Suit of the Week: Boss

140 Comments

1. Ugh. I did something dumb.

   I was on a conference call with my team and supervisor and the call ended but one member of my team and I stayed for a minute later to talk about something. Staffer made a comment about how it sounded like boss was going to change direction and would probably call me with the answer. I responded that I wasn’t sure that boss was very happy with me right now because boss and I had clashed over how to approach something (I said that I still don’t think my approach was wrong, it just emphasized different goals).

   … I heard a beep and realized that boss had back to back calls using the same number and might have heard me say this. It’s not anything ‘bad’, per se, but I just… I feel like I’m in a funk and the hits just keep coming.

   1. Forget it. That happened to me and my boss did not think at all about it. He leaves the line open between calls so that he can go to the toilet between calls. In your case, even if he did hear all of it, he would respect your honesty. He could very well have run to the toilet and then came back to hang the phone up. I know that is what I do on ZOOM calls, b/c they do NOT give us any leeway between calls to go to the toilet, and I do NOT want to have to bring my MacBook Air to the toilet with me, even if the camera is off. That would be more embarassing for everyone to see and hear me pee or make poopie! FOOEY!

   2. Eh. I get that this is niggling at you, but managers know these conversations happen around them, and it doesn’t sound like what you said was even critical of your manager. If anything, she/he may acknowledge it in another conversation, just to give you more insight on the decision, but I would leave this on the field and get ready for the next play.

      1. Thank you. This is what I needed to hear. And… I needed to let it out somehow.

         And… I think the actual disagreement in how to approach things is weighing on me. I had another call with her and… it’s all fine.

   3. I don’t think this sounds so bad. If your boss is typically reasonable, that is.

      1. Very reasonable. Also knows that I will disagree with her because part of her style is ‘I think the answer is X. If you don’t agree, change my mind.’

         I’ll note that we’re probably equal in terms of ‘she goes along with my side’, ‘I get overruled’, and ‘We split the difference.’

         1. In that case, I’d put this out of my mind. If anything, this incident showed your boss that you are completely professional about disagreements behind her back. What better reports could she hope for?

   4. I know you know this isn’t that bad, but in case it makes you feel better…I have accidentally sent an email to my boss that says he’s probably not even reading these emails (he was), and accidentally sent an instant message to a different boss about how he was obsessed with a certain issue. Both bosses were reasonable (barely) and in both cases we laughed and got over it.

2. Kat, I love this Boss Blazer, and the pencil skirt which I will buy and use as soon as they tell us we can go back to court. I spoke with the manageing partner about his future–he is NOT intersted in taking the LIRR each day back into NYC for the rest of this year; and he and Margie are even considering buying a pied a terre where he can live during the week near the office, and Margie could stay with their toddler while he was working, tho she would probably leave him with a sitter while she came into NYC for a day or 2. I told him about some nice places in the East 30’s near the river that he could have a look at. He asked about me and whether I was still interested in the manageing partner job, which he said could be mine in 2023. I told him YES; and I was willing to let him take me under his wing to learn in 2021 and 2022.

3. I’ve been tasked with making team meetings better for a team I support. There is currently very little flow and organization, and with 60 people on the phone, it’s very overwhelming. Part of this is due to lack of communication among team supervisors. Are there any resources out there that I can read that deal with the organization and flow of team meetings? Creating good agendas?

   1. Good agendas and with that many people, you may want to adopt some ad hoc rules of order. I deal with a lot of open meetings with lots of participants and having a clear agenda and more importantly, an order to who speaks when, is the only way to keep it from being overwhelming.

      1. Can you elaborate on “an order to who speaks when”? I have been on so many calls where there’s long silence followed by multiple people trying to talk over each other followed by “you go first” and “no, you go first”.

         1. It helps if someone is tasked with facilitation – on large meetings I’ve attended, everyone except presenters are muted, and people can use the “raise your hand” feature or the chat to indicate that they have a point to add. The facilitator then calls on people in order, which helps prevent lots of people talking over one another. Good luck!

   2. What is the purpose of the meetings? Is this a team dedicated to a specific project, made up of people who all report to different line managers, or is it all the people in a particular chain of command?

   3. No resources to recommend, but I would push for a standing agenda. We recently implemented something similar for my team, and it’s basically:

      1 – Project Updates (on a rotation, so each project reports out every other meeting) – 30 minutes
      2 – Organizational/HR Updates – 10 minutes
      3 – Recognition – 5 minutes
      4 – Topic for Discussion – 15 minutes

      Director determines topic, with suggestions from managers, and facilitates the discussion. Other than the topic, the agendas pretty much write themselves. It has made managing the meetings much easier, and the rotating project updates mean everyone speaks at least every other meeting.

   4. I used to be on a regular 60+ person call that was excellently run – there was a standing agenda with subitems filled in and sent out in advance, anyone who spoke had been prepped in advance and the questions for the group were targeted and specific – subgroups were created quickly for anything that required further discussion. Call never went over the hour time so you didn’t feel stuck on it.

