To be upset that colleagues think I'm cosplaying?

[Dalmatianshoes]

I've worked in a gastropub 3 shifts a week for about 18 months now since my youngest DC of 3 turned 15.

Dh has long commutes or overnights with work and I have caring responsibilities for elderly parents and 3 springer spaniels so I only really get a 5 ish hour window in the day to work which is why evenings and weekends in hospitality work best for me.

I was happily SAHM for the 3 DC for 17 years am now 49.

As the 2 oldest are at university now and the youngest happy to be alone some evenings I made the decision to take a job for a little bit of structure in my life.

I worked in hospitality as a teen and then in Banking prior to DC.

Finances weren't a driving force for getting a job. Just life enhancement really.

I absolutely love the job and being around my colleagues; a lot of them at teenagers and I enjoy the company and the working environment.

On valentines evening I headed out to the recycling store and overhead colleagues (I thought friends 😭) talking about me being a rich bitch and taking the job from someone poorer and I'm just playing at my job.

AIBU to be hurt by these comments?

That was mean but how they feel, probably resentful and the sad need to have someone to bitch about.

With the while studying jobs there were a few women who didn't need to work but chose to and I thought that's great 😀

Envy, gang mentality, not your fault to be in a privileged position but your choice to go out and work, which is admirable. Xxx

I'd ignore.
Kids can't imagine why anyone would work unless they absolutely had to.
You have more life experience and perspective

Jealousy does all kinds of strange things to people!
Easier said than done but try to ignore the bitchy comments and chalk it up in your head as immature gossip from people with less life experience than you! They may not see the value of true friends and the harm of joining in with workplace banter just to be seen as 'fitting in'

I’m going to be honest OP, I dedicate zero time and energy to people who say shitty things about me or who try to treat me badly. Don’t give it another thought and just do what makes you happy in your life.

People always have an opinion, especially when we choose something that is not as predictable as they thought we were.

I’m in a minority but ethically I do agree with this. Legally, of course, you can pursue any job you want and detrimental treatment based on your age is discrimination. But ethically is a different matter.

I personally would not want to take this job just for fun, given that if performed by a young person it could be of great value to them - not just financially, but giving them experience in the sector, customer service skills, boost confidence etc. plus being material for a CV!

I am in my 50s and think that in our age group we need to be careful to avoid being selfish, and to recognise the challenges young people face. If you were doing it because you needed the money, that would have course be a completely different matter! I should stress that very strongly. But for life enhancement….no that would not sit well with me.

I wonder maybe OP if your discomfort about what you overheard may be a bit of your conscience talking, if at some level you yourself see there is an issue here.

@RoastBanana so are you saying if a man is a high earner then his wife shouldn’t work? Is it the same for the husband if the wife is a high earner?

This is how the word can be used, especially in the case of cosplaying class or poverty. It's the auld mumsnetters who haven't encountered this who are out of touch, not you.

Don't get caught up in the modern think trap, you aren't responsible for other people's feelings. You want to work, good for you, work. You aren't taking jobs away from anyone. There are still far more jobs out there than there are people to fill them.

You do you and stop caring what strangers think. And a final bit of advice. You don't have as many friends as you might think. None of us do. They are colleagues, not friends. Their comments say it all.

Jobs are earnt, not given out as treats. Presumably you're earning your place on that team so it's all a moot point. Rise above it.

So everyone with a wealthy spouse should do volunteer work rather than take a job? Really odd outlook on life!

If you were content as a homemaker / none working individual that used to be a SAHM you’d be dragged over the coals for daring to be happy in that capacity and labelled anti feminist / uninspiring etc etc. If you choose to do paid work, you’re now accused of stealing jobs or ‘irritating’. It actually made me laugh.

What a ridiculous comment. So people shouldn't work if they are wealthy and they shouldn't get pleasure from their work. But if they do it makes it understandable that work colleagues might describe them as a bitch. What a load of fucked up authoritarian thinking.

A colleague’s wife followed your advice. He left her for a younger woman in our office. Yes, the XW got half of the marital assets in the divorce, but she was in her 40s and it wasn’t enough to sustain her for the rest of her life. She couldn’t get a job because she had no previous work experience.

This is horrible advice.

Almost every workplace has its quota of snarky sods who'd be Billy No Mates if they didn't work so hard at setting up other colleagues as targets for ill-feeling.
Ignore 'em, act like you never heard it.

