Coffee Break: Breathable Cotton Pillow Protectors

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1. Have any feds heard about crackdowns and layoffs for those working remotely or out of regional offices?

2. Cute summer sandals but you have a baby bunion. Does anything like this exist?

   1. My Birkenstock Arizonas entirely conceal my bunion. Don’t get the narrow width Birks if you have a bunion.

      1. +1

   2. https://www.barkingdogshoes.com/category/best-shoes-for-bunions/

      Barking Dogs is always my go to for my problem feet.

   3. do you want to conceal it or not have things rub against it? i tend to prefer birkenstock gizeh for not rubbing.

      1. OP — no thong; need a horizontal strap or X shaped.

   4. I have a wider forefoot and prefer th-ng style sandals so I don’t have to worry about a strap fitting *just so*

3. what is your favorite indie/social media bra? i think mine is evelyn and bobbie but i’ve tried a lot. underoutfit was a disappointment, so was honeylove.

   1. True and Co, if those count.

   2. not a SM brand but a SM rec led me to this one, which I love for being a bit more supportive than True & Co but just as comfy- “b.tempt’d Women’s B.wow’d Convertible Wire Free Bra”

4. I am the mentor partner for a mid-level associate. She does great work and handles some of her own matters. She never hits her billable hours. They are typically between 70 and 85% of the required hours each month. She enters a lot of miscellaneous time entries to reach her full time hours each day without any descriptions (so I cannot tell if they are administrative tasks or just not working).

   I am meeting with her to discuss various things, including this. Other than making sure she has enough billable work and that she is not self-editing her billable time, is there anything I should be asking?

   1. I think this is where you provide guidance on the importance of billable hours and hitting targets, as well as strategies for doing so and options for work that doesn’t include high billable hour requirements.

      1. +1 – have you been asked to speak with her about this, or are you intuiting that this is something you should talk about as her mentor?

   2. You talk to her about strategies for finding sufficient billable work. Maybe that means making introductions in other offices. If there’s not enough billable work that way, offer to pitch in on diligence, doc review, or other things for a few hours a week – better than nothing even if slightly junior for her experience level, and shows she understands that she needs to bring $ in.

      If there’s none of THAT then she should be offering to help on presentations, white papers, and other value-add stuff.

      If this performance is new… maybe she’s job hunting and figures she won’t be around come bonus season anyway so who GAF? If that’s true, then as her mentor you might be able to make some (quiet) introductions to clients or prospective clients that are looking, which is a win win for firm and associate.

      1. This was my thought. Why bother to bill to 100 if you’re leaving soon.

   3. Tell her to ignore partners who tell her the client is cost conscious or who complain that she’s billing too much. You make sure she’s billing for “administrative” tasks like following up with people, drafting email updates to the client, leaving a message for opposing counsel, etc. Ask her how she’s managing her transition time.

      At her level I’m almost certain this isn’t a capacity issue it’s a time management issue.

      1. This! I was at big4 and we were required to eat time a lot. They said be honest and then you would have pressure to underreport.

         Research for a client specific matter is billable to the client. Not just the first hour. The whole time. I’m first generation in this type of working environment and had no clue nor an ability to understand the nuisances.

   4. Ask her why she thinks she isn’t meeting hours! Ask her about the miscellaneous time entries, and how she’s spending her time, and etc etc. All the other guidance is helpful too, but you probably want to tailor your advice to the actual issue. However, be prepared for her to not give you an honest answer, which is frustrating, but human nature–if she’s just being lazy/doesn’t want to work that much, she’s probably not going to tell you that. I had this conversation a couple weeks ago with an attorney in my office and he told me he didn’t have enough work, which was decidedly incorrect and honestly kind of frustrating and unexpected to hear, but I pivoted and tried to understand where he was coming from. Anyways, all this to say that ideally you’d understand what the issue is, but it can be challenging to parse out whether it’s a work ethic thing or an issue with not properly tracking (or both).

   5. Assuming it’s an option, be prepared to discuss whether she can keep her current workload and drop her salary down to match it. A lot of lawyers would prefer to make less than to work more.

