Wednesday’s Workwear Report: Eastbound Straight Pant
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Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices.
I can’t help but notice that the line between business casual and athleisure has been slowly, but surely, eroding over the last two years. Given that, I guess I’m not surprised that Athleta is making some of the best women’s pants in the business right now.
This style, the Eastbound Straight Pant, is machine washable and dryer safe — and it has real pockets!
The pants are $109 and comes in regular (0–16), tall (0–16), and petite (0–14) sizes. They're also available in “minimalist gray.”
If you're looking for a wide-leg style and/or additional sizes, Athleta's Eastbound Wide Pant is $119 and comes in XXS–3X.
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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+
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
Elizabeth,I love these straight leg pants! They are flattering to women like me because they are just tight enough to attract attention, but loose enough to avoid undue focus on our tuchuses. My guess is that the spandex mix will provide just the right amount of stretch for me, and at $109, it is a bargain!
I wanted to know if anyone in the hive has found that men are getting more civil to us these days?
Can it be because of COVID? I’ve noticed that when I am on the checkout line at Whole Foods and Fairways and thought I would ask to see if others have seen this too?
Ellen! You’re back!!
Co-sign on Athleta pants. When it is flats weather, a wear a lot of them to work (casual office). In the summer, I much prefer their material to denim.
Any comments on the sizing? These look really promising.
I feel like as a pear, I need to go in and try on (or wade through the comments — they are often very helpful for this). And when I find something that works, I tend to buy it in black + a color. I haven’t tried these yet, but I COVID-15ed out of my prior pants and will need some new ones. They have truly mastered the pants game.
It runs a little bit large in my experience.
A bit large but quite curvy, so waists will be proportionally small compared with the hips.
I’ve found that different pants suit different body types, So it’s a little hit and miss, but they have free returns so don’t be shy about trying stuff. I’m super curvy and in general items with numerical sizing don’t work for me, but things that come S/M/L work great in my typical size.
What is the fabric like? I am intrigued, because Athleta fits me well, but wasn’t sure whether these could truly pass as office pants.
I hate seams down the front of pants legs, much like I hate sewed-on same-colored toe caps (like yesterday’s nude flats). It’s cheaply piecing together smaller bits of material and pretending it’s because “style” so they can save money.
If these had full panel legs, I’d give them a shot.
+1
I have some pants a lot like this from Eileen Fisher, with a piping seam down the front. You know EF is not doing that to save money, they’re doing it because it’s a style feature. I like it. It gives a flattering vertical line – but you have to wear the right size and not have the line pulling because the pants are too snug.
Ads for the Oura ring are following me all over the internet. Does anyone have it? Talk me out of it?
I’m getting mine in a few weeks and can report back. I’m sold by sleep tracking plus not having a little screen and strap to fiddle with.
Sincere question: what is the point of sleep tracking? Is it like with counting your steps and just serves as motivation to hit your goals? The word tracking generally makes me run in the other direction so I get that this isn’t for me probably but just curious if there is some other benefit that I am missing.
I struggle with sleep and tracking helps me to develop better habits. I’ll wake up feeling tired and I’m not sure why. I look at my tracker for clues – did I wake up in the middle of the night, how long I was awake? Did I stay asleep but I got hardly any deep sleep? Then I can think about what I did before bed. Did I drink alcohol? Did I snack? When did I work out? And conversely, if I got a great nights sleep then I think about what I did right the day before. The data makes me feel accomplished, it’s cool to see your good habits produce actual results.
I’m intrigued by the ring. I’m using my Apple Watch for tracking and the screen loves to light up in DH’s face when I roll over in the middle of the night. It never lights up when I want it to though; I try to see what time it is, nothing, I have to tap it and dismiss the sleep thing and it’s a whole ordeal to figure out that I woke up 5 minutes before my alarm.
For me it’s more for checking if I’m actually sleeping all that much. Even commercial fitness trackers can often track tossing and turning, elevated heart rate, and/or tanking O2 levels. This is how my partner ended up diagnosed with sleep apnea and put on a CPAP. For me it showed that alcohol might make me FEEL sleepy but that my sleep quality if I have had a glass of wine in the evening is actually worse than if I don’t.
For me, it’s curiosity about whether my sleep is being interrupted or other things are contributing to not feeling rested. I’ve found that sometimes I feel less rested but don’t know why, and sleep tracking can provide info about whether I’ve had disruptions (that I wasn’t aware of/ didn’t remember). I then try to troubleshoot what’s causing the sleep disruptions.
I also like data and drawing inferences from correlations between sleep/exercise/food
I think if you regularly wake up feeling tired, skip the consumer tracking and go straight for a medical sleep study. My CPAP machine changed my life.
I slept like a happy baby during my sleep study. It was one of those nights that happens once every month or so. Based on how I feel and what the consumer tracking shows, I guess I just have to try again!
i have it (gen 3) and had the gen 2 one. i really like it! i enjoy seeing the sleep tracker and recovery index. when i go out or i am sick, you can actually see the impact on your recovery/sleep cycles. i am anti-big data but i unfortunately love mine.
You don’t need it.
NY Times Tech reviewed on Jan 26th. Basically called it a dude.
Duuuuude
Haha! oops “dud”
That’s just, like, their opinion, man.
Thank you for the smile this morning :)
Lol
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/26/technology/personaltech/oura-ring-3-review.html
I found sleep tracking…made my sleep way worse
I have it and like it. I think it’s more accurate than the health functions on the apple watch. It’s surprisingly comfortable and looks like a normal ring, which I really like too.
I had one over a year ago and it was meh. Their app is vague and very buggy – my ring fit but half the time it would say it couldn’t track my sleep. I gave it away. Maybe they’ve improved since then. It definitely didn’t do anything my $30 Fitbit watch couldn’t.
Has anyone successfully returned to skiing after an ankle fracture? I was lucky enough to fracture my fibula and tibia at the end of our skiing holiday. I’m not an expert, would rate myself intermediate. But I do love skiing and wanted to ask if people here have been able to resume skiing after ankle fractures.
I have another 11 months to go before the next ski vacation so not in a rush.
I think it depends on age and how you healed. My 25 year old colleague shattered his ankle and was skiing 6 months later. He had pins placed, maybe that helped? I broke and sprained my 43 year old ankle and didn’t feel sturdy enough for a few years.
Anecdotally, I have heard from many people that it’s easier to recover from a broken bone than from a bad sprain.
Yes! I was back on skis within 5 months of a bad ankle fracture. Being diligent about physical therapy and then getting back into the gym, including balance work, loading up the ankle as much as possible as part of weight lifting, and working on ankle mobility, probably made all the difference in the world. The only time I notice a marked difference between my ankles now, 2 years later, is when I try to do single-leg weighted step-ups – the healed ankle is still somewhat weaker than the other one. I haven’t noticed any issues while on skis, and I ski everything.
I have fractured my foot/ankle three times, most recently in September. I skied in the end of December and I was ok. I am 45 and have significantly decreased the ambitiousness of my skiing in recent years. I stick mostly to greens and the occasional blues.
I’m sorry this happened! No direct experience, but I came back from a knee fracture (took a direct hit from a snowboarder who had no business being on that slope) and skied the next season. Honestly, I’ve never been quite the same but I was solid intermediate before and now I’m more cautious intermediate. I’ve embraced that, and rather than being mad about it, I focus on the fact that I still love being out there. Good luck!
You can do it! I am a better skier now than I was before my ankle fracture, and I was pretty good then. I credit that to lots of PT and a deep love of skiing. You will want to work on rebuilding strength, balance, and flexibility. Start slow and listen to your body. First season back will feel different but over time it will get better if you work at it.
Oh! There was also a mental shift for me. I was more cautious than pre-fracture, and still am. I had to really give myself permission to ease back into it. I think part of what made me a better skier post-fracture was wanting to feel more in control so I had to adjust/improve my technique to find that control in a range of snow conditions.
Just found out that I’m likely 6 weeks away from delivering my second baby, who will require some amount of time in the NICU for urology issues and potentially surgery. It sounds like it could be between 1-6 weeks depending on how things present at birth. We’re putting a great team of doctors in place at one of the country’s top hospitals and it is hopefully something that they’ll recover from with few long term side effects. I’m trying to fight the feeling of being wildly overwhelmed with focusing on the practical things that I can take care of in advance, but am also a little worried there are a lot of emotions waiting to catch up to me! I’m terrified of the idea of handing over a tiny little newborn to go under general anesthesia.
Any NICU experiences to share? Would love any recs on things to have on hand or things to be prepared for. Baby will likely be full term but need monitoring and a handful of procedures in the first weeks of life. Unless things change with omicron, only one parent is allowed in the NICU at a time so that’s another wrinkle.
Oh! And on wearable pumps since it seems breastfeeding may be a challenge in the early weeks as they need to know exact amounts of input/output for the baby – opinions on Willow vs Elvie?
Thank you!
My son was 14 months when he had surgery for urology issues and it was terrifying. He was fine though. I hope all goes well with you and your baby. I’m sure the doctors are very experienced and it’ll be fine. But that won’t stop you from being terrified, as I was.
Good luck.
My experience isn’t super current (9 yr old DD), but the hospital pumps are really good. Better than what you can buy. Consider renting a hospital pump for home use for short term period baby is in NICU (and unless covid has changed things, you can use the NICU’s pump when you’re there with baby). Still worth it to get your own pump for home since health insurance may pay for it. (Thank you, Obamacare!)
Best of luck!
+1 to the hospital grade pump
Your NICU will likely have rounds in the AM and PM – try to make it there once per day to get updates from the doctors (although, expect the nurses to be more useful). For me, the NICU was a very calm end of a very stressful pregnancy. My twins arrived! All 3 of us were alive! They had daily measurable success! (although expect two steps forward one step back). They were cared for by experts 24/7, and I could go home, heal and see my toddler and be OK with that. It’s weird though (especially being in your recovery room with no baby, since this is your 2nd).
Joining a facebook group for your diagnosis and reading back posts could be helpful – familiarize yourself with the lingo, and know a bit about complications so if you have one it’s not the first time you’ve heard of them. For medical things (one of my twins got a cochlear implant at 12 months, and had some sedated tests before that), what helped me was just a laser focus on ‘this is what my kid needs to thrive, and my job is to help my kid.’ No doubts. You found experts, you researched care, and you are doing what needs to be done. You’re an excellent mom. You’ve got this.
i had a baby with time in the NICU, but no surgery. Do you have a therapist? if not, get one. I have a friend with a baby in the NICU right now and it is hard having only one parent allowed in at a time. i sort of anticipated nicu time (i had twins), but definitely didn’t internalize what that meant until it happened. one of my twins was in the nicu and one was not, so i left the hospital with one baby and not the other which was hard. i always felt guilty – if i was at home, i felt badly i wasn’t in the hospital, if i was in the hospital, i felt badly i wasn’t at home. turns out, i could have brought the non nicu baby to the hospital, but of course they did not tell me this until our last day there. i do not know your baby’s circumstances, but i did not get to hold my baby until almost 48 hours after delivery. a huge part of this was less about the baby’s health and more about my own (i lost a lot of blood in my c section) you have another child who likely will not be allowed to visit the NICU. figure out what you plan on telling him/her, who will care for hm/her etc. phone chargers and snacks are helpful. also – it is ok not to spend all day sitting in the NICU. it does not make you a bad mom. you probably will not be allowed to hold your baby the whole time and then there is nothing to do there. especially depending on how your delivery goes, you will also be recovering!!!! i was able to use the hospital grade pump while baby was in the NICU, so would just show up with my hands-free bra. this is the time to lean on your village. let people send you meals, gift cards, etc. sending hugs. please report back how everything goes. i will be thinking of you and your family!
