Coffee Break: Double Loop Bag

157 Comments

1. I’m tempted by some of the Cuyana leather goods. What is the quality?

   1. I’ve had the Cuyana leather tote bag for about a year and love it. No complaints and I get compliments regularly.

   2. The quality is first-rate. I have been carrying my Cuyana tote for more than two years and it still looks new.

   3. I have one of the giant totes and love it so much.

   4. The quality is beautiful

   5. I ordered and received this purse (the thread today’s post is referring to). On me, the strap is too short to be a crossbody bag. The pouch part hits me weirdly right at the waist when I try to wear the strap that way, on its longest length. I’m 5’11” and cusp sized so someone smaller than me might get more length out of the strap.

      That said, this is an absolutely beautiful bag, gorgeous in person (I ordered the olive) and I was sad to send it back.

   6. Very good. I had one problem with a bag a couple of years ago after 6 months or so, and they replaced it with a different bag of my choice with no problem. (I didn’t want the original since I thought I’d have the same problem again).

      1. They replaced the strap on my weekender bag many years later when the brass part broke. They even re-did the monogramming on the strap.

   7. Very good quality!

   8. I have this bag in the black and I love it. I’m considering ordering the mini next.

2. Any tips on getting past anxiety with online dating, specifically around my looks? I can’t get out of my own head about it. I don’t photograph well and I feel like I’ll never do well with online dating if my pics aren’t good.

   1. If you don’t feel confident about how you look, maybe a photograph showing you doing something you love would help. When I was online dating (that’s how I met my partner almost two years ago), the picture that really drew him in was a collage I created. My sister was taking pics for my profile and she is really funny and there was a series of me laughing and smirking. We decided to make a collage of three of those pictures and it was a hit. Several men told me they swiped right on me as a result because they thought the pictures were so different and fun. I had several men also tell me that they appreciated that I did not use filters in my photos — they didn’t want airbrushed women who were a surprise in real life. I think the more important thing is to highlight your personality through your profile summary and picture. One of the best books about online dating I read was “Finding love in 90 days.” It’s cheesy but it worked for me. I treated online dating as a job and viewed the platform as an introduction service. Good luck to you!

   2. How mandatory are pictures? I have co-workers who routinely try to find pictures of co-workers and loudly mock them. I am sure that they plan zooms for this — it is such a thing with them that I can’t imagine they abandoned it over lockdown.

      I used to have a no-photo profile for deniability, but am single again and just dreading this. Like backlit profile? IMO guys just want to make sure initially that you are not a million times worse than you represent yourself. I’m not a hottie and not looking for a hottie (and if I were a hottie, I’d expect that an A+ picture of me would unleash a creepstorm that wouldn’t be worth it with the junk you’d have to sort through). I’m like a 7 and would be happy with a charming 4.

      1. Absolutely mandatory. Don’t bother without photos.

         1. Agree. I would never go out with someone without photos. Too risky and creepy.

            1. Why risky? Do you do an image search on the picture?

            2. Online dating is so ubiquitous at this point that I assume anyone without a photo has something major to hide (like a wife). Also, you’re functioning off such a limited data set (name, age, short bio, pics) that if you take pics away you’re left with basically nothing.

      2. You can’t online date without a photo in 2021.

   3. I am a little heavier than I would like to be and I was surprised to find how little that mattered, even in online dating. I don’t like taking photos of myself, and I don’t wear much makeup. So I also felt very intimidated.
      I actually went out with a friend and we took tonssss of pictures of each other for our profiles. We probably took 50 photos each, in 2 different settings – and you only need 1 of those photos to come out good. My pictures are ones that my friend, my sister, or funnily enough, my dad, took – I guess those are people who likely make me laugh or smile, and who will take enough pictures that one will come out good. Or, in the past year, who I’ve actually seen the most.
      I agree that fun photos are important too, not just pretty ones. Photos in which you look confident or outgoing or just like you’re having a good time can draw people in too.

      1. I think this is good advice. Tons of pics, different settings, with someone you trust & who makes you feel good. Only one or two of them that capture your personality are all you need!

         1. and just your regular reminder, that this is how it’s done for professional pretty people. They don’t shoot one photo for the cover of Vogue or whatever. They have a team of people to pretty you up, then a very accomplished photographer takes 200 pictures, and only one ends upon the cover, retouched in most cases.

   4. I can’t link, but check out David Suh. He’s on the clock app and also writes online for buzzfeed. He’s a photographer who just exudes positivity, is very body positive, and gives advice on how to pose.

   5. You don’t look bad in photographs, you just look better IRL. Anyone who chooses to go out with you based on your profile will be pleasantly surprised when they meet you!

   6. People who don’t photograph well often look very nice in video – vivacious and charming and full of mimicry and life.

      You might have more luck with finding better pictures for your profile if you take stills from short videos where you’re engaged and happy and you just choose one second from a longer sequence, than trying to pose for single pictures.

      1. Mimicry doesn’t mean what you think it means…

         1. Ahaha, you’re right – thanks for pointing that out! English is not my first language, and that was a short-cut mistranslation from a like-sounding word meaning an expressive face. Mimicry in English makes no sense in this context, I quite agree!

3. I usually swim at the gym and I’m looking to up my game in terms of what I wear to/from the gym. I’d like to be able to stop in a coffee shop or run into an acquaintance on the way back and like how I look. Right now I’m still wearing my swim team staple of loose, comfy, warm clothes, but that doesn’t look great.
   I think where I’m stuck is that most “stylish” gym clothes these days is tight fitting, and I don’t want to wear leggings post-swimming, but traditional swim coverups like wispy dresses don’t really work to go back through the city either.
   I was looking at an Old Navy tshirt dress, especially as it gets warmer. Is that a reasonable idea? I don’t want it to stand out too much in the gym either, esp among people who are not swimming.

