The new office tribes

A new breed of woman has been identified - she is the super-beast, who lives to work and treads on men on her way to the top. But is that the only way to find fulfilment?

THE SUPER-BEAST

THE BREED: women who take men on at their own game, work 18-hour days and sacrifice their private lives for the sake of their careers.

Abi Elias, 39, runs four businesses in ecommerce, publishing and art consultancy and earns more than £200,000 a year. She lives in a two-bedroom house in Chiswick.

"My typical day involves getting up at 1.30am to check my emails, which come in from all over the world. It's quiet then and I can really concentrate. I carry on working at home until 6am, when I go to the gym for an hour's workout. I'm in my office by 9am.

We employ 180 staff across the four companies and the day is a hectic blur of meetings, managing my staff, lunches with clients and dealing with constant phone calls. I am competing in a male environment and I love the cut and thrust of business, and the fact that I am a successful entrepreneur.

I work until 5pm, go back to the gym and am usually in bed by 7pm. And that's my day. My social life is reserved for the weekends. I'll still go to the gym, but will then treat myself to brunch in Knightsbridge or go for drinks with my girlfriends in the Met Bar or at Kensington Roof Gardens. Shopping is my passion and I'll head off to Harvey Nicks or Harrods.

Happiness rating: "I am very happy because I'm fulfilling my ambitions. I have to work an 18-hour day, but I thrive on it and achieving my aspirations does make me content.

I have a boyfriend, Steve, who is an accountant, and at some point perhaps I will slow down - I would like to have a family. When I was growing up, my parents worked constantly - my mother runs an international floristry business and my father is a retailer - and I suppose that is why I am so passionate about commerce.

I am a bit of a workaholic but I adore multi-tasking. Success - and making money - drives me forward."

THE HEARTH LOVER

THE BREED: women who juggle work and family, and rush from the school run to the office.

Sally Preston, 39, runs a frozen babyfood business called Babylicious and is mum to Hannah, eight, and six-year-old Jack.

Currently, all the profits go back into the business. They live in a four-bedroom house in Ealing.

"I am the classic working mother, trying to juggle work and looking after my children to the best of my ability. I have no childcare and stop work at
3.15pm every day to collect my children from school.

I am determined that work will not stop me from being a good mother, although my business is also very important to me.

I get up at 7.30am and start making lunchboxes. I get dressed, wake the children and prepare their breakfast. From 8.30am to 9.30am it's chaos as I get the children ready for school - with homework to games bags and books.

Just as we are about to leave, Jack will announce he has to go to the toilet. And inevitably Hannah will complain that she doesn't want cheese in her sandwich but jam instead.

I rush them around the corner to school, and we arrive, panting, as the bell goes at 8.55am.

If it looks like it is going to be a quiet day, I then go for a run around the park, which relaxes me and lets me focus.

I worked for 11 years as a food technologist for Marks & Spencer. I left two years ago and now I run my own business making nutritious frozen baby food.

I'm helped by a staff of other working mums who have to fit a career around their children. We work in my dining room, but we are about to move into new offices.

It's going really well - we now supply Sainsbury's and Ocado.com. But it has been very hard work - I haven't drawn an income yet, but next year I will. Like all working mums I juggle things constantly - I work straight until 3pm with barely time to grab a sandwich. I then rush off to pick up the children from school and the rest of the day is theirs: I ferry them to ballet, football, Beavers and gymnastics, but I keep my mobile on to take calls.

Wednesday night is homework night, and on Friday we go to a friend's for tea or they have friends over. I have a partner, Tony, who runs a specialist bread-making company, and he is brilliant at doing the shopping and helping with the housework. Monday night is ironing night for me - I stand there for four hours and do all the ironing, and we do all the housework at weekends."

Happiness rating: "I cannot deny it can be tough and sometimes I feel exhausted. The other day, for instance, I had a meeting with a lawyer in town and it went on longer than expected, so I had to frantically ring a friend and ask if she could pick the children up from school.

School holidays are a logistical nightmare - the children go to holiday clubs or my mother helps out. But I am fitter than I have ever been, thanks to the running.

I adore my children and I have a great partner. The children go out with their dad at weekends, so I get a break to recharge my batteries. Financially it has been tough - I haven't bought any clothes for two years - but I wouldn't change my life. I love it."

THE CLIMB-DOWNER

THE BREED: women who are fed up with the corporate rat race and decide to follow their dream, even if it means a dramatic downturn in salary.

Sarah Richardson, 35, used to work in the City in PR. She now works for an interior design company in Lincolnshire, and lives in an idyllic three-bedroom country cottage.

Her salary has gone from well over £50,000 to less than £20,000.

"I am the classic climbdowner - I realised the hectic life in the City wasn't making me happy. I had a wonderful life on the surface - a brilliant job, lots of friends, a hectic social life in all the top London clubs and restaurants, and all the Gucci handbags a girl could ever hope to own. But I am from Lincolnshire originally and there was a part of me that wanted to get back to my roots and live in the country.

I had moved to London when I was 21 and spent more than 12 years in the rat race, loving the buzz and energy of the capital. But then I saw a job advertised in PR here in Lincolnshire, and I thought that was a good way of easing myself back into country living.

I moved back, and took up an evening class in interior design, which has always been a passion of mine, and now I do it full-time.

In London I had found that I was exhausted all the time, and I would go out after work and have a drink just to perk myself up and make me feel better.

The party lifestyle was taking its toll. Moving back to the country has been a revelation. I bought a beautiful little cottage - it has roses round the door - and at last I could return to another great love, which is riding.

I bought a horse, which I keep at a local stables, and now, rather than a hectic commute into the City hemmed in by other people on the Tube, my day starts with an amble around the lanes on my horse in perfect peace, looking at the changing seasons. I have a flexible timetable so it doesn't matter if I don't get into work until about 11am, as I often work evenings seeing clients to measure up for curtains and things like that.

I can set my own schedule, and I no longer feel all that hectic pressure on my shoulders. It also means I have time to travel. This summer I spent three weeks in Vietnam with my boyfriend, who's a captain in the army."

Happiness rating: "I am immeasurably happier than I was in London. I might have looked happy on the surface but inside I was getting more and more stressed.

Now I feel I have returned to the person I used to be, and I actually have time to do the things I want to do. Life is not all about making huge sums of money."