Coffee Break: Sadie Boots
This post may contain affiliate links and Corporette® may earn commissions for purchases made through links in this post. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
These pointed-toe boots from J.Crew are bestsellers, and they look great for all styles of office and weekend attire — from conservative offices to business casual to weekend/work-from-home life.
Reviewers note that these boots remind them of the kitten-heeled Campbell boot from a few years ago, but with a chunkier heel and a bit less of a pointy toe. Nice.
The boots have a ton of great ratings, and they're available in sizes 5–12 in regular and half sizes (“H”). Normally they're $228, but today you can take 40% off your order.
This post contains affiliate links and Corporette® may earn commissions for purchases made through links in this post. For more details see here. Thank you so much for your support!
Sales of note for 2/7/25:
- Nordstrom – Winter Sale, up to 60% off! 7850 new markdowns for women
- Ann Taylor – Extra 25% off your $175+ purchase — and $30 of full-price pants and denim
- Banana Republic Factory – Up to 50% off everything + extra 15% off
- Boden – 15% off new season styles
- Eloquii – 60% off 100s of styles
- J.Crew – Extra 50% off all sale styles
- J.Crew Factory – 40% off everything including new arrivals + extra 20% off $125+
- Rothy's – Final Few: Up to 40% off last-chance styles
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
- Talbots – 40% off one item + free shipping on $150+
And some of our latest threadjacks here at Corporette (reader questions and commentary) — see more here!
Some of our latest threadjacks include:
- My workload is vastly exceeding my capability — what should I do?
- Why is there generational resentment regarding housing? (See also)
- What colors should I wear with a deep green sweater dress?
- How do you celebrate milestone birthdays?
- How do you account for one-time expenses in your monthly budget?
- If I'm just starting to feel sick from the flu, do I want Tamilfu?
- when to toss old clothes of a different size
- a list of political actions to take right now
- ways to increase your intelligence
- what to wear when getting sworn in as a judge (congrats, reader!)
- how to break into teaching as a second career
Help! I need a new keyboard. The spacebar on my Logitech K270 has started to stick/not work and it’s driving.me.mad. I bought this keyboard in Nov 2019, by the way, and it’s already crapped out. I’m overwhelmed with options and I hope you all can give me some advice. I’m a very fast typist and want something comfortable and easy/pleasing to type on, fast, for a long time. Noise is not a concern as I sit alone. I need the 10-key number keyboard, and I’d prefer USB wireless capability. I do really love the top row of buttons on the K270 (play/pause, mute, vol up, vol down, home, email, snooze, calculator) but thatseems to be a rare feature. Would love any suggestions, especially any in the sub-$100 range. Thanks!
I have a Microsoft wireless keyboard 850 that does all of that. They look to be cheap online.
I like the Logitech MK550 wave keyboard. It runs about half your budget price. The curve is much more comfortable to me than a straight keyboard but is still normal enough that I can type one-handed without problems when needed.
The keyboard my workplace gave me is a Logitech K350. I suspect it’s just a step up model from the one you had so I don’t know if it would hold up any better. I’ve only had it since April but so far so good. It’s under $50 according to a quick search on Amazon.
I like my Microsoft surface keyboard
Ladies in your 40s and beyond: did you find that your PMS got worse in perimenopause? Signed, want to cuddle in bed with a heating pad and watch ABC Family movies.
Yes. It’s OK to take some sick leave if you’re really feeling bad. That’s my new mantra. Be kind to your body as you’re going through this.
Yes. 100%.
I think from the morning that we are heading into a higher-risk season — outdoor gatherings won’t be easy forever, people’s habits will change, holidays are coming (and why of all years is Halloween on a Saturday this year?!) in general. So if you do nothing different, you may encounter people who have in ways that may impact you.
I got a flu shot already.
Other than stocking up on non-perishables, I don’t think that I am going to be able to do anything else pro-active other than get one of those blood-oxygen monitors (so if it goes lower than . . . 90? 94?, you go to the ER).
My sense locally is that it has become a disease of the young / healthy and has been mild, but local news still reminds us that even healthy teens who initially do well have died. I think we can’t do anything more than continue to mask inside and when close to people who aren’t actual household members and be quick to isolate when you sense that you or a loved one is coming down with something.
I had hoped to personally do a few higher-risk things (isolating before/after, testing if available), but am now putting planning on hold until Feb so we can see how the world is doing without continuing to stir up the risk pot.
Yeah, it’s really tempting to let up the restrictions, but I don’t think I really can. I’m high-risk and I know I’m doing the best I can to protect myself, but I can’t control what others are doing and a lot of people are clearly over it. In terms of preparation, though, I’m focusing more on finding fun things to do to support mental health. It’s been a rough year for those of us in California (we’ve been stuck inside due to wildfires/bad air for a record length of time) and it’s important to find ways to cope so we’re not tempted to go do things that are too risky.
We’re planning to keep our child home from preschool from Thanksgiving to mid-January. Mostly so we can quarantine and see her 70 year old grandparents, but honestly I expect everything to go to h3ll after Thanksgiving. The combination of people traveling and gathering with extended family, and college students returning home from campus to their parents is going to be really bad. Hopefully things will eventually stabilize after the holidays.
It would be nice if colleges provided some kind of incentive for kids to stay on campus over the holidays. My small liberal arts school essentially closed down over breaks. I don’t know what the option was if you couldn’t travel home. I think the dorms were closed. The cafeteria certainly was. While I don’t want to see any staff members forced to work holidays, it would be so much safer if colleges gave the option of staying open and hosting a thanksgiving dinner. I bet a lot of kids would choose to stay. Party on campus with your friends with no classes for a week! Same with winter break.
Most US colleges are ending face to face instruction before Thanksgiving, so it will only be one trip home at least. I don’t know too many parents that would be cool with their kids not coming home at all for the holidays, but I believe it’s an option for kids at most schools to stay in the dorms the whole time. At least it is at the school I work at, but very few kids are staying over Christmas.
When I was in college (large state U) we were on the quarter system, so we were off from Thanksgiving to New Years. The vast majority of students who lived on-campus would leave. If you couldn’t, you paid a small additional fee and moved into one of a couple buildings that were kept open for the interim. I think one dining hall was open.
I am considering keeping my preschooler at home for two weeks after Thanksgiving as well.
How many of these doomsday prepping posts a day do we need? Yes. Covid is real. Yes by all means continue to distance and wear masks. What is the point of this type of post if not to dump your anxiety on the rest of us?
+1. Honestly, I am waaay more anxious about the election than about Covid. The vast majority of people I know who had it have fully recovered.