   5. Sorry for the late reply but my org did a management training that included a lot of useful tools. I did not enjoy the training or click with the trainer but the agenda template has proven very useful: https://www.managementcenter.org/resources/check-meetings-sample-agenda/

      If that template doesn’t resonate with you, then maybe google around to find something that better suits your purpose?

4. I need some new book ideas. I have enough heavy reading right now and wouldn’t mind some thrillers or crime stories. The Robert Galbraith/JK Rowling novels were recommended by a friend and I’ll try those, but any other thoughts? Also open to “beach reads.”

   1. The Crazy Rich Asians trilogy was a fun page-turner for me.

   2. The Crazy Rich Asians trilogy was a fun page-turner for me.

   3. The Cameron Strike books (Galbraith/Rowling) are amazing. And, there’s another one coming out this fall so you have perfect timing! I have read all 4 and then listened to the audiobooks. I love the Robin character, she is kick ass.

      I also like the DI Hilary Greene series by Faith Martin. Well plotted, confident female lead, British slang.

      The Marcia Clark Samantha Brinkman series is also fun – again, a confident, whip-smart female lead with lots of action and detection.

      I love everything Georgette Heyer, for a lighthearted read. Again, strong, smart, funny female leads.

   4. Necessary People by Anna Pitoniak. A not too substantive thriller/page turner about NYC/wealth/female friendship.

   5. – Anything by Riley Sager (The Last Time I Lied, Home Before Dark)
      – The Magpie Murders
      – Stillhouse Lake series
      – Defending Jacob
      – The Word is Murder

      1. Defending Jacob is dark but was definitely a page-turner for me.

         1. I haven’t read the book but highly recommend the new HBO series. I think it was severely underrated by the critics.

            1. I thought the series was good (it is on AppleTV, which you can get a free trial) and there were only a couple parts changed from the book, so close enough for me to still find enjoyable!

      2. Love the Riley Sager books. Great thrillers.

         I like Mary Kubica. The Good Girl is my favorite from her.

         I also like the Kendra Donovan mystery series from Julie McElwain. A Murder in Time is the first in the series.

         1. +1 to Mary Kubica. The Good Girl was creeeepy!

   6. Anything by Jennifer Weiner. I loved Mrs. Everything. I found it completely engrossing.

      1. I actually don’t love her books in general but I loved Mrs. Everything. It felt like it had more emotional heft and more fleshed out characters than her previous novels but was still a quick, easy read.
         I also recently read and enjoyed Rodham, City of Girls, The Glass Hotel, and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.

         1. The Glass Hotel is great.

         2. I feel like you might be my book twin! +1 to all of these and esp “The Glass Hotel”.

         3. Yes, The Glass Hotel was my favorite book so far this year! I don’t think I have the emotional fortitude to read Station Eleven right now, but Emily St. John Mandel’s writing is exquisite.

   7. Since you mentioned thrillers, I recommend “Woman in the Window”by A.J. Finn. I picked it up on whim at a grocery store of all places and LOVED it. That’s not usually my genre at all, but I was so engrossed in the book that I finished it in 1 weekend at the beginning of lock-down haha.

      Campaign Widows is another fun one…not super deep, but it’s a rom-com set in the world of politics. I also recommend The Book of Essie and The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters. In non-fiction, I recently enjoyed A Well-Behaved Woman about the Vanderbilt family.

      1. Also loved Woman in the Window. (Thrillers are pretty much my favorite thing ever.)

         1. Oh nice! Any recs for similar books?

            1. I’m drawing a blank on anything I can compare to Woman in the Window. I read a lot of thrillers, but one of the bad side effects of that is that a lot of them end up being duds (maybe because I read so many that I’m constantly comparing? or the stories are all just so similar sometimes?) Another weird thing about recommending thrillers is that some of them are really dark and creepy, and I’m like are people going to think I’m a creep for recommending this?!

               In addition to the ones I recommended above, I also have read and liked: Verity, The Other Wife, Into the Darkest Corner, Behind Closed Doors, The One, and Jane Doe, though I’m not sure I would say any of them are the same story as Woman in the Window.

            2. Thank you, thank you @Carmen Sandiego! I’ll add some of those to my list!

   8. I enjoyed Big Little Lies and then I burned through all the rest of Liane Moriarity’s oeuvre and enjoyed them all. Oh! And I adore the Inspector Gamache books by Louise Penney.

   9. Great recs, thanks all!!

   10. For fun page-turning thrillers, I really like Orphan X series by Gregg Hurwitz and the Victor the Assassin series by Tom Wood.

   11. A bit of both in Er*tic Stories for Punjabi Widows
       (it’s not a steamy book, read the description)
       It’s got a mysterious aspect, and was a good read on my last beach day.

       1. I really enjoyed that one too.

       2. Loved that book. So did my book club.

   12. The Sandhamn series by Vivevca Sten. Available translated from Swedish in books and kindle. The series is based in Stockholm and the archipelago with the main characters a working mom lawyer and her friend, a police homicide detective. Their lives intersect and the lawyer helps solve the cases. Beautiful scenery and always makes me wish I was back in Stockholm for a visit. Covid, sigh.