   Yes I know I’m being a bit precious. But this is the site that talked about meeting guys at the gym, and if there is any chance of that happening, I can’t be wearing the sweatpants I am now.

   1. I have a couple of casual cotton dresses dedicated to this purpose myself. It’s just so easy to throw a dress and sandals on afterwards and look presentable. I also think there are some non-leggings pants from places like Athleta and probably Gap and Old Navy that would work, also, but nothing is quite as easy as a dress.

   2. What about the Vuori joggers? Super cute and sporty, not as tight as leggings.

      I wear t-shirt dresses as swim coverups, but only cotton ones and not the weird synthetic that some of the Old Navy dresses are made of.

   3. North Face Aphrodite skirts and pants. Pair with whatever top makes sense.

   4. I see a lot of swimmers leaving the gym in dresses like this: https://www.titlenine.com/p/dress-with-built-in-bra-boss-madagascar/120967.html or the LLBean fitness dresses.

   5. You could try wide-legged sweatpants that look slightly dressed up, like these: https://www.everlane.com/products/womens-retro-jersey-wide-leg-pant-black?collection=womens-sweatshirts

4. My mom who is the sort of suburbanite who came of age when cities were dangerous, so every purse to her is cross-body even in Midtown. But she just wears regular purses that way. The strap on this purse looks too long (like it can only be worn crossbody). Is there some rule of thumb for what is the right strap length for each sort of wearing?

   I have a fanny pack from a practical (not fashion) brand and found that it doesn’t lengthen enough to wear the new cross-body way and I can only wear it the old-school way (so I am going with “belt bag” but it is a sad-trombone fanny pack on me).

   That I am writing a novel about this explains why I default to Team Clutch but now that I have a dog I am realizing that a hands-free bag is really a good thing. I am only so good at pinning things under my armpit.

   1. My life improved a lot when I stopped carrying purses and started buying clothes with pockets. I only care a purse when I am traveling and need to carry a water bottle and/or souvenirs. Highly recommend!

      1. I need deeper pockets, most are too shallow and things go tumbling out onto the floor. I borrowed a man’s jacket with zipped pockets and am forever biased. Zippers on every pocket, please!

   2. I posted above. The ideal length of a crossbody, for me, is high hip. I commented above that the Cuyana featured bag wasn’t long enough for me to wear as a crossbody, but I’m tall and large, so that strap has a lot of real estate to cover. It might work perfectly well for someone smaller than me in both proportions.

      I am specifically looking for a crossbody because I now have a dog as well! I don’t need it for walking around the block with him, but he likes to go places with me in the car (and if I don’t keep him occupied he chews up the house – we’re working on it!)

5. I had an interaction yesterday that left me puzzled and I need to bounce it off someone. I read a post in one of my FB groups from a woman who said “my son just graduated from college, he’s interested in doing XYZ,” anyone know who’s hiring?” (No shade on him for this – I would die if my mom had done that but he may not have known she was doing it.) It happens that XYZ is what I do, and my company has an opening right now, so I shared our job posting and said “have him email me.” He sends me his resume – no internships, no on-campus involvement related to the field, nothing that seems relevant. It’s as if he waited until after graduation to think about becoming employable. This is very different from my experience 20 years ago; from freshman year, we thought about internships and campus involvement as resume builders, and all of senior year was about planning your job search. I had several internships/campus positions over four years, then after graduation I had a summer internship (lined up months before), job-hunted over the summer, and started my FT gig in September. And it’s not like I was so wealthy that I could afford to take unpaid gigs — all my off-campus work was paid. I thought that was pretty much the norm — and I realize there are economic factors at play this year, but he seems so unprepared. Have things changed that much in 20 years, or is this kid just behind? (Or was I more of a grind than I realized?)

   1. Please don’t draw sweeping generational conclusions from one dude.

      1. +1

         My degree program had zero internships, co-ops, or resources. The school offered very little.

         1. Agreed — a lot of first-generation kids think that going to school is enough and it is absolutely not. You have to learn how to work the system. I am an equity partner at BigLaw and everyone at my level reaches out a lot re their kids. They are not letting them fail or fail to get ahead (and definitely relying on their network vs the school).

            1. I’m a first gen kid (in terms of first gen to go to college, not related to immigration) and a summer internship was pretty far out of reach for me. It felt like a fantasy that I could afford to live somewhere other than my parents’ house – which was in a rural area, so no internships anywhere near there – and my parents had never heard of such a thing. I needed to do what I did every summer. Come home, get a part time job, and watch my younger siblings when I wasn’t working.

               Please don’t write kids off who don’t have sparkling credentials. This is how we continue to have diversity issues, among other things.

            2. Do you ever hire those first-generation kids who don’t know what they don’t know? How are your diversity/equity/inclusion initiatives going?

   2. IDK — my stepkid just graduated and COVID made a lot of the good internships impossible to do (so he delivered packages for Amazon and every other delivery service and at least made some $). A lot of career services advice was missed b/c kids weren’t there when they were finally getting religion about needing to do something about this. Co-ops were cancelled. Etc. Where I work, our summer hires were remote, which was a complete joke and we just gave them all offers b/c we will need them due to attrition (vs their own merits, which we are completely unsure about). This crop of grads is the one I’d at least do an informational interview with even if you decide to pass — they haven’t had the high-touch help a lot of them need to launch. It could be there is no interest and the mom is pushing, but the kid may honestly have had no good advice previously.

      1. Yes, I think it’s really important to temper expectations of recent graduates in light of the pandemic. It began their junior year, when a lot of internship opportunities would typically occur. I also agree that internships, networking, etc. can be either unattainable or just aren’t at all on the radar of first gen college students or those whose parents may have gone to college but didn’t do those things themselves. Students who have to work through school can’t afford time off for an unpaid internship, nor do they always have the social connections that can help them attain one.

