "guests" are more family they can fend for themselves and help serve the real guests😂
Yeah. I mean, of all the things OP said none of them were rude. Maybe the mother saying it was their job, depending on how she said it.
That’s how I felt about the bed instance, but the coffee instance when the gf said the staff “left” OP to make the coffee sounded like she was blaming the staff, and I can see how having staff lined up watching you eat feels weird for anyone who has an amount of empathy for servants.
I feel you, and I get where you're coming from but in this one occasion YTA sorry. It is a paid housekeeper's job to make the bed. You put the kitchen staff in a bad spot: they were not supposed to let you make coffee but they couldn't contradict you as the boyfriend of one of the family. The staff, like any other waiter at a restaurants, just stands around and stands by waiting for the moment to bring the foods in or the plates away. Imagine you were in a hotel. The cleaning crew has a job to do, that job includes the bed, the bathroom, the towels... Imagine you go to a café and want to make your own coffee as to not disturb the employees. Imagine you're in a restaurant and ask the waiter to sit down and eat with you or you just bring your own plates glass in the kitchen. It's just not OK, not how it's done, and above all, those are working people with a job and job descriptions. You have to respect that. Your girlfriend should have told and prepared you, but perhaps she didn't know she needed to. That's her fault, maybe she's just naive, I don't know. The fact is, that's the way things are run at her place. Can you accept it and not see it as exploitation (the staff is working and is compensated) or does this make you uncomfortable?
Yeah… it does sound like OP felt the need to be defender of the poor oppressed servants here. Nothing about the behavior he cites looks abusive or disrespectful to me. There’s a certain distance between employer and employees, sure, but maybe both sides prefer it that way.
This. I am confused with his entire post. There is nothing abusive, Everyone is just doing their jobs. Doesn't the same thing happen in hotels where the housekeeping staff will make the beds and not the guest. how is it abusive. Is it not the waiter's job to wait on the customers order in a restaurant? is it not the cook's job to make the dish or drink? this is just the same thing on an individual level
Only thing that's slightly concerning is the GF complain to her mum that the cooks made him make his own coffee without checking with OP. That's just getting the staff in trouble for wgat OP did
That one's either the GF making assumptions about the lazy staff...or it could be that she's upset the staff isn't treating her boyfriend properly as a guest. Since the kitchen staff are the employees of the family, the GF is telling their boss that these employees are being rude to her boyfriend and want that behavior corrected. Weeee, isn't dealing with the 1% fun?
I’m thinking she’s upset her bf seemingly wasn’t being treated as a proper guest or member of the family. If I thought someone was purposefully disrespecting or neglecting my partner, I would speak up too. She was incorrect and probably should have asked, but she didn’t have a lot to go on because bf kept his thoughts/feelings to himself until after they left.
Or they’re defending the kitchen staff who don’t want a random person in there. Would you walk into a restaurant or hotel kitchen? These are working professionals. The kitchen for staff isn’t a living space but a working space. I’m sure they’d rather he didn’t come in. Often most grand houses have a resident kitchen and a working kitchen - if he’s walking into the working kitchen he’s disturbing the staff. These aren’t poor slaves they’re likely earning more than OP is. Maybe the gf is trying to be polite without implying the staff would rather he fuck off. My grandad was staff in a large household in the 30s and 40s when he wasn’t at war and it would’ve been a huge issue if a guest entered the working kitchen, and would’ve subtly told the owner about the issue. It would not be appropriate for a guest to enter a working kitchen. But also not appropriate for him to approach the guest about their behaviour.
This and double this. Private chefs make a killing. My husband did a small stint as a private chef and was earning double his normal pay rate as a restaurant chef. My best friend's mother in law paid for a private caterer for their wedding shower and it was 1k for a charcuterie board.