I’m not personally worried about getting sick, but I still feel like it’s impacting my life. Covid is preventing me from hugging my parents, from traveling, my seeing my BFF in a different country, from going to the theater, my kids are missing all kinds of enrichment programs and special events, etc. So I would really like us to get the pandemic under control so we can do all those things, so I pay a lot of attention to the overall numbers. I have election anxiety too, but partly because I think the election outcome is very correlated to whether Covid gets under control next year.
I think it is helpful to keep current things top of mind. At work, a person had family pressure to go to a very large wedding and then was nice enough to work from home for 2 weeks after. If risk is unavoidable, then what are best / better practices? I feel like it has not really advanced beyond “mask and wash your hands”.
I don’t know that there is consensus on why our cases are up / deaths are down locally other than 1) younger people spreading it and 2) perhaps the most vulnerable have already died or are isolating until this is over and maybe also 3) nursing homes have gotten a lot better. But I’m not in any of those 3 groups. I’d love to see my elderly parents, but that may take until next summer (would involve flying + 2 day drive and (ideally for all of us) bringing along of school-aged children) as they are in the NYC area, or longer. And then next summer is a bit of a musical chairs of people and their germs as beaches and vacation spots open up, so I hope it all just ends, but likely last in line for a vaccine.
Lag, mostly. Cases didn’t start going up again until after Labor Day and it takes a few weeks to die.
Experience. Clinicians know more about the disease than they did in March. Also for the most part hospitals are not overwhelmed.
Yawn. Stop armchair diagnosing everyone concerned about COVID with anxiety. Also, not everyone reads every day. They may think they are posting the first or second question on the issue. If you don’t want to read it, hit collapse.
+1.
Sorry to harsh your mellow, Ivanka.
Thank you. OMG its just too much.
tip: your phone may actually be able to monitor your blood oxygen level. If you have a newer Samsung Galaxy, it’s in the Android Health app (it’s the “Stress” measurement–measures O2 sat and pulse rate). It’s kind of a pain to get the sensor to pick up right if you have a case on your phone, but it does seem to work reasonably well. In an entirely unscientific test, one of my doctor friends had fun one testing with his phone and actual pulse oximeter and they were usually the same or close. (whether you feel comfortable having health info in an app is another question entirely, of course)
With the oximeter, you go to the hospital when it starts dropping rapidly, not when you get to a certain percentage. For most people it may vary between 96 and 100, but if it starts dropping from that to 95, 94, or swinging wildly between low and high percentages, get to a hospital. So many people have waited until they were too sick to be helped. Keep in mind people are intubated in the high 80s percentage, so don’t wait till your blood oxygen gets too low.
One of Trump’s treatments was derived from fetal tissue. Let’s see how that “pro-life” crowd spins this one.
Oh, if it is for the president, it is fine. Besides, they don’t actually care about babies. They care about slut shaming women for having s3x.
Yeah, they don’t care about babies and never did. The hypocrisy is just so astounding on so many issues though.
Yeah it’s such a joke. It’s all about punishing women, not about babies.
Wow, y’all (or you, I suspect) should get to know some pro-life people. Broaden your circles. Expand your mind. Don’t see the other side as evil.
Been there, done that, came back even more disgusted than before.
I know plenty of pro-“life” people, thanks. You only care about the fetus before it’s born. Where’s the healthcare coverage for all kids? The affordable early childhood education? The concern for refugee kids? You make women who get pregnant unintentionally have kids and then you don’t give them or their babies any resources or support. That’s not even remotely pro-life.
I think you mean anti-choice
You didn’t answer the question about fetal tissue therapy being given to the president. Your non answer is more telling than your admonishment.
Pro life is not and never was about babies. It’s always been about controlling women’s sexuality and punishing them for consensual sex. If you’re raped, abortion is ok. If your birth control failed, you have to deal with the consequences. Also, if you really care about decreasing unwanted pregnancies, you should fully support comprehensive sex education and free contraception whether that’s condoms, birth control pills, an IUD, etc. Also, instead of arguing that we should talk to people who are pro-life maybe people who are pro-life should talk to women who have had abortions. It’s incredibly naive, controlling and hypocritical to be pro-life.
I haven’t read enough about it, so I didn’t answer. I doubt it used aborted tissue because they usually don’t. If htey did, that would be problematic for me.
And all of these accusations about me personally are false. I support all of those htings. I give tons of money to charity. You don’t know me.
I never said evil, I said disingenuous and having ulterior motives. And if you’re a woman, shame on you. Just utter shame.
It doesn’t matter if you support those things if you also support forced pregnancy. It’s good to do good deeds, but it doesn’t make you “pro-life” if you do them you are also okay with woman being forced to gestate fetuses against their will. You can’t cancel that out.
Agreed. This is why when posters on this board say things like “we just think Trump supporters are evil, not Republicans who don’t support him”, I really don’t believe them. They just say that to make themselves feel better, but they’re really anti-conservative.
It’s exhausting, and it makes me really not want to visit this board. It’s gone from a place for professional women to a place for uber-liberal-uber-COVID-anxious-listen-to-no-opposing-views women.
I am prolife and so are many of my friends. We value early childhood education, are deeply upset about Trump’s restrictions on refugees (you can look at Christianity Today’s coverage for examples if you’re interested), adopt and/or foster children, etc. I personally have many refugees as friends, and have spent a significant amount of money helping them. I would happily pay more taxes to provide prenatal and pediatric care, reduce to the cost of adoption, etc.
Do you really think that all prolife people hate early childhood education or dislike refugee kids? What? I don’t even know how someone could believe that.
Sorry must have missed the spate of posts you made about the immigrant women and forced hysterectomies or about DT being hypocritical for using an abortion based product or about healthcare for all so kids or their parents don’t die from preventable diseases.
Y’all don’t actually post anything that isn’t pro-life. You just jump on posts that complain about restrictions on women.
Can’t speak for everyone here but I openly think the entire GOP is trash. Trump is trash^2.
To Anon at 3:38 PM– then leave. We won’t miss you. Bye.
57% of the US supports abortion rights, so I wouldn’t really call that an “uber liberal” position.
People I know who are actually pro life and not anti abortion actually are generally pro choice. They want to reduce the number of abortions and do a lot of work to support that – like advocating for things like parental leave, universal healthcare (or if not that, universal prenatal healthcare and child healthcare), subsidized childcare, more support for young parents (women in particular), easier adoption processes and support s*x education (proven to reduce teen and unwanted pregnancies). They don’t spend their time protesting outside planned parenthood and they certainly don’t support the death penalty or celebrate violence in any form. The pro life movement in this country is undeserving of the name. Aside from a very small minority, they are largely anti abortion and don’t care about a fetus once its born.