         My mom was a teacher turned administrator and really wasn’t familiar with that world, my dad was an engineer with an in-demand skill set and got a job out of school after working his way through college at a grocery store. Discriminating in this way can perpetuate a lot of inequalities.

   3. I graduated from college about 5 years ago and had an experience similar to yours and did on-campus recruiting. I also graduated from grad school and internships were stressed for the same reason, although I started looking for jobs in ~February of the year I graduated.
      I don’t think the FB post itself is that egregious. I wouldn’t like it if my parents do it, but if his email and resume had been stronger it would have been alright.

      1. I feel like this is what the Thurston Howells do at the country club, while smoking cigars lit with $ bills. We poors just do it over the internet. “Hire Sally, she is from a Good Family.” “Well, OK then.”

   4. I think a lot of kids are in the boat you describe. Certainly getting internships and experience is a best practice. But I have seen enough resumes from seniors in college to know not everyone does this either because they don’t know, don’t have the resources, or lack the motivation. Does he have some sort of employment or transferable skills?

   5. Was he working significant hours in some unrelated job throughout college, possibly to pay bills? If so, I hope his resume makes that clear. It’s to his credit as a worker, and would also explain why there aren’t more relevant positions and campus activities on there.

      Otherwise, yes it just sounds like he’s behind. Perhaps his mom knows this, and that’s why she’s trying to network for him on Facebook. It won’t work obviously.

   6. Then what was on his resume? Was it a full page? I’m so curious.

      1. Yes, I can’t tell from the post if he didn’t have RELEVANT internships or he just had no jobs/activities listed at all. I think it’s the former and I don’t think that’s fair to judge him on. If you can only take paid internships/jobs, it can be quite limiting in terms of what kinds of jobs are available to you.

         Also, I used my college jobs to figure out what I wanted to do. My jobs ranged from sales, to marketing, to data analysis, to on campus tutoring, etc. I was trying to figure out what I liked and was good at. I used college jobs and an avenue for figuring that out and ended up with a job after graduation totally unrelated to my internships/on campus work experience. I think that is very normal.

   7. In college I worked as an RA and my summer jobs were all whatever I could cobble together for $ in my very small town with high unemployment among adults, so nothing really resume-building other that “can do vast array of mundane tasks correctly for hours at a time with high accuracy and no complaining.” Which is helpful, but not in a bright, shiny penny sort of way. OTOH, merchandising at BigLots tells you a lot about economics and life (and you learn from the FT year-round employees, like how hard it is to be a single mom).

      Nothing available to me would have been resume-building for my job.

      1. My summer jobs in undergrad were about one thing and one thing only – making enough money so I could eat during the school year.

         1. Agreed. Kids who parents are still paying for everything can afford to get internships (which are still mostly unpaid) or spend summers “learning” resume-building things. Kids who aren’t lucky enough to have parents like that work any job they can get during the summer. Why are you faulting this kid for that? Frankly, I would have been embarrassed to list some of my summer (and school year) jobs on a resume for a professional career, but I definitely worked, hard. Did I make a better entry level employee than the kids who parents could afford to fund their unpaid internships in DC? Maybe. Maybe the kid who lived off of his parents’ dime but got to “work” for a senator made a better new employee than I did. We will never know. Seems like someone should talk to the kid and see where he is coming from and what he is bringing to the table.

            1. FWIW, pretty much all of my best entry level employees were bartenders at some point in time.

         2. My husband was in this same position. If he didn’t work, he didn’t eat, and also couldn’t afford to pay his portion of the next semester’s tuition. He had a hard time getting a job after college with his degree because “all you did in school was deliver pizzas.” That was the highest paying job he could get in the small town where we went to school, because of tips. He’s got a great job now but I remember how disheartened he was back then. It wasn’t his fault his parents were poor and couldn’t pay for his school and living expenses so he could go do an unpaid internship.

            1. Another obstacle to internships, paid or unpaid, is access to a car. My parents couldn’t afford the car insurance to teach me to drive in high school, and I couldn’t have afforded a car and insurance and parking during college. I went to school in a big city with lousy public transit, so there was no way I could have had an off-campus job or internship. When I graduated, I had two weeks to learn to drive and get a license before I moved across the country to start my job.

         3. I think it’s also important to remember that even if the summer job pays money, taking that job might involve losing your school year job. It could involve living expenses that are affordable on what the internship pays, but do not leave the student enough money to save for the rest of the year. Many students save money by leasing a big house with other students, splitting the rent and utilities four or five ways. That involves paying rent over the summer, so that is a huge incentive to remain in the college town and not pay double rent.

      2. +2 My high school and summer employment was a hodgepodge of small town part-time and full-time jobs that overlapped and make no sense on a resume but helped me pay for food and books and extracurriculars. Even listing these out seems ridiculous. Who would make any sense of this?

         – Babysitter, my whole life
         – Waitress, intermittent whenever the owners could afford to pay me and I was in town, 2000-2009
         – Backup Receptionist, as needed when I was in town, 2000-2010
         – Bank Teller, summers 2002-2008 (but only on Fridays in 2005-2007)
         – Grocery Store, summers 2005-2007
         – Dorm Front Desk, school years 2005 and 2006
         – RA, school years 2006 and 2007
         – High School Tutoring, school years 2005-2007
         – Fast Food Front Counter, fall 2005, fall 2006, spring 2007 (all different places, they would fire us if we had to miss a shift for a final)

         I graduated into the Great Recession – college internships were hard to find and paid pennies. I had no family connections and needed a livable wage so wasn’t lucky enough to snag one. I was lucky to get a full time job within 12 months of graduation but was barely making it at the end. My resume was essentially blank and had zero relevant experience, because I had zero relevant experience.

