ByKat Hours Updated
Comments 336 Comments

Thursday’s Workwear Report: Envelope Tee

Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices. envelope shoulder teeI've mentioned before that I have a love/hate relationship with what I call “personality necklines” — but a lot of women noted on that post that they still like necklines with some interest, and if you are one of them, do note that Talbots has this nice machine washable “envelope shoulder” tee in four solid colors, several prints and tons of sizes for $59. I like that it's more wearable than a boatneck because there are zero bra issues here, and the high, straight neckline looks great with a necklace or beneath a blazer. It's $59-$74.50 at Talbots, available in regular, petite, woman's, and woman's petite sizes. Envelope-Shoulder Tee Seen a great piece you’d like to recommend? Please e-mail tps@corporette.com.

Sales of note for 12.5

And some of our latest threadjacks here at Corporette (reader questions and commentary) — see more here!

Some of our latest threadjacks include:

336 Comments

  1. Immediate TJ: Can we discuss the CDC’s new recommendation that young women not drink alcohol unless using birth control? I am amazed by the lack of clear messaging our government’s agencies and elected representatives are putting out into the world.

    1. Yes, I saw the posts yesterday but didn’t get a chance to actually see the info graphic they made. OMGWTFBBQ?

      I’m just going to re-post the rant I put on Facebook (so yes, if you are my Facebook friend, hi!) and I’ll post a link to a good Washington Post article in the comments in case it gets moderated.

      The CDC’s infographic looks like a mashup of all the over the top, scare tactic, not quite true information provided during 5th grade D.A.R.E. and middle school Sex Ed. Don’t go near drugs or alcohol, you’ll wind up diseased, toothless, friendless, homeless and then you’ll die! Girls, don’t even think about anything remotely resembling sex, because it only takes one time, no matter the time of month, and then you’ll find yourself pregnant, diseased with horrific sores and secretions from your nether regions, dying of AIDS, ostracized and with your whole future ruined! Young women, don’t even look at a glass of alcohol, you could wind up with an STD or baby with fetal alcohol syndrome. Unless you are on birth control – in which case, drink away and we’ll fail to inform you that some types of hormonal birth control can drop your tolerance to alcohol like crazy, as some of us learned the very hard way. Heaven forbid you provide any actual, evidenced based medicine in your recommendations.

      WTF CDC ?!? Was this written by the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in 1919?

      2. THIS. So drinking a beer while watching Walking Dead means magical conception takes place?Having a few glasses of champagne at dinner means my husband will beat me and injure me? This is asinine.

        1. ” A woman was considered to be at risk for an alcohol-exposed pregnancy if in the past month she was not sterile, her partner was not known to be sterile, she had vaginal sex with a male, drank any alcohol, and did not use birth control. ”

          Right. This seems wildly overbroad. If I have s3x w/o contraception 2 weeks after drinking one single beer at happy hour, I fall into this category. Please.

          Also, this patronizing crap: “The risk is real. Why take the chance?”

          Oh, I don’t know, because I’m a human person with agency and a life and the ability to make informed risk calculations by myself. I might be willing to risk having the occasional beer when I *might* be pregnant (v. what, going 1 year without alcohol if you’re TTC????), just like I might also be willing to risk having caffeine, taking needed medications, continue to work at my hypothetical job that requires me to be around chemicals, lift heavy objects, or go horseback riding. If we can’t drink because we “might” be pregnant, then what *else* can’t we do? F. this sh*t.

          Don’t even get me started on “violence” as a “risk” of alcohol consumption. Disgusting.

          4. The risk [of getting into a motor vehicle accident] is real. Why take the risk [of letting pregnant/potentially pregnant women drive]?

          5. I’m so glad I run marathons. My uterus has already fallen out from the overexertion of my delicate female body, and thus, I can drink all the wine. Pass your glasses down the table, ladies ;)

      4. No blind, randomized controlled clinical trial will ever be done to prove the conclusions that are angering so many on this thread. Unless, all of you would like to volunteer?…….. Didn’t think so. It is impossible in so many areas of medicine to do these studies because it is unethical. So you look for the best, correlative data you can. You look at data retrospectively, rarely prospectively. Sometimes it’s the best you can do. Sometimes it tells you a lot. Sometimes it is misleading.

        And when it comes to your potential child’s health? I can’t think of any higher stakes, actually.

        Many people are not educated with regard to these risks. You would be surprised how uneducated people are. I am talking about the range of people who have babies. It’s a broad spectrum. Many people do not think that drinking early in pregnancy has an effect.

        Sure, the CDC could have been handled this better. But it also shocks me to see the anger on this topic. I’m still trying to get my head around it.

        Everyone will draw their own line, as with every recommendation from the CDC.

        2. Anger – why you ask – because a woman is more, so much more, than just a walking “potential child” and this recommendation removes that completely.

          And as pointed out above, there are so many other things that are incredibly dangerous statistically (driving for a huge one) that this “warning” becomes a lecture.

          1. I don’t read it that way. At all. Obviously, I am different from many here.

            I am progressive, liberal, feminist.

            Actually, it makes me disappointed to see such extreme statements here.

    2. It’s a very clear message. Women are useful only as fetus incubators and should be ready for pregnancy at any time.

      1. Yup. It reminds me of the message, several years ago, that women should regard themselves to be “pre-pregnant” and take enough folic acid to prevent birth defects.

      2. The Handmaid’s Tale, anyone? Margaret Atwood predicted this in the 80s.

        If you haven’t read the book, I highly recommend it. It’s chilling and a reminder that we have to be on guard to the creeping erosion of our civil liberties.

        The paternalism of the CDC announcement makes me LIVID!

    3. I don’t have any problem with it.

      Remember, you are not necessarily the population where the point of this recommendation is intended. Or are we……

      Of course, it will never be followed.

      But the point is a good one, and it is good to remind us.

      I’m a neuroscientist.

      1. Oh please. The point is not a good one. The point that young women should not drink because they might be pregnant? That’s just silly. The point the alcohol puts women at risk of violence? I believe when you said alcohol you meant men.

      2. I don’t necessarily have a problem with the suggestion, but I do think the public relations part of this was handled poorly and does have all the problems that people pointed out about it. It would have sat better with me if they had recommended birth control for women of reproductive age who drink alcohol.

        1. I have a huge problem with this suggestion. It’s so condescending and patronizing. I have to put chemicals in my body from the ages of 15-44 if I want a glass of wine?

          I mean – I am on hormonal birth control but that’s no one’s business, especially the CDC’s.

          1. ^Exactly. Telling me I need to be on birth control if I drink is way too into my body/reproductive system than the CDC should ever be. Go on and educate people about FAS and remind people who want to be pregnant about the dangers of drinking, but to assume that young women need to be on birth control to drink or they become stupid baby-incubators is ridiculous.

          2. It’s not really anyone’s business, but I think that pointing out the risks is a good thing, especially when one remembers how poorly informed a lot of people are. I agree that it’s condescending and patronizing. I’m not sure where I think the line should have been between raising awareness about a public health hazard and acting like women’s decision-making needs to be controlled for the benefit of hypothetical fetuses. Maybe if they had addressed the risks of drinking to a fetus before a woman knows she’s pregnant, or if they had talked about women who are attempting to conceive.

          3. The risk is negligible. Drinking before you miss a period is fine. It’s well below the risk of things like riding in a car or eating red meat. It’s just easy to blame women for everything, try to control their lives, and tell millions of women to feel guilty if they drank before they knew they were pregnant and that their babies are probably dumb and it is all their fault.

          4. When I was Ttc I had a tradition of having sushi/a beer after a negative result. One of those times it was a false negative- which I found out after my sushi and beer. Of course after finding out I was pregnant, I didn’t drink at all (or eat sushi)… And I have a healthy and happy child. Life happens- how much damage can 1 beer possibly do?

          5. Except that it got the risks all wrong! Drinking does not cause pregnancy! The info graphic was SO WRONG.

          6. I think you are skewing the recommendation. No one is saying you need to be on birth control to drink. If you are sexually active and not using birth control (whether hormonal or barrier methods), i.e., not actively preventing pregnancy, you shouldn’t be drinking because you cause FAS if you become pregnant. Not exactly a crazy logical leap.

          8. Isn’t FAS caused by prolonged exposure to alcohol in the womb, as opposed to a few drinks before one knows one is pregnant?

          9. FAS is probably not a huge risk if you have a few drinks before you know you’re pregnant but if you’re a heavy habitual drinker, yes, only a few weeks exposure can make a difference.

            This is the frustrating thing about the judgment in society about a visibly pregnant woman having a sip of wine. By the time you’re visibly pregnant it doesn’t matter much. It’s when the embryo is rapidly developing at very early stages that alcohol consumption poses the biggest risk.

          10. @KC Esq – The CDC is exactly saying you need to be on BC to drink. Exactly. That’s why it’s absurd.

          11. @Wildkitten–I think you missed the part of the recommendation that all *s3xually active* women be on BC to drink. There’s a big difference between that and “all women who drink need to be on BC.”

          12. According to the CDC infographic, drinking is the risk factor that leads to pregnancy in *any woman*, not just sexually active ones.

          13. @Anon at 11:06 – What if a woman who drinks is sexually active exclusively with women?

        2. Or even if they pointed out some kind of statistics (based on real, actual scientific evidence). For instance, I’m willing to bet condom use when one or both partners is under the influence (of alcohol, or any other mind altering substance) if probably lower than ideal, and lower than the same couple’s sober use. But I want some hard numbers on that before I go shouting to the rooftops “therefore, go get yourself a BC prescription, stat, young women”.

          At least it didn’t tell us to abstain. I notice that it didn’t mention anything about BC being free now under the ACA, which I suppose may still be news to some women.

      3. What we need is better, fact-based sex ed in the USA and affordable, easy, discreet access to birth control.

        1. +1. This is not how recommendations are or should be made. Unless you live in a bubble, we all take various calculated risks every day, because normal life is not possible, let along worth living, otherwise. The true risk with these kinds of unrealistic recommendations is that they just cause patients to be less honest with their doctors about their activities and symptoms.

        2. I think it’s funny that all the anon posters (none of whom have claimed to be MDs as far as I can see) think that THEY understand the scientific evidence better than a neuroscientist…

          1. Yes, good thing you identified your name and credentials too then. Especially since both those things mean so much on an online forum.