I honestly despair for our country if ostensibly well-educated women cannot understand that it is possible for other well-educated women to, in good faith, have deep moral concern about termination of a viable pregnancy. I am pro-choice, but I struggle deeply with the morality of abortion.
The moral concern that drives me to struggle with it is the same moral concern that motivated me to fight for LGBT rights when doing that meant I got bottles thrown at me, to represent detained immigrants pro bono, and to spend much of my 20s protesting the death penalty – namely, my belief in the inherent dignity and value of every human being. When a fetus becomes a human being is a moral question, not a scientific one, and not every person who struggles with these questions is a s*x-hating Trump-voting modern-day Phyllis Schlafly. I personally donate to Planned Parenthood, and when I was a high school student got disciplined for leading s*x ed workshops for other students because it wasn’t taught in my state’s schools at the time. My mom is a retired s*x ed teacher. And I still struggle with this as a moral question.
I’ve ultimately decided that given the imposition on the liberty interest of forcing a woman to continue a pregnancy, I’m not comfortable with legally limiting first-trimester abortion or abortion in cases that threaten a woman’s life or health or where the child has a nonsurvivable health condition. But I know women who share my (very liberal) politics who come out on that question differently. Painting everyone who has moral qualms about abortion as the equivalent of an Operation Rescue clinic bomber is intellectually lazy and contributes to the ever-more-poisonous and dehumanizing state of our political rhetoric.
I do know pro-life people. They tend to be very uneducated on the particulars of pregnancy – they are the kind that pass around videos of a baby born in the caul and claim it was ready to be aborted, they are completely ignorant of the various ailments/illnesses that pregnancy can cause or exacerbate. Sorry, not impressed.
cbackson, have whatever thoughts you want to have about abortion, but ivory-tower handwringing about whether it’s moral doesn’t stop women from giving themselves abortions in the third trimester with caustic chemicals. That is what happens if it’s restricted. It does not go away. It does not stop. It just kills more women.
Thanks, cbackson. I appreciate that. I totally see how you can come out on the other side of the issue. I think it’s really, really hard, and for what it’s worth, I also think we should be giving out bc like candy.
I feel conflicted because I strongly believe women shouldn’t have an inquiry into their reasons if they terminate a pregnancy. But I also feel like there’s intellectual sophistry in the “handful of cells” argument or debates over when human life really counts or whether this is a case of taking human life. This has come up before here in the context of grieving miscarriages, and I can’t relate to the people who trivialize that loss or treat it as a projection. For a more extreme example, I used to follow the blog of veterinarian who, when performing hysterectomy on a pregnant animal, would euthanize fetuses individually through the removed uterus, because if she removed them from the womb, they’d be kittens and wrong to kill, but if she didn’t, they’d squirm around in the uterus for hours… This is an example to me of how this thinking can become irrational or even ritualistic. I’m uneasy about eugenics (and I live with a condition that some people are eager to identify prenatally for termination). And with the lowering age of viability, I would rather defend my right to end a pregnancy and control my own body than my right to ensure a viable fetus with my DNA doesn’t survive. If people wanted to invent artificial wombs and “save fetuses,” I don’t have a strong ethical argument for why a fetus that can be kept alive must not be, once the fetus is totally separated physically and the woman is no longer pregnant. (In my view, one sign that many or most politically pro-life people are only interested in forced pregnancy is that they recoil at the idea of the artificial womb.) I don’t find this an easy, obvious issue at all.
If we had widely available, completely functional artificial wombs, the root cause of women’s oppression would disappear. This was a topic of interest in second-wave feminism around the 1970s and 80s. As it is now, you can’t ban abortion at any stage in pregnancy without violating a woman’s right to make her own medical choices. We don’t force men to give up their kidneys to their child in need of a transplant; why do we make women act as “hosts” to a fetus?
Yeah, and that safety issue is another reason why this is such a complex issue. I lived in a country where abortion was not legal, so it’s not abstract for me. But I can’t look away from the fact that some point I do think a fetus becomes human life. So at some point we’re balancing one life against another. How do we decide to balance those two lives? I don’t know how to make that call, which is why I’m pro choice. But the moral issue still exists for me.
If you are pro-forced birth but have zero adopted children, your position is a complete joke.
It doesn’t matter to me if you are pro-forced birth, but give a million dollars a year to adoption organizations. Adoption is not a solution to not wanting to be pregnant.
I’m similar to you, cbackson, in having moral qualms, but I believe that every woman who faces this issue is entitled to have these moral qualms, or not have them, without the government being involved.
I don’t think it’s wrong for a person or a religious group to oppose abortion, but I do think that it is wrong for a government to restrict it more than they restrict any other medical procedure — and that includes inquiries into the reasons for the abortion.
cbackson, I believe that there is no point where the fetus’s right outweighs the woman’s right to bodily autonomy. That’s my bright line. It’s the only morally consistent one I have found because there is no point where I can justify forcing women to undergo (or not undergo) medical procedures. We don’t do that for men, ever, even if it would save their live children (e.g., a kidney transplant from father to son). We can’t do it for women either.
If you believe a fetus is a human being and its life trumps the mother’s choice about what to do about the pregnancy, then why is there an exception for rape? Babies conceived through rape are no less innocent or deserving of life than babies conceived through a loving, consensual relationship. The difference of course has nothing to do with the babies and everything to do with the mother and her behavior – society deems rape victims more innocent than other women who get accidentally knocked up. Ergo, anti-choice laws are really all about punishing the woman for her actions.
Honestly, I know it’s a fringe position at least in the US, but I have more respect for anti-choice people who don’t believe in an exception for rape, because at least they have a logically consistent position that fetuses are human beings and killing them in any circumstance is murder. The rest of y’all clearly just want to punish women for having s*x.
You’re right, lol, how did I miss that you didn’t say evil you just said sl*t shaming and punishing women etc. etc. etc. How could I possibly think that you think I am evil??
Here’s a concept. Grown women get to make their healthcare decisions in conjunction with their doctors and no one else? That’s the position of the AMA and ACOG.
This. They have also given zero f*cks about the immigrant women being forced to have hysterectomies.
But some of them GiVe tO cHaRiTy which apparently makes them not horrible people.
Also much of this “charity” of which they speak is their own churches. Ahem.
Wow, y’all are very hateful. I have rebuttals to these comments but I’m not going to bother. When you say they aren’t pro life they are pro birth because they don’t do xyz, then someone says that she does do xyz as do tons of pro life people, then you say well you’re just pro life so you’re awful. I guess just skip over the first steps and just say pro life people are awful. No need to pretend your complaint is about us supposedly not supporting impoverished children.
Do you or do you not support forced pregnancy?