         But also, we’ve been in a pandemic. What experience are you hoping he has? Any internships last summer were cancelled. Most clubs and activities were severely curtailed last year and this year. Like most students, just getting to graduation is probably a pretty big accomplishment given all the virtual, haphazard instruction he’s probably gotten over the last 15 months, and all the personal stressors he may have dealt with.

         1. I know that you’re asking rhetorically how to list that out on a resume and how to make sense of it. However, here is what I would do:

            Podunk University Work/Study and Tutoring:
            Dorm Room Front Desk, RA, High School Tutoring (2005-2007)
            (List job duties)

            Customer Service Jobs
            Various Employers (list out) (2000 – 2008)
            (List job duties)

            Change up the descriptions as needed. This is where it’s really helpful to know that resumes can be tailored to one’s circumstances, and reverse chronological order of every job is only worthwhile for those in a traditional career path. It doesn’t much matter if you were working for McDonald’s from 2000 to 2002, and then the bank from 2002-2008. Put the college-y jobs together (RA, front desk, tutoring – even if you tutored on your own) and the customer service jobs together.

   8. I guess you’d have to ask his mom about that.

   9. I’m 15 years out of undergrad but was well aware that it wasn’t just 4 years of fooling around before I magically got a job in my desired field… my summer jobs and classwork reflected what I wanted to do.

   10. I think someone whose mom would do this might be an outlier. I see the opposite-intense resume building from an early age that doesn’t leave a lot of room for exploration or jobs that are not prestigious but teach you a ton about the world (like customer service)

       1. Yup, from my brief time as a high school teacher, this generation is way, WAY more focused on building the right college app and resume. The world is more competitive now.

   11. i work in career services at a well-regarded university. despite our best efforts, there are many students who don’t engage at all with our office and who end up in the situation like the kid you are describing (basically go to class and do nothing else). on the flip side, there are many students exactly like you were who are super engaged and plan ahead.

       1. +1
          I interview and hire college grads for paralegal positions and I see a lot of resumes with tons of jobs/internships and campus involvement. But it seems like kids are getting the advice to leave off jobs they do that are just for the sake of income — retail, fast food, barista, that kind of thing. I always ask about it and most of them have done such jobs and didn’t list them. I think this does them a disservice because I think these jobs are great preparation for being a paralegal in a busy office — if you can keep track of orders for multiple tables at a time, you’re ready to manage demands from multiple attorneys at a time.

          1. Totally agree! I am on my BigLaw firm’s hiring committee and many of our highest performing associates worked retail or food service jobs – law is essentially a customer service field and people who have worked minimum wage customer-facing jobs know how to work under pressure and handle clients.

   12. I graduated from college 15 years ago, and my experience and that of most people I knew, from both private and state schools, was that we started thinking about post-college jobs sometime during our senior year, and often took entry-level jobs that required more common sense than experience or skill. I have friends in a few fields that seemed to require more focus early on–architecture, theater, nursing and medicine, to name a few.

       1. Replying to my own comment–most of us had summer jobs during college, but stuff like retail or restaurant work. I was an after school nanny/sitter during the school year too, but that’s only relevant to office work in a “I can show up to a job on time and keep track of helicopter mom’s detailed schedule and screen time formulas.”

   13. There could be different things going on. Nobody told me I had to do more than have a relevant degree, and honestly, I believe that that’s fine for many jobs.
       Lots of people don’t have the time for unpaid internships or sitting on campus committees, because they work a side job. Maybe he did interesting stuff and nobody told him to put it on his resume.

       1. That was sort of my experience, too, that no one really told me I should be doing more then school, and I never was aware of what I could be doing if I did. To be fair, the field of my major pretty much demanded grad work as well (something I was also pretty unprepared for), so I’m still not sure whether there was really much I could have done (I wound up getting a “just need a degree” job for a while and ultimately went to law school).

          Such are the perils of being a first generation college student, I guess.

   14. Honestly, at least in the wealthier end of society I think kids are significantly *more* likely now to have been cultivating a career-ready resume since, essentially, birth than they were when I graduated in 2003.

       1. I know a mom like this. These kids are getting merit badges in Private Equity and Commercial Real Estate. Only kinda kidding. [So my kids will be filling their latte orders.]

   15. Perhaps the mom felt she had to do this precisely because the kid was unprepared and desperate?

       I think wealthy kids are much more likely to have fancy/relevant resumes. I went to a selective but giant and impersonal state university on Pell grants and scholarships. I assumed that you got good grades in a major such as English that would teach you how to think and write, you took whatever part-time and summer jobs you needed to pay the bills, and then after four years employers picked the smartest and most deserving candidates and taught them everything they needed to know to do the job. No one told me otherwise. It was sheer luck that I was qualified for any job when I graduated; I’d worked in the computer lab and in residential computing and my boss forwarded me a job announcement in residential computing at another college. Now I hire grad student interns and have a child in high school and am amazed at these kids’ resumes. Their parents and/or career services at their small private colleges are telling them things my parents had no clue about. I often worry that I’m shortchanging my own child because I don’t know the system well enough to guide her.

       1. Right there with you.

       2. +2 to almost all of this, except I went to a top private school (non-Ivy) and I still didn’t know that you needed to do more than have good grades (also graduated 20+ years ago, so maybe things have changed now).

   16. He might have planned on doing an internship last summer and had it pulled due to COVID. (I remember being in college in the early aughts and people said that junior year summer was the one that mattered.)

