AIBU to think people are jealous?

[cherrypieandcheese]

NC for this one!

I work very hard running an online business that has helped a lot of people and gained a lot of traction. I tend to keep it very quiet. I take a very small salary thats not enough to pay bills and I hope one day in the future I can go full time. In the mean time I work part time. I scrape by every month. I try and not tell everyone what I do on the side because I'm a little embarrassed and I find people at my work are put off. If they ask me if I have another job and I tell them briefly about my side hustle, the conversation goes dead, so I change the topic.

Everyone at work seems really friendly and I think people like me. I still feel new, been there just over a year, but get along with everyone. Yet I am still not invited to parties. There are group chats I am not apart of, but people who have started working there in the past three months have been welcomed into. I am the only one. I held my own party and no-one from work came, despite all being invited. Others from outside work came so it wasn't a flop. I am the same age and have a lot on common with these people.

We have all just been put on unpaid leave. Three of my colleagues have posted on Facebook tagging every singe colleague at my workplace on how sad they are that they are no longer working together, except me. Again. Theres no-one I am close enough to ask about it without being worried everyone will find out my concern.

Everything went well in the first two months and only happened when people found out about my side hustle. I don't know if people feel as if we're too different because of my side hustle? I have opened up to a friend who has told me I should be so proud of how many people I have helped, but I am not. I am embarrassed. I feel the side hustle makes people feel as if they have nothing in common with me.

I have received a couple of sly comments about it from people at work. Someone suggesting I am going to leave as soon as my side hustle takes off, so i'm not really loyal to the company, another saying I must not have time for friends and family because I work so hard juggling two jobs and dont have the right priorities Just comments I can ignore in the moment but felt really off. This has happened from 5-6 people.

I really don't think there is anything wrong with my personality. I get involved, I am friendly and outgoing. My friend said my colleagues are jealous. Could this be true? There is nothing to be jealous of because what I do is very lonely, hard work, and I have thought about giving in a million times. Or is there likely another problem with me?

I have never had any problems in any other work place. This is the only job I have had since starting my side hustle and the only one I have trouble integrating. If anyone could shed some light it would be appreciated, thank you.

I just love how people are getting helping vulnerable people online and making it into sex working. If she was doing that why limit yourself to vulnerable people ffs. ‘ yeah Karen I offer online sexual services to vulnerable people’. The op ‘ erm.. why will no one include me in stuff’’.
She’s explained she’s had positive interest from media and clearly doesn’t want to elaborate on what she’s doing, presumably because it’s identifying, but posters keep badgering for more info.
I used to have a side business and work part time. I now do side business full time. People generally want to know why you are only working part time, so it can be difficult not to mention it without appearing shady. I used to work with similar cliquey twats, that I didn’t want to disclose anything to them really, so would generally avoid the question, or down play it.
I have no idea why your colleagues are behaving the way they are, they maybe envious, or a whole host of other reasons why they’re not including you, just don’t take it personal.
You’ve got friends outside the workplace so you’re obviously not that bad. I would just keep in doing what you’re doing, look to make side business full time and soon these colleagues will be history.

Wonder if it is online fortune telling, tarot readings or seances?

Just for clarity I don't think the op is a sex worker it's just what the words 'side hustle' brought to mind! Just wanted to clarify

None of that would generate positive media coverage.

Daisydoesnt I’m in London, but I’m young. This is also an age thing not just a geographic thing.

I’m shocked to discover that older people think “side hustle” means sex work/MLM/something dodgy. Literally never heard that before.

Like I said everyone I know of my generation has a side hustle, all normal part-time jobs.

''Side Hustle'' sounds really dodgy, like you have an attic full of ''medical'' weed ?..
It seems strange you are boasting about having ''loads of compliments and media attention''... Perhaps a slight self satisfied smugness puts the others off?

My “side hustle” is online tutoring for children with disabilities or additional needs who can’t attend a mainstream school. So my “side hustle” is also helping vulnerable people. I get £17ph not including time spent lesson planning and marking, so hardly rolling in riches.

Are teachers who teach special needs pupils supposed to work for free lest they be accused of profiting off the vulnerable and thus “not being a nice person”?

Or maybe your talk of project on the side waiting to blow up, is in some way insulting to the people at your part time work, who do it full time for a living? Almost like "yeah this will do til I'm rich"

It could be this. I once worked somewhere full time and a new part time very friendly chatty colleague started and frequently stated that she would simply never be able to do the job full time and how sorry she felt for the rest of us. She was on a minimum pay contract and the rest of us earned £40K+ p.a. Not a huge salary but it was our livelihood and many of us had worked there 10+ years. It made many of us feel really annoyed and probably annoyed at ourselves because it wasn’t anyone’s dream job and there was a load of office politics that made it quite an unpleasant environment. At one point, some students came in to help during a particularly busy time. They were mostly doing admin/data entry type work and many had a very superior attitude declaring how they couldn’t possibly do the job for any length of time because they’d ‘simply die of boredom’. They were young and inexperienced and I’m sure, some at least, had no idea of the effect of their words.