5. What’s the best piece of professional advice that you’ve ever received? (Big or small)?

   1. Always CYA by keeps the receipts/documenting everything

      1. +1 I meticulously file all emails and it has saved me so many times.

      2. We have a federal client who was legit crazy and filed a negative review chock full of lies for our company in an official system. Fortunately we sensed it early on and have ample documentation proving her wrong.

   2. thinking about how others would look good (or save face) can often be extremely helpful in getting things done

   3. Don’t make a big announcement about your work-life boundaries. Just quietly do your thing and cover your work as needed for vacations. A big “hey everyone, I leave at 5:00 sharp” is rigid. Getting your sh*t done and leaving when you want to is competency.

      1. As an addendum – the more goodwill you can build up the easier it is to have flexibility. I view it as a bank – the more good work I can bank, the more capital I have to withdraw when I need something (kid is sick, need to leave early for a doctor’s visit, flexible working arrangement, etc.).

      2. 100% this. And put in the effort to help when you can so you have the flexibility to leave when you need to.

   4. Of you think someone else s wrong or proposing something that’s going to fail, seek to understand their thinking better instead of criticizing it head on.

   5. Never put anything in writing that you wouldn’t want splashed across the front page of the New York Times. (Advice given to a baby 1L during orientation – it’s stuck with me forever.)

      1. +1 as a PR person, we say this to every single partner we media train and yet you’ll still get one person who loves the sound of their own voice speaking to a reporter on the record….

   6. Pause, breathe and think. Refocus on your goal and how best to get there.

   7. The further you move up the corporate ladder, the more f*ed up you will see that it is. (From clerical worker to SVP in my career and this has held up).

      1. gawd yes. I used to think there were smart adults who have a plan running things at the top…the closer I got to the top, the less I believed it. they’re all flying by the seat of their pants, and then using business speak to “pivot” instead of fail.

   8. As an attorney, the most important people in the office to keep happy and on your side is the admin staff/paralegals.

      1. Addendum: As an attorney, develop a working relationship with opposing counsel’s staff, especially if opposing counsel is hard to reach, not diligent, etc.

   9. Never go into the lunch hour. Always recess right at noon. Maybe once a month or so there will be an urgent reason to go into the lunch hour, and in that case ask all the supporting players (clerk, bailiff, court reporter) if they agree. Generally they will say yes because you’ve built up good will. And if they say no, go ahead and break at noon.

   10. Never rely on your own brain. Never think “oh I’ll remember to do that tomorrow” because eventually you will be juggling too many things. Write it down. Add calendar reminders, etc.

6. How closely do you keep your checkbook balanced? I have a spreadsheet of our checkbook register that I’ve had for 15+ years. I compare the withdrawals and deposits between the online banking and the spreadsheet a couple of times a month, but haven’t balanced them for years. I’m confident the bills are being paid because I check those monthly. I check the bank online records against the spreadsheet, highlighting each row that is recorded at the bank. The balance in the actual checking account is now much larger than the spreadsheet version; I assume I had some error in deposits and formulas at some point. But the idea of actually tracking the errors down in this spreadsheet sounds awful and clearly I’m never going to do it since it’s been on a to do list for years. Any thoughts on what you’d do? start over with a brand new balance? ignore the discrepancy? It’s like a nagging thing that is just mostly annoying to literally only me since I’m the only one who sees it, but I think it would be good to be able to actually balance.

   1. It is simply not a thing I do, even though I’m sure I’m supposed to.

   2. Never. We scan for suspicious charges and no more. Credit is frozen and we don’t write checks if we can avoid it.

   3. I never understood what balancing a checkbook accomplishes, to be totally honest. I have most bills on auto pay, and I check my account regularly and make sure there aren’t any unexpected charges. I always thought you balanced your checkbook to keep track of your balance, but there is online banking now.

      1. not meant to sound flippant, I just grew up with online banking and in a country where checks aren’t done. I sincerely don’t know.

      2. It was from back in the days when people wrote a lot of checks. So you’d have checks outstanding and also no convenient way to check your balance without going to the bank, so you needed to balance your checkbook to know how much money you actually had once those checks were processed. I honestly don’t think it’s needed anymore, and I work in finance.

