To be losing patience with a friend who has a massive chip on her shoulder about money?

[BarelyLiterate]

S & I have been friends for decades. We have a lot of shared history but her attitude to money is very annoying. She is a key worker in the public sector who chooses to work PT but constantly complains about how underpaid & skint she is. She could work FT if she wanted to but doesn’t see why she should compromise her work life balance to do so.

She is bitter & resentful towards ‘rich’ people who do jobs which she deems to be less important & worthwhile than hers, namely almost anyone who works in the private sector, but particularly in finance & business. She regards profit as immoral, particularly when it is made by big businesses which sell things that she needs to buy, eg food, petrol, electricity. Whenever she sees a flash car she starts ranting about rich twats showing off etc etc. She is tediously self-righteous about her own frugality & environmentalism while being scornful of others who own nice things, have nice holidays etc. The chips on her shoulders get bigger every year.

This is really starting to piss me off. I work in the private sector in a commercial role but I am by no means rich or materialistic. I don’t want to end the friendship, but I’m sick of her attitude. AIBU to tell her to give it a rest?

Ahhh man. I switched out of public sector because there were too many people like this. It's annoying and unfortunately she probably works in a echo chamber of similarly-minded people and sees herself and colleagues as particularly virtuous. It depends on the friendship, but you could delicately make your point. Both public and private sectors are incredibly important. I happen to like knowing I'm not funded primarily by tax. Innovation etc. happens far more quickly in private sector etc...

Couldn't be friends with a tit like that

I think people who moan like this but do nothing to help their circumstances like you say work more hours/change roles then are very annoying.

Friendships shouldn’t drag you don’t and it’s normal to grow apart. Give yourself some space or tell her how she’s making you feel.

I’ve come across these, they never pack it in

Is she a key worker or a "key worker"?

my answer to every moan and rant would be ‘you could always go full time like the majority of the rest of us do’

It’s different if she is working part time for a particular valid reason like a illness or childcare issues, but if it’s just sheer laziness then that would be my answer every time she rants

I have a friend like this. She once fell out with another friend because this friend visited her at her house wearing a top that was a designer make. You’d have thought this friend had come into her living room and set fire to £50 notes from her reaction.

I’m now terrified to mention anything of value in front of her in case I’m accused of ‘flaunting my wealth’. The irony is that she’s got a really well paid job and I’m long term sick with no income.

Well, she's got a point. The UK is becoming ever more unequal. And people who work in care etc ARE more useful than bankers.

She must be doing well to be able to choose to work part time tbf... a lot of people do not have that choice.
It sound like she is draining to be around. I would evaluate whether you want to be around such a human dementor. I don't think I would put that much energy into maintaining that relationship.

She sounds incredibly tedious, is there a reason you want to continue with the friendship?

NHS front line.

I agree completely with your friends opinions, but not her behaviour. Those of us who think as she does do no good constantly going on about it and making it personal and about individuals. All it does is annoy people and have them dismiss you as having 'a chip of your shoulder'. Far better to channel the anger into something productive, politics, campaigning etc. She will never see the world she wants but she may be able to contribute to making it a little fairer.

I know a few of these, they've become a lot lot worse since the pandemic imo.

Push back. Summon your arguments and explain them.

Freda, I work long hours for my extra pay, it’s a choice I made.

This. I mean, I agree with her politically and ethically.

However, that said, I wouldn’t choose to spend time with someone who harped on any one subject endlessly, whether it’s other people’s flash cars or the current fortunes of Spurs. Does she actually talk about her environmentalism and frugality all the time, though, or is your feeling of being criticised making it seem that way?

Probably because they spent the pandemic risking (and in some cases losing) their lives to give medical care or provide essential services to the rest of us.

This is th problem with very long standing friendships. You evolve and change and move on and the friendship is still there, but there's a slow realisation that if you'd met now, you wouldn't have become friends.

DH's old gang from school are a fascinating case study of this phenomenon. It's actually amazing how they'v managed to maintain their relationship when, without a doubt, none of them would be friends if they'd met now. :)

One of them is a bit like your friend. He loved to rant about bankers, and people with money and all the rest of it. Particularly awkward considering at the time, 2 of the group worked in finance, one as an actual banker, and DH was married to me... who worked in banking (albeit not a banker) at the time. It did get to the point where the friendships were fragile and there were a few years where they all quietly cooled off from each other.

But he is a genuinely lovely bloke in a lot of ways and of course they have loads of history. Over time, his rhetoric has been dialled back a bit - partly as he got promotions, and more money, and a bigger house and children and all the rest - and I think there are topics they all avoid discussing or they discuss in a very robust fun debated way.

If I was in trouble & needed help at 3am she would drop everything & be there. Not many people any of us can say that about. I would do the do same for her, obv.
I don’t want to cut her off, I just want to get her to give it a rest without falling out with her. It’s not that I don’t share her views in many ways, but I’m sick of the tedious self righteousness.

Got to agree with this. And I say that as someone on a decent salary.

That's a straw man though isn't it? The friend is arguing that society has its values all wrong. The OP pointing out that she has chosen to work hard at something her friend sees as having little real value and being over rewarded isn't a rebuttle of the friends argument that some jobs are of little value and are over rewarded. And unfortunately there isn't one, so its probably best the OP doesn't engage in debate, but tells her friend she has no wish to discuss it, they need to agree to differ and talk about other things.

Profit is immoral? 😂

I don't see the need to pit workers against each other - I'm sure people would think my role in finance isn't useful or needed and I'm sure I've got opinions on other peoples jobs.

If she's got opinions that's fine, you just don't need to hear them incessantly or her preaching about cars / money imo.

She works PT by choice for a work life balance? Well she's already better off than so many people who can't make that choice because they need to work really long hours, or multiple jobs. Perhaps point that out to her on her next rant 🤷

She’s on the right lines. But it’s the super rich, multimillionaires we need to be angry about, not the people she probably thinks are “rich” because they have a nice car and a designer top.

It’s boring to go on about it all the time though.

But that doesn't mean she has to bash her friend, the OP, over the head with it all day every day.

I agree with this.. I'm more on the friends level when it comes to pay (although I work full time) I find it more and more frustrating to be around people on six figure salaries.
I'm aware it's unreasonable I'm jealous but it's why I tend to keep myself to myself.

I would say “there is not much I can do about that mate, let’s change subject” and then talk about anything else you have to say. I would actually swerve the topic. If this doesn’t help, scale back your involvement to minimal contact. You might be able to put up with bite size lunch meet ups, or the odd call.