AIBU - she told her employer I'd worked for her

[Dibbydoos]

So friend - met through work 10yrs ago - started a new job. I'm self employed. She said she told her employer about me and try wanted to interview me. I said salary is low side - about £30k less than I earned in my last proper job - but OK. Had the interview, my friends on the panel. She asks me a question, I start to think about an answer and she starts answering it for me. I let her finish and then say, yes that's an example but I was thinking about ... and give my example. I'm a bit perturbed. Then she says we'll you did work for me and I say, we reported to different directors, my director was an exec and your directors boss. They tell me they're going to make me a job offer. I catch up with my fried for lunch with another mutual friend. As mains are served she says and you'll be working for me. Our mutual friend says, that's not going to work. Don't ruin your friendship over work. I agree, it won't work as they're going to pay me more than you and in any case it'll get in the way of our friendship. She says we'll I didn't going it would be a problem as you've worked for me before and I tell her politely but straight that I've never worked for her. Finish lunch, me and mural friend are car sharing and she says wtf. I say wtf I'm so pd off. We were the same level but I reportedto an exec director she reported to his direct report how could I have worked for her. Well it seems that's what she told them. Someone a couple of years earlier said to me that I'd worked for her and I put them right. So how long has been saying this? I've always been on a higher salary than her and outside of consultancy held more senior roles than her. Anyway I told her to correct it cos it wasn't untenible otherwise and she aired me for 5 days, so I told her to do one. Our mutual friend said I'm being reasonable, she's obviously upset and I found myself a great contract so all's good workwise, but she's fd up my options with that consultancy now and has clearly been somehow using me to big herself up at work. I feel bad cos she lost her daughter 2 years ago and her mum's just died too. I don't know she has many friends who are balanced and reasonable like me, but she crossed a line imo. First time I've cut a friend off in my life. What do you think? AIBU?

[Gorl]

I find this a bit hard to follow but if I understand correctly your friend lied about you to other people on the interview panel while you were interviewing? If that’s right then yanbu for ending the friendship, as that was a rotten thing to do.

[ThinWomansBrain]

I don't think I'd have completed the interview if a member of the panel answered the questions on my behalf - I certainly wouldn't have left them with any understanding that I'd even condier the role.

There again, at the salary level implied, I wouldn't have bothered interviewing someone with no comprehension that paragraphs in a long peice of text can be useful.

[Bluntness100]

Um she was on the interview panel and told you you’d be reporting to her and you said no you wouldn’t work under those conditions. Thay sounds like you fucked it not her

I don’t know why she’s said you previously worked for her, but it seems you were the one being interviewed and her the one interviewing

[girlmom21]

I assume she said you'd previously worked for her so she could advocate for you.

"Oh no don't worry about getting references - I can vouch for her" type thing.

Or maybe she genuinely felt that she was more senior than you when you worked together and thought you had a good relationship.

It's probably best you don't work together.

[Dibbydoos]

@ThinWomansBrain

I don't think I'd have completed the interview if a member of the panel answered the questions on my behalf - I certainly wouldn't have left them with any understanding that I'd even condier the role.

There again, at the salary level implied, I wouldn't have bothered interviewing someone with no comprehension that paragraphs in a long peice of text can be useful.

Gee thanks. I have a bachelors and masters degree and write for a living - didn't realise the English police would be reading my post....

[Butchyrestingface]

Tend to feel a bit sorry for your erstwhile friend. But I agree this would never work.

[Butchyrestingface]

Gee thanks. I have a bachelors and masters degree and write for a living - didn't realise the English police would be reading my post....

I struggled with parts of your post too. This part, for example:

Anyway I told her to correct it cos it wasn't untenible otherwise and she aired me for 5 days.

How did the airing go?

[Derbee]

Too long, no paragraphs, too many spelling and grammar errors. Can’t work out the AIBU

[Charlene91]

@Bluntness100

Um she was on the interview panel and told you you’d be reporting to her and you said no you wouldn’t work under those conditions. Thay sounds like you fucked it not her

I don’t know why she’s said you previously worked for her, but it seems you were the one being interviewed and her the one interviewing

@Bluntness100

I have a strong suspicion that you haven't read the post properly to be honest....