   4. I’ve never balanced a checkbook. The overwhelming majority of deposits and withdrawals from my checking account are virtually (paying credit card bills and property taxes, paychecks and Venmo deposits) so it doesn’t make any sense to me to keep tabs on physical checks specifically. I keep tabs on the online account, especially if it’s getting low, to make sure I don’t need to transfer more money in.

   5. I’m in my mid 40s and I’ve never in my life balanced my checkbook. And I’m actually someone who pays a fair amount of attention to my finances, with spreadsheets to track spending and net worth. But I don’t see any point to balancing my checking account.

   6. I check my bank account every two weeks to confirm direct deposit paid correctly, and while in there, review the last two weeks to make sure all expected tr-sactions are correct (like if I was expecting a bonus payment, ATM withdrawals, mobile deposits or ACH payments, tr-fers to investments, etc).

      I’m honestly not sure what else there is to “balance”? I’m old enough to remember needing to write checks for a TON of stuff when credit wasn’t as prevalent, and you only got a statement in the mail once a month to verify against your own handwritten record, so it was an exercise of sitting down at the table and cross-checking. But who needs to do that now?

   7. I use accounting software (Quickbooks pro) for my personal accounting, and balance to the penny every month. That level of precision isn’t necessary, but I do it anyway because balancing is simple and easy, and it ensures that all my expenses got entered. That means my budget numbers are accurate, and it’s the budget I actually care about.

      If I were you, I’d just enter an adjustment entry to get the numbers to match, and then carry on from there. I’ll scour spreadsheets at work, looking for errors, but not at home.

   8. Never, it’s a relic from a pre-electronic era

      1. + 1 – I carefully balanced my checkbook as a college student in the late 90s. I still have the check registers. But I barely ever used my debit card back then. It was all cash and checks, so it was so much easier. And electronic access was barely a thing. You had to wait for your monthly statements to see if you didn’t. Once online access became a widely available thing, I gave it up.

   9. I use YNAB and check/update it daily, and reconcile (same as balancing a checkbook) every week to 10 days. I have tracked every penny since I got my first paycheck at 15 and now have 23 years of spending data (I used Quicken before YNAB existed).

   10. Oh this is the best, you guys are making me feel much better that this isn’t an adult thing I need to do. Thank goodness. Sounds like we’re pretty normal.

       1. i used to file bills and things like that because that’s what my parents taught me to do and then someone here was like, why bother, everything is online or electronic, and now i just toss them in the garbage. so liberating!

          1. Ooh that’s legit. My hack for paper is that I just throw everything paper into one file box – not filed, it’s all just stacked in there – and label it with the year. I have the space so it really doesn’t matter that the boxes are stacked up for a while.

             But really, the trash would be fine. we totally never need anything out of these boxes. I’ve bought land three times, built a house/construction loan, gotten a mortgage…all without needing to dig through the boxes for any records.

          2. This was a crazy story, but about 5 years ago a friend was selling her house and when she contacted the electric company to shut off the account they claimed she had never paid an electric bill in the 30 years she had lived there. They were billing her some insane amount of money and holding up the property settlement. Her bank was helpful with the recent online payments and she dug thru boxes of old bills and canceled checks to prove the early years. I think about it every time I shred an old bill or canceled check.

   11. I don’t balance it like that. I review my credit card bill to make sure that there isn’t anything unexpected, and the bank does highlight large or repeated transactions.

       Every month when I get my paycheck I pay all bills at once so I know how much I’ve spent and how much is left over. I also move some to savings/investments etc.

   12. Weekly. Or I should say that DH does it weekly. It’s a habit that’s been ingrained in us, but we started banking in the 70s, so it’s just a holdover. If I were you, I would start fresh and clean. But keep the old spreadsheet.

       1. Oh yes the old spreadsheet is handy! So easy to use the search and find what we paid in insurance last year, etc. I also have old tabs with old 15 year old budgets – I never look at them but today I was looking for something and stumbled across one – it’s kind of fascinating.