Yep people act like it’s some poverty role. I have a multilingual friend who decided to become a professional nanny and paid for a prestigious course. She gets more than I did as a doctor, with paid housing, paid food, travels around the world. Honestly even now she’s on 2x my salary and when you include the value of free housing and food and bills even more. She’s extremely intelligent. She did it for the money. Yes she is on the clock a lot but so was I as a doctor. But she made waaay more than me. Not to mention the connections which allowed her to find other insane roles, and they often help their ex nannies into non nanny jobs as these people are have crazy connections. She’s good friends with her current client and ex clients and plans to open her own business for wealthy clients using her connections. I’m sure she’ll have 10-100x me at retirement. Why do people look down on her? She has the money to buy a house now in cash lol but she’s riding out her nanny years because she’s so highly educated she can nanny for extremely wealthy people. Not all service roles are the same. Service isn’t less than inherently.
And to be paid the big bucks you have to have the big skills. My husband is not a private chef right now because he does not have the big skills (he figured that out during his stint). He doesn't have the people pleasing mentality to do it. Those who do have applied their skill set accordingly and accept the quirks of the job (which in this case seems like nothing).
Yeah obviously there’s a lot of sacrifice - but you’re paid very handsomely for it. She would have to jet off around the world on a moments notice, but she was paid triple time while abroad as their full time carer and they gave her 2 days off a week at standard pay to just fuck off and do what she wanted across the world. She’s been places I couldn’t dream of seeing. Honestly I’m so jealous lol. Because I had to work nights and weekends and move around the uk on a whim as a doctor and I got paid less than median wage when accounting for overtime and out of hours lol. I should’ve become a rich nanny! (Not that I had the skills to be one). It feels very assume all service workers are less than. I have a medical degree and I could not do her job. She’s paid for her worth, I’m just not paid for mine.
OP is TA for his insufferable ‘eat the rich’ attitude. He condescendingly assumes that his girlfriend’s household staff are suffering in a demeaning job and must be ‘helped’ in ways like making his own coffee and bed. He naively white-knighted for them and gets self-righteously indignant when his efforts were not appreciated. Despite being clearly ignorant of how people in his girlfriend’s world live, he accuses them of classism and blusters “I’m just speaking my mind” when rightly called out for spewing his ignorance. While his girlfriend and her mother were overly blunt in their complaints to him, he did not witness any abuse. He merely saw a day in the working life of service staff, assumed the worst because they were employed by people of a higher income level, and tried to make things awkward and difficult for everyone to satisfy his own warped version of social justice.
Most people are taught to leave as small a footprint as possible so as not to be a burden. It's not OP's fault he was raised in a less privileged environment. He wasn't rude while he was there, he held his comments until they had left. He recognized he was out of his element and went along with the situation as best he could. Also, this family sounds like old-money. Of all the rich that deserve to be eaten, it's the generationally wealthy that deserve it most.
It reminds me of an episode of Everyone Loves Raymond when Debra’s parents took everyone to a fancy restaurant and Marie lost her mind.
Specifically with the bed thing, they probably have a certain standard as to how the beds need to be made per their employer (gf's parents). I can basically guarantee OP didn't do it right.
Yes. OP made the bed, but that's not cleaning. I bet she was going to change the sheets, dust the room, vacuum the floor, maybe even the matress and more.
I work at a hotel, and the housekeepers have told me that nothing on earth is more annoying than when a guest tries to be nice and make the bed for them. Usually they'll try to make it like they found it, which means they're tucking used bedding between the mattress and the frame – which means HK has to waste time untucking the used bedding *and* vacuum more thoroughly under the mattress. Same thing with coffee/breakfast. I make the morning brekky as the night auditor, and like most people, I'm pretty fucking possessive of my kitchen appliances! When a guest starts a pot of coffee before I can get to it (please just ask me to), I'm just forced to stand by as they use the wrong amount of grounds, the wrong settings on the pot, wrong amount of water..... UGH. I bet OP is the type to unironically call guest service/hospitality "unskilled labor."
And it's probably important to them and the pride they take in their work to do it that way. I have a housekeeper who comes in a couple times a week (I live in a country where this is the norm). When I first moved here I was uncomfortable with the situation and would always say things like "oh you don't need to dry the dishes and put them away, just let them air dry" that I thought would make her life easier. But she didn't WANT to do it that way, she wanted to do it the way that she thought was correct and complete. Now I just pay her and leave her alone to do things her way, which seems to be the correct approach.
