My wife and I make okay money in a middle class area, but, due to a combination of good luck, and contrived to circumstances, we recently got to watch a college football game in the stadium’s super executive corporate sponsor level suite. It was awesome. Open bar, amazing catered food, and people networking all around me who are clearly in the c-suite of their respective companies. I had a list of crazy things I was going to say if someone asked me what I did, but it never came up.
Similar. Two cases. First was taking charge of the entire Bases secure network upgrade because I was the only one who knew how the new devices worked. I ended up having to attend a meeting with a General and his staff and had to be chaperoned by an E5 because I was only an E3 at the time.
The second was my entire time working in White House Comms. Can’t talk much about it but I’m sure you can imagine how out of place it would feel.