5. next week would have been my parents wedding anniversary. my mom passed away towards the end of 2019 so this is my dad’s first one without her. do i send him a card? a gift? not totally sure the best way to acknowledge what i am sure will be a challenging day. my parents were never that big into celebrating their anniversary but the firsts are hard

   1. I would plan to call him and make sure I had enough time and space to have a nice, long, emotional conversation with him if he wants.

   2. I think you ask him or let it slip on by especially since they didn’t usually celebrate.

   3. I would probably just call him the day of.

   4. I’m sorry for your loss. On my MIL’s birthday, my wife and her sisters sent their dad an arrangement he could put on her grave marker – he wanted to see her, but he wanted to go alone.

      1. That’s a lovely idea.

6. Debating a move to nyc in December as it seems rents will drop due to covid plus they often drop in winter months but am feeling overwhelmed by the logistics. I don’t have a ton of money to throw at the problem and am thinking about finding a place remotely, having to buy furniture, getting internet set up, etc. etc. I can’t tell if this is overwhelming and a bad idea or if it’s temporary discomfort that is not a big deal and I’m stressing out for no reason.

   1. It depends on what is motivating your move, but I can’t think of any reason I’d move into NYC at the moment. Maybe the suburbs of NYC, but they’re in demand right now/rents holding steady.

   2. There’s no reason to move to NYC right now unless your job requires it

   3. I live in NYC and love it here so I’m biased. Rents are dropping and it’s a great place to live — I was happy here even at the height of the pandemic, but the suburbs and car culture are my idea of hell and you couldn’t pay me to live there — YMMV.

      I would not rent something sight unseen. There are many quirks to individual apartments and buildings and blocks. Stay with a friend or get an airBNB for a week or two and look — it’s pretty common to get a place in under a week. Set up appointments to see some places you are interested in before you arrive. As soon as you sign a lease, ship an air mattress to the place, or have one delivered to your airBNB and bring it over. Bring some towels and toiletries with you. Arrange for the rest of your stuff to be shipped once you move in, and buy furniture as you go. You won’t have a furnished apartment for a while, but you’ll be ok. Furnish Green is one of my favorite stores for vintage stuff, AptDeco is great for used furniture — both deliver. There’s an Ikea.

7. What would you do?

   1. Stay where you live now, with others, in a covid hotspot with no end in sight and a politician who refuses to acknowledge covid is real, paying x all in. (Calm enough but spend most time in my room for work and relaxation and lockdown seems unending)

   2. Move to a city post-covid hotspot where politically quicker to act than place #1, more likely to reopen due to this, living alone, paying approx. 3.5x. (so more freedom to live in more spaces rather than all in one room)

   I work remotely indefinitely.

   Could I afford #2? I could, carefully. Living at #1 is letting me continue to sock away money in savings so there’s benefit to that too. I have 9 months of savings currently.

   1. Are you the same person who posted about moving to NYC above? There are plenty of options between current hot spot and NYC. I would not want to be trapped in a big-city apartment if things got bad again there, which is a good possibility everywhere regardless of local leadership. I’d rent in a suburb or semi-rural area that’s had a reasonable response and where the leadership is not likely to change over in November.

      1. I think lots of people are considering relocation either due to covid costs or due to covid living experiences!

   2. I wouldn’t move, just because of the cost difference. You’re saving money now, but presumably the move wouldn’t be temporary, so that benefit would disappear or dry up.

   3. No. You can’t afford the move unless you get a whopping raise. Also, place 2 is probably losing residents and will raise state and local income taxes, so hold onto your wallet.

      1. Why would they need a raise? They said they could afford it if they are careful. (I wonder if there are several in similar situations and we are either assuming it’s all one person or we are confusing them.)

   4. I’d go with option 3 if you are indefinitely remote. Find a cool cheap place where you can afford to live alone.

      1. This. Choose another place to go remote. Living in my bedroom would drive me insane.

   5. It would matter what 3x amounts to. Even if you can afford it. Like are you going from $500 by sharing to $1500 for your own place, or $1k to $3k? I’m in my own apartment for $1500 and feel that it’s well worth the space and freedom. But I would hesitate to pay 3k because it eats into my savings goals.

8. Question about email etiquette when working with people across time zones. Should I avoid sending non urgent emails after normal work hours in the recipient’s time zone? A couple times, I used Outlook’s delay delivery feature and the recipient commented like it was weird. I was trying to be considerate since I prefer not to have my phone ping in the evenings.

   1. I work with a lot of people in a time zone 2 hours later than mine. I e-mail them before they start work, and they e-mail me after I leave. On both sides, we just deal with the new messages when we are next working.

   2. Install Boomerang. The recipient can’t tell when you sent it, which sounds like is the case with Outlook.

      1. I was wondering about that. Did the recipient know that you sent the email with a delay? Or did they comment on you sending it in the middle of your night?