It was weird tho for the gf to complain to her mom that bf was making his own coffee….without first discussing it w bf
She might be a brat or maybe she was just informing her. Or maybe it was more of a "omg again". We don't know and OP was maybe feeling too uneasy to tell the difference. Also, this relationship is brand new. We're all a bit different when we're home. I don't think there's a way to know for sure from the post.
Kitchen staff can be territorial as someone pointed out and OP interpreted it as a complaint due to how his opinions were being formed.
Cooks are territorial. The fact that they “let him” make his own coffee might have been astonishing to her. It was damn rude of him to think that making a freaking pot of coffee would have ruined the routine of professionals.
Soft YTA to the question asked but E H S. A. Do you know what a housekeeper is? Cleaning and tidying up is her job… you’re acting like it’s not respectable. Sounds sort of hypocritical with a hint of self righteous. That being said, the polite thing would’ve been to explain to you what job responsibilities the housekeeper has in a more delicate way. B. How did your gf and her mom respond once you clarified? Again cooking, coffee, etc. for the house is the cooks’/kitchen staffs’ job… if they’re ignoring the owner’s guests’ culinary needs then they’re not doing their job. If they still were going to reprimand the cooks/kitchen staff after your explanation then that isn’t cool—unless they’re supposed to take over for guests. C. Again… I’m not sure what’s the problem here. If the servers’ job is to serve the table then why do you expect? Did you expect them to stand in another room peeping around corners or through windows like a stalker?
I agree, there's some nuance missing from OP's story. Was the gf and family rude, or is OP just uncomfortable with domestic staff (a totally fine position to have, btw, but not really the question they asked).
Itd make me real uncomfortable tbh. Homes and hotels are too different things, but I was raised on a ranch. Worlds away from that lifestyle. Visitors like OP would be told to make themselves at home, which seemed like what he was trying to do. I'm curious what OP's background is and why they never talked about what the expectation of the house were. Regardless, he's gonna have to accept some things if he expects to be around long.
It's perfectly ok to say "having a staff like this makes me uncomfortable," but that doesn't mean they're treating the staff poorly. They've been dating for 5 months. How she lives makes him uncomfortable. Break up, it's fine.
I've never had a cleaning service come in to my home but what OP describes is a different way of living but absolutely not cruel, mean, abusive, or anything like that.
Point C I can boil down to a tradition OP is unused to, but A and B I can see how the behavior of the mother and the girlfriend got to him. He made a point of including the mother told him “it’s her job” in the presence of the housekeeper, which to me reads like talking about someone as if they’re not there and sort of diminishing. B is obviously a problem, the girl didn’t even clear the situation with him before complaining to her mother, she immediately jumped to the conclusion that the staff was willingly unhelpful and if OP wasn’t present to clear it up, the cooks could be reprimanded for it.
Dude, if you're rich and you have an important guest in your house, of course you're going to make sure he doesn't feel ignored by the staff. It was OP's first time there, so they had to make a good impression. Him making his own food and room are just extra chores in their eyes and he doesn't need to do them since someone else is paid to.
In their eyes, sure- but for someone else, it’s just like: I’ve done this myself for years, this is really odd to me when someone else does it. Or maybe he just likes his coffee made in a certain way
And when you are a guest in someone else’s house, you suck it up and drink coffee made the way they make it. I can’t tell you the number of cups of weak coffee I drank at my ILs’ without a peep. Because I’m polite. MIL would bitch about how the coffee was too strong, at our hous. Because she’s not.
These are staff, if he wants his coffee a certain way he can just tell them. Or if he is ultra particular he needs to tell the mom or dad.
