To not fit in because I'm working class

[Shadowmallow]

I'm from a working class background and I grew up with little money. I did very well academically and managed to go to a top uni and get a good degree, despite not feeling like I belonged. I've worked hard for 15 years to establish my career in a competitive industry with no financial support, which has resulted in a lot of stress and debt over the years.

I work in an industry that's generally full of wealthy, middle class people who dont seem to have any anxieties about life or financial limits (despite the salaries not being that much). I've recently started a new job and feel really out of place, like I do at every job. My colleagues have very different lifestyles and conversation topics to me. Eg. House renovations, skiing holidays, private schooling, second homes in Europe. I'm 36 and 'still' rent a small flat with a friend, which seems to surprise and provoke pity amongst my colleagues. Most had property bought for them/got deposits from their parents years ago and speak like this is standard practice. I rarely go on holidays and don't have any expensive hobbies as I've been trying to save for a house deposit for many years.

To get to this point in my career I've really struggled financially and mentally and I'm pretty tired. I dont feel like im seen on the same page as everyone else at work and think it also affects my career progression. I just wonder if I can ever belong here.

I called it above with publishing too! It's so abysmally badly paid, and fully caters towards people who doing have to work for a living - I follow a lot of book people on Twitter, and saw an amazing literary agency job last week in London - PART TIME at 29k pro rata. WTAF?

Do follow Sam Missingham on Twitter and ASK FOR HELP. Get a career coach, look actively for the emotional and networking training that your colleagues got for free. Someone else above called it "social capital".

I'm financially secure, but not British and not from the same sort of background as a lot of my friends. My Dad grew up without enough to eat, and experienced the same gap you're having now.

He was terrified of poverty and saved everything so we never had anything at all - he handled money very very differently to any of my peers, or any of the families of my friends now as an adult, and I have HUGE gaps in my own "social capital" and have exposed mortifying naivety on many occasions. I cover it up with being "foreign". :)

So I know what you're feeling up to a point. But the big thing that would have helped my Dad is a career coach to show him how to navigate his professional life, and maybe guide him a bit on the money thing too. I know I'm banging on about this, but everyone needs professional support and mentoring and your own family doesn't have the experience to give it to you, so you have to pay for it.

We go to a nursery group for toddlers who are starting pre prep next year. I often don’t know what to say to people and feel like a bit of a moron. Today there was a twenty minute chat about skiing. I was born to teenage working class parents, we were lucky for a butlins trip! My daughter gets to do all the things I desperately wanted but couldn’t like swimming lessons, holidays, ballet but relating to people is hard sometimes.

@Shadowmallow

As one of the sandwich generation (financially supporting both parents and children), I was never talking about builder's bills, the expense of private schooling, the cost of tennis lessons because of my child's precocious talent etc.

Are those conversations what really entrenches inequality as opportunities for promotion and pay rises find their way to those who really 'need' them?

I’m another one who’s guessing that you work in publishing. I met a few posh idiots and some really nice posh people when I worked for a publishing company many years ago.

I didn’t ‘fit in’ because of my looks, the way I spoke, the way I dressed, my religion etc. When I was asked if I’d ever been skiing, I said I slid down my front path in the ice and did that count? I found using humour and being friendly helped a bit towards trying to bridge the huge gap between them and me.

@Shadowmallow I understand your difficulties with your work colleagues and career. My solution was to move into to a completely different career which was better paid and far more diverse.

@GeneLovesJezebel

I think you need to stop looking for class differences, it really doesn’t matter any more. Just be yourself. Were you like this at Uni, comparing yourself to others ?

I haven't rtft but this is the most ignorant comment I've seen in a while.

@elbea I know exactly where you are coming from xx

OP, I suggest you read Matthew Syed, Rebel Ideas, on the importance of diversity of thinking in business.

I am one of the 'wealthy' middle-class people you describe and in my business we would absolutely welcome you and your different ideas and experiences. It is a poor reflection on your employer that they don't have policies that discourage a monolithic mindset.

Be proud of who you are and let people know about it!

I voted YABU because you're being too hard on yourself. You have achieved so much based purely on your own initiative and hard work. You obviously have the qualifications to have got your new job and you will do well because you have instilled yourself with a work ethic. It always takes a while to settle into a new workplace. Until you do ,deal with your colleagues on the basis of how well they do their jobs and not what kind of house they live in or how much their parents paid for their education.
On your personal life..what's wrong with sharing a flat ? You're saving for a deposit. Until you get there you only have to pay half the bills and as a bonus you have company. In fact when you buy your house you could rent a room out for the same reason. Hold your head high Woman, you're doing yourself proud

So you're very academic, hard working with a top uni degree but on shit pay. Do you think this is really the issue? You mention you've debt from building up your career but after 15 years it doesn't sound like it's paying back.