          2. I’m an MD PhD neuroscientist that studies neuroplasticity.

            But hey, what do I know…..

            It’s an anonymous online forum. It is what it is. Interesting, nonetheless….

          3. You might not believe me, but this is a serious question, not snark. What are you bringing to bear from your background in neuroscience here in concluding that this recommendation, based on the evidence available, is sound public policy?

    4. Women aren’t just walking wombs who should be ready for possible conception at all times. I also hate the implication that abortion isn’t an acceptable choice (which it is, obviously). Yes, pregnancies can be unplanned, and yes, some women will want to have the baby even if they had high alcohol consumption before they knew they were pregnant, but other women will choose abortion and that’s fine. CDC is acting like “omg you don’t want to mess up the baby you will definitely accidentally have.”

    5. The poster says the md should recommend birth control if a woman is having sex and not planning to get pregnant and is drinking alcohol.

      What the heck does alcohol have to do with this?

      Wouldn’t an MD recommend birth control for any woman who is having sex but not planning to get pregnant?

      1. So this is kind of what I meant above when I said I didn’t necessarily have a problem with the recommendation. There are definitely good and worthwhile ideas buried in here, but looking at the info graphic they put out and reading some of the statements definitely comes off very poorly as people describe above.

    6. I agree it’s condescending. I get the warnings about pregnancy and alcohol. I really do. FAS is a horrible, horrible thing. My friends’s adopted son is an FAS baby and his life will never, ever be normal. He’s an adult now but he was not functionally able to pass normal minimum level high school classes. If not for his relatively affluent adoptive parents, what would his future be? It’s awful to think about.

      But the idea that drinking can put you at risk for violence? No. You know what puts you at risk for violence? Being with a violent partner. I hate how this makes it the woman’s fault. “Yeah, he beat you, but it’s not his fault. You had 8 drinks per week.”

      1. THIS. If I’m drunk and someone hits me, being drunk wasn’t the problem. It was someone else’s fault for committing assault.

        Silly women. With their magic sorcery powers that controls behaviors of men.

    7. Ladies, you’re missing the most important part of this CDC release! According to this infographic, women are WIZARDS!

      I expect my acceptance letter to Hogwarts any day now.

      1. In what house do you have to be in to learn how to control your reproductive system? Hufflepuff, right?

    8. Isn’t the reasoning just that, if you’re drinking regularly, by the time you even know you are pregnant, damage to the fetus has already been done? Much like the reason why you’re recommended to start pre-natal vitamins well before you TTC? Abstaining from alcohol if you know you’re trying to conceive seems like reasonable advice to me, and is something I did. The part about abstaining entirely if you’re not using birth control [and $exually active] does seem a little extreme but 1) if you’re not using birth control, you are “trying” in a sense; most women here who don’t want to get pregnant use some form of birth control (I would hope) and 2) I would guess that unplanned pregnancies account for a large part of FAS cases so it seems reasonable to target advice to people who might have unplanned pregnancies, i.e. those who are active and not using BC.

      I am a feminist and pro-choice but the reaction to this really surprised me. It seems overly cautious perhaps (I have plenty of friends who didn’t abstain while TTC and even a few who had sips of wine while preg and all had normal babies) but I don’t get the “women are just vessels for the fetuses” arguments. Do you guys object to the advice not to travel to a Zika country if you are or may become pregnant? I don’t really see a huge distinction.

      1. Part of the reaction is coming from the fact that there is not real evidence that “if you’re drinking regularly, by the time you even know you are pregnant, damage to the fetus has already been done.” At least that I’ve seen, and I spent quite a bit of time trying to find some.

        We don’t actually know what impact moderate drinking has on fetal development. The line “there’s no safe level of alcohol consumption” is just a fancy way of saying “we have no idea whether low/moderate drinking matters at all.”

        1. Exactly THIS!

          It’s extraordinarily unlikely that a glass of wine here or there – esp. with food – will damage the fetus. People have been drinking alcohol for millennia, probably long before we knew exactly how conception happens, and the human race has managed to survive.

          Not binge drinking while pregnant or TTC is good advice.

          Not trusting women to set a minimum threshold for themselves, in light of scientific data is offensive.

          ~The Mom who had a glass or two of wine while pregnant

          1. “here or there” sounds like a really practical recommendation for the CDC to make *insert eyeroll* this is exactly why they make these kind of broad recommendations – everyone is commenting on how they just had a drink ‘here or there’ without identifying if it’s two drinks in 9 months or two drinks a week. And yes, two drinks a week can be too much especially for someone who is Asian or American Indian.

            So tired of people who have never had direct experience with a child with FAS thinking it’s NBD. If autism could be avoided in the same way, no one would have a problem with this recommendation.

      2. That’s a completely logical recommendation. The CDC recommendation does not say that.

      3. But there is no evidence that drinking in very early pregnancy – before you miss a period – is harmful to an embryo. In contrast, there is a lot of evidence strongly suggesting that getting bit by a mosquito in a country where the Zika virus has been detected leads to microcephaly. I would have been fine if the advice was to take pregnancy tests after you miss a period (or regularly take pregnancy tests if you have irregular periods), or to use birth control if you want to avoid pregnancy as a general matter, so as to avoid exposing a fetus to alcohol during the time that it is known to cause FAS. But the rec was much broader than that.

        2. some women continue to get their periods after their pregnant – ‘drink until it’s pink’ only works if you’re actively TTC and testing frequently

          1. No one gets a period after getting pregnant. That does not make sense, biologically. Some women have implantation bleeding, or heavy spotting that they mistake for a period throughout pregnancy. But not a period.

          2. Second the Anon above me, but even if this were true, the recommendation should be for women to either use birth control or to take a pregnancy test within several weeks of having unprotected sex. Not to give up drinking.

          3. (not the Anon at 12:04) You’re right Anon, but some women confuse those various types of bleeding as their period. This is total anecdata, but I have a pregnant coworker who was late by a few days and then was relieved to “get her period” a few days later. She resumed her normal social life, which involves higher than average social drinking, and it wasn’t until she was about 8 weeks along that she found out she was pregnant. So far everything has been normal so hopefully her baby is fine. It’s still an anxiety she’s said she’d rather not have though.

      4. “Do you guys object to the advice not to travel to a Zika country if you are or may become pregnant? I don’t really see a huge distinction.”

        There’s a huge difference in advising people to post pone unnecessary travel to countries they are likely going to for vacay because of a risk, and asking women to avoid things that are a part of life for most people because they *might* be pregnant. Are you also going to ask women who are TTC to stop drinking caffeine? Quit “dangerous” jobs? What else? The way this message (drinking while pregnant = bad) is sent is hugely important because it reflects and frames how we treat women’s agency over their reproductive lives and does not effectively address some of the underlying causes (discussed below) of poor pregnancy outcomes. Further, the bits about alcohol causing violence are condescending and victim blaming.

        I also think that the messaging misses the mark. I suspect that the CDC’s primary target for this message is not women like the women on this board who are generally quite healthy, see their doctors regularly, and who have carefully planned when they will TTC and have made adjustments to their lifestyles already to accommodate that. These women will take pregnancy tests as soon as their periods are supposed to roll around and likely will not be getting blotto every weekend anyways.

        I suspect that this messaging is aimed at the women who are *not* aware of the dangers of alcohol to fetuses, who are not trying to get pregnant, who lack access to regular medical care, who lack access to effective birth control, who might be drinking substantially more than someone who has to show up to a law firm at 8 am every day, and who are likely to continue a pregnancy rather than opt for abortion because of religious/social reasons, even if unplanned and unwanted. The solution to this issue, however, is not a blanket statement of “no drinking!” It’s better access to care, better access to contraception, more education about the reproductive system and pregnancy, more education about safe s3x practices, more empowerment of women to negotiate the terms of their s3xual and reproductive lives.

        Also, is this message (don’t drink if no BC) going to be effective for her? Is a young woman who lacks reliable access to contraception and sufficient education about her body, but still has a s3x life and a social life that involves drinking, likely to say “oh, I guess I’ll quit drinking right now on the off chance that the condom breaks or I have a ONS and get pregnant, and decide to keep my unwanted baby?” No. If she’s thinking that far ahead, she’s probably already got the BC thing covered. If she’s not thinking far enough ahead to use BC when she doesn’t want to be pregnant, she’s probably not going to take the extra step to cut out drinking. The question that really needs asking is “how do we reduce unplanned pregnancies and increase access to care for the populations of women who suffer unplanned pregnancies coupled with poor outcomes.”

        1. +1,000,000

          The message shouldn’t be “don’t drink if you aren’t on BC”. The message should be “hey, do you have a BC plan? Did you know it’s free now? Let’s talk about your BC plan.”

        3. I don’t think “better access to care, better access to contraception, more education about the reproductive system and pregnancy, more education about safe s3x practices, more empowerment of women to negotiate the terms of their s3xual and reproductive lives” is mutually exclusive with advising women who may become pregnant not to drink.

          I agree that a few sips of wine every once in a while is unlikely to be harmful but I also understand the policy reasons why the CDC would advise people to abstain completely (it is the safest option, even if it is overly cautious) rather than endorsing some vague “drink in moderation” policy when no one knows where that line is. The CDC is pretty consistently overly cautious in all their recommendations, I think, so I don’t really understand the outrage about this specific one. My doctor told me not to drink at all. I don’t really see a big distinction between an OBGYN telling a patient not to drink and the CDC saying the same thing. Every individual is going to take the doctor/CDC’s recommendation under advisement and make their own determination about what they are comfortable with.

          1. No. They aren’t consist my over cautious at all. Or they’d be telling all men to avoid red meat just in case.

        5. I think this really is a backhanded way for them to recommend birth control for women, in a way that is not directly tied to saying that all women of a certain age should be on birth control, and thus avoiding right-wing backlash by pretending hey are talking about alcohol use and not birth control availability.

          1. I suppose I am willing to concede that this might be setting up a backdoor “but the CDC says we need to be concerned with FAS” as an argument for anyone wanting to stop offering BC.

            And maybe the overall recommendation wasn’t such a terrible one. Get on BC if you don’t want babies and are sexually active is a good message. But the way the infographic is presenting that case is just overly patronizing and stupid.

