Several years ago when I was in school I worked a part time job in security at a big high-rise building. It was during my time spent working there and in the general downtown area of a big city, that I observed the effects that wealth and power have on most people. Now as a disclaimer, wealth doesn't automatically turn people into jerks. I met lots of very well off folks who were the nicest people you'd ever meet. But by and large, there was a culture of superiority and cut-throat competition that tended to work it's way into many folks lives. What I witnessed was:

1) The biggest jerks were not the CEO's. We almost never saw the CEO's but when we did they were just too darn busy to even have the time to do anything but work. Most of the time they were out of town anyway. On the rare occasion that they would stop to talk to you, they actually tended to be pretty nice people.

2) The biggest jerks fell into the upper-middle management category of big companies. These were the folks who were "account manager for x number of oilfields in kreplachistan" or responsible for managing a particular area of their company's rail network. These were the people that generally tended to exude the "I've got it made, so you should dedicate your life to trying to be as awesome as I am" vibe. Included in this class were folks from all different occupations, ranging from lawyers to senior technicians to guru programmers (although most of the programmers seemed to exude more of a "sloppy hippy" vibe which was actually quite cool). I witnessed many of these folks throw temper tantrums and generally act like five years olds toward their fellow human beings. At all times you knew when you were in their presence... as the number one priority was always themselves and they made it known.

3) The undecided class- these were typically workers in their 20's and 30's for whom their lot in life was still to be determined. Many were yuppies, who tend to turn into the big jerks of the upper-middle management crowd I just talked about later in life. Many were still pretty cool, decent human beings who still had not drank the kool-aid yet and were more concerned about doing a good job than their status.

So now with the basic stage set, it's story time!

Tuesday morning, 10 AM. The coffee shop in the lobby is backed up with an endless line of blue dress shirts and khakis, access cards swinging from rotund hips and blackberry's clacking away as folks answer oh-so important e-mails (I thought the point of a break was to get away from that... oh well) If you were to tally up the collective wages of the folks in line you'd easily break several million per year in salaries. Lots of big-wigs, managers of so-and so, important people. In the coffee shop you have a handful of teenage girls whose collective pay doesn't even come close to one of their customers. Seeing as it's a particularly busy morning the girls in the coffee shop are run off their feet dealing with the huge rush and to their credit they're moving the line along at a good pace. As folks amble forward all you hear is "double double, double double" (double cream, double sugar) Then the unacceptable happens- they run out of coffee for a whole five minutes while waiting for the next batch to finish. This is clearly an eggregious offense to the big-wigs in line. How dare the coffee shop waste their valuable time by holding them up for a whole extra five minutes??? Never mind that it's due to a massive influx of customers bombarding them non-stop all morning. This is clearly crossing the line.

I watch as a portly manager from company XYZ bellows in rage and reduces a frail 15 year old girl to tears. His access card swings to and fro as his massive belly heaves with anger. "This is ridiculous!! It's a basic job you gals have here and you can't even do it right! No wonder all you can do is work in a place like this! I demand to see your manager!!" That's not a verbatim quote but you get the idea. We've all seen this play out a hundred times before. As the particular instigator jeers and bellows other folks pick up on his cue and get in on the game as well. After a few minutes of verbally abusing the girls behind the counter, the coffee comes and the line starts moving again. "Thanks a lot.... hope you're more competent at your job next time!" the manager quips as we waddles away with his sugar saturated coffee. To him it was a couple minutes extra in line. To the poor girl at the till, her day was ruined. This scenario played itself out every day, in a hundred different ways. All hammering home the same concept;

"I am more succesful and therefore more important to you. Your existence as a person is subordinate to mine, and therefore you will accomodate me"

I witnessed fat-cats in three piece suits race to grab a table in a packed food court that an old lady with a walker was slowly shuffling towards.

One wonderful episode in which the attitudes of the jerk-class were exposed was in regarding smoking at the entrances. The second floor of the building was entirely medical specialists, many who were involved with treatments for various forms of cancer. At the back of the building there was a special extra-wide entrance that ambulances and special needs vehicles could drive right up to to deliver cancer patients without having to worry about stairs, ramps or elevators. Quite often folks would be brought in on stretchers or wheel chairs.

This entrance was also a favorite spot for many smokers because it was conveniently located and had a great view. No matter how many times we sent out building wide notices to all the tenants asking them to make sure their employees DID NOT smoke near this entrance as it had a high traffic volume of cancer patients, there were always folks smoking there. Lo and behold, it tended to be the "I'm too busy and my time is too important to care about other people" crowd, the same big-wigs that made their day by degrading and yelling at the poor coffee shop girls. We routinely had to go there throughout the day and politely ask the folks to relocate to any of the other FIVE entrances and enjoy their cigarettes there. Without fail the response was a sneer of some kind, a remark about how you can't do this to people in a free country and how they weren't surprised that we were working in security because clearly it was the only job people of low intelligence could get.

In short, people used their important positions in big companies with big salaries to justify taking a dump on others who were lower than them on the pecking order. I saw it time and time again. Anyone not playing the same game or lacking college or university was a sub-human.

Whenever I go back home to visit I take a stroll through the downtown core for nostalgia's sake. While it's good to reminisce, I still see the same scenes play out over and over. Nothing's changed.