       2. Honest question, why? I mentally know the handful of checks I write per year and can see if they cash instantly and everything else reconciles daily online.

          1. So it sounds like you look daily in order know it reconciles daily, DH looks weekly. Balancing a checkbook is just checking to see if the account reconciles. We keep an Excel sheet that does the math and he has some system of marking which entries are still outstanding.

   13. Maybe one of the online services like the old Mint would be better for you? You can still see all recent purchases and put them into categories, but everything syncs automatically.

   14. Why would you even do this at all? I write like 4 Checks a year max.

   15. You are missing a vital step of what balancing a checkbook involves.

       It’s one thing to keep up with checks you have written and your balance. It’s another thing to balance your checkbook with your budget.

       The former is no longer necessary now that we can all go online to pay bills. The later is very much needed for any household. I am shocked by the number of friends who don’t have a hard budget.

       1. Eh, we make plenty of money, don’t need one that requires being strict about it.

          1. I think a lot of people have a budget, but either using a spreadsheet or budgeting app. So the act of balancing your literal checkbook is just one approach here. Unless you meant it metaphorically, aka going over your budget?

             1. No, I mean we don’t have a budget. We make plenty to cover our expenses and bank an entire salary. I simply don’t worry about it. I know what we spend on what but I don’t budget.

             2. my comment nested differently from what I expected. It was meant for the previous poster who seemed to equate checkbook balancing with having a budget.

                I agree that everyone should have A budget but mine is not that strict either.

             3. 90% of the time I would rather live like a miser than track numbers in a spreadsheet.

       2. Everyone is different. I kept a hard budget for my first few years out of law school when I was trying to pay off my student loans as quickly as I could, and then I tried just paying myself first and not budgeting the rest – and I realized that I spent less without the budget. When I had a hard budget, I always spent up to my limit; I’d see that I had X left on, say, April 25, and spend the rest in the next five days. Without the budget, I would pay myself first (the aforementioned loans, savings), and then just not really worry about the rest. I often ended up with money left over, that I would then use for extra loans/savings, AND it was nice not to be tracking numbers in a spreadsheet all the time. 15 years later, with the loans long gone, that method still serves me very well.

7. Any recommendation on a vitamin C serum/cream for sensitive skin?

   I currently use mild products – Cetaphil face cleanser 2x a day, CeraVe lotion 2x per day. Tretinoin at night. La Roche-Posay sunblock in AM.

   Anyone use a CeraVe Vitamin C serum or similar? What results do you think you have seen?

   1. I use Klair’s Vitamin C and I think it has significantly improved the melasma near my hairline, and I think it generally helps my overall skin texture. I definitely miss it when I don’t use it for a few days (I tapered off of it when I was adding tret to my routine, my skin looked so dull and rough for a couple weeks while I ramped down on all my actives, so I can’t attribute it all to removing vitamin C).

      I’ve worked my way up to using actives most nights, usually alternating between tret and vit C 5x/week (I’ve pulled back to give my face a break every few days because I was having issues with dryness). My tret mix includes niacinamide, and my favorite face mask also includes this ingredient. I do a face mask 1x-2x/month at most, and usually bring it when I’m traveling for conferences as a mid-week pick-me-up.

      My skin tends to be dry and dehydrated, so my AM routine is mostly moisture and hydrating products. I love hyaluronic acid as well, so that’s a daily application in the mornings.

   2. have you tried Mad Hippie? that was the one I used when I was pregnant and I really liked it.

   3. We use similar products. I use Medik8 vitamin C serum and do not recommend it. I decided to stop using vitamin C altogether for a while, and now use niacinamide instead (also from Medik8) and it’s been good for my skin.

   4. I have fairly sensitive skin and have also been using Cetaphil face cleanser/Cerave lotion.

      I have been using the Paula’s Choice Vitamin C + Ferulic Acid, which I like a lot. It’s drops, and I typically just mix a few drops with my moisturizer in the morning. I also liked Vitamin C from Timeless, but the dispenser broke for me after about a week. I use the RetinAL serum from Avene (baukuchiol + niacinamide) at night.

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