       More importantly, you’re talking about a “FB group,” which says that the kid’s parent’s background is not necessarily clued-in professional. A lot of people don’t know that their kids need internships. Hell, my own father, who pulled down mid-six figures, literally said that volunteering was for rich people with leisure time and not a way to build skills and network. There is a lot of crap advice given to kids, and it’s a tremendous privilege to have parents and professors with insight into what it takes to get a job.

       1. Yeah, both of my parents were professionals with advanced degrees, but in STEM fields where the path (at least in the 1970s) at the entry level was finish degree —> pass licensure —> get paid job after submitting application. They had no idea about internships, especially unpaid ones (which were super common at the time I was an intern in the 1990s). I managed to talk them into it, but I also had to house-sat and did side jobs to pay for living expenses.

   17. Gently, this could victimize BIPOC. Not all opportunities are available to people without your privilege.

       1. Now there’s a sweeping generalization.

          1. Not the person you’re responding to, but the generalization is true. My professional organization did a survey based study about barriers to entry for low income and BIPOC. Some of the barriers were like this – couldn’t do an internship because I have to help the family by earning money in the summer, and part time while school is in session. Never heard of my profession because they didn’t have a successful uncle or aunt (but mostly uncle) who was already in the field. Didn’t know to go to the feeder universities that most of the big employers hire from. Didn’t have a 3.5 GPA (but worked part time and took the bus to school every day, surely that must count for something.) It goes on and on.

             Hiring managers need to open their eyes to implicit bias in their processes.

             1. BIPOC are not the only low-income people, and not all BIPOC are low-income.

             2. Which is why I said low income and BIPOC. I’m sorry your feelings are hurt but these are the actual results of the study, and it was commissioned to look specifically at BIPOC. The low income findings just came out of it. There’s clearly a lot of overlap, which is why diversity efforts are so important.

             3. Anon at 4:21, YOU said low-income and BIPOC. The “anon” at 3:50 did not.

                The issue is that plenty of people know how to play the game and tell their kids how to play the game, and plenty of other people do not. I know college-educated, white professionals who literally did not know that private universities give need-based aid to people who earn a middle-class salary (think, HHI of $110k, kid applying to Vanderbilt and Northwestern). They were – oh, if she doesn’t get merit aid, she can’t go. Never filled out the FAFSA because only poor people get need-based aid. I know a man whose parents knew nothing about college or internships and were just happy to have their kid ago to regional State. (Man got a master’s from Yale.) The amount of misinformation and totally outdated information is staggering. Just read Ask A Manager for the “gumption” advice given to children.

   18. Professor at a large state school. I teach a senior seminar where the students write resumes and cover letters. Based on those, I’d say less than 10% have internships or relevant experience (STEM field). About the same number have really substantial campus involvement, though most have some volunteering (like two weekends in four years). At least half work 20-40 hours per week in retail or restaurants or something else, which doesn’t leave much time. There are also a bunch of slightly older students working in more professional jobs while in school, but l’m not including those as they’re not directly comparable (but important to keep in mind- a lot of college students aren’t just 18-22 anymore).

       1. Please counsel your students to list their rando service jobs on their resumes. It tells me a lot about work ethic, ability to balance multiple priorities, and if you think the mundane parts of the entry level job you’re applying for will be “beneath you.”

          1. Of course! Obviously it would be better if we had the resources to also give them more hands on experience in their field, since this really is pretty essential in STEM, but that’s just not possible given the number of students compared to the number of faculty in our program, so I at least try to get them to recognize the skills they have and highlight those. As everyone here is saying, they have a lot of valuable experience!

   19. I had a similar story to a lot of posters – I grew up in a very different household than many women on this board, and spent my college years nannying and working at coffeeshops/restaurants. I was totally unprepared for the ‘real world’, and only lucked into ‘professional success’ after getting an MBA from a top school after (which I got into largely based on my ‘unconventional’ background).

       1. Honestly, I think working in a coffee shop is far more of a dose of the “real world” than most internships!

          1. Honestly, I totally agree! I’m sure my resume looked exactly like the one the poster is referring too, if not worse.
             Maybe they could arrange a post-graduate internship that had the option of turning into full-time work depending on the person’s performance?

       2. I honestly believe that it should be a college graduation requirement that you work a service-oriented job for a minimum of three months. I did menial customer service jobs for years when I was in college, and they by far prepared me for reality above any unpaid internship. I’m a physician now and my experience especially in one of those jobs, which mostly involved resolving arguments with drunk people, taught me a lot that I use today about human nature. Namely, I have no glove shock when people opt to release their inner a-hole.

   20. I also was in school 20 years ago and graduated summa cum laude in both undergrad and grad. But a lot of what you reference wasn’t available to me. I think a lot depends on the school itself. My school offered nothing for internship matching. I found my internship myself by reaching out cold to probably more than 100 organizations. I also was fortunate to have a family that could support me since I couldn’t live on my small stipend. I don’t think it’s fair to assume the playing field is level. The opportunities during a pandemic also probably look a lot different. I wouldn’t be so fast to hold this against him if his grades are solid.

   21. Yes, this kid is lazy and you were much more enterprising and deserving. There, is that what you wanted to hear?

   22. When I participate in lawyer hiring, one of the things I most value in a candidate is having held a “real” job. I want to know that they’ve had to do something they didn’t really want to do, get along with co-workers, answer to someone (especially someone who they think isn’t as smart as they are), and deal with customers. I am extremely skeptical of the kids who worked at their dad’s law firm in college, answered phones on the Hill for a year, and then had summer clerkships in law school with a human rights clinic thrown in for one semester. Give me a barista or bartender or Amazon driver any day.

       1. +1 million

          1. Could not agree more! I am one of our firm’s hiring partners and have a bias towards people who have worked at least one customer service type jobs!