Thank you, ANON. A quick perusal of any reputable poll shows that only about 50% of women self-identify as pro-choice. The near-unanimity here is a sign of a dysfunctional (and rude) echo chamber.
Lol it’s not hateful to call it like it is. You’re like the white people who think being called racist is worse than actually being racist.
Forced pregnancy is bad enough, but it’s also things like getting investigated for miscarriage or for taking risks (such as treating a medical condition while pregnant)… Pro-life politics are a nightmare.
I respect “pro life” women. You want to carry your life-threatening or non-viable pregnancy to term because you think doing otherwise is wrong? Great, I support you. Have at it. Hope that works out. You want to force other women to give birth against their will because you’re convinced you’d feel differently if you were them? You’re reprehensible, you’re pro-forced-birth and yes, you’re evil to the core.
The origin of the foetal tissue line was the 1970s in the Netherlands, FFS. Which, if you knew anything at all about testing with foetal tissue, would have been taken you like five seconds to figure out.
I don’t understand this comment. So it’s ok because…it’s 50 years old? Because it came from another country? It’s still tissue from an aborted fetus.
If a vegetarian bought a brand-new fur coat, would you think that is the moral equivalent of a vegetarian who was unknowingly given an item that was derived from a 50 year old fur coat?
Don’t bother answering. It’s clear you all irrationally hate pro-lifers, or maybe the hate is grounded in a heap of guilt.
The fur coat analogy seems really off to me because a fur coat is never going to save anyone’s life. You’re basically saying it’s ok that these cells were used to make a tremendous leap forward in science that possibly saved the life of your beloved president, but you don’t want anyone else to have access to the same kind of technology in the future? That’s where the fundamental disconnect is for me. If you are truly pro-life, aren’t the lives of existing human beings more important than the rights of fetuses?
I don’t “hate” pro-lifers, fwiw. I’m personally opposed to abortion and the only circumstances in which I could imagine having one are rape or if my child had a terminal health condition and was going to live a short life filled with suffering. But I am disappointed in people, especially women, who don’t believe women should have the legal right to make decisions about their own bodies. And I think there’s a lot of hypocrisy in the political pro-life movement, including around the stem cell issue. There’s also the issue that outlawing abortion doesn’t prevent abortion, it just causes women to die from illegal abortions so it’s hard to see how it’s not just a punishment for women.
“maybe the hate is grounded in a heap of guilt.”
Hahhahahaahhaahhhaa…how adorable of you, to make up this false narrative in your own mind that people who are pro-choice are that way because they’ve had abortions, and trying to shame people for it. How very typical of fundamentalist conservative thought. Also, how very Christian of you. I am pro-choice 100%; have never had an abortion. You might try talking to people who don’t belong to your family or your fundamentalist church and open your eyes to the idea that everything your Dad and your pastor have told you isn’t necessarily the truth.
… the HEK293 cell line is used in practically every cell biology research lab… that anyone would have issues with a standard research tool that has saved countless lives is further evidence that I will never understand the anti-abortion crowd. Y’all are utterly nuts.
I’m going to push back on this a bit because all this kind of argument does is make pro-life people rally against stem cell research and treatment.
The actual treatment he received did not include aborted tissue. The original discovery many many years ago came from aborted tissue. Since then, it does not use such tissue if I remember correctly. If I’m wrong, someone correct me.
From The New York Times.
“Mr. Trump last week received Regeneron’s cocktail of monoclonal antibodies — essentially, antibodies synthesized in living cells and administered to help the body fight off the infection.
To develop the antibodies, Regeneron relied on 293T, a cell line derived from the kidney tissue of an aborted fetus in the 1970s. At least two companies racing to produce vaccines against the coronavirus, Moderna and AstraZeneca, also are using the cell line.
Remdesivir, an antiviral drug Mr. Trump received, also was tested using these cells.”
“The HEK 293T cells have been divided and widely used by scientists for decades. Scientists no longer consider them to be fetal cells because they were derived so long ago and have kept dividing in the laboratory and changing, the MIT Technology Review noted.”
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-coronavirus-treatment-regeneron-tested-cells-derived-abortion-2020-10
It shouldn’t matter how long ago it was or whether it changed over time. The anti-abortion crowd has repeatedly emphasized that every cell counts and is equivalent to a human life. In fact, I would think they would be even more outraged at the horrendous abuse over a 50-year span.
This. 50 years of experimentation with what the anti-choice crowd consider to be a human life – a group of cells.
Furthermore, HEK293 represent a group of cells from one organ from one fetal kidney that have drifted genomically from “human like” to “human derived” (i.e. aneuploid) and could not in any possible sense be considered to add back up to a human being.
So salvaging something endlessly precious from a fetus that has become a standard tool, used in synthesis of proteins, viruses, study of human biology and used in the development of practically any therapeutic you can think of.
+1
I get this but it basically boils down to “it’s not aborted tissue because it’s been decades since the abortion.” It still originated with tissue from an aborted fetus, and the treatment wouldn’t exist but for the use of that tissue.
Also the company isn’t exactly unbiased here – they definitely want Trump to champion the treatment, so I wouldn’t put too much weight in their PR team’s semantics.
Trump wants to champion the treatment because he has invested a ton of money in the company. That’s why he wants it to be available ‘for free’ by which he means the taxpayer paying his company a ton of money for a product with very little evidence behind it. The grifter grifts onwards. He’s discovered the ultimate grift – directly public funds to useless products.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/05/investing/trump-regeneron/index.html
Has anyone seen how the conservative media is reporting on this? If they are at all? Just curious.
Saying it’s not fetal tissue because of the passage of time like the commenters above. But you can’t get around the fact that the treatment wouldn’t exist but for tissue from an aborted fetus.
I suggest you study the history of medical science. We have learned a tremendous amount from vivisection, which is horrible, cruel, and against bodily dignity, but every single person here has benefited from advances in medical understanding derived from those inhumane treatments. It does not make you hypocrites for wanting vivisection to remain illegal; the proper ethics is to prevent those harms going forward.
Yes, it is ethical to prevent harms going forward – TO WOMEN. This is a 100% serious question: why are you okay with harm to women from unwanted pregnancies, but you’re against harm to cells? You know that women suffer long-term morbidity and mortality from pregnancy; it’s a fact, not a moral debate. Why are you okay imposing that harm on women against their will? I would seriously like to know your moral calculus here.
To Anon at 4:47–it’s the straw man that the “cells are innocent” (as opposed to the woman, who GASP, had sex!!, and therefore, is no innocent). It’s a basic devaluing of women to less than the cells. Emphasis on the devaluing of women, because as we’ve established, there’s not appropriate social safety net to support the cells should they develop and be born as an actual human child. Damn, if men had babies, you’d better believe you could get abortion pills in vending machines…
I don’t think it’s their current position, but I was horrified to learn that the Catholic church used to oppose abortion, even to save the life of the woman, because it was possible that the fetus could be male.
