AIBU about people who say ‘they worked hard to get to where they are’?

[MessyMissyMe]

Generally these are highly paid people who were able to go to University (support from parents/inherited intellect/confidence and self belief built up by secure, happy childhood) or had the resources to start their own business and were lucky enough to get remunerated by employment that they enjoyed and were good at, didn’t have outside influences or stressors that made things harder/took up time they needed to study or build a career.

They basically are just LUCKY and don’t deserve their success anymore than a cleaner or a care worker living hand to mouth in social housing deserves their lack of.

AIBU to get annoyed at people who say this?

Wow. This thread has touched a nerve with many. I foolishly thought I’d get a lot of agreement!

I started this thread after a convo with a neighbour who was talking about a very expensive holiday she’s booked in front of a friend of mine who’d come round and who like me has a disabled child and is also a full time carer, both of us having had to give up working due to this.

Neighbour was saying she’d got a bonus (works in finance 9-5), no major past struggles that I’m aware of (she definitely would have told me if she had!) and then made the comment in my OP and said she deserved it. I found it quite irritating as I know what she does, it’s not that onerous and friend and I were discussing it afterwards.

I made the distinction of University education as very few of my peers went to Uni in my day. It was mainly the well off kids who did.

I also grew up in a dysfunctional, abusive home, no contact with father, no interest was taken in my education and I left home as soon as I could at 18 to a live in job in a hotel. I went to Uni at night while working full time when I was 25. Took me 6 years while raising DC. Suffered a stillbirth/rape so fair share of traumas (only mentioned because others have not for sympathy). Had absolutely no help with childcare and never have. No sooner had I started working in my chosen field and earning decent money, we discovered one of our DC had a disability, both parents working was incompatible with that. DH was earning slightly more so he continued working and we have been a one income family since which has massively impacted our finances. I have bust my bollocks supporting my DC and trying to get the help they need for the pittance of £67 a week instead of £40k which was my starting salary 13 years ago so perhaps I am a bit bitter, and insanely jealous, and have a whole bag of chips on my shoulder,

Lots of people have shared their stories about how hard work and determination set them up but what if you don’t have the time or resources to put in 80 hour weeks or the confidence to take risks or grab opportunities?

Also overcoming adversity to be successful takes luck. being blessed with robust mental health for example, having the intelligence to make the right choices or the self awareness to decide to improve yourself.

I remember the first time (in years) we managed to save some money for a basic holiday for us and the DC. DH’s car was due a routine service. Guess how much the issues found on it which needed repair came to. Nigh on the exact amount we’d saved.

It’s definitely a control issue. We like to think we’re in it as the realisation that life is pretty random is too scary to entertain for most. Probably partly why religion was invented.

I’m not saying hard work doesn’t count but you can work hard all you want and only just survive on minimum wage, or you could lose it all from an unlucky investment or court case over a boundary dispute or some such.

Just to add, to work smart you have to be smart in the first place.

Yes, I have encountered some luck

I have been "in the right place, at the right time" a few times & this has been to my benefit & I have been offered some interesting opportunities which I have taken

Yes I have worked hard - worked overtime & have taken on extra work related or employee support related duties

This has in turn led to developing good networking opportunities

Good physical & mental health
Willing to learn new skills, technology, travel
Tenacity
Enthusiasm
Confidence
Humour
Able to work round knock backs
Completes projects within set deadline & courses

Able to cope with issues that occur at work & home (everyone has these)

I have friends that have not been so lucky
Some have turned down opportunities, for their own personal reasons. Some of my friends are very kind & generous, but very shy, different personalities.

Some people procrastinate too much

Relative was a cleaner
Spent several years in hospital as a child
This affected their confidence & personality
But they were always keen to hear what other people were up to, what they had achieved & where they travelled

They were still an interesting person, but perhaps had not achieved their full potential, due to their childhood

There are more opportunities now in modern society

I worked very hard to get where I am. Didn’t have much privilege. Being white and having some degree of intelligence being the main two. I haven’t so far had any significant health issues. All of that is luck and I’m grateful. But also, I made huge sacrifices and worked really hard to get my career. I never gave up and overcame many hurdles. I proactively sought out opportunities. It didn’t come easy and I had to overcome a lack of confidence and self belief - never really felt I deserved it. But I didn’t give up. Now life is comfortable. Not rich. I’m immensely proud of all of that. I won’t apologise for it. I’ll enjoy the comfort while I can.

AND

I absolutely agree that life can throw a whole load of shit at anyone and this can make it so much harder to get out of poverty. People are working shift after shift in low paid work, working themselves into the ground and will never get out of poverty because the system is set up that way. If you have to work stupidly long hours just to put food on the table and keep the house warm then what hope do you have of doing further training to get a better trained job? As just one example.

Until we change the system to be fairer and provide genuine equal opportunity and less social inequality, then this will continue.

That’s what makes me cross.

I look askance at pretty much anyone who says they ‘worked their arse off’.

Very very few people do this. Vanishingly few.