[Charlene91]

Honestly OP, I think that maybe you are being a little bit unreadable, I'm sorry. I feel as though it's such a silly thing to cut a friend out over. Surely she's worth more than this?

[starfishmummy]

@Butchyrestingface

Gee thanks. I have a bachelors and masters degree and write for a living - didn't realise the English police would be reading my post....

I struggled with parts of your post too. This part, for example:

Anyway I told her to correct it cos it wasn't untenible otherwise and she aired me for 5 days.

How did the airing go?

I have a bachelors and masters degree and write for a living - didn't realise the English police would be reading my post....

Good grief.

[Cocomarine]

It’s not about the English police - parts of that we’re getting genuinely hard going.

Sounds like for whatever ego or career advancing reason she’s made up that you worked for her. If a very good friend did that to me when there was no easily predicted risk it would come back on my own career - I might forgive them. To lie about it in an interview like that? Fuck her! I’d absolutely distance myself, if not actively tell her the friendship was over.

[GivenchyDahhling]

I have a bachelors and masters degree and write for a living - didn't realise the English police would be reading my post....

Yikes

[Waterfallgirl]

Really ? - I have a bachelors and masters degree and write for a living - didn't realise the English police would be reading my post....

[toothpicklover]

Too many mistakes, not enough paragraphs, poor grammar….find it hard that you would be a writer for a living tbh.

[GoodForTheSoul]

I didn't understand half of that post so can't say either way...

[SpindleWhorl]

To be fair, @Dibbydoos, your opening post is very hard to follow and you imply the interview was for a high salaried role, so people reading will inevitably raise an eyebrow at that - especially as you say you write for a living.

[TractorAndHeadphones]

Your OP is very very hard to read but the gist of it is she claimed that you worked for her?
YANBU
Also I can't believe you really write for a living, I understand that grammar etc can be hard on a phone but how hard was it to use paragraphs...?

[GlitterBiscuits]

Could you try it in bullet points?
I didn't follow

[Penistoe]

Gee thanks. I have a bachelors and masters degree and write for a living - didn't realise the English police would be reading my post....

It’s not a your/you’re argument the whole of your post is rambling and hard to follow. It reads like a teenager bitching about someone in their class.
Are you drunk?

[1990b]

I would ask for a refund in that case and a lesson in manners.

[Dibbydoos]

@Bluntness100

Um she was on the interview panel and told you you’d be reporting to her and you said no you wouldn’t work under those conditions. Thay sounds like you fucked it not her

I don’t know why she’s said you previously worked for her, but it seems you were the one being interviewed and her the one interviewing

Sorry my post is causing such misunderstanding. I found out she'd told them I worked for her on the interview. I corrected it on the interview.
She told me I'd be working for her in a rather triumphant way at lunch a week or so later.

I was weighing up options at the time - self employed, seeking new contract and she offered me an employment option through her employer, so I took the interview.

I'd already had a first interview for a new contract by the time we had lunch so l had other options ref work.

I took the contract and a non exec role and told her employer (the consultancy) that I didn't want to progress.

But it's obvious she said it to others previosuly, so who knows when she started lying about it :(

Our mutual friend has all but stopped talking to her too.

[Anothermothernamegame]

No you don't write for a living !

[IamJuliaJohnson]

I had some woman from our department randomly telling friends and family at our wedding that she was my boss. She wasn’t, didn’t report to her, didn’t set my work, and was of a comparable level, but she genuinely seemed to believe that she was my boss 🤷‍♀️

It doesn’t sound like you respect her and will be able to report in to her, regardless of whether you have indeed worked for her before. To be honest, it sounds like she really wanted to secure your post, possibly she rates you, and has embellished a little. It’s always difficult when people you know well are in the running for a post in your team.

But I agree that your original post is written dreadfully and very hard to read. Are you drunk?!