Of course the Catholics needs to save all the little boys for the horrors that await them later.
Ok, if you consider it unethical to use treatments derived from an aborted fetus, I’m glad that you have signed a do not resuscitate order and refuse all medical treatment developed after the 1970s.
Wait you haven’t? You hypocrite!
My sister is planning a wedding for next summer. Plans are to have it be family and friends (so not a tiny event) and she’s across the country from me. She has acknowledged it may not happen but seems like she is expecting that it will. I don’t think I would feel comfortable going unless COVID vaccinations are pretty widespread at that point, and who knows now if that will happen. Should I say something now? Or wait and see in a few months? Part of the dynamic is that I have a small child in school so for me to truly quarantine before and after I’d have to pull her from school for basically a month (2 weeks before trip and 2 weeks after trip) and that’s not realistic.
If you talk to her now, please leave the shaming out of it. People are allowed to want their family AND their friends at their weddings.
I would talk to her now.
I would talk to her now, but just from your perspective, eg., telling her you likely won’t feel comfortable attending unless the vaccine is widely available. Don’t make it a judgment about her wanting to plan a wedding.
Oh my goodness no stop. Don’t let her down gently about her wedding fully a year away! You have no idea what Covid will be like then. Plan to go if at all possible. If it truly is not possible let her know when you know that. Which isn’t now!!
This is bad advice. If sister moves forward with putting down deposits and making plans, she’s going to be reluctant to cancel later on no matter what the COVID picture looks like and will pressure family to honor their RSVP. It’s 100% reasonable to have the conversation now.
It’s being a downer for no reason.
I’d rather be a downer and do the right thing then the other way around.
OP knows her own risk tolerance and gets to decide what she’s comfortable with. She’s not trying to make predictions about Covid. No one knows if there will be a vaccine by then, but it’s fair for her to warn her sister that she won’t be attending if there’s no vaccine – maybe the sister will change her plans and maybe she won’t, and probably she doesn’t need to decide yet anyway, but it’s better for her to have that information earlier rather than later.
Maybe it sounds ridiculous. Maybe we will get Covid under control. Maybe she should think about her sisters feelings. Do y’all even like your families?
Yep, I love my family and I don’t want them to die because they were exposed to my Petri dish of a kid (said with all the love to my kiddo). Everyone approaches this differently, but it’s not “ridiculous” or mean to your family to say you won’t travel unnecessarily before a vaccine – in fact that’s how most people I know feel, although of course some of us (including me) will reassess if the vaccine takes much longer than anticipated.
Your child isn’t in school over the summer.
Could be a child in year-round preschool. Also I think the same logic applies to summer camps and other summer programs for K-12 students.
Yeah I wasn’t precise but it’s preschool. So need to be mindful of not only risk to me but impact on her full class and their families and honoring any travel quarantine restrictions our city and the preschool have in place then.
Please share your crystal ball of what next summer will be like with the rest of us.
Why does kid have to quarantine for a month? Just get a test before leaving and after returning.
My daycare requires 2 week quarantine after out of state travel. Many states (eg., NY) also have this requirement for most of the US. You can’t avoid quarantine just by testing.
Will your state still require a two-week quarantine eight months from now, when your sister is getting married? Can your husband/partner/kiddo’s father watch Kiddo while you go to the wedding alone?
This is your sister’s wedding. Figure out how to make it happen.
NYS requires a quarantine even with a negative test.
Nobody has a crystal ball but if I were planning a wedding in these strange times, I would want to know under what conditions my close family members would be comfortable attending. Sure, the world might look very different next summer (tho most experts think it won’t) but if I were the bride and my sister wasn’t going to come to my wedding as it’s currently being planned, I would want to know ASAP. More information is pretty much always better in this circumstance. If the presence of her sister isn’t a dealbreaker, she can proceed with planning whatever kind of wedding she wants. If it is, she has lots of notice to think about alternate plans.
Also I just can’t with the “it’s your sister’s wedding, make it happen” comments. Pretty much every 2020 bride and most 2021 brides are having their wedding plans completely uprooted because it’s not safe to have large weddings now! If someone is unwilling to scale down their wedding for safety, not having loved ones attend is a logical and reasonable consequence. OP is not in the wrong at all for not wanting to travel to and attend a large gathering in the middle of a pandemic.
what is your relationship like with your sister? and with your parents? is she a lot younger than you? in my case, i am very close with my parents (particularly my mom) and likely would’ve run this by her before talking to my sister. if she is literally across the country, like you would have to fly, then say you will not be comfortable flying or attending events with 50+ people until there is a widespread vaccine, but if you do say something like that, you have to actually follow through with that. so DH can’t fly for work, you can’t fly, etc. or attend other large events. i would also mention how excited you are for, how you’re sure it is a challenging time to be engaged, but to show that you are excited for her. definitely keep the discussion around scientific facts and not a moral judgment of her planning a wedding for next summer. given my dynamic with my sister, if i even mentioned something along the lines of, ‘have you thought about what you will do if you cant do it next summer’ it would be a disaster of epic proportions
Exactly. If you can’t go, you won’t. There is no reason to start this discussion now, a year out, except wanting to make drama.
I think this is the way to go– talk to your mom about and see what her thoughts are. I just went through something similar with my brother’s wedding, and I just really think that when someone is planning their wedding it is hard for them to think about how it affects other people, etc. (And normally, they don’t have to do that!)
If I were her, I’d want to know your thoughts about what’s possible for you/your family. I might plan a different kind of event if I knew it’d make it easier for my loved ones to attend (or that it was unlikely for them to be able to attend).
This. It’s a kindness to tell her what you are and aren’t comfortable with. You’re not forcing her to use the information.
BF and I had one of those “wow we come from totally different worlds” moments, and I thought it might be fun to poll this group. BF and I have always been on the same page that we’re looking for someone to start a family with. I recently broached the subject of timelines. He was very happy to have the conversation, but expressed surprise that I wanted to talk about it. He was under the impression that, for straight couples, the man gets the ring and proposes without ever having a conversation with the woman. I thought maybe this notion came from romcoms/media, but no, apparently he has been talking to his male friends and family members about how a proposal works, and almost everyone proposed to their wife without knowing what the answer would be. I had no idea this was a thing. All of my friends had lots of conversations about marriage and had some input into the ring and the timing of the proposal. BF and I are each equally flabbergasted by the other’s experience with this, so I was curious about this group’s thoughts on proposals.