I know of a woman local to me who thought like you. Wealthy husband, pots of money, no need for her to work, 'more ethical' for her to be a lady of leisure - and after all, they could easily afford it. Then her husband got a lengthy jail sentence for massive fraud. She had known nothing because he was the breadwinner and she trusted him. All the assets were in his name, and were frozen. After the proceeds of his crime were recovered, she was left with virtually nothing, and a husband in jail who couldn't work to support her, when in her 50s and having been out of the workforce for a couple of decades. Luckily this was some years ago now, when it was easier for an inexperienced older woman with no work history to walk into a retail job. Nowadays she'd just have to get used to being destitute. Or, to some extent, the taxpayer would have to pick up the tab.

I could tell you half a dozen more commonplace stories of women who were left in similar difficulties after their husband (or, worse, partner, so no legal rights) left them for a younger model, or even died, leaving them with an inadequate pension and without the skills, experience and confidence to make up the shortfall. This is something that happens over and over. You think you don't need to work...until you do.

You need to think hard about the ethics of advising a course of action that has ended badly for so many, and about why your conscience would allow it. You also need to ask yourself why nobody is suggesting to the men that it's somehow immoral to find self-worth in work; or that they need to give up while only in their 50s to think of the younger generation; be dependent on their wives; reduce their pension entitlement and generally deskill themselves. Funnily enough, it's mostly not stay-at-home husbands who find themselves up shit creek when their high-earning wives dump them for a younger model.
Agree that this is really horrible advice.

I loved bar work, changing kegs, learning the drinks of the regulars, working functions (and getting some buffet if the party said we could!), dressing up on special occasions to make the punters laugh. I learned the value of hard work behind a bar as a young woman. I don't understand the hate at all. I'd do it again if I weren't so tied to a daytime routine with family now. It's hilarious. People are judged for working, not working, aiming 'above their station', working a job because it makes them happy...... I'm sorry you overheard that. They're wrong. Enjoy it!!

You talk like jobs in restaurants are scarce.

The hospitality sector has a recruitment problem, and OPs employer is no exception. She specifically mentions high turnover and them always being on the lookout for more staff. Young people being blocked from getting a start in restaurant work is just not a problem that exists.

This has to be a joke right? This is exactly the kind of opinion I would shove up someone else’s arse. How ridiculous and hardly what’s going to be on your mind and most important to you on your deathbed. Anything other than that level of important is a waste of energy. Enjoy your life OP and do what the hell you like!

ignore! there will always be people moaning about others! do what you enjoy and what’s right for you x

I agree - they’re teenagers at the end of the day, going to assume they won’t respond well . Probably make them more likely to be talking behind this ladies back.

Whilst it is completely unreasonable for them to be acting this way, with any luck they’ll have moved on soon enough with your workplace having such a high turnover of staff OP. I would feel hurt but like you don’t think I’d like to make a fuss about it.

Where I come from I don’t think anybody really grows out of the whole bitching behind people’s back thing sadly. I’ve witnessed so much of it myself, shocking really but try not to take it too personally 🥰

Agreed, it is really important to have your own income for loads of reasons, not just because your husband may be a massive fraudster.

I think the most worrying thing about this view is that you think it can be justified as 'ethics'.

I would argue that it's unethical, and certainly immoral, to encourage a woman to make herself entirely financially dependent on her husband. There's certainly nothing unethical about that woman choosing to become 'economically active'. If there is a shortage of jobs then to be in work, paying tax and NI, and spending earnings in the local economy is to be part of the solution.

Haven’t read all the comments so might have been well covered but my pennorth is that you are an inspiration. And ….there aren’t publicly positive volunteer roles in the evenings! When you can spare the time from your caring roles.
You are good at what you do. You like pulling your weight. And the employer will be pleased to have you. The hospitality business is struggling. So everything you do is worthwhile. Sorry you overheard such gossip I understand why you don’t want to confront as it won’t actually help. Unless you were very very clever at it of course…you know making them think not just making them guilty and more resentful. The arrogance of youth is both necessary and insufferable.

Interesting that more than one poster thinks that married women of a certain age have a moral obligation not to work as a young person might need the job. Wtf.

Is the same true of men whose wives have good jobs??

With no regard to NI contributions, private pensions, the possibility of DH being made redundant, becoming disabled, divorcing or dying,