    9. In addition to the fact that this recommendation is not based on actual data, what bothers me about this kind of zero tolerance approach is that I think it leads to people not taking a lot of sounder recommendations seriously. A glass of wine or two with dinner is not the same as binge drinking, smoking a joint is not the same as doing heroin, you will not get pregnant (or burn in hell or never find someone to marry) if you go to third base with your high school boyfriend… I don’t understand why we think we have to exaggerate risk for it to be taken seriously. It only does the opposite.

      I think in Oster’s book one of the doctors she speaks to says that the reason s/he can’t say that it is okay to have a glass of wine while pregnant is because then patients will have two. I definitely noticed something similar with my doctor when i was pregnant; at some point I think she realized that I was someone she could talk to like an adult and her recommendations became much more rational.

      1. I don’t think Oster’s book should be held up as the counterpoint to actual studies (not that you’re saying she should be but I think some people do believe that). A believe a few fetal alcohol syndrome experts came out against her comments on drinking during pregnancy when her book was released. From what I’ve read, she drastically overstated how much alcohol was permissible during pregnancy — and subsequent studies seem to suggest that, in fact, no amount is safe. I think that’s where the CDC warning is coming from — it’s pushing back on the push-back to the no-drinking recommendations. (For what it’s worth, I think the CDC warning was overly broad and treated all women like pre-pregnant vessels. I just don’t think Oster is a legitimate authority on any of this.)

        1. I don’t think Oster is either, but I do think that she brings up many valid issues about the basis for the recommendations. I’ve yet to see anything conclusive that says one glass of wine is dangerous. Saying that no amount has been proven safe does not mean the same as any amount is dangerous (not that this is what you are saying).

          1. True, but I believe Oster says that a glass of wine a day is acceptable. I just read her book a month ago but could be remembering incorrectly.

          2. Also, I agree with your last sentence completely. For me, personally, I have decided to not drink at all during my pregnancy, but I do think I’d probably be fine if I had a glass of wine every few weeks (or maybe even every week). It’s just doesn’t seem worth the risk to me personally, but I wouldn’t judge women who decide to drink that much. (Though, to be real, I would judge women who go well beyond that.)

        3. There’s also no *safe* amount of tylenol and caffeine without either affecting the baby, but doctors still say it’s ok to use each in moderation.

    10. What really bothers me about the CDC recommendation – and a lot of comments I’ve seen supporting it – is that I have seen zero studies saying specifically that moderate drinking in very early pregnancy (before one misses a period) poses any risk to the developing embryo. I have faced a number of obstacles in trying to conceive for nearly a year now. Not drinking for this entire past year would mean that I would be thinking of my struggle to get pregnant every time I was at a social event or a nice dinner out with my husband. That in itself is harmful to my mental health. If there was truly any evidence indicating that me drinking was actually unsafe (not just an absence of evidence either way) for a potentially developing embryo in the two weeks after conception (since I take a pregnancy test about that often), I would accept that and suffer the consequence to my mental health. If someone has seen such studies, please do let me know. But the CDC did not link to any, which compounds the absurdity of this recommendation.

      1. I totally hear you because I was in that boat myself for quite a long time, but I do think there are studies that show that alcohol can impact your chances of getting pregnant. It sucked and it’s not for everyone, but I avoided alcohol for several cycles altogether and then, when that got annoying and old, just after ovulation. Again, not for everyone and not sure it’s legit, but that’s what my doctor told me (admitting they were limited studies).

        As for drinking prior to your first missed period, I’m not sure what the evidence is there. I had been under the impression that you could “drink till it’s pink” but had one doctor tell me that wasn’t true and another tell me it was fine (in moderation–one glass a night, not binge drinking post-ovulation, even during medicated cycles). So I agree that the recommendation goes overboard–especially for women who have no intention on getting pregnant.

        (Good luck with your fertility treatments–I know how hard it is, but those treatments are frequently successful!)

        1. I definitely have seen the studies saying that drinking can interfere with implantation, so fair enough on that. That’s not the root of my infertility issues though – I have secondary hormonal imbalances for reasons not worth getting into. I was speaking to the drink till it’s pink thing.

      2. My biggest peeve with this recommendation:
        Nowhere does this abstinence-only recommendation, nor does the women TTC should not go in a Zika-infested study recommendation, tell MEN what to do. It’s already been shown that Zika can be passed through s3x. Why are men who may make someone pregnant not given the same cautions? The effects of alcohol on men TTC are not widely known (a quick search didn’t turn up any conclusive evidence but feel free to prove me wrong), but since the effects of one glass of wine for a pregnant or TTC woman are still up for debate, why are we making a public health policy that once again places the onus for pregnancy on SOLELY the woman???

        2. That’s a good point about Zika…if my husband goes to Latin America and gets it and we’re TTC (so, by definition, not using barrier methods), I would get it too. I agree the Zika rec should be for both genders.

        3. Yeah, also, if drinking can “lead” to pregnancy, maybe the CDC should warn men not to have sex without condoms, in case the woman they have sex with isn’t on BC and/or is drinking? No? It’s certainly no more attenuated than “drinking can lead to being a victim of violence.”

          1. +1

            I have this lecture with my BIL now and I know I will with my sons when they get older. I don’t care how much you love and trust your partner, and trust that they are on BC – until you are 100% ok with the possibility of children, you need to keep using condoms, because that’s the only thing that *you* can control.

        4. But doesn’t this mean they should warn men not that they should not have warned women? Failure to warn one group doesn’t mean that a warning to another group is inappropriate.

          2. Replace “women” with another group of people. Say “immigrants” or “black people.” Yes, it does make the calling out of one group and not another inappropriate.

          3. But isn’t the answer to warn both not to retract the warning of one because they also failed to warn the other? That was my whole point.

      3. While you may realize you are pregnant early on, many women who are not trying to get pregnant do not. The majority of births are unplanned and some women will continue to have their periods for a few months after being pregnant so if they are not actively TTC – that’s the basis for the CDC recommendation.

        I’ve worked closely with FAS children in a past career. I drank nothing with TTC and pregnant because of those experiences. I have seen so many marriages destroyed with parents struggling to get appropriate care for an FAS child including when they adopted knowing the child has FAS.

        1. No one has their period during pregnancy. Some women may have bleeding during pregnancy but it’s extremely rare for that bleeding to present in a way that can be mistaken for having your period.

          1. This. Which is why I don’t listen to random internet zealots for health advice.

          2. How do you know this is “extremely rare”? There are constantly questions about bleeding from someone who knows they are pregnant on this site, is it such a stretch that someone who doesn’t know they are pregnant would just assume their period is lighter than usual in a particular month. Not all women have heavy regular multi day periods.

          3. Haven’t you seen those “I didn’t know I was pregnant until I delivered” shows? Obviously, educated adult women don’t sit on the toilet and deliver a baby at 7 months gestation without having any clue previously they were pregnant, but I think it’s pretty clear these guidelines are not aimed at educated, adult women.

          4. True. But I would seriously bet every dollar I have that not one of the women featured on those shows would have had a different outcome had this CDC warning been in place at the time of their conceptions. Particularly if your true target audience is likely to take a casual attitude towards their reproductive health, isn’t it good public policy to offer reasonable, minimally restrictive guidelines that people might actually follow? “Hey, if you’re irresponsible enough to regularly have unprotected sex, please go ahead and refrain from drinking from menses until menopause” = dumb public policy. In my opinion.

    11. Add to that the warning not to co-sleep with your baby (something mammals have done since mammals existed which means feeding on demand and skin to skin touch which helps the developing brain and emotional control) because of the really super low risk that the baby might die of SIDS. Just google Free Range Mom because she rages daily about this stuff.

    12. I’m going to add that the timing of this release is suspect for me as an impressionable youth, since I recently saw trending on Facebook the story of the woman who is raising her adult daughter with FAS. I felt for that story, but this seems like a swing of the pendulum in the extreme direction. I wonder if the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome foundation specifically placed that high-profile (read: trending on Facebook) story to align with this announcement by the CDC. #illuminati

    13. Whew- a lot of comments. Wish I had time to read them all. I think the CDC advice is over-reaching and illogical, not to mention just plain stupid.

      That being said, I had a boss who got super blitzed when she was unknowingly 6 weeks pregnant and stressed herself out the entire pregnancy, and the stress on her body and potential risk to her baby *of the stress* made me cautions. So when I was TTC, I would drink only starting on the first day of my period and would stop the day of ovulation. Other than TTC, I was always on BCpills.

      But, as far as advice, unlike the CDC I think women should be trusted to make those decisions for themselves, with input from their doctors and reliable experts. Not drinking for one’s entire reproductive life is just not realistic.

    14. 1. If you don’t like the CDC’s recommendation, don’t follow it. Plain and simple.

      2. I’ve read so many discussions about the amounts of alcohol that women drink. And for some women, it’s a lot.

      3. I’m tired of women ranting about sexism when it comes to simple biology. Fact: women can *hopefully* get pregnant. Fact: unprotected sex is what might lead to pregnancy. Fact: what you put in your body affects the baby. Yes — men also have A LOT to do with the health of a fetus; so does the mother.

      A lot of the comments here seem IME to implicitly assume that women should have the right to do what they want. Like that commenter that suggested it’s unfair that she should have to think about potential pregnancy every time she’s at dinner. That is biology, and it has nothing to do with what the CDC says.

      1. This is all true, but there is still room to say that the way that the CDC frames and words its recommendations materially affects women’s lives. If you read the comments above, you’ll see a lot of people talking about the stress of realizing that you’re pregnant and that you had a drink or two before that positive test. Some people agonize about it throughout their pregnancy. That stress is unnecessary. It can affect the fetus more negatively than the drink itself. When you set public policy, you don’t just go around saying any and all true statements to the public.

        Thankfully, women DO still have the right to do whatever they want, including irresponsible behavior like drinking heavily during pregnancy. But those trying to be responsible and follow all the guidelines should be treated with respect by medical providers and public officials. That includes presenting information in a fair way, not fear-mongering, and not making assumptions that adult women can’t make decisions if given access to the information.