My sister has been a NICU nurse for 25 years. Trust me when I say these folks put their whole soul into caring for their patients. Let them do their jobs and you can focus elsewhere.
<3
+1. My sister and one of my BFFs are NICU nurses. They are the best of the best. Lifesavers in every sense. Don’t be afraid to lean on them.
Yes, my sister has been a NICU nurse for 35 years and my daughter was a NICU nurse at Vanderbilt’s Level 4 nursery for two years. Those nurses know what they are doing and are angels. I know it’s weird with covid but hopefully you’ll have a good experience.
Just much love to you. Sometimes it is nice to have work to focus on, but if you find yourself too distracted, can you see if your doctor will write you out early?
I had an unexpected preemie who needed three surgeries in the first year. It is scary, but you have to trust in your neonatal team. You have time to make sure that you have a plan in place for the baby. It is extra hard with your older one at home. What is your husband’s plan for taking time off?
General NICU advice: bring your phone charger. Take pictures. Pack snacks. Hospital cafe can get expensive. Get good hand lotion — you will be washing them constantly. Write down questions. Stay away from Google.
For breastfeeding, I highly recommend renting a hospital grade pump for the first month or two, until your supply is well established. My NICU had a pump you could use while you were there and I found it easiest to have the same pump at home.
And maybe post this over on the mom’s board. My NICU baby is a teenager and things have probably changed/improved.
I recommend a hospital-grade pump for all moms who can swing it, NICU and otherwise. So much more comfortable and effective than a portable pump.
You will need a high-quality hospital grade pump to establish your supply especially if baby can’t nurse at all. The Elvie won’t cut it.
Best of luck to you, a couple of thoughts from my sister who had NICU babies that echo others, but might be slightly different, take the pressure off yourself to breastfeed (hard in normal circumstances and relieving this pressure made a world of difference in not worrying about that too) & it’s okay to leave the hospital (NICU nurses are the best), and be good to yourself – use the time to heal your own body, sleep, rest, and then you’ll have more strength when the babies come home.
My best friend works for March of Dimes – they have a ton of great resources that could be worth looking into!
Obviously I haven’t been a nursing mother for a very long time because when you asked about pumps my first thought was that you wanted nice heels to wear to the hospital. ;p
God bless
Good luck with this! It’s very stressful to have your baby in the NICU. I second the recommendation for a hospital grade pump – the NICU my daughter was in had one, so check to see what they have as all I had to bring were the attachments. Also, depending on how far away you live, check with the hospital about rooms to stay in – ours had a separate hotel-style room for parents (not the same as a hospital room). I second what another commenter said about being there for rounds – super helpful in knowing what is going on!
Also, to the extent that you can prepare for stuff at home ahead of time (frozen food, extras of whatever your other kid needs, etc), that is very helpful. You spend a ton of time at the hospital, so whatever you can prep/outsource is great.
Lastly, your older child may feel scared/unhappy/etc about the situation as they are getting less attention and don’t really know what’s going on (depending on age). I partially solved it by having my MIL come stay with him while we were back and forth to the NICU all the time so he got special Grandma time. Also, I had the baby “give” my son a scooter, which he was thrilled about.
Good luck!
I was able to request pump parts for the hospital grade pump as well as a manual hand pump when I was in the hospital. Might be worth calling the hospital you plan to deliver at and ask them what they can supply versus what you should bring along? The bonus was they just billed it all through insurance at the end.
Willow and hugs, sounds like you’re doing all the things you could be doing right now.
Agree with everything said so far. Ask lactation for consults in the NICU – they will often come visit and can help with setting a schedule, etc. I wouldn’t use Elvie/Willow until later on after supply is established. Def snacks/phone charger/take pictures, ask nurse to take picture of you with baby if you’re able to hold the baby, it was helpful to establish a routine, let the nurses know when you might come visit so you know the baby’s schedule. Get updates from nurses and doctors. Consider what kind of help you might want/need when you get home with baby – we almost did an overnight nurse at first but ended up being ok without one. Also – timelines change for when baby comes up – it’s so easy to get discouraged, but it’s super normal to have things change – they might say they home baby can go home one date and then it gets delayed. I hated when people asked when baby was coming home because I never knew and it just stressed me out. So just be prepared for that. Best wishes – baby will be in the best hands!! (And as a first time mom I was so reassured by all the professional help when I would’ve had no idea what I was doing at home!) Ask as many questions as you want!
Hugs to you! My 9 year old was in the NICU for a week after birth due to meconium aspiration. So, my memories are undoubtedly foggy, but FWIW, my advice is:
1 – find out as much as you can about the NICU in advance – it seems like they vary a lot in amenities and policies. E.g., the bare bones one we were in had a nursing room with a single rocker and a nursing pillow, but no real comfy chairs next to the isolettes. So it was hard to spend a lot of time there while healing from birth. Where will you sit when you are there? Is there a place you can get or store food? What will you need to bring in breastmilk – do they provide containers or do you have to supply something specific? Are there shift change times when you can’t get in?
2 – take the time to grieve the loss of the birth experience you hoped for (if this is relevant to you). I’m still sad that I couldn’t hold my son until the day after he was born, but it has faded a lot. (He was born at 42 weeks, and his NICU stay was not expected at all).
3 – find out how long you will be able to stay in the hospital after birth. Is there any chance it can be extended to make it easier for you to stay close to the baby? (I know this seems insane but our hospital actually let me crash in an unused birthing center room for an extra night. My midwife was close to the nurses.)
4 – accept that you will not be able to be with your baby all the time. You are going to need to rest and heal, and may not be able to do that well at the hospital. Don’t feel guilty about taking the time you need while you have extremely highly trained people available to take care of your baby!
5 – keep a notepad with you so you can take notes when you talk to doctors. Find out when the best time will be to do that. I don’t think I was allowed to be present during rounds, but there was some regular interaction. (Foggy memories).
6 – FWIW, I had no trouble nursing and actually had an oversupply. I pumped with a hospital pump for the first 18 hours after my son was born (not constantly of course), and then was allowed to try nursing. When I was discharged, I just used the hand-me-down Medela Pump in Style I got from a friend to pump when I was not with my son. Obviously YMMV but you are not doomed.
7 – one possible upside to the NICU – this is probably just coincidence but my son was a pretty easy baby once he got home, and I always wondered if that was partly because he didn’t really have the option of being held all the time when he was first born. It also gave me a lot of peace of mind to know how often he had been eating (only 1-2x overnight). It wasn’t exactly a schedule but it let me know that I didn’t necessarily have to feed him every 2 hours or something.
8 – I remember when I was pregnant people said to take all the stuff from the hospital when you are discharged – diapers, newborn toiletries, etc. The NICU meant none of this was available to me. (This may not be universal – as I said, NICUs vary). Just something to keep in mind if this is something you counted on with your first.
I don’t have personal experience with this, but your post reminded me that one of my friends was in your situation some 20 years ago, pregnant with a baby that was going to need this type of surgery at birth and an extended NICU stay.
That all happened, and today he is the dudest of dudes, huge circle of friends, good student, player of and fan of many sports. I forgot all about the fact that he had the surgeries and tough beginning because it is so in the past, and not a factor at all today. I hope that story helps you!!
This information is 60 years old, but I had urethra surgery at birth (cyst removal). My mom says there was an emergency baptism(!). All went perfectly and I have no issues from that condition. I suspect your situation is more complicated, but I just want to share a good news story.
My grandmother was a nurse in the 1960s (around that time). Because they lost so many babies back then, she used to tell me that even the nurses at her catholic hospital would baptise the babies if it was an emergency and the priest couldn’t make it (even without mom knowing because you know complications). I asked her what if the parent’s weren’t Christian and she would tell me, it didn’t matter if the prayers were going more than one place, only that someone listened.
My best friend and my sister both had NICU babies. One in the DMV area and one at John Hopkins.
I wouldn’t use the Willow or Evie – definitely use the hospital grade pump. I’ve heard too many horror stories about wearable pumps not having enough suction and failing to establish/ maintain supply and causing more stress than they save. Most NICUs provide you with enough bottles or bags for storing milk so that shouldn’t be an issue.
If you want to successfully breastfeed, definitely work with the NICU lactation consultant and find another outside the NICU who specializes in getting NICU babies to breastfeed. If you were successful breastfeeding your first child, you are more familiar/ comfortable but it can be really challenging to get them to breastfeed after NICU stays. Also, if you can meet with a physical therapist there to preemptively learn positioning for your NICU baby to avoid flat spots/ gross motor delays that’s a good idea.
Figure out your plan for food and spending time with your first child when possible. Definitely find a therapist for yourself if you haven’t done so already. Good luck! and I hope things go as smoothly as they can for you.
Would love to get the hives thoughts/comments on job options that I have so that I can ensure I am thinking about all the things.
Current job: in-house, multinational, large law department, silo’d, unsupportive manager. Things I am looking for in a new job, autonomy but with support when I need/want it, collegiality, ability to work cross functionally (I get bored somewhat easily, so being silo’d and not being able to branch out to help other groups/functions is not enjoyable or challenging to me), remote work either full time or ability to be remote when I want to. Portability of job would be ideal, but I have no real reason think I would be moving any time soon.
Job Option A: in-house, smaller law department, new role with the goal of building up a team, chance to develop the contract management process/system, opportunity to help them enter into an area of contracting/industry for which I am an SME although it wasn’t listed in the JD (came out in interview), purported autonomy, new industry for me, full remote forever – work wherever, newer company (~15 years) but successful and growing, public benefit company (which is important to me and aligns with my values).
Job Option B: regional firm, lower billable hours (can be at 1200, with bonuses for reaching higher hours), create my own sub-practice group and grow (or not grow) as I wish, existing work already there but current group can’t get to it, practice group lead is an attorney I really like and am familiar with, autonomy, firm is known as being “sleepy” compared to the “big” firms with a national presence which have offices here, strong regional reputation, very good firm profitability during the pandemic – seeing growth, no real BD requirements, no push to partner or out, can work remote, but the firm doesn’t have offices outside of the state where I live, so not portable that way. Super short commute ~10 min if/when I want to go into the office.
The comp and benefits at this point isn’t going to be the deciding factor – both places can make what I want work. Both are attractive options to me so I am struggling to figure out what else to ask or think about to help guide me. What should I be thinking about? What other things would you want to know? Any suggestions/considerations are greatly appreciated!
Option B for me.
Whyyyyyy would you even consider a firm they are terrible we are all trying to get out. Job A or neither keep your perfectly fine job and keep looking.
+1. Would not even consider Option B.
Same, I stopped reading at firm and billable hours. I’ve been in-house for 20+ years and prefer smaller law departments. You can really make a lot of those jobs your own and I cannot imagine going back to a law firm.
Same same same.
+3, I pretty much had your option b job for a while and it was fine, but now I’m in house at a tech company and LOVE it. Would never ever go back to a firm.
As someone who gets bored easily, A is my dream job. Building out processes is something that I am good at – other people excel at doing the day to day implementation. Full remote forever means opportunities to travel, to work from different places, and to see friends who are scattered around the country. It’s also a great springboard into other roles.
I’d caution on this . . . how easy might it be to meet the business units you support (if that is how this role works)? IMO knowing the business units is how you get asked new / different questions, which is what I really like. If you could embed with them (prior times), that is so key. Now, IDK how you develop those relationships from scratch. Often people are wary of legal just calling out of the blue.
OP here – I should also have mentioned that option B isn’t going away. If I take A and hate it, I can still explore B. They aren’t offering this out to anyone else. It came up bc I reached out to the lead attorney about a job his wife posted and we met up to talk about this idea he had specifically related to my experience (I used to work with him years ago).
