to find some people attitudes, such as "i work hard i deserve it" really sickening

[carriedababi]

was reading some magazine in the dentist, there was a woman from dragons den iin the mag.
saying how she had a wardrode worth 3 million.

and she went onto say well i work hard for it.
so ideserve it.
and something todo with she sees her expensive clothes as a symbol of how sucessful she is.

really made me feel sick, how a horrible nasty attitude to have in life.

i'm sure even if i was a millionaire, i would not be proud about spending that much on clothes.

i don't know its just the arrogant im entitled to this that got me.
and dont they think people how have less also work hard. probably alot of them work alot harder

what do you think

I dont see whats wrong with saying "this took hardwork to get"

For example, in our first house people used to really compliment us for how it looked, but it didnt just come that way. It was an absoulte wreck, it took two years and was living hell to renovate.

We would say "thank you but it took a huge amount of work" as that is the truth. It didn't just magically turn out like that.

If I complimented someone on weight loss and they said "thanks. I used to be 25 stone and it took a lot of hard work to get to 12 stone" I would be surprised if anyone would begrudge that.

If a teacher was promoted to headteacher and was congragulated and said "thanks but it was hardwork to get to the top", I would just admire them.

I just don't find any offense in anyone honestly saying "yes I have this, its great but don't be under any illusion it just 'happened"

However journalists pick up on what helps their story and she probably said loads of things before the point about £3m of clothes and they just picked up on that point.

Xenia, I was thinking along those lines. The OP doesn't mention which magazine it was but, if it was a typical women's magazine, the journalist could have picked out the parts of the interview that would appeal to their general readership.

Me neitehr Rose

If someone says @I earned this, I will enjoy it' fab. *

If someone says 'I worked hard and got lots which must eman you lot with little never worked'- well that makes them an arse with zero insight into reality.

People do get funny though; I remember years ago now that when I graduated DH bought me a MOnsoon gown for a ball we were going to; proper full length, really nice. Hardly Dior but then for us a decent amount, a treat to commemorate an achievement.

Did people say oh that's nice? like hell! A thread was set up on a hobby-related forum saying how I must have ideas above myself becuase someone had seen that dress in a shop for £300. A nasty anon thread.

Prats. Dh worked hard to get the money to say well done to me, biggie not.

And that on a factor of many times, is the same nasty snioing ahppening here. I've watched Dragons Den a few times and this aprticular lady is alwyas the one telling people they have done well toa chieve, looking for positives. Hardly dismissing other people's lives is she?

novice "I definitely wouldn't say don't worry 80% of it is luck so if you put in the same amount of effort as everyone else and you will still end up at the top of your profession in the City."

Novice, that's exactly what I was saying. I was saying that 80% of it is luck, so actually no matter how hard some people work, they will not end up at the top of a City profession. If they don't have the brains and the appropriate education they are not going to get there no matter how hard they work. And the brains and the education largely come down to luck.

LeQ City jobs don't generally come down to silver spoons and contacts these days, rather they require intelligence, an impressive academic record, and a degree of articulateness (if that is a word). My point was that that is another set of people who work very hard (as hard as your DH) and who can be inclined to think that their success is not about luck.

Maybe for City folk it is more due to luck than it is for entrepreneurs. I wouldn't have thought so though. Entrepreneurs fail all the time, and I don't think it's usually for lack of hard work.

That's sad peachy. Can't believe people would start a thread about that! Think that was sweet of your DH and sure you looked lovely.

Ah was meant to make me get back in place I think,, how dare I go to uni and not stay in a factory plucking chickens etc etc.

No biggie. Interestingly it was only the women; the men didn;t get it at all, and a few eyars on I have long lost contact with those people nad have some real proper mates so win-win.

Hm, lovely- er in so far as I can maybe, not a stunner me.

There is luck at birth to be born with a reasonable IQ. Some other things you also make happen yourself. It's probably a mixture for most of us. I am lucky I was born reasonably bright. I am also never ill (so far, touch wood) and that may be genes or luck too but it's also because I don't eat junk food and I'm 9 not 18 stone. Also I seem to have the robustness to keep at things and try them even if sometimes they don't work. Persistence.

Probably other things mean I am where I am. I took 2 weeks holiday to have each baby so I never interrupted a career for babies.

Another thing I am "rich" in is that I have 5 chidlren. That wasn't just luck. At 14 I wanted babies and I knew if I waited too long that's very very hard so I made sure I had 3 by the time I was 26. I wouldn't say that was entirely luck. I would say it was also planning.

Yup, it's mixture of planning, luck and hard work. In equal doses and a lack of any can scupper the others immediately.

There are some things nobody an avoid if it's the hand they are dealt (eg illness) but it's always worth giving your best when you can. And sometimes the bad luck can be turned around as well- not always but a redundancy to a new career, for example.

