To be grumpy that my friend got the job?

[Champagnesupamother]

After struggling at my current job for about three years (think toxic ‘we’re a family’, lots of pressure to go above and beyond your contractual employed hours for no reward but everyone does it so it’s expected.. low paid etc).

I finally decided enough was enough and I was super lucky to get an interview at another company that is a small start up, ethical and which had less hours. It would have been a 10k pay rise which meant a significant change to my circumstances. I was really excited and keeping all my toes crossed.
I told my best friend who I share pretty much everything with… and then she also applied too.

She ended up interviewing before me. Her interview ran 15 minutes over and though mine was an hour slot too, they wrapped things up at 45 mins to see the next candidate. Though my feedback was really positive and they will offer me a role, it just won’t be until possibly next year.

Instead my friend was successful. They just said right now she was a better fit, was more qualified. Which doesn’t make sense because I know that she isn’t. Her job is effectively collecting payments and receipts. while it is linked to my role, it isn’t the same as
her job and they will need to spent time training her. My current job and the new job would have been near identical roles. Meaning I could have hit the ground running.

Everyone was singing her praises because it seemed like much of what she said was all about how great I (as in me..) am at the job, and how much I (as in me) needed the job…

I feel really envious and almost like I’ve had the rug swept out from underneath of me and a really good opportunity taken from me. Though I know next year a job may be available, I don’t know if I would now accept it as effectively my friend would be senior to me and managing me.

Am I being unreasonable to be upset?
How do I handle the friendship from here as I feel so green faced. Is this even the real friendship that I thought it was?

Where did you see this going @Ishacoco when you asked am I on glue?
It’s hardly an arresting statement. Unlikely to get to the core of me, or unsettle me plus given I’m actively posting and have been for a good time now, I’m unlikely to stop on the basis of are you on glue?

what are you actually trying to say? Or is that really it?

I'm enjoying the thread, I like a good argument (you may have surmised this). Whilst on this occasion I’m not the majority opinion I am nonetheless happy to maintain my stance and am happy to read everyone else’s too.

I'm unacquainted with glue my stimulant of choice is Irish breakfast tea. That’s it really.

What an extremely bizarre and rambling post. Are you OK hun? 🙃

Seriously, are you OK?

Shuffle along there’s room on the glue bench @WhileMyGuitarGentlyWeeps
how did you this going? On the basis of U ok hun? Did you anticipate I stop posting.it’s a poor put down,pretty basic.

I don't think you're being unreasonable to feel the way you do, anyone would be disappointed and a little jealous that's only natural. But I work in a small sector, I always know people who are going for jobs I'm going for and I'm friends with them. And sometimes I've got the job sometimes they have. It's disappointing when it happens but it's the nature of the job market. Plus you don't even know that you'd have got the job had she not gone for it so thinking that she's taken something from you is natural, but maybe a little unfair. I'd actually ask her for her interview answers to get an idea of what you've maybe missed. Most interviews now are a points based system so she's maybe hit more points than you did. So while your experience is probably really solid, maybe she gives a better interview in terms of saying everything she needs to or how she prepares for interview and you could learn from that. I wouldn't be ruling myself out of a great job a year from now unless you think she'd make a horrible boss to work under, that seems like cutting your nose off to spite your face. I think you need to lick your wounds and then try to be happy for your friend.

Nobody is saying that women should defer opportunities and not think of themselves ever.
What they are saying in these specific circumstances, is that the OP has a right to feel let down by a friend. Not a colleague, acquaintance or person in a niche industry where competition like this is unavoidable. A friend. The OP had certain expectations of what friends do / don't do and is upset by what has happened. She is entitled to her feelings.
The job was publicly advertised yes, but the friend knew of the opportunity via the OP, who made it clear how much the chance of this job meant to her. Of course she can apply. But just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should.
The conflict here is differing expectations on how friends behave. The job is almost a red herring at this point.

She’s not your friend

I can't imagine doing this to a friend because I would know it was bound to affect our friendship. I would find it very difficult to think of her in the same light and would be inclined to cool the so-called friendship.

What I said is very clear. Your response was a) odd
b) rambling
c) bears almost no relation to the rest of the thread

These things combined dictated my response.