With this extra info, I would lean toward Option A. Long-term travel/flexibility is important to me and that can be tricky as a law firm lawyer if you’re living in a state where you are not licensed or your firm doesn’t have an office. And for me, I would know within 1-2 years whether Option A was working out, which seems a short enough window that Option B would truly still be on the table.
As someone who really does not enjoy billable hours, Option A is a no-brainer for me. Full time WFH for a company whose values align with my own? Sign me up.
I know you said benefits aren’t a concern (hopefully because they are equal), but i would weigh this closely. Larger places tend to have much better offerings (short-term disability, long-term disability, life insurance, some even offer pet insurance, accident insurance, etc.) These things may not seem like much, bit it’s a big difference when a smaller place can’t offer and you find yourself with a sudden cancer diagnosis or the like. I don’t think I appreciated that enough at my old job. Also, the things that are despised most about working somewhere large (slowness to change, layers of approval, etc.) are also the same things that help guard against rapid shifts in strategy or whims of one individual. I’m not saying that larger is inherently better, but just something I think about now in a role where I have more autonomy but less built-in supports.
Thanks all! I am strongly leaning to A for manu of the reasons mentioned. B kind of randomly fell in my lap so wanted to make sure there wasn’t something I was missing bc of my own biases/experiences!
Totally A. I am a position similar to your current role and totally sympathize about how it can look pretty decent on paper but also be very frustrating.
And Athleta is a certified B corp!
It’s owned by Gap though. I don’t really care if they make great pants but this is a little head scratching.
Based on what? Most of the time this is just marketing and a turn-off to me.
Same.
Anyone else here terrible with change? I’m making a big career change and it’s such a struggle. I’m feeling really sad, nostalgic, doubting my own decision, and just really struggling. I know eventually things will get good again but right now I’m pretty much a mess.
I’m terrible at change and consistently seek it out. (I KNOW.) What helps me is the following mantra: You can always change your mind. If I take a new job and hate it, I can quit. If I move and hate it, I can move again.
Are you the one who posted about changing jobs and wondering if it was normal to feel sad, angry, etc.? If so, a question I had then but didn’t ask: is this kind of very strong emotional response normal for you when you make a big life change, or is something different happening now? And, outside of work, are you dealing with stress/anxiety/depression at some level, or is all this emotion solely and only related to the job transition?
The answers to those questions might help you know how seriously to take this reaction you’re having– whether you just recognize that this is a messy phase and you’ll get past it, whether you recognize this reaction is totally expected given everything else going on in your life right now, whether you recognize this is pretty unusual and you need to reach out for help because something strange is going on, etc.
I get bored easily so I want change but both my mom and therapist have said that I don’t handle change well. So I feel all of what you’re saying. I see it as the price of getting to a situation I prefer.
Those seem like normal feelings about a big change. Are you taking time to feel them and work out what they mean to you?
When I think of someone being bad with change, I think of a person going off on the supermarket manager because they reset an aisle, or a homeowner writing a NIMBY manifesto because the city’s adding a bike lane. Your change IS a big one and it’s normal to have feelings about it.
I am great with huge change, and terrible with minor change. Switching to a new job in a completely foreign industry? Bring it on. My favorite yoga pants are discontinued? My month is ruined.
Similarly, I am abnormally calm in emergencies, but freak out over minutiae. I’ve calmly helped a colleague having a seizure, then a day later had a complete meltdown over a stray buggie dinging my car door.
Oh I am the same. I’m an emergency manager and in a field full of people calm under pressure I’ve been told I stand out as extra calm (but takecharge). Do I have to live and die by my routines/checklists otherwise my whole day unravels? Also yes.
Okay actually this describes me well too. I’m great in a crisis. I’m awful when it came to taking tests or minor frustrations like the bug situation
I’d encourage you to work on changing your mindset about change. It’s just an inevitable fact of life and the more you embrace it, the easier life will be for you.
For those of you with federal loans or who watch that topic – any prediction about what might happen this spring? Think the interest-free stay will continue? Think Biden/Congress will forgive any student debt, or adjust interest rates on any existing loans? I’m trying to decide whether to pay off some student debt or just wait a few more months.
The interest free thing just cannot continue — it is bonkers (not politically, but as a practical matter; you’d never ever be able to run a business this way or even a social program). I get there being a grace period, but I think that the longer it continues, the closer the whole thing gets to blowing up vs being salvaged better. Student loans blowing up will hurt those needing loans the most (and the colleges tending to serve those students), so I expect that to save them, the rest of us will need to buckle down and get back to repaying.
I am dumb as hell when it comes to macroeconomics, but – why can’t interest-free repayment continue? Or why can’t we lower interest rates on federal loans across the board? Drop everybody down to 2% or 3% interest and call it day.
THIS. I borrowed about $100k for law school and I truly want to pay it back. But the 7% interest I have on one of my loans made it debilitating when I was first starting out at a small firm. With 0% interest for the past two years I have been squirreling away my normal payments into a savings account. If/when repayments start, I’ll pay a huge chunk all at once. But I’m not paying a cent until then just in case there’s some loan forgiveness – even $10k would make a huge difference.
At some point, interest affects how much $ will be available to lend going forward. So if you lent $50K 10 years ago and get 50K back, with inflation, that 50K goes almost nowhere now for a current borrower. You can fund govt lending from the general fisc, but with fixed commitments for social security, medicare, medicaid, etc. the $ just won’t be enough b/c bridges are literally crumbling and there are just too many needs. So the pool will eventually get too small to be helpful and private lenders won’t step in. School just costs too much.
A big part of the reason school costs too much is the easy availability of giant loans. It enables colleges, both private colleges and increasingly also public ones, to raise tuition far more quickly than the rate of inflation, to levels that they couldn’t charge if lending were more realistic.
This assumes that the student loan system should simply finance itself, and be a closed circle of money loaned out, paid back with interest, and the same money covering the next generation of students. But education is a worthwhile endeavor that benefits society in the long run, so you could argue that it would be worth it for the government to chip in some extra to keep up with inflation. After all, doesn’t general tax revenue go up with inflation? You could also think about the fact that the value of those $50k hasn’t dropped in value in any sector as much as it has when it comes to buying a college education. The price increase in tuition is such a deeply broken system, that it seems dumb to structure the student loan system around it, instead of fixing the broken thing.
School just costs too much. The only part of my college “experience” that really mattered was instruction from faculty. Everything else was extraneous. And so many faculty are adjuncts now, that procuring and retaining excellent faculty is clearly not where the money is going. STEM majors need labs and equipment, but it truly doesn’t have to cost this much.
I guess spending is worthy, but my guess is that when the govt gets more involved, it sees some educational spending as more worthy than others. BAs for teachers? yes. BSs for teachers — probably more so. Maybe you can’t teach math unless you are a math major. Doctors, yes. Lawyers, probably not so much unless it’s for some narrowly-defined groups. No masters programs outside of needed sciences. I think if they are paying more and more, they are chosing more and more.
I do feel like it is currently unsustainable, and no 18YO kid should be able to get themselves $ in debt and then double down on that for a graduate program that will just make things worse.
Does the current federal student loan program favor/disincentivize any subjects? I have no idea. One thing I know is that if it comes to prioritizing “valuable” degrees, the people in Washington will make absolutely sure that lawyers are in the valuable group, lol!
The reason costs for public higher education have jumped over time is steadily declining state higher education appropriations, and it really varies state by state.
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2019/10/two-decades-of-change-in-federal-and-state-higher-education-funding
I wish I knew! My student loans are finally under $50k (around 100k at the start of the pandemic), and if the pause stays in place, I could pay them off within the next two years. I can refinance to 1.99 for 5 years, which is tempting, but I hate to walk away from the federal protections (even though my job is stable) and potential extension of the 0% interest.
I don’t see Biden/Congress following through on any across the board loan forgiveness. If I had to guess, Congress won’t be able to agree on any student loan reforms (surprise, surprise), Biden will continue doing very narrowly tailored forgiveness, and he will tout the pause as equating to some form of forgiveness. Whether he extends again depends on what happens with BBB and other major initiatives. If there’s no progress there, he may extend the pause past the election (likely in stages). If (miraculously) Congress passes major legislation, I think he will quietly allow student loan payments to restart.
On the interest rate, it’s my understanding that interest rates were set by legislation, so Biden can’t change them. As to whether Congress does anything on that front, I doubt it. I don’t see progressive agreeing to interest rate changes because they are so focused on loan forgiveness. Moderates are focused on other issues, and conservatives are focused on obstructing any progress. It’s a shame, because the interest rates are a huge part of the problem. I know too many people who have been paying student loans for many years, but have balances that are almost as high (if not higher) than the amount they originally borrowed.
I think thats what I find most annoying. My student loans are at nearly 7%, reducing that would make the biggest difference in my being able to pay them off in a reasonable time frame, but they are high enough I am reticent to lose the federal protection on them by making them private.
My loans are under $25k. While forgiveness would be nice, I am completely fine with lowering interest rates and don’t understand why that’s not a bigger part of the conversation about student debt. My student loans are my highest-rate debt. I don’t have credit card debt. My mortgage is at 3%, the loan on my husband’s car is at 2.5%. Why is student loan interest so high and why can’t we lower it to 2% or lower? Interest rates are what’s keeping people from being able to pay off their loans.
Because there is no collateral for student loans. If you default on your mortgage or car loan, the lender can get something back. The collateral for school loans is in your brain.
+1
They can’t repossess your brain
In that sense is it more like a venture? (You also can’t repossess anything from a start up company that never ended up making any money, right?)
Maybe re the startup. We lend $ all the time to entities that could go out of business, but have personal guarantees. We also get personal guarantees (signed by spouses so people can’t shelter assets as tenants by the entireties) for leases to entities.
I’m not sure lending to 18YO students is even remotely viable as a business point. Maybe to a doctor (my sense is that if you go to med school, there will be a well-paying job for you so you could pay back that $, not so with lawyers where there aren’t enough jobs, let alone the 6-figure jobs you need to repay that). IDK what the answer is really. More community college for the first two years? Switch high school so for many kids, they can graduate with an AA through co-enrollment / AP classes?
You can repossess things from companies that don’t make money – they can still have assets even if they generate losses or cash burn.
You also can’t walk away from or discharge your student loans in bankruptcy, so this argument doesn’t make sense to me
Right, but student loans can’t be discharged in bankruptcy. So you’re stuck paying them for 25 years at a high interest rate, at which point any forgiveness is taxed, so you’re doubly screwed. And for women, your reproductive years coincide with the years you will be trying to pay back your student loan debt, and good luck paying for daycare and student loans at the same time. It’s a cluster.
Lenders try to avoid bankrupcty – they want to foreclose outside of it when possible. So the dischargeability of student loans versus others matters less.
Having watched this very closely because I now qualify for PSLF via the waiver, I think the Covid forbearance was extended through May for all the PSLF stuff to get sorted before everyone’s payments restart. In other words, FedLoans has ambitions to process, by April, all the PSLF applications for people who are already eligible for forgiveness. It will be a complete sh*tshow if people who qualify for forgiveness now have to be back in repayment after the forbearance period ends.
I think across the board forgiveness is a long way out because of the red tape involved.
If across the board forgiveness goes through, what happens going forward — wouldn’t that require college to be more or less free? Or just go through another cycle of loans then forgiveness? I am a bit concerned about intergenerational equity and what is really sustainable for students and for schools. Clearly college is too expensive, births are declining, and at some point we will retire into dorms of colleges that have closed.
Okay but retiring to a too-large college is a dope sitcom idea
Right—but the students will get the new, updated dorms and the olds will get the olds. I already lived in that shoebox room with no AC and shared bathrooms, and the thought of doing it again is less than appealing.
