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Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices.
The majority of the most-worn items in my closet are black, white, or black-and-white prints. When you build your wardrobe around a specific color palette (black, white, and jewel tones for me!), you can pretty much grab any two items at random and be guaranteed they’ll match each other.
This is a long way of saying this gorgeous black-and-white skirt from Boss needs to be in my closet immediately. I would wear it with an emerald, blue, or dark purple top and some black heels.
The skirt is $198 at Nordstrom and comes in sizes XS–XL.
This more affordable option is from Karen Kane and is $61 at Amazon.
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Sales of note for 9.16.24
- Nordstrom – Summer Sale, save up to 60%
- Ann Taylor – Extra 30% off sale
- Banana Republic Factory – 50% off everything + extra 20% off
- Boden – 15% off new styles
- Eloquii – Extra 50% off sale
- J.Crew – 30% off wear-now styles
- J.Crew Factory – (ends 9/16 PM): 40% off everything + extra 70% off sale with code
- Lo & Sons – Warehouse sale, up to 70% off
- M.M.LaFleur – Save 25% sitewide
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
- Talbots – Extra 25% off all tops + markdowns
- Target – Car-seat trade-in event through 9/28 — bring in an old car seat to get a 20% discount on other baby/toddler stuff.
- White House Black Market – 40% off select styles
Sales of note for 9.16.24
- Nordstrom – Summer Sale, save up to 60%
- Ann Taylor – Extra 30% off sale
- Banana Republic Factory – 50% off everything + extra 20% off
- Boden – 15% off new styles
- Eloquii – Extra 50% off sale
- J.Crew – 30% off wear-now styles
- J.Crew Factory – (ends 9/16 PM): 40% off everything + extra 70% off sale with code
- Lo & Sons – Warehouse sale, up to 70% off
- M.M.LaFleur – Save 25% sitewide
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
- Talbots – Extra 25% off all tops + markdowns
- Target – Car-seat trade-in event through 9/28 — bring in an old car seat to get a 20% discount on other baby/toddler stuff.
- White House Black Market – 40% off select styles
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- Tell me about your favorite adventure travels…
Ellen
This is the first day since I was a young attorney that Andrew Cuomo has not been our governor in NY. It is a big day for women, since the new Governor Hochul will not demean us or objectify us. Please join with me as we all hail Governor Hochul and bid farewell to Cuomo. Hopefully our male bosses will heed the lesson to keep their hands to themselves and treat us as equals.
bbb
Question for those who have flown recently. I’ve been hearing horror stories of long wait times, delayed flights, etc. How common is that? It’s hard to know if I’m just remembering the bad stories. We are scheduled to fly with our kids in October and trying to decide how miserable it will/might be.
Anonymous
It was fine. I found the airport a bit understaffed, check in took a little longer, food lines a bit longer. Nothing crazy.
Anon
so we flew in July and got very lucky in that we did not experience long wait times or delayed flights. i would actually say it was the first time i’d flown in years without some kind of delay. that being said, i personally will not be flying with my kids right now (thanks Delta), but i am very grateful we were able to get in our trip to our families over the summer, so i might be making a different decision now if we hadn’t
Cat
I will lead off by saying if you don’t have Precheck / Global Entry now is the time to get it.
We’ve been flying and haven’t had any problems on American or JetBlue (though we weren’t flying the weekend of the big meltdown at the end of July). We aren’t however going anywhere that requires a layover, as the number of possible issues seems to scale exponentially with the number of flights involved.
In October you usually don’t have to worry about bad thunderstorms or bad snowstorms causing a massive backlog so I wouldn’t worry about it at all.
No Face
Stick to direct flights if possible and have a plan if your flight gets cancelled. I’ve known people whose flights were completely cancelled and they couldn’t get another one the same day.
No Face
But to answer your question, I flew in July and it was fine. I have pre-check from my old work travelling days. Mask compliance was very high.
BeenThatGuy
I’ve flown on a few occasions this summer and prepared myself for long delays (LaGuardia and Charlotte). I’m happy to report back that there were no delays. Charlotte said to be prepared for up to 3 hour wait times at security and it took 15 minutes. LGA at 5am ran like a well oiled machine.
Anon
We just flew a couple weeks ago and it was fine. No long lines, no mask drama – it was actually better than usual flying.
Anon
I had a very pleasant experience flying in July. Caveat that I have Precheck, which made a big difference. The airport was packed, even at 6 AM, but I was able to glide right through.
People were universally polite and adhering to mask wearing. Not that I doubt the horror stories that have surfaced, but I like to think they’re the exception, not the rule. People behaving well won’t make headlines.
Anon in Dallas
I flew in July and our flight was fine (although there were plenty being canceled because of staffing issues) but it was super early and we were checking bags so we had planned to just get there and get into the terminal and then figure out breakfast and that was a mistake. The lines were insane absolutely everywhere. We ended up getting almonds and candy and cokes from the self checkout store. We had a choice between flying into Vail or Denver and chose Denver. I was glad we were going into a bigger airport that had more ability to recover and shift us onto other planes if needed
Anonymous
Oh, yes, I forgot the food lines. A lot of the vendors hadn’t reopened when I flew, so the lines at the few that were open were insane. It may be improving, but I would not plan on eating at the airport unless you have a ton of time or are content grabbing a sandwich from a Hudson News.
Seventh Sister
We flew in and out of some smallish airports and very few of the places to eat were open. Otherwise, it was fine.
Curious
+1. There were no sandwiches to be found in Reno.
pugsnbourbon
I feel like this is a Johnny Cash B-side.
Vicky Austin
absolutely dying.
Curious
You win the internet today :)
Anon
I flew in late June, American, and didn’t have any issues at all. The airports I was in were as crowded as I’ve ever seen them, at that point, and some of the airport restaurants had signs up that they were closed because of staffing issues. I’m scheduled to travel for business in September and October and keeping my fingers crossed the recent “leveling out” of Delta cases in some of the South means by that point case counts will be going down.
Anonymous
I flew in May and June and it was fine. We got an auto email warning of potential two hour delays at security, but there was basically no line at Precheck and it only took my husband about 15-20 minutes to get through the regular security line (yep, he doesn’t have precheck and I won’t wait in normal security with him). I will say the bag check lines looked lengthy, so if you’re checking a bag, leave yourself plenty of time (at least at my airport/preferred airline, they have to be checked in at least 30 minutes before the flight). We had one flight delay of about 2 hours due to a mechanical issue where they had to find us another plane, but that sort of thing happened a lot in the Before Times to me, too (back in the days of frequent work travel). I’m flying later this week, so we’ll see if it’s any worse.
NYCer
No issues on our recent flights. We do have TSA precheck and global entry, which I do think makes a difference.
AnonB
It has been a mixed bag. So prepare for the worst, and be pleasantly surprised when its better. First flew in May and the lines were longer than I have ever seen (even at 5am), but otherwise all went smoothly. Definitely recommend precheck- its faster than ever since there is hardly any business travel occurring. Had a trip booked for July and the flight got moved to a day later. Most recently flew last week and lines were short, no delays, all operated smoothly. From my experience, people traveling have been very mask complaint, even in my very maskless state.
roxie
I did two round trip flights so far this summer (both DIA -PHL) and while airports were generally crowded, I had no delays or especially long lines. I agree precheck is important; notably, I also maintain a no eating or drinking in the airport (or on the plane) policy for myself right now so I aimed to spend as little time as possible in both airports (no more than 40 minutes, from security to boarding) and did not have to contend with the very long lines for food and goodies. How people are comfortable taking masks off to eat in an airport right now is effing beyond me. I travel with Lara bars and if needed stuff it under my mask in 3 bites and call it a day.
One thing I did need to do was try to let go if the anger of seeing others clearly violating the mask rule, coughing, and generally being d*cks – I just had to let it go or else flying would be a nightmare. That was frankly the hardest part.
Curious
+1. We had a whole family next to us with masks under noses and we just had to let it goooo.
Also Anon
I recently flew from Boston to San Diego and back via Jet Blue, and it was fine. We had a minor delay coming back due to some concerns with the equipment and they had to have something inspected, but I think the delay was only half an hour. I also didn’t witness any major delays or issues in any of the terminals we were in. The bag drop and security lines at Logan were slightly insane on a Wednesday morning, but coming home we breezed right through security. What did make me nervous was that there are fewer Lyft drivers on the road these days, so I did schedule most of our airport rides to be safe, and the ride home from Logan was like $90, but all in all it wasn’t too bad.
Cat
Oh good point on ride share being outrageous. Normally a Lyft or Uber for our 15-minute drive to the airport would be somewhere around $20. This summer it’s been $50. As a result we have reverted to our old practice of taking cabs, because their fixed rate is cheaper and there’s often a line of them just sitting there waiting at the airport while rideshares take 15+ minutes to arrive!
Anonymous
I’ve flown twice this summer and it was a mixed bag. Flight in June was a nightmare. There was some weather in the city we were departing from, but they still had us board the plane and sit there for 5 hours not moving before they finally said they would have to reschedule the flight for the next day and let us off. Flew again a couple of weeks ago and it was fine, aside from the long lines for security and food mentioned earlier. I was sure to bring an external charger and snacks for that flight, although I didn’t end up needing them. Mask compliance was also mixed, in my experience. Some people who just completely removed their mask for eating/drinking and then kept it off unless a flight attendant walked by, and lots of people (men) wearing their mask below their nose.
Anonymous
My experience was that once I was thru security, everything was normal/fine. I have flown a few times out of Charlotte. However the sheer number of people in the airport between the entrance and the ticketing counters has been through the roof crazy. Just a crush of people – think Wednesday before thanksgiving number of people times ten.
As someone else mentioned, pre check ha sheen fine, but I recently flew out of JFK and they decided to not have precheck open at all, so I had to repack my carry on mid security line to get liquids and laptop out and find socks so I wasn’t walking on the bare floor.
Cornellian
I’ve only flown once during COVID, and it was a g*dforsaken nightmare. Flights delayed for an hour then two then four then two again, then cancelled, then back on. No restaurants open. No mask compliance. Everything understaffed. I left my unvaccinated preschool at home. He’s a great traveler but I cannot imagine what that trip would have been like with him. We ultimately couldn’t get out for 19 hours so we rented a card and drove 10. Awful.
Anonymous
Adding to this. I have flown 3 times since being vaccinated (May, June and July). May was fine but by June, the number of travelers had increased, flight delays were incredibly common and the ride share services were awful (high prices and long wait times). July was even worse, with an outright cancellation of the flight as the plane was sitting at the gate. Others that I have spoken to report the same, with flight cancellations, and getting stuck in a connection city. Travel isn’t what it was pre Covid and I think it will take years to get back to that point.
Cat
So I think the TL;DR version of this thread is actually the same as air travel almost any time – most of the time things run reasonably ok, but every so often your luck will run out :)
Curious
We took 4 flights in June/July and had 3 delayed ~1 hour, which felt a little higher than usual — like planes hadn’t been maintained and so there were more maintenance/switch out planes issues. We might be past that now.
Senior Attorney
I flew twice in July (long flight Burbank to Seattle to Iceland and shorter flight L.A. to Oregon) and it was no worse than it ever was. Heartily second getting Pre-Check/Global Entry. Also we have CLEAR and it’s fantastic if they have it at the airport(s) you use most frequently.
Anon
I flew in June with no problems but I was flying hub to hub non stop and I have Clear and global entry/tsa pre.
Anon
Do people think it’s mostly domestic flights getting canceled/delayed, or international flights as well? Hoping they prioritize larger, more infrequent flights.
Cat
If there is a particular route you’re worried about, look it up on FlightAware. You can see the track record on delays and cancellations for awhile back.
Is it Friday yet?
I flew internationally in May and July, and for both flights, I had to wait for ages to check in (it wouldn’t let me do it on the phone as usual pre-pandemic because they had to verify vaccination documentation) and the checked bag line was awful, the absolute worst I’ve ever seen, even the legs I flew business. May flights were on time, July was delayed for four hours for thunderstorms on the way out, and then a few hours on the way back because French air traffic control held us for the Bastille Day airshow. But October you shouldn’t have the weather issue – just leave extra time if you need to check bags. And don’t try to leave Paris on a holiday, haha.
anon
I flew both domestic and international recently and it was ok. Our neighbors were trying to fly from NY to FL in July. Their flight was cancelled and they were unable to rebook so ended up driving.
Anon
we are soon hopefully closing on our first home and will finally have space for a king sized bed. we need to buy a new mattress. is one of those online mattress companies the way to go? any recs? i want one that is firm and good for people who get hot when they sleep and that will last a while. i don’t want to feel like it needs replacing after 5 years.
pugsnbourbon
We got a Helix specifically for hot sleepers. I really like it.
Pompom
We like the Tuft and Needle Mint; definitely on the firmer side, and decent for hot sleeping. I don’t notice a particularly cooling effect, but it’s not hot (I sleep hot with two small, hot dogs and one warm DH, in the south–it could be bad…but it’s not!)
Vicky Austin
We have this too and we love it. My DH is an absolute furnace and it hasn’t bothered me for years now.
ollie
We just got a Saatva Classic mattress in firm. We like a firm mattress and don’t like memory foam, and I sleep hot. It’s been wonderful so far.
Anonymous
I have the Saatva in plush soft and it is still quite firm. We also have a Tuft and Needle on another bed and that’s very firm. Both avoid the “hot sleeping” problem.
Anon
I am a petite person who likes a firm mattress. The Saatva Classic firm made my hands fall asleep so I used the Saatva guarantee and exchanged it for the medium firmness. I would prefer it to be slightly firmer, but this solved the hands issue. Saatva indicated this is a known issue for petite people. The customer service was excellent.
Senior Attorney
We got a Saatva Relaxed Firm and it was a tiny bit firm for me so we got a foam topper from Costco and now it’s perfect. I sleep hot and that hasn’t been a problem even with the topper.
Anon
I went with Avocado and am happy. It was the Consumer Reports recommendation, the price seemed competitive, I hate memory foam and like springs, and I know that a top layer of wool helps me with the issue of getting hot when I sleep.
My favorite that I tried was a super high end Aireloom, but it cost several times more and really isn’t known for longevity. And my spouse weighs more than me, so what’s a “firm” mattress to me isn’t always supportive enough for him.
Anonymous
Two purples in our household and not going back! Worth the cost, IMO
Anon
The best mattress I’ve ever owned was from an independent mattress maker in the suburbs of Chicago. (Quality Sleep Shop if you’re in the area.) I got to talk directly to the owner and he built the mattress for exactly what we wanted. It lasted almost ten years and multiple moves. Now I try hard to support whatever small mattress maker I can find. Might be worth a search to find one in your local area?
Anon
I have a Casper for 6 years now and love it
Anon
I’ve noticed that the “five year replacement rule” comes from the companies selling mattresses. I am currently on a 20+ year old mattress, and it’s still quite comfortable. The mattress before was my grandparents’, and it was much older but still comfortable.
Free day in DC area - what would you do?
Good morning! I’m in Arlington VA and have a PTO day coming up. Looking for suggestions from the hive. Thanks!
Anon
Mount Vernon?
pugsnbourbon
What do you like to do and do you have a car?
