Coffee Break: Slim Paris Barrette
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I was just reading that barrettes are having a moment, and I love the huge selection of colors and patterns that you can get at Machete. I've pictured their slim Paris barrette in a relatively boring tortoise, sure, but they have so many interesting blues and marbles and malachites and more.
Most barrettes are $32-$38, but some are on sale. You can also find a smaller selection at J.Crew.
Sales of note for 10/12
- Ann Taylor – Flash Sale: 40% off full-price purchase + 60% off sale styles
- J.Crew – Friends & Family Event, 30% off for loyalty members (ends 10/12)
- J.Crew Factory – 50% off at stores and sitewide, 20% off $150+
- Lo & Sons – Fall Sale: Up to 40% off
- M.M.LaFleur – Fall Refresh Event, up to 25% off (Try code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off on other items)
- Nordstrom – 6,200+ new markdowns for women (Also, weirdly, they have the Fall 2026 Chanel collection, which I feel like is a first for them, but it's like a catalog for you to call for an appointment… very strange.)
- Nordstrom Rack – Extra 25% off select denim (ends 10/12) + up to 50% off DV by Dolce Vita and more
- Old Navy – 40% off everything (ends 10/12). Also, the Old Navy x Altuzarra collab is here! All sizes (up to 4X!) of the blazer in the collab is still available.
- Talbots – Friends & Family Event: 30% off your entire purchase
- Theory – End of season sale is on with extra savings (new prices are marked)
Do you like it when guys order for you? I feel retro that I love it when my husband does.
No
I like when anyone orders for me or the table, nice and efficient.
Like when you discuss what you want and then they place the order all at once? Or when they assume what you want and order for you without asking? If the latter, no.
The latter sounds awful, but the former doesn’t help me out or save me time or anything— and could end up taking more time between discussing and having to correct if the order isn’t placed properly or the server needs clarifications. It seems silly to me.
Different strokes and all, but no. I don’t want my husband to do this.
Hard to explain this idiosyncratic distinction. I don’t like if someone (including husband) orders an app and entree for me. But I’m perfectly happy to abdicate all responsibility for the entire meal to a server to just bring the whole table food with no decisions required when trying a new restaurant.
Like, because I decided what I want, told him, and he conveyed my wishes to the waiter because I needed to run to the restroom or something? Sure, I guess that’s more efficient.
He might suggest something if he thinks I might like a dish, or if he’s running through a drive thru and they are out of the item I told him I wanted he can pick something on the fly. But at a sit-down restaurant, deciding that he is going to just run the show and order for me without my input? Hell no to that kind of controlling power play.
Depends if they do it right. If we discussed in advance what we want and they’re just parroting what I said, fine, efficient. If it’s my husband who should know what I enjoy and he knows I’m tired and don’t want to think and orders something that I like, it’s wonderfully romantic. In any other circumstance, NO.
Nope
Depends. If we are sharing everything, then yes, I think it makes sense. Along the same lines, if we both are getting a tasting menu / prix fix menu, and he just says “we will both take that”, then I am fine with it. Otherwise, I prefer to order for myself.
No.
Have literally never had this happen in my life but I would be OK with it if he asked permission/had some valid reason. “I know the owner and what he thinks the best things are – could I order something for you I know you’ll love?” versus “My wife will have the salmon” without so much as a heads-up…
No. I have strong food aversions and allergies and it would almost certainly result in something I can’t eat.
Yes assuming he’s ordering what I want – my DH would never just decide what I want and order it. We regularly go to a restaurant and I always get the same thing. It’s a place where you order at the counter. I always go sit down and he handles the rest.
yes, DH is much better at ordering than I am and I’d rather eat what’s in front of me than think at all about what to order.
He started to order for me after I ordered jasmine tea on a coffee date, forgetting, again! that I don’t like jasmine tea – he had remembered from the previous dates that I didn’t like it (even though I love the “sound” of “jasmine tea”.)