I suspect across the board forgiveness will be capped so some people will still have student loan debt. But, yes… without college getting cheaper, loan forgiveness now does not resolve the issue of future high student loan debt, thus a cycle of loans —-> forgiveness.
I’m not going to lie — I have a hard time looking at this issue without considering how it affects me personally. I am one of those people who borrowed federal money and then consolidated to lock in an interest rate (ha! it’s well over 6%!!) and now my loans are not eligible for any relief of any kind. My payments did not stop during the pandemic. I will not be forgiven. My interest rate will never drop unless I refinance but my finances are not really good enough to refinance. I have no kids who would benefit from a new system. So while I try to be objective, it just makes me angry that I will probably (not for the first time) be in a small bucket of people who misses out on a government benefit because of timing. It feels like I just get the short end of the stick on all of these things and it makes me want to deny the benefit to others.
I’m one of those people who is finally eligible for PSLF because of the waiver. I submitted my application recently and while it won’t be life-changing (I graduated quite a while back), it would be nice to get out from under this particular debt.
As for across-the-board forgiveness, I am not holding my breath. It would be life-changing for young people, but too many people in this country (politicians *and* voters) are obsessed with the idea that someone they don’t find “deserving” would get some benefit that wasn’t available back in the day. My mom (who took out >$1000 in student loans in the late 1960s to pay for a professional degree that was cheap and quick at the time) is horrified at the thought that “some kid at NYU majoring in ethnic studies” might get some loan forgiveness. But hey, we alllllllmost had federal parental leave, so maybe anything’s allllllmost possible?
Prediction: extend the zero interest and/or forbearance to make an election issue out of it.
It’s a mess because each party is taking an unrealistic, extreme stance: across the board forgiveness or “pay every cent back, with interest.” Realistically, interest rates should be low, there should be caps on graduate borrowing, and there should be some sort of forgiveness that also creates an incentive to be frugal when choosing schools (perhaps the repayment time is a function of how much you borrowed).
A lot of people are getting very wealthy off this cluster – look at what law school deans, college presidents, and some professors earn.
And yet I am stabby mad how schools cost $$$ and much of the teaching load is carried by very, very poorly paid part-timers who are often better paid waiting tables or delivering pizza. I’d love to cut out the middle man or at least live in a world where higher-level educators aren’t better off going to teach at the middle school level b/c it’s a FT job with benefits.
It’s not just adjuncts. My husband has tenure at a non flagship state school and would earn more teaching high school (and would have a pension). He would also earn more as an administrator – and not just of the academic dean/provost variety. Tuition is $10k a year and many students live with their parents and work. There are a lot of people getting rich while a lot of other people are struggling. The inequalities are staggering.
Same. Tenure track in a STEM field at a nonflagship public. Only a few people in my department make six figure salaries, and mostly just barely. Nobody makes more than $150k, and those are the endowed chairs. The people who teach most of the classes make 60k or less.
I agree that the extreme stances aren’t helping. I think there would be a lot more support for “pay back the principal and call it a day” (or something closer to it) than for either “absolute forgiveness” or “pay back many times what you originally borrowed.”
It is endlessly frustrating to me that there are so many students who want to go to a good college, and so many PhDs who want a full time job teaching at a college, and yet they cannot find one another in the system we currently have.
I don’t think the federal government should be making money on the interest charged on these loans. I’d be fine with charging enough to cover administration of the program – maybe .5% or something like that. The 7% on my federal loans is extortion.
I agree with reducing or eliminating interest on these loan but I’m not in favor of cancelling student debt. Unless you got a scholarship, someone still paid the tuition, whether it’s the student, parents, grandparents, etc. Someone is paying for the tuition and they shouldn’t have to pay while others don’t.
The federal government doesn’t get the interest on the federal loans. The loans are guaranteed by the federal government, but the lender gets the interest.
This isn’t categorically true. Direct Loans are funded and owned by the federal government. That’s why the federal government is able to forgive them, unlike old type loans that are backed by the federal government but held privately.
I’m someone who has had some truly bizarre issues with an inherited staff. Like – all over the place issues from the Overconfident Mediocre White Man who can both do know wrong and doesn’t know how to do anything but it’s not his fault, the staffer who needed to get evaluated for mental competency, guy who keeps saying he’s going to retire and hasn’t yet, and the staffer who hoards knowledge to the point of insubordination.
Yesterday, I got a promotion. On the new org chart, I am being replaced by 3 people. When I was told I was getting promoted, one of the things that was highlighted was that I took some of the most difficult staffers in the organization and actually held them accountable. That I had taken a mess of a unit, straightened it out, and cleaned up enough to show people ‘yeah, this needs more staff to actually run properly’.
Guys, it happened. Not only that, but the 6 staffers I needed are being hired. And the old problem staffers are either dropping off or kind of… reluctantly falling in line. I honestly am so thrilled.
Congratulations for being recognized for your hard work! I too have taken a difficult team and turned them around and have not received the recognition I deserve. For reference, before I took on this role, there was a therapist who came on site once a week to work with these people.
Oooh, that sounds impressive! Congratulations and please share some insights. Start with the knowledge hoarder – how did you deal with them?
Still dealing with them, but the main technique was to say ‘we need a manual’. This staffer won’t tell you what to do, but they will tell you what you’re doing wrong. So I ended up writing the manual and having them edit it.
We also had a big issue with the staffer saving files on their personal drive vs. the shared drive, then answering a question with ‘it’s in the x file.’ I would point blank say, ‘Okay, I can’t find that on the shared drive. Please send the file path.’ They would send the file, I would say, ‘Great! and Where can I find these filed?’ Eventually, they copied over the historic records.
It has been SO MUCH WORK.
congrats!
I would hate to work for someone that characterizes people by their race like this, you are acting like, of not actually are, a racist.
You know, you’re right. That was me feeding into a stereotype and it was unnecessary. I could have just called him a mediocre employee who has been convinced by society that he is a GIFT to us and simultaneously has zero problem solving skills, gets angry when he gets feedback, and believes he is ‘too good’ for his job yet doesn’t see that he’s… eh. Fine.
interesting that you are choosing to call out racism, but not sexism.
Oh, get over yourself.
finally someone standing up for the white guy
This is awesome, there should be more managers like you!! Well done and enjoy the satisfaction of this win! :)
Congrats!
I too work with one of these: “Overconfident Mediocre White Man who can both do know wrong and doesn’t know how to do anything but it’s not his fault”
I replied above that it was unnecessary for me to describe him as such, but… I feel like the experience of having a staffer who has been convinced by society that he’s a rockstar, but truly is… meh? is something many of us have seen.
I am a Xennial. In the ’90s, all of these men thought they were God’s gift to science and math because they have Y chromosomes. No matter how good women were, we were unsuitable. I cannot tell you how many times I was told I only got into engineering school because I am a woman. (Me: okay name one man who had better stats than I did and got rejected. I’ll wait.)
Remember Larry Summers in 2005, saying women’s brains aren’t structured correctly to do high level math and science?
There was effectively a LOT of affirmative action for men: d@mn near every job and promotion were set aside for them. They had an easy time finding high paying jobs woth upward mobility because they would need to support families, while women were sometimes flat out told that we didn’t need high powered jobs.
Now they are all 40 or 50 and are just shocked when people expect results from them for the first time in forever. They have been convinced that they are amazing and really can’t understand how mediocre they are.
I’m a very late GenX and super, duper co-sign. I got told I’d probably just drop out of the workforce and marry another lawyer (lol opt-out “revolution”) and these guys all got told that they were just amazeballs for existing. I have gotten grief for outearning my husband because I should have “chosen better.” Barf, barf, barf.
I’m very happy that your hard work has paid off – literally! It is so much work to continually hold people accountable when they want to fall back on their old bad behavior. You’ve proven it can be done. Congratulations!
Random fashion question. Various shapewear vendors are flooding my SM feeds. Do people really wear shapewear regularly? If so, is it more for smoothing out the lumpy-squishy areas? Or more for my current “can I cram myself into pants / a dress that is half a size away from fitting”? The volume seems to make it so normal but I only wore any special undergarments previously with special-occasion dresses. In an ideal world, every garment would fit and look good with comfy granny panties and a yoga-level cute but comfy bra.
I don’t wear shapewear except for special occasions (when I have a concert/am performing, or fancy dinners out/conference events).
This is where I think I may need an intervention. If you are wearing shapewear at work events / conferences, is that maybe because clothes don’t hang right otherwise? Or are visibly lumpy? I feel like I need a blunt and candid friend to tell me how things really look (vs how I think they look). I think maybe if a B- lumpy look can become an A smooth look, I should maybe learn how to do this. So many dresses are cheap poly these days and while my mom sewed her work clothes (and/or did alterations to suit her), I know historically many women had worn smoothing garments.
[Today I am in corduroy, but a Work Event requiring workwear is on the horizon.]
This is what changed my way of thinking about it. People always wore slips under dresses and work outfits, which were to a large extent smoothing. Modern workwear doesn’t have that, so it makes sense that we might need to add something to address that.
I wear shape wear like my mother would wear a slip. I’ve found that the clothes lay smoother and don’t get as ‘bunchy’ with shape wear. I also wear them to avoid wardrobe malfunctions, particularly shorts style pieces with dresses.
+1
I mean I’ve worn a step above pajamas for close to two years now
But in the office I wore shapewear regularly.
One, when I didn’t wear hose with a dress or skirt, I wore a spanx type short for anti thigh rubbing purposes.
Two, a lot of my wardrobe is knitwear and it’s just a lot nicer looking when everything is smoothed out underneath.
Three, I just like the held-together feeling.
Yep – this. I’ve been everything from a 2 to a 12 and there was not a size I was at where things didn’t look better with shapewear – it’s like the modern day slip.
I also am just more comfortable and have better posture – I like the coverage, and it gives me freedom to wear whatever underwear I’m feeling that day under whatever color clothing.
I cannot fathom the idea of wearing shapewear to perform in a concert! I sing and play a wind instrument, though. I need to be able to expand my midsection. Maybe a string player could do it?
I wore shapewear – a high-waisted boyshorts thing? – the last time I was a bridesmaid. It was more comfortable than I thought, and I generally can’t tolerate tight or restrictive clothing at all. I would probably wear again but only for an occasion like a wedding.
Similarly I’ve only worn them for events like a wedding, but the high waisted boyshorts are much more comfortable than I would have thought.
That’s also the last time I broke out my spanx shorts. The bride chose a pretty slinky dress for me so I wanted a little help.
I wore it under skirts/dresses when I was going into an office to smooth things and reduce panty lines. Definitely not in order to fit into clothing that doesn’t fit.
Yes, I used to wear shapewear shorts under dresses to the office. They weren’t like Spanx, they just had gentle compression to smooth things and they also provided some modesty if my skirt blew up.
That is amazing that they made you look better. I never had shorts that didn’t both roll down in the waist and roll up in the leg. Yummie Tummy: looking at you specifically, but there have been other offenders.
I don’t wear shape wear regularly but I do wear close-fitting camisoles and tights under every formal outfit (in summer they’re thinner obviously!) just to ‘hold everything in place’ and make me feel more in control.
I used to wear shapewear regularly, but it was more for blood pressure, water retention, and hypermobility. I found shapewear wildly more comfortable than medical compression wear, so I found myself wearing them more routinely than the prescription stuff that is torture to put on and take off and scratchy and uncomfortable.
I do think that companies sell more cheap, clingy unlined garments hoping that we’ll compensate with shapewear though.
no, the closest I get is tights or hose or for special occasions like – if I need something for an unusual back or neckline.
I prefer to pick clothes that flatter me without the need for “smoothing” garments rather than layer up.
