Hi all,
⚠️ Sorry this is a long post!! ⚠️
So I left the company I worked for, for 4 years - around 8 months ago.
I had made a really good, life long (or so I thought) 'friend' and we worked side by side in the office together for the entirety of my time within the company.
We were really close, would talk about everything - she was the first to congratulate me on my house move, my engagement etc and was always super lovely and supportive. I found I really confided in her like a best friend, and she did the same to me.
We would go out after work, on weekends.. sleep over at each others house after nights out, etc.
I was always going above and beyond for her, doing favours, lending money etc and didn't ever think twice about doing so.. after all, we were best friends.
When it came down to organising my wedding, she was there for me. She came to my dress appointment, was there when I said yes to the dress.
She came to the venue viewings, and was there when we said yes to our dream venue..
I asked her to be my maid of honour - and she was delighted and cried her eyes out at the gesture - it felt very genuine and I was honestly over the moon to have found such a great friend in a work colleague.
Fast forward a little - I left the company at the 4 year mark and moved onto a different department in the same business.
We were no longer sitting together in the office, and I was commuting to a different area of the country for work (same business)
We slowly lost contact - I would always reach out to see how she's getting on, check on her and be there for her. She never responded.
She would dig for information from me as and when she wanted to know gossip or what was going on in the company, but when I suggested meeting / wedding planning she would completely ghost me.. although I could see that she was online and active on various social media platforms constantly.. it made me feel quite uneasy and as though I'd done something wrong?!
I was then getting constant messages from another lady within our team, again digging for personal information from me - how much the wedding venue is, how much my dress was, how my relationship is going and how much my new salary is. I didn't feel comfortable disclosing any of this information, and didn't even really speak to this lady in the first place so this felt very odd.
I confided in my 'friend' and she apologised in the other colleagues behalf and said she will have a word and ask what's going on and why she was asking such sensitive information. Turns out from chatting to a different ex. Colleague in the office, the 'friend' was asking the other colleagues to dig for information from me and hound me. Really confused by this as I left the company on really good terms and was on good terms with this friend, before now.
I have since heard from two ex colleagues that I was fairly good friends with, to tell me that 'friend' had been awful and snide behind my back, even whilst I still worked there and sat NEXT to her in the same office (so before my move within the business).
She said awful, awful things about DP, claimed that I was with him for his wealth and that alone.
She said my engagement ring was tacky and fake, and way too big and 'slutty' for her liking and I didn't deserve such a large statement ring (I can assure you that it is a gorgeous subtle ring, and it is real, not that this should even matter as it's the act and the thought that means the most)
She was nasty and patronising about my weight, telling everybody that I 'barely squeezed' into my wedding dress (she was there when I said yes to the dress) and it made me look like a whale.. 😔
She was openly bitter and jealous when DP bought me a lovely diamond bracelet for my birthday.. I wore it every day and when she first caught a glimpse of it she asked me who got it for me, where from, if it was genuine etc.
I found this strange but replied 'yes it is genuine, it matches my ring, I adore it - it's so special to me!' And she didn't respond to that. Should have thought at that point, that that was strange.. 🤦♀️
What I heard next from the two ex colleagues completely blew me away. I was absolutely distraught and still feel well and truly betrayed. I have been in tears over this 😔
During my time in the company, I was having disputes with the management over my level of pay. We were on a commission scheme and I was doing a different role to the rest of my colleagues in the office (the role was hugely demanding, used to take 5 staff members to do this role but sadly as they left one by one, nobody was employed in their place so if came down to me carrying this role out alone) I was taking home £500/£600 less than the rest of the team a month for doing 5 times the work that they were. Never once was I bitter about this to them, but it did hurt knowing I was being taken advantage of by the company..
The 'friend' decided one day when I was away on holiday, go log into my PC (who knows how as it's all private passwords - but she did sit next to me so wonder if she made note of them...)
She logged into my HR system, and decided to scroll through my PAY SLIPS and check that I was 'bringing home less money than everyone else' for herself.
I feel utterly betrayed by this, and my blood boils when I think about it.
I feel like my personal details have been exposed. She can get no end of personal details from those payslips.
If she had just asked me to see them, I'd have probably shown her myself.. I had nothing to hide and wasn't fabricating my situation with the pay..
She was my maid of honour. Someone I confided in and thought of as my best friend and she's completely betrayed me.
I am now torn and don't know what to do. This to me, screams GDPR breach but the problem
is, is that I've got no evidence of her doing it.. only two eye witnesses.
I don't know what to do.
Am I being unreasonable to be completely gutted by this?! I can't seem to let this slide ☹️