He also just knows a lot more about food and wine than I do (he is a SAHD and does all the cooking/wine buying for our household) so knows what I am likely to enjoy even if I haven’t had that specific thing before.
Of course I order for myself if I’m out with anyone except him, but even then I’m happy to take the recommendation of the server or my dining partners and love when someone orders an app for the table.
Lol no, absolutely not.
I love when I show up after DH and he already ordered my go-to drink. But absolutely not for food.
It depends on the guy. I have exes where it would have been a control thing, but I also am currently dating a guy who genuinely does it from a caring place. So the former, absolutely not. The latter, I enjoy it. One less decision I have to make. He knows what I like and what I don’t so fine by me.
I would hate it, but who cares! You love it and found your person!
Does anybody have a work grudge you’re still holding years later? Here’s mine, spurred by the discussion about taking PTO on the morning thread: When I was an associate at my Medium Sized Law Firm, I never took all my PTO, so by the time I was up for partner I probably had at least 4 weeks saved up. And then I made partner, and of course there was great rejoicing.
But wait. This was all in California, where your vacation is a vested property right and when you leave a job they have to pay for accrued vacation. And technically, when I made partner my employment ended (and I became a part-owner of the business). So I should have gotten paid for my accrued vacation. Did I? Of course not! It didn’t occur to me until much later, but… sheesh! The least they could have done was to apply it toward my partnership buy-in.
That was more than 30 years ago and I’m still mad.
Anybody else still fuming about a long-ago work incident?
It’s wild to me that in order to have at least 4 weeks saved up you had to have not taken much PTO! I get 4 weeks vacation (and 3 weeks sick) every year.
People had a lot less PTO 30+ years ago. My dad was an attorney for the state and had 3 weeks and that was considered very generous; all the private firms had less.
The flip side of this is that 30+ years ago people weren’t reachable after they left the office. So when you were out, you were really out. Some professions like lawyers still worked long hours, but there wasn’t an expectation of 24/7 availability like there is now.
Yeah, we got 10 days a year vacation and I think same for sick leave, and sick leave carried over but wasn’t paid out upon termination.
And no, we weren’t expected to be available 24/7. I’d work until the wee hours but nobody was texting or emailing during that time. (Texting didn’t come in until after I left the firm.) Voicemails on the office line were about as bad as it got. We worked a LOT but when we were off, we were off. Which was what made it so hard to take PTO.
We had a 2 year old during covid, whose (employer-run) daycare was closed from March to September 2020. My employer had really generous Covid leave for parents who lost childcare, it was at least full pay for your 12 FMLA weeks, it might have even been for longer than that. I wanted to take it but my boss and grandboss begged me not to, told me I was indispensable and if all I could give was 50% effort they’d gladly take it over me going out on leave. In hindsight it seems so foolish but I believed them and tried to work while being the primary caregiver for my toddler, destroying both my mental health and my work reputation in the process. I was let go a few years later. I’m in a much better place now but I’m still so mad at them encouraging me to bust my b*tt for them and then penalizing me.
Argh. I’m sorry that happened to you!
I’m enraged on your behalf for this one.
Unless firms give actual billable credit for using your PTO, it’s not really worth much.
Not so in California, it is accrued wages that have to be paid out when you quit. I understand your day to day point but it’s absolutely got a monetary value here. And at law firms, you rarely have to use it so you can bank a lot unless your firm does the unlimited scam.
Yes to all this, especially that unlimited is a total scam.
I thought pretty much all employers in CA offered “unlimited” PTO to get around the need to pay out.
How could you ‘bank’ a lot? Aren’t most firms use-or-lose? (I did get my unused PTO *for the year* paid out when I went in-house, which is normal even not in CA, but it’s not like I got 20 weeks’ worth thanks to all I didn’t use during my overall tenure.)
Agreed that unlimited is the worst possible option.
I believe in CA, the law is that you can rollover what you accrue in one year so there is a cap to total you can accrue. I got paid out for my hour once when I hit my cap.