        The recommendation that there’s no known safe amount of alcohol consumption during pregnancy has been out there forever. That’s not what people are taking issue with here. The CDC made a decision here to frame the information in a way that a lot of us think is overly broad and overly intrusive. I don’t think your comment actually engages with the argument at all.

    15. Late to the party, but here to add:

      From a feminist liberal perspective, yes, I agree the messaging seems off regarding female bodily agency. But perhaps there is some reason to this position. The CDC’s position forces anyone who advocates the “normal hormonal birth control is an abortifacient” argument to advocate for an alcohol-free existence. Further, perhaps certain health care payers who would not have otherwise covered birth control might do so with more stated policy positions from the CDC making birth control standard issue.

      Basically, I think the CDC is just trying to say “seriously, get on birth control”

  2. I got Japanese Straightening done yesterday and my hair is soooooo soft and straight and shiny. It’s full on shampoo commercial hair.

    I walked the dog today in serious humidity (I’m in Florida) and not a strand was out of place when I got in-usually my hair would have puffed up like a Chia pet.

    I can’t wash it until Saturday night, but my stylist swore it would dry pin straight and frizz free, so we’ll see!

      1. It varies depending on where you live. I’ve had friends who’ve gotten it for as little as $200 in Texas to $1000 in New York. My hair is long and it was $675.

    2. Omg, that sounds amazing! Is it stick straight? I need some bend in my hair and a little volume, so it sounds like I would just trade my current de-poufing routine for a poufing routine?

      1. Stick straight. You can’t have any bend.

        For volume, you can ask that they leave 2 inches by your roots free from the solution so you’ll have lift. But otherwise, your hair can’t be curled at all. You just have pin straight hair.

      2. I am a straightening veteran- if you want frizz free with volume, go w a brazilian or keratin yteatment. I did love the way Japanese straightening looked but my hair is kinky and grows crazy fast so the re growth always looked horrible. In so-cal I pay about $250, east coast is way more expensive.

    3. I so interested to hear how this works out long term. I had this treatment done in Florida about 5 years ago and after I washed it – curls again. Before the treatment, I had insanely curly hair and after the treatment, my hair was definitely less curly, but not straight. It was also way easier to blow out after the treatment. For the money though, I didn’t get it again. I’m wondering if the technology is better now? Keep us posted!

    4. Congratulations! I get Japanese Straightening every spring and it’s the best thing ever to happen to my hair (and for that matter, to my morning routine).

  3. I am really struggling right now. I feel like I have constant brain fog. I have an incredibly hard time being focused and productive at work lately. I look at my to do list and my brain just shuts down. It’s not a matter of poor organization, as I’ve always been a fairly organized person. I’ve tried dozens of approaches to my to do list, different apps and systems like Pomodoro and Getting Things Done. Nothing has helped. There’s enough time in my day to be much more on top of my to do list, I just can’t seem to use that time effectively anymore. The answer “just do it” is really frustrating and not at all helpful, because I’ve tried and tried. I’ve always been something of a procrastinator and a deadline would always get me moving, but even that doesn’t seem to help much anymore.

    I am, by most measures, a successful attorney. I have a supportive husband and great kids. And over the last three years, I have significantly reduced the stress in my life. I left a firm for an in-house position that provides great work-life balance. I love the work and my colleagues are great. I’m eating better, exercising better, and sleeping better than I have in years. I think I should be in a really good place. But instead I’m carrying around a list of work I’m horribly behind on, personal tasks I’m horribly behind on, and I just can’t seem to pull myself together to get things done. It’s reached the point recently where I sometimes find myself just feeling crushed and overwhelmed and wanting to cry. Despite all this, I would generally say I’m happy with my life. I still find joy in hanging out with my family, reading a book, spending time with my colleagues. Part of my struggle is that I’ve lived with someone with major depression and I don’t think that’s where I am, so it’s easy to convince myself it’s just me being lazy or disorganized or something.

    So, I guess my question is, has anyone else found themselves in this situation and figured out what the problem is? I’ve wondered if my thyroid is off, if it’s chronic depression, if it’s ADD. I know I need to go see my doctor. I’ve finally admitted to myself that this isn’t something I can fix on my own and I’m calling to schedule an appointment. But I’d really appreciate any stories anyone has about getting past feeling this way and getting back to normal. I think hearing that others have been through something similar and it wasn’t just laziness might help me quiet the internal monologue in which I repeatedly blame myself for not being a person who could avoid getting to this place.

    1. Honestly, it sounds to me like you just need a break. Take a day off. Stay in a beautiful hotel, get a pedicure, eat lovely food in bed, stay away from screens.

      1. I agree. I think a therapist might tell you the same thing. Give yourself some slack and recognize how much you ARE able to accomplish.

    2. “I’m carrying around a list of work I’m horribly behind on, personal tasks I’m horribly behind on, and I just can’t seem to pull myself together to get things done.” I’m in a similar place with what sounds like a similar liefstyle. Interested in hearing replies.

    3. I felt this way for a while. Everything was GOOD, and I found myself overwhelmed, stressed when I didn’t need to be, and constantly on the verge of tears. I did get to a doctor and found out it was depression and started treatment. Within a few weeks, the fog disappeared and I felt like myself again and was productive.

      Don’t beat yourself up. You’re not lazy. You’re just in a rough patch and need a little help.

    4. No advice but please know you are not alone. I could have written your exact post. Although with a less supportive husband (I was late to work before we had kids so it’s no big deal if you’re not helping me get the kids out the door to daycare in the morning – thanks honey)

    5. I’ve struggled with this and still do to some extent. Honestly, the only thing that has really helped me is medication for anxiety. Once I am on the medication I need, other techniques like the Pomodoro method or Getting Things Done are more effective.

      Another thing that helps me is setting smaller, manageable, daily goals. Often, I will set a goal of getting 3 things done at work today – an annoying administrative task (perhaps that’s redundant), a medium-sized task like writing a substantive email or summarizing a meeting or call, and a manageable piece of a larger project. The medium-size project gives me some momentum for the larger stuff. And taking care of the administrative tasks, which I HATE doing, reduces my overall stress level.

      1. +1 This sounds similar (although more severe) to what I was experiencing before I got treatment for anxiety (and I think a mild case of depression). I thought I may have had ADD, but I’m pretty sure it was just moderate anxiety.

      2. Anon from 10:08 again. I meant to add that trying to “bully” myself into working makes things worse for me. “Just do it” becomes “Why can’t you just do it?” which leads to “What’s wrong with you?” and “You better tackle this to-do list or else.” Then I start catastrophizing (“I’m going to lose my job if I don’t do X today”), which leads to perfectionism, which increases my anxiety, leading to a new round of feeling overwhelmed and avoiding my work altogether so I don’t have to cope.

        So I try to focus on encouraging self-talk without setting myself up to fail. When I’m caught up in anxiety, “I can get three things done today” is much more productive (for me) than “I’m going to be super woman and knock out this list even if it means I stay at work until 11 tonight!”

        But I’m going to emphasize that I cannot change the narrative in my head without medication. I actually stopped taking it when I was pregnant, and the fog you’re talking about rolled right back in. Obviously, you might be different, but I encourage you to talk to your doctor and consider all your treatment options.

    6. I’m having similar struggles, have been for a long while, seemingly unrelated to the level of stress in my life or other factors (possibly a little worse after a recent divorce but not that much). It doesn’t feel like what I would consider depression but maybe I’m wrong — just fogginess and, mostly, a lack of the will power to make myself get things done. Or, as another example, to stop reading or playing a stupid game on my phone when I need to go to bed, which only increases the fatigue and fog. Work definitely is suffering.

      As you say, all the tough talk to myself to “just do it” has not worked. I’ve been considering therapy, or at least an evaluation to see if I actually have same kind of diagnosable problem and might be helped by meds or cognitive behavior therapy. Will be very interested in the responses.

    7. So … I could have written this post. Get thee to the doctor. There are two components here- your energy and motivation, and your negative self-talk. I struggled with both of these things, and for me, the root cause was some thought patterns that weren’t serving me and dysthymia, which is a chronic, very low grade depression. Way different than major depression where you are in deep despair and can’t get it together at all, and can come and go.

      I started therapy a while ago, which helped with the self-shaming and other thought patterns that were getting in the way of my own happiness. You are not a bad person for not getting to every thing on your to-do list! Everyone struggles with that, and its natural to get frustrated, but it doesn’t mean you’re not worthy of being kind to yourself. I recently started wellbutrin, because dysthymia has always been something that I’ve dealt with and I was struggling with low energy, low motivation, brain fog, despite being in private law practice and being superficially social and put together and high achieving. I’m also in a very tough work situation right now which isn’t helping my overall happiness.

      It’s only been a few weeks, but I already feel a marked difference in my energy levels and motivation, and outlook in general. It’s wild, and I wish I didn’t wait so long! I’m getting more done, I don’t want to collapse immediately when I get home. Importantly, I’m not avoiding unpleasant tasks as often, where as before I would put off completing them and instead spend my time/energy desperately reaching for something to lift my mood (friends! dinner out! tv show! read a book!).

      1. Can you talk a little more about how you got to the dysthymia diagnosis/wellbutrin scrip? I am not even really sure how to broach something like this with a doctor or therapist.

        1. Sure! I had been meaning to go see a therapist for a while over the past couple of years, but nothing ever felt *bad enough* to warrant the time, effort, or expense. So I put it off and just continued to feel blah a lot of the time. Then I wound up hitting a series of Sad Life Events that came all at once and I got a rec for a therapist from a friend, made an appointment, and started seeing her weekly. We went over the current issues I was facing but also my mental health history, which included more serious depression in my teens, and just lots and lots of anxiety, stress, irritability and sadness in gradschool and after. Pretty much, I was capable of being happy a lot of the time, but always just felt like I was somewhat blah, somewhat down, even when there was no real external reason. After some months of doing some great, effective cognitive behavioral therapy work that has helped me kick a lot of bad thought patterns that were causing me to be unhappy, I was still feeling inexplicably blah. It was also particularly noticeable because of my work situation. So therapist said sounds like dysthymia might be something you’re dealing with, and trying anti-depressants could give you a huge boost. She floated that idea several months after I started seeing her, and it took me a few months to come around and agree to meds. Basically, the idea was that that boost would lift the fog and help my brain get out of my way of making progress in other areas. Based on knowing me and my symptoms, she suggested wellbutrin, which works on dopamine so is more likely to produce energy and motivation rather than a traditional SSRI, which in my experience is more calming/sedating (not what I need in biglaw!). Since she can’t prescribe it, she gave me a rec for a psychiatrist and, after talking with him, he wrote the scrip. So I’ll check in with him for short visits for medication management, and keep seeing her to do CBT and how the meds are working for me beyond side effects/dosage.