   3. I don’t think you need to wait. I’m East Coast and work with a team in San Diego. My phone pings until 11/12 some nights. I might glance at it to make sure it’s not important but it’s just one of those ‘things’ you deal with when working with people in different time zones. I don’t hesitate to send them emails at 7am (4am Cali time) and I assume they don’t either when sending me one 11pm. I also assume that if it’s something really important that they will call or text, rather than email, outside of working hours (although those working hours are all relative now).

   4. I don’t get work emails on my phone so I don’t care when people email me. I work with people in India so when I log in around 8:30 in the morning, I usually have emails that were sent overnight or in the early morning. I say just send the emails when you need to. The person receiving them can turn off notifications if they want.

   5. Send whenever you want – people can manage their devices according to their preferences. I have a separate cell phone for work – email alerts are set to silent 24/7 (so I have to pick it up and look at it to see if I have messages), and phone calls only ring through from 8am to 6pm. Anyone who has the power to bug me outside of “normal business hours” has my personal cell and can call or text me for urgent matters.

   6. Aside from ettiquette, I just want to chime in with an additional benefit of scheduling emails (available in gmail as well, finally). My boss gets so many emails that she often can’t keep up. If I want her to see something and get back to me, I schedule my email for the morning, so it’s on top of the other 2000 unread ones.

   7. I am with you on using delay delivery. I use this internally and externally when I am working late and don’t need a response urgently. I think it reflects respect for the recipient’s time and I find my messages get much more attention if they arrive first thing in the morning. I did not know you could tell it had been used. I really wish others would use when emailing me.

   8. The whole freaking point of email is that it’s asynchronous – you send it at your convenience, the other picks it up at theirs. If you send it at 8 pm or 2 am or 6 am, what the heck is the difference, assuming you’re reasonable about assuming the person won’t be obligated to address it til the start of their work day? As for pinging – that’s on people to turn their own email notifications on or off. I say send when you want.

      1. This. I do my work on my time, which includes sending emails at all hours to multiple time zones throughout the day and work after hours (hi, right now..) after toddler is in bed. You read it when you’re ready and unless otherwise noted, I just expect a response in a timely manner as required by the particular matter I’m emailing about. That’s all.

      2. +1. I don’t understand people getting torqued about this, just set your phone to silent when you want to be offline.

   9. I say not to email others during their sleep hours in their time zone say 11-7. I had a boss who used to email me 24/7 – the man was a workaholic and a jerk. He would say that he didn’t want a reply but he would send one, and then another and then another after making incorrect assumptions on unanswered questions from the first message. So I felt I had to reply.

      My current boss has two preschoolers and two teenagers and a wife who works as a manager in our company too. I figure that he (and she) needs a break at night, so I send with delayed delivery to arrive at 8a.m. Unless it’s a five-alarm fire situation, I think delaying is good.

      We use outside counsel a lot and I’ve stopped emailing them on the weekend unless it’s an emergency, even though I know that they check email on the weekend.

9. Work from bed (it’s the quietest place in the house and the only one with a neutral background for calls) and apparently I sit in the same position for very long and do so very often. Now I have what feels like a bruised tailbone but it feels like a mix of bruise and burning. I don’t feel any fluid under the skin so I think it may just be position and pressure. I’ve gotten a coccyx pillow now but is there anything I can do to make this heal faster? I feel it when I shift and sitting on the pillow makes me sit in a position that isn’t natural or enjoyable.

   1. So I had the same problem that started while breastfeeding in the same position on the couch, and my pelvic floor therapist did a quick realignment that solved the problem…until COVID, it has now returned. I’m not breastfeeding but teleworking while sitting on my wooden kitchen chairs. Need to schedule another appointment. I’d recommend looking into it.

   2. Girl, if you are going to be WFH for much longer you need to stop working from bed. The tailbone pain is from a combination of a lack of proper support and not moving enough during the day. I developed a similar problem in 2017 and it took over a year to resolve (I had been given a bad office chair and also went from a position where I was moving around all the time to one where I sat the majority of the day). The pain can get really debilitating. I did physical therapy but also changed my whole ergonomic setup and that was the only way it resolved. It’s past time to figure out how to set yourself up at a desk or table, with an appropriate office chair and wrist rest and a neutral background for calls and all that good stuff. If you need to appropriate common space from spouse, roommates, kids, etc. you’ll have to do so. I work in my bedroom but back in April got myself a real desk and an office chair with lumbar support and it makes a big difference. Worth the investment, time and money. Otherwise you will be investing way more time and money trying to resolve the tailbone problem when it gets so bad that getting up from a sitting position is painful enough to bring tears to your eyes. Ask me how I know.

      1. This just isn’t an option. There is no other quiet space and the bedroom has no room for anything other than the bed and dresser. I am going to see if there’s some sort of contraption to turn the bed into a seat or something because silence and neutral background is mandatory for my job and I cannot afford to lose it.