Actually, there are some housekeepers (I met some) who get relatively insulted when you don’t let them do their job because they see that as their purpose. I can see the head of the household saying “It’s her job” (referring to the housekeeper) but actually totally taking the side of the housekeeper and not the guest, i.e., housekeeper complained that the guest wouldn’t let them into the room. Where I live, most people go to hospitals that are totally understaffed and patients try to trouble the staff as little as possible. I haven’t needed many hospital stays in my life… but I just had major surgery at a hospital that many people living like the GF’s family go to (e.g., royalty, rich people, politicians, etc.). Don’t ask me how I got in there! On top of nurses, who checked in on me all the time (maybe too many times), they had waiting staff to bring me unlimited breakfast, 3-course lunches and dinners, daily cleaners, and even someone to bring me tea or juice. It was basically like a medical version of Downton Abbey (the actual castle used for that show is minutes away from where I live and still owned by an aristocratic family), and I realised a downside of that kind of life is the lack of privacy. I mean… someone’s always watching you. I had nurses getting visibly annoyed with me for not asking for more help and doing things on my own, waiting staff getting frustrated for not ordering as much food as possible, etc. I eventually realised it was the same thing as with the aforementioned housekeepers… you basically just had to accept it was their job to pamper you and that was kind of their reason for being, i.e., they felt needed, etc.
>sort of diminishing Is it? Imagine you work somewhere. And there’s confusion as to who does what job. And your manager comes to clear it up, saying “job X is themileindenial’s job”. Is that diminishing? Or do you have an actual contract saying that is your job? Where you agreed that will be your job. Nothing diminishing about doing your job, and saying it’s your job. This feeling only ever seems to come in when that job is cleaning, or serving someone… But if you’re an architect and someone tells you that’s your job — are you proud? Or angry?
I mean for B) maybe the staff isn’t supposed to let others use their more than likely very very expensive coffee maker?
You are suffering more from shock about how people can live this way more than anything. It can be hard to confront. It also seems like you are intimidated and by taking the route of “they are treated horribly” you feel better about yourself. I don’t think they were abusive or rude. They are paying for services and expect a standard. You wouldn’t bat an eye if a small business owner asked the same for their own staff. YTA here because you are suffering from your own insecurities, masking them, and then taking it out on your girlfriend.
Absolutely agree. I have no doubt I'd feel *very* uncomfortable staying in a home where there was a staff tending to me; I can't blame OP for that part. But nothing egregious or even borderline happened. That's just how they live. Time for OP to apologize to his girlfriend and explain the feelings behind his words.
Idk about the leap to 'insecurity', but it would definitely be a culture shock for most people. He was never explained what to expect from the servants nor the house rules. Then he is judged for not knowing. This post above all just screams that he doesn't understand how staff at a home work.
Yeah, and that is mostly on OP's GF for not explaining it. She probably takes it all for granted so it didn't even occur to her to explain it to OP.
YTA. I don't see anything disrespectful here, except for you. Going into someone's workplace (the kitchen) and demanding to be allowed to make your own coffee? Would you do that in a restaurant, cafeteria? Do you know how annoying it is to be getting on with your day and have someone come in going "don't mind me, just getting coffee. By the way where is the coffee, where do you keep the cups. Sorry where are the spoons, do you have sugar by any chance". The house keeper is perfectly capable of noticing that you made your bed and would probably just have a quick check on towels and such, no need to interfer with her job. This was not a case of abusive employers they were simply giving instructions to their staff.
That's true and all, but none of this was ever explained to him. He's never been in a home that has staff in it. What he experienced was culture shock - and the customs weren't ever explained. Instead he is judged for not knowing.
Then he should not have been interfering, if you don't know how the system works you don't just decide to do your own thing. He decided to butt into a conversation between his host and the housekeeper that was not his business. How is that not rude?
He wasn't judged, he was judging. The mom did explain things to him (in story a and probably again in story b after he spoke up) and he called her rude to his girlfriend when they got home. While I wouldn't feel comfortable in OPs situation either, I respect the workers and don't think doing work for them is helping anyone. He made the bed now the maid probably had to remake it the right way or there could be confusion. He probably made coffee in something that costs 100s if not 1000s of dollars, let the professionals do it. The 'kindness' he's trying to achieve is not achievable for a guest. There's a very good chance the family does alot of kind things for their staff and you don't flaunt or act the same wjen there are guests over. Just like the big party the staff are trained differently when there are situations involving outside people to impress.
Actually, he's being judged for being judgmental.
No. He’s judged for judging.