Employers can be more generous than the law requires, but not less. It was a while ago now but my Big Law firm let us accrue 3 years worth of PTO (we had 3 weeks per year) and I did get a nice payout when I left.
This was a very long time ago before firms got wise to putting in unlimited or use-it-or-lose-it policies.
Fortunately at my government jobs it was use-it-or-lose it, but they really wanted you to use it so I did.
Hmmm… I just did a little research and use-it-or-lose-it is illegal in California. However it’s not illegal for there to be a cap on accrued vacation. https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/faq_vacation.htm
You just reminded me that my last firm short paid my vacation when I left years ago and I’m annoyed all over again. It was one of many things.
I was promised a higher bonus percentage at my last job, but my then-boss took back that promise when they adjusted the reporting structure at year end and put me in a different management tier on paper. However, when I left 6 months later, I realized she forgot that I wasn’t supposed to be fully vested in the company 401(k) for several more years. My entire amount, including the very generous company match, was available to roll over. Kept my mouth shut and considered it payback for the missed bonus.
Ha! Love this!
A former firm refused to reimburse me for a $1500 flight that I booked on my personal card because I quit before the trip. This was a small firm that didn’t have a travel agency or company credit cards. They reasoned that I could just cancel the trip and keep the flight credit. It took me over a year to use the credit (Covid). Eventually the firm dissolved. Turns out they had major financial issues – they were so late on rent payments that they were almost evicted from their space.
I’m not actively fuming about any of these but they do come to mind immediately if I hear of anything similar from anyone else:
When the law firm I worked at in Boston tried to get people to come in on the Boston marathon b0mber lockdown day, even though there was a shelter-in-place order and the T wasn’t running
When my boss weaseled out of a maternity leave benefit I was entitled to under state law under a very weak technicality that to this day, I’m sure I’m right on. She screwed me out of accruing PTO during my legally protected leave.
When another company dragged me through four rounds of in-person interviews and then ghosted me when the government shut down.
“When the law firm I worked at in Boston tried to get people to come in on the Boston marathon b0mber lockdown day, even though there was a shelter-in-place order and the T wasn’t running.”
WHAT???
Yup, they took anti-WFH mentality to an extreme, way back in the day.
Not exactly the same, but I worked for a firm that called in all employees after a hurricane, as soon as the power in the building was back on. Lots of people were still without power so staying with friends or family well outside the city. Daycares and schools were still closed. The roads were still dangerous, as they were cluttered with downed trees and downed power lines.
The only people who showed up were junior associates and support staff. The handful of associates worked quietly in our offices, and there was pretty much a weekend vibe. The support staff didn’t have much to do. It felt really sh*tty to be required to do something that literally none of our bosses were willing to do, particularly since they were more likely to live close to the firm and have shorter, less dangerous commutes.
On the day of the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, we were waiting until the end of the day to file (or maybe not file) a complaint on the day the statute of limitations was going to run out. The city was literally burning all around us — I could see it from my office window — and I wanted to get home to my preschooler, but the partner (who was conveniently not in the office that day) insisted I stay until we got whatever phone call we were waiting for. Okay, the phone call came, the decision was to file, I called the attorney service to have them pick up the complaint, and they informed me that the court had closed early. Grrr.
The time I missed celebrating my two friends’ engagement the night it happened with them, because of some dumb internal deadline on a consulting case that was horribly mismanaged by my inept direct supervisor (who was still quite junior).
The time that I was going to structure my maternity leave in a certain way that all the men at my firm did because it had a clear financial advantage (but was incredibly hard to pull off as a birthing parent), and the most senior woman in my group told me twice one-on-one that I was taking advantage of the firm for doing that, despite the fact it was the de facto leave policy of men.
I had been back a week from mat leave (so all PTO was used up) when my father unexpectedly passed. Our HR director wrote the rudest email reminding me that I would be docked pay and that I was “skating on thin ice” by taking any leave in response to my initial email stating I was taking two days off and I understood that I would be docked pay. He was thankfully pushed out a few weeks later after a whole string of crazy drama.
Please say more about the whole string of crazy drama! I made popcorn.