   23. This is just overall so snooty, I can’t.

   24. That does seem a little unusual but honestly, there could be a million reasons for this, COVID and not-COVID. Maybe he had a huge health crisis in college, a parent died, he had some kind of learning disability that made it hard for him to do anything other than attend classes, who knows. I feel like interviewing and hiring can be such a crap shoot – people I thought would be great were awful and vice versa.

6. I am having a hard time in life right now, and want to give myself something to look forward to.

   Can you help me choose a dream vacation, that will be for me alone, to help me just rest/recover/take care of myself? I am single, no kids, and have never taken a vacation like this. Surprisingly, I haven’t taken a vacation in almost 15 years, and probably wont be able to for several more. But I can still dream, and that is enough for now, and then do it when things change. Maybe a trip of at least 2 weeks? Let’s say, no expense barred. When I go I will be a mess physically as I don’t have time to take care of most things. I can’t remember the last time I shaved my legs, for example.

   I love delicious food of all kinds, music, natural beauty … but unfortunately have had to leave behind most of my hobbies these years because times have been so tough.

   Where would you recommend I go, and why?

   1. With that much time and an open-ended budget, I would do something that challenges you in nature, such as a guided river trip through the Grand Canyon. If rafting is not your thing, I’d consider a dude ranch-style place where you can hike, ride horses, eat good food, and swim in mountain lakes. The point is to do something in nature and something that includes a little bit of risk and some personal challenges. I don’t personally find vacations where you just lay on the beach very enjoyable or restorative.

      You won’t need to shave your legs :)

   2. I would go to Italy or France and do a mix of city wandering and countryside villa relaxing. Like – Rome-Tuscany-Florence. Or Paris-Provence. I can just *feel* the sun on my back as I sip rose in a pretty courtyard somewhere…

      1. I studied abroad in Italy and was based in Florence but hit most of the major towns in Tuscany, plus Venice/Rome and it was hands down the most amazing gorgeous trip of my life. I often fantasize about taking another adult study abroad trip – btw, this is a thing! LOTS of colleges will offer guided ‘study abroad’ trips (for 2-6 weeks vs. a semester) to adults who never got to do them as students and will also arrange your study visa for you.

   3. I would go to the Amalfi Coast, specifically Sorrento and Capri. Natural beauty, good food, nice places to walk around but also not be rushed, and on Capri, resorts to relax at the pool/by the coast.

      1. I did this trip and it is amazing. Sorrento is a great jumping-off point to go other places — small towns up the coast, Naples, Pompeii, Mount Vesuvius. We also did a couple of days in Rome on either end of the trip, which works out very nicely and makes for a varied trip that packs a lot in. You can just take the train into Sorrento from Rome.

         1. Replying to myself to add — We did this trip over 9 days and it was one of the only times I returned to work refreshed (I only pulled one all-nighter while there!). To have had another week would have been a dream. I went with family but would have been super happy taking that trip alone and I did enjoy about 36 hours alone in Sorrento. There are lots of day excursions for reasonable prices that will connect you with people and a guide for some things and perhaps you will find someone to tag along with for a meal or another outing if you are inclined (but you don’t have to be — I love solo travel). Oh – If you do this, don’t rent a car. Driving there is harrowing.

   4. This is my perfect trip. It has natural beauty, loads of amazing food, interesting history and architecture and is not even remotely strenuous:

      Fly into Porto and immediately take the train to Pinhao, enjoying the fairytale-esque views from the train along the way. Stay for three or four nights at the Casa do Visconde de Chanceleiros where you can lie around at their scenic pool overlooking the river and valley and read/tan. Eat dinner at the Casa every night because it is amazing. Let the proprietor arrange a full-day port tasting for you with private driver.

      After about 4 days, take the train back to Porto and stay in an apartment near the Sao Bento station. Take a class painting classic Portuguese tiles at Gazete Ajulejos. Eat dinner at Muu. Go across the river for more port tastings. Wander around the city checking out the tiles and the sights in the river district.

      After I guess 3-4 more days take the train down to Lisbon. Stay in the Principe Real district. Do a food tour with Culinary Backstreets. Check out the Mercado de Campo de Ourique and have some piri piri chicken while there. Also eat at Cervejaria Ramiro, have a drink at Pavilhao Chines, check out the Jerónimos Monastery, and take a day trip to Sintra to see all of the palaces (my favorite being Monserrate).

      1. Well now I want to do this trip, dang!

      2. Not the OP, but this looks wonderful.

   5. A friend went to New Zealand solo and loved every moment.
      I hope you get to go sooner than you think.

   6. Given what you said, I’d look into a trip curated by someone who specializes in food or staying at luxury hotels and asking them to arrange food experiences.

      If you can go in the winter or spring, there’s no beating the food and nature in Northern California, something like: Big Sur/Carmel (nature, maybe spas), Point Reyes (food and nature), Sonoma or Napa (wine and food), Mendocino (nature, some wine, food), and San Francisco (food). Unfortunately, with the risk of wildfire smoke, I wouldn’t plan a once-in-two-decades trip like this in the summer or fall. Winter should be fine, though some years stretches of Highway 1 in Big Sur get wiped out in the rain, so Big Sur might be more difficult.

      It’s totally fine not to shave your legs in Northern California. We’re a pretty casual place—if you want to blend in, just wear jeans and something warm from Patagonia. I’d probably dress up a smidge for a restaurant with more than one Michelin star.

   7. I would hire a luxury travel company to plan a two week itinerary in New Zealand.

   8. I would split your time into two parts. During the first part – say 5 days, I would go to a retreat. I have been to a couple and most recently spent 5 days at Kripalu in Massachusetts. It is not fancy, but I found it super refreshing. The food was all healthy, the yoga great, the massages great and the property lovely to walk around.

