To be jealous of my work colleague?

[CandidApples]

My work colleague is the same age as me. She has two gorgeous children and a third on the way. She is very attractive, confident and popular. However her behaviour kind of grates on me. It’s like she believes that the world revolves around her. She doesn’t treat me particularly nicely. She recently bought drinks for her and my other colleague but didn’t offer me one, when we were on a team night out (just the three of us). I am not as senior as her and I think she feels above me.

I am the bottom rung of the ladder, so the only person that seems to see this side. In fairness, at other times, she’ll be nice to me.

I struggle financially, whereas this lady is well off and can be quite braggy to me about her lifestyle and luxury holidays. I feel envious, and almost annoyed. I feel like karma needs to do a better job of ensuring people who treat others as subservient, shouldn’t get to have these picture perfect lives.

I know I am BU. But I just want things to seem fairer.

Well the good news is you'll get some respite when she's had the baby? Some workplaces like the NHS as someone mentioned, have very unpleasant hierarchy and political gubbins going on.

I suspect she'd still treat you with distain if you were her level. Some people need an underdog.

In the meantime I suggest the kill her with kindness approach. If she knows you resent or dislike her, it'll fan the flames.

Don't assume all is as well as it seems in her world. People like this often have some awful men at home.

Honestly, you are looking for silly excuses to justify your hate/jealousy. Other posts saying there might be something dodgy happening in her private life are wrong, she might well live a “perfect” life and I highly doubt it she is that nasty otherwise she wouldn’t be so popular and liked by the rest of your colleagues. In my office there’s someone that sounds a lot like you, she is well known to be looking for faults to badmouth and gossip about other people but at the same time she is very lonely and not much going on in her life so I always made a point of being nice to her as I felt sorry. She the asks me for a cleaner recommendation and my cleaner starts cleaning for her, she then lets me know she keeps pestering her for info about my house, how many bedrooms, what’s my decor like, what does my husband does for a living, etc. After that I slowly cut her off and I am sure her story is very similar to yours, how I am so arrogant and mean to her for absolutely no reason (I’ve seen her telling the same sad story about other people). Stop wasting energy focusing on her and focus on your own life and you too could achieve nice things and progress in your life. There will always be someone prettier, richer and nicer than you, so no point in dwell on that!

Agreed.

Karma doesn't exist. It's just easier to think it does.

Absolutely
Op needs to focus on herself . She sounds obsessed

Buying drinks for two people when there are three of you is not normal, it's a deliberately exclusive act. If she'd explained that as her reasoning? Fair enough. But she didn't.

At a work event (which this would be classed as), I would absolutely buy a drink for everyone if there were rounds involved. No-one should (does) know who I like and who I dislike at work.

Having just gone through the training, this could be classed as bullying (treating someone differently by exclusion), especially tied in with the door being left to close in ops face (if the person generally holds it open for others).

I’ve worked with people like that and they blank out all except those that can give them a leg up at work.

Why would you assume op is wrong and make up scenarios that you believe to be true instead?

As someone who has been on the receiving end of poor behaviour/ bullying, there is nothing worse than someone who knows eff all about the situation minimising it, based on zero knowledge.

Luckily, most people would be able to separate the poor behaviour from the jealousy, which could well be because of ops mental health / self-confidence being affected by micro-aggressions.

Well at some point you are going to get fed up with the humiliation ritual, hopefully.

Yes. I mean, the OP herself admits to violent jealousy of her colleague. It’s unclear why the colleague, who is, if we believe the OP, rich, attractive, popular and good at her job, would be jealous of a junior colleague with a grudge.

Yeah I know. I hope I do. I have very few close family. Most just ignore me. He ignores me too just invites me occasionally to show off.

Respectfully, this lady doesn't sound remotely insecure. OP on the other hand...

I don't think she said she was glowering at her did she?....

It is probably because you feel she looks down on you. If she were just as successful but treated you as an equal then I bet you wouldn't feel like this. Her looking down on you may also be making you feel insecure which then comes out as you disliking her even more.

In terms of fairness, unfortunately the world isn't like that and many bosses and popular people don't deserve their positions but that is just the way the world works. Confidence will always attract people.

The main thing is to realise that thinking about her is a complete waste of your energy. Work on your own self-esteem so that the next person who treats you this way wont have such a strong effect. Put your energy into your own self-improvement (whatever that looks like to you). Also, don't beat yourself up for being human. Humans think and feel all kinds of things; it's what we do with those thoughts and feelings that matters.

I had everything (though never been popular). Now after 27 years of marriage he has left. I’m ND and know I don’t always come across right. I suspect your jealousy is making her seem how you want to see her. Be kind to everyone. You really don’t know what they are going through.

No, she's just plain bloody rude & horrible. Op, yanbu

But how does this work if the person actually does think that they are better than you and shows it even if they are subtle?

I do sympathise. It's a bit of a no-win situation.

Doesn't matter. You can't control what other people think. The advice isn't designed to change what that person thinks, but to change how OP herself thinks about it, which is what she can control. And once OP is happy in herself, it won't matter if some twat thinks she's superior. That's not OP's problem and she won't care.

Yeah totally. Don't know what goes on in his head and he's not about to start telling me so I just keep my distance. And try and just be happy that his step kids are lovely and he seems to treat them well. I hope..

Disdain is the way people big themselves up when they know they're a big fat fraud.

In your story the colleague sounds very insecure but you sound unpleasant. Describing her in that way then saying you are nice to her face because you feel sorry for her sounds like you think you are better than her and you pity her.

How did the scene play out with the drink thing? What did she say before going to the bar? Did the other colleague pick up on the fact you never got a drink?

If it was me in your shoes, I'd never walk behind her again. I'd be getting my own door!

First You are not Jealous you are Envious they're two different things.

Second have you ever thought that she's envious of you. Or just a sad individual in general and the only place she has some sort of control is at work.
"A smile is just a facial expression (skinning teeth) and does not always reflect true happiness or goodwill."

No need to be envious of her socal "perfect life" .. because I can guarantee you that there's a lot of turmoil going on in the inside no wonder she has to go out of her way to make sure you're aware that she has a little happy and "perfect life" while also deliberately being mean to you.

If she was as happy as she project she wouldn't need to brag or make sure someone / you feel horrible by her deliberate actions towards you.
"Misery loves Company"

Let it go don't be Envious of her wicked spirit.

Because you convince yourself, with your words and deeds, that they are not.

Their opinion of themselves is just that, their opinion. You can have a different opinion of them and they can have an opposing opinion of you.
As said in the Handmaids tale, Nolite te bastardes carborundorum!