Mumsnet Talk

Well I know IABU but I would just like it to be confirmed and render me a jolly good kick up the arse.

About five years ago I used to work with this young girl who came to our admin office from a bar job. She was cute and flirty but we got on fine. Then she started flirting her way round the managers and being given the good contracts. Then she managed to convince our manager that she should have the case I was working on, which I loved and knew inside out. He duly gave it to her and when I complained that it was mine I was told tough, you're only part time, you'll work on what I say you'll work on. Yet she was given whatever she asked for. I kid you not, if she wanted it, she got it. It was like being back at school with teachers pet. Then because she was full time, she got offered the assistant managers job. I applied for it but because I was part time I couldn't have it. The last straw was when I came into work one day to find that she had switched our desks around. Not just moved the furniture, but literally gone through my desk emptying all my drawers and cupboards and swapping all my stuff for hers. Because she liked where I sat. I'm afraid to say I walked out. She just didn't understand the rudeness of what she'd done and I just couldn't argue anymore.

Anyway, if you've got this far well done. I now see she's started up her own business, has ten people working for her, is director of the company and has just won some award for being ruthless new businesswoman or something.

I don't know why I'm jealous. I don't want her life. I'm a comfortably off sahm with a nice home, a lovely dh and gorgeous dc's. So why do I feel so pissed off when I read in the local paper how well she's doing? Why do I care? She hasn't got any children. She's not married. Her life is nothing like mine. Aaarrgh! I don't get it.

It's not jealousy. It's seething because you know she's got there by fluttering her eyelashes and treating people like shit.

She won't be all cute and flirty forever.

She was ambitious and ruthless to get what she has today but at what cost?

What's that saying- be nice to people on the way up cos you might just need them on the way back down!

Your irritation is probably down to the fact she flirted and trod on others including you, to get what she wanted.

I don't think you're jealous, just pissed off at remembering that you left a job because of her attitude.

You have things she hasn't got.

Getting in the local paper just means she has fluttered her eyelashes in the right direction, rang up the right people etc. It is self publicity.

It does not mean she is any good.

(apart from self publicity)

Just remember it won't just be you that she's pissd off on the way up, if that's how she got there.

There will be many others behind you equally happy to see her taken down a peg.

I see what you mean OP. But she prob has a very complicated after work life, a cat, an empty flat. She prob thinks of nothing more than work and how to steal her female colleague's husbands

she sounds lovely

urgh

I don't think it is jealousy, to be upset at the way you were treated, both by this girl, and by your boss too. YANBU.

Like the girl in Love Actually who steals Alan Rickman from Emma Thompson makes me cry every time

YANBU, she sounds a right twat, you're right to realise though that you're very lucky, and if/when you go back to work, you can be just as successful.

I think you're being a tad unreasonable - she's doing really well for herself - she has her own company, she was promoted above you because she worked more hours. Get a grip, you do sound a bit jealous and yes I'm sure she got where she is simply by flirting - all successful women do

God I totally understand why you feel the way you do, which as PP said isn't jealousy but a sense of rightful indignation that she flirted her way to the top. I guess many of us have met women like her - flutter the eyelashes and laugh at the boss's jokes to get what you want, piss off whoever else you want, usually (but not exclusively) other women because the boss will always side with you. I'd have lost a bit of respect for your manager for falling for her act tbh.

She is a caaaahhh, and you are not, you sound like a very nice person. Karma will catch up with her one day. Count your blessings and concentrate on the people who care for you.

She sounds dreadful.

Successful people often are very thick skinned and ride slipshod over others.

Is that something to aspire to? Not really.

If it's success in the business world you're after, then forget about her and start thinking how you can do it.

If that's what you want and you don't have to be a cow to get it either.

YANBU. I can carry a grudge for YEARS if someone pisses me off and she sounds like a nightmare. I hope her business fails.

Have a

Yes Chairman, I have worked at a place where one young woman had a meteoric career all down to shagging her bosses who were all saddo middle aged men. Me and my friends did our careers the hard way, by actually doing our jobs well. Words cannot express the sort of contempt I have for people like this.

Fellatio my DH calls me the elephant because I never forget a grudge, I got some going back 30 years and one day I will get revenge mwwwahahahaha.

She treated you badly and trampled all over you so that she could succeed.

I don't think you are feeling jealousy so much as injustice. She's behaved badly and done well out of it.

You don't want what she has, and you certainly don't want to behave like she has to get it, but I think it's completely natural to resent the way she went about getting it when it came at a cost to you.

YANBU at all

I worked with one of those,years ago. She was a former hairdresser who came to work in an office, had no admin qualifications or skills but basically climbed her way to the top by flirting with the boss and any other senior males in the department. She even did a funny walk, pushing her tits out as she walked along, it was quite hilarious really! Of course, she trod over all the other women in the office on her way to the top, and was generally really unpopular.

I have no idea what she's doing now but I'm sure she's slept/flirted her way even higher up the career ladder now

Woah, you sound jealous and quite sexist. Would it upset you less if she were a man?

You have different priorities.

wigglesrock - I don't think the OP is saying that "all women" who are successful get there by flirting. I agree that believing in that stereotype just reinforces it and makes it more prone to be enacted, and if there was a whiff of it in the OP I would have been all over it too.

I think we're just sharing stories here of where we have seen it... I think it's actually quite rare.

This is weird, because if I dont know her then I know someone very much like her. She too recently started a business and was named in an Independent "People to watch/Up and coming entrpreneurs" type article and recently won a business award.

She too is single with no kids, and makes the most of her "assets". She briefly dated my H years ago, and has him on her FB. Her FB (yes I was nosey!) friends are 90% men, what does that tell you?

She is not at all popular amongst our old crowd, she picked people up and dumped them when they had served their purpose and doesnt seem to have many friends. I wonder why.....

Sounds like she's gotten this far by sucking off her boses....

Shell run out of people to sleep with one day then will fail miserably don't worry

Yes, but I don't understand why the OP thought to mention that the woman had no children or wasn't married. It's been 5 years, the OP is happy with her life - I think it's jealousy and old fashioned meanness tbh. Maybe her old colleague has changed and is a delight to work for. I just find it strange that when women slate other women for being ambitious they usually describe them as fluttering their eye lashes, being flirty with absolutely no business acumen at all.