        2. I am a long sufferer of varying levels of depression. You describe to your doctor exactly what’s happening, just as the OP did, and then work with them to find the treatment that works for you. I do all of this at my GP’s office.

        3. FYI, I found that when I went to the doctor I would fall into a “oh, I’m not so bad” trap when asked “so how can I help you today”. I got the good advice (maybe from here) to just print something like what you wrote above and hand it to the doctor. Or basically, write it all down on a bad day, hand it to a doctor, and then tell the doctor how often you have those kinds of thoughts.

    8. Definitely go see a doctor – you could have some kind of hormonal imbalance, thyroid problem, virus, depression, or really anything. My cousin struggled with chronic fatigue syndrome and brain fog for years and is only just now starting treatment for what turned out to be a longstanding bacterial infection. These things are always worth checking out with a medical professional.

    9. You say you have kids. Did you feel this brain fog when you were pregnant? It could be hormones. Peri menopause is no joke.

      Definitely see your doctor and get a bunch of blood work done.

      1. This. Complete blood work. Unfortunately, the chemical related to true, neurological ADD/ADHD cannot be measured in a blood test.

        You don’t sound like you have a history of ADD/ADHD concerns; I’m a PhD who diagnoses that sort of condition.

        Be sure to check hormones, thyroid, iron/anemia.

        Wishing you all the best. You sound like your life’s ducks are in a row … I’m hopeful for you this is something physical as many of us have suggested.

      2. I was going to chime in to say get all of the blood work done. I had the same thing a couple of years ago and apparently, one of my parathyroid glands grew to be way too large. Removed the sucker and boom, hello personality and energy and goodbye acne (so weird how hormones are interrelated).

    10. I want to hear responses too, since I so often feel the same way. In my case, I have some health problems that are definitely contributing to the fogginess and lack of ability to focus, but most of the things that help with those health issues only make me more tired and out of it, so I feel really stuck and unsure of what do (and the health problems just aren’t going to magically go away). I feel like most doctors blow off that side of things to focus on physical issues and don’t understand how much I’m flailing, since I seem pretty on top of it when I see them.

    13. I could have written your first paragraph. I left a job that I actually really liked partially because I thought that might help, and ended up in a job that I hate. Vacations don’t really help, exercise maybe helps a little bit, a regular meditation practice seems to help slightly. I don’t feel depressed, I just feel foggy and incredibly behind at everything.

    14. As everyone else says, see your doctor. You could have mild depression or anxiety that isn’t crippling you, but is making life really tough. You asked for suggestions, too, so I have a few. Have you tried Bullet Point journaling? I find it to be a lot more flexible than Getting Things Done and other systems, so that helped me. Put only 2-4 tasks on your daily list–something really manageable–and just focus on completing the list. Also, try to manage your energy, not your time. Is there a bottleneck that is sapping your energy away like nothing else? If so, try to manage that. Is dinner always a rush that leaves you frazzled? Then try a meal service that takes out the stress. Are mornings really hard? Work out a deal with your husband to get 15-30 minutes to yourself, without the kids, and lay everything out the night before so that it is super easy. Is daycare/school drop-off or pick-up difficult? Think about outsourcing it to a morning or afternoon part-time nanny.

    15. Looking for anecdata, support – It could be any of the things suggested (ADD, depression, hormones, stress, thyroid imbalance). But as anedata, gluten intolerance could be a culprit. I was diagnosed as celiac and prior to that, I would have the worst “brain fog” episodes where I would say – damn it girl, you have a masters degree, why is simple math too hard? After diagnosis and talking to doctor and reading from MD experts, I learned that “brain fog” is actually a symptom of gluten exposure to those that are intolerant. So yes, talk to your doc about all of the other possibilities and add gluten or dietary intolerances to your list, especially if any of your genetic relatives have had gluten intolerance. Good luck – I hope you get some relief soon!

      1. This. No wheat. Eliminating wheat has really helped me. It takes a few weeks, though, to feel the difference.

      2. My brain fog was also caused by celiac disease. I was diagnosed by my doctor. I felt better after a couple weeks off gluten but some of the major transformations took years. (I had other symptoms too.) Hypothyroidism is also a culprit for me. Talk to your doctor. And be persistent. I was ignored by some and put on an antidepressant by another, but really these underlying problems were the real issue. (No antidepressant needed now.)

    16. I am struggling with exactly what you describe. so far not a lot has helped. but it’s encouraging to see others have overcome this.

    17. I’ve had a full day of meetings and just now got back here to look at replies – Thank you all so much! I’m sorry to hear that so many others feel the same way, but am very encouraged to hear that so many have found a physical reason for not feeling like themselves. I especially appreciate the poster who mentioned just printing this out and taking it to the doctor, as I am likely to be the person who would get in the office and then downplay how bad I’ve been feeling. I’m off to call my doctor and set up an appointment now.

      1. I’m glad to hear you are making an appointment and taking steps to deal with this.

        Please also give yourself permission to just let things fall off your to-do list. I’ve come to the realization that there are an awful lot of things I would love to have on my to-do list that just are never going to get done, and therefore they shouldn’t even be there. Or I should find a way to automate them, or delegate them to my husband, co-worker or whomever appropriately and move on.

    18. I’m very familiar with this! Don’t rule out the possibility of a medical issue. Thyroid imbalance or adrenal fatigue could be to blame. Also, believe it or not, sleep apnea often manifests itself in women as brain fog, fatigue, and a feeling of being overwhelmed.

    19. Yeah, this was the first symptom of my hypothyroidism, along with depression. It’s definitely worth it to get it checked.

      Lots of other symptoms because apparent after diagnosis, but the brain fog and depression were the most obvious beforehand.

      1. And, from one who knows…

        1) Thyroid imbalances are treatable.
        2) There are good doctors out there.
        3) Once you get your treatment stabilized…
        4) …You will feel like a miracle has occurred.

    20. Wow – I nearly started crying reading all these responses and the ideas people had. I am the same way, I could have written the same post, and I really honestly felt like I was the only one. THANK YOU, hive, for this. Honestly, words can’t even say.

  4. I really, really dislike children. I’m really involved in my best friend’s kid’s life, and I enjoy that because my friend is super important to me. But I really hate children. Is this the kind of thing that you’d judge a friend for if you knew? Assuming it didn’t directly impact the friendship?

    1. No answer about judging, but I feel the same way and get some nasty comments. People who know me and love me don’t care, but others do.

    2. For reference, I have two youngish kids and friends without kids. I wouldn’t judge my friends if they told me that they don’t like kids. It might make it a little harder to schedule things together, simply because I would make sure all of our events/outings were kid-free, but that would be a courtesy to my friend – not because I want to judge her or anything.

      1. That’s what I mean about it not directly impacting the friendship. I do things with my friends and their kids all the time. The BFF knows I really don’t like kids, but I wonder if my other friends will love me anyway and still come around (even with their kids!) or if they’ll pretend to understand but seriously not want to be friends with me as much.

        1. A lot depends on how you put the information out there. There’s a huge difference between “I’m not really a kids person” and “I hate kids, blech”.

          1. Or how you really feel! I have kids, but I’m not great at interacting with other kids. Pre-kid, I didn’t care if they were around – as long as I was not expected to entertain them. So, my friends with kids would still come around even with kids. I just didn’t super engage like some of my other friends would do. But, if you are my friend, and you tell me: “I hate kids, blech.” Well, that’s different. I wouldn’t bring my kids around you, and for logistical reasons, wouldn’t see you as much.

          2. Yup. I have kids. When I was younger (pre-children), I was totally a kid person. Now? I like my OWN kids, but the more I interact with kids other than my own, the less I like kids in general.

          3. I feel the exact same way. Before having my own kid, I loved kids. Now I want nothing to do with babies because they gross me out and remind me how difficult those early months with my daughter were. I enjoy one-on-one conversations with well-behaved older kids because it’s fun to hear their perspective on life, but I cannot stand screaming hordes of kids.

    3. MOST moms (I am not a mom) do not want to be with others who don’t like kids. Their friend groups gravitate to other parents any way and moreso to parents who know/like their kids, the kids are friends etc. So it WILL affect your friendships across the board. BUT some moms DO like having friendships that are NOT about the kids — where they can get together and talk about themselves, whatever it is they liked/did before kids. These women aren’t super common but they exist. Only you can know which category each of your friends falls in — hopefully you have some that just want a friendship with you and don’t even WANT to involve their kids.

      1. This actually made me laugh out loud. “All members of a class feel X way. I am not a member of that class.” LOL. I actually glanced up to see if this was an Ellen post.

    4. This has come up before and i still think it’s incredibly ageist to say you hate a whole class of people based on their age. Imagine saying “I really, really hate old people,” and see if you’d feel comfortable saying that out loud.

      If you said that you hated kids to me, I would think you were self-centered and shallow, and no, I wouldn’t want to be your friend.

      1. Yes, this. To say that you “hate”– hate!— an entire class of people simply by virtue of their age is horrible and selfish. You are not a good person, sorry.

        2. And you are a b*tch.

          When people say they hate kids, they don’t mean that they literally hate individual kids, or that they don’t think kids are valuable members of society, or that they think kids deserve unequal treatment. It’s an expression, and they mean that kids often come with a constellation of traits that are obnoxious. It’s not *simply* by virtue of age, it’s because, frankly, kids can be really f*ing obnoxious. Lovable, sure, but your child is not precious when she screaming in the restaurant. It’s not her *fault* but it’s also vexing. I know it’s *slightly* nuanced, but do try to accurately understand where people are coming from.

          Calm down, mommies. No one truly hates your precious spawn.