Anon100
So many things! Here are some very general suggestions
In DC
– a walk on Theodore Roosevelt island
– picnic on Hains Point
– the National Zoo + ice cream afterwards
– depending on your current comfort level, any of the Smithsonian museums
– Hillwood Estates
– Dumbarton Oaks
– Tudor Place gardens
–
If you have a car
– Eden Center for alllll the delicious Vietnamese and more food
– Sky Meadows State Park
– Harpers Ferry National Park
– any of the hundreds of Virginia wineries
– day trip to Front Royal and/or Shenandoah
– day trip to Annapolis
– day trip to Richmond
– spend a day browsing Old Town Alexandria
– Mason Neck State Park
– Great Falls National Park
– Meadowlark Botanical Garden
– Brookside Gardens
Anon
I went to the immersive Van Gogh experience this weekend and thought it was very cool – they may have tickets available during the week. You could combine with lunch/brunch nearby.
Anon100
Also along those lines, ArTecHouse
anon
Artechouse is super lame. It’s instagrammable but boring af.
Anon
I loved walking around Cap Hill and Eastern Market on my days off. I’d hit up Market Lunch for a crab cake lunch. So, so good.
Anonymous
Buckwheat pancakes there – hell yeah!
Anonymous
OP here – thanks! I have a car. I know about most of the “touristy” things — was looking for some things my fellow DC area Rettes do that I never would have thought of. :) Thanks!
Anonymous
Have you been to Kenilworth Aquatic Garden? It’s a bit more off the grid and awesome.
PolyD
Have you been to Kensington Aquatic Gardens? Most of the lotuses have bloomed, but there were enough still sticking around last weekend. It’s an amazing place to visit.
Anon100
More ideas, since you have a car
– PYO fruit farms. Peaches are in season, and you might find some early apples
– Roers Zoofari? I’ve heard good and bad things about it so maybe not but just throwing it out there
– if you’re willing to crossover to the Maryland side – Cunningham Falls State Park, falls area should hopefully be less crowded during the weekday
– day trip to Baltimore AVAM
– find out if you can get into Glenstone as a walk in (I have wanted to visit Glenstone since they opened but tickets always are sold out the day they get released…)
Depending on whether not you are willing to head over to Baltimore, there are several museums other than AVAM that might be of interest. Like the Baltimore Museum of Industry, B&O Railroad Museum, Edgar Allan Poe Museum…
pugsnbourbon
Annapolis, Baltimore and Charlottesville are good day trips.
anonamoose
Late reader (always) but there is a wolf sanctuary just over the state line in PA where you can walk trails among wolves (in cages). I haven’t been but friends recommend. Fallingwater may make a good trip too if architecture interests you. Chadds Ford is on my list but not yet fully open last i checked. Mowing my lawn would be a great opportunity to experience terrible MD drivers (subtler than a first year political that was). Audubon had some scheduled bird walks at Patterson in Baltimore coming up. St Michaels is always a fun shopping and sightseeing day. Sometimes there are skipjack excursions if the weather is nice and that supports the watermen.
In House Counsel - Drafting Training
Question for any of you ladies who are in-house. I’m a litigator by training (Biglaw, government), and am potentially shifting into a more generalist in-house role that will cover both litigation management, but also general commercial work, including contracts and commercial real estate, in addition to litigation. I’m hoping for some mentorship, but I get the sense that I will have to do a lot of legwork on my own. I was wondering if there were any good resources for training on the transactional/commercial side of things. Happy to go “outside of the box” to to speak, but perhaps any conferences, online training, CLEs, other resources that may be helpful? Would auditing a class at a local law school be an option (but, for those of you in that practice, does law school actually teach you how to *do* things?). Any other ideas? Ideally low-cost, but would be willing to pay for a good training resource. Thank you in advance!
Anon
I believe Bryan Garner has an advanced contracts drafting course. I’d do that, his workshops for litigators are quite good so I’d imagine the transactional side also would be.
Anon
No idea why my suggestion for Bryan Garner is in mod.
Cat
bc you used a word that includes the phrase ‘tr-ns’
Anon
I recommend an ACC membership and/or a PLI membership. But honestly, you’re going to have to learn it by practice mostly. Definitely get some foundation courses via ACC / PLI under your belt though if you can!
How big is the law department? I would lean on your colleagues as much as possible too. I am clueless in litigation management (luckily not at all my role), so lean on our litigation manager there while others rely on me for my specialty area. We have a huge law department though so that helps for specific SMEs.
Anon
Oh, also, review what has been done in the past and ask for feedback on how it’s working or not working. Then you know how much to rely on precedent in that area or where you can make improvements. No need to reinvent the wheel at first if it’s working.
Anonymous
If the real estate you will be doing is commercial —— I am a commercial real estate lawyer, and honestly I would reach out to title insurance companies to see if they will provide you access to their CLEs. I use very, very little of what I learned in law school.
First American does a big “title insurance boot camp” that is about 4-6 hour long cles that hit a lot of high points on important areas of title insurance/commercial real estate. I have retaken some of them to occasionally get a refresher in the basics.
In House Counsel - Drafting Training
The work would be commercial real estate- and that is a great idea! My husband (who is in financial services) has contacts in that industry, so I may reach out. Thank you!
Anon
I’ve been in-house my entire career. My first job was as the first in-house counsel at a company. Here’s what has worked for me:
1) ACC membership is a must – you’ll get access to so many forms and examples. It will also help you build a network that you can lean on for some advice.
2) Check to see if there are “playbooks” or “give books” that are used at your company. My current company is the first that has these but they are so helpful. My business unit has not had them in the past and as I update these forms, I include side notes re: gives, rationale for unconventional terms.
3) As mentioned previously, lean on the existing attorneys at the company. Take a look at the forms used for high volume documents that you will work with. I suggest printing a copy of each out and making notes in the margins for you to discuss with one of the current lawyers. It will help you get a better understanding of what things mean or why they are in there.
4) MOST IMPORTANT – Learn the business from top to bottom if it is a small company – if a large company, learn your business unit from top to bottom AND how it fits into the larger company. Spending time with the various “clients” within your business unit, shadow them or attend their meetings if possible, is the best way to learn and build the relationships you need with those clients. It is imperative that the clients feel comfortable with you (even when you need to be tough) so that they come to you with potential issues or to get thoughts on a certain course of action. This will make your job so much easier in the long run because you’ll be doing less “clean up.”
MJ
Adding some suggestions I haven’t seen yet:
There is a blog/newsletter called Contract Nerds which goes over basis contract redlining insight.
A website called Law Insider has “Contract Teardowns” where they go through basics of say, a SaaS agreement. Law Insider also has sample clauses. This is a membership based website but a lot of their content is available outside the paywall.
A linkedin poster, Laura Frederick, posts a helpful (some of them are incredibly savvy) contract drafting tip daily, and she has a book, and a new “network” (paid membership) and a YouTube channel — all are called How to Contract. She is truly great.
Cosign the suggestions for PLC (Practical Law Company) off of Westlaw–it has lots of agreements with drafting notes, ACC (many presentations on ‘how to negotiate an X” agreement). I have found PLI to be less good in terms of drafting training.
If you like book references: Contract Drafting by Tina Stark and The Tech Contracts Handbook (the latter not being only for tech contracts–it has great sample clauses) are both very helpful and worth the money.
Ken Adams has also started hosting training classes a few times a year. He is a bit pedantic and they’re pricy, so I can’t vouch. I would think he’d be better than Garner, as Garner focuses more on litigation-related legal writing.
Hope these help.
In House Counsel - Drafting Training
Thank you so much!
Anon
I use Tina Stark’s book for my contract drafting class and I agree that it is an excellent foundations book!
Anon
Does anyone have a good script for declining an offer while leaving the door open to reapply or accept it later? I’ve received a fantastic offer but cannot take it until early next year. My circumstances have changed considerably since I first applied in April. My caregiving responsibilities have increased because of parental issues and I’ll be doing virtual learning until my kid can get vaccinated(my area is not requiring masks for anyone). I’m going to lean out for the next several months and know that this isn’t the time to start at a new, more stressful gig. However, I would love to take the gig in Q1 or Q2 2022 if possible. Any tips?
Cornellian
I don’t know if that’s really an option at mots places. I would honestly consider accepting and asking for a, say, October or November start date in order to be able to fully focus when you arrive, and throw money at a tutor or whatever you need to keep your kids safe.
Anon
+1, I tried to broach this with an employer in a similar situation last year and was shut down pretty quickly. I don’t think there’s a script that is going to get you there. Unless you have some special relationship with them, they will just move on to the next candidate. Of course you can always reapply later when they have an opening again but I wouldn’t expect much.
anon
I think you can tell them exactly what you told us. That you want to be able to take the position, but your circumstances have changed dramatically. Then see what they have to say. If they managed to make it this long without hiring, maaaaybe they’d be willing to extend the start date.
Cat
Yeah I don’t know if they could wait until 2Q 2022, but January is only 4 months away. I think it’s worth a frank conversation about your circumstances rather than assuming you should back out. (If you do back out, re-applying in a few months will look bizarre.)
Anonymous
Lol Idk why you’d think this is an option
Anon
Lol, why do you think it isn’t? Companies grow and hire for roles more than once. But seriously, my question isn’t to “hold” the position. It’s for a script to use to decline knowing that I would reapply IF the company is hiring for that position again at a later date.
Anon
Am in HR and it’s surprising what people will do if you ask/negotiate. I have worked many offers for higher-level positions in my time and for the right person, upper management will do a lot, including delaying start dates considerably, paying out signing bonuses to make up for what people leave behind in terms of unvested 401k match or equity shares, etc. Like everyone else, my company is doing lots of “remote start” options – people who will need to be back in the office at some point are starting remotely with the understanding they’ll be remote until probably January. We have people who are living across the country from our office locations and don’t have to move until a date TBD, based on the trajectory of the pandemic. If they let you work 100% remote indefinitely, could you take the job?
I wouldn’t ask them to hold the position open, but it’s worth asking (as Cornellian said above) if you can get a later start date, like October/November, which would give you a chance to put some things together that may make it easier to start the new job. If they can’t do that, I would explain how interested you are in the job, express remorse that you can’t take it due to family concerns, and ask if it’s okay that you check back in with them periodically to see if they are hiring for any other positions you would be qualified for. That statement is key – don’t ask them to contact you if anything else comes up in the future; ask if you can contact them. It signals a different level of interest.
Quality talent is not easy to find, especially when people are exec level or have rare technical skills. If they gave you a great offer, you are a valuable find for them and it’s worth seeing what they might be able to do to help you get on board. I am a mom too and in your situation (no masks in schools) I would do what you’re doing, but let the new company see what they can do to help you before you conclusively decide there’s no way to make this work. Good luck.
Anon
Thank you so much for your insight. I will make sure ask if I can check back in with them periodically. That’s a great call.
Anonymous
There’s no script for this.
Eyeroll
Rude, snarky, and ill-informed comment. Just stop. “Lol ?”
No Face
I see two options:
– ask for a October start date so you can line up care for your child (and parents?).
– explain that your situation has changed so you cannot accept at this time, but you would be very interested in working with them in the future if they are unable to fill the position / someone leaves / the company grows.
AugNon
I agree with this. They are probably hiring now because they need someone now, so pushing out into 2022 is unlikely to be feasible (unless you have a unique skill set that no one else has). I think your best bet if this is the job you want is to use a few weeks to figure out how to make it work in your new life circumstances. If that’s just not feasible, I would decline based on changing circumstances without referencing a 2022 start date.
Lorelei
I don’t think the door will be open later, so I’d try to discuss what you have going on – perhaps you can remote onboard and that may take you into next year. In the Bay Area at least many companies are pushing into 2022 for returning to the office. At the very least, maybe you could make a hybrid schedule work, combined with a later start date.
Anon.
It’s interesting to me that no one thinks the role will ever be open again. My team currently has two open positions that are very similar and we just filled two others. It is entirely possible that a role will open up again in the spring. For the right candidate, I would consider holding one of those positions until next spring. We’ve been short staffed for like 5 years, what’s four more months.
Agreed, tread lightly to not take yourself out of consideration. I don’t know that you want/need to give any detail. “I am really interested in the role, but because of short term personal circumstances I am unable to change jobs at this time. Please keep my resume on file if positions open up in the future and I will watch for openings next year.” Then stay connected with your contact there if possible.
I had a conversation with a colleague at a competitor earlier this year about making a move. Ultimately I told her I wasn’t interested in the opportunity right then, but we agreed to keep in touch and left the door open if I things change.
Anon
This is exactly the kind of thing was looking for. Thank you.
I also find it interesting that no one thinks the role will be open again. Maybe I should add that I’m in a booming industry, have a fairly advanced skill set. I’m NOT worried about the position not being available again, because it’s very likely that there will be another opening. I just don’t want to burn any bridges by turning this offer down after several interviews. I’m very interested in this particular company.
Anonymous
A fair number of posters here either don’t work, or are in low-level jobs. Once I realized that, a lot of the answers I’d see to career questions that didn’t seem correct suddenly made sense.
LaurenB
Yea, that’s why they frequent a board with fashions and choices for professional working women @@.
Anon
Honest question, LaurenB – how many of the questions in a given daily post are about fashion? Go back and count and let me know what you see, because I don’t see a whole lot of conversation about the clothes. P.S., what do you do for work (you can answer very generally so as not to out yourself)? I don’t know that I’ve ever seen you talk about your job. Maybe you did on one of the days I wasn’t here.
Also, lots of people are here because unlike other social media, you aren’t required to have a consistent handle/username that can be blocked or muted. Even Reddit has a block feature now, and they also have more consistent/stronger moderation of users. We have a fair number of people here who, I think, are refugees from other social media sites or communities where they’ve been banned (or shadowbanned).
Anon
Really? People coming here because they were banned elsewhere? I steer clear of Reddit because the moderation there is so inadequate. Maybe we’re thinking of different subreddits though.
Anon
Agree, I am the poster above in HR. I think people would be surprised how often people – even very experienced people – don’t work out in a position (sometimes the departure is mutually-agreed-upon, sometimes not), or take a position and then they have something happen in their personal life and have to quit. Also, budget situations change and so while I may have projected headcount of 1 analyst in a department right now, after our next budget reforecast, if things are good they may approve me to hire 2 additional analysts. There’s definitely a non-zero chance the position the OP interviewed for (or an equivalent position) will re-open again in the future (although I still think she should try to make it work now).
I was also once in a situation where my company wanted to hire an exec who was in a noncompete from a previous job. Rather than hire someone other than who they wanted, the C-suite execs chose to wait until the person was out of her noncompete to fill the position; they waited almost a year.
Anon
I very much agree. I’m old and have worked in tech at F100 and startup firms, including in executive management. It is definitely worth talking to them in the same way you talked with us. You would absolutely love to accept the job but your situation is dramatically different due to covid. Is there any possibility to start at a later date? And, if not, do what the HR poster suggested—say you very much want to check in from time to time to see if there are other positions that open up that may be a good fit. That is a very realistic scenario in all but very small companies. Good luck! You are in a good negotiating position right now. Being forthright with them about your situation will help them understand why you may need to say no. If you tell them these are circumstances you could not have predicted when you applied, that is not unusual or out of line at all. People back out after being presented with offers. The manner in which you do it is what matters.