I think the most mature thing is the mutual agreement to get married and even picking out a ring together. What I hate, though, is the current trend of a staged proposal moment when the couple has already agreed to marry. This is a recent thing, tailored for social media.
Agreeing to marry is the proposal. Not the elaborate presentation the man is pressured to put together.
I known one couple where the wife made the husband stage a do-over because she didn’t like the first one. It’s truly ridiculous.
The whole thing is so theatrical these days. It’s also just furthering the power dynamic with men choosing women, only women being marked by the engagement ring, and so on. I wish most marriage-related “traditions” in our culture would die.
I’m with you. Everyone I know who has gotten married, including my parents and grandparents, discussed it first. Perhaps some of these guys are not being totally forthcoming about the discussion because they think a surprise proposal is more romantic? I know one woman who gave her ex-fiancé a date by which he had to produce a ring or they’d break up. And then when he got the ring she told everyone it was a “complete shock” and was all his idea. So I definitely wouldn’t take all these stories at face value.
Tell us more about this ex-fiance story…..
It’s not that dramatic, all things considered. She pressured him to propose and then he changed his mind a few months later and ended things. A funny thing is that she rushed the proposal in part because she really wanted to get married on 7/7/07. As far as I know she just liked the date, it didn’t have family or cultural significance. She put a deposit down at a church for that day before he proposed. Then she ended up getting married to a different guy at the same church on July 7 of a different year. Then they had two kids and got divorced.
Not dramatic, but insightful. The 07 July wedding was obviously a little more important to her than the groom.
Haha oh boy that’s certainly something. DH and I had a conversation about getting married and laid out terms, conditions, specified expectations etc. If he just randomly proposed I would have probably said no.
I think he’s just a bit clueless.
+1 is your BF clueless about just this or other relationship things too? And even if his circle of male friends did it this way, it’s odd to express true surprise that this happens differently for different people. Not every straight couple is the same? Such a weird thing to be surprised about.
I think if you asked my husband if he knew what my answer was going to be, he would say no. In his mind, there was always a fear of rejection. But we definitely talked about it beforehand (to the point of actually having a huge fight about our future less than two weeks before he proposed, oops).
Not sure how common this is, but I also told him I didn’t want him to propose before I finished college, as I wanted to enjoy each phase of life in its turn. (He graduated a couple years ahead of me.)
I also told my now -husband that I didn’t want to get engaged before we’d been in our new city/new job for a year. And then got a little frustrated with what was taking him so long because I forgot I’d expressed such a timeline when in reality he was ready way earlier but was trying to respect my position. Oops. But yes, we were on the same page about the future, shopped for rings together because it was fun, etc. He really wanted to have that “surprise” proposal moment and I don’t regret letting him take the lead on that.
+1 to your first two sentences. My husband would definitely say he didn’t know for sure what the answer would be but that doesn’t mean we hadn’t had a lot of conversations about what our future would look like
I guarantee that the women who are married to all his male friends and family members did not think the question came out of nowhere as a surprise.
There can definitely be a romantic proposal MOMENT if that’s important to each person, but I wouldnt make a giant life decision in the moment that a ring was presented to me- I would have made that decision slowly, over the course of many dates and conversations and hours spent together. By the time he asks, if the answer is anything but YES, I shouldnt have still been spending time with him.
My fiancé and I talked in depth about our timeline and I would NEVER have wanted to get engaged to someone without first discussing these types of things. We went to 5 – 7 jewelers and did tons of research together before he purchased my ring, and I was with him when he paid for it at a local jeweler. I was surprised about how and exactly when he would propose although I had a hunch) but I knew that the proposal would come within a certain window of perhaps 2 months. Before we got engaged, we talked about our vision for marriage, the fact that I was 100% committed to the idea of doing premarital counseling, and even discussed tentative wedding details (all of which got messed up due to Covid). I love that I can talk to my fiancé about anything and never have to guess where his head is at. Most of my married, engaged, or soon-to-be engaged friends have similar stories.
On the hand, my friend who most recently got engaged was 1000% surprised by her proposal. They had only discussed engagement and marriage in theory and, while she told friends she would say yes whenever he proposed, she was fully prepared to wait another year or more for engagement. I would not enjoy being in a relationship where I had to guess where my partner’s head is at regarding something as important as marriage, but they seem very happy and I am happy to see them coupled up.
Either way, kudos to you for making your wants and expectations known and for having this life-changing conversation with your boyfriend. Congratulations (early)!!!
Ha! My then-BF and I met around New Years. He started talking in September about me coming his big family Christmas and I told him point blank I wasn’t going without a ring and he shrugged and said he guessed it was ok if I started doing a little research for him haha. He proposed 6 weeks before Christmas ;)
You demanded a ring as a condition for meeting your boyfriend’s family?! I can understand having a timeline in mind, but I would never get engaged to someone without introducing them to my family first.
I’m assuming she might have meant that she didn’t want to skip her own family’s Christmas traditions in exchange for his unless they were engaged.
+1
Good grief, ha, no. I meant I wasn’t going to travel 10 hours to the big family Christmas celebration if I wasn’t a fiancee and not just a girlfriend. I had met ~40 members of his family that May for the matriarch’s birthday and traveled the 10 hours to do so; going back a second time to meet ~70 relatives without a ring was a no-go for me.
I was teasing, but there was some seriousness behind it since I had had my heart broken in the past by someone under similar family Christmas/no ring circumstances, which he knew.
One of my friends had that rule after living with a guy for 6 years and then having him tell her “I don’t really see this as a long-term thing.” She had met his whole family multiple times, helped clean his mom’s house for his grandma’s funeral, etc. She had good relationships with some of his relatives and that just made the breakup more painful – she wasn’t just saying goodbye to the guy, but also to all of these people who considered her to be “part of the family” when their relative had no intention of ever marrying her.
After she broke up with that guy, she met her now-husband but told him, “unless you see this going the distance, no offense but there’s no need for me to hang around your family.” She didn’t want to go through another breakup where she had to split with the guy’s family as well as the guy. They got married the next year and are still together 15 years later. Standards are good if they make sense and aren’t just something someone read in an ancient copy of “The Rules.”
There’s a lot of ground between “complete surprise” and “picking out rings together.” My husband knew what the answer would be, but I had no idea that he was planning on proposing when he did (I had only told him a few days prior what I wanted in a ring, which, it turns out, he had already purchased and matched what I wanted).
I think it’s very important to consider what works for both people. I am introverted; it was lovely that my husband drew me against his chest and did not go down on one knee in front of a crowd. For other couples, that would be exactly wrong. I also think it’s very important that it be a lovely memory. There are a lot of parts of marriage that are really hard; it’s important to build good memories together alongside all of the fighting about money and sex and who has to wake up at 3 am when the toddler is screaming. The engagement is kind of a “good couple memory” freebie, so take advantage of that.