      Then I would head on a luxury tour to somewhere in Europe – combining wonderful food, sightseeing and some time in nature for two weeks. Italy, Spain or France.

      Enjoy!!

7. for those of you who are more covid cautious (whatever the reason), how are you handling situations at work where things are being planned indoors at restaurants? i am still not comfortable with indoor dining. my boss is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum

   1. what’s the weather like near you? Restaurants in my area built up lots of outdoor space over the last 6 months, so almost anywhere we want to go offers outdoor tables that are sheltered from the elements. Could you try that as a compromise?

   2. I have been contemplating this for the past 14 months. I am prepared to resign the moment I am asked to do something I do not believe is safe. If your boss thinks indoor dining is safe, even if you get them to compromise they are going to think less of you and things will just spiral downwards.

      1. I mean if the team is vaccinated (OP doesn’t specify) then… I’m wading back into the dining scene personally, but acting like boss is nut for thinking indoor dining is back on the “normal activity” table is… kind of out of date IMHO.

         1. well what about all the people who are mentioned in the morning thread for whom the vaccines don’t work or if you live with someone like that or someone who can’t get vaccinated. i don’t think boss is nuts, but i also think that at this stage we should still be trying to think of those people when making plans. not everyone might want to reveal at work that they have a health condition. totally fine for boss to dine indoors, go to a packed bar, etc., but still seems different to ask employees to do so

            1. I just thought 3:18’s reply was a little extreme given current conditions. I would not view Boss as unreasonably *unsafe* by suggesting an indoor meal, if perhaps not qu-te as thoughtful as possible. I also would not view OP as unreasonably *safe* by suggesting they choose a spot where they can eat outdoors.

               Jumping straight to “I’m going to need to resign if I so much as hint at pushing back because I’ll be viewed as a weirdo” seemed a bit much IMHO!

            2. Yeah, it’s one thing for a workplace to ask everyone to come together for a training that can’t be done remotely (like an emergency simulation drill), but to pressure employees to indoor dine together at this stage? Not cool. Bosses can indoor dine on their own if they want to.

         2. Indoor dining is one of the absolute least safe things you can do, right there behind unmasked choral singing and unmasked martial arts with sparring. It’s fine if vaccinated people choose to dine indoors socially, but at this point it’s out of bounds to pressure people to travel, meet in unmasked groups, or dine indoors for work purposes. I don’t want to be the next New York Yankee.

            1. Weren’t the Yankees fine?

            2. yeah weren’t all but one of them totally asymptomatic? And the one extremely mild? They’re not my worst case scenario example either.

         3. how would boss know team is vaccinated. in my state you aren’t allowed to ask people at work

            1. We have been asked to provide our vaccination cards to our employer, and I’m under the impression it’s not a request and permitted in at least the numerous states our employees work in.

   3. I went through this six weeks ago. Barely vaccinated, and boss said it’s fine now, let’s have our mandatory mtg at the coffeeshop!” No restrictions in state at the time, very few outside group 1B vaccinated. My not so nice thinking at the time was, even if I felt comfortable eating inside a crowded restaurant, I sure as heck didn’t want to waste the first time eating on on a year on something for work! I was going to claim upset stomach, but ending up waking really early, and had already eaten by the time work breakfast started and just said that. It’s warmer out now, I would probably suggest eating outside, especially if you don’t know if everyone has been vaccinated. YMMV, but my boss would not have taken it well if I had pushed back on the breakfast mtg, so I didn’t even try.

8. I am going to go to Cabo San Lucas for five days to celebrate getting a new job, staying at an all-inclusive (Le Blanc, in case anyone has any comments?). Question: is it rude to bring US dollars to tip? It would be a pain to get pesos before my trip and I’m not sure the hotel will have a good rate to exchange. Thank you!!

   1. U.S. dollars are fine for tipping but if you make purchases in dollars you’ll get killed on the exchange rate.

   2. Also: congrats on the job!

      1. Thank you!!!!

   3. I know there are fees associated with it, but if you can find your bank corollary in Mexico (Bank of America’s is Scotiabank), I have the best luck pulling pesos out of the ATM at the airport.

9. My kid finally went back to in-person school and was on lockdown yesterday due to a man being shot and killed right across the very narrow street (like it is so narrow it is one-way and busses can’t get through) (not students, not on the grounds, but locked down as the shooter was at large). Apparently the school shuts the lights and all must remain silent (so teachers can’t even relay their understanding of that to students with them). Kiddo was (rightly) terrified. One student at the school was able to text to an app that acts as a police-scanner crowd-sourced-scanner so you knew at least one person was saying that things inside the school were OK (not that your kid knew that or the school was communicating anything to parents until after lockdown was lifted).

   Thoughts: is it time to switch schools (kid loves this school, no issues with returning today)? This is in a part of town that is regularly on the 10:00 news (usually drug/gang activity at night and not this close to the school), but this event happened at lunchtime (so when kids could have been outside or having outside gym)? OTOH, I know people who went to universities in areas in or near dangerous parts of their cities.

   Any discussion items to mention to the school (like maybe they need to beef up outside security vs not just having a school resource office inside the school)? Am friends with the PTO people and the admin at the school is not parent-hostile. I am sort of caught b/w the idea that idiots who shoot outside by a school may not have such good aim next time and being by bullets flying isn’t a good idea ever vs for some kids, schools are just like this (and this is maybe like Johns Hopkins, good school in an area you don’t want to get lost around at night alone).

   1. I’m sorry that happened to your kid. Not sure of the circumstances where you live in terms of the city’s response to this kind of thing, but it’s so scary to me that in some cities, like Berkeley, officials will tolerate rampant violent and non-violent crime within feet of the high school downtown. They also allow homeless encampments in the same region, which can pose a health and safety risk (especially during fire season). It’s a disaster waiting to happen in my eyes.