Doodles
I would ask for a delayed start or a remote start. There’s no guarantee that the job will open back up in the future (of course anything is possible… the person they hire may quit or be a bad fit, etc). Q1 is not that far away. They may be willing to wait. And remote school is not a reason to pass up a fantastic offer. Hire a tutor or form a pod. Vaccines for kids aren’t that far away supposedly.
anon
I had the worst night of sleep that I’ve had in some time. I should’ve taken a sick day, honestly. I found out yesterday that my dear kitty boy has an aggressive bone tumor on his leg. Amputation is the usual course of action, but given his geriatric age status, I’m not doing that to him. The vet completely supported that decision and said she would do the same if it were her pet. So we’re working on pain management, and I have a phone call scheduled with the vet tomorrow to figure out when to euthanize. Days? A few weeks? I’m crushed. How bad is “bad enough”? I want to give him a dignified end of life. I don’t believe in pulling out all the stops for an animal who can’t fully communicate what he needs and wants, and whose quality of life is not going to get better. He managed to hide his pain for a very long time; I had him examined just days after the bump appeared and it already looked massive on the x-ray. What should I be asking my vet?
No Face
My beloved kitty had cancer (18 years old) and I euthanized within 48 hours of getting the diagnosis. Cats are very good at hiding their pain, so she had already been through enough. Her last day was filled with snuggles and all the table food she wanted.
anon
This is what I’m leaning toward, but I don’t want to be heartless. I’m going to miss him terribly, but I do not want him to suffer on my behalf.
Anonymous
That is not heartless!!
Cornellian
I don’t think it’s heartless. I think keeping pets alive for your mental health is more heartless, although I totally get the desire.
anonymous
I’m so sorry. That is an incredibly difficult situation. The general answer depends on his quality of life. One of my kitties had kidney disease and other health issues, including sever constipation which required two desbstipation procedures. Her appetite already wasn’t great due to the kidney disease, but near the the end she really did not want to eat and became very withdrawn and would spend most of her time upstairs in the bedroom.
Monitor your kitty and see how he’s doing. You know his personality and you can tell when he is not acting his normal self. There was a similar post about this a few weeks back and I know some people felt that their cats still had energy and a will to live. Unfortunately in my situation, I could tell my kitty was not doing well.
Your vet can provide guidance on how to manage his care, but ultimately it will be your decision. You can ask the vet what the process will be like when you into the office or you can see if they can come to your home.
I called the vet on Monday and scheduled the appointment for Friday. I’m glad I took the day off work and also had the weekend to process what happened.
Sending lots of hugs. It can be a really heartbreaking decision to make.
pugsnbourbon
Oh gosh I’m so sorry. Can you take a half day?
I’m glad you have a supportive vet. If you ask her what you’ve asked us here, I think she will be able to guide you.
Anon
I regret waiting too long with my cats in kidney failure. I think it’s better to err on the side of “too soon” rather than “too late”.
Euthanizing at home was a great experience (relatively) and I highly recommend it. I used a traveling vet who was just amazing, her aura is incredibly compassionate and kind. LMK if you’re near Philly and I can refer you.
Anon
From experience, I completely agree with both statements above about “too soon” being better than “too late,” and also about home euthanasia. I waited too long with our first dog and wish we had moved forward with euthanizing him at least a month before we did; I had trouble letting go and by the time we actually had the vet come to the house he was very debilitated. But the vet was wonderful and compassionate and it helped that we were able to let him go at home, where he had lived with us, and didn’t have to take him to the vet (which he absolutely hated) one last time.
Anon
I’m so sorry.
Ses
I’m so sorry you’re going through this. I think in a lot of cases you know when it’s time. If he’s still bouncing around, playing, and snuggling, you have some time left, but if he’s lethargic and doesn’t seem like the cat you’re used to, combined with the vet saying there’s no cure, it’s probably time.
Also, there’s no completely perfect time. You won’t know if you can squeeze in just one more “good” day, so just try to time it the best you can and err on the side of losing one or two more “good” days if it means you can reduce the cat’s suffering.
When I thought it was getting close to “time” for my cat, it was mid-week and instead of going to the vet right then, I scheduled the vet to come out that Saturday so I could have enough time to focus on a good sendoff. I spent a couple days cuddling and giving medication, but I wish I didn’t have these memories of my cat being sick. That said, it wasn’t horrible, and I’m glad in the end that I took the time to focus on saying goodbye to my buddy and hold her as she went.
allieoops
I am so sorry about your cat. I’ve had to euthanize several cats, and I always ended up waiting too long and regretting it. However, I never regretted euthanizing at home — it really is a much better experience for the cat, and by extension, the humans. Best of luck to you and many snuggles to your feline.
Anon
So sorry Anon. Hugs from an internet stranger.
SF in House
Anon, I hope you see this late reply. I just got the same news about my beloved 12 year old dog. For us, the maximum is months, but my heart is saying weeks. He is getting lots of love with his pain management and my daughter has made a bucket list: seeing his favorite people, having a puppacino, a trip to the beach. I too am scared that I won’t know when the time is right. Hugs to you.
Tanja
Random question — do teens generally work anymore (not so much all teens, but teens with parents on this board or your neighbors with teens)? Businesses in my city are really hurting for entry-level workers. Legal for work is 14 and driving age is 16, so maybe it is an access-to-transportation thing (and in our city, transit is geared to getting people from various corridors to a downtown core and pretty much no one works downtown thanks to COVID).
Anon
My friends’ college-bound kids are completely overwhelmed with activities. Being on just one sports team means nightly practices, training drills, weight lifting, scrimmages, and then weekend games. Clubs and arts groups are similarly demanding. The parents don’t see the value in having the kid lose out on that kind of college application padding just to make 7-8 bucks an hour slinging fast food.
Kids headed for trades seem more likely to work, but our area has gotten more demanding about delaying driver’s licenses (used to be you could get it the day you turned 16, now there’s a minimum multi-month wait with proof of supervised practice and driver’s ed classes) so they aren’t working until they’re older because parents can’t shuttle them around on the schedules these jobs expect.
Cat
I wish colleges would see the growth that comes from working typical entry level retail “teen” jobs as opposed to overscheduled activities…
My first W2 job was a fast food place and the perspective that came with working with people from ALL backgrounds, seeing first hand how taxes work, thinking about “wow that would take me 15 hours of work to buy that, is it really worth it,” etc.
Anon
100% agree – working in fast food was the best education I had. I worked there the summer before I started college and it was very eye opening, and it inspired me to do well in college
Anon
I couldn’t cut it as a waitress (I probably could now, but I don’t drink coffee and that was a lot of it at a diner), but worked at a grocery store and every person on this planet eats food. You see a LOT.
Anon
100 agree. And also? Not being able to get your driver’s license on your birthday? How sad. That’s one if my favorite memories.
Anon
Agree. It seems unfair to teens (esp. with all those practices to get to, what a burden on parents). It’s not like adults aren’t busy texting and driving, but take that out on teens like somehow the rest of us are free of giving in to bad impulses while driving (like I’d feel safer with a kid in a car than a kid as a pedestrian b/c they are more protected from the other idiots that roll into crosswalks, etc.).
No Problem
Umm, colleges do? They’re more interested in seeing your commitment to an activity (a sport, a club, a job, a volunteer gig, whatever) than any one of those in particular. Plus if you use your essay to say anything about your job, it can be along the lines of “stores/restaurants in my town really needed staff and I was happy to step in for 15-20 hours a week after school/on weekends to keep their doors open instead of playing lacrosse which I wasn’t that good at anyway.”
Signed, someone who knows a bunch of college admissions officers at my very select alma mater.
emeralds
I previously worked in college access. One of the best essays I ever read was from someone who framed it around her award as the fastest sandwich artist in her regional network of Jimmy Johns. Another stand-out was from a student who described the complexity of his relationship with working at the convenience store his parents own, while aspiring to be the first in his family to go to college. Both got into very selective schools.
Anon
Concur. I interview students applying toy very selective alma mater. Many with reams of (non athletic) extracurricular activities get rejected every year; students who work for pay stand out.
Anon
+1
I have friends who have literally never had “McJobs.” They went straight from high school to university to grad school to a career, supported by their parents’ wealth. I had wealthy parents too but my parents made me start working a summer job at 17. I’m glad I had those experiences of working crappy jobs. I remember vividly buying a TV with my own money that I had earned to take to university my freshman year.
Anon
+1
I graduated HS in 2003 at an elite level school and I had class 8 am to 3pm every day and then activities of some kind 4 days a week after school. I commuted an hour each way on public transit. Even if I could have gotten a job on weekends only, I needed the weekend time for schoolwork — during the week I really only had time to do daily homework assignments and last minute studying, I needed weekend time to work on bigger projects/papers, study for the SATs, seriously study for tests, do research for debate team, etc. I did work retail etc jobs in college, because college was a joke in terms of time commitment compared to HS (and honestly it was academically easier — I took 5 APs plus 3 other classes my senior year, but only 4 classes at a time in college). I have 2 coworkers with HS kids in the last few years and it seems like they do even more than I did.
Anonymous
+1. Also graduated HS in 2003, also a city kid with a commute to/ from a magnet school (half hour so not so bad). Between class, activities at school, and schoolwork, my weekday and weekend schedule looked similar. I did a lot of reading and wrote a lot of papers on the weekends…
Anon
I get that during the school year. Did you also not work in the summer? Or in college?
Anon
totally agree with your first paragraph. also – we are still in the middle of a pandemic and unless my family had financial problems that needed my kid to work, i wouldn’t want them to be in a service job right now. (yes, i realize this is a privileged thing to say). that being said, i do think teens can learn a lot from a fast food or retail job. as someone who works at a college – i will say that they actually do value these service jobs
Anon in Dallas
I’m in a smaller town and basically all the teens there work, including the college-bound ones but the parents in that town would not stand for a coach that required nightly practices. It’s just not the way there and, yes, they haven’t won state since the 50s in basically any sport but track but the kids are so much more normal and grounded.
Anonymous
Honestly teens seems sooo much less self sufficient than they used to be. I’m only in my late 20s so not exactly an old, but I travelled all around my city via bike and transit in my teens, had a job, and generally was very independent. This is just unheard of today, and when discussing these issues some of my colleagues even seem to think my parents were neglectful. I think I was well prepared for adulthood. In university I could cook, run errands and just generally adult which is not the case now.
Anonymous
+1. I was somewhat sheltered, but babysat starting at 13, went around town by myself around the same age, drove myself to school, etc. I was very independent in nature and couldn’t wait to go off to college far away from home.
Anonymous
ETA: I have also been responsible for hiring interns/entry level staff for an office and will no longer hire people without some form of retail/fast-food/summer camp experience. I’ve been burned too many times by youths who were so sheltered they have no problem solving skills whatsoever.
Anon
100 % agree – am also late 20s and my younger cousins seem so helpless in comparison. My mom taught 4th grade for years and now teaches 6th grade. She says the 6th graders of today are less self sufficient than the 4th graders of 10 years ago.
I thought my parents were pretty strict and that I was relatively sheltered (in terms of things like drinking, “gardening”, etc) but they were pretty hands off when it came to much else. We were expected to spend all day every day on weekends/in the summer outside playing and to come up with something to do if we were bored. I babysat all the time (no way my mom was giving me spending money when I could work!). We were expected to help out around the house and to know how to do those things (dishes/laundry/cleaning/minor repairs – basically if my parents were doing it we were expected to help, without being asked).
Even just little things are different – was at a family party recently and there were more people than chairs. The late 20s and older “kids” all offered our chairs to the “adults” (or rather, older generations) and the younger teens/kids seemed oblivious that those in their 60s/70s were standing!
Monday
So, I agree with this but have mixed feelings about it.
I was almost totally on my own as a teenager, from getting around (without a car); to working year-round in service jobs. I did not have a curfew, though I had to tell my parents where I was (no cell phones). This was not related to a lack of money. I lived in a small city.
I was also s3xually harassed and assaulted, treated terribly by many adults in the community, and experimenting with risky behaviors sooner than is really a good idea for kids. I came out fine, but I could have not. Yes, these experiences “made me who I am,” but on net I would prefer not to have had them and do not wish them on any young girl.
When I see my SO’s teen daughters (like stepkids to me now) being pretty innocent and wary; as well as totally absent-minded and not all that responsible yet: yes, they are less developed than I was in these ways. But another way to look at it is that they are kids allowed to be kids for longer. I think it will serve them well in the long run. I support them working, which they want to do. But I also support sheltering to whatever extent we can. By the time they face up to the world’s uglier aspects, my hope is that they’re more ready than I was.
Anon
That sounds like your parents’ fault for not being more involved in your life and protecting you from predators, not the fault of having a job or being independent. I’m sorry you went through that.
Monday
This is fair to an extent, but a lot of the predators were on public transit or on streets I had to walk. So the best way to protect me would have been to either keep me home, or drive me everywhere themselves. But this is part of what people are complaining about on this thread.
You can’t really just cherry-pick a kid’s experiences moving around in public or in the adult world so that they’re all healthy and character-building.
anon
I think some (but not a ton) work in the summers, but it’s pretty rare to work during the school year.I’ve also heard that babysitting has totally changed – I graduated high school 10 years ago, but started babysitting when I was 12. I hear now that many 12 year olds aren’t even left home alone.
I learned so many great lessons from my summers working cr@ppy summer jobs – McDonalds, the Gap, and a local sandwich joint and it’s a shame that it’s becoming more and more rare. I played 2 sports (including 1 in college), and was involved in several extra curriculars in high school, had a tough high school schedule (almost all APs), but I think extra curriculars/sports and school has gotten way more intense than they were even 10 years ago.
Anon
I offered to take my overwhelmed divorced sister’s kids for a bit in the summer and the pushback was “oh, nephew has baseball.” The kid is 12? And smart (so his path is likely college, even community college, but not athletic scholarship or even minor leagues). [My kids are similar ages but don’t do team sports; even if they did, I work FT and we get to the stuff we get to even in before times, never mind now.]
Anon
Speaking for my 15-year-old son and his friends who are all in college-prep/honors tracks in their high schools and in competitive sports, no they don’t. A college scholarship is worth many multiples of what kids can earn in a low-wage job – if my son gets a certain GPA in high school, it cuts the cost of his tuition at any of our state schools in half, and he’ll absolutely need a scholarship if he decides to go out-of-state – so working is not something we’re going to prioritize for him right now. As you said, you have to be 16 to drive unattended in our state, so 14-15 year-olds having a job is not super-viable given that our city public transportation system isn’t great. (Additionally, for anyone under 16 to work in our city, they need a work permit from their school and our school has made it clear they are not keen on giving them unless the family absolutely needs the income to survive; they want kids to focus on school at that age and not working.)
I am absolutely thumbs-down on having him work after school during the school week because he needs to focus on homework, and he has sports practice (my parents were the same way, 25 years ago, and it definitely paid off when I got a full-ride scholarship to the college I attended) and there aren’t many places anymore that will hire a teen just for weekend work. Additionally, his school has a volunteer hours requirement (200 hours of volunteering by the time he’s ready to graduate) and an internship requirement (he has to do two semester-long internships before he graduates) so that’s going to cut down on his paid employment options, which I’m fine with as that still counts as work experience to me.
I do want him to work in the summer at some point but he doesn’t turn 16 until the end of next summer, right before he’ll be a junior. So that leaves the summer between his junior and senior year (if he’s not volunteering or interning) and the summer between senior year and college. I think work is important and I learned a lot from the fast-food jobs I had in high school and college. But the bottom line is that college has gotten so expensive, and we have (hopefully) all learned our lesson about student loans. I would rather have him focus on school, get scholarships, and walk out of his undergraduate education with no loans than work at Mickey D’s for principle’s sake and have his grades not be as good as they can be. My son is exploring career paths that will require a graduate degree, so saving every penny we can on his undergrad is critical. I especially feel that way after some of the stories I’ve heard here about how expensive law school or medical school can be.
