People who are envious of my misfortune

[jackfaire]

Yes you read that right my misfortune. Because of the nature of my project for the last couple of years I have been unable to get into the summer project and have been on unemployment each summer and had to give up my apartment.

When in conversation with coworkers that did get into the summer project where I mention hoping there is a spot for me this year they say, "I am really envious of you for getting summers off"

Now the thing is the people on that project tend to actually work it longer than we do and make at least 3 dollars more an hour than I do.

If I was on that project I would still have my apartment.

The people envying seem to forget that my summers off come with just enough unemployment money to barely make ends meet.

I think they have it in their heads that they would have summers off but with the same money they make by working.

This to me would be like someone with a Hummer saying, "I envy your smaller cheaper less gas guzzling car"

Not that I would want to own a hummer but having that kind of money would be damn nice.

I don't care how tight your diamond shoes are kiss my ass.

[DrFaroohk]

That sounds annoying. Do they include the whole sarcastic eyerolling "Must be nice!" thing too?

[jackfaire]

That sounds annoying. Do they include the whole sarcastic eyerolling "Must be nice!" thing too?

No but they try to tell me how horrible the other project the one that means most of them can afford cars so they can drive to work instead of the 2 hour bus ride I take.

[Evandril]

Any chance they are trying to point out the best parts of a bad situation? Ie, they know you'd rather be working, but since that's not possible, putting the best light on what IS happening? I know there's been lots of times someone selected to deploy to the desert has been told 'You're going to be making so much money over there!' (true), just to try making them feel better.

[jackfaire]

Any chance they are trying to point out the best parts of a bad situation?

I wish that was the case but no they really want to have the summers off.

[blas87]

Not completely the same, but when we were going on our second summer of non-stop overtime at work (meaning, working every other weekend pretty much for over a year), people would make comments to me like "Gee, I bet your bank account is loaded!" or "Wow, I bet you're making bank with all that OT!"

Um, no. Not at all. It's a little extra. Most of the time, overtime, in excess of more than a few hours, puts you in a higher tax bracket and you don't see a lot of that extra money.

Case in point, during the holiday season in 2009, our idiot manager put us on 20 MANDATORY extra hours every two weeks. The first pay advance after that, I made only dollars more than when I did 10 or 12 hours of overtime.

So, I had been losing precious time off for over a year and wasn't being paid as much as I should for it. And people without jobs or without overtime made comments like that to me. I was pissed.