There’s an early reply from a PP that illustrates it well. Uses the phrase then goes on to say they ‘worked every summer at uni’ ahahahaha. I too was the first in my family to go to uni - and worked thirty hours a week, at night and on weekends. throughout medical school (so a high workload and significant time on placement, as well as much shorter uni holidays). Got honours. Just working whilst on holiday? Nah your arse is still intact. It’s your self-perception that’s off.

I wouldn’t use the phrase ‘worked my arse off’ about myself either. Just did the kind of work one would expect for a student of a reasonably demanding degree who needs to fund themselves.

I would describe myself as lucky, certainly. Lucky to be intelligent, to have parents who valued education, and to have a reasonable work ethic. Lucky to study somewhere where I could defer university fees until I finished my degree. Lucky to have support and assistance from a whole raft of people along the way.

Wow. Bitter much? Want some salt for that chip?

DH and I worked extremely hard to get to where we are. Neither of us have a university education or were born into privilege.

I admit that I have been lucky in some aspects, not all. I worked hard long hours, made sacrifices and took risks, often at the detriment to my mental health and wellbeing.

I have friends who did get a university education (first class honours as well), don't put any hard work in, expect to be handed things on a platter and then complain about people that work hard and earn more than them. Yet we come from similar backgrounds but they luckily went to university.

Op, you seem to have taken 'I have worked hard' to also mean 'you didn't work hard enough'.

Which isn't the case. That's what you decided to hear.

YANBU. It's a self-congratulatory cliché, and very poor taste in the situation you describe.

The last person I heard it from managed to ignore the fact that he and his brother had inherited the successful family business at a very young age while his sisters got the equivalent of 300 pounds each. He might have worked hard with what he got but he only got it because he had the right sort of gonads. His brother is more honest, saying "I don't do much".

It’s both though isn’t it?!

I’m the first in my family to go to university; grew up in a fairly deprived area and on a council estate. I have a degree and PhD in a STEM subject. I have worked very very hard.

I have also been lucky, especially once getting to university, so compared to the people I grew up with I have had more opportunity (but I have worked hard to create those opportunities).

Compared to my peers now, I have had to work so much harder to get to the bottom of the ladder in the first place. Being a woman, I generally have to work harder to be seen and heard at work too.

I have worked bloody hard. There has been some luck, but most of it has been down to sheer determination.

Unless you genuinely know how hard some people had to work for their success then I think YABU. Tbh it's a bit bitter to dwell on it and no good can come from that. I believe in the U.K. that if you are in ok health you are given the opportunity to sit your exams at school, do well and get on in life and if you choose not to do that then you have to make different choices going forward to gain success but even then it's not impossible.

We are very lucky there is a social welfare system and available healthcare without the stress of paying for it up front when you don't have any money.

I did work hard to 'get to where I was' but I've never said that and I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone in real life use it in a boastful sense.

I worked weekends and all through school holidays from the age of 16 and to see myself through college (university wasn't an option even though I had a place). I managed to get an admin job in a big company and eventually worked my way up to a senior position before retraining to do something completely different a few years ago.

I don't consider myself as anything special or unusual. I just did what I had to do to build a life for myself and to ensure I had a roof over my head. Like many other people.

They basically are just LUCKY and don’t deserve their success anymore than a cleaner or a care worker living hand to mouth in social housing deserves their lack of (Luck?)
Dwelling on what people deserve or don’t deserve, and going down the “it’s not fair” route means you are spending less time on your own goals. That resentment is not likely to help you make the luck that you think you deserve.
IME, those who do really well at life are those that concentrate on what THEY want, and don’t hold onto grudges about others’ achievements and/or lifestyle. So in this case I think YABU. Think less about others and concentrate on being kinder to yourself, OP - you may find your luck changes...

@Glasstabletop.
If you don't want people to say how hard you've worked when they hear about your background don't bloody tell them.
It sounds boastful and goady. If you've worked for what you've got good for you.
As for your 'friends, who work hard and have nothing to show for it ' stop saying how marvellous they are although they are skint and bloody well help them.

It also depends what they mean by "work very hard". Success involves more than working very hard just as it involves more than luck. The trouble with your OP is that it implies success does not come from a person's own attributes, but very largely, it does, no matter how much you don't want to believe it. Consistently making the right choices and carrying on through inevitable knock backs are the key personal attributes, then probably working hard. Luck comes way down the list. Even throughout very poor mental health and poverty, you can make the right decisions and show resilience and eventually the situation will change.

For example, having children when you cannot afford to raise them or with an abusive or generally unhelpful partner will hamper anyone's success in life longer term. That's not bad luck, it's poor decision making, and anyone; making such decisions will have to work doubly hard to overcome them.

@MessyMissyMe

Wow. This thread has touched a nerve with many. I foolishly thought I’d get a lot of agreement!

I started this thread after a convo with a neighbour who was talking about a very expensive holiday she’s booked in front of a friend of mine who’d come round and who like me has a disabled child and is also a full time carer, both of us having had to give up working due to this.