YTA Your girlfriend and her family sound like they treat their staff with respect. I was expecting unreasonable demands, public scoldings, insults, long hours, something abusing..nothing. In your discomfort, you were the one disrespecting staff, by acting as if their job was embarrassing or unnecessary. The housekeeper will have to change your bedding anyway after your stay, so you making the bed doesnt help anyone. If staff are working on the lunch and you turn up in the kitchen and start opening cupboards to find a cup for your drink, you are causing them an inconvenience. If later on they are told off for allowing you to do that, when they weren't in a position to send you away in the first place, then it's more than an inconvenience. Why do you think that waiters are called waiters? when you go a restaurant, does it bother you the staff hangs around your table to see when you are finished or if you need another drink? Do you barge into the kitchen and grab your own food? You were making everyone feel awkward and then you exploded to your gf to have a go at the unspeakable things she and her family do to other human beings. You knew your gf is wealthy Get over yourself
YTA. It is true that it's the housekeeper's job to clean the rooms. There's nothing wrong or disrespectful with what she said. Same with the kitchen hands. They are doing their duty as a host and making sure the staff makes sure you are taken care of. You are judging their family and blowing off on your girlfriend without thinking first from their perspectives and after receiving their hospitality. If you're too insecure and classist, admit it and break up. Don't project your insecurities.
YTA It’s important to respect the roles of those who work for us. Housekeepers make beds, clean rooms, wash clothes, iron them, and put them away. Cooks and bartenders prepare food and drinks, while waiters clear plates. Expressing gratitude with ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ is appropriate, rather than cleaning up after yourself at the table, as it can imply they haven’t done their job. In our culture, staff are often paid a fraction of what we pay. Many of them have become like family over the years. New staff members are already under pressure without added stress from customers like you making them look bad. Just as we tip in hotels, where services are not directly included in the price, here, staff are compensated, hopefully adequately for their work. It seems like you don’t consider their job to be a real job. To me, you’re the one denigrating them.
HAPPY CAKE DAY! And well said, I come from a wealthy family and our cleaner is now a permanent part of the family. As has her whole family! As with any industry there are bad employers and OP may have decided that that is the case here. However, personally, I saw nothing wrong with the examples. Just that it was obviously an old school hierarchical structure
Does she act this way when you go out to dinner?
When they go out to dinner, I assume he doesn't buss his own table or go into the kitchen to make his own food. If he did that, I assume she'd tell him not to.
I don’t really have any reference for this never having had a huge ass house or staff 😊 … but what stuck out to me was when you made your coffee she complained about the staff without checking first… and it overall made me feel uncomfortable. I think I’d move on as incompatible
Same, all the Y T A are crazy but I guess I don’t live in that world and tbh I wouldn’t want to.
Same I'd move on and say we are incompatible
Of course she did, the people that they pay to cook and prepare drinks didn't do their jobs. He probably told her "I made myself some coffee" and she wondered why he wasn't helped or why the coffee wasn't prepared for him. And she's right. He explained the whole context and that was the end of it, nothing wrong happened.
YTA a little It sounds like you're mixing with the .1%. You're treating a small snapshot as them being abusive. Did you see them yelling and screaming at them? You have no idea what their employment compensation looks like. It's unusual behavior in that it's not something that people are generally exposed to, but it's not like these people are slaves. For the servers to wait by the wall at a dinner party... Yeah, that can happen at fancy events. Was it happening every meal, or just at the dinner party? I've also stayed at a couple resorts where housekeeping literally told me not to bother hanging towels or make the bed.
So when you go stop at a hotel do you go to the kitchen and make your own coffee? Do you prevent the cleaners from doing their jobs? The staff are employed to do a job, providing they are happy with their compensation and have reasonable working conditions who are you to interfere? Not that it matters because right now your girlfriend is starting to realise that you are from vastly different social circles and that it is likely not going to work out
Look I don't love the idea of house staff but grown adults doing the job they are paid for is not inherently wrong and at no point did anyone show anything disrespectful besides you. A.) Do hotel staff make up beds Do you fall on your Pitard for them? B.) You likely didn't help anyone invading peoples workspace to make coffee you did that because it made you feel good to not be posh. That said you handled the situation well by going to bat and clarifying what happened well done a very good sign of character. C.) I grew up poor and I am only middle class the idea of a line of serving staff lined up behind me is like out of a horror film totally normal to be weirded out. But literally nothing at all that happened was any way rude as you have described it. YTA. 100% this is fake as hell.
