Jealousy - family etc

[psychocandy]

You have a problem with people everywhere.

I am lucky enough to have many Welsh friends. Including PC.....

Cymru am byth Brillo!

[TestMangler]

Cymru am byth Brillo!

Ffwcio y Saesneg

[BR14]

Ffwcio y Saesneg

caledoniamahoganieselbas

[northernladyuk]

Canolfan byd gwaith.

[sbakoola]

You are luckier than me...

Not as bad as my family.

Some non blood related family members in a small city decided to focus on my grandfather (97 years old), pretended to care for him i.e. take him on excursions and sleep in the same house at night to 'make sure he's ok' (such generous attention) and bad mouthed his own children to everyone who were far away in the capital (attempting to ostracize him from them), then one day they told him a sad story, marched him down to the bank, drew 70% all his life savings out in cash put it in a bag and then they did not communicate with him or visit him, they just vanished despite living 5-10 minutes walk away and working 4 minutes walk away, they didn't want to know like they were waiting for him to die and not declare the loan which had nothing in writing. My grandfather didn't flag this and they had vanished from the scene (were not around etc) but visiting him one day I picked up that something was wrong, we investigated and discovered the missing money, we quizzed the family members who took the money, they lied at first then we got the truth out of them, solicitor got involved and we recouped the money. Then suddenly they were back on the scene pretending that they were the good guys, visiting my grandfather. We took him out of that city fast. The tried the same thing with me at the same city (after my grandfather left) for a few weeks, tried to butter me up etc then late one night asked for around £120,000 to pay off business debts (tax owed) with a verbal promise to pay it all back, I politely declined and on the second it was clear I wasn't giving the money, they stood up and asked that I leave their home (changed their tune suddenly), I never saw them for 5 weeks after that despite being close by, they contacted me again when it was revealed their stupid eldest had lost him job and was seeking opportunities, I walked away from that lot also.

Secondly a biological father who never raised me and never financially supported me and has only worked 2 years of his life despite being reasonably educated and coming from a respectable middle class family (he's lazy) calls me up at midnight demanding that I buy him an electric car battery from amazon giving me lame excuses (he has no money and was testing me), I refused and he threatened to cut me off and leave me alone because of this and got furious. It sounds laughable but it is not very nice being on the receiving end of that; in short don't give toxic toxic narcissists second chances, they cannot change and will destroy you if they think they have the upper hand. Suffice to say my mother and our side of the family don't speak to that side any more, they also were looking for resources from me and never gave a damn.

Life is tough and people are awful, what can I say. Make your money, enjoy your life with the things you love and avoid time wasters and people who don't care whether you live or die.

[northernladyuk]

Not as bad as my family.

Some non blood related family members in a small city decided to focus on my grandfather (97 years old), pretended to care for him i.e. take him on excursions and sleep in the same house at night to 'make sure he's ok' (such generous attention) and bad mouthed his own children to everyone who were far away in the capital (attempting to ostracize him from them), then one day they told him a sad story, marched him down to the bank, drew 70% all his life savings out in cash put it in a bag and then they did not communicate with him or visit him, they just vanished despite living 5-10 minutes walk away and working 4 minutes walk away, they didn't want to know like they were waiting for him to die and not declare the loan which had nothing in writing. My grandfather didn't flag this and they had vanished from the scene (were not around etc) but visiting him one day I picked up that something was wrong, we investigated and discovered the missing money, we quizzed the family members who took the money, they lied at first then we got the truth out of them, solicitor got involved and we recouped the money. Then suddenly they were back on the scene pretending that they were the good guys, visiting my grandfather. We took him out of that city fast. The tried the same thing with me at the same city (after my grandfather left) for a few weeks, tried to butter me up etc then late one night asked for around £120,000 to pay off business debts (tax owed) with a verbal promise to pay it all back, I politely declined and on the second it was clear I wasn't giving the money, they stood up and asked that I leave their home (changed their tune suddenly), I never saw them for 5 weeks after that despite being close by, they contacted me again when it was revealed their stupid eldest had lost him job and was seeking opportunities, I walked away from that lot also.

Secondly a biological father who never raised me and never financially supported me and has only worked 2 years of his life despite being reasonably educated and coming from a respectable middle class family (he's lazy) calls me up at midnight demanding that I buy him an electric car battery from amazon giving me lame excuses (he has no money and was testing me), I refused and he threatened to cut me off and leave me alone because of this and got furious. It sounds laughable but it is not very nice being on the receiving end of that; in short don't give toxic toxic narcissists second chances, they cannot change and will destroy you if they think they have the upper hand. Suffice to say my mother and our side of the family don't speak to that side any more, they also were looking for resources from me and never gave a damn.