If you propose without being certain of what the answer will be, the relationship is not ready for a proposal.
My husband and I started talking marriage and browsing a few rings “just for fun” about six months before he proposed. We didn’t explicitly decide to get married at that point. We had only been dating for a year, which for us seemed too soon to get engaged, but we were on the same page as far as where we saw the relationship going. A few months later, I made it clear that I did not see the need to wait any longer, but he still wasn’t ready. One day, out of the blue he suddenly decided that he was ready too. He bought the ring that day and proposed soon afterwards. I was absolutely shocked by the timing, but not by the fact that he proposed, and he had no doubts that I’d say yes.
I got engaged my senior year of college after dating all 4 years. We knew we were planning our lives together but hadn’t actually discussed marriage. My proposal was a surprise (though slightly suspected) and I kind of loved it. I don’t think either way is the “right” way.
In my friend group – everyone had discussed that they were ready for marriage but the actual day/event of the proposal was a surprise in some cases.
Does he mean that they had not discussed marriage prior or that they didn’t know in that until you ask the response is not 100% guaranteed. My DH said he was still nervous even though he expected that I would say yes because we had discussed timing in the previous months.
I can’t imagine saying yes to someone if I hadn’t discussed with them what marriage would look like for us.
i think everyone i know had a discussion about wanting to get engaged/be married to the person before the ultimate proposal. many were involved in the ring, some were not. most were still surprised on some level on the day it actually happened, but i dont think anyone i know who has ever done the asking or been asked, thought about saying “no”
My college BF didn’t actually ask me but he bought a ring and was planning to propose. I would have said no if he’d formally asked. I did basically say no by telling him I knew about the ring and wasn’t ready to get married. It was horrible and I felt so so awful, but I wasn’t going to marry someone just to be nice.
Ooh, I had the same experience with my college BF!! Apparently he was going to propose the next day. Yikes.
Same but with a HIGH SCHOOL boyfriend that bought the ring on credit.
My husband and I had discussed the fact that we were in a committed relationship that was headed for marriage, but I had no idea when he was going to propose, and I didn’t have any input on the ring (other than a couple off-hand remarks like “I hate silver jewelry”). My ring is very different from what I would have picked out for myself, but I absolutely love it and get compliments all the time.
I don’t know anyone who went the route your bf described. Perhaps the exact timing and location of the proposal were surprises but the women were always involved in designing their own rings and definitely knew it was coming.
I think there’s a difference between “the proposal and ring are a surprise” and “the concept of your engagement is a surprise.”
My anecdata- we were students at the time, had discussed getting married after law school generally, with an engagement at some point maybe 3L year (I assumed he needed the summer associate money to fund the ring). We’d tried on rings together, which was a heady and fun day – we left knowing my preferred cut and setting, but the proposal itself was a total surprise, about 6 months earlier than I’d thought possible.
They aren’t on a timeline b/c their bodies don’t impose them. The grandson of President Tyler just died. Grandson. Three generations. Only just this week. I had kids in my late 30s, but I have nothing on generational spacing with the Tyler family. It’s like Antony Quinn on steroids.
That story was wild! It reminded me of a story I read that a that a few civil war veterans’ widows were alive and receiving pensions until fairly recently.
I saw that! I think there’s another grandson still alive, right?
We had been together for a long time and had discussed marriage over the years. When it was the right time, we mutually agreed to start planning a wedding. More like “if we want to get married next summer, we better get on finding a venue.”
No engagement ring and not terribly romantic, but it felt like a good start for the marriage we wanted. I’m uncomfortable with the gendered cultural norms around engagement, including engagement rings.
I might buy myself some rocking jewelry to mark professional milestones, though.
Proposal and ring? Sure, that can be a surprise! Timeline and decision about marriage? Definitely should not be a surprise.
Ah… Not sure how common this is but my husband thought fertility dropped off for women at 40. This is important because we got married when I was 34. In our original discussions he thought we should have ~5 years to enjoy married life without kids.
Ha I’m with you. In our case we always say “it was less a proposal than a negotiation.”
My husband and I talked about marriage before he proposed. We talked about it before we moved in together actually. But we were young and in no rush. We looked at rings together, but he went back and bought it without me knowing. The actual proposal was a surprise. (And not anything huge–I was watching TV and he interrupted my show. I was initially annoyed lol.) That was 16 years ago. We had a long engagement and will celebrate 15 years next month.
The only couple I know where the man surprised the woman (as in she had no idea an engagement was coming and they had not discussed it) were divorced within a few years. Yeah there’s a reason you don’t marry someone who you hadn’t even thought of in a husband role, you look over a lot of deal breakers that are ok for bf but not for husband.
Anyone own a Schwinn IC4? I’m trying to find a bike that is smart enough to use with a peloton or les mills app but yet not as expensive as a peloton or other high end brands. I used to spin at the YMCA and used the Schwinn spinners they had (don’t know the model, but they were smart enough to display stats). I miss the classes, I desperately need the exercise, and with winter coming want to attempt to recreate a spin workout option for my home.
Before I plunk down the cash, I thought I’d ask if anyone has experience with this model or recommends an alternative.
I like the magnetic resistance, belt drive, and most of the smart or tracking features the IC4 offers. I would prefer the ability to put a pad or phone on the handle bars to stream my workout. I am NOT looking for a bike with a built in screen.
Not a spin bike, but we have a Schwinn recumbent bike that was $600 cheaper than our previous GymSource bike and has lasted much better (works just as well, fewer repairs). Can’t speak for the spin bikes but if the reviews are good, I would go for it based on our good Schwinn experience.
Just got one for the very reasons you’re talking about but haven’t used it yet – I recommend paying the extra money for someone to put it together!
Yes, I have the IC4 and love it. Join the facebook group Schwinn IC4 and Bowflex C6 Riders (it’s the same bike) for a lot of good information. I use it with my iPad and it works great (it sits in the holder nicely). So far I’ve used Peloton (the bike synchs via bluetooth so it shows your cadence on screen) and Les Mills, and I actually prefer the latter. I like the fact that I’m not locked into one platform, and there are lots of other apps to try, as well. The bike is extremely quiet, due to the magnetic resistance. For me it’s been an awesome investment, even though I was new to spin at first. One thing I’ve seen people say is that if you’re just using the Peloton app, it’s not quite the same experience in terms of the leaderboard or display of metrics. Also, for many people the cadence is not 1-to-1, so a lot of people use a conversion chart. i.e., 0 on the IC4 feels much heavier than 0 on a Peloton. It’s not a huge deal to me, as I ride more by feel anyway, and I’m also not super committed to Peloton, but did want to mention that.