Anon
How do kids even get 200 hours of volunteering without a parent to drive them around to that? Honestly asking. I think our area’s schools are big on forcing this and as a working parent, I am terrified already.
Anonymous
My school did this with 100 hours and it ended up being extremely easy. Most hours were on-site at school, 40 were from being a volunteer counselor at a nearby summer camp, and the school basically bombarded us with opportunities. I ended up with closer to 150 hours by the end.
Anon
Posted below but yes – my son’s school has an online portal and they post calls for volunteers in the portal; there are always 10-20 of them at a time. The orgs asking for help have to be nonprofits or government-run agencies. The school also runs volunteer projects 3-4 times a year on the weekend, doing community cleanup or a similar project, and if a kid attends one of those volunteer days, their hours count double. We had a lot of questions also, when we learned about the requirement, and were told “no one has ever failed to graduate because they didn’t get their volunteer hours in.” The school does it to try to show kids that they’re part of a community and the community needs everyone pitching in and working to function.
Anon
That, and what a way to exploit kids. 200 hours per kid = 50 hours per year, assume 1,000 students in the high school = 50,000 unpaid man hours of work from high school students, which is roughly equivalent to 25 full time jobs.
Also, tough on kids who HAVE to work. Unpaid and paid work after school! Hope you didn’t want any extracurriculars….
Anon
It’s not exploitative, it’s to give kids the chance to have work experience and give back to whatever community they choose to serve – kids can do volunteer hours at school, at their church/place of worship, in their neighborhood, etc. But, given how few people responded to the “what do you do as a volunteer” question here the other day – I am not surprised there’s pushback about volunteerism for kids.
PolyD
Yeah, I always chuckle at mandatory “volunteering.” I guess places call it community service, but if it’s mandatory, it’s not volunteering.
Anon
Anon at 11:11, I do a HUGE amount of volunteering as an adult and still loathe the idea of 200 hours of mandatory volunteering as a condition of graduating from public high school.
If kids want to give back, they can. No one is stopping them. Mandatory volunteer work = unpaid work, full stop.
PLB
Right! I had to do 200 hours of volunteering in high school to qualify for a state scholarship. But as part of graduation? No.
I worked retail jobs seasonally in high school as my mom didn’t want me to be over scheduled during the school year. Typically my work schedule was one week night and one weekend day or night for a total of 8-10 hours a week. I was also a cheerleader for football and basketball and took gifted/AP/dual enrollment courses. Plus I was involved community organizations and church. My parents bought my car summer before my junior year and paid my insurance. My earnings were solely for entertainment. This was true for most of my friends but a few had to work to buy their own cars and pay for insurance, gas, etc. I worked full time (data entry clerk then telemarketer, ha) the summer before college.
Anon
It’s over four years and a lot of kids wait until they can drive to get it done. In my son’s case, he worked at a community center summer program this past summer as a volunteer and knocked out about 3/4 of the hours; that was no different than taking him to school every day (same hours). The school helps kids find volunteering opportunities (my son found out about the summer program at school), and if students can’t drive, don’t have cars, or don’t have family support to get hours outside the school, there’s an in-school volunteering program they can participate in. The in-school program kids read to kindergarteners, help clean up the school grounds, put up and take down school announcement posters, etc.
Anon
Yikes to the part where the school doesn’t want the kids to work unless the family needs the money. That crosses a line for me. Very not their business.
Anon
200% agree, That is bonkers.
Anonymous
Private school?
Anon
It’s a public magnet high school for STEM, and 70% of the kids my son goes to school with qualify for free lunch. The stated purpose of the school is to get kids into college and they are very clear, when you go to orientation, that everything the school does is engineered around that goal. They absolutely get family money pressures and will issue the permits if someone really wants one. But something like 50% of the student body will be first-time college attendees in their immediate family and a lot of the reason why that is, in our state, is because kids are pressured to work to support their family. They did a slide presentation during freshman orientation with statistics about how working for wages at 14 and 15 years old is correlated with higher high school dropout rates in our state. There isn’t a strong cultural orientation towards higher education here, and believe me, our state has suffered for it. These college-oriented magnet schools are trying to change that dynamic.
Anon
Would you get in the way of summer jobs, like camp counselors and lifeguarding? I think that starter jobs really bring home why schooling matters.
Anon
I want to a school that would sign a work permit for anyone to work legally and it was a huge problem for student from low income households (especially for girls). Education was not valued (especially for girls) and there was a lot of pressure to work a lot of hours to contribute to the household and to drop out at 16 to work full time (especially for girls; are we sensing a trend?).
At one point our HS counselor had to send the police to the household of one of my friends to explain that education is mandatory – even for girls – and they had to stop keeping my friend out of school to babysit her younger siblings or work. It worked – partly because the police officer came armed with statistics about how much more she could make if they let her stay in school and she had a HS diploma and partly because they were undocumented and trying hard to stay off the radar and the cop basically told them he would keep his mouth shut but did not want to get another call from the school.
Anon
No, and I said above my kid had a summer volunteering job at a community center camp that was basically full-time. He had to be there at 7:30 every morning, help set up activities for the kids and then help kids with activities, set out breakfast/lunch, clean up breakfast/lunch, supervise outside playtime, clean tables and chairs at the end of the day, empty trash cans into the dumpster, etc. They’ve already asked him to come back next summer and he likely will, because as some people have pointed out, many businesses won’t even look at kids who aren’t at least 16 and he won’t be 16 until the end of next summer.
Anon
I mean, the original Q was aimed at middle class and above kids of parents who are educated. I hope those kids (any kids, really) still at least work summer jobs. I cannot see how that sort of thing is bad and definitely see how it helps you have the skills to do your first post-college job much much better.
Anon
Lifeguarding is a legit job, but many camps take advantage of mid-to-late teenagers and pay abysmally while working them pretty hard.
Anon
I don’t know … I do a lot of interviewing and hiring. Whenever I have a choice among new grads between a kid with straight A’s who’s never worked a paid job and a kid with a lower GPA but some work experience I’d take the latter every time – I need people who are ready to learn the skills related to my particular line of work, not how to be an employee (show up on time, customer service, how to be supervised, etc.)
And 200 hours of volunteering? That’s insane. What about poor kids who help manage care within the family, or who need to work to contribute to family income? Are they penalized for not having the kind of free time that comes with not having any other responsibilities that aren’t self-imposed?
Cornellian
Agree 100%. Those resumes go to the bottom of the pile for me.
Anon
Who do you hire? Is it for positions that require advanced degrees, or are you hiring low-wage or entry-level, bachelor’s-optional workers? That answer makes a difference in terms of how much parents should care about your opinion.
Anon
I’m the poster Cornellian is responding to and I hire new lawyers.
If they’ve gotten this far in life without ever working, I’m not interested.
Cornellian
Different people in different areas of my life. When I was in college and grad school, I hired mostly freshman, or occasionally seniors and other grad students for tutoring roles. Now I hire legal interns and entry-level attorneys in my job, and interview high schoolers for Cornell as part of the alumni network.
I might have input at mid and exec-level roles at work, but I’m talking more about the 16–25 set.
Cornellian
Also, FWIW, I am also a parent, but a solid decade from working age for my son.
Anon
I hire paralegals at a prestigious organization. Most of our paralegals are just out of college and thinking about law school — more than half end up at top-10 law schools. I’ve learned that a lot leave paid employment off their resumes and only list internships and “office” type volunteering, but once asked, it turns out they did work service jobs. So I try hard not to screen resumes out of lacking it, but do ask about it in interviews. I find the best paralegals we have are ones who previously worked as servers — keeping track of multiple balls in the air is a critical skill when you are supporting multiple busy attorneys. Unfortunately we’ve had a number of paralegals over the years whose resumes were only “resume-building” type internships, and once employed they just didn’t have enough hustle to keep up, and needed much closer supervision.
Anonymous
Different person, but I am also incharge of hiring and also won’t hire people who have never had a mcjob. I hired for entry level policy/programs/officer roles in NGOs that were bachelor mandatory and master’s optional.
anon
I hire at a very elite big law firm for junior attorneys and laterals. I feel similarly. I’ll take work experience over straight As and no work experience every day of the week and twice on Sundays.
Anon
200 is a lot, but I like the idea of instilling in kids that you’re part of a community and you have an obligation to help out. I think the country has gotten way too individualistic (ex – vaccines refusal, masking) and re-focusing on our duty to help the community just because it’s the right thing to do is huge.
I work in municipal government and people tell me all the time “why don’t you go private sector? you’d make so much more money” and are baffled when I tell them I like the public service aspect of my job and that’s worth the lower paycheck to me.
I’m very pro the idea of national service – while volunteering hours aren’t nearly the same I do like the focus on helping your community
Anon
When the economy was in the crapper, the common places teens worked got choosy about availability (minors have pretty heavy restrictions on hours in most states) and where I live, it was hard for a teen to get a job unless they were related to someone already working there.
I think times have changed in recent years, but I’m no longer in a line of work that hires minors. I do agree there would be considerably fewer jerks in the world if everyone held a service job for some amount of time.
Anon
+100 to your last line
I don’t have kids yet, but fully intend on them having a summer or two of working a crappy retail or restaurant job to build character and empathy. I truly believe everyone should have one or two utterly crappy jobs!
SMC San Diego
I am going to suggest that people who do not have kids keep an open mind on what they will or will not do once they have them. Life has a way of laughing at your expectations.
What I thought I would do and what I ended up doing turned out to be quite different.
Anon
Your suggestion is wonderful and very reasonable, but unfortunately won’t be accepted.
anon
+ 1 million to the last line! I find a high correlation of jerks and people who never worked a service job.
roxie
Amen, I dream of a mandatory national service corp for 18 year olds that requires retail or restaurant work. I truly think it would change our country for the better,
A Nonny Mouse
From my own experience, my 17 year old didn’t even get a phone screen for the entry-level service jobs (Walgreen’s, Kroger, etc.) she applied for this summer, except for an interview at the local library. So no, she didn’t work. She volunteered instead. During the school year, she is in two sports with practices every night, taking 3 AP classes, plus college apps, so again no working until February. It frustrates me, because I swore I would have my kid work during high school because I didn’t and felt at a disadvantage in college.
Anon
Around me it seems as though a lot of employers aren’t bothering with minors; a lot of the entry level jobs that were options for me when I was still in high school have a minimum age of 18 at the moment.
Anon
I grew up in NYC and no one hired anyone under 18 (I tried!). I’m taking OP at her word though that in her area these jobs are in fact willing to hire 16 year olds.
Anon
Location definitely affects this. I’m in a semi-rural area on the outskirts of a small metro. There are many farm stands near my house, plus an amusement park on the other side of town. Both hire mostly HS workers. (Ride operators and lifguards are older, but the food stands, games, shows, and janitors are all teens.) Of course those sort of opportunities wouldn’t exist in NYC.
no
This. I worked in the mall all of high school. An old manager was recently complaining that “no one wants to work” anymore but then admitted they just weren’t interviewing anyone under 18 because it was “too much work” to comply with working paper laws.
Anon
In our area (lots of summer jobs like restaurants, resorts, lifeguarding), the J visa restrictions have ruined a lot of businesses. I swear they’d hire teens in a heartbeat just for seasonal work.
Anonymous
These responses are shocking to me, I’ve worked since I was 14 and that was all the spending money I got. It seems really unfair to make parents finance their working age children’s social activities. And I thought my generation was bad; I couldn’t make enough to pay for a car or even the insurance (like my parents did as kids) but at least I made enough to pay for gas and going out to the movies. It seems like our society is pushing back normal milestones to become an adult and I can’t even with any of it.
Anon
As soon as we turned 12 we were cut off for fun money (going to the movies, going to dinner with friends, buying brand name clothes). While 12 is too young for working papers we could babysit, mow lawns, shovel snow, etc. I started babysitting nearly every weekend and was flush with cash (that I had to use to add texting to my phone plan!), whereas my brother was content not working and not spending money. Much like you, I could never afford a car, but could afford gas and movie tickets and that’s all we really did from ages 12-16.
In addition to pushing back on milestones (I’m 28 and I STILL have friends financially supported by their parents!), I think we’re also really upping the expectations. Many of my friends never had crappy first jobs, first cars, or first apartments (all of which are experiences that build character and make you appreciate what you have later in life).
I should add that I went to an extremely rigorous prep school (and took honors/APs), where I played 2 varsity sports and did other activities (school paper, debate club, community service, yearbook). I’d say about half of the kids at my school worked in the summer, and a handful worked year-round. Most kids I knew wanted to get jobs and work – very few of my friends who worked were forced to do so by their parents.
Anon
I am blown away with the dependance that fully grown adults still have with their parents. I have coworkers who still pay for their 30-year-old’s apartment because, ‘they could never afford it on their own.’ Well, yeah – they live alone in a 2 br apartment with indoor heated parking and a doorman. “Kid” makes $75K a year – I’m sure they could find a place they could afford in our MCOL midwestern city.
I would have been mortified to accept my parents help after college. Even during college, we split tuition (I got to credit scholarships etc. towards my half) and I worked a part time work study job for spending money. Isn’t part of being an adult figuring out how to do things on your own? I have very fond memories of my terrible studio apartment; my bike commuting; my frugal food shopping and cheap cooking experiments with help from library cookbooks – those experiences made me so much more appreciative of the nice things I have now that I have *earned* through my own efforts.
Reading these comments, I am reminded of the times in recent years when parents called me because their (24 year old) kid didn’t get the job I interviewed them for, or who wanted to argue with me about my feedback in their child’s performance review. Do people just not have any shame? Or is that just what it’s like to parent someone in their 20’s now … treat them like they’re still 12? (Though even at 12 I would have been furious if my parents tried to interfere like that).
Anonymous
“It seems like our society is pushing back normal milestones to become an adult”
Go read the neuroscience that says that the arbitrary age of 18 we’ve ascribed to “adulthood” doesn’t track with how the frontal lobe matures in humans. An 18-year-old is more like a 9-year-old, when it comes to decision-making and impulsivity, than they are a 25-year-old. Brains don’t fully mature until people are in their early 20s. The age of majority really should be raised to 21 for all things, not just cigarettes and alcohol, because that’s about the earliest most humans fully develop the ability to suppress impulse urges and make reasoned decisions. All the child prodigies here notwithstanding, I suppose.
I’m just going to say it: it seems like some of you folks had parents that were really not interested in parenting you past the age of about 13 or 14. I thought my parents were hands-off when I was a teenager, but the idea that “it seems really unfair to make parents finance their working age children’s social activities,” when said “working age” children are not even 16 years old, is extremely shocking to me and definitely not an idea my old-school parents ever expressed. That seems more like abdication of parental responsibility and involvement than anything else. I was a teenager 30 years ago and none of my friends’ parents refused to give them occasional gas money or movie-ticket money because we were capable of working. I’ll also just say this: A. I understand it’s tempting to look at how we were parented and try to come up with justifications or excuses for how our parents failed us, but ultimately, admitting the truth is always more productive. B. I hope some of you folks don’t have kids, because it is a lengthy financial and lifelong emotional commitment that you seem very unprepared for.
