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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Friend has said she couldn’t be friends with me if I took the job

513 replies

lnterviewWoes · 21/09/2023 16:30

I’ve been offered a really fascinating job that would involve a lot of travel and meeting lots of interesting people.

It involves working for a former politician. Not directly but closely. I don’t support most of their views but the role is independent of their politics.

I have a small group of close friends. I told one friend and she’s said she couldn’t be friends with me if I took it, which has really dampened things. It also comes with a 20% wage increase. I want to take the role but I don’t want to lose one of my oldest friends. I’m really not sure what to do.

OP posts:
Hufflemuff · 21/09/2023 17:55

Is the politician Nigel Farage? Or Nick Griffin?

Blueeyedmale · 21/09/2023 17:56

Take the job she sounds like she's being very childish and I suspect a hint of jealousy too,its a job and loyalty to friends does not pay the bills,also there are hundreds of people working in Westminster who support different parties,we have a democracy in this country we can have our opinions but those opinions should never be forced onto others take the job and enjoy any real friend would be truly happy for you

ManateeFair · 21/09/2023 17:57

Without knowing who it is, I couldn't say whether I think your friend is unreasonable or not.

When I was a lot younger I was offered a job in a PR consultancy that would have meant a decent pay increase at a time when I was really struggling for money. I didn't take it because when I saw their client list it included a tobacco company and a government department in a country that was a dictatorship with a horrific human rights record.

If my mates had found out that I was working to promote either of those clients, I think they would have been more than justified in cutting me off.

I have a good friend who used to work for a Tory MP. That's completely different from my political views, but I accept that my friend is a) really interested in politics of any kind and b) a nice enough bloke who simply has a different view on economics than I do. His employer was a moderate and fairly ineffectual bank bencher.

However, if he announced he was going to work for, eg, Nick Griffin or Tommy Robinson or Nigel Farage, we would probably no longer be friends. (Not that he would, because he finds those people as repellent as I do.)

0hNoNotAgain · 21/09/2023 17:58

I would find it hard to separate their politics from anything else about them tbh, that was their job.
So I wouldn't be able to take the job myself.
However, I wouldn't be happy with someone telling me I couldn't take it - it would be my choice, just like it's your choice.

IncomingTraffic · 21/09/2023 17:59

If you were a civil servant, you may often find yourself having to work for (and to achieve the aims of) politicians with whom you profoundly disagree.

Life isn’t always as simple as ‘good employer/bad employer’. The important thing is whether you feel comfortable about the role.

Mmhmmn · 21/09/2023 17:59

‘Bye, former friend, don’t let the door hit your arse on the way out. What a shit friend. Mind-blowing arrogance

CurlewKate · 21/09/2023 17:59

I do wish people wouldn't automatically assume jealousy. It really usually isn't. Telling kids that other kids are nasty to them because they're jealous is rubbish too!

Lastchancechica · 21/09/2023 18:04

I just can’t imagine being so hardwired to such a frightening degree to any political movement that would mean I would even consider cutting off a close friend for just getting a job with the opposition. You are describing almost cult like behaviour/responses. There is good and bad in every political party. No one party is wrong or right on everything. Such limited thinking would have me dumping her regardless unless she is genuinely having serious mental health problems ( I would cut her some slack but still distance)

I also suspect jealousy.
She is not your friend op.

squareyedannie · 21/09/2023 18:04

You take every opportunity you can in life!
If she/he was a friend worth keeping, they'd support you in this.

Wittyend · 21/09/2023 18:06

Unless she’s paying your bills I think you’d be daft not to take the job

Mmhmmn · 21/09/2023 18:07

It just isn’t up to friends to judge what you do for a living, what you find to be interesting or a good opportunity. If the MP is a git, that’s for you to find out if you’re excited about it.

EthicalNonMahogany · 21/09/2023 18:09

I'm curious OP as to whether your friend's view, or the views here, have made you think at all about the politician and their morals and worldview and your work supporting them?

I would defend your right to work with anyone on the political spectrum, unless as others have said it is someone who's actively harmed our democracy like Farage or Johnson.

I don't think I would think much of someone who put their head in the sand about it, though. I think it incumbent on all of us to examine our position at work - think through what it implies for your own ethics to support and endorse that person, this company, that product. If the upshot is you think it's ok and that the greater good is to earn money for you and your family; that outweighs any wider societal harm; the politician in question does not cause harm - that's all fine.

But the answer "Meh, I don't care about morals, it's boring" sort of isn't fine.

Bored1000 · 21/09/2023 18:09

Definitely take the job, no need to justify you decision to her, if she is willing to end a friendship over something so small the relationship would have ended anyway at some point over something else, she Dosen’t have your best interests at heart.