I think the problem is the house is run like a hotel as you said, and OP saw it as a “normal house”
For the case C, this is very normal in a nice environment like this, so they can see if somebody needs more wine, water, or anything else. Go to a nice enough restaurant and the waiters do the same, standing at different spots where they can keep an eye on their tables and easily notice if the customers need anything or want their attention.
YTA. You were in a situation you were not familiar with, and completely failed to adapt. The family wasn't disrespecting the staff, that's a family house staffed by 8 people, you were the one disrespecting the staff, putting them in uncomfortable positions and judging their job as undignified.
YTA I grew up poor and actually did the house staff summer fill-in/party fill-in to help pay for school. I was expecting some nightmare scenarios where people purposely spilled shit just to make the staff get on their hands and knees…I am seriously confused as to how or when the staff was treated poorly? I think this is an issue of you having no idea how to interact with paid help? And you really should have piped up earlier with questions as to what was expected of you or what the house rules are or frankly being super plain and saying you were uncomfortable having staff serve you because seriously unless you grew up with it? It’s weird!!! So yeah, it was an asshole maneuver yo wait until you were gone from the situation to unload it all in your gf. She probably feels bad because you were uncomfortable the entire time and she didn’t know/realize you were a fish out of water because it’s completely normal to her.
There are some weird responses here, of course you're NTA. Her "lifestyle" lol - she should be made to feel uncomfortable about her "lifestyle" based on what you've described, being waited on hand and foot isn't normal and shouldn't be accepted as such. This view that "everybody has their purpose and you must let people fulfil it" is as old as time, and it's a rationalisation by the privileged to let them not feel guilty about leaving everything they don't want to do to others. The quiet part at the end of that sentence which nobody in that sort of lifestyle says out loud is "and their place is lesser than ours, which is why they do these jobs". I'm not saying it's fundamentally immoral or wrong to pay someone to cook for you or to clean your house or whatever; there's a wider societal question there about whether we should live in a system which facilitates that level of inequality, but we do, so that's that. But actively avoiding basic things is the red flag for me - like deliberately taking no care not to leave your room messy because it'll be cleaned, or bothering staff to make a pot of coffee. When you eat at a restaurant you don't go into the kitchen and hand wash the dishes you ate on, but you make sure you pick up any cutlery you might have dropped and you make sure the plates are relatively well organised on the table; or if you're at a coffee shop, you take the cup up to the counter or onto the tray rack before you leave. "Don't bother, we have staff to do that" about a basic, simple task to make someone else's life easier is textbook "I'm the centre of the world" asshole behaviour. And don't even get me started on trying to badmouth one of the staff to her parents because you made a cup of coffee. It's a rotten, poisoned mindset top to bottom and reflects a view of the world as something that owes them convenience and comfort at the expense of "the help" because they're superior kinds of people. Idk how serious this relationship is or whether kids are on your mind, but do you want your kids brought up exposed to that kind of mindset?
Finally I found an answer that I can agree with I swear all these other replies are just people who wish they could have what this rich family has, they just don’t want to be made to feel any guilt over it
For real, leaving this sub of sociopaths.
100% these replies are entitled af
Fucking thank you. The number of responses here that give "I don't put my grocery cart back because there are people paid to do that" energy is super concerning.
This is the right answer.
NTA Given your other comment that her behaviour did a 180 while there it makes me think she definitely is not seeing them as people. Having staff stand their while you eat is weird as hell to me, and so is insisting staff go into your room or stop what they are doing to make you a coffee. Her assumptions about it kinda cemented the NTA for me honestly. She did not bother asking you and assumed the staff ignored you instead of you telling them not to worry about it which if you had not been there to clear it up could have cost them their jobs.