Anon
In prior generations, 18 year olds were adults and did adult things. Now, I joke sometimes that I don’t believe in evolution, exhibit A being the first episode of Girls (contrast that title with “Little Women,” where all of the non-adult women had jobs). In my own family, 18YO were often wives and mothers and husbands and fathers in a rural area and there was no question that they were able to adult like this.
In my blue-collar home town, 18YOs passed cosmetology and other licensing boards and were working and otherwise full adults, often going to community college here to keep their options open.
My parents funded me (saving for college, use of family car), but starting when I could babysit, I had my own pocket $. If you raise the age to 21, you should raise it for voting, too, but I think that 18 is sufficient for all things.
A Nonny Mouse
Thanks for all this.
Anonymous
How sanctimonious. Not everyone was born with a silver spoon, and even those that were, some had parents who want to instill in us that you work for what you want. No one gets handouts to go to the movies. And that doesn’t mean the parents are hands off or abdicating their responsibilities as parents. It also doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have children.
Anon
I’m under the impression that low-wage work scheduling has gotten much less predictable over the past ~10 years. When I was a teen it was relatively easy to get the same shifts every week at a job or at least plan multiple days in advance. Now I don’t think that is true, it seems like there’s a lot of last minute flex (both in terms of adding and canceling shifts). This is really hard to manage if a teen doesn’t have transportation of their own or share a car with siblings, even setting aside trying to balance that with other school or extracurricular schedules. It seems like summer camps and maybe office assistant type jobs might still have standard enough hours for a teen to plan around but not retail or food service.
Anon
This is true, and honestly I think a lot of managers want employees who are desperate enough to just deal with being always being on call. During the school year, teens aren’t available to be on call like that, and if they have parental support they’re not desperate enough either.
Anon
This is 100% correct. A friend’s teenage son worked all summer at a Starbucks and never had a consistent schedule, in terms of days of the week or hours of the day he would be scheduled for. It’s called “dynamic scheduling” and most fast-food and retail chains use a scheduling software called Kronos to enable them to staff based on when business data tells them they will be busiest. Workers just have to adjust to the idea they will not have a steady schedule. It worked for my friend’s son over the summer. It’s not at all doable during the school year. He asked if he could keep working during the school year, 10-15 hours a week, just on the weekends, and was told “our scheduling software doesn’t allow us to set people up like that.” So he quit the job, because, you know, he needs to graduate from high school.
Anon
This is reason number 32967503 why cities need to put actual effort into public transportation and safe cycling/pedestrian infrastructure.
Those same unpredictabilities in scheduling hit all workers and encourage car dependency. It doesn’t seem likely that employers who do this type of crap scheduling will be rolling it back.
Anon
I think they’re working on legislating against it against it in some places (Seattle?).
Curious
For those in Illinois, this is one of the key things Women Employed was fighting when I was there. How can a working mom go to college, schedule child care, etc. with an unpredictable schedule? It keeps people in poverty and low-wage jobs.
Anon
Those people’s kids often get brought to work. I see this at every fast food restaurant that we frequent. Kids playing with phones on a quiet table in the corner. And then when they are older they are just left at home or swap with people living in nearby.
Anon
Our Papa John’s (very open location, glass storefront) is walkable to us and hires teens and also pays for online tuition at Purdue. I know the franchisor and will insist that my kids try for a job there when they are old enough. I get that there won’t be set schedules, but it’s actually pretty predictable of when they are likely to be busy and when they aren’t. Plus, for the reasons Monday articulated, an open / glassed place where people are coming and going (it is next to a large hospital) seems to be a lot safer for a younger first-time worker. There is also a grocery store nearby that hires teens (and is walkable). I’d rather they have their first job where they can talk to a parent (vs a person doing a performance review on a 6-figure job) or a parent is just there to observe how they react to having a job (stress, etc.) b/c some jobs are worth keeping and others are toxic at every level and navigating that is a life skill. In both of these jobs, I know that they may not schedule you a lot if you have other commitments, but their turnover is so high that they will try to keep anyone good.
Anon
Yup. I was waitressing as recently as five years ago (laid off, small town, not much in my field) and the FOH manager refused to honor even simple requests, like never scheduling me on the weekday I had recurring physical therapy and needed the rest of the day to recover without limping. They demand 24-7 access to you, but always give you just under the legal limit for full-time employment.
I say, let them reap what they sow. I’m glad to see the employee shortages in retail and fast food.
Anon
Honestly, this is perfect prep for a life in private equity or biglaw. #lifeskills
Anon
I’ll offer a different perspective. My newly-16 year old just got her first job at the neighborhood pizza restaurant. She is working about 12 hours a week and is also taking four AP classes. She doesn’t do any fall sports, but will have to cut back on her hours once spring sports start. Several of her friends have restaurant jobs as well. None of these kids are helping to support the family. I am thrilled that she’s working this job.
Anon
Love to hear it!!
Of Counsel
The teen labor force participation rate peaked in the late 1970s and has been declining ever since – which means every generation since the Baby Boomer has had their elders talking about “kids today.”
Anon
I was a teen later than that and we all worked, at least in the summer and sometimes on weekends during the school year. But I know richer people’s kids now who will never work due to a combo of sports obligations and fancy vacations scheduled around sports obligations. I feel bad for those kids’ future co-workers. The kids aren’t all spoiled brats, but they also just have no clue. Their summer lax coach, you know, has a job. Ditto the people handing out towels at the resort.
Vicky Austin
“Times are bad. Children are not obeying their parents and everyone is writing a book.” – Cicero
Anon
I never knew we had so many 28-year-olds who went to high school all day taking 10 AP classes, then worked in the salt mines in the afternoons, and had to walk to school and work uphill both ways in a year-round snowstorm, until I read this thread. Oh, and then these folks apparently never took one dime from their parents after the age of 13 for any reason. I’m really confused, because it doesn’t really track with all of the threads I’ve read about people getting $50-$100k from their parents for weddings or house down payments, or people graduating from college or law school with no loans because their parents paid for everything. The cognitive dissonance there is a little disconcerting. Do we have two entirely different populations of posters reading and contributing on alternating days, or something? What a puzzle.
Anon
I’m 29 and had a summer job at Wendy’s and babysat most weekends but I don’t partake in the $ from parents conversations here because I have nothing to contribute. I’m sure my parents will help a reasonable amount with a future wedding (like MAYBE 10k, but probably less and will let me have the reception at their golf club which has no venue fee for members), will absolutely not help with a downpayment, and helped a reasonable amount with college but I still graduated with 40k in debt.
Basically – I was a middle class kid and I don’t chime in on the conversations with the high earners / those with wealthy parents because I have nothing to add to that conversation. So yes, we do have a few different populations on this board.
Anonymous
I am a somewhat regular contributor here, I both worked in highschool and paid for my own mortgage/downpayment. So that’s my data point.
Anon
I think yes, two populations. I am older, so a bit more free-range and self-sufficient as a kid. Babsitter, then grocery store worker (half kids, half grownups as permanent workers), then camp counselor, then typist. No ivy education; state U and I worked as an RA. In fact, I am so old that we didn’t have AP classes at my blue-collar town’s school. Community service was part of sentencing back then, not middle school or high school. And I had my wedding reception in my church’s basement per family tradition.
[I remember in high school convincing my dad to let me work at the grocery store; he was very “education first” and I really wanted to show him that it would make me a better time-manager and not just a kid with bad grades. I was second in my class of 200, so maybe I wasn’t first, but I did one sport and several activities also, so I’m not really concerned with that and I think it got him used to the idea that I was the sort of kid who’d speak up and if I had a good case to make, I’d make it and work very hard for what I put my mind to. Also that maybe he didn’t have to worry about me.]
Right now, my kids are too young to work, but they are expected to be helpful in the neighborhood (watering plants and taking trash cans in/out on trash day for neighbors who are away). My expectation is that they work during the summer and are always helpful at home with family tasks.
Anon
Love “Community service was part of sentencing back then, not middle school or high school.” So true. I was admitted to an Ivy League school with really good grades (though not in AP classes, which my school didn’t offer), decently good test scores, and a few extracurricular activities that I did for fun and not terribly successfully. I had *plenty* of time in high school to babysit and work at Dunkin Donuts.
Contrast my teen daughter’s experience. She’s extremely busy and stressed – plays two varsity sports, is editor-in-chief of school newspaper, is first chair in community youth orchestra, is peer tutor, etc. No time for a job during the school year. Yet she’s advised that she shouldn’t apply to certain schools and/or majors unless she does even more service work, and additional extracurriculars to demonstrate interest and commitment. Times have changed – poor kids.
Anon
You both sound like my people. I didn’t know what AP was until I got to college, worked several retail jobs before 18, and had a basement wedding reception. Also State U and was an RA (plus additional retail jobs) to help pay for it. My parents worked their tails off to try to give us a good life so even if they could afford to fund things for me, I wouldn’t have asked them.
Anon
Hi, I’m your friendly broke-ass trailer trash poster chiming in. Sure, some posters do live very financially charmed lives. Good for them. Others of us, professional degrees and all, are still making average or less than average salaries, in average or less than average towns, commuting by bike and doing our best to get by.
Anonymous
It’s not either/or. I actually did take 10 AP classes, while also working after school and on the weekends as a front-desk receptionist for the local church as soon as I turned 16 (weekdays 5:00p to 8:00p, I probably did 1-2 weekday shifts/week). Those skills came in clutch for every single office job I’ve had since then. I went to UC Berkeley (and worked for spending money) and didn’t take a dime from my parents after I graduated college (ouch, those law school loans) until they gifted me $$$ for my wedding and downpayment.
anon
I could have written this. Worked since I was 15, also took 10 AP classes and participated in extra curricular activities (and managed to also volunteer – it wasn’t mandatory though!). My parents paid for my undergrad and then didn’t give me a dime until they gifted me with some money for my wedding.
Just because my parents could pay for for my college (or downpayment or whatever other nonsense you want to reference), doesn’t mean that they thought they had to pay for things for me in high school. I make about 10x what my parents make and fully do not plan on funding my kids spending money once they are old enough to work because I think there’s value in them having jobs. I’m ok if that means they take 2 less AP classes and (let me grasp my pearls) have to go to a (whispers quietly) lesser ranked college or (gasp) no college at all.
Anon
“I’m ok if that means they take 2 less AP classes and (let me grasp my pearls) have to go to a (whispers quietly) lesser ranked college or (gasp) no college at all.”
I had to laugh at this. So you’re not going to support them now, and they may not go to college and that’s cool because somehow (like, insert unknown step here) it’ll work out and they’ll make enough money to support themselves? You don’t draw the connection between them not attending college (I’m not talking about Ivy League) and you possibly having to support them or help them later in life because they can’t get a decent, steady job? This seems like the Underpants Gnomes business model to me. “Step 1, steal underpants; step 2, ???, step 3, profit!” What exactly happens in step 2 to make step 3 possible?
I mean, are you aware of the statistics that are out there about how bleak employment prospects are these days for people without a bachelor’s degree? The numbers don’t lie, babe. I completely agree that people overemphasize college and definitely overemphasize getting into elite schools. But to say “f-it, I don’t care if they go to college, I still ain’t paying for their gas money” seems like…bad parenting to me.
anon
Haha yeah, ok you caught me, I’m definitely a bad parent. How dare I value teaching my kids basic life skills like responsibility, figuring out how to manage customers, navigating work conflicts like scheduling issues, earning money, budgeting that money or assigning them chores over ensuring that they have more free time to build a better college application when they may not actually be interested in college.
It may be news to you, but there are many paths to being financially independent other than going to college. Or going to college right after high school (many kids aren’t ready right away). I don’t think college is a bad thing, I hope my kids go, I’m just not going to college track them or not teach them life skills I find valuable because some internet stranger thinks I’m a bad mom for not doing everything in my power to get my kid into the best college possible at the expense of everything else.
I don’t think not taking an extra AP course is going to be the difference between going to college or not going to college. Plenty of kids go to college with no AP classes. Plenty of kids take time off between high school and college. Plenty of those kids go to community college. Some of them actually end up graduating from elite schools and getting elite jobs. As noted up thread, plenty of employers (and college admissions officers) actually value working.
And for what its worth the only people I know in their 30s still on their parent’s bankroll are the same ones who didn’t have jobs in high school. Anecdata for sure, but here we are.
You sound like a snob on your views on college. But thanks for the suggestion that all my friends and relatives who didn’t attend college are somehow all dependent on their parents (who also didn’t go to college). Or that the ones who didn’t go right away are somehow less successful (although my cousin in a LCOL area is making six figures with almost no student debt after graduating two years ago as a pharmacist at 35 so anecdata the other direction). It made for a good laugh.
Cat
It is possible to have parents who are generous in some ways and also want their kid to learn Life Lessons about work and responsibility…
Seventh Sister
I’m a GenXer, and while I definitely want my kids to have service-job work experience, I didn’t do anything other than babysit on nights and weekends until I was out of high school. Even before the “dynamic” scheduling that a lot of places now do, I lived in a rural-ish where the fast food places routinely scheduled teenagers for the absolute maximum number of hours allowed, then kept them after hours on the threat of firing them. My parents didn’t want me to take a job like that, and I don’t really blame them.
My kids routinely refer to me as “mean” because I make them do stuff like run errands and get themselves to and from school (we live really close). I live in a big city, so I’m sure that some people think I’m kind of neglectful for making them walk around on their own, but it’s 1) actually quite safe and 2) I don’t want them to go off to college and take unreasonable risks because they weren’t allowed to walk down the main drag of their neighborhood at 16 (true story).
Anonymous
My daughter is a junior in college now. In high school she worked as a lifeguard in the summers. She did not work 9-11th grade because she participated in sports and there was no time to work. Senior year she did not participate in sports and had a shorter class schedule and worked at a call center about 25 hours a week. Now that she is in college, she has a campus job.
Anonymous
The very basic answer to your question is yes. The factors as to why? It’s pretty varied, and I personally think it ranges from fallout from the great recession when many adults were competing for entry level jobs that teens used to do to high school has definitely gotten even more competitive in the last couple of decades. Also, I believe Anon at 11:29 is correct about the shift-scheduling software – if a teen is still too young to drive, how are they going to get to their shift if they don’t have someone dropping them off at random times or reliable public transport? it’s one thing if your shift is 11-4pm every day and mom/dad/neighbor can drop and pick you up on that schedule; it’s completely another if your shift jumps around every week and becomes an issue for the person who is your transportation and they’re working full time.
I never had a high school job, just tutoring some neighborhood kids in ESL and occasionally helping my mom with some office work (aka filing and typing up some handwritten documents) during my summers. I come from an immigrant culture where education is valued above all else and retail/service jobs are looked down upon, so even if I wanted one of those jobs as a minor my parents wouldn’t have let me. instead all my extra time was devoted to extracurricular sports (which I was bad at but I liked my teammates), volunteering at the library, reading/tutoring younger kids in ESL and science, lots of SAT prep, and lots and lot of extra homework.
Anon
I worked as a teen but my kids didn’t, other than odd jobs like babysitting. For my older child, my daughter, she applied to many jobs, interviewed for several, and didn’t get most of them. She did get one offer and accepted it, then the offer was withdrawn with no explanation – but probably because that place was dysfunctional (a boutique in our neighborhood.) She also did a sport in HS both for the HS team and a club, so that limited her availability.
My son is attending college in the fall and didn’t work because it was during the pandemic and I’m high risk, but also because his sights were set a bit higher than his sister’s college-wise (higher GPA, more APs) and at some point it just made more sense for him to aim for college as if it were his job, so he was just really really focused.