I already commented upthread but this reminds me of when two different places I worked at refused to let me use ONE day of bereavement leave to attend the funeral of family they deemed not close enough (in both cases, it was an uncle). At one of those firms, the same supervisor who denied me that day off granted it to one of her special pets to attend the funeral of a friend’s mother. I don’t dispute that the friend’s mother could have been an important figure – my issue is with the inconsistent and inhumane application of the policy.
Years ago, I had some projects that I was doing for work. My manager insisted that I run things by her before they went to her manager. But she would send everything back with edits, time after time after time, that I literally was not able to get them in shape to send to her manager.
This is not a skill issue; I never had this problem at any company I worked for. She was being picky for the sake of being picky.
By the time she let one of these projects go through to her manager, the GC, the GC changed everything back to the way I had done it originally. Then my manager pulled the same routine with the next project, and I ran out of time to handle the endless back and forth before the due date. She then nailed me on my performance review for it.
Lady, you eventually just have to let something go. It’s an internal project for our team (think, company policies and training documents). No one outside the company is going to see this.
My then boss called me when I was in another state for my Grandmother’s funeral. This was back in the olden days, and I had a Blackberry as my workphone, and the relatives I was staying with in the country only had dial up. The boss was FURIOUS that I was not responsive on emails, despite being out for a funeral. I grew a spine, yelled at her that I was not available because I was grieving, and there was no service where I was staying in the country and would she like a photo of the cows to prove it?
I raised it with my more senior boss when I got back and had the satisfaction of a begruding apology. But my god, what a lunatic.
This is SO petty, but the accounting department at my former firm questioned the $1.50 per night “Javits center” charge on my hotel bill. (1) I was not the first attorney to ever travel to NYC. I can’t imagine that they’d question a man about this, let alone ask him to use billable time to explain a less than $5 charge. (2) Let me Google that for you. (3) It was pretty clearly a tax since it showed up in the list of tax surcharges on the bill. (4) My secretary didn’t even bother to try to answer the question.
I’m usually very responsive to nearly all emails but that’s one I’d certainly be ignoring.
I was working full time, and was admitted to a part-time MBA program. My company did not have an education reimbursement program, but fortunately I received a partial academic scholarship and was paying for the rest myself. I completed my MBA with honors, and was so very happy as it was a lot and I’d been really stressed with a demanding job, travel, and school.
A few months after I finished, my boss told me the company decided to pay me back for my MBA tuition pro-rated over three or four years. Of course, I was quite happy to unexpectedly get thousands of dollars! However, I found out that same afternoon that a male colleague was admitted to an MBA program, which the company was paying 100% for, and had arranged part time work for him. Management and their (lousy) HR had designed and approved all of this for him. When the company president heard about paying tuition for this guy, the president offered that this was a really good way to get sued and also not fair, hence retroactive payment to me.
I received one payment, and subsequently left for a better job so forfeited the rest.
Two immediate family members passed away within a year while I was working for one company where I had been working for several years with excellent feedback. After the first death, management sent flowers and the head of my dept sent me a nice note. Crickets after the second death. It was like I had used up all their sympathy. My immediate manager gave me permission to work remotely for a couple of months after the initial death, still working fulltime, while I helped out family. I was up for a promotion that year and the head of the dept cited the remote setup as the reason they decided not to promote me. The inference was that I was not sufficiently dedicated even though the arrangement had been approved and I continued to meet all metrics.
I am a few jobs on from that org and doing very well but it was extremely upsetting at the time. On the plus side, it really drove home relatively early in my career that your employer is just that, and I set very strong boundaries between work/home life now.
A slightly more senior associate threw me under the bus to a partner and client when I was a junior M&A attorney. I had been thrown under the bus before and since in situations where I at least somewhat deserved it or I understood the deal dynamics requiring a scapegoat, but this instance was uncalled for and undeserved.
We’re both partners at different firms now and I am still holding this grudge and will have my revenge when the time is right.