Could it be something like that OP? Something you unintentionally said that people were offended or hurt by? Of course the problem now is if you said something unintentionally, you won’t remember saying it and will start second guessing everything you said which isn’t good for your mental health.

It could also be the side business. They have looked at it online and decided you aren’t ‘one of them’, they presume you are too different and/or will leave shortly anyway and they are unwilling to invest any of their time into creating friendships. The deliberately not tagging one person only is immature and ostracising and you may be better off without them anyway imo.

Maybe once OP has explained her use of the horse ‘side hustle’ 17 more times it might sink in for some of the dolts on this thread?

Horse

I bet the pp who think “side hustle” means drugs/prostitution are the same people who think kids wearing coloured jelly bands on their wrists indicates what sexual acts they’re willing to perform. 😂😂

Yes we sometimes had agency temps who were just filling in time before going off to what they really wanted to do and they had quite a superior attitude.

WHATS THE SIDE HUSTLE

I bet the pp who think “side hustle” means drugs/prostitution are the same people who think kids wearing coloured jelly bands on their wrists indicates what sexual acts they’re willing to perform.

😂

Well, you sound a bit stuck up to be honest. Could be the way it comes across and not the case at all, but if you sound as full of yourself when you speak to them, then I wouldn't wanna hang out with you either

It easy to see how you would assume your colleagues are envious based on this thread, when you’ve got posters interpreting running a successful side business, as the op being smug and self satisfied and doing their best to pick apart what’s been said and turn it into a negative - swindling old people, sex work. It says more about them than you.

None of that would generate positive media coverage

There have been tons of puff pieces and approving documentaries about prostitutes working with disabled or otherwise vulnerable men: www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/apr/10/sex-workers-disabled-people

I’m anti prostitution (not anti prostitutes though, big difference) but it’s naive to say it doesn’t generate positive media coverage.

(For the record, I don’t think OP is a prostitute, just responding to topics in-thread)

This is also an age thing not just a geographic thing.

Oh yes, here comes the obvious ageism!

It’s got nothing to do with age, it’s just another example of PoMo bollocks. It’s linguistic deconstructivism, it started with Derrida (who was born many decades before me) in the 60s, filtered through the universities and ended up selling lies to working class people on Instagram.

plato.stanford.edu/entries/derrida/

‘Side Hustle’ originated in the African American lexicon anyway, so no doubt an even younger person will be along shortly to wokescold you for cultural appropriation. This is how purity spirals begin 😂

@SwerfandTurf

''Shag Bands'' =the bracelets...swapped at festivals/free parties, along with tied on 'friendship bracelets and Tamagotchi virtual pets....Thanks for reminding me of a more carefree era :)

DuLANGDuLANGDuLANG the “none of that would generate positive media coverage” was in response to someone thinking the OP does online tarot card reading.

I don’t know who Derrida is or what PoMo is and haven’t the foggiest what “ linguistic deconstructivism” means. Congratulations are you proud of yourself for using your (obviously high-end) education as a weapon to beat people less fortunate over the head with and make them feel thick?

Ffs there’s no need to have a tantrum just because someone says “among young people side hustle is a very common synonym for ’any kind of part time job’ with no dodgy connotations”. Do you have to bring identity politics and wokeness into literally everything??

Pointing out that different generations use slang differently isn’t “obvious ageism” but I’m not going to argue with the professional offended woke-crowd.

I'm assuming you're providing sexual services to the disabled. Women don't tend to like sex workers. Next time you move jobs, keep schtum.

Wow, that’s quite a leap. That’s the last thing I’d have come up with reading the thread.

That's the first thing I thought, given the OP's reticence. FWIW I think that is a worthy service to people who may struggle to find "intimacy" in other ways.

You could ask them why they exclude you, tell them how upset you feel by this. If I was the manager of a group of people ostracising someone to this level I would at least speak to them. I understand that you can't make people like each other in or out of work. The second job should be irrelevant unless you are doing something illegal and seedy, you've said you're not. In any other time I would say get another bloody job. I've got to admit I'm secretly making up cool side hustles that would make people hate you... Big ball tweezer? Hemorrhoid scratcher? Do you unlock drains with your mouth?

None of my side hustles read as cool. They read as disgusting. I didn't rtft so I bet all those have been suggested anyway. Are you the fourth leg for a wonky donkey?