I would have liked for him to have a summer job once we were vaccinated but his options were 1) get a job or 2) take a college course this summer and he chose 2. Which is great because the college he’s going to is “impacted” and taking this online course over the summer will make it a little easier to get all of his credits.
Now that my daughter is in college, she has been working close to full time as a nanny while going to school, so she’s more than making up for not working in HS.
Go for it
In my area it varies widely.There are a significant number of parents where I live who earn massive quantities of money and do not allow their kids to work, conversely there are a fair number of people who do want kids to work
my kids did in summers and off-season sports. They had heavy AP course loads and were able to manage.
before they could get working papers they volunteered at a local YMCA camp so that when they got the working papers they were able to actually work. I think it made them have easier times getting real jobs post college because they had actual work experience.
Anon
what standing desk would you buy if budget wasn’t an issue?
Anon
I researched this recently and “Uplift” seemed to be the top recommendation. (I went with a much cheaper one so we’ll see if I regret it!)
Anon B
Geek Desks have served us well – one for over 10 years now, the other for four years. I only ordered the frames and got nice solid wood tops for them.
AnonB
I have an Uplift and have been very happy. Lots of options to personalize it for exactly what you want. If budget is no issue, splurge on the one of the fancy solid wood tops.
Daffodil
+1. I love my Uplift desk. I didn’t get a fancy wood one, but I did get a lot of the accessories that you could add on (reading light, monitor arms, keyboard tray, under desk drawer that swings out).
Anonymous
I recently came to a realization that I thought I’d post here since I know others have had similar struggles. I was finding that my weekends weren’t as restful/rejuvenating as I expected and it turns out it was partially because I wasn’t paying attention to what my own personal ideal weekend looks like. Growing up, I spent a LOT of time (like six weeks every summer and two weeks every winter) with my cousins who are very much on the “weekends are for sleeping in” and the “best way to relax is by hanging out at home” wavelength. I realized I had adopted that by default as I moved into adulthood, probably because we did have a lot of fun hanging out together and I had positive associations with those daily rhythms. The problem was that it was resulting in a lot of “meh” weekends for me as a young adult – or downright frustrating ones where I felt like I “did nothing” all weekend.
What I’ve discovered is that for me, the best, most relaxing kind of weekend is where I get up early, go do something super active and fun outside (skiing/long bike ride/hike), and save the “hanging out at home” for the late afternoon/evening. I can’t get the same level of positive experience if I putter at home first and then do the activity later in the day – whether it’s a body clock thing or what, I’m not sure, but the timing is really key for my enjoyment. It was counterintuitive at first to have an early alarm clock on a Saturday morning be key to relaxation, but it works for me and I’ve already had several really successful fun weekends where I finally felt refreshed and happy. Thought I’d pass it along – everyone is different, but the key is figuring out those timing preferences, not just the activity preferences.
anon
Finding out what makes a good weekend for you is so key – I’m much like you in that I need to get up early and be active, but have been sidelined by an injury and its killing me!
My problem is I equally love getting up early to get out into nature and do hard exercise AND going out to the bar with my friends until late and I’ve never been able to reconcile that.
Anonymous
OP here and my favorite way around that is hard exercise with friends in the morning followed by a big lunch and drinks at a brewery or beer garden :) It’s even more idyllic in Europe.
Senior Attorney
YES!
anonchicago
I’m the same way, and this board helped me be more intentional with my weekends.
Growing up, weekends were for shopping and chores – we didn’t do sports or many school activities and I remember weekends being an absolute drag sometimes.
As a young adult, I got into running so weekends became long run and bike ride days, and with traveling a lot for work pre-Covid, I set aside Sundays for laundry and errands. Now, a year into the no-travel WFH life, I prefer to run errands on weeknights, do laundry during the day, and save the weekends for fun activities. In the winter, that “fun” might be making a huge meal and reading an entire book on the couch. This time of year, it’s bike riding followed by pool time.
C
The idea of doing errands on weeknights so you have the weekends free is one I got from this blog, and it’s a great one. Weeknights can be blah anyways, why not get your chores out of the way.
anon
I completely agree. I feel rejuvenated by an early activity. Waiting until later usually doesn’t have the same effect. Unfortunately, my kids aren’t quite on board with that vibe …
PLB
This is also my problem. And if I don’t get up and get out early, we basically loaf around allllll day.
Anon
I’m the opposite. I’m a night owl who is forced to work way too early due to supporting multiple time zones (I start at 0600 my time) so I don’t feel like a weekend “counts” unless I get to sleep in.
Anonymous
Me too! If I don’t get extra sleep at the weekend, it feels wasted.
Anon
I get pretty frustrated that DH likes to sleep in and when we don’t do anything by noon I feel like we’ve wasted half the day. We hike a lot and I would so much rather leave by 9 and be back by 1 or 2. He’s also told me that he has always, since childhood, “resented” having to do chores on the weekend. I had to stop myself from laughing in his face. Sorry buddy, we’re adults and we own a home. We can’t spend all weekend relaxing. But I should try to be more understanding, because I like doing home projects so crossing those off my list makes me feel like I’ve had a good weekend.
Anonymous
I see both of your points here – I feel the same about “wasting half the day” and I also agree with your DH that chores on the weekend suck. Like someone else posted above, I aim to do all chores during weeknights since those tend to be blah anyway. I hate nothing more than puttering all day and then vacuuming as my “activity” on Saturday.
Aunt anon
I am in a very lucky position that I would never have thought would be a possibility for me, where I no longer need to work full time and my office will accommodate me with any level of part time. But now my question is now how part-time do I go and when do I do it? It is less about the money (knowing I should plan to work more than I am being paid for) and more that I still want to stay somewhat active in my career, until my kids are older (right now 1 and 3) and maybe dive back in then. I would definitely keep full time childcare and just pick up early when possible. Do I plan for 20 hours a week? More? Should I start it now? Or when older kid starts k? I’m not partner level and know that this would put me on the very slow path there (but I am ok with it-Covid has burnt me out and I need some time).
Anon
I would start with less hours than you think(so less than 20) for a few months and then add hours if you see fit. It’s probably easier to ask for more hours than to ask for less.
Coach Laura
Lucky you! I would look at how you want your days to look like. Do you want to work four days a week 9-2 or do you want to work every day 10-2? Are you going to have outside activities that occur on Monday night? Or do you want a three-day weekend each week? Are you going to lean heavy into a hobby, like training for a marathon or doing volunteer work or remodeling your house? For a marathon, you might want daylight, so working 8-1 and having time to train in the afternoon daylight would be good. For volunteer work, maybe you need a big block of time, so one day off a week might be better.
With kids, I would have liked a 9-2 schedule four days a week. That allows for time to drop off at school, talk to other parents, participate as a room-mother (room parent?), arrange playdates and even volunteer in the classroom or do PTA type things. And on work days, you would work and then pick up groceries or start dinner or relax before the dinner rush. Being off work when school lets out gets rid of the need to have after-school care, which is a pain. Certainly, working 12-4 would be ok but that would not have been my preferred schedule.
Then, are there partners with whose schedules you want to align? You might take that into account if partner A, for example, would rather have you in every day. Or you might not want to be bothered by phone, text or email during a day out of the office, so working a bit every day would limit those out of office contacts.
In your career, as long as you’re still working and a useful part of your firm, you can keep your options for a return to a full position open, which might be a good plan until you decide a future plan. I don’t see why you would need to wait until they start kindergarten, unless you think you’ll have trouble filling your days. Another issue is kindergarten hours, and if the kindergarten is half-day, would you want to modify your hours during those years, one year for each kid. During those years, you might want to switch to 8-12, assuming that the kindergarten starts at 8, otherwise you’ll need someone to drop them off at 9 after covering the 7:30-9 time period, or arrange after-school care for the kindergartener, which is usually available through local daycares, which would pick up the kindergartners after school. So even part-time, changing school schedules may require some juggling. At least, that was the experience of my friends. I wouldn’t expect that you would pick, for example, 9-2 now and never change it for the next 5 years. You may need flexibility.
Anom
Don’t go less than 20. You need that much to keep your skills.
Anon for This
Despite being fully vaccinated, I just had to get tested for Covid thanks to close contact with an unvaccinated colleague. I’m trying to stay calm about it since I’m fully vaccinated and have no symptoms currently, but I’m also trying to get pregnant right now, so I am really worried about possibly having Covid and being pregnant at the same time. Everything I’ve read so far suggests that the risk in early pregnancy is low, but I feel it’s so unfair to be in this position despite taking my own precautions (vaccines, masking, etc.).
Anonymous
You’re really escalating your panic dramatically.
Anon
What?! This is a very rational concern.
Anonymous
Not really? She’s vaccinated, asymptomatic, under 50, and doesn’t even know if she has COVID. Risk is very minimal.
Cornellian
Yeah, that’s frustrating. It sounds like this may be part of your reality going forward, maybe you want to keep a couple rapid tests on hand to ease your mind/tide you over until you can get a PCR?
Anon for This
Thanks, that’s mostly how I feel – frustrated, but I know this is completely out of my control so I just have to wait and see. I should get my results back within a day or two so I’ll have an answer soon either way. Definitely also annoyed at all the intentionally unvaccinated people who are dragging this out for the rest of us.
anon
I had my first close contact last week at work and even though I am fully vaccinated, I found it very stressful. The stress level did not come down until all those in my small office area had negative tests. Stay positive. The vaccines worked well for us since none of us tested positive (other than our own patient zero).
Anon
Can we talk about an*l fissures? Someone mentioned them here recently, and it’s one of the only places I’ve seen people talking about it freely.
So, I have a couple of tears (fissures) and my colo-rectal doc recommended eating a high fiber diet, 30 grams a day. I’ve been doing that for about 10 months. Things got better a few months ago, but now they are back with a vengeance!
I feel so defeated, like nothing is working. It has made think and rethink every bite, like will this hurt on its way out. So frustrating. I know I need to go back to the doc soon, just venting here.
Anon
You need to keep a precise food diary and figure out what your triggers are. None of my GI problems improved until I got serious about tracking what went into my mouth.
Anonymous
My best friend just had one and got the surgery and had no regrets. She was experiencing a ton of constant pain and nothing else was helping at all.
Anone
Also, try using Miralax. It’s very gentle.
Sfbiz
+1
This stuff is great. Costco has a Kirkland brand/generic version. Very safe. Titrate up/down as needed.
anonymous
I’m sorry you’re dealing with this. My husband has had this problem off and on for years and considered getting surgery. He found that nuts were a trigger for him, so he rarely eats those. He was also taking Metamucil and found that Yerba Prima worked better for him. I second the idea of keeping a food diary to see if there are any triggers.
Walnut
Just to confirm, you’ve had a colonoscopy to rule out upstream issues, right?
Anon
One of my colleagues had to have the surgery to fix it. He tried the high fiber diet like you, and also a diet that basically gave him diarrhea all the time. The doctor told him that there were several risks or the surgery, one of which was leakage for life (lovely to think of!) so they try all other alternatives first. I can’t believe he told me all of this but he did! Mainly because he reported to me and we had to deal with coverage around his medical schedule.
Go for it
I feel your pain!
I had surgery because it was so severe. Now I forever take a daily stool softener because it helps immensely and the surgery compromises things down there
in any event it’s been many, many years and I have not regretted it for one minute.
anon
We’re looking at taking a quick trip to Pittsburgh and I would love ideas for hotels. We’re hoping to get to the Carnegie Museums, the Andy Warhol Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Any recommendations for hotel locations? Thanks!
Doodles
We stayed at Hyatt Place North Shore a few years ago for a weekend getaway. Beautiful river views and central location to the touristy things we did. I think it was a Hotwire deal so I didn’t actually pick the hotel but ended up really liking both hotel and location.
Anon
No recommendations, but feeling jealous of your trip!
Anon
I stayed at the Omni William Penn for a conference once and it was perfectly lovely. I’d stay in that little triangle between the two rivers. I tacked on a couple of days to that conference trip and I’m so glad I did; it’s a great city.
Carrots
Those three are in different parts of the city, so there’s not one hotel that’s going to be central to where you’re staying. Knowing the area, the Hyatt Place North Shore is a good suggestion for the location (I lived there, so don’t have specific hotel recommendations, but just location based). North Shore hotels or hotels in the Cultural District would be a good bet for central locations and good restaurant options around it.
Anon
If you are allowed in, check out the the nationality rooms at the Cathedral of Learning on UPitt’s campus.
Anonymous
I’ve been reading that some hospitals are becoming overwhelmed with Covid patients and are sending patients (including non-Covid patients) to far flung hospitals for treatment, sometimes hundreds of miles away. I’m having a hard time understanding why heart attack and car crash patients are being sent far away because beds/staff are taken up by unvaccinated Covid patients. If someone has to be turned away then why not send the Covid patients elsewhere and keep resources available for ordinary maladies? Is it always a first come first served system?
Anonymous
Hospitals generally do not turn away patients they are capable of treating to save room for patients who may arrive later.
FormerlyPhilly
Me too – I really don’t understand why ICU priority is COVID-19 patients. And I work in a field tangential to health care.
Please, anyone in hospital administration (if you are browsing today), I would really like to understand this more.
Anonymous
We can’t just hold empty beds waiting for heart attacks and strokes and car crashes. There are complex regs around transfers and diversion but generally we are legally obligated to stabilize any emergency medical condition.
That said, I totally get the instinct, and see red when I think about somebody who chose not to get vaccinated taking up such a limited resources. It’s even more challenging for frontline staff.
anonshmanon
I would very much expect that it is a first come, first served. There is an (ethical, possibly professional?) obligation to treat the patient in front of you, if you can. I understand and share a feeling of being at the end of my rope with vaccine deniers and anti maskers, but if we start judging someone for catching covid, it opens the door to judging other conditions as self-inflicted by lifestyle choices, and the ethical tradition to never even go there makes a lot of sense to me.
anon
There is a legal obligation under EMTALA to examine and stabilize, within the hospital’s capabilities, every patient who arrives at a hospital with an emergency medical condition, regardless of insurance status or condition. Once the patient is stabilized/no longer has an emergency medical condition, they can be transferred or discharged. If the hospital does not have the capacity to treat a patient, they can transfer the patient to a hospital that does have capacity and accepts the patient. Interestingly, most hospitals do not have to accept transfers, so it can be difficult to find a place to transfer a patient nobody really wants to treat. However, hospitals with specialized capabilities do have to accept transfers from anywhere within the US, so it may actually be easier to transfer patients suffering a heart attack to a hospital with a special cardiac unit vs. transferring a Covid patient since there really aren’t specialized Covid facilities yet.
Anon
Why would you turn somebody away who needs treatment now because tomorrow you might have a heart attack patient? I am happy that hospitals are not (always, at least) in the business of deciding which patients deserve treatment.
Anon
This is just so unethical. I get that everybody here thinks they’re better than everybody else, but really? You want to pick who lives and dies because you think Covid patients don’t deserve treatment?
LaurenB
Covid patients who didn’t vax.
Anonymous
Yeah absolutely not. This is truly horrific we do not punish patients for their lifestyle choices.
Anonymous
You realize the medical community already does right? You can’t get a liver transplant if you’re an active alcoholic. There are many rules exactly like that one.