Is she perhaps jealous that you have been offered such a great opportunity?

EthicalNonMahogany · 21/09/2023 18:11

Civil service of course is different - because your role in democracy is to enact the will of the democratically elected folk and it needs to be done impartially or the system can't work. The service is to the system not to the politician.

Calmdown14 · 21/09/2023 18:11

There's a very lazy narrative around politics just now of 'this good', 'this bad'. It's all very black and white and I think a lot stems from social media and people who really can't scratch beneath the surface.

I particularly dislike the 'evil tory' narrative not because I agree but because it leads to the type of dehumanising that saw David Ames murdered (and vice versa with labour and jo Cox).

You are not required to adhere to the views of this person. Even if you work for government you are supposed to be independent unless in a political role. Just take the job.

greggstomelette · 21/09/2023 18:12

Please say it's not Farage.

Lastchancechica · 21/09/2023 18:12

EthicalNonMahogany · 21/09/2023 18:09

I'm curious OP as to whether your friend's view, or the views here, have made you think at all about the politician and their morals and worldview and your work supporting them?

I would defend your right to work with anyone on the political spectrum, unless as others have said it is someone who's actively harmed our democracy like Farage or Johnson.

I don't think I would think much of someone who put their head in the sand about it, though. I think it incumbent on all of us to examine our position at work - think through what it implies for your own ethics to support and endorse that person, this company, that product. If the upshot is you think it's ok and that the greater good is to earn money for you and your family; that outweighs any wider societal harm; the politician in question does not cause harm - that's all fine.

But the answer "Meh, I don't care about morals, it's boring" sort of isn't fine.

What if it was Boris Johnson?
Would you seriously cut off a very old and close friend??

Its unhinged.
Wgat other things do you dump your friends over - nor having enough rainbow flags outside? Not agreeing on religion? Wearing a hijab?

Intolerance is intolerance.

CurlewKate · 21/09/2023 18:13

@squareyedannie "If she/he was a friend worth keeping, they'd support you in this."

Whatever the job was?

DarkDarkNight · 21/09/2023 18:13

Is it David Cameron? I couldn’t be friends with anyone associated with him.

Lastchancechica · 21/09/2023 18:13

EthicalNonMahogany · 21/09/2023 18:11

Civil service of course is different - because your role in democracy is to enact the will of the democratically elected folk and it needs to be done impartially or the system can't work. The service is to the system not to the politician.

The civil service stopped being neutral a very long time ago.

WalnutBlue · 21/09/2023 18:14

Probably just jealousy rearing it's ugly head.
Dump the friend, keep the job.

AffIt · 21/09/2023 18:14

It depends on your personal 'Overton Window': I am pretty left of centre, but I have a very good friend who was a SPAD in David Cameron's government. We don't have exactly the same political views, but we are not so dissimilar that they get in the way.

I probably would, however, struggle to have anything in common with somebody who worked for Nigel Farage or Andrew Tate or suchlike.

For most of us, a job is related to our identity: I'm a vegetarian, so I wouldn't work in a meat processing factory. I'm not religious, so I wouldn't take a job as a church officer.

Mumof2teens79 · 21/09/2023 18:15

Calmdown14 · 21/09/2023 18:11

There's a very lazy narrative around politics just now of 'this good', 'this bad'. It's all very black and white and I think a lot stems from social media and people who really can't scratch beneath the surface.

I particularly dislike the 'evil tory' narrative not because I agree but because it leads to the type of dehumanising that saw David Ames murdered (and vice versa with labour and jo Cox).

You are not required to adhere to the views of this person. Even if you work for government you are supposed to be independent unless in a political role. Just take the job.

For me it's not about someone politics being good or bad....especially our left/right system in the UK.
But there are politicians from all parties who have shown themselves to be dishonest, selfish and corrupt and have some pretty offensive views regardless of their politics....I reserve right to judge anyone supporting people like that.

gannett · 21/09/2023 18:15

I have a tiny suspicion that all the MNers blissfully unencumbered by having to think about political morality would be up in arms if one of their friends worked for a trans rights lobby group or a pornography company.

ShippingForecastMeditator · 21/09/2023 18:16

I do regular work for a very unpopular Tory politician and have experienced rude comments from a couple of my 'friends' who apparently believe I'm supporting his political views by agreeing to be paid by him.

Sadly I'm just in it for the money. It's a big old world and it'd be very strange if we only worked for people who aligned with our views.

Tell your friend/ not friend to fuck off OP. She's jealous (and a twat for not voting).

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