Inside the Secret Lives of the Ultra-Rich: Shocking Tales from Luxury Hotels and Restaurants Revealed

Computer itself is just junk though. Standard Dell crapola from 2004 or whatever. I start the virus scan and it’ll take like an hour or more. Half an hour in, this little dog is yipping at me (friendly like) and the old lady picks her up, then asks how much longer. I tell her I can’t really say. Scan has another 30 minutes, but if a virus shows up, it could take a lot longer to clean it up.

Old lady, Mrs. Callendar, she says “Oh, no rush, we just wanted to know if we should tell our pilot to warm up the plane yet or not.”

Yeah, a $1000 PC, and my $95/hr virus scan are literally holding up a private f*****g plane. And she’s okay with that.

For the record, the DOG’S name is “Marie.”

And I took about 45 more minutes, and removed a minor virus, then reset her browser’s settings to disable about 35 toolbars and fixed the issue.

2) Guy calls because his internet is crapped out.

Show up, typical wireless internet (directional terrestrial) for the area. Mid winter. Go climb up on the roof and hammer a bunch of icicles away from the dish antenna. Come back down, reset everything. No prob. Kids all back online.

He asks if I could help with sat-tv. I say I’d try. Basically same problem. A bit of ice, and dish needs fine-tuning on direction. Fix it, he’s happy.

Leaving, he tries to give me cash. I say we bill through the company, but if he has a business card or something, that’s easiest. He says, “Yeah, but don’t bill the company, I’ll write my personal on the back.”

Get card, thumb covers part of it. Card says “PepsiCo.” Read “President” near my thumb. Expect to move thumb, see “of Western Marketing” or something. Nope. Says: “And CEO.”

(Super secret, business card had a coupon on the back. Good for one frito-lay or pepsi soda product, or 75¢ off anything else from PepsiCo.)

3) Guy calls our local repair shop (only one for 100+ miles) asking if we install routers. Sure, yeah. “Do you sell computers?” Yeah, those too. “Well, I’d like to buy… (he counts on fingers or something) Like 5 PCs, one for each room, and 3 or 4 laptops to throw around the place.”

This is like $30k sale in a shop that typically does $1000/week in sales tops. Check with boss. He says get credit first. Guy insists he can pay cash, but I should bring it all to his new house next week.

Credit goes through. Show up at mountain mansion. 6000 sq. ft. Entire flat-bed truck of empty wine crates, straw spilling out of their wooden slats.

Go to unload, old, chubby guy walks up in sandals and cargo shorts. “Hey, are you the computer guy?”

“Yeah, that’s me.” Look at guy, assume he’s property manager/butler/cousin/something. “I’m looking for Mr. XXXXX”

“Oh, that’s me. Here, let me give you a hand with those boxes.”

He helps unload, shows me the place, thanks me profusely for showing up on such short notice, etc. Turns out he was retiring from a CFO gig at a major company in Chicago.

In the process of installing things, I saw the full house. Wine cellar alone was huge. 18 ft. ceilings with a rolling, library-style ladder on a half-moon shelf of wine. Connected directly to that was a walk-in humidor. Outside of that, a massive media/theater room. The whole house was connected to a smart-home system that juggled a DVD jukebox (this was before streaming) to every TV in the house, complete with 12″ touchscreen tablet “remotes” that, when carried, would cause the show to follow you from room to room, opening and closing hidden screens, curtains, and activating/dimming lights. Insane, and yet, the guy was super friendly.

Xepher , Greta Hoffman Report