          2. A great adult party. No one simply assumed that kids are invited. Oh how I miss those.

      2. I don’t understand this comment. First, I don’t think comparing kids to old people is fair for either side of the argument. I don’t know anyone who expects their friends to accompany them to visit grandma in the nursing home, or brings their live-in elderly mother to brunch with the girls. Rightly or wrongly, old people aren’t integrated into our lives the way that kids are, and so you don’t have the sort of tension between socializing vs. caretaking that you do with kids.

        Second, this has nothing to do with ageism. When someone says they hate kids or old people, they mean, “I don’t want to spend my limited free time with people who are not polite, reserved, interesting individuals that I can have an actual conversation with and/or I don’t like being around people who make obnoxious outbursts and can’t control their bodily functions.” That’s not ageist or horrible, it’s just a preference. And that preference will have an impact on your friendships, the same as if someone said “I hate going to restaurants.”

        1. Right, here’s the ageist part. You have just described a set of behaviors that you have pre-judged to apply to all members of an age class.

          There are children who don’t exhibit these behaviors. There are adults who do.

          If your response is “it’s a stereotype because it’s true” then we need to talk about what the word “bigot” means.

          1. I’m a bigot because I know that an infant can’t control its bodily functions? Lol k.

        2. I think it’s weird that you don’t have any old people integrated into your life. When we have dinner parties or birthday parties, often there are grandparents or great-grandparents invited too. But I’m from a pretty family-oriented culture where it’s totally normal to have multiple generations at every event (birthdays, Christmas, thanksgiving, 4th of July, etc)

    5. Nope. Someone once told me, ‘Kids are like farts. When they’re someone else’s they’re horrible and you can’t believe someone just did that and you need to leave the room. When it’s yours, they’re not that bad and you kinda like them.’

      I wouldn’t judge you. I don’t judge my friend who straight up doesn’t like kids, has no interest in holding my baby and is the perfect person to go get a pedi and talk about non-kid things with. I don’t judge my friend who repeatedly tells me she’s shocked that she actually likes my kid because she generally dislikes kids.

      I also don’t judge my friend who is straight up terrified of babies. She’s afraid of babies like other people are afraid of dogs or clowns. I do what I would do with someone who was afraid of my dog and make sure I keep them away from each other as much as practical.

      1. The line about kids being like farts is pure gold and I’m definitely sharing that with my friends.

      2. I always heard it as “kids are like farts, you can only tolerate your own.” Which is true. I have 2 young kids, and I totally get it if my friends don’t want to spend time with them, childless or not! I wouldn’t be offended if a friend told me he/she doesn’t like kids. It would limit our weekend socializing even more, but only because of logistics.

    6. Yeah, if I knew you “disliked” or “hated” my child, I would never speak to you again. Sorry. It’s totally fine not to like kids, but if you didn’t love MY kid out of love for me, then you don’t love me, either, and I’m not your friend.
      If you don’t want to hang out with my kid because he’s annoying and messy and boring or whatever, THAT is fine. And totally understandable. But you still have to love him.

      1. Pretty sure I said I love my friend’s kid, mostly because I love her. Whatever the reason, I still love her kid. I play with, buy presents for, and hang out with said kid. I just in general dislike children.

        I didn’t say I disliked YOUR/ a particular child. Just that I don’t like children.

        1. Sorry that I misunderstood. You said you spent time with the kid but you hate kids. No exception stated. So I took it is as you hate all kids including your friend’s. That obviously stuck a nerve.

          Kids aren’t everyone’s cup of tea and I don’t judge anyone for that. I just couldn’t have a close relationship with someone who actively disliked or hated my kid. Probably my loss, but I couldn’t.

      2. Wait, what? There is nothing in between dislike/hatred and love? I don’t LOVE any of my friends’ kids. I also don’t HATE them. They are my friends’ kids – I interact with them, I listen to stories about them, I hang out with them, but they aren’t my kids. I don’t love them. If they needed something, I would help, sure, but I would never say I loved them. This seems extreme.

    7. There’s a difference between not being a kid person and hating children. I don’t really understand why you would need to default to hating all children, as it seems extreme. One of my friends feels this way and I think it’s because she didn’t really fit in with other kids when she was a kid and was a pretty late bloomer. People of course are going to question and wonder why you are so anti-all kids, so if you don’t want to deal with that I wouldn’t talk about it. Also, do you really hate your best friend’s kid? I doubt you do.

    8. I don’t like children either but I don’t think it has impacted my friendships. I have a bunch of friends with kids and we still get together, either with or without the kids. They all know my feelings and I’m fine around my friend’s kids so I really don’t think it matters to them.

    9. Yes. I’d judge anyone who hates any group of people as a blanket statement. It’s bigoted.

      1. Except it’s not ageist. Do you know a 6 month old who doesn’t pooo themselves? It’s pretty much a standard because you know developmental biology, not a stereotype. Same with the obnoxious child behaviors they are a standard as in developmental psychology, not some stereotype.

        1. Oh, right, because “I hate children” is clearly the same as “I don’t hang with people in diapers.” Yup. No differences at all.

          1. I would actually find the second statement much more offensive.

            Lots of people suffer from incontinence for various reasons. Many of them lovely people of all ages. Saying “I don’t hang out with people in diapers” is akin to saying you won’t hang out with people in wheelchairs. I’m not sure why you would counter (alleged) ageism with ableism.

    10. I’d suggest you keep this info to yourself, if you want to preserve your friendships. When I hear “I hate children” to me it sounds the same as “I hate Muslims” or “I hate blacks”. It’s just a sweeping comment about an entire class of people by virtue of a characteristic that they have no control over.

      1. Would it be different if I said “I don’t generally like kids,” or “I’m not a kid person”? Hate is probably a little hyperbolic here.

        1. I think it would make a difference yes. People are glomming on to the word “hate” IMO.

          1. This exactly. Saying “I hate kids” seems somewhat immature and generalizing, whereas “I’m not a kid person/I don’t really enjoy spending time with kids/etc.” is a more palatable statement.

        2. Yeah I think there is a huge difference between “I’m not a kid person” and “I hate children.” If you don’t actually hate children as a group, don’t say that.

      2. When being black or being Muslim causes someone to pull my hair while drooling on me and incoherently scream for hours on end, your analogy will make sense.

        1. I see what you’re saying, but if this is the issue, then you/ the OP are only talking about very young children. And even young kids have pretty distinct personalities. I have an 2 year old who can certainly be pretty annoying but has never (yet) screamed “for hours on end.” Some kids don’t really throw too many tantrums. By age 5 or 6, a lot of kids are pretty fun to be around. I took a 6 hour road-trip with my 7 year old cousin a few years ago, and we chatted about (her) school, (my) work, books and movies the entire time. Bottom line, “kids” is a group that includes a whole lot of little people who can do things like read a book by themselves or have a sensible conversation with you. All you have to do is narrow the statement to be more accurate and less overbroad, and you also end up with something 99% of people are comfortable with: “I find very young children tiring and hard to be around.” If someone stops being your friend for that, I’d say it’s their loss.

          1. I see your point. But part of my not being a kid person is that even when I’m around kids who by all accounts are lovely and cute, I just don’t enjoy it in the least. I enjoy being around people with adult faculties, and occasionally some children. But in general, I find even the “cute” behavior annoying.

      3. Agree. Kids require a lot of patience and hanging out with them, especially groups of them, is not everyone’s cup of tea. There’s a big difference between feeling that children are exhausting and not enjoying spending time with them, and “hating children,” which sounds antisocial and callous (we were all kids once, after all). OP, I hope you don’t go around declaring you hate kids to people who have them. Just say you find kids exhausting. People totally get that.

      4. But, religion is a choice though, isn’t it? Maybe not as a child but certainly as an adult. It’s different than race or gender or a disability.

    11. It personally wouldn’t bother me if you felt that way as in you don’t want to be around my kid(s) or talk about them, that’s cool. I get it. But if you judge me for my decision to have children or make snarky comments, etc., then I think it would be harder to be friends. If the friendship is based on previous common interests (work, a sport, shopping, drinking, whatever), then I see no reason it can’t keep going on that basis as long as you aren’t judgy. Honestly though, that applies to all areas – not just children.

    12. I’ll only add that I don’t like dogs very much, and it only becomes an issue when a dog trys to get up on me.

      1. Ha, I was just thinking about this. I am really not a dog person and I feel like this is even less acceptable to say in modern society than that you dislike kids. I certainly keep it to myself and have only really ever admitted to my spouse that I really dislike being around dogs. I would never, ever, tell a dog owner that I dislike dogs, and when I am over at the homes of friends who have dogs, I suck it up and pet them and tolerate them drooling on me even though I am cringing inside, because I am seriously afraid of losing friendships if I don’t. I don’t act super enthusiastic at all, I just tolerate it, but I have never once had a friend notice my non-enthusiasm and try to keep their dog away from me.

        If anyone felt that way about my kid…yeah, I’d probably want them to keep it to themselves, too. Loving other people involves sucking it up and dealing, sometimes.

    13. Mom here, as I tell my child “hate” is a pretty strong word, be careful how you use it. But in general I really don’t like entertaining other people’s children or having them run all over my house. I would love to have people over more often but the thought of them bringing their kids to run wild and terrorize my dog just makes me stop wanting to socialize with families. Putting “adults only” on invites can be off putting to some but we’ve found we love socializing with all the retirees we’ve.

    15. I think you need to phrase this better. It’s totally OK to not be a “kid person” and to dislike kid-centered activities or the drudgery of diaper-changing and snot-wiping. But kids are people too and it’s really not nice to say that you hate them. A 10 year old kid is someone with thoughts, feelings and ideas, and it’s not really fair to write them off as a person from the start. You can hate certain mannerisms, but it’s terrible in my opinion to say that you hate them as people, period. (And I don’t have kids).

  5. Someone’s mention yesterday of the explosion of MLM’s made me curious…does anyone actually make a livable income? My facebook feed is full on MLMers, some of whom seem to be doing quite well (ie: have earned their Lexis from R&F). These people drive me crazy, so I’m not thinking about pursuing this, just extremely curious if people are actually successful.

    1. A lot of the “success” you see is manufactured. Many of the people you see with the Lexus are leasing the Lexus, not owning it–it’s all part of the idea that if you wan’t to be successful, you have to present yourself as successful. Since the real source of income isn’t selling products but by convincing other people to join, that Lexus is a serious sales piece.