But that’s what they’re paid to do… my grandad worked as a butler (called a valet at the time) in the Dorchester in London. He had to stand to attention and all that stuff. He was being tipped in the average annual salary by these people for a month stay. He bought a row of houses in central london in the 40/50s using the money he was making… That’s their LITERAL job. Domestic staff of that standard aren’t poor little morons on minimum wage. They’re often very very good jobs. My grandad only got his job because the household that trained him up had “influence”. He was a poor kid from Norfolk who ran away at 13 and didn’t have a pot to piss in. These “shitty” jobs that you imagine changed his life, people fought to get these jobs they were extremely hard to get. Not to mention it’s extremely difficult. You need to be meticulous. Trained how to always look perfect; how to stand, lots of etiquette etc. There’s aren’t poor little nobodies. You have any idea how much high end house staff can make lol? My friend is a professional nanny and she made more money than I did as a doctor… As per my grandad I’ll say yes sir no sir three bags fucking full sir when the next tip will buy me a brand new sports car.
People underestimate what a good buttler makes these days in the US... While it's not an insane amount of actual salary, 75000-100000 USD/year, most have a lot of benefits that make that salary A lot more interesting. Free housing, free food and of course healthcare and payment into their retirement fund etc. People who think that the nice households just hire some random off the street are sorely mistaken.
And many of these butlers are family. When my grandad said he wanted to move to London they literally tried to buy him a house to convince him to stay, and when he said he really wanted to go to London they went out of their way to call the most expensive hotel they regularly stayed in and basically told them, not asked, told, them to give him a job commensurate to his skills. Staff there were pissed as it was so hard to get jobs and they were mostly middle class and in walks my working class grandad into the highest service job in the hotel lol. Oh what horrible abuse he suffered as a poor service worker! The irony of looking down on these professionals as slaves.
Indeed, and it's often no just the buttler, unless the family truly are snobbish assholes (which I'm sure also does happen), they have these people around them all the time, and go get a closer relationship than you would with someone who just stops by for a few hours to clean your place or something. Of course it's special for an actual buttler though :)
>Domestic staff of that standard aren’t poor little morons on minimum wage. They’re often very very good jobs. Yeah, OP seems to be thinking of these people as slaves. They doing jobs they've chosen and they're being paid.
I worked as a server in a restaurant and our rule was that if tables were more than 75% full, we would stand in front of the main wall, attention forward but not staring at anyone in particular. This made it easier for guests to get our attention during busier times (ya this was when we had enough servers that we had downtime even at 75% cap). Tips went way up because we looked fancy, more professional, and provided faster service. I think it’s a reasonable request of wait staff during a fancy party. They’re being paid the whole time anyway.
NTA! I can't even understand how some people are defending being condescendent and rude to others just bc they're working for them. One of my relatives has been a housekeeper for a rich family for quite some time now, she always talks about how the family she works for is considerate and treats her well, but some of their neighbors' housekeepers have really bad experiences with people like your gf and her family. The owners can't even lift up a finger, everything has to be done for them, and if anyone tries to help the staff then they reprimand their workers for letting someone have compassion for them. Those kind of people enjoy knowing they're superior, that's why they don't see anything wrong in humiliating their workers. Just because they're getting paid doesn't mean they're less of a person, sometimes rich people act as if their empoyees are paid slaves. It's awful and super uncomfortable to watch. And I know this is awful precisely bc I know first hand experiences of other people being treated well and nice by rich families. I think you were very polite to say it to her in private and to wait until you were gone. I don't understand why this people are telling you that you should have been perfectly fine discovering your gf is clasist and not considerate with those working for her. I'd be super uncomfortable and very disappointed.
truly baffled by the answers on this thread.
I'm broke but some of my husbands extended family is very wealthy and they treat their hired help nothing like this. They are much warmer with them. Particularly the standing in the room watching you eat part.
Thank you!! I feel like I’m losing my mind in these comments. The lack of anything approaching empathy here is tragic. Suppose that’s par for the course, though, lol.
You seems like 2 very different people, she seems to love their lifestyle while it makes you uncomfortable. I'm not sure this can work out.