Neighbour was saying she’d got a bonus (works in finance 9-5), no major past struggles that I’m aware of (she definitely would have told me if she had!) and then made the comment in my OP and said she deserved it. I found it quite irritating as I know what she does, it’s not that onerous and friend and I were discussing it afterwards.

I made the distinction of University education as very few of my peers went to Uni in my day. It was mainly the well off kids who did.

I also grew up in a dysfunctional, abusive home, no contact with father, no interest was taken in my education and I left home as soon as I could at 18 to a live in job in a hotel. I went to Uni at night while working full time when I was 25. Took me 6 years while raising DC. Suffered a stillbirth/rape so fair share of traumas (only mentioned because others have not for sympathy). Had absolutely no help with childcare and never have. No sooner had I started working in my chosen field and earning decent money, we discovered one of our DC had a disability, both parents working was incompatible with that. DH was earning slightly more so he continued working and we have been a one income family since which has massively impacted our finances. I have bust my bollocks supporting my DC and trying to get the help they need for the pittance of £67 a week instead of £40k which was my starting salary 13 years ago so perhaps I am a bit bitter, and insanely jealous, and have a whole bag of chips on my shoulder,

Lots of people have shared their stories about how hard work and determination set them up but what if you don’t have the time or resources to put in 80 hour weeks or the confidence to take risks or grab opportunities?

Also overcoming adversity to be successful takes luck. being blessed with robust mental health for example, having the intelligence to make the right choices or the self awareness to decide to improve yourself.

I remember the first time (in years) we managed to save some money for a basic holiday for us and the DC. DH’s car was due a routine service. Guess how much the issues found on it which needed repair came to. Nigh on the exact amount we’d saved.

It’s definitely a control issue. We like to think we’re in it as the realisation that life is pretty random is too scary to entertain for most. Probably partly why religion was invented.

I’m not saying hard work doesn’t count but you can work hard all you want and only just survive on minimum wage, or you could lose it all from an unlucky investment or court case over a boundary dispute or some such.

Just to add, to work smart you have to be smart in the first place.

You seem to have a very very fixed mindset. Resilience is not something you either have or don’t have, same with intelligence. These are things you can develop (within reason). Lots of research on the topic. That is not to suggest that luck doesn’t pay a big hand and that some people don’t start out with a much easier hand than others.

I find it laughable when people only focus on the financial aspect of their upbringing to prove they're not privileged.

Even if your family was poor, you're still privileged if you had two, supportive, non abusive, loving parents and you don't experience anything traumatic.

Comedycook I agree. In some ways I was successful because I've always been terrified of being homeless as I came from a very dysfunctional background and had no-one I could rely on or go back to. In my case that fear and anxiety worked for me, but it could equally have worked against me. In my case my lack of privilege contributed to me being successful, but it won't happen that way for others. However it impacted hugely on my personal life. In many ways it was easier to focus on work.

This such a sweeping statement.
You don't know peoples circumstances.

My DH worked very hard to get where he is despite absent parents who didn't really care what he did and a massive incident that happened to him when he was a teenager. Brought up on council estate and was beaten up on the estate on a daily basis.

Absolutely no privileges and no help from parents. He had dogged determination that he was going to do well and he has worked his socks off over the years and still does so yes he did work hard to get where he is.

@sst1234

By the way, going to university is not a measure of hard work or even intelligence. There is a generation of graduates that wasted time and money on Mickey Mouse degrees aka media studies etc

Off topic but comments like this make me quite angry.

Often those degrees that MN so readily dismiss as Mickey Mouse degrees produce highly employable graduates. In fact, media studies can be a perfect example of this,

Higher education can mean different things to different people and it's often the non traditional degrees at non elite universities which drive social mobility- they have an important role to play.

I think YABU.

I worked hard to get to where I am. Single parent family, no money, council estate, left school at 16.

I had a baby young, worked part time in a supermarket and self funded some courses to get into a new career.

I worked hard at that and my employer funded a degree which I studied for at 24 with 2 children under 4 and also working full time.

I have worked my way up to the top level of my profession over the last 16 years.

So yes I can say I worked bloody hard for it!

YABU (and bitter)

I openly admit I worked hard to get where I am - I worked my ass off. Solid working class traditional background - first person to go to university in the entire family etc etc - no luck about it

Whether privileged or not ,working hard to achieve good GCSE/A level results is to be admired . Many people do have to slog their guts out on a minimum wage,however thats life! Sadly we are not in an equal society .In many cases it a little bit of luck that plays a part as well .Short of a lottery win/being an heiress, We still have to work hard most of us anyway! I am sorry about your circumstances and what happened to you .As far as saving for a foreign holiday then having to spend it on car repairs ,this happens all the time! Obv you are fed up ,but envying other people is counter productive .

I don't know anyone higher up in finance (who could get bonus to bjy really expensive holidays) who works 9-5 really. On paper yeah, rality differs. But anyway.

Maybe it's not them being lucky but the other side of the argument simply being unlucky