    2. There are quite a few discussions out there if you poke around for them about what a scam the “free car” is. The company makes the lease payments only for so long as you hit certain targets. You remain liable on the lease, so if your numbers slip, the company stops paying and you’re on the hook for it.

    3. I’m a cpa and I found this article really interesting. I’ve seen the same thing.

      1. It won’t let me paste link. Google cpa multi level marketing, select first result.

    4. I don’t know for certain, but I have a few friends from high school (mostly just “facebook friends” now–I don’t really socialize with them, etc.) who are really into this. One sells Mary Kay is a National Director (whatever that means. . .) and has won two cars. But it seems like her income provides enough to send her kids to a moderately priced Christian school in the area and pay for a family summer vacation (driving a couple states over to a National Park–an awesome vacation, not judging or anything but this wasn’t flying to Hawaii or something more extravagant.) This is based on her frequent sales pitch so I would assume she is highlighting what selling Mary Kay has allowed her to do. She has a husband with a full-time corporate job. I have one other friend who joined “It Works” and based on her sales pitch as well she was able to buy a North Face jacket with her own money. She is also married and her husband has a federal government job. I think it is rare that someone can make enough money to fully support themselves/their family.

    5. I am SO SICK of my friends and teammates’ (from college) R&F posts on FB, and their constant messaging. “How are you? [I know we haven’t talked in years] but want to spend $300 on a regimen? It’s the end of the month [and I need to reach a quota] so want to pay an exorbitant amount for skincare so I get a huge commission?”

      As for the posts:

      A quarter of the time they are criticizing anyone that doesn’t have perfect skin or prioritize having perfect skin.

      A quarter the time they are saying that they enjoy their business SO MUCH so everyone should sign up (because MLM–>recruiting.

      A quarter of the time they are bragging about the sweet rewards they get and the presents they give each other (presents which are made from profiting on their friends)

      A quarter of them are “YOU GO GIRL” stupid sorority-esque posts, acting like a sweet in-club.

      I cannot.

      1. Huh, I didn’t know R+F was an MLM. I actually buy some of the products from my friend’s sister. I have rosacea and cystic acne and it has been hard for me to find a moisturizing product that doesn’t make my rosacea worse or make me break out in cysts.

        For what it’s worth the person I buy it from has never once tried to recruit me and she has never upsold me.

      2. So much this. People from high school I have not talked to in years friending or messaging me on FB . . . .No seriously, half my new friends are selling that isht too. You’ll have to get in line but I ain’t buying!

    6. I think if you get in early enough, you can actually bring home money (at least for a while). From what I understand, it seems like commissions from selling products are minimal, but the commissions from recruiting friends to the scheme are more significant. I have a FB friend who got into one several years ago before they were big and has a huge “team” under her and she seems to be doing very well (although as others have said, image presented on FB may not be real). I don’t think it’s “support a family” well, but certainly a very healthy supplemental income that pays for vacations and kids activities, etc.

      There is not enough money in the world to get me to beg my friends to buy my crap though. Literally if someone told me I could have 10 million dollars but I had to make facebook posts every day begging my friends to buy my MLM stuff I’m not sure I could do it. The big one on my FB feed is Plexus and it goes hand in hand with anti-vaxxers so double ugh!!

    7. Many years ago I worked on a lawsuit involving some kind of MLM. I’ll never forget taking the deposition of one of the high-ups in the organization, and he talked about how he hadn’t make much money selling the products, and then he and his wife decided “we were doing it wrong.” The “right” way to make money in an MLM, according to this guy, was to forget about selling the products and focus on recruiting as many downline people as possible, and encouraging them to recruit, and so on and so on. Because the real money is from your cut of those people’s sales. And it turned out that a lot of that money was just from new people buying the introductory kit.

      Basically, it sounded like a big ol’ pyramid scheme. But this guy had made a bucketload of money at it.

      2. Yeah, I always thought it was pretty blatant that ‘multi-level’ is just a euphemism for ‘pyramid,’ don’t ya think? I’m reminded of the scene from the office where Michael explains he just needs to recruit and they need to recruit and Jim draws a triangle around it. PYRAMID.

      3. I’m super curious about any legal hooks here. I find these to be so predatory (from my FB feed MLMs are all women, many of whom have left careers to raise children, are underemployed, or otherwise in an economically vulnerable spot) and the MLM is basically a loan that they have to pay back by selling or recruiting. Could there be a FLSA violation here? Misclassification of independent contractors? Predatory lending? Not that I’m planning to launch a suit, just wondering what’s been considered. Reminds me a bit of for-profit college suits/ regulations.

    8. Ooh, me. A woman I babysat for in high school was very successful at Arbonne, a MLM with swedish skin care products and now vitamins, etc. We lived in the South, and I’d seen success with my mother and neighborhood ladies doing Avon, MK, Pampered Chef, Christmas Around the World. She began it while her husband was working and daughters were in school, and she had previously worked in marketing for the fashion industry. She was gorgeous and bubbly and was able to commit to the idea very early on, all of which I think helped her immensely. She did get to the Mercedes level and was great at attracting people. I did give it a shot after my daughter was born and I was dissatisfied with my work after going back from maternity leave. The products were top notch quality, but the sales process was so difficult. I paid about $300 for a starter kit, I believe, and another $300 for a large lot of products to start out with. It only took me one shot of alienating a mom-acquaintance before I decided it was not something I’d want to do. I gave it maybe one or two more tries, just shooting an email to friends, with zero response to decide that I was not interested in using my network in this manner. The products are still killer, and my mom wishes I still did it since she buys them occasionally.
      I think the people that are most susceptible to this are the ones that “buy the dream” – tending towards those who believe in manifesting reality, faith will get you through it all, and God will make things happen if only you believe. Warren Buffett is an investor in Pampered Chef, and the founder of HONDA has said that if he could start over he’d use network marketing for HONDA distribution. It makes a ton of sense from a business perspective but only if you’re at the top and not a peon.
      All that said, I’m now in the investment advisory world, which some consider a form of MLM so go figure :)

    9. Interesting that one of the MLMs posts an average income for their sales people. Just under $700 annually. Actually higher than I thought- search Rodan and Fields Income Disclosure Statement…

      On top of the sales pitch, the junk is really really expensive for the quality. I willingly bought a sweater from a Cabi “trunk show” for about $100 and the quality was about F21 level. There are some friends I really do miss but not enough to attend their Matilda Jane, IT WORKS, Cabi, Doterra, Plexus , Stella and Dot events.

    10. The woman who sold Mary Kay to me and my mother when I was growing up was very sucessful at it – but as others have mentioned, it was mostly because she had a lot of people working under her. She was a single mom (divorced, with primary custody of her kids) so I don’t know how much her divorce settlement/child support payments played into it, but she sure seemed to have it together and was making a good life for her family.

      HOWEVER, I’m pretty sure she had worked in sales in the past and had a business degree, and would have been a kick-@ss businesswoman/saleswoman in just about any industry she chose to go into – she had a very similar personality and temperament to the sales vendor reps that I deal with now.

  6. I’m an in-house attorney and my last day at work is quickly approaching. Any advice on things I should do/save/whatever before I’m done here? As it probably makes a difference, I am not headed straight to another job. In fact, I’m not sure if I will work again (and, at this point, I think that is best decision for myself and my family) but I am not ruling it out.

    1. *Save any articles or public information that you might find useful. (This is obviously only for stuff you have a right to save–do not take company secrets with you or violate a company policy or employment agreement.)
      *Leave a list of ongoing projects that includes a brief summary of the project, the people involved, action items, and any deadlines.
      *If you think you will work again (and you should plan on this because life can throw a ton of curve balls at you), set up your network NOW. It is very hard to on-ramp back into the workforce. While you are still “in the know” set up everything you can to keep yourself in the loop (join an association, sign up to volunteer at any relevant activities, etc.). If you just quit and don’t do anything, you will likely find it very, very difficult to have professional work again.
      *Does your state allow post-nuptial agreements? Does your SO have life insurance? What are you going to do if you are ever no longer supported by your SO? Sorry to raise this, but with the divorce rate being what it is, you need to think about this. You are about to take an incredibly massive hit to your lifetime earning power. A much larger hit than you are probably capable of considering right now. You need to do what you can to protect your interests.

      1. Thanks. As for your last point, I never said anything about an SO or an SO supporting me or my family. Certainly all good things to consider, but there are other situations in which someone could survive outside of the workforce.

        1. I did make the assumption that you were going to stay at home while an SO was the breadwinner. While that would probably typically be the case when a woman is leaving work and planning to (maybe) not work again, you are right it is not the case for everyone–I did not mean to offend.

    2. Is your personal email address one that is professional-sounding enough to give out to people as you say your goodbyes? If not, make a new email.

    4. Does every know you aren’t coming back, or are you going out on leave and not planning to return?

      -Export all your contacts, assuming you won’t be in trouble for doing so (or print them and put them in a file).
      -If you don’t have LinkedIn now, make one, so when you send a “so long, here’s my email address if you want to stay in touch” you could also send a link to your LinkedIn so people can connect.
      -Along the same lines, make sure your personal email is on your LinkedIn account, and get anything else you might have signed up with on your work email transfered over to your personal email.

      -Update your resume as if you are job searching, so you can put hard numbers to it, like “saved $3 Million dollars by XYZ” because in 6 months you won’t remember if it was 3 million, 2 million or what and you don’t want to lie, but you won’t have access to the report you wrote it in anymore.

      -Don’t burn any bridges on your way out the door, no matter how tempting. Even if you don’t wind up ever coming back to this industry, the IT guy might wind up having a kid in your future kid’s gymnastics class someday and you’ll have to interact politely.
      -If there is anyone you would like to stay in touch with, schedule a lunch or coffee date now for X months from now, or you won’t actually schedule it in the future.

