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Original poster

So much for my brilliant career...

103 replies

frogs · 07/12/2005 15:21

One of my contemporaries at university is now Leader of the Opposition. Humph.

And that's just the icing on the cake: other contemporaries include BBC foreign correspondent, high-profile barrister, Labour MP and ex-junior minister, award-winning theatre director and deputy editor of a national newspaper. And that's just off the top of my head -- I'm sure the list could be extended.

Anyone else feeling outclassed?

OP posts:
Pagan · 07/12/2005 15:24

Only if you define yourself by your career You're probably nicer than any of em, especially the politicians

Pagan · 07/12/2005 15:24

Only if you define yourself by your career You're probably nicer than any of em, especially the politicians

zippimistletoes · 07/12/2005 15:27

can we guess who they are then?

I expect a few others are in prison for fraud, drug addicts or office fodder too

FauveGoldRings · 07/12/2005 16:03

So how much crack did he used to take, then, frogs?

I'm aware of a few, eg newsreader, author, etc, but I prefer to keep my head in the sand and not seek out more, even though I think that's a bit sad. I've just read Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton which kind of offers a philosophical way of looking at, well, status anxiety, and you might try dipping into that.

motherinfurrierfestivehat · 07/12/2005 16:09

God, I'm not just in the class I'm in detention. It's getting to the point where I can't turn the telly on or go to the local library with equanimity. Actually even coming on MN induces acute anxiety from time to time as I duck my high-achieving contemporaries.

I don't care about being nice. Not nice anyway. Talent, money and sycophantic attention would do me nicely.

Original poster
frogs · 07/12/2005 16:10

Actually, zippi, there was one who served a prison sentence a few years back. [schadenfreude emoticon]

Actually I suspect that the common thread is: (a) the female ones don't have children and (b) the male ones have wives. Shucks.

OP posts:
Bozza · 07/12/2005 16:11

That sums it up Frogs.

PeachyPlumFairy · 07/12/2005 16:11

My contempraries include several drug addicts, at least one prossie, many single mums (including one I know is rnning criminal scams) and at least one jailbird. I feel so much better about myself now

expatinscotland · 07/12/2005 16:12

Don't want to go there! I went to one of htose schools full of brainiacs.

Original poster
frogs · 07/12/2005 16:13

MI. Glad I'm not alone with my unworthy feelings. But you're a very successful journalist, aren't you?

I suspect it will only get worse as we get older and we get to the age where our contemporaries are not just joining the establishment, they are the establishment.

OP posts:
zippimistletoes · 07/12/2005 16:14

peachy just read your that as mning criminal scams...was trying to work out the how and what

MIstletAOU · 07/12/2005 16:27

Funny frogs, I was just thinking along these lines the other night...well, thinking that I so nearly had a career but in the end I just couldn't be arsed....

Actually that's not quite true - I started off with a good graduate job but the stress made me so ill that I had to give it up. I moved back to my home town, got pregnant and pottered in little jobs ever since. I've never really used my brain for work, and occasionally wonder what I would do if I did. I have a degree in Behavioural Sciences - what on earth do I do with that? Answers on a postcard please....

On a positive note, I see from Friends Reunited that not a single one of my contemporaries has distinguished themselves in any way so I am in good company....

MIstletAOU · 07/12/2005 16:28

On reflection I think the start of that post should have read "That's funny, frogs,". I did not mean to suggest you are a funny frog.

motherinfurrierfestivehat · 07/12/2005 16:33

My one consolation is they all look really middle-aged.

Er, yes, well, ahem

DinosaurInAManger · 07/12/2005 16:41

Yes, completely. My time at Oxford overlapped with that of Nick Robinson, Boris and Michael Gove. And Philip Hensher was at the same college as me, read the same subject and was of course annoyingly brilliant even then. I'm sure there are loads of others but it would just be too depressing to write them all down. Sigh.

motherinfurrierfestivehat · 07/12/2005 16:43

There is an increasing list of books I refuse to read. Prize-winning, acclaimed novels. I am bitter.

tamum · 07/12/2005 16:44

I do love the though That might even be a googlewhack....

rockinrobinkie · 07/12/2005 16:58

I want to get involved in this but I mustn't really. Suffice to say you all sound a bit like my utterly wonderful MIL, who often laments how she has been outclassed by her friends (who include Katharine Whitehorn, Kate Adie and so on) while just sort of refusing to see how fabulous she herself is, simply because she can't measure herself by the exact same test of "success". And suffice more to say that YOU are all fabulous.

walkinginawinterBundleland · 07/12/2005 17:03

NR's children are at dd1's school, his wife seems v nice. i too work for the bbc, but in a lowly position. I am not, however, bovvered and I think I probably have a much better life-work balance, though I am much poorer

hativity · 07/12/2005 17:04

oooo frogs. I know. I know. one is a prominent journo - published first book to much acclaim, one is a director at Mothercare; one edits a national magazine; one has written a play with v famous actor; etc etc but some of them work in insurance

motherinfurrierfestivehat · 07/12/2005 18:45

I know that in my case the corrosive envy is also of people who didn't just sit around MNing all day. Although admittedly they are somewhat more talented than me, too, obviously.

But there is one particular novelist who is massively famous now and I can't bring myself to read any of his stuff partly because I keep thinking 'but you're such a wally'. Not this has impeded his upward trajectory in any way, I should of course point out.

CaRowlers · 07/12/2005 18:50

Ah but you use great words like wally. Far superior in every way.

rockinrobinkie · 07/12/2005 18:51

Is that AH? His books are wally too, in my view.

motherinfurrierfestivehat · 07/12/2005 18:52

AH? Nooo, who have I missed now? MH. Dogman.

philippat · 07/12/2005 18:53

I started feeling outclassed about 5 years out of uni, mostly when I discovered ex's xmas bonus was 8 times my annual salary (I think it's now up to 3 ex-bf now who are millionaires, I've gone wrong somewhere.... )

However, met a contemporary at a wedding a couple of years back (she's a national newsreader) who said how fantastic she thought my job was. Possibly she was just being polite, but certainly made me think that it definitely depends upon where you're sitting. Somehow your own life is never as glamorous as other peoples'.