Why don't you look for other opportunities? You're 36 but you don't earn enough to be able to go on holiday or do fun hobbies. While you don't to go horse riding wouldn't it be nice to be able to tell people about a trekking holiday in India or some other interesting place? Or at least having an interesting life to live (rather than tell people about)

astoundedgoat

Does that job allow working remotely, pretty sure I could do that

There's a sort of club where some people who are mc with money like to belong- its all golf, rugby, tennis, sailing, skiing, private schools. There are people who are into these things individually and there are people who are into them because that's what mc people are meant to be into. Only mix with your sort.
There's plenty mc people who aren't into any of that. DH and I would be solidly mc I think - 2nd generation university educated. A couple of degrees each. We don't want in that club. and are not interested in any of those things. My SIL and BIL who are less educated and but have more money so desperately want to belong they do all that stuff.
You just need to happy in your own skin and with your own choices. Would you want to be in that club anyway?

@AnnesBrokenSlate I agree
‘ You're not working class. You are a professional with a university education - that makes you middle class and you need to own your status in life now not the status you were born into.

Also, you're in your 30s, I can't believe that you haven't made contacts throughout university and your career. I also don't believe everyone else in your workplace came from privilege or that it means they don't have any anxieties or financial worries. Class doesn't always denote wealth.

My family are working class. I went to an RG uni, etc. I've been in workplaces where my colleagues were landed gentry; had relatives in the House of Lords, etc. I never felt I didn't belong because I was there on merit.

Counselling might help OP. You're framing your difficulties as unsurmountable and outwith your control. You can't control where or how you were born. You absolutely can control how you fit now. And your class should not impact on career progression. An appointment with a career or hr professional might help too.’

I grew up WC with a single mum on benefits, but privileged that we were encouraged to get a good education - local dive of a state school but always encouraged with extra curricular activities that usually the ‘posh’ kids took up. The local city choir was free and athletics was 50p a session. I was taught that if anyone makes you inferior due to background/money they have zero class.

I went to an ex-poly and got myself into a medium size company that it didn’t matter what grades you had or where you came from having a work ethic, willing to learn and being able to get on with everyone propelled me forward.

Working at uni meant that I was able to go ‘travelling’ in the holidays - I budgeted £20 a day for a month to go around Europe. Went backpacking around Asia on even less and even all the ‘posh’ kids were slumming it too. I loved travelling as sitting around a table with a cheap bottle of local spirits nobody cared what your parents did for a living, or what school you went to or how much money you’ve got in the bank.

I’m still in my twenties but got friends from all backgrounds. I can hold a conversation with anyone. My best friend went to private school not that I knew that for the first two years at uni. My other best friend went to Cambridge but we went to the same shitty primary together.

I’m going skiing with her friendship group next season but we also still predrink wine from Aldi, go to whetherspoons and go clothes shopping in the sales.

Inverted snobbery is something that I find hard to be around as I shouldn’t have to announce that I went to state school, grew up poor and the holiday I just went on was because I was staying with family just because people will judge a book by the cover that I’m ‘posh’/middle class.

Class has nothing to do with money and actually going skiing is costing way less than the summer package holiday that my DP parents want us to go on. Going to the theatre is cheaper than going out for dinner. You don’t have to ride to be able to engage in a conversation about horses.

I drive a banger of a car, the only people ask why I drive a banger are people from ‘WC’ backgrounds.

I don’t think you’re wrong. These differences do exist. However:

1. there are human connections that can be made outside of class or wealth.
2. Don’t try to fit in, work out what you want and what you can do without measuring yourself only against others. Do you want to go skiing? Are you feeling lonely? How happy are you with your accommodation? Is your job rewarding? There will always be groups that exclude others. There are also groups that aren’t the middle class clique which might welcome you.

Class has nothing to do with money and actually going skiing is costing way less than the summer package holiday that my DP parents want us to go on. Going to the theatre is cheaper than going out for dinner. You don’t have to ride to be able to engage in a conversation about horses.

I think you're slightly missing the point (and horses - well, I'm in Ireland - lots of people can have an engaging conversation about horses here, of all backgrounds)

I do sympathise with OP, but I think she's overthinking and needs to dive in.

I was raised in the countryside, with very little, and now am doing well for myself, albeit in an industry that has a wide range of backgrounds (although majority male which is its own challenge).

The issue i have, and I lean on my foreign-ness to hide, is that I don't know what so many things are or how they work - prep, pre-prep, the aforementioned ski holidays, private healthcare - all of this is something I've had to research and learn about, whereas to those raised with money it's just the water they swim in. And it is tough, I've found that keeping my mouth shut a lot of the time saves embarrassment, and then pushing myself forward and inviting myself to whatever helps other times.