I used to wear it fairly regularly about 10-15 years ago when I wore a lot of cheap dresses or if I was at a conference with a lot of walking (no chub rub with inner thigh then). But I can’t imagine doing that now. Like even the leggings with a compression waist don’t feel good.
I wore shape wear shorts for smoothing under unlined pants or slim skirts, but I sized up in it so it wasn’t uncomfortable. The Assets by Spanx at Target line was my favorite. I have not touched them since WFH, except for the rare evening out.
I wore it under certain dresses to smooth things. I have a bit of a tummy and this helped to move things into a somewhat more attractive shape. It would not help if something doesn’t fit. In fact, every time I had the bright idea to try to wear it with pants, it made the pants not fit because it moved things into different places that made the fit all wrong.
On a polar opposite note, can we all lament how hard it is to find a slip nowadays? I feel like half the time I actually wear shapewear, what I needed was just a slip.
They are easy to find on AMZN tho? Just search for Vanity Fair women’s slip for under dresses, and my favorite one comes up. The listing comes in A-line and shaped. I prefer the A-line one, which is not that A-line, IME.
Hanky Panky has great slips. Not made of polyester.
I bought great ones from Banana Republic recently. They are washable silk and were so reasonable. These are not shapewear, just that smooth later to keep clothes from clinging.
I’m an hourglass shape of Mediterranean descent. I say that so you can picture a young voluptuous woman who ages into the full-bodied Italian grandmother with an apron and wooden spoon ? I have always needed shapewear when wearing dresses. My curves are natural, yes, but if I’d like them not to jiggle too much, shapewear is a must. I wear the full body shapers – shoulders to mid-thigh. I like to think I look a little more Sophia Loren and a little less Botticelli that way ?
You might enjoy this ad campaign. I think it’s so beautiful.
https://www.jeanpaulgaultier.com/ww/en/fragrances/range-la-belle/la-belle-fleur-terrible-eau-de-parfum-legere
Not OP but ho dam is this brightening my day.
And it’s a new fragrance launch too!
I know! I’m probably going to buy it as soon as it’s available.
I loved going down this rabbit hole! Thank you.
In the Before Times, I used to wear shapewear all the time for any dressy occasion. It was for smoothing out my curves if wearing something in a clingy, stretchy knit fabric. I’m an hourglass shape, and I felt more confident in it. Now, I don’t even know where my shapewear is…in some storage bag!
As someone who is older than many of the posters on this site, shape wear now serves very much the purpose that hose and clothes with lining did when I was starting out in the 90s (and that petticoats did during my Grandmother’s era). It smooths things out and makes clothes fall better because they skim rather than cling. I wear them often these days to smooth out bumps and lumps from my underpinnings. I also have a whole collection of slips for the same purpose.
Clothing used to be both lined and of thicker material. I do not mind the former going away because that also means they are more likely to be machine washable but I am really frustrated with the thin poly that passes for business appropriate these days.
Shapewear/compression that sort of smooth things and fit as they’re supposed to are pretty comfortable to wear on a daily basis and I know many folks who do. They’re a far cry from old-school long line shapers/girdles that change your whole line/posture.
I started a fully online masters program about a month ago, and I absolutely hate it. I feel like I’m not learning anything. I’m getting the assignments done, but I don’t understand what is going on at all. There are virtual “office hours”, but they haven’t been helpful. There is no textbook, minimal lectures, and no support material. I’m basically shelling out money to teach myself. It seems like this will be the format for the rest of the courses I have to take as well.
I don’t want to be a quitter, but I feel like I am spending all this time and money and getting nothing out of it. It’s not critical for my industry, but it seemed like a good idea when I applied. It’s not uncommon for people to have a masters in my role. The withdraw deadline is coming up toward the beginning of march, and I’m seriously considering it. Any thoughts or advice?
Quit, that sounds awful! How are you supposed to make connections if there is no content?!
I did one semester of my MBA and walked away. It was in person and part time. I was under the false impression I needed it for career advancement but almost as soon as that first semester started did I come to realize that was not the case whatsoever for my job and industry.
I recognize there are some jobs that having the degree is a major component of the decision to get to get to the next tier/pay grade/whatever. If that’s the case, I’d consider finding a new, better program than the one currently enrolled in. But, from one quitter to a (potential) other – do it if that’s what you think is the right decision.
I’d quit now before you’ve invested more time and money into it. FWIW, I think some disciplines are not very well-suited to an online environment.
I’d quit if I was paying myself. If your job is paying, stay in.
I’m a professor, and I think a lot of masters programs are scams. Obviously not true of all of them, but they’re big money makers for universities and there’s not much accountability, so there’s a lot of pressure to start new, low quality programs.
yes, this. i work in higher ed. i’m not a professor, but unless you need this masters for your career and/or your job is paying for it, you should quit (and i say this as someone who has never really quit anything)
Same here. I told a student this yesterday – hopefully our MA recruitment team wasn’t walking by my office at the time.
I really feel this re LLM programs, which are $$$.
I at least see the benefit of some LLM programs. I know multiple people who went to lower ranked law schools and got LLMs in tax from NYU or Georgetown and then got jobs they never would have with just their jds (biglaw, IRS, DOJ)
Like only tax and only GTown or NYU or FLA if you want estate planning. I can’t imagine this being as helpful online, but you pay for the name.
LLM in “international law” or something not tax? Cash grab. Hang on to your wallet.
These are popular with international students who want to stay in the US and need to be full time students. They are also cash cows for the insitutions.
Yeah, I thought even regular, in-person masters programs were notorious for being cash cows with limited benefits for students.
Unless it’s something you just like subject matter wise and want to learn about like a hobby, I cannot imagine getting an online masters.
Don’t think of it as quitting. Think of it as cutting your losses.
+1,000. Steve Levitt has written about this, and I find it convincing. We actually need to quit more things, which can be challenging for a high-achieving person. Life is not very long. If you don’t like what you’re doing, at least consider whether it’s time to stop doing that thing and move on. Don’t be taken in by the sunk cost fallacy. Clearly we cannot quit everything or all the time. But there are times in life when quiting is the best move you can make. And this sounds like a perfect opportunity to move on to something else.
Just want to say thank you for posting about this – I went and listened to the Freakonomics podcast about “The Upside of Quitting’ and it helped me come to terms with a decision I recently made not to pursue a certification I had sunk time and money into. Midway through getting certified, I realized I really didn’t like the work I was getting certified to do and didn’t want to keep doing it, but fell into “sunk cost” analysis and kept going. I failed the certification exam and it was weirdly a relief, but I still feel guilty about my decision not to retake it and “keep trying until I succeed.” Even though I know that is not work I want to do and having the certification would inexorably push me toward that work becoming the bulk of the work I would do in my career, which would make me miserable. As a completionist, type-A, overachiever person, choosing not to finish something – even if it’s something I dislike – still feels like a moral failure. The podcast was a great reframing of the situation for me. So again, thank you.
And thank you for posting. I have taken and continue to take so much from this community, that it feels good to be able to give back. I’m sorry you failed the exam, but I’m happy for you that you realized that area wasn’t where you really want to be. Good luck as you figure out your next steps!
Yes, quit, but that’s what online learning is.
I disagree. My online master’s had textbooks, twice-weekly lectures, and regular forum discussions with strong professor participation. Did I learn quite as much as in a classroom setting? No. Did I learn a lot that I still use? Absolutely. This was at Northwestern’s school of continuing (now professional) studies. You absolutely *CAN* find a quality program out there. This one feels like it isn’t it.
Echo this. I did my masters online and never felt like the OP, and got a lot of value out of it. But I had to have my master’s to advance in my profession; I really should get a Ph.D. but can’t stomach the thought of more school. If the OP doesn’t really need the master’s to advance, she can drop out of this program and try to find another, better program later.
I am a professor at one of the large online universities- have been for 20 years, teaching master’s level courses. What you are describing is not acceptable for any online program. You should have ready access to LOTS of resources (ie. online textbook, links to relevant library articles, videos, etc). At a minimum there should be some kind of outline to guide you as to the weekly topics that you need to cover. Professor should be very available to you to do phone/video call individually if you need it and as often as you need it. In the school I teach for, this is a requirement for faculty. You won’t find lectures as you would for traditional college programs- most online schools did away with that concept years ago as it just does not work online. You do need to be independent in your studies, but you should be fine with the right resources and support. Find another university. There is a wide variety in terms of quality, unfortunately. Look for one that is fully accredited (meaning regional accreditation, which is the same body that does accreditation of brick and mortar schools- the distance learning accreditation council is meaningless in terms of quality). Also when you enroll in a new program ask if you can take the first course at a reduced rate (or even free) to see if the program fits for you. Some universities will do that.
I agree that quitting may be the best option and online programs have limitations. First I think it’s important to distinguish a couple things: is this an accredited institution and is it a degree program that lends itself to online learning (like is it learning a digital skill)? Not all online programs are created equal. For example there’s getting a GIS degree from Penn (a high quality accredited institution, a degree that can do a good job teaching remotely to earn a certification) and then there’s getting an online degree in chemistry from Strayer or Phoenix (frankly a predatory organization not accredited, a learning program that really needs in person lab exercises).
Would it be easier to couch as learning that this program was not for you and that to be successful you’d need A, B, and C?
Has anyone ever stayed at the Lodge at Woodloch in PA and have any feedback? Looking for a late spring solo getaway with a spa and the former girl scout in me loves the idea of lists of activities and classes (grown up summer camp!). The weather is not a concern to me, most interested in any feedback on the actual resort and offerings
I adored it. Classes were great, food excellent, cocktails amazing. All of the staff was wonderful. The facilities are good and the setting is lovely.
My parents loved it but did not take advantage of many of the offerings.
My in-house paralegal is retiring after decades with the company. We are all WFH due to Covid, but used to be in the office together FT. If we were still in the office, we’d have a nice retirement lunch/card that everyone signed/gift. Any suggestions for how to celebrate her with everyone spread out? Gift suggestions for an active new grandmother and gestures would both be appreciated!
Don’t know where you are but since numbers are way down most everywhere and offices opening back up, why not meet somewhere in person for a send-off?
Not OP, but here numbers are “way down” but still above any previous peak. If anyone suggested an indoor lunch I’d be livid.
You can RSVP no then.
If the guest of honor is OK with it, I say go for it. My kids each lunch inside every day and I don’t get why I have to still be a social martyr 100% of the time. Sometimes I’m OK spending my risk dollars.
My kids eat lunch indoors every day but I don’t have a choice about that. A work lunch is different from a social lunch because of the power dynamics. People who are not comfortable dining indoors may feel pressured to do so.
+1. DH and I are both still fully work from home, but have both had in-person retirement lunches at restaurants. Completely optional, but lots of people are willing to come and it is a lot better than the virtual retirement parties I have attended.
Our numbers are down but almost no states are actually good right now. If covid is such an issue that as you say you are working from home, then I would presume that it should also be limiting when you are all indoors without masks for prolonged period eating together. No way would I be eating in a restaurant with folks right now and would be super mad if WfH were jeopardized over it. At the least, make sure it is OK by the retiree.
My team had us film ourselves leaving messages for the person. The end result was put into a video, and the recipient LOVED it. We also did the group zoom meeting. Blah but what can you do?Come warmer months some of us will likely get together for backyard cocktails.
We have done virtual cards that everyone can sign and a short (like twenty minute) Zoom where a few people picked in advance say nice things, the person who is leaving can say something if they want, and then it’s an open opportunity for other people to chime in. Key is to keep it time limited so it feels special and people actually come and stay.
If you don’t want to do in person lunch, send her a really nice dinner from a local restaurant. If that isn’t doable, they someplace like Omaha Steaks (assuming food restrictions don’t come into play).