         1. Stand up and work at the dresser.

         2. Stand up at an ironing board in your bedroom.

         3. I would look into a mobile laptop standing desk. It basically looks like a fancy music stand with an arm for a mouse. I use one as a lectern to practice oral arguments (and as an actual lectern now that I’m doing oral argument remotely).
            You could use one of these even in a very small place, and you could lower the desk part and use the bed as a seat. But I would agree with the other posters; this is going to be a serious issue until you find a more ergonomic solution than working from your bed. I hear that you cannot lose your job, but you also cannot afford to do potentially lasting damage to your body.

            1. Yes, stand at dresser.

               Also, when you sit, get up and move every 25-30 minutes to stretch. That will help a lot. Use a pomodoro timer to remind yourself.

               Hope it gets better soon.

   3. Yeah stop working on your bed! You’ve injured yourself. Figure out something else.

10. For all earlier who talked about multiple homes, especially in major cities, did they just sit empty when the family wasn’t using them? Were they rented out? I can’t imagine any of that life experience and, as an NYCer who is super tidy and often asked to care for pets and plants of friends, I remember thinking how grand it’d be to live in one of these empty homes in exchange for modest rent and caring for the property or just keeping it safe from squatters or whatever when it’d otherwise sit empty. Not sure if I’m hoping to hear that people do this (which means there’s a snowball’s chance) or that no one does this (which is sad to think of lovely properties sitting dark and empty much of the year)!

    1. I have always wondered about this for stand-alone homes. My parents’ second home in a foreign country was an apartment in a community with a gate and a guard. They paid a modest sum to a management company to deal with small issues, like having it cleaned before they arrived, laundering linens after a guest used the home, and managing maintenance, but it was not constantly occupied or monitored. A stand-alone seems like it might need more attention and security.

       1. With good alarm systems with vidéo you can keep an eye on things. We also know our neighbors well and they will ping us if they notice a loose roof tile or someone other than us at the property. We don’t need a sitter, but may rent an outbuilding once it’s remodeled. If I was OP I would look for carriage houses for rent.

    2. I know of people who lend it out to friends but not people who have a paid permanent house sitter.

    3. Here’s a summary based on the homes:
       Lakehouse: Used every weekend in the summer, basically empty from Labor Day – Memorial Day. Yard company takes care of the snow, leaf, and grass care
       2 Condos in Hawaii: They’re rented out as airbnbs when not in use, condo association takes care of everything
       Condo in Florida: Used a little in the summer, grandma uses it from Thanksgiving-Easter
       Ski House: Empty 90% of the year, managed by the ski resort (non negotiable)
       All of the houses have a housekeeper/cleaner. None of the houses have plants

       1. Why don’t you rent out the ski house to vacation renters? That’s what my family member who had a ski condo did and it made some decent money.

          1. My family has a beach house (literally has a private beach) that they could have rented out, but chose not to: the potential for damage and liability far exceed what they could have made in rent.

          2. it would bring in a lot, but it’s not worth it to the family. You would have to empty out the ski locker, and personal items couldn’t be left there, like ski gear and the closet is full of winter clothes.

          3. I don’t think people who own that many houses need the extra money. And it’s probably not worth the inconvenience to them.

    4. We do not rent out our other homes. 1 – Finding and dealing with renters is generally annoying (even more so across international borders) and 2 – we prefer not to lose the ability to stay in these homes whenever we want, sometimes decided very last minute.

11. As a single in her late 30s, I’m wondering whether those who come from money would share their feelings about their child(ren) dating or marrying? Do you consider whether that person would come from money or a certain background or pedigree? Has this played in within your families with others? I haven’t yet met my future betrothed (though I do hope to -taps watch- lol) and though I have the big education, I also have the big debt that goes with it and I doubt I’ll ever shop without first organizing the search results with price low to high. I hadn’t considered this aspect before!

    1. I attended college on Pell grants. My husband’s family has what I consider a lot of money, but not a lot of that will come to him. We don’t have a fancy lifestyle, but we have organized our lives with the goal of paying for private college and a nice wedding, and maybe helping with a down payment on a house. I hope my daughter won’t date anyone who comes from more money than that, or who doesn’t share her logical, prudent approach to managing money.

    2. I don’t have an answer from that perspective, but isn’t it fun to speculate?

       May I ask … you hadn’t considered the aspect of whether your future partner might have wealth or is it the idea of generational/large wealth? (For some people, that’s the dream imparted in childhood, though it didn’t really occur to me either in spite of all the Hallmark movies with nannies and bakers and party planners marrying princes.)

       I think it’s fascinating that there isn’t much upward mobility (in terms of moving up to another class or substantially up) in America/the American dream in some ways is a myth UNLESS you’re a 2nd (or 1.5) generation immigrant OR you marry up! (I’ve seen the term “hypergamy” used but IDK if it’s common/broadly applies.)

    3. This has not been an issue in my family at all. Quite the opposite. Everyone has “married down” and in most instances it has been the other family with objections – first that my grandmother would marry an Irishman, then that my father would marry someone not from their home state and move away instead of working at the local mill, then that my aunt would marry a “hippie” instead of a professional.