YANBU if that's your experience OP. No one can tell you that you're wrong to feel the way you do! Try not to be hung up though on class differences. Whoever you are and whatever you achieve in life, there will always be people who are more successful, wealthier, have nicer things or greater advantages in life than you. It's true of those people you work with too - I'm willing to get that they too meet people who make them feel the way that they make you feel - because that's life. There is always someone who's doing better, who's got a nicer car, a bigger house, more money. Hold your head high - it sounds like you're doing great and don't allow yourself to suffer from imposter syndrome. You're not an imposter. You got there without anyone's help - that's bloody amazing.

I've been listening to a variety of podcasts (been doing lots of decluttering and decorating, for context!) on social mobility and class. Professor Selina Todd wrote Snakes and Ladders a few years ago, and talked about the hidden injuries of class, cultural capital and various other elements which seem very pertinent to your situation OP. And she actually cited an example of a woman who had worked hard on herself in terms of becoming well-educated, got a professional job, cultivated the 'right' hobbies, but couldn't break through the glass ceiling because she couldn't afford to go on the kind of holidays and outings that her better off peers used to network and make their next promotion happen.

I guess you just have to make a virtue of your strengths and position. If someone appears surprised you're renting, you can just pivot silkily and say, 'Yes, I'm aiming to buy somewhere I can get away easily for weekend hiking. I really like hiking in the .... area, do you know it? ' Or, 'Yes, and I"m really looking forward to being able to decorate as I want. I absolutely love x designer's style, what sort of thing do you like?"

@Shadowmallow

I’m sorry that you think I was harsh but I literally stood up and cheered when you said you were in publishing because I knew it.Most people on the thread who guessed a profession guessed publishing because it is the worst industry to work in.

You have to understand that you are working in an industry in which only wealthy people can work. It’s a socialite profession full of incompetent toffs. Your experience is that “middle class” people work in a low-income job and then their parents buy them a house outright. But you have to understand that that is not the norm even for upper middle-class people. Most middle-class people choose higher paying professions, for a start. That’s usually the point of going to a good school! Or they marry investment bankers at said school. They may get deposit help from their parents but their parents usually don’t have to pay for their entire lifestyles.

You have to leave this industry. The twatty culture, the low pay, the disrespect: it will all go away once you move out of publishing.

This is such an easy fix. Get a career coach and transfer those skills over into an industry that will respect you and will pay you well. You are 36 years old and you cannot afford to go on holiday. you cannot afford to live with your partner. It’s not worth it.

I am so glad for you. You are not delusional. You don’t have a chip on your shoulder. You are correctly assessing the culture of the industry in which you were in. But you have to understand that that industry is an anomaly. It’s not that class doesn’t matter anywhere else or that having upper-class parents isn’t an advantage, but you are in a uniquely terrible industry where there is no merit based promotion at all and the pay is TERRIBLE. There is not one professional job out there that would not be an improvement on what you are doing right now. You’d probably make more money as a PA.

Oh ffs I hate the class system. It needs to die!

I genuinely don't see class. I just see people I get on with and people I don't. My mum used to remind me, quite frequently, that we were lower middle class. I never really understood what it meant. Still don't really, but I think what she meant was, we're not well off (lower) but my dad wears a suit to work (middle class)

Mindset is everything
The only thing they really care about is if you are good at your job particularly the bits that affect them and be a pleasant collegiate person
Then it’s the same as any work place gravitate towards the ones you click with ignore the knobs
Check yourself- make sure you are not building or looking for barriers because you will find them if you are determined

Try 'fitting in' when you're mixed race/black

Honestly just hang out with the nice colleagues - ignore the rest.

Don't give up the opportunities your brain and talents have provided you.

I'm very similar to you. I don't fit at work and I spend my time worrying about money / paying off historical debt . It's hard. I go on caravan holiday to wales and my colleagues look at me like I'm an alien

Be proud of what you have achieved. If people don’t accept you then they aren’t worth knowing 💐

You’ll probably find it easier to fit in if you remove the 5lb bag* of McCains from your shoulder

I think you work in an environment where this is quite noticeable and these colleagues like the safety of the world they're used to.

All you can do is change jobs really to a more normal environment with a healthy mix of people.

You'll start going a bit bonkers if you stay there because it's a strange little bubble you work alongside.

You don't have a chip on your shoulder at all you're just very observant and notice all the small details.

@incompetentcervix

I'm very similar to you. I don't fit at work and I spend my time worrying about money / paying off historical debt . It's hard. I go on caravan holiday to wales and my colleagues look at me like I'm an alien

Surely you don't have to tell them everything.