Anonymous
I am also angry at these people and think they are fundamentally selfish and terrible, but they still require medical care. I would be in favor of taxing them more, charging them more for their care, or other methods that seek to recoup the completely absurd and unnecessary costs they are posing to all of us. But as much as I personally don’t GAF whether these *ssholes live or die, I don’t want to set the precedent that medical care can be denied to anyone.
Anon
Totally agree. Folks, please remember that the inclusion in the Affordable Care Act of the provision that prevented insurance companies from denying coverage to people for pre-existing conditions (which was usually defined very nebulously and in a way that transparently benefited the insurance companies) was a big, big deal. It is a true statement to say that it’s a slippery slope when we start denying people care because of “lifestyle choices.” Some people would say it’s a lifestyle choice to get pregnant, and in fact around the time the ACA was being debated there were women who came forward with stories about how they were denied coverage due to their pregnancy or birth being considered a “pre-existing condition.” There are people who would say homeless people who are addicted don’t deserve care due to their “lifestyle choices,” do we want to go there? Similar to Anonymous at 12:22, I am past the point of caring whether anti-vaxxers live or die but we can’t deny them care. That starts us down a road that probably ends up at a place we don’t want to be as a society.
Anon
What about drug addicts who refuse rehab or outpatient treatment? Obese patients who refuse to eat well and go for a walk every so often? Breast cancer patients who didn’t get annual mammograms? HIV patients who didn’t use a condom?
Anon
It’s adorable that you think obese patients aren’t already discriminated against…
Anon
Obese people are not being denied care the way people here suggest the unvaccinated should be denied care.
Anonymous
I do in fact think normal ailments and vaccinated covid patients should receive priority over anti-vaxxers. It’s not fair that patients sick through no fault of their own have to compete for resources with those who caused their own demise.
Anonymous
So what about anybody overweight? Anyone who smokes? Anyone who ever has a cocktail or even a glass of wine? That’s the slippery slope. The ethical is triage (who needs most urgent care) and if indeed healthcare rationing does start then it takes into consideration viability (age, underlying conditions, etc.). No, we don’t get to punish those being stupid about their health as tempting as it may be.
Anon
This quickly becomes a very slippery slope. Where do you draw the line? If you are full do you start turning away the obese, diabetic that does not adhere to their diet that is in DKA, the smoker with chronic COPD that is in acute exacerbation, the cyclist with a head injury that didn’t wear a helmet, etc. There is also EMTALA that does not allow hospitals to turn away patients until they are assessed and stabalized.
Cat
So are you saying if a Covid patient and a car crash patient both show up at the same time for the same bed, why would the car crash patient be sent elsewhere? I’m assuming because if the Covid patient doesn’t get treatment ASAP they are in way deeper sh!t than someone who has a broken leg. Triage concept.
Anon
I sympathize! But (1) yes – hospitals treat first comers first and (2) there are special issues in transporting patients with a contagious disease, particularly when the medical transport system is stretched thin.
But also, health care providers, especially emergency providers, are not in the business of judgment. We treat people with respiratory distress regardless of whether they smoke. We treat people with heart issues and diabetes without concern over whether their lifestyles contributing to those issues. We treat victims of auto accidents – including the impaired driver who caused the accident. We treat overdose victims (sometimes over and over again). We treat gang members involved in shootings. It is our single highest duty. We treat anyone who shows up at our doors as best we can and if we judge we do not let it impact that treatment.
The day I cannot do that is the day I quit.
anonn
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/08/health-care-workers-compassion-fatigue-vaccine-refusers/619716/
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-08-17/vaccinated-covid-doctor-shot
Anon
You also have to weigh the risks of transferring that particular patient. Which one is more stable? If that is equal I see the logic in transporting the non-COVID patient. You are putting more people at risk by transporting the COVID patient. Whoever transports the patient is in very close quarters for likely an extended period of time. Even with masking, there is more risk to the healthcare worker with the COVID patient. So you really want them to take on even more risk that they have been so that things seem fair to you?
Anonymous
Is a week too much time to spend in Milan? How about 2-3 days in Milan and then taking the train to Florence? I’ve never been to Italy (or anyplace in Europe except London). Would love to take a quick trip in 2022 if the pandemic allows but it’d be just a 5-6 day trip max between jobs, so I want to go to easy places, not places where it takes 3 connecting flights to get there. Nor do I want a trip where I’m moving from hotel to hotel and city to city the whole time because it just isn’t that many days. My east coast city happens to have direct flights to Milan which is why that came up. But I said it to a coworker who was all – ew Milan it’s not that nice, so boring etc., but as I think about it IDK what this coworker considers a good vacation besides what SHE is doing (she’s generally like that). FWIW – I LOVE cities and architecture and walking around exploring buildings, shops, and neighborhoods and also have a thing for fancy hotels. So all the recommendations of fly to Milan and go up to Lake Como don’t do it for me. I mean maybe eventually but first I want to see the big European cities.
Cat
Do you have an option to fly home from somewhere else? I think two cities in a week is good, but it’s a hassle to get back to Milan at the end without feeling like you wasted your last day just getting yourself near your airport. Can you fly home via Florence? Venice? What about Switzerland?
Anonymous
Yes it looks like I could get a flight out of Florence to say Frankfurt or Zurich and those could get me back to my home city so I wouldn’t have to double back to Milan. On the way back I mind layovers less and esp since the Florence to Frankfurt/Zurich flights are pretty short too — like it would take the same amount of time to train back to Milan + I probably would want to go a day/half day early just in case.
Cat
With 6 days I would probably spend 2 nights in Milan and 4 nights in either Florence or Venice. Honestly I’d love to go to Venice right now while the crowds are at a minimum. We stayed there 5 nights and the city was glorious in the early evenings when all the cruisers were safely back at sea…
Anonymous
I have never been to Milan, so I can’t comment on if a week is too much, but I can say Florence is amazing and you should definitely take the train and spend a few days there. My last international trip pre-Covid was Italy and we did a day in Venice, 3 days in Florence, and 4 days in Rome, and I 100% could have spent the entire week in Florence.
emeralds
Milan would not be my first choice for a place in Italy to spend 5 days, but if you’re looking for a slow pace and like exploring cities, it’s fine. The architecture is fine but doesn’t compare to what you’d get in Florence, Venice, or Rome. Definitely lots of (high-end) shopping. The Pinacoteca di Brera is nice. I would kind of compare it to DC? It’s not a perfect comparison at all, but Milan is just pretty buttoned-up, commercial, financial, industrial. There’s plenty to see and do but if you’re looking for the kind of experience Americans usually think of when they think of Visiting Italy, it would not be my first recommendation. Like, the words “fine” and “nice” are coming up for me a lot in this paragraph, which I think maybe tells you something?
My answer is different if you are specifically passionate about high fashion.
Absent that, if I were you, I’d take the direct flight to Milan, spend 2 nights max, and then take the train to Florence.
Emma
I’ve done both Florence and Milan. I enjoyed Milan, but agree that 2 nights is probably enough and honestly may not be where I would go first in Italy – it’s the economic capital, so interesting to see but less quaint/historical than other Italian cities. I would definitely do Florence if you can (love Florence!). If that feels like a lot, I also really enjoyed Turin (short train ride away) and the Lago di Guarda/Lago Maggiore area (beautiful, but mobility is slightly limited without a car).
MJ
Right next to Milan is the Lake District. Lake Como is magical. I’d do a few days in Milan and then several in the Lakes. It’s stunningly beautiful.
Milan is not my favorite Italian City. If you could do Milan/Florence, I’d do that.
Anonymous
Thanks right now I’m not interested in lakes etc. – more interested in big cities. Maybe I’ll just fly into Milan and spend 1-1.5 days there and spend the rest of it in Florence.
NYCer
I would spend 2 days in Milan, and then take the train to Venice.
NYCer
Alternatively, if you are not set on Italy, I would 100% recommend Paris for 5-6 days.
Ribena
What about Milan, Como, and Zurich, if you were going to fly home from Zurich anyway? The train journey over the Alps is jaw dropping beautiful.
Anonymous
So I take the train from where to where – Milan to Como to Zurich? Haven’t looked at trains specifically so IDK what’s train connected. Can I get to Zurich via direct train?
Anonymous
Sure. The Eurocity 320 train will take you from Milano Centrale to Zurich Hauptbahnhof. A little more than 3 hours.
Trenitalia dot it (it for Italiy) will get you all sorts of train information, including maps, times, prices, tickets etc.
editrix
And Zurich is fun! Don’t miss the Jules Verne panorama bar for a view of the city.
Still not paid
I posted last week about not getting paid after returning from leave. It’s a hot mess. The HR lady did a remote call and was laughing and giggling. She didn’t apologize at all. She said if it’s a lot of money they will probably issue a check soon. I said it doesn’t matter if they consider it a lot it’s my money and I have to pay benefits out of pocket in the next few days and i was owed the money last week. I said I also need to be assured I’ll be paid for the days I’m currently working and she said “(Giant company) would NEVER NOT pay you” like I’m crazy. She also said that I didn’t fill out the disability insurers’ forms and then admitted those forms no longer exist. Finally she said “this is all really confusing and we’re all just all going to have to be really patient.” Now I managed to not get too upset to her, but my husband walked in at the end and I vented to him after it was over and he said I’m awful and angry and he doesn’t want to talk to me. I’m just so mad and trying not to tank my career and life over this but it’s a big deal to me. I feel like I have a right to be angry. Ugh thanks for listening.
Anonymous
Wait your husband said what?!? I hate him.
Anon
Your husband said WHAT? Oh HELL NO.
You have every right to be angry, at your company and at your knuckleheaded husband.
Senior Attorney
WHAT? No. Somebody is awful here but it’s definitely not you.
Cat
Your husband sounds ridiculous, and you need to escalate. Tell your employer you’re sure they want to comply with your state’s payroll laws…
Senior Attorney
THIS! Draft a wage and hour complaint and send it to everybody from HR to your immediate boss to the head of the company and say you are going to file it in 24 hours if you don’t get paid.
Anone
+1
This will get their attention, for sure.
anon-notorious
Ugh. I read your post last week. I know I shouldn’t generalize your situation to all HR interactions, but every HR professional in every organization I’ve worked for has been similarly subpar.
Can you escalate to your state’s labor board? When is it time to bring in an employment lawyer?
Walnut
I’d be lighting it all on fire. Including your husband. If you were on leave for a baby, then I wish him a stinky blowout.
Anon
Your husband sucks.
Cc
You do have a right to be angry. I think the company will eventually fix it. Your husband seems awful, and his “doesn’t want to talk to you” is setting off huge alarm bells for me – that is typically a tell tale sign of abuse. He is teaching / training you that your very normal emotions will be punished by him .
Anon
Yeah, his reaction seems incredibly over the top.
Anon
+1
Anon
Have your boss get involved stat. “Boss, I wasn’t paid last week, and after discussions with HR, I’m afraid they aren’t taking this seriously. They’ve asked me to be patient, but any employee not receiving a paycheck at any time is a significant problem. I would like a paper check cut immediately. Would it be possible for you to escalate?”
And not cool about your husband. Majorly, majorly not cool.
Senior Attorney
Not “would it be possible” — “I need you to escalate because if you don’t I’m going to need to go to the state labor board and I know neither of us wants that.”
Anon
Exactly this. They can cut a paper check today. Get one.
anon
+1, this needs to be escalated. I’ve worked as an employment lawyer and sometimes a client would have an HR person mess up. I would be really grateful for an employee who escalated with a “clearly the HR person messed up, please pay and pay the penalty and we’ll consider this resolved.”
Also, your husband’s reaction isn’t ok.
Anonymous
I guess it depends on tone, but my husband has said similar things in a fake-scared/sheepish/joking manner. Sometimes my venting gets a lot louder and angrier than I realize. He really doesn’t like yelling so he’ll nicely tell me to knock it off when I get shouty, even if it’s because I’m venting TO him not shouting AT him. I do think he has a right to live in a home free of yelling so I take the hint to take it down a bunch of notches (and decibels).
Your experience with HR sounds infuriating and I would be shouty about it too.
Vicky Austin
You do have the right to be angry! With HR and with your husband alike. I would stop involving your husband until you can figure this out, escalate to whoever supervises HR and provide details of your call with her, get paid, and then have a good long talk with your husband about not being an asshat.
Anon
This is the nuclear option but at our company (20000 people) you would resolve this by sending a calm but clear email to the CHRO and the head of your division or similar.
Anonymous
Posted yesterday but the post took hours to appear so only a few people saw it – please share your coping strategies for mild anxiety. It can be what you do in the moment or what you do daily/proactively to keep anxiety at bay. I have seen a PCP and therapist who say meds/therapy aren’t necessary and coping skills are more important – but they’ll prescribe meds or therapy should I want it; I’m considering it. But just wanted to know what little strategies may help you. As I said yesterday I can’t do hard work outs and like running due to other health concerns but open to everything else including mild workouts.
Anon
Medication.
Anonymous
I wouldn’t jump straight to meds if drs. are telling you don’t need to; sure you can find other drs. who’d say you need to but if you trust these people, why not try other options for even 2-4 weeks?
For me meditating with calm helps if I do it regularly for about 5-10 min per day for 2 weeks; IDK why it helps but once I’ve done it for a week or two I find myself during non meditation times having some thought and being able to step away from that and move on – it’s like meditating “trains” you to do that. Pre pandemic I was all about a change in scenery – go to a coffee shop, run an errand, go to the office when it was all getting to be too much. I’m not doing that now as I don’t want to be near others, though now I’ll go out for a drive and get curbside takeout somewhere.
Voice of experience
Having a routine in the morning and at night helps
Reduce decision fatigue about things like cooking meals, what to wear, etc
Keep track of triggers that may stress you out – like too much screen time
Some form of CBT. Compartmentalizing
Eat healthy. Don’t drink caffeine
I think that if you don’t want meds you should go to therapy. Therapy can be the place where you learn tricks like this. These techniques can control your anxiety, but going to therapy is the way to develop effective ones
Anonymous
Oooh yes, my post is in mod but limiting caffeine is another big one for me. I can drink two cups of coffee/day and no more.
Anonymous
I’m not taking medication but I am in therapy and love it. I don’t go regularly anymore but I love knowing that I can schedule an appointment if something flares up that I want to talk to. But beyond that, the most helpful things for me are keeping a regular sleep schedule, daily exercise, and meditation.
Anon
I find that if my life is in order, my anxiety is usually under control. So, a lot of things that voice of experience listed help me a lot.
– Regular exercise and healthy meals. But, to limit decision fatigue I have a list of easy/healthy meals and go-to workouts so I don’t have to stress about what to do.
– Regular routines
– Regular bed time/wake up time and ensuring I’m getting enough sleep (crucial)
– Meditation, even if only for 2 mins a day
– Journaling – I don’t do specific journaling style but I like to write out goals, how I’ll achieve them, what I’m aiming for, etc.
– Regular time outside/time with hobbies/time with friends: I”m a very active extrovert but I am SO MUCH happier and therefore less anxious when I’m regularly doing my active/outdoor hobbies and making time to hang with friends/family
– Automate as much as I can – I have lists of workouts/meals, outfits for work, outfits for weekends, chores/errands lists and schedules, etc. I make to do lists every day.
I choose to have a very busy life, and am happy to live like that as long as some basics covered. When things get too busy and the apartment is cluttered or I’m eating out too much or I’m not taking time to do some things that I enjoy, then I get anxious.