When my co-worker retired, her team had produced a really nice video where people told cute stories about her. It wasn’t too long and they played it during the zoom event. Everyone loved it.
Remote options are easy to write off, they can come across as lame and a chore to attend. Virtual happy hours are a dud and the format is so awkward and people don’t want to be forced to stay “at work” when a million things at home are calling their attention?
Why not just get an extra nice gift? Use the lunch money to get something really nice or gifted as a leaving bonus?
I’m traveling to a place in the US where I am meeting my immigrant parents. We’ll be making a bunch of meals at our rental, but I doubt we’ll have access to certain ingredients and spices that we need. I’d like to travel with small amounts of certain things in my carryon (I never check bags) – is this allowed? I’m talking stuff like dark sesame oil, corn syrup, red pepper paste, a certain type of sweet potato, etc. do the liquids have to be sealed or can I decant them into little bottles? Can I get past security with this stuff?
I feel like you can get corn syrup in any grocery store in the US. Ditto sesame oil (but IDK about “dark” sesame oil).
Agree. I’m in the midwest and shop mainly at Meijer. There is a whole international foods grocery aisle. I’ve definitely seen sesame oil, but not sure about dark sesame oil. Corn syrup is in the baking aisle. I agree with others that you should check your bag. Then you can take full size items of things you need.
Treat liquids like toiletries – decant into sub-100ml bottles and pop them all in a zip lock bag. (My mum once had lovely local jams she’d bought on holiday taken off her at airport security and she’s still sore about it)
I assure you that you can find spices, sesame oil and corn syrup in the US.
You’d need to treat them the same way as liquid toiletries. Why not check a bag this once to make your life easier?
oh also – if you are coming from internationally, pastes and syrups and preserved things like that are fine, but bringing in fresh fruits or vegetables like a sweet potato is restricted.
Especially if you are going to Hawaii IIRC
Oh yeah. Never try to bring fruit, vegetables or plants into Hawaii. We saw someone getting read the riot act for trying to bring wheatgrass in her carryon; it got picked up on the scanner. I think they denied her entry or it seems like that’s where the conversation was heading.
just check in your bag
I don’t think you’re allowed to travel with fresh produce internationally (so if you mean an actual sweet potato, that is likely out). The liquids do not have to be sealed, but they can be in no larger than a 3 ounce container and you can have no more than one clear quart size bag’s worth of liquids on a carry-on. You can check full size liquids.
How long will you be in the US? If it were me, I would either check a bag with the liquids you want or plan to find a grocery store in the US that specializes in the type of cuisine you want to make, especially if you are traveling to a big city.
You can put things in travel bottles those liquids and spices in travel bottles. The realty is – depending on your phenotype – you may be “randomly” selected for additional searching while carrying the small bottles of liquids and powders. Just get to the airport early.
Checking bags is fine. I know a lot of people “never” do it, but unless your time is so precious you can’t spare 15 minutes, do it this time. Or even just check a bag with the liquid items and carry on your clothing, if you are concerned about the airline losing your bag. Carrying a bunch of 3 oz bottles of oils and sauces sounds like a recipe for disaster – sounds like you need a lot of them and a spill or breakage would be a lot worse than shampoo.
I once had honey open up in a checked bag. I would give ANYTHING if it had been shampoo.
I lost a good fabric wheelie bag when something (not mine) oozed all over it. It was oily and smelled and I was never able to clean it. Ugh.
Yes, definitely. I will check bags because I like to be unencumbered in the airport – can go for a walk, better to browse the shops and spend airport money, which somehow I’ve convinced myself is different than real money.
It’s not just about time. You’ve never had the airline lose your luggage? Or had something break or spill in your checked bag? Or had something get stolen from a checked bag? All three things have happened to me, and I don’t even travel that much. That’s why I try not to check bags. Not because my time is so precious.
I ALWAYS put my bottles of toiletries and what have you in Ziplocs inside my luggage for just that reason!
I have no idea, but I want to come and eat with your family. Sounds delicious.
Pastes and oils count as liquids and have restrictions on the amounts. Echoing others to just check a bag. Besides, what if that stuff opens and spills en route – I’d pack food separately.
You probably can but I wouldn’t count on it not being searched. I flew home for Christmas a few years ago with about 5 bottles of mustard, ketchup, and salad dressing in my checked bag. I know, this sounds incredibly odd, but it was a local brand that my parents did not have access to and really liked so I bought a few bottles to bring with me.
My luggage was searched and they opened the gallon Ziploc bags I had it in to prevent a mess if a bottle somehow leaked. None of the Ziplocs were rezipped by security and I am very lucky I didn’t have a mess as one of the seals was broken. (No idea if this happened when they went thru or if I just had a bad bottle)
So I can imagine in your carryon this could raise a red flag? The liquids might be okay if in the 3ox containers but I think a sweet potato might be a red flag?
Oof! I guess no plan is foolproof!
Unless you’re going somewhere very rural I have been easily able to access to all those things in medium sized cities.
This sounds like a recipe for a disaster. I’d pack small amounts of spices, but buy the liquids when you arrive. Or mail yourself a package with the stuff you want, if you really don’t think you can buy it there.
+1
Unless your destination is in the middle of nowhere, I’d buy ingredients when you arrive. This sounds like a nightmare waiting to happen tbh. You won’t be able to bring enough stuff in your carryon and your checked luggage might end up covered in oils. And don’t bring fresh produce, I don’t think that’s allowed.
Order the ingredients online and have them shipped to your destination.
We’ve done this, albeit with snorkeling equipment. Worked great. Definitely easier with food ingredients, I think, than packing them in a bag (checked or carryon).
Does the largest grocery store near your destination have online ordering? If so, you can check their inventory.
Pastes count as liquids and food liquids are treated the same as all liquids like toiletries – 3 oz or less and all of it must fit in a clear quart size ziplock.
I order spices from Penzey’s from time to time and they send little foil packets of samples. I take these along when we go to a rental house. They’re not necessarily the spices I regularly use at my house but it gives me a chance to try something a little different and usually easier (premixed spice blends) on vacation.
Actually the most important thing I pack is my favorite chef’s knife – rental houses usually have terrible kitchen stuff all around, and the knives are the worst – so I feel fortunate that we drive to ours rather than fly.
That’s definitely not true about foods. Recently I’ve been made to send them through the xray machine separately, but they’re not limiting you to bringing 3 oz of sandwich on the plane.
A sandwich is a solid. The limit to 3 oz is for liquids (and paste like items)
+1
Can anyone recommend a quiet hotel in Athens convenient to the major sights? Many reviews I’ve read of various hotels say that rooms can be loud. Would like to keep it below about $250 a night in summer. Only staying in Athens for 2 nights before heading to other parts of Greece.
We stayed in Hotel Plaka. It was basic but clean and comfortable and we had a great view of the Acropolis from our room. Centrally located. We saved our budget for $$$ hotels in the islands and had no regrets.
Athens Gate Hotel
are you opposed to airbnb? we did that in Athens and had an awesome well air conditioned apartment for like $100 a night. We splurged on hotels in the islands.
Not opposed to Airbnb. Do you have a specific recommendation? Always hard to know a good location in an unfamiliar city.
Check out options along the pedestrian path right by Acropoli station. You get a partial Acropolis view, a neighborhood not crowded with cheesy shops (aka – Monastiraki or Plaka), and you’re no more than 20 minutes from anything in the Tourist Core.
We stayed at two different hotels in Athens in 2017 — New Hotel — very walkable for us (early thirties at the time) to Acropolis, museums, if you are used to walking in cities — and the Athens Hilton — not really easily walkable to anything, but had a nice rooftop bar and pool. Athens is of course super hilly, so if you are with anyone with mobility issues you may just need to make arrangements for cabs.
I have spent years trying to get friends / family to go to Botrini’s — probably my husband and I’s favorite meal ever. We simply loved it and highly recommend! (It is a cab ride likely.)
We stayed at the Periscope. If you book the penthouse, you will have a private hot tub on the roof with a view of the Acropolis. It honestly wasn’t too expensive!
I can recommend Matt Barrett’s Greece Travel guide for excellent and reliable free advice. The Hotel Attalos is supposedly lovely. If you are prepared to splash out a LOT of cash the Hotel Grande Bretagne is divine (whoops just re-read and 250 wouldn’t go far there…). For sure the Electra Palace is also very lovely for a lot less money, especially if you join their free Electra Rewards Club. The Attalos and Electra Palace would both be in your price range. There are other Electra hotels in Athens but I have not stayed there. I’d say don’t stay in an AirBnB in Greece – you will miss out on so much amazing interaction with Greek people and fantastic breakfasts which are usually included in hotels there.
Also – I wish I was in Athens now – snow or no snow
Hi ladies – I saw some folks checking in on me on Fridays thread late, and wanted to let you know I’m still here and I’m surviving. I’m actually traveling for a bit to get space from my husband. He has been apologizing but hasn’t taken full responsibility for all of his actions as a whole – all of his lies plus the affair together. He acknowledges he needs to do more work on that and is working on it in couples and individual therapy. We are working on a post nup. I’m still not sure where we will end up. We are almost 3 months in from discovery – I told myself I would wait to make big decisions for another 3 months.
Thank you for the update.
Also, realized this sounded so lackluster… Chemo brain coming through. I’m so grateful that you took the time to come back to us. This community has your back and we believe in you in a tough time. As SA says, gentle hugs to you.
Hang in there during this emotionally rough time. I’m a fan of using the timetable that works for you, which it sounds like you are.
Thank you. It is so rough. I appreciate this group checking in even though I am in the middle and don’t have much of an update right now.
Hugs, Super anon!
I sooo much appreciate your update and have been thinking of you too. Your update actually shows that you have done a lot, and I want to make sure you give yourself credit for it! You decided it would be helpful to have separation right now and you made it happen. You set a timetable for making bigger decisions. You are surviving this. You are working on a post-nup. You are processing what you are seeing and learning about your husband (e.g., that he apologized but isn’t taking full responsibility for the entirety of it), and you are engaging with your husband in therapy. Go you. That is a lot of work under difficult circumstances.
All the hugs. Good luck.
Glad to see this update and that you are hanging in there!! This sounds so hard and I hope you reach out as needed. Sending you hugs!
Thinking of you and wishing you so much happiness.
Update on the missing HSA money from yesterday:
After calling both the hospital billing department and my HSA administrator and raising (polite and calm) holy h3ll, this morning I woke up to two e-mails showing the missing payments posted to my hospital billing account.
Interestingly, the hospital billing rep on the phone had immediately blamed the delay on the slow postal service due to the pandemic, despite me pointing out to him twice that the HSA dashboard listed the process as “VPay” which is a trademarked name for a digital insurance claim processing company (hard to misinterpret that…). Sure enough, both transactions came through as Mastercard payments, though with two different numbers. So obviously they were indeed virtual, as the HSA had said. I can only speculate that they were sitting in an e-mail inbox and someone hadn’t clicked the correct button.
Lesson learned: pay on my personal credit card and get reimbursed from now on. DH and I both have invasive procedures coming up, and honestly I’m dreading the paperwork more than I am dreading getting scopes shoved in various places.
Oh, I wonder what happened with last week’s poster with the $ missing from her big-name brokerage account.
Given what happened in the stock market last week, I guess she’s lucky the money was in limbo and not invested!
side rant, not directed at Anon: I just don’t understand this stock market griping, and I think things like making it headline news on WaPo completely skew the picture. They make it sound like fortunes are wiped out or retirements delayed. The S&P 500 slipped back to the same value it had literally 4 months ago. It then rebounded in a single week to a value it had 2 months ago. It still has grown nearly 20% in the last year.
That’s not how it worked in my account.