When I was a baby BigLaw lawyer, I received a performance review from a senior associate on a case that I was tangentially involved in that was so detailed and so personal that I swear it was for the wrong person. The partner conducting my review was just as confused as I was and told me to ignore it because it would be removed from my file.
A few years later, the same senior associate became a junior partner at another firm and sent some emails and LinkedIn messages trying to convince me to join her there, even though we had still never spoken in person and never worked together beyond that one project. I politely declined.
I’m not sure if this counts as a grudge, but it was definitely one of the more baffling experiences in my career.
At the last company where I was in-house, they insisted that they could not give me a bigger raise than the standard merit increase. When I left, they paid the guy they hired to replace me $40k more and he got a 5% hire bonus target than I had. I was furious. It helped me negotiate my current salary however, and I’m at market now, but man was I pissed.
Oh, the day I got a stern talking to at my top BigLaw firm because I had two taxi home charges in “one day”, and I was accused of some kind of misdeed. I worked until 3am, took a taxi home, went back to the office in the morning and took another taxi home that evening, I guess a few minutes before midnight. So yes, two in a 24 hour period.
OMG that is bad. I hope they were very embarassed when you did the math for them.
Searching for holiday gift ideas. Due to marriages, divorces and general boomer emotional immaturity, DH and I have many sets of parents that we typically buy the same gift for in bulk. Looking for non-descript generic nice gifts in the $200 to $400 range- slightly nicer than a corporate gift. Past years have included various subscriptions (newspaper was popular), the bird feeder camera, therabody products. I’d do a Coravin this year but I don’t think any of them have ever saved a bottle for more than 48 hours. (And, yes, I know all that background was likely unnecessary). Any ideas I’m not thinking of?
Holy cow that’s an insane budget for other adults! No judgment but WOW holidays must be crazy expensive for you.
+1 this is more than I spend on my entire family cumulatively.
Fancy slippers and weighted blankets? Snow removal service?
Is food an option? I’d go with a bakery box from Williams Sonoma or a fancy ‘hamper’ full of different items. Costco has lovely choices but I bet the name recognition of Williams Sonoma is better with this audience.
It’s not glamorous but my boomer parents love their foot massager. I believe it is the Miko shiatsu. I admit I love it after a long run too. They were also gifted the arke bubbly water maker and use that constantly. It’s like a prettier soda stream. My family fights over alpaca throw blankets from restoration hardware. Good luck!
We are Boomers and we love our Arke fizzy water maker.
How long do the CO2 cartridges last for? Is it fairly user friendly? This looks like the perfect group for the crowd of parents.
It is very user friendly. My husband is the Fizzy Water Committee Chair so I don’t know exactly how long the cartridges last but it must be a pretty long time because we charge up a bottle maybe once every day or two and don’t have to re-order very often at all. Maybe once every couple months. (Internet says a cartridge is good for 25-40 liters.)
Are all of these shipped vs. given in person? If you are shipping, it does not take much to get to $200’s worth of Jeni’s ice cream, which ships beautifully. It’s also something that can be enjoyed well after the holidays. It’s been well received by various of our in-laws.
I suppose wine is too obvious of an answer.
I gave nice casual raincoats one year, and that was popular. (None of my recipients live somewhere that they would already have one.)
What brand for the raincoats?
A monthly subscription to flower delivery — I have gifted 3 months for The Bouqs and it was around $150 (?).
Fancy new towels + towel warmer.
Lux bathrobes run at $200 each.
Yeti coolers.
Necklaces for the moms and stepmoms, cufflinks for the dads and stepdads.
On the Advent Calendar comment, someone recommended the coffee advent calendar from The Roasters, a Canadian company. It looks absolutely delicious and I am thinking of ordering for one of my parents!
Fancy digital weather stations, electronic frames, and delonghi coffee, beautiful wall clocks with multiple international cities where family lives is have all been popular with my parents over the years.
Also sets of amazon socks printed with pics of our kids and their dog/cat on it where an unexpectedly huge hit. We did that plus a cheapie milk frother one year.