      1. I put two kids all the way through Berkeley public schools and they are fine. The homeless in that area (assuming you’re talking about Berkeley high) are largely “regulars” and are often strung out but not violent. My kids never had a single incident where they were unsafe.

         1. Your definition of “safe” must be different from mine. I have spent time in Berkeley, and I would not want my high school kid walking around and being harassed by strung-out homeless people.

            1. “have spent time in Berkeley” ha! I live here. GTF back to Walnut Creek.

            2. We moved out of Berkeley because we did not feel safe walking downtown, walking anywhere at night, or simply living in our ground-floor apartment not far from Cal. We had far too many “encounters” with people struggling with severe mental illness and/or substance use, too many robberies, and too little action of any kind from the police or city. Living life with one eye over my shoulder and a hand on my purse at all times wasn’t for me.

            3. Not the Anonymous you’re responding to, but I’m Anonymous at 4:38 and I left Berkeley (where I lived for several years before, during, and after grad school) for Walnut Creek and it’s awesome. I live in a more diverse neighborhood and complex than I did in the surprisingly-segregated Berkeley while also feeling way more safe and free to enjoy life. Highly recommend!

         2. We live in West LA and homeless people are unfortunately, kind of ubiquitous. Church, fast food places, store entrances, coming by on trash day to get recyclables out of cans in our neighborhood. Only once or twice have I felt unsafe due to the way a homeless person was acting – once at a fast food play place where a lady with a bunch of dolls in her cart was having a full-on meltdown, and once when a female panhandler decided to start walking behind me / yelling at me in a crowd of hundreds of people (so I didn’t feel very unsafe, mostly embarrassed and irritated). I’m way more worried about my kids being hit by a car than I am of them being attacked by a homeless person.

   2. Let me guess–this is a magnet school, possibly in Los Angeles? Get out and go to private school ASAP. There is literally nothing the school or the PTO can do about violence on the streets.

   3. Crime and especially murder rates are way, way up in many cities. I can’t tell if it will stay this way. I would probably want to pressure better security/policing in the school neighborhood. I don’t really know what the plan is either locally or nationally for what’s happening, so I’m not sure what to expect.

   4. The school can’t control the level of violence in the surrounding area. If there is a high level of violent crime surrounding the elementary school during the day, I would put my kids in another school. I think going to a university with violence issues in the neighborhood is completely different, because the students are adults who chose to go to that school.

      1. For HS students, I get that a lot of cities put their AP/IB programs into neighborhoods that they want to diversify in terms of school student body makeup. So those kids may have a lot to lose by leaving a school with resources (but w/ bullets) for a lesser school (w/o bullets). IDK re that — it may be that the school needs much better than garden-variety security at the perimeter for students to be safe there, esp. if they are doing things like sports or plays (remember plays) that happen at night when there are fewer people around for general safety.

         1. The county next to us does this. The IB programs are all deliberately located in high-crime areas and on campuses with high rates of violence and gang activity, so you have to choose between good academics and not having your kid get shot at.

            1. Wolfson isn’t like that. The others, well…

   5. personally i don’t think i’d be so comfortable with this as a parent, but everyone is different. in terms of what to talk about with the school – the lack of communication to students/parents seems absurd. i understand if there was a shooter in the building they want people to be quiet, but presumably some administrator has a cellphone?

   6. My husband quit education due to his experiences in an impoverished, violent district (14 years and two stab wounds to show for it).

      I promise you that for every story you hear like this, there is an iceberg of cover-ups underneath you have no idea about. Only the stuff too big to avoid media attention gets back to parents.

      That “gang violence” outside the school? Student-on-student altercation that started in a hallway and they chased each other out of the building, so let’s say it just happened in the neighborhood. That trash can fire in the bathroom? Actually a r4pe, the perpetrator only lit up the can to burn her torn panti3s. And on and on and on.

      1. Say it with me, teachers unions are ruining America.

         1. No

            1. I assumed she was being sarcastic.

         2. Unions have zero to do with this.

            1. Unions ought to be be advocating for safer working conditions for teachers, which would have the side effect of safer learning conditions for students. No chance of that in my right-to-work state.

         3. Lolol you really have a hate on for teachers and it does not make you look good.

   7. My kid goes to public school and I really appreciate it when friends whose children are in private schools advocate for better public schools, or at least vote/send emails when asked by public school parents.

      If you feel bad about pulling your kid because other kids still have to go to this school, you could resolve to continue to advocate for these kids’ safety regardless of what you do for your child.

      You don’t need a proposal, but you could talk with the administrators/teachers, parents, community leaders, or local nonprofits and see if they have ideas and add your voice to their advocacy.

   8. I don’t know the right answer, but good Lord, I’m so sorry that happened to your kid on the first day back. Surely the last year+ have been tough enough!

   9. Honestly, we had a similar situation at my kids’ school about six years ago and it started because some idiot in an outlying “safer” suburb decided to go on a big armed car chase through 20 miles of metro area and happened to end up in our neighborhood. It never occurred to me to switch – I don’t think going to a different school would have made anybody any safer.

      I stopped watching our local news years ago, and just follow the local FB group and read the city paper. The local news in my city is all “if it bleeds it leads” so it just makes me more anxious without giving me any info I really need to know.

      1. You are in West LA and your one incident was a random car chase. Not the same as OP’s situation at all, where violence is endemic to the neighborhood.

         I have lived in West LA. Even the homeless people in West LA are nicer than homeless people in other places.

   10. I’d probably focus on communication (parents should be contacted ASAP to my way of thinking) and on how they can improve their relationship with the local law enforcement. What about local elected officials and the school board?

10. I just left you a late reply that’s hung up in mod on the morning post. Check for it later.

Comments are closed.