    4. Not really an answer to your question about families, but I posted about my friend who inherited a lot of money (I mean I think 10’s of millions is a lot.) She dated several guys who did not have money and it was often weird (ranging from the college boyfriend who was insistent that if they got married she would need to give all of her money away as soon as she had control over it to a guy she thought was dating her because of her money to a few where it was just weird – and she and I travelled through Europe together and she is completely able to adjust her plans to fit her companion’s budget).

       In the end she married someone else with millions (earned not inherited). She says it makes it much easier because neither is secretly wondering about the other, their prenup went both ways, and they have very similar values around money.

       My own experience is that people coming from very different financial backgrounds/ classes can have real issues. Those are not fatal to a relationship but can cause problems, particularly when it comes to raising children. And I have seen parents with money go to significant lengths to be sure that “their” money does not become their daughter-in-law’s money.

    5. I don’t come from private jet and nesting doll yacht (never heard that term before today!) money, but my parents are very affluent – think paid for my private college in full, we traveled internationally a lot growing up, they’ve saved ~$10M for retirement and are now putting aside money for their grandkids’ education, etc. They cared not at all about how much money my future spouse or his family had. They cared more about education, just because education is such a paramount value in our family and they believe spouses who share values generally have better success in marriage. I don’t think they would have excommunicated me if I’d fallen in love with a plumber, but I think it would have been a shock for them in a way that a highly-educated person from a poor background would not have been.

       I will say that when I got married I was concerned about my husband’s family somehow accessing my parents money. I didn’t feel any need for a pre-nup with my husband because we were both basically $0 net worth when we married, but I was worried that my husband’s parents (who are both less affluent and way less fiscally responsible than my parents) would basically become destitute, ask us for my inheritance and my husband would want to give them more than I was willing to give, so I wanted that money to be in my name only. At my urging, my parents saw a lawyer and set up some sort of trust that makes the money just for me, not joint property for me and my husband. To be clear, i will be delighted if my parents spend all their money before they pass away or give it to charity, and I inherit nothing. It’s theirs to spend and I don’t need it. But I didn’t want to inherit it and then wind up in a situation where my husband’s sleazy parents were able to get their hands on it. Because deliberately going broke and expecting to live off us if they found out I inherited $5M is EXACTLY the kind of stunt they would pull.

       1. “But I didn’t want to inherit it and then wind up in a situation where my husband’s sleazy parents were able to get their hands on it. Because deliberately going broke and expecting to live off us if they found out I inherited $5M is EXACTLY the kind of stunt they would pull.”

          This makes perfect sense to me, as I know people who will not only spend everything they have, will spend everything everyone else has, too.

    6. I have posted before about a former neighbor who divorced her (maybe) cheating husband who had a lot of family money and took a huge step down in her standard of living (no children; no alimony because he did not “earn” that much). His parents and grandparents had set up their trusts with a clear eye toward excluding any spouses who married into the family, especially if there was later a divorce. So clearly there was some amount of suspicion on the subject.

       I am comfortably upper middle class and my family money is limited to enough to get my kids through private college with no loans (my grandmother had a house that appreciated a lot and left the proceeds specifically to pay for my children’s school – there may be a little left over but probably not even $100K. My oldest (adult) daughter has said that it sometimes causes issues that she does not have student debt (people make assumptions that she is a spoiled brat) and that she clearly has different values around money than some of her friends from different socio-economic backgrounds. So I would have some concerns about her marrying someone from a really different background – that I would dutifully keep to myself because it would be none of my business.

    7. “As a single in her late 30s, I’m wondering whether those who come from money would share their feelings about their child(ren) dating or marrying? Do you consider whether that person would come from money or a certain background or pedigree?”

       Not at all. My husband’s father came from a middle class background and did exceptionally well; my father came from a working class background and did exceptionally well. So there’s no “pedigree” of any sort. I just want my children to marry good people that they love. I would hope that they would be hard-working and not spendy, but that’s not really related to money or earning power. If one of my children married someone with student loans, I could see paying off student loans as a wedding present.

    8. I warn my kids not to marry anyone with a tine of student debt. Why start life in a hole. So far they have sussed it out early on the ones in a lot of debt and been able to move on quickly.

12. I posted earlier about coming from a more modest “family money” background and perhaps it was that modest level of inherited wealth that meant it did not influence my partner choice. My husband was a poor immigrant (on Medicaid and food stamps) and it didn’t matter to me. Our finances are 100% combined and it hasn’t been a source of tension that I inherited $200K right before we got married. Maybe it would be different if it had been $20 million – hard to say. I also grew up going to small, poor, rural public schools and where my UMC family was probably one of the wealthiest around. It’s possible I could’ve ended up being more interested in dating people with money if I had been exposed to them more.

    1. Nesting fail, supposed to be in respond to the post at 4:01.

       1. 4:06 and on second read, I see that the post was about your children dating, not you. Oh well, I’m done Interneting today clearly.

          1. I’m interested in the personal dating stories, even though that wasn’t their original question, so thanks for sharing!!