I’m glad you got that cleared up! As one who works in hospital billing, I can tell you that virtual credit card payments are terrible. They usually come as paper correspondence, which is either directed to a physical address where someone needs to physically open the mail and figure out where it goes, or, if you’re lucky, goes to a bank lockbox address where it is scanned, but still needs to be processed by a person. Frequently, there isn’t enough information with the payment to identify which bill it is for, or even which patient account. Ultimately, I’d blame the delay more on your HSA administrator than the hospital billing department. Your strategy to pay upfront and get reimbursed should be better.
Ha! So true. I was on the phone today with a vendor that does EOB conversion/lockbox processing and they are going gangbusters because hospitals are sick of vPay.
I’m an income partner (litigation) in an AmLaw 100 and I’m getting an itch to move on to something else. I like the actual legal work but I hate business development and client management. I hate sucking up to people and figuring out how to tell them no in just the right way so they’ll actually listen to me and not think I’m just a pushover. I’ve had a few great years of BD but it’s worn on me to the point that I can’t imagine doing this for another 30 years. I don’t know what else I’d want to do. Going in house sounds like the same client management BS I’m dealing with now, and I don’t think I could tolerate the rigid nature of the job. I don’t want someone putting meetings on my calendar or telling me whether I have enough PTO accrued to take the vacations I want. I finally have some control over my schedule (vs bring an associate) and I don’t want to give that up. I feel stuck and restless. Anyone else feel this way?
Consider government litigation. As opposed to most people, I really like my job in biglaw except for two things (1) I had zero desire to do BD, and basically just refused to do it and (2) when not that often, I hated the 300 hour months and 80 hour weeks when they happened.
I LOVE my government litigation job. I get to make all the decisions on my cases, I normally only work 40 hours a week with the occasional 45 hour week, no BD. I’ve took more depositions and had more court appearances in my first year than I did in 8 years in biglaw.
I’m in a similar boat as OP and considering a job like you describe! Just nervous about money as I am my family’s breadwinner. But I found this comment super helpful.
With the defeatist attitude and broad strokes assumptions you have going on there, hard to think of suggestions for you. I’d start with a long vacation and then talk to your network for ideas. Not to say “not all jobs,” but really, not all jobs are what you describe.
A random Wednesday query – how old do you feel?
I was chatting about this with a friend yesterday and we don’t feel our age. She’s 34 and feels 29, I’m 37 and feel 32 – I’m in my first TT academic post, I have a 4 year old. Is this because we had prolonged student years in the form of PhDs? Or the delayed adulthood of Millenials?
What about you? Do you feel younger or older than your calendar age?
I am 45. I felt 30 from the time I turned 30 until March of 2019, when I suddenly felt 48.
March of 2020. See, my cognitive powers are going.
This is personally difficult for me to answer because honestly – I have no idea what it feels like to be any other age than I am! Curious what/who you’re using as comparison…people around you your same age? Those is similar circumstances as you?
It was funny, I had assumed a colleague was the same age as me but she was 8 years older! Which prompted a conversation with another friend, where we concluded that we felt too young to be X age. I wonder if I’m comparing myself slightly to my parents, who at 37 had been in their jobs for years and years and had a middle schooler? So they felt older?
I think it’s the comparison to our parents’ generation. They chose or were able to do “adult” things and live an “adult” lifestyle at a much younger age than people do now. My mother was married at 20, bought a house at 25, was PTA president at 30, and had her last kid graduate from college at 46. By their mid-30s, my in-laws could afford to own a huge home and entertain lavishly on one income. I am 45 and still living in a “starter” home with no room to entertain, despite having two graduate degrees and a husband who is also employed.
I think it’s this exactly. At 37 my parents had a fourth-grader and a kindergartner, had been in their jobs for years, and owned the house they still live in today. At 37 my in-laws had five kids and were settled in their town. At 37 I have two little kids and we’re still renting and trying to figure out where we want to live for the long term, but we both suddenly have director-level responsibilities at work.
I can’t answer this with a number but I 100% feel younger than “tween me” thought my parents must have felt when they were my age :)
Yes, definitely, my parents were middle aged at this point. I also think people look younger today than the did in the 70s and 80s, all that retinol, maybe?
And less smoking/aggressive tanning!
I think some of it, though, is when we look back on pictures of them, we think of their hairstyles, make-up, fashions, etc. as “old” and so we assume that by comparison we look younger. Our concept of what “old” looks like and what “young” looks like is, to some extent, a product of the times. Not as to gray hair and wrinkles, but definitely as to all of the peripherals.
Probably less cocaine, too.
I don’t mean in appearance, just in mindset. Like I was 11 when my mom was my age. At 11, Mom could help me solve all of life’s problems – there wasn’t anything I saw her unable to do or nervous about. Of COURSE she was figuring it out as she went along but you don’t know that until you’re there…
I’m 27 and I feel like I’m 23. Not a huge different but, and I do think this is in part because of grad school, I feel like I am still exploring things compared to friends who are more settled down. Due to a combination of grad school followed by a really cool but busy and lower paying job, this past year has been the first time I’ve had a quiet, stable job and also money to live the same yuppy life as my friends working in finance/consulting have been living for 4-5 years.
I don’t really keep track of my age (just did the math – nearly 44), but I feel fine. My body is strong, my mind is sharp & curious, and I’ve got my stuff together.
I am 39 and feel both older and younger than I am so I guess it averages out to 38. I feel old because of mostly external factors – lifestyle, hobbies, and presentation. I feel young mostly because of internal factors – my personality, level of work experience, life experience.
I feel old because my hair is grey, I’m tired all of the, my hobbies are stereotypical old, and I don’t dress trendy at all. I feel young because of my goofy personality and I have a toddler. I also feel young because I graduated at the height of the recession and had a long stretch of “fun-employment”. It took me a LONG time to find my career lane. I didn’t begin working fulltime in my current career until I was 30. I was a 30 year old intern – what an interesting experience that was! Because of this I attained a lot of the markers of adulthood a later than I expected.
Same, both older and younger. I am keenly aware of physically slowing down (aches and pains, delayed healing) and the increasing lines on my face.
Yet, I still find myself gobsmacked by things like “I am trusted to operate a motor vehicle” and “nobody can stop me from having ice cream for breakfast”. (That may be due to growing up under tyrannical authoritarian parents, though.) Sometimes I look around and panic when I realize I and my peers are now the decision-makers in the room.
My observation is that it’s fairly universal to feel younger than you are as you age. I don’t think it’s related to doing a PhD, being Millennials, or anything particular to your situation or generation. If you ask my mom if she feels 78, she’ll definitely tell you she doesn’t.
I agree with this, to the extent that it feels silly to say I feel any other age than I am (40). If I feel the way I do, and I am 40, then this must be what 40 feels like. It doesn’t matter what someone might culturally associate with this number, I am 40 and this is my experience of being 40.
I also assume that I look my age. We do similar odd things with our thinking about age when almost everyone claims they look younger than they do. I wish we could just own our ages and move on.
I agree with this. Even at 88, my grandpa was in denial that he was an old person, lol.
I’m 58 and due to some health issues, I physically feel my age. I creak when it rains and can predict storm fronts using my joints instead of a radar view. However, I am forever 24 years old in my head.
I’m 35 and feel 33, so the age I was when COVID hit, lol. I’ve told my spouse I’m going to stay that age until the pandemic is over.
I was talking about this the other day – 33 feels so different from 35! I can’t say I’m in my early thirties anymore lol.
Not exactly what you’re talking about, but I get to certain ages that I just REALLY feel my age. Like I don’t have to stop and think of how old I am when someone asks. I think the first year (I remember) was 17. Then 27. Then 33. I still feel 33, although now I’m 34 1/2. the 34/33 disconnect isn’t too crazy yet, maybe I’ll move out of it. I really felt 27 for several years though.
I have these milestones, too, and some are so odd and arbitrary. I remember being 12 and noticing the first time I was no longer offered a lollipop by the bank teller. I felt ancient.
I’m 44 but feel 35. Likely because I have an 18-month-old, and maybe because I haven’t (yet) fallen off of my work-out-more new years resolution so I’ve been exercising a bunch recently and have a bit more energy. Definitely not a spring chicken – I watch dating shows and think, “that looks exhausting” – but I feel nowhere near ‘middle age.’
It’s hard to answer that question. I’m 41, which is kinda shocking to me, as I feel like high school was only 10 years ago. And yet, I am very much in the stage where I have adult concerns: aging parents, raising kids, mid-career malaise and struggles. I feel good and look pretty good, but I have no illusions that I’m passing for a younger woman or anything.
I remember when I was in the age 28-30 range, when suddenly I felt my age, maybe older. Something shifted internally around that time. I looked around and realized I had a lot of responsibilities and I no longer felt as carefree. Probably not coincidentally, I became a parent around that time. And then, around 37-38, I could no longer fool myself that I was a young up-and-comer at work. That was both empowering and unnerving.
All this to say, I think this shifts a LOT over time and depending on what else is going on in your life.
High school was definitely just 10 years ago…
The looking around and realizing I had a lot of responsibilities and feeling less carefree sums it up perfectly though I didn’t experience that until recently (and several years later than 28-30).
I’m nearly 41 and feel 35, the age which I have always thought of as grown-grown. I recently discovered my adult voice, so to speak (taken full responsibility for my life and happiness, give a lot less Fs about everything, different priorities, much more comfortable in my own skin, college kids look like teenagers to me now, socializing is different, etc.) Also, I’ve just recently, in the past few years, reached some “adult” milestones (“big” job, parenthood, etc.) that I expected to reach by 35 but didn’t.
In many other ways I feel much younger, maybe 30. I’m still into trendy fashion. I like teen shows. I look younger than I am. I’m not experiencing health issues that many women 40+ experience. I’m young at heart in general.
Randomly, I read somewhere recently that Putin is 70. 70! His shirtless posing was not THAT long ago. I guess autocracy is the secret of perpetual youth?
LOL
Don’t invade Ukraine, just move to The Villages. Much better in winter.
Lots of like minded people there, too.
Ha!
I’m 50, feeling 40-45. I did an online life expectancy calculator a few months ago and was horrified to see the suggestion that I would live to be 95+. I’ve been dealing with some 90+ aged relatives and health issues (mental and physical) are so much challenging at that age. Their contemporaries have passed on and meeting new people is difficult when dealing with health issues. It’s been hard to view this as “golden years” and I’m trying to change my attitude/plan appropriately, but man. I’m just not sure I want to live this long.
I saw this with my grandpa, who passed at 93. It was really heartbreaking. Literally all his close friends were, uh, dead. I mean, he had his kids and grandkids, but not much of a peer group after being very socially active his entire life, even into his late 80s. He lived in assisted living the last couple of years, which at least kept him around people around his age, but they weren’t his people, you know?
Same here. I was incredibly lucky to know a great-grandmother well into my teens. I still recall my mom remarking at her funeral that there wasn’t a lot of people there because she outlived them all.
Yes, mine too. My grandpa spent much of his last 15 years going to funerals, but by the time he passed away at 90 he was the only one of his friend group left – other than a much younger sibling. It was noticeable and sad how young his funeral congregation was (I think he would have been the oldest person there)
My grandfather lived to be 102, so I’ve seen this up close. He was in good health till the end, and always said the hardest part was watching all his friends die and having to make new friends. By the end, he was basically hanging out with his friends’ sons — he was the 100 at the senior center hanging with the 70 and 80 guys that he was watched grow up.
*had watched
I love that the 70-80 year olds were “the kids” but that makes sense!