I do think being alive now is luck. In the past social mobilty was near impossible, say if you were born in the medieval era with little education opportunites and poor health and sanitation.

Being born into a wealthy country is also very, very lucky. Impossible,apart from a handful, to be rich in the third world.

Haven't read whole thread but YANBU, I just find in incredibly sad that with all that money all someone could think to buy would be material things in order to boost their percieved status & make themselves feel happy by looking to good to others...

it's the sort of justification for having hods of cash. Why can't they say "I have mahoosive unprecedented wealth and my bath is made of gold"...then talk about something else for a bit, and then say "IWH"?

I think it's because in our society people are made to feel guilty for having amassed wealth. People feel they have to justify having money here, where in other places they are congratulated for having achieved what they have.

I'm not saying those who've done well for themselves should have people brown-nosing them saying, 'ooh haven't you done well', just that it seems a lot of people in the UK despise those who have amassed material wealth so the wealthy feel they have to excuse their success.

Actually from another angle tehre cheesy I can;t say I am surprised that someone who has plenty of cash and noticeable facial difference due a stroke would home in on aesthetics as a key to self image. Sounds bang on predictable to me.

Rose spcial mobility is still prettyy limited according to stats. I am the only one of my school cohort to graduate; I seriously doubt I am the only one able enough, just the only one who was able and had parents who cared and a Dh willing to finance my studies and held education in esteem and a myriad of other things.

If you google her she donates a lot to charity and "A penny a palette scheme" for a carers charity.

Peachy I have no idea of the stats but compared to other times and other places it is relatively far better. I think If I had been born 100 years ago I would probably have a misreable life as servant or something!

My family tree shows that it wasnt until my GP generation that some sort of wealth began to accumalate.

Yes I suppose trial my media is not the best way to judge someone

And they use a LOT of pallets (DH used to be a Pallet COntroller when he started iin that field LOL)

She survived working for dh's ex employers as a female; assuming the office she worked in was much like his that was pretty much an achievement to start with, not one of dh's female colleagues managed to survive long on their contract and that was because of the culture there. Just hoping their shared background has led Dh to she same drive in his own business now!

Her pic on dragon's den website is quite attractive.

Whats a pallet?

Relatively yes of course; still doesn't change the fact that social mobility is rare.

Had i followed the fermale path in my family I;d be dead through alcoholism or mum to 10+ children and coping alone with a deadbeat H. Instad I am finishing my post grad and starting a bsuiness in a field I love.

But most people don't get that chance: standard path at my shitty estate primary was fail at school / job in lingerie factory / married at 18 / pg at 19 / redundant from factory at 24 / series of temp jobs and usually a divorce.

By the time most kids got tos chool their educational chances were stuffed, bred into a notion that you were letting your family down if not paying them £ by 16 and college was not for the likes of us.

Hence I will never move my boys back to that crap.

What's a pallet

One of these (not the elephant, the thing it's stood on).

www.warehousenews.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/epal-pallet-elephant1.jpg

Pallets are the wood bases haulage use to transport goods; pallet exchanges track the pallets and companies like Pall Ex and Chep hire and deliver them, and in DHs experience Pallet Controllers spend a lot of time arguing with farmers that they can't build their sheds out of somebody else's pallets - but that might just be the Somerset version!

Peachy, your background doesn't sound hugely dissimilar to mine.

You use pallets to move things around. I fyou have a load of heavy sacks of something or other you put them on a pallet which might be made of wood. It balances and helps the load and then afer you unload the goods at the place to which they are going the pallets may or may not come back.

I believe she gives a lot to charity and supports her son too.

The downside of going on television like this is you end up with more attention on you that otherwise would be the case.

Shelly, I never yet met someone from my estate on here and frankly I'd love just one of them to turn up here where most people are fairly aspirational and act like they deserved something more than the hand they were dealt. So if your background is similar thank goodness someone else realised it!

I should emphasise I am not a snob- I don't care what someone does or where they live. Heck I am a carer right now. It's the constant not for the likes of us crap that gets me down. Be proud of yourself working and paying the bills, don't write yourself off as a lesser class just because of something you were taught as an infant though

(Can you tell this is a sore point LMAO? note my sisters both have decent careers so it is a parenting thing for us)

I agree with you on one hand and disagree on another.

I suppose I can think of examples were WC people I know have followed right down the path of their parents.

Yet I also know more examples of people who broke the mould and became sucessful in spite of background.

The main point to me is the chances, choices and opportunities are there more than ever, more than most countries if you really want them and not just for those born with a silver spoon, and for females too. Nobody bats an eyelid at female going to univeristy now for example.

Society is not just split into Jobs manual labour vs traditonal professionals- we have a much a higher variety of careers than ever before.

Though I do feel very sorry for graduates right now trying to gain employment in a recession or anyone who has lost a job. These are bad times for many.