I would highly recommend to check fb marketplace or call a few gyms if your place is on longer lockdown. They may be selling off some equipment. The “industrial” versions made for commercial use are most often better than the equipment made for home use. I found a new Precor Spinner Chrono Power top of the line bike on marketplace from a gym that was selling bikes off after a 1w show/event. Love it beyond anything, use it daily from Feb this year with Les Mills Trip. One gym i went to for a spin class had Schwinn, but this one is so much better. It is magnetic, flywheel is heavy, it is very stable and sturdy, comfortable seat, lots of space on handlebars (for 2 bottles and an ipad). Good luck!
I’m the one with the IC4 who posted above – just wanted to say I love Les Mills Trip! It’s really my favorite. It might be because I’ve never done live spin classes, so I have no real loyalty to the digital “traditional” spin classes, I just like the cardio and strength challenge that the bike gives me, and the Trip makes it so much fun.
For what it’s worth, the IC4 is also magnetic, the flywheel is very heavy, there’s a big space for the ipad, plus 2 water bottle holders, and it even comes with two weights with holders (I think that’s geared towards Peloton users, though). In my opinion you get a lot of bang for your buck. :)
Home Depot will custom cut their blinds to whatever dimensions you need at no additional cost in the store.
Thanks! I need some new blinds for my bedroom window. We’re repainting our bedroom, and I tore down the ugly old blinds without a plan other than, “Well, I’m not hanging those back up.”
I just got blinds.com faux wood 2″ and they look nice. They weren’t that much more than the cheap options.
Poll: if a non-medical person has an N95 mask at this point in time, are they a jerk? Can you wear one running errands or going to doctors’ appointments? Still feel guilty from March when I didn’t give the one I have to a doctor friend.
I think it would have looked a bit tone deaf (although not egregious) back in March/April when the supply chain was severely limited. Now, most health care systems are not reporting a mask shortage, so I think it’s completely fine.
It’s totally fine. Are you worried about the optics or are you asking if you should donate it to medical personnel? KN95 masks are ubiquitous (they’re sold at my local hole in the wall convenience store) and the appearance is pretty darn similar to N95.
No, it was fine to have one then and it’s fine to have them now. Stockpiling hundreds was what wasn’t okay.
I assume anyone wearing an N95 has a medical condition that necessitates them wearing an N95, and am glad they have one so they feel comfortable being out in public. I hope that’s what others think of me when I wear one (I had about 20, which my doctors told me to keep), which is only at doctor offices/hospitals. When I first went to the store again in May, I wore them every time. Now I wear a tightly fitting Vogmask or KN95 masks.
Sloan Sabbith, where do you get the KN95 masks? I’m a bit concerned about counterfeits on Amazon.
I got the Covaflu brand. It’s an Amazon Launchpad brand that’s been around for 10+ years, and their descriptions aren’t clearly poorly translated from Chinese.
Tbh though I prefer the vogmask. It fits tighter and feels more protective.
Just make sure if yours has an export vent you still put a cloth mask over it to protect others.
Not a jerk, yes, use it. My mom had one sitting around in her garage from years ago that she used when the pandemic started. It was loosely wrapped in plastic, so she couldn’t have given it to anyone. She used it and nobody said anything. Like someone said above, it was the stocking and hoarding that was bad, not using one or two if they’re laying around.
I think it’s fine. I have one leftover from CA wildfires. I used it once for a doctor’s appointment and I’ll probably use it again for voting (I have to vote in person). I’m low risk and I understand the N95s have a limited life, so for normal daily wear (daycare drop-offs, weekly grocery shop, outdoor activities with my family) I just wear a cloth mask. But I wouldn’t side-eye anyone in an N95.
Same, leftover from the wildfires…
FYI I offered a box of N95 (five masks) to my ER nurse friend in March. We had stocked up after the last CA wildfire season. She told me to save them for my family and that we would need them for the next fire season. So we did, and we did.
Don’t feel too bad about it.
I’m in a bit of a career funk and could use some advice. I’ve been a lawyer for 15 years and went inhouse after 7 years as a litigator. I was at my first inhouse job for 6 and 1/2 years. After about 3 years in that job managing litigation (which I thoroughly enjoyed), I transitioned to a transactional practice (marketing,advertising, contracts) so that I could work more closely with the Business. I had an awesome experience, worked closely with our CMO and CIO, felt engaged and generally happy. I felt like my role was important, valued, etc. But, 3 and 1/2 years later, while I LOVED my job and my company, I knew that I was ready for new challenges and a promotion. Those things did not seem likely at my then job (it was very flat, 50+ lawyers, not a lot of room for advancement, and I was ready to be something more than Senior Corporate). Sigh…I wish I had just stayed put.
Long story short, I got a new job, big pay rise (i now make $85k more than I was making at the previous job), and new title (VP). The problem is, I don’t actually feel like i have more responsibilities/authority in my current job (I have been in it now for 2 years). Despite the bigger title and money, I feel less engaged, less motivated, like i am doing less “big ticket” work, I have less interaction with our senior most executives, etc. I manage a lot of day to day legal work, but when the big ticket work comes, the GC and Deputy GC largely handle, and my role is often tangential. I was warned about this gently by others in the legal team when I interviewed – I was told the GC and Deputy GC are really close and that I might feel like a third wheel. I didn’t think it would bother me as much as it does. And I think it is taking a toll on my self-esteem. The GC and Deputy GC constantly tell me that I am doing great and gave me a significant raise back in March this year, yet I constantly think about moving on and even taking a paycut to go back to a role where I had a bit more authority and influence. A part of me thinks the reason they love me so much is because I am not rocking the boat and not complaining about being left out of key projects. Recently, I tried to agitate to attend the biweekly management meeting that GC and DGC attend (along with other company executives) and was told “no” because it would be too many lawyers attending. One more lawyer is too many?! In sum, my dilemma is this: great pay, great benefits, great title, but work is VERY “meh” and I am unmotivated. I don’t think I am using my best skills or talents. What would you do?
It’s a bit late in the day for comments but I bet if you re-post this tomorrow morning you’ll get some good feedback.
Is there a chance you could promote again to a job you’d like more? That is what happened to me. I work in finance. I was a director but did a ton of hands on analysis. Then I was promoted to oversee multiple departments (some related to finance and some not). I didn’t love it. I did well though and was reorganized (and promoted) to oversee a set of departments that is more engaging and draws on a lot of my experience. It was worth suffering through a couple years.
Can you look for more autonomy as the company changes, like asking to handle the work integrating a newly acquired entity?
You need to find a quality man for a boyfreind. Somehow, all of your complaints will likeley go away if you have a decent guy to come home to and keep you warm at night.