13. I know this is random, but not sure where else to ask! We bought our house 3 years ago. In a neighborhood of older (1920s), small, modest homes. So, fences on three sides are pretty…decrepit. We’d like to replace in the next few years. We are friendly but not close to neighbors.

    Any recommendations on how to approach this topic with neighbors? Especially because in two cases (back and one side neighbor), we’d really prefer changes to current fencing. Currently with side neighbor it is half falling down wooden fence, half short chain link; we’d like wooden all the way through, full height. Currently with back neighbor the fence is on our property line. There is a utility easement between the properties. We’d really love if the back fence could be a couple feet closer to the neighbor’s property (still in the easement). Should we offer to pay for the fence ourselves if we can have our preferred changes? This would NOT be insignificant to us financially, but doable. How to start the conversation? Thanks in advance for advice. This seems basic but talking $$ with neighbors is uncomfortable….

    1. When we replaced a fence, we showed the neighbors the design (full height wood) and offered to pay for all of it; they said “great” and offered back to pay for half! I think we accepted – part of the deal was that the ‘nice’ side would be facing their yard and not ours.

       When you describe the “utility easement”, I am thinking that the easement runs across their property, but it is still their property. I don’t think you’ll have much luck trying to move the fence off of the property line *into their property* unless the property lines are different than I’m picturing them.

       1. Yeah, OP, if you want a bigger backyard, you need to buy that land from them. A utility easement doesn’t mean you get to just do whatever you want there.

          1. Yes, this is what an easement is — permission that an owner grants someone else to use their property like this. The easement isn’t “no mans land,” it is either your land or your neighbor’s.

             As far as the conversation about replacement, I’d frame it as perhaps everyone would enjoy a little more privacy and upgraded lawns now that we are home more, you’re looking into replacing with X design, would they be willing to contribute?

    2. Just give the neighbors a short and sweet heads up that the work will be taking place. I’m unclear about your second situation. You want to move your fence off your property? That doesn’t seem reasonable to me, but maybe I’m missing something?

    3. It’s your fence? Just do it and give them a polite heads up about doing the work (although I promise you lots of people wouldn’t even do that…). There’s no $$$ to discuss. It’s your cost.

       I’m in real estate and I do not follow your second comment re: easement.

    4. We have neighbors who did basically what you want to do, but went about it the entirely wrong way. They never told us they were putting in a fence, and it is technically on our property (the easement belongs to us). It’s also … a very bad fence and started falling down almost immediately. And then they got chickens. And a rooster. And another rooster …
       All this to say – just talk to them. It would have gone a long way with us if they’d just knocked on our door and let us know what they wanted to do.

    5. Not sure if you will check this again, but here is what we did. I’m assuming your side decrepit fences are shared? (I’m not following the easement question so I won’t comment on that one).

       We shared a side fence with a neighbor that was literally falling over. We felt comfortable approaching them and asking to split the cost with them bc to any reasonable person it was clear it needed to happen. We also did not think this would be a big financial burden on them based on what we knew about their situation, and it wasn’t as far as I know – but of course if they had said, look we can’t do this at this exact moment, we would’ve understood and figured out what to do from there. HOWEVER we did get several bids, and while one cheaper bid’s work seemed “fine” and our neighbors were happy to go with them, we chose to go a more premium route. In that case we asked them to pay half of what the cheaper bid would have been, and we paid the rest ourselves.

       THEN on the other side we wanted to replace the shared fence at the same time even though it still was functional, just to add height and look better. In that case we paid for it all ourselves since it was not really necessary, although we did of course give them a heads up and walk through what it was going to look like since it would be shared, money exchanged or no.

       Not sure if these are the right answers, and we obviously paid more even though the result was everyone got much nicer fences, but not sure what the right alternative could’ve been.

14. So, my father is having significant health issues. We have a complicated, sometimes fraught, but close relationship. He has no other close family (estranged from sibling, I am his only child, he and my mother divorced when I was very young). He does have friends.

    Looking forward. Has anyone decided…not…to have any sort of memorial service, funeral, etc. for a loved one? My father has asked to be cremated and ashes scattered. I am an introvert, I am not particularly into ceremony, neither of us are religious, so to be frank, I would not plan/hold a service for my own benefit.

    Has anyone simply not done this for a loved one? Have you done anything else instead (like, some sort of “announcement” to friends and family? I have a supportive husband and small children but I will be alone here in terms of making decisions. If timelines matter, he is declining but we are probably not looking at anything soon (i.e., COVID may not be an issue). I just like to have considered logistics well ahead of time.

    1. Yeah, my family has done this several times and it worked well. We had a handful of family be there to scatter the ashes and that was it. I felt like that approach was truer to our family (no one likes ceremonies/sad occasions). In your father’s case, I’d recommend scattering his ashes somewhere meaningful and maybe inviting his closest friends to be there if they’d like.

       1. +1, my family has done this as well.

    2. I’m drawing a blank on the specifics, but I have definitely seen announcements that said “no services” or “no funeral was held” or “memorial held for immediate family only”. Can you ask him his own feelings without upsetting him?