Life is tough and people are awful, what can I say. Make your money, enjoy your life with the things you love and avoid time wasters and people who don't care whether you live or die.

Sorry to hear this story.

[BrilloPad]

Is this a contest for hard luck stories?

My father died when I was 6. My mother's father died months later causing my mother severe issues. She went and married a guy who she wanted sex with(only marriage to set a good example) which caused her, him and all their 6 children(3 from my mum, 2 from him, 1 together) to be very screwed up. After they split(he hit the bottle and both his kids had to go into care) she moved in with a violent man. It lasted 2 months. She had a kid with him - years later my mother revealed she has no idea who the father is as she was cheating on him. It matters to us as the kid has an albino child - it would be nice to know who the carrier is on our side.

About 10 years ago my mother moved in with a man who had served 3 years in maximum security for GBH. His parents were giving him £600 a week and a free house. His father threatened to cut him off. She he nearly beat to death his dad, mum and a neighbour. Which caused all 5 of her children to lose touch.

However I am still blessed as I have my CUK friends.

Who is next?

[MyUserName]

I think they would point out that they are not a natural, they have just been training for years more than you have and they train a lot. They have time to train because they find time to train. There is nothing magical about it.

Nah, someone can't be better than me at something just because they have worked harder. There must be some reason why it is not fair.

[sbakoola]

Is this a contest for hard luck stories?

My father died when I was 6. My mother's father died months later causing my mother severe issues. She went and married a guy who she wanted sex with(only marriage to set a good example) which caused her, him and all their 6 children(3 from my mum, 2 from him, 1 together) to be very screwed up. After they split(he hit the bottle and both his kids had to go into care) she moved in with a violent man. It lasted 2 months. She had a kid with him - years later my mother revealed she has no idea who the father is as she was cheating on him. It matters to us as the kid has an albino child - it would be nice to know who the carrier is on our side.

About 10 years ago my mother moved in with a man who had served 3 years in maximum security for GBH. His parents were giving him £600 a week and a free house. His father threatened to cut him off. She he nearly beat to death his dad, mum and a neighbour. Which caused all 5 of her children to lose touch.

However I am still blessed as I have my CUK friends.

Who is next?

I never intended for this to be a sort of bragging match about who had it bad back in the day like the Monty Python Four Yorkshiremen Skit (although note my vague reference to it) above using it as a crutch and as a form bragging rights ; I just wanted to emphasize that it's bad but it's all relative, millions have had it better than me in the UK and millions have had it far worse when it comes to family and jealously. I just wanted to emphasize that jealously sometimes goes beyond just people in one's family harbouring resentment at you for having more than them; they sometimes conspire and set out to take that away from you that they want due to that initial jealously and they don't give a damn about you - it's absolutely shocking and can destroy your faith in humanity but you have to say your peace and cut them loose.

[MountainMatt]

I'm currently still a permie, planning on moving to contracting in a few months time, but to an extent I know what you mean.

This year I got a 'double' pay rise for getting a 'consistently exceeding expectations' in my annual review. I say 'double' in quotes because we get automatic pay-rises of ~£1k+cost of living at my level each year as long as we don't 'consistently fall short of expectations' - which is 99.5% of employees.

I don't often discuss money with people, but had mentioned at one point that I got a double bump and someone said I was lucky. I did think about it for a bit and weighed up my effort and output etc. Then I remembered the time I stayed until 2am to fix a piece of software which had a serious security flaw and had to be taken offline, the developer of which was on holiday, and the system needed securing (without the latest source code being available) and back online asap. I recalled the times I'd stayed late to do work at unsociable hours so that our end users experience minimal downtime, rather than taking a live site down for an hour in the middle of the day. Then there were the times covering other people's roles because time hadn't been allocated, or things had cropped up and other people had just gone home because hey, it's 4pm home time. I go out of my way to up-skill, get up to speed with things as quickly as possible, and work solidly during the day - no 30 min cig breaks or spending the day watching YouTube videos. The performance review was based on targets and results, all of which were smashed above and ahead of time.

So at the end of the year, if I'm fortunate enough to be offered a double bump I am both grateful and content - I know that I worked hard for it throughout the year while recognising that I'm not entitled to it.

It's clearly not the same as comparing contractor pay, but I think the principles are similar - you're only as good as your last contract and if you work hard, produce results, maintain good relationships, you can do well; but it's not handed on a plate.