It's a shame the OP deleted her post about the nature of the job and her and the friend's respective experience. Obviously she doesn't want to our herself. But by way of analogy:

Imagine there is a bakery (Bakery 1). OP works at the bakery making their finest bread products. It's a skilled role (not roll, ha ha), she's highly trained (needed to gain relevant baking qualifications) and experienced, and has to hone her craft to make the best possible product to keep Bakery 1 at the top of its game. Then there is Bakery 2. This is where the "friend" works. She works the counter, customers ask her for the bread and she takes their money. She has nothing to do with making the product, isn't qualified or experienced in making the product, doesn't really have to sell it because customers just come in to buy it. All she does is basically take their money. Both OP and friend can say they work in a bakery. This is factually correct, but what they actually do is vastly different and totally different skill sets.

Then along comes Bakery 3. Bakery 3 is a start up and needs to start their business from scratch, looking for a bread maker to make their finest bread and hone a product that will outshine all other bread on the market. OP gets wind of this as a bread maker - not as a bakery employee, as a bread maker with a specific skill set. OP goes for this job, and tells "friend" about it, not thinking for a minute that friend either has the skills or interest in doing this job. But friend applies and somehow gets Bakery 3's bosses to see her as the best person to bake their bread.

There are 2 possible scenarios: First, Bakery 3 will not last very long, and OP has had a lucky escape from working with idiots. Her friend has lied about her skill set to get this job and will soon be found out when her dough doesn't rise. I think she has gone behind the OP's back in applying, but whether she has undermined OP is not clear. Or, second, Bakery 3 is aware of friend's lack of skill, but saw something in her and are willing to give her a shot, which might work brilliantly or backfire spectacularly. However, friend is still not really a friend to the OP, has completely blind sided her applying for a job for which she is not qualified (and only knew about because of OP), and should be treated with caution. Yes, nobody can stop someone else applying for a job, but sometimes there are things you just don't do out of friendship.

Agree @BitossiBlues - good analogy. I’d also add the crucial bit about the friend in bakery 2 shoehorning her faux concern and bigging-up of her friend in bakery 1 into her interview at bakery 3. Most odd. You just don’t do either to your best friend of many years.

I’m also puzzled by@Zone2NorthLondon ’s post of 19.19 last night. The skill with vocabulary I’ve already acknowledged is once again on display.

And yet again Zone2 has singularly failed to address what many of us see as the key issue: according to one of the recruiter/interviewers, the so-called friend spent time time during her interview relating how badly the OP needed this job. The OP did not even seem to recognise, in her first mention of this, how nasty it was: that is partly why I trust her report so much.

Analytical Zone2 is not, unless perhaps she realises she hasn’t got a leg to stand on and is doing her best to divert us with smoke and mirrors.

Doesn't matter which way you dress it up it was a sly, underhand move by a "friend" not someone I would waste a minutes thought on.

Ah that's a shitty thing to do to a friend I'd be really hurt by that too

Also, in your shoes i would tell he that you feel the way you do, especially since you're going away with her. I'm not sure what the point in her raving on about how great you are and how you needed the job was either, if she really wanted you to get it why apply and take it herself? And her saying that to potential employer might also have made you sound desperate/needy and went against you while making her sound like a saint

You're wasting your time with that one. I explained it to her very simply and still didn't get it. Never going to, it's too complicated.

Precisely this 👆🏼

Quite the post for hysterical hyperbole...

😂Indeed

This is what I was saying. That’s really messed up and a true friend would never do this and then genuinely expect you to be happy for her. You deserve better friends. A BETTER job is out there waiting for you.
And to all the people who are saying, “it wasn’t her job to take” or “her friend was right” is what is wrong with this world. It’s about principle. Where is the loyalty? Since when do “friends” compete? She may not have gotten the job if her friend didn’t apply, but her chances would have been better. Clearly she expressed how much she needed and wanted this job but her selfish, backstabbing and conniving little friend was willing to risk the friendship for this gig. Continuing to be her friend is doing you a disservice. You deserve better. Move on.

Wow , yes yabu completely. With friends like you…

86% of people disagree....

Hey @Champagnesupamother - what did you do about the weekend away?

86% of people disagree....

Just because the majority think one way, it doesn't make them correct. Just look at politics...

The majority voted in the right way in the last GE election too