Stuff Rich People Love

#87 - Doormen

Doormen
Price: Confused By Push Signs

If you are like me you grew up in a city where people learned how to do things for themselves. In places like Winnipeg it means knowing how to dress for sub-zero temperatures throughout the year. Native Australians can protect themselves from kangaroos, great white sharks and hide their offspring from wily dingoes. Meanwhile, growing up in Mumbai teaches people to effectively operate a call center or program in C+ without the need to outsource this skill to other countries. The rich, unlike those without money, don’t take kindly to having to perform tasks themselves. Menial annoyances like blow drying their hair, cleaning their home, landscaping their estates, looking after their own offspring or sculpting their good looks can all be delegated to under-appreciated professionals…opening doors is no different.

We are all familiar with the difficulties that opening doors can pose. There is the tiresome task of finding one’s keys and the mentally exhausting struggle of push vs. pull. This may be simple to you but you likely are not rich and cannot understand the challenge that ingress conventions cause. As such they look to others to solve the wealthy equivalent of Schrödinger’s cat. Interestingly, while most everyone that works for the rich is at the beck and call of those with ample Ben Franklins in their Prada wallet, the doorman is a special breed of help. Equal parts security, concierge, confident, sycophant, gossip snitch and stanch union member the doorman can make a tenant feel welcome or thoroughly ignored. While the rest of the world world bows to the fancies of the wealthy, even agreeing with a milkaholic’s whimsical dream of launching a clothing line, an NYC doorman is protected by the Local 32BJ and needs not bow to the fickleness of the upper crust. In fact, if the right of the doorman to deliver sardonic humor and unsolicited advice to their pedigreed counterparts is compromised swift strike action is threatened which throws the city into turmoil. The result of this unlikely relationship is that the doorman is privy to Upper East Side indiscretions, SoHo secrets and Tribeca trysts.

Naturally, if you would like to wriggle your way into the lives of the fabulously wealthy a doorman may represent Prometheus waiting to share the secrets of the Gods. While discretion is the better part of valor, if gossip columnists can break these vaults of secrecy surely you can find a way to eke out a sound bite or two and gain familiarity with their wealthy patrons’ likes and dislikes. Perhaps the couple in 15B enjoys the thrill of meeting new people over Manhattans and dinner at a Gramercy Tavern barstool on Tuesdays while 12D loves sailing in the Maldives and 14C has a weakness for custom oxfords from John Lobb on Madison. If you can’t turn these nuggets into sparkling conversation over grilled sturgeon there is no hope for you to impress the well-heeled. Succeed and there may be enough wind in your sails to solicit an invitation to enjoy lunch in a stunning co-op overlooking Central Park in spring. Land ho you scallywag.

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