    3. I’m sure a funeral director/employee could assist you with wording, but maybe an obituary in the newspaper plus brief comment/announcement that no funeral will be held/or a private family service/internment only will take place at such and such location according to the deceased’s wishes.

    4. Absolutely.

       My Mom is sitting in a simple box in my Dad’s bookshelf, surround by books. Her death was too young and after an awful, painful struggle with aggressive cancer. The people who were important to her all contacted her when she was living ( and dying…) and if they didn’t, to be honest, we had no desire to see them now.

       We will also do the same for my father. He has already expressed a desire for anything to be donated that “still works” or could be helpful. If he can donate any organs, that will be done. If he can’t, he wants whole body donation to our state program that donates the deceased to medical research. They mail back the cremains in a few months. That is what we did with my Mom as well.

       My family is not religious.

       I have siblings. Maybe some day we will decide to do something more than keep my Mom (parents?) among the books. They liked books.

       Having a “Memorial” just with your husband/family where you scatter his ashes, or do it yourself in a month, a year, 10 years etc… all sound good to me.

15. I know this has been talked around in circles, but what are folks doing about rsvp’ing to weddings that are still happening? I don’t mean going/not going, but more how to say not attending delicately. I understand “not attending” is a complete response but it doesn’t feel like enough for a friend.

    1. If your friend is the type to be having a wedding right now, then there’s probably nothing you can say that will feel like a good enough explanation to her. I would select not attending, send a gift, and leave it at that — no need to waste my breath on people who live in an alternate reality.

       1. This is unfair. There are ways to have a wedding responsibly right now and simply having a wedding does not mean you’re living in an “alternate reality.” If you’re having two hundred guests in a ballroom with no masks, yes, that’s irresponsible. 50 people outside with masks and distancing is very different. This situation is not ending in the next couple years and may drag on for far longer, and it’s unreasonable to expect people to postpone their weddings indefinitely. It is reasonable to expect them to scale down those celebrations and make them safer for everyone. OP gets to determine her own comfort level and can decline anything she doesn’t want to attend but her friend isn’t automatically a terrible person for wanting to celebrate a major life event.

          1. Postponing a wedding amid a global pandemic is actually not an unreasonable thing to expect. You can still get married without the giant party FYI. No need to put your friends in this position.

             1. An invitation is not a summons. You aren’t doing anything wrong to your friends by inviting them to a celebration of a hopefully once in a lifetime milestone, so long as you gracefully accept when they decline. I would be delighted to celebrate a close friend or family member’s wedding right now if I felt like they were approaching it cautiously and I know many other people who feel the same way I do. If you don’t, you’re free to decline and if your friend is a reasonable person they’ll understand and not hold it against you.

          2. 50 seems like a lot. I would really expect people having weddings to limit it to their parents, siblings, etc. How do you get 50 people out of that?? In my family, we’d get to 15 tops.

    2. “We don’t feel comfortable traveling/gathering in large groups right now, but that doesn’t change how happy we are for you.” Gift. Done.

       1. Ew. No. No commentary that suggests judgment about their observation of Covid protocols. “I am so sorry we are going to miss out on this celebration. We will be there in spirit and wish you the best. Here is a blender.”

          1. “We don’t feel comfortable traveling/gathering” is not a judgment on them. No one is not-traveling AT someone else.

             1. I disagree, LaurenB. I think the suggested wording does carry an implicit raised eyebrow, so why take the chance? Sorry we cannot be there but wishing you a lifetime of happiness, here’s your blender conveys the same information with no chance of upsetting anyone – I would go that route.

          2. LOL I’d be genuinely pleased if someone ended their rsvp to my wedding by bluntly stating, “Here is a blender.’

             1. Me too!

    3. I have no hesitation in the absence of a pandemic saying “not attending.” I send a gift regardless. I.Hate.Weddings. I am all good with marriage, though, so happy to acknowledge it with a gift.

    4. I said “I wish we could be there. Congratulations and best wishes!” And then I sent a generous gift from the registry.

       They understand that many people aren’t comfortable coming due to covid, believe me.

       In the case of my family member, I’m just now seeing all social media posts from the wedding (“covid wasn’t going to stop us from partying!”) and no one is distancing or wearing masks. I’m so, so, so glad we didn’t even think of attending.

       1. Yeah, I actually don’t have feelings either way on this topic but I think the idea that any wedding – even a small outdoor one -will observe social distancing from beginning to end is a fantasy – particularly if booze is involved. Even if that is the couples best intention, and the ceremony is spaced out or whatever.

          If I was debating going to one I would assume that would end up being the case, at least.

    5. Honestly, just marking “Not attending” and writing “Congrats!” on the RSVP card is more than a lot of people do. You would be surprised how many people can’t be bothered to RSVP at all. But if you want to go above and beyond, send them a sweet note like “We’re so sorry we couldn’t be there in person, we’ll be thinking of you on your wedding day and wish you all the joy and happiness in the world!” and/or send a gift from the registry. I wouldn’t say anything about Covid, they know why people are declining.

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