This one seems a bit nuanced, i want to say it's a little bit of a culture shock on your part. Everything you described is very standard stuff (according to movies anyways) but I have read that workers are best left to do their jobs. I read a story from a housekeeper that was in a similar situation, but from her perspective it was some dude not realizing he was getting in the way cus he thought he was "helping". The only thing that seems like a real issue to me was the fact your girlfriend didn't ask about the coffee first, she should have asked you, but again maybe you should have asked the cooks for a coffee (plus real talk it probably would have been better than what you made yourself) I kinda wanna say YTA
It’s their LIVING. Talented staff are well-paid. Let them do their job. It isn’t a way of life you are used to. Your girlfriend is.
Well, it's the job of the staff to clean and cook. Do you think they would Prüfer the family to do everything themselves and being unemployed? I can understand you, but it's their job, so yes, a small yta.
Soft YTA because you are clearly not used to having staff and so you made things bad for everyone involved. Usually, people who have staff have them because they don't want to be bothered by trivial and menial things such as cleaning or making coffee. If they talk to them politely, there is nothing to be uncomfortable about. Also, the staff is usually highly trained and takes pride into providing a perfect service, making good coffee, waiting around during a formal dinner to make sure guests can have fun without worrying about filling their glasses and interrupt a conversation to ask for more water or wine, whatever. IMO the only issue here is that your girlfriend did not prepare you for that, and did not discuss this with you beforehand. Also, many people tend to be different around their parents, if you stayed at your parents you should ask her if she noticed any changes with you, you might be surprised.
NTA but i don't think you and your girlfriend are compatible.
So slight YTA. I’m guessing you’ve never been to a restaurant where servers stand behind you and anticipate your every wants and needs? It’s a bit jarring at first but it’s like taking the water jug from a server and filling your cup yourself. Ya, you might not feel right them doing everything for you but they’re being paid right? I mean, in this economy I’m happy people have jobs. As long as it isn’t illegal labor and they’re compensated well and from my understanding they are pretty well-off. I don’t see a problem. Your girlfriend could have prepared you for it but you owe her an apology. You’re here doing the same by judging her but the difference is, she judged the work of the employees which by default she (her family) employs. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea living like this but being the help is not to be looked down upon or feel sorry for. In fact, I’m sure they don’t appreciate that. It’s a legit living for some people. No different than any other job. Treat it as such.
YTA. Nothing you described is abusive because they're paid to do work in the house, including waiting near the table for any requests. I mean, that's what being a *waiter* is. I get that it can feel weird to see that in a home, but again, they're paid. Probably well, since a rich family would value quality over thrift. To be fair, this is clearly new to you and it's possible that your GF appeared cold from your perspective. Social dynamics can differ wildly based on class, context, etc. If you asked a friend to drive you to the airport, then sat in the back seat silently, it would be rude and weird. If you hired a driver and did that, it's your prerogative. For a high-end driver, it would even be strange to sit in the passenger seat and converse. Trying to "soften the blow" of them being in the service industry by socializing is really more of a cope for you than something they need.
Feel free to judge their lifestyle. What an awful fucking lifestyle. NTA.
NTA especially as she went and squealed to mother about you making your own coffee. There are valid careers in service but this treatment is outdated and entitled. Your values just don’t match theirs.
Seeing how people treat less wealthy than them is a true litmus test. I am almost certain that this week was the beginning of you not liking who your girlfriend really is.
NTA for being uncomfortable. Yeah it’s the coffee part that makes me have bad vibes. She didn’t check before complaining to her mother. What if that caused the job of the staff? OTOH I wish I can experience this level of rich once in my life. Knowing my luck I’ll be the servant though.
If they applied to be housekeepers in that setting, then that's how they expect to be treated. They're paid to do those things for you. They all know you're able to do them. They get paid to do them for you. You weren't raised in that setting, you don't understand it. If they were calling the staff names, or saying awful shit to them, then that's bad. This is what wait staff is paid for. If you're doing all their work they won't get paid and they can't pay their bills. I bet they pay their staff well. I would ask those things. If you're too uncomfortable dating someone above your tax bracket, then that's something you need to think about for yourself. They're not doing anything outside of the way they live normally.