At his funeral, a 60ish guy introduced himself and said how much he liked talking with my grandfather at the senior center. I later came to find out that this was the grandson of one of my grandfather’s friends from childhood
My mother was a great proponent of intergenerational friendships. My close to moderately close friends range in age from 80ish down to in their 30’s (I’m 58). I suppose that not only does one have friends with more life experience as well as younger friends with the zest and enthusiasm of the young, but that also one would not end up with the “my friends are all dead” problem.
I’m 48. This fall I was diagnosed with an illness that has 90 percent life expectancy in five years. Even though that’s great odds, I keep thinking how 1 in 10 “me’s” won’t make it. I feel older. I don’t know if it’s still lingering recovery from surgery related to the illness or just the weight of suddenly coming up against mortality in such a numerical way. But I literally think all the time now about how different life feels from when I was younger. Most days I laugh a lot. But during some dark times, I just sit and think–is this it? Am I like a tree whose leaves are falling? Will this be what “old” for me will be?
Same here except 33.
What is 29 or 32 supposed to feel like? How do you pick those numbers? It all seems so arbitrary to me. I think it’s just hard to acknowledge that we age. :)
+1. It also makes everyone sound like they think they are the exception. If I don’t “feel” my age, then I’m somehow innately more fresh and energetic than…most other people my age, and most people who have been this age before me.
I haven’t chimed in above but for me it’s more about work and how much experience I have. I am 29 but still feel professionally quite junior (closer to 25/26) even though I have significantly more responsibility now. I thought I would feel like I had more authority(?) or seniority at this age but I definitely still have this idea in the back of my mind that “I’m still young” and should listen to my elders….even when I end up being right and should have spoken up. I have also noticed that people “feel” older or younger based on whether or not they have kids. I was SHOCKED to find out two close coworkers were the same age recently…the one with kids seemed so much older to me.
One thing that really made me feel my age was taking over responsibility for hosting family get-togethers and organizing important family tasks. My husband is the very youngest of four widely spaced siblings, but for reasons of geography and personality we are the ones who usually end up stepping up when things need to be done like hosting Thanksgiving, planning the big trip to get Mom’s house ready to sell, etc. We are very aware that we are the designated adults in the room and it’s up to us to make everything happen not just for our own kids but also for our parents and to some degree for our siblings.
I feel about 16 in my head and I’m 36, lol. Truly, I don’t feel any different “inside” than I did when I was a teenager. I just have different responsibilities and things now.
Same, and I’m 37. I’m single and don’t have kids so I have minimal responsibilities outside of staying employed. I’m basically living my teenage dream life – horses, skiing, fun clothes, parties, and all the books, video games, and ice cream I want. I feel like a kid that just happens to have a job and tons of disposible income instead of going to school haha.
This is how I feel! Yes adulthood has more responsibilities, but I still had to go to school and do homework as a kid and now even if I have to do that I have money for clothes/books/ice cream
I’m 63 and most definitely living my teenage dream life! (Or at least I was until the stupid pandemic came along…) Friends, parties, clothes, great house, great guy.
I feel like everyone thinks they feel younger than their age, but maybe it’s less “I am 40 but feel 30l and more “40 doesn’t feel as old as I expected.”
Much better way to put it IMO.
Bingo!
I’m 28, in my personal life I totally feel my age, I am happy with the lifestage and responsibilities I have. However in a work setting I feel like I’m 40, I had a quick career rise and am incharge of a lot of really important stuff and I’m way younger than all my same level peers.
I think that personal loss ages one tremendously. Both of my parents, my closest friend since kindergarten, and one of my siblings have died. Losses like this definitely have made me more conscious of my age, and made me feel my age.
47, feel maybe 35.
Anyone have recs for a great ring light for WFH setup? I have two external monitors and I face a window, but still don’t get quite enough light. Poring through the options online was overwhelming. Budget is flexible but ideally under $100. Thank you!
If I could piggyback on this, I need a ring light but wear glasses — and I can always see the reflection of the ring light on my colleagues, so I’m hesitant to get one and have it be distracting. Is there a secret to placement where it illuminates your face but doesn’t reflect In your glasses?
I have a similar issue- I have chronic migraine and get terrible headaches from looking at bright lights, so I can’t use a ring light either. I’m currently using an adjustable neck lamp aimed at the wall, so that it bounces light back on me. This works okay, but not great when it’s dark outside. I’d love to hear other suggestions as well. Definitely cursing our landlords who refused to install any ceiling lights, as I suspect overhead lighting would help in my case.
Overhead lighting would probably just make you backlit.
Personally, I just use a simple standing lamp with a white linen shade to diffuse the light. The other option you can consider is your overhead light. I went from a 2-light boob light to a 4-light flushmount drum with diffusing plastic on the bottom. That also really helped brighten the room.
Same, I have a floor lamp with a big shade behind (off to the side, as I face a window) one of my monitors.
I use a key light air – it’s a square of light and not a ring light so none of the ring in glasses issue. You can move it around for good lighting too. Highly recommend, may have been more than $100 but worth jt.
I have this one, but I have no other frame of reference to say whether it’s “great” or not. I chose it because it had good reviews and seemed to have good features. The light can be cooler or warmer and brighter and dimmer. USB plug. It’s worked well for me for a year now.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08LZKSMRH
I’ll be in Portland, Oregon in mid-March, staying in downtown. Any must-dos and/or off-the-beaten path recommendations of things to see, do, eat? I won’t have a car but love walking.
Saturday Market
Powells Bookstore
Voodoo Donuts
Stumptown Coffee
where in downtown are you staying?
not off the beaten path but wonderful: Saturday farmers market at PSU (it’s HUGE), Japanese garden, Powells, the pearl, NW 21 and 23 in nob hill for food/shopping, Saturday market + walk along the river. I would definitely also walk to SE (or Lyft, bus) for food. The Japanese garden is gorgeous and Hoyt arboretum is lovely too.
more off the beaten path for a day of food + walking: breakfast sandwich at the fried egg I’m in love cart at pioneer square, and browse muji (it’s like a Japanese version of target, so good). I’d walk across the Hawthorne bridge and E on Hawthorne and get coffee at upper left roasters. then I’d wander Ladd’s addition and look at the beautiful old homes and weird layout. end up on division and walk east to get blue star donuts, browse some shops on division, and have lunch at Ciccoria or Ava genes. or a slice of pie at Lauretta jeans. If you are a serious walker you can go east all the way to Mt Tabor park and go up to the top. Get cookies or pastries or dinner at Coquine. I would likely then take a Lyft back :)
downtown/NW food recs: Stella espresso, pine street market is like an indoor market with a lot of food vendors with great options, afuri for amazing ramen, andina and/or chicha for great Peruvian food, luc lac for vietnamese-fusion-y food (the vermicelli bowls and fresh spring rolls are my fav), Harlow for plant based meals, eb and bean for good plant based ice cream, top Burmese, and I loove bamboo sushi (multiple locations)
Thank you for the detailed reccs! Staying at the Woodlark (I think that’s downtown but I’ve never been so have no real idea). 0
I just looked it up,that’s a great location for walking to Powells and the pearl. It’s also close to toki, a new Korean restaurant I haven’t yet been too but my friends have raved about. Bullard, the restaurant in woodlark, is also supposed to be very good. you can easily take the max to Washington square park (zoo stop, but then you can walk N through the park)
I would encourage you to avoid the old town area (basically if you keep going east from the pearl) – while I wouldn’t call it actually dangerous it’s just really sad and bleak these days, and the state of houselessness may be kind of shocking and sad if you are not from a big west coast city.
Cool views of city and river from OHSU traM
I am trying to get my kiddo global entry so that the whole family has it. Ive applied and kiddo is “conditionally approved”, but the next step of getting an interview is looking to be quite challenging. Our home airport (Charlotte) doesn’t have any interviews at all, not even in 2023. The closest place with an interview within a reasonable timeframe is Detroit per the global entry website. I’m not in some crazy rush to do this, it’s just on my to do list and trying to get it done.
Some googling and reading of travel agent blogs tells me that office are backed up after COVID closures. It also led me to some appointment finding websites like “ttpalerts.com”. Has anyone used anything like this or is it a total scam? Thanks!
Just check each morning for upcoming openings. Last fall, PHL went from having no openings at all to the entire month of October opening up on a random morning in September.
You can interview without an appointment if you’re walking off an international flight. We did it at Charlotte after arriving on a flight from Cancun and the whole process (mostly waiting) took less than an hour.
I know they were doing virtual interviews at one point during Covid (my mom had one) but maybe that’s ended.
They do not advertise this but you can likely just show up without an appointment and do a walk in. I was the only one that had an appointment when I did mine.
Only if you’re coming off an international flight, or at least that was the rule in 2019 when we did it. I saw people without appointments being turned away.
Looks like DC has appointments in April. I vote you take a three day weekend, come to DC with kiddo for a city trip, and do the interview at the same time. Best of all, the location is convenient to the mall!
I also live in Charlotte. I used an app (can’t remember the name) that alerted me to interview cancellations/spots opening up. Once I got the notification I made the appointment immediately. It worked exactly as advertised and I recommend it.
It’s been awhile since I did mine but I checked frequently and was able to snag a same-day appointment.
Does anyone have a swimsuit coverup that they love? Everything I’ve looked at is super short on my 5’8″ self. Summersalt has cute stuff, but I think the prices are insane for a thin, filmy piece of fabric. I’d buy a t-shirt dress and call it a day, but I hate how wet cotton feels. Ick. My preference would either be a knee-length dress, or cute shorts. Basically, something that I can wear to the YMCA pool with my kids and feel OK in if/when it gets damp. This doesn’t need to be resort-worthy.
Cabana Life. Love their sleeveless knee length terry cloth tunics!
This looks about perfect. The price makes me squint, but if it’s the perfect thing that I’ll wear for a long time …
I love Emerson fry’s caftans
I use the Molerani tshirt dress from Amazon for this. It’s made of Rayon, not sure if thats also a know for you. Acceptable to wear in public, comfortable, fine if it gets damp especially if you get a darker color.
I have one from Cabana Life that I love.
Indian block print caftans. They’re thigh length.
I’m thinking about getting a patagonia nanopuff jacket for a friend for her birthday gift. Is it going out of style now? Is there something else I should get instead? She is in-house counsel and works for a university on the east coast, and is generally pretty practical (the nanopuff would be the nicer version of the uniqlo one that she already has and wears a lot). She wears a lot of banana republic, jeans, sweater/cardigan, plus dansko clogs (she has foot issues). Any other ideas welcome (budget up to $200).
Not at all, and it sounds like something she would like.
Apologies for not having an alternative but I’m someone who generally prefers the upgraded version of things, but you can take my Uniqlo puffers out of my cold, dead hands. They are warm and light, which no patogonia has ever achieved in the same way. So I’d probably look for a different idea. With a $200 budget and a girlfriend, I’d look at a nice pair of earrings or a handbag or something luxurious she wouldn’t buy herself.
That’s the kind of thing I think of as utilitarian and not necessarily subject to being in style or not, so I would say go for it. Include a gift receipt.
Also keep in mind that Patagonia and Uniqlo are cut very differently. Patagonia is great if she is tall and thin, with minimal hips and bust. If not you’ll be buying her an expensive jacket that will just make her feel fat. FWIW I am 5’2″ with curvy hips and bust, and comfortably wear a Large in Uniqlo light down jackets. My office bought everyone Patagonia Nano Puffs, and the XL I asked for after reading the size chart didn’t even begin to close over my hips and bust, and was way too long.
Can confirm, I’m tall with long arms and love my Patagonia nano. Not particularly slim but I get a larger size and it’s fine
So much this. If she’s curvy, the Athleta offerings may suit her better.
If she lives on the east coast, the nano puff is really more for shoulder season. It will not replace an actual cold weather puffy. The down sweater is much warmer, but also more expensive.