Anonymous
Lexapro, practicing the piano, paint by numbers, and Peloton spin classes. For me, Lexapro was a gamechanger and gave me my life back. For my partner, exercise – particularly spin classes and running, about 20 minutes every day – was the gamechanger. All of the coping tools became available and useful to me only once I had my Lexapro prescription in place.
Anonymous
OK, I just went back to read your post and what stuck out at me is that your “normal life worries” hit you on Mondays and take up hours of time. That is not normal. That is the kind of anxiety that medication helps with. Normal anxiety is “my parents are aging, and I’m worried about them,” not “my parents are aging and oh my God, what if they need long term care and they’re going to lose all their money and I can’t pay for their care and they end up on the streets and now it’s 3 hours later and I just want to close my eyes and run away from this because it’s so awful and it will never get better.” That’s the kind of anxiety that needs medication. It doesn’t matter that it’s once in a while, what matters is how it feels when you’re in it. I would seriously ask for a low dose of anti-anxiety medication and see if that helps you get to a baseline where you feel capable of taking on new coping strategies. For me, all the breathing exercises and physical activity and alcohol elimination worked best in tandem with meds.
https://www.healthline.com/health/natural-ways-to-reduce-anxiety#Mindful-Moves:-15-Minute-Yoga-Flow-for-Anxiety
Go for it
Rescue remedy from the health food store.
Anna
For anyone here is a consultant or freelancer – how much do you charge per hour?
Someone told me $150/hr for a data scientist, honestly can’t tell if that’s a lot or not
Anon
Specifically for data science? I freelance in another field, so not sure that’s helpful.
Senior Attorney
Isn’t the rule of thumb to charge at least twice what you’d expect your hourly rate to be at a W-2 position?
Anon
Doesn’t seem like a lot to me. I’m a freelance consultant in a related field and I charge a lot more, but I also have 30+ years of experience. The rule of doubling your effective hourly wage from full time work is a good one.
Anon
The dress that Kathy Hochul wore to be sworn in seems a little too casual for the occasion to me, but I do like the color. And thank god Cuomo is gone!
Anonymous
Sigh
Senior Attorney
Yeah, can we not?
Go for it
Agreed!
Anon
I wonder if she went with white as a nod to being the first woman in that position. And white suits aren’t what we typically have in our closets. Hence the white dress.
Anon
Low stakes question about names.
Partner and I are talking baby names. I want one of our last names to be a middle name, and no other middle name. Partner wants kid to have 2 middle names, the second of which is the other last name. Neither of us want to hyphenate the last names. My thought is that the second middle name will just get dropped on all paperwork — there’s usually not even room for 2 middle initials! – so it’s like it doesn’t exist in practice. Partner wants kid to have a “real” middle name because partner has a double-barreled (hyphenated) name and no middle name and always felt left out for not having a middle name. I am foreign born from a country where middle names aren’t a thing, and never minded not having a middle name (TBH I don’t really understand why they exist), so I prefer to pass on both last names in a real way.
So — anyone here have 2 middle names? How has that worked out for you?
Anon
I have two “real”, i.e., non-last name, middle names. It’s fine. Often there’s only space for one name or one initial on forms, so the second name frequently gets dropped. I’m not particularly bothered by it, but your kid might be. My husband is like yours—a double-barreled last name and no middle. He doesn’t like the hyphenation, but I don’t think he’s ever missed having a middle name, particularly.
Sorry, we’re not much help, since we don’t really care! It really doesn’t come up very often, though. Probably seems like a huge deal right now but won’t be later in life.
Anon
I’m with you, especially because it’s usually going to be the woman’s name that gets dropped. I’d be fine with it if the kid had my last name and it was husband’s last name that would get dropped.
Anon
+1. Here’s the solution, assuming it’s your last name that will be dropped. Propose that kid gets your last name and his as a second middle name. That will tease out if his feelings are truly about the middle name or about getting his way.
As an anecdote, a close friend is named something like Kaitlyn Sofia Isabelle Marisol Smith. Her family calls her Katie, her friends call her Sofia, and I think her drivers license says Kaitlyn S Smith. In school when it was time to fill out forms, we were more interested in Christopher who couldn’t get his whole name to fit in the bubbles and became Christophe. I don’t think I even knew how she filled out her bubbles.
Senior Attorney
YES. Say “Yes, that’s fine. Child will have my last name, and two middle names including your last name.”
Anon
The kid is getting my last name, so it’s partner’s name that’s theoretically getting lost, but I don’t like that either!
OP
Woops that was me, OP
Anonymous
Oh if kid is getting your last name then just take the win and get over it.
No Problem
Why are you assuming the partner is male?
Anon
Calm down. I wasn’t, I was talking generically.
Anon
The southern answer is: but how will that monogram (or not). At least check out what the kid’s likely initials would be. And which name you will be in the habit of dropping so you’re consistent with the wrong name on things like school and medical forms.
ANon
omg yes this and it is not something i considered bc i am originally from the north, but now live in the south. i thought about initials in order, but not about the monogram with the last initial in the middle and might have chosen differently if i had
Anonymous
Seems easy to me! Partner whose last name is used as the last name doesn’t get a say on how many middle names. So if he feels strongly about 2 middle names cool, yours will be actual last.
OP
Kid is getting my last name either way, but we both want partner’s last to be included and I think partner will be disappointed in the long run if partner’s name disappears into the ether.
Anon
This is just my opinion – two middle names is confusing and unnecessary but so is a last name as a middle name. No one will use both names and forms don’t have room for both. Middle names are generally used on official documents or sometimes in school if multiple kids have same first name. I replaced my middle name with my maiden name when I got married and took on my husband’s last name, and now no one ever uses my maiden name (I use the middle initial in my signature and documents; that’s it). I kind of miss my normal middle name. If you want to pass on your maiden name, then do it as a hyphenated name. Unless your middle name is something that works as a normal middle name (James, Parker, Dillon, Carter, Jackson, etc). You’re not passing it on “in a real way” when using it as a middle name, you’re just giving your kid a weird middle name. Btw I’m also from a foreign country with no middle names. The middle name I had was a family name given to me when I became a citizen and had option to change my name. Probably why I didn’t feel that bad about dropping it when I got married.
Cat
Middle names only matter for when you’re disciplining your kid (super common to call out both first and middle when You Mean Business) or on official documents. I like the meaning behind my middle name but if pressed I doubt 95% of my acquaintances even know what it is…
anon
I had two middle names, and basically never used the second. My kids have middle name/my last name (second middle name)/actual last name, and they never use my last name – but I knew that going in and I was ok with it. (Also I don’t push it – it’s just on their official paperwork). I think if you want the second last name to be “visible”, it needs to be the first middle name. It’s just too unwieldly otherwise.
Senior Attorney
My sister in law has two middle names and loves it and I think her name is beautiful: Emily Ann Marie.
I think this is a case where you should defer to your partner, given that the child is having your last name.
Anon
I have two middle names and it has occasionally been a paperwork issue. If you go with two, make sure all the major documents (birth certificate, social security card, passport, etc.) are correct from the beginning (ie, don’t let some agencies abbreviate or drop one of the names while others don’t.)
Anan
How is having a surname as a middle name not a “real” middle name?
I will say, my two children each have three middle names for various family / cultural reasons. My third child has one middle name because by that point we realized that while we wanted to honour cultural traditions we preferred a more streamlined naming aesthetic.
I agree with the above that i’ve found the tradition of middle names to be lovely and full of meaning, but really rarely really used.
Anonymous
I have two last names, no hyphen, and I love it. I’ve never regretted it for a minute.
Anonymous
At least you’re not in Sweden, where I believe four given names is considered unremarkable. And then a couple of surnames. :D
But how about letting kid have two given names, one middle name (partner’s surname) and one last name (your surname)? Or is having two given names not a thing in the US?
Senior Attorney
It’s a thing mostly in the South. Everybody in my mother’s family (she was from West Virginia, so South-adjacent) had two names: Emma Grace, Jo Francis, Don Lee, Julie Beth, Mildred Rose, Mary Lou, Martha Lee, Peggy Sue, and on and on. It was also big in Catholic families: Mary Francis, Mary Margaret, Mary Beth, Mary Rose, etc. I feel like it’s fallen out of favor in recent generations, though.
Senior Attorney
Although now that you mention it, it was still one first name and one middle name, but you just always used both the first and the middle name together.
Anon
Hello, my kids have a “real” middle name and then my last name as their second middle name. YES it gets dropped all the time and I remain salty about it.
My husband wishes in hindsight we’d given both or at least one of the kids my last name because of this.
Anonymous
Your husband sounds very sweet.
Anon
He’s a keeper. :)
4 names
I have two middle names – one is a first name and the other is a last name so technically I have two first names and two last names. Yes, the second middle name gets dropped all the time. And I go by my second first name/first middle name, which always confuses people. I have thought about changing my legal name to switch the order of my two first names but I’ve dealt with this 4-name problem for 40+ years so I guess I’ll keep going.
H13
Any recommendations for a new dishwasher? Planning ahead since I know wait times are long right now. Or anything I should stay away from?
Cb
We had a bosch with the utensil tray at the top and it was so good. We have a new bosch, with a traditional utensil basket and it isn’t as nice.
brokentoe
Love my Bosch dishwashers – so quiet. Didn’t think I’d like the 3rd utensil tray but I do.
Anon
+1
Anon
I love how quiet my Bosch is, it washes well, and I love the utensil tray. But I hate the dishwasher. It’s great if all you use is plates and short, straight glasses. Bowls of any time are a pain to load, take up too much room, and don’t stay in place. A wine glass is impossible. Look at the configuration.
anon
I love my Miele dishwasher. I forget the model number–it’s the fanciest one that doesn’t have internet/the feature where you put in a bunch of detergent at once and it autodispenses for a a number of loads.
It’s supposed to last much longer than a Bosch, but I haven’t had mine long enough to have a data point there.
Curious
Here with a third pro-Bosch comment. I like the utensil tray but find it doesn’t hold our soup spoons, so we use the utensil basket as well. We got an option with mechanical buttons because the touch pad on the last dishwasher was the first to go. The energy-efficient drying technology (“sucks moisture to the sides”) is… fine. We have to use extra dry most times because #pnw and we don’t want mold. It gets a little stinky in there on very hot days. Overall the downsides are very minor and I am pleased.
Sfbiz
Bosch. Check out Costco sales. They have a great extended warranty.
Anon
Another vote for Bosch. It’s very wuiet, cleans well, and hasn’t had a single issue in ten years.
Walnut
I have a Bosch and an Asko and I pink puffy heart love my Asko. I swear I can load 2x the dishes in it.
anon
Can anyone share what policies are like at their workplace for those in cubicles? My team’s offices will be moved to a new building that won’t be ready for two years. In the meantime, we are in very small cubicles in a somewhat common area. Expectations for being back in the office are increasing and I am really not comfortable of the idea of being so close to a group unmasked for 8 hrs/day.
No Problem
Well, for starters, masks are now required again thanks to delta. So maybe you can start with that. Or just mask yourself at a minimum. We’re also going to require vaccination now that one of the shots is fully approved.
Anon
everyone should be in masks per the updated CDC guidelines
Anon
+1 we are not really officially back, but if you go in you must be masked unless eating or drinking or when you are solo in your own office (does not apply to cubes).
Cat
Our office is requiring in-person work be fully vaxxed and, for the time being, masked.
Ribena
We don’t have cubicles but rather open plan offices, at the moment with every second desk blanked out. When you’re at your desk you’re allowed to take your mask off. So I’m still working from home.
Anon
This is how my office is doing it. I’m in a state whose governor has made a point of opposing mask mandates, so there isn’t one in my office. My staff and I are all vaccinated and mask up when we’re away from our desks or in anyone else’s space. Most, but not all in other departments behave similarly. The couple of straight-up plague rats are on our collective last nerve, but the powers that be have made it so they can be “that person” with impunity.
anon
If you were going to buy 3-4 new pieces for fall, in the interest of updating a casual wardrobe, what would you focus on? A new jeans silhouette? Shoes? Updated basics?
Anonymous
I’m searching for the right pair of straight leg jeans, a lug soled loafer, and new waterproof boots to replace an old pair in an updated shape. All versions of things I already have and wear often and just want to update.
Anon
I like to get a few cheaper fun/trendy shirts or dresses each season to supplement my basics, which are nicer.
For fall I’m hoping to get 1-2 cute long sleeve tops (long sleeve floral smocked top in fall colors), a fall dress (no idea what this will be yet), and a pair of straight leg or boyfriend jeans. I am set for other jeans, sweaters, booties, and sneakers from past years. I’m contemplating a pair of Moto leggings or a black jean jacket, if I find ones I like.
Anon
If I could pick 5 things, I’d pick the following as basics (you might already have these):
– Black mock neck sweater (or a different very neutral color)
– Light/medium wash straight leg jeans
– Black boot cut jeans
– Ankle boots with a block heel or a bit of a platform, with a neutral or almond toe
– Black slip dress
If you have the above already, I’d add in:
– Mock neck in a different color, maybe a chunky knit (a light basic like cream, gray, or camel) – you can wear this with jeans as well as over the slip dress to get mileage out of the dress as a skirt
– T-shirt or tank top in a bright, primary color (this fall’s Pantone shades are all very vibrant and I think a basic item is a good way to bring this in)
– A white or black top with a shoulder/collar bone cut-out (this seems very trendy right now)
– A couple seamless/compression camis or tank tops, probably in a cropped cut if that’s your style (Express and Aritzia have some good options)
I think this year’s trends are very much updated versions of classic items or previous trends (an off-center cut-out instead of a choker style one, “smooth”, minimalist leather jackets instead of moto leather jackets, chelsea boots with a platform instead of traditional chelsea boots, etc). I think most of this will look dated quickly, so I am trying to find small ways (the Pantone t-shirt) to bring these in versus making major investments.
Anon
I’d buy a beautiful sweater in a good neutral that went with everything, a pair of shoes that can bridge the gap between summer and boots season (like loafers) in a non-black color (I’d probably do cognac), a bag that works with the shoes, though not necessarily matching, and either a pair of neutral pants that go with everything or a blouse that works similarly, depending on which I felt I needed more.
Anon4This
Has anyone bought fine jewelry from Blue Nile? Looking to buy a diamond band for my right hand.
Also if folks have suggestions for a jeweler in Houston for this same purchase, LMK. TIA!
pugsnbourbon
My engagement ring is from BN. Been wearing it every single day for 13 years and no issues at all.
Anon
Also have an engagement ring from Blue Nile. The process was easy and the ring was beautiful.
Anon
My engagement and wedding rings are from Blue Nile, along with several other pieces (because my husband likes to buy me jewelry….but doesn’t like to talk to people in person, introvert that he is….LOL). No problems whatsoever! Very pleased with the quality and customer service.
Beaglelover
I have always had a great experience at Tenenbaum, I have been going there for many, many years. They have repaired, restored and replaced many of my beloved items. Bought three Tiffany diamond bands from them. They have a lovely store on westheimer. Hope you enjoy.
Sunflower
My husband got me a major diamond from Blue Nile online ten years ago. Their website has so much detailed information about each diamond that really helped in selecting a specific stone. For example, the ratio of the height to the width of an emerald-cut diamond is important and affects value. Blue Nile representatives were also quite helpful in helping me choose the perfect ring setting for the diamond. I’d do the whole transaction again in a heartbeat. By the way, there is now a Blue Nile retail store at the Domain in Austin.