Am I being taken advantage-of at work?

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Thank you very much for your comments and to everyone who responded. I've been so busy I hadn't had a chance to check back on all of the messages I've posted since I've been here.

Yes, her behavior was very snotty and she's been that way to me since I first took the job. The reason why is because she's a graphics design student and a very talented one, I'll definitely give her that. Any major magazine would be glad to have her, trust me. But on the same token, she's very opinionated especially about people she feels are 'amateurs' when it comes to graphic design. One of the reasons she dislikes me (other than the fact that she noticed my weirdish Aspie behavior right away) is because one day I blurted out the fact that I don't have a degree in design, and that my major in college was political science and journalism. Because of my personality (very quiet & withdrawn) I really couldn't make any real money doing that. I've always been into art, so one day in 1995 I bought a desktop publishing program and began designing cards, flyers and invitations for people in my neighborhood.

Well, after a few months, word got around that I was doing a good job for people, so business owners began asking me to build print ads for them. I did so for about a year, charging roughly $25.00 per ad (hideously undercutting the other graphics design firms in the area unknowingly). The local newspaper was charging for design services as well, and I seriously underpriced them, too. An ad sales guy talked to me one day and told me he could get me on at the paper if I'd print out all the stuff I'd designed and carry it in with an application. They liked it, and when they hired me on (initially as a proofreader), they told me I had 3 weeks to prove to them I could keep up with the graphics workload. Despite the fact that I'd never used a Mac computer, never used QuarkXpress, Photoshop, Illustrator, Freehand or any of the other programs they had, I did figure it out - within a week. I've been doing this ever since.

I revealed this to the aforementioned girl and in proving to her that someone without a design degree can do the same work as she does (and win more awards for it over a period of 12 years) really irritated her. Since this thing with the magazine promotion happened, she REALLY dislikes me now. I'm still feeling a little too guilty about it to rub her face in it, but if she keeps on treating me the way she is and talking bad about me to my other coworkers, I'll start kicking all of my extra work her way and make her curse the ground I walk on.

In all reality, my biggest problem with her is that I don't understand why she and a couple of my other coworkers feel I don't deserve a chance like this. Logically, she's only been studying graphics for 4 years and working in design for 2 (concurrently with school). I've been in the newspaper biz literally three times longer than she has. When I started my first day on the job as a designer, she was just entering junior high school. I guess because other people feel I don't deserve a shot at a better job and they let me know this in some way, shape or form every day, I also can't help feeling that way, either. I know I've earned it, but still there's that nagging little voice that tells me they're right. But life goes on. As my dad always said, if you snooze, you lose.

It's going to be difficult to start, but just keep at it, you'll get it eventually.