  7. Ladies, I am so miffed right now and I’m not sure whether it’s warranted. Looking for a reality check. I’m a first year transactional associate. Today I was working on making some changes to a document at the direction of a third year. After I was finished Third Year and I went to discuss with Partner. Third Year made the changes Partner asked for, then asked me to run a redline showing them. I am so annoyed that he asked me to run the redline! Attorneys here typically ask assistants to run redlines, but will often run a quick one in a situation like this. Third Year had the document open already and it just seems really unnecessary to ask me to do the redline. He could have done it in the time it took him to ask me. I wanted to push back and suggest he run the redline himself (in a non passive-aggressive, polite way) but ended up just doing it. I know that being a first year often involves menial work, and I’m really okay doing anything and pride myself on being a team player. This just felt like something that should be delegated to an assistant or done by an associate himself. When a partner asks me to run a redline I don’t bat an eyelash and do so happily. Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but I feel like it’s important to push back next time. With me six months in, Third Year obviously knows a lot more than me right now, and I appreciate all the help he gives me, but we’re ultimately on very similar levels and I don’t want him to make a habit of delegating me what is perceived at my firm as assistant work. What do you guys think?

    1. You’re making a mountain out of a molehill – for right now. Now if he ONLY gives you admin work or ALWAYS gives you admin work – not just when it emergently needs to be done, then it’s a problem. But for a 1 time thing — I think we ALL did that (and still do) in our careers.

      1. Agreed. It’s a one time thing- let it slide. He might even have thought after he asked you to do it “oops I shouldn’t have done that” but just made a mental note not to do it again. Cut him some slack for now.

    2. Get over it. ASAP. New associates are often asked to do menial tasks. This is something that probably took you 5 minutes. Maybe the admin was slammed. Maybe he was slammed. Do not bother pushing back. Dear god, this is not the hill to die on. If you find over the coming months that you are CONSTANTLY given admin tasks, and they significantly impact your ability to do substantive work, maybe mention it. But do not make a fuss over this.

      Besides, when you run the redline, it gives you an easy opportunity to look at the changes.

      “Third Year obviously knows a lot more than me right now, and I appreciate all the help he gives me, but we’re ultimately on very similar levels”

      No you’re not. There is a world of difference between a 3rd year and a 1st year and if he has the authority to delegate work to you, given to him by the partners, then you need to do what he asks and suck it up.

      1. cosign everything in this post

        Also, if it’s a work you think the senior associate could just be doing himself (and he is senior to you), it’s something he can delegate to you.

      3. +1. I’m a partner. I run my own redlines all the time. I’ve heard through the grapevine about junior associates refusing to do things more senior associates asked for. I don’t work with those associates again. If you think something is beneath you, by all means, delegate it to your assistant.

        But, and please take this constructively – do not ever. ever. ever. EVER. complain to anyone (associate, secretary, paralegal, janitor, partner) that you are being asked to do what you think is menial work. You’ll be labeled as high maintenance, and won’t be there much longer.

    3. It is absolutely ok for Third Year to ask you to run a redline. If you push back against this, it would be in very poor form. It is also absolutely ok for you to then, in turn, ask your assistant to run this redline, and then submit it to the Third Year (as long as you check that it’s been done correctly).

    4. Ok, I get why you are annoyed — but as a new midlevel, Third Year’s “associate expectations” probably now include delegating whenever possible, and maybe his assistant is known to screw things up or take too long? If Partner wanted the draft back immediately, but Assistant had several things already on the to-do list, waiting half an hour for a redline isn’t a solution. I’d give yourself 5 minutes to have a little internal vent and then move on.

    5. Not a big deal. Sure, it is annoying, but it isn’t outrageous or even problematic. There will be so many real slights in your legal career/firm politics that you need to pick your battles and this isn’t worth it. Really, what would you hope to accomplish by “pushing back” on being asked to run a redline (something you admit can be within your job duties)? You will waste more time talking about it than you would doing it.

      Also, for a bit of tough love, you are not “on very similar levels.” Even if he is still seen as a “junior associate” (or at least not a “senior associate”), he has three additional years of experience and a higher billing rate. Get over yourself.

    6. They want you to see the changes so you can learn. Ask why they made certain changes

      You will be handed all sorts of admin tasks. You can turn them over to your admin, then check to make sure it’s correct.

      Chill

      1. He’s probably also thinking that if he gives it to his admin he’ll have to find the original, explain which one is the original, etc. He won’t have to explain that to you, because you’re familiar with the project.

        FWIW, I’m a junior partner and sometimes I still run the redline for a more senior partner that I work with because it’s faster for me to do it than to explain which docs to pull to my secretary, and because I’ll immediately know if it was correct.

      2. +1. You can learn so much from taking the time to think about why a partner made certain edits — even if it’s just that particular partner’s preferences.

    7. I find the idea that you and a third year are comparable really off putting and out of touch. I’m a 7th year, and the items I can delegate to a third year and a first year (at least without massive oversight) are drastically different.

      At the end of the day, this person is your supervisor. Unless he is only giving you So-called assistant work, let it go. finally, he knew you were available. Blending something to an assistant means waiting until the assistant is available for it to be done. That can take hours, which he didn’t have

      1. Agreed. One day the 2 year experience difference will be nothing, but that is absolutely not the case today. A first year and a third year are radically different. An eighth and a tenth, not so much, but you are far from there.

      2. Ditto this. You’re going to need to check the attitude at the door, as law firms are really hierarchical — particularly in transactional practices.

        1. YEAP. I was on a deal as a first-year associate and spent weeks sticking post-it notes to pages that needed to be scanned. This is how large law firms work, yo.

        2. Agreed. I’m not in law so my advice is probably not as useful, but I am in an extremely hierarchical field (surgery). When I was a mid-level resident I was once paged by an attending staff at 3 AM (when I wasn’t on call) to ask me to look up an email address for him.

          I said “no problem, give me 5 minutes and I’ll text it to you”
          It did seem annoying and stupid that he would wake me up at 3 AM to do something he could do himself but I did and the demands of this type have been relatively rare and gotten far more infrequent as I have climbed the hierarchy myself. And overall, he’s ended up being a valuable mentor. These aren’t the kind of hills to die on or to lose face/mentors/support over.

      3. +1. You and a third year associate are absolutely not the same at all. You really need to get over yourself. If you gave me attitude because I asked you to do a redline, you can be damn sure you’re not getting staffed on my next deal if I can avoid it. I do not have time for first year special snowflake syndrome. A redline sure as h3ll is not beneath you.

    8. I’m junior/mid-level and I probably wouldn’t ask an associate more junior to run a redline (although if we were working on a project together, I would feel that I should divide up the tasks and so I might ask for something similarly administrative). Maybe his assistant was away and the replacement was terrible. Maybe it was super time sensitive and he needed you to do it (while he did something else urgent) before the meeting. Don’t push back. He is 2 years ahead of you. As long as he treats you respectfully, you do what he asks (or delegate appropriately and supervise). I was asked to file something the other day – and I did it because a) my job is to do things people more senior than me ask for and b) it took the weight off that person’s shoulders. In the end, I did it personally but I could have easily asked an assistant or student as well. Your job is to make more senior people’s lives easier. Even if they’re only 2 years more senior.

      Also, this is why I love Canada. The same people who are called first year associates in the US are articling students in Canada, and its very clear that all other lawyers are their bosses. Once they’ve articled for 10 months, they become first year associates, at which point they know something about law (sort of) and understand the hierarchy.

      1. I would say that, except for limited circumstances, every lawyer at a law firm who has more experience than you is your “boss” to some degree.

    9. I think you’re a first year associate and you should stop complaining. Do the work

    10. Thank you for taking the time to read and reply, ladies. This is not the first time I’ve found insight from the comments here invaluable and I’m so appreciative.

      1. I would add that you should look at tasks like these as “easy hours” and the chance to just be reliable and good. You are proving your mettle at everything. Your mantra should be “No task too small.” This is not a feminism issue. This is that your colleagues need someone that they can hand stuff to quickly and get it back quickly and correct. Hopefully that’s you.

        Do not get your panties in a bunch about stuff like this. You will be asked to do all sorts of tasks, admin tasks, running stuff to a client in a conference room…whatever…because transactional law moves fast.

        Also, the other posters are completely right when you say you are “almost like a third year.” Nope. Nope. Nope. That third year knows more law, has done more deals, knows the clients better, knows partners’ preferences better, knows how to work with filing agents better…you can learn a lot when you work 2500 hours a year. This person certainly knows WAY MORE than you.

    11. While I agree with the comments above (esp. re: 3rd year is NOT on your same level), I also want to commiserate with you and say that, yes, it is incredibly annoying when other people send a long email asking you to do X administrative task, when it clearly would have taken less time for them to just do it than it did to send the email.

      Case in point: a partner sending me an email basically saying “can you underline the title in the document [that I have open on my computer in front of me] right now?”

      Seriously? Glad we’re billing the client for this… But do it anyway with a smile on your face and remember this experience so that when you are the third year you won’t be as obnoxious. Also entirely possible 3rd year isn’t great at delegating right now but is trying to include you on as much as possible, which is a really positive thing.

      Honestly, for the first year+ you really can only be trusted with administrative tasks, and I think that’s particularly true in transactional work. Litigators can write memos and do research; for us, a LOT of our admin tasks are boring and totally not lawyering at all but they do help you become familiar with contracts as a whole. Take advantage of this time! Redlines are particularly helpful for that sort of thing.

      1. Counterpoint. The partner in your example above likely needed you to learn something about why it’s being done. Maybe local rules call for it and it’s a gentle nudge to remember that you need to underline. Maybe s/he wanted you to know that s/he expects titles to be underlined going forward. I had a partner tell me he wanted quotes to be consistent throughout documents (some “curl” some are straight). Seemed ridiculous, but as I’ve gotten more senior, I understand the need for polish. I don’t want to do something each time you send me a document – I want it done the first time.

        As to redlines, don’t be so quick to assume it’s a solely admin task. Each and every time I redline a document, I run through the changes, double check the edits, double check that formatting wasn’t through off through editing, and do a quick proof. I would expect any associate of mine to do the same.

        1. You’re right, generally–this task that I’m complaining about, though, was a one-time internal document and his request actually ran counter to what he normally asks for. Frankly, the partner is just a jerk and a bully, but that won’t always be true.

          Agree re: redlines (they’ve been really helpful for me to understand what I’m doing and check/recheck work); I said “admin task” merely to emphasize the fact that doing it, without more, doesn’t require a JD. And those types of things are basically all junior associates do, but they (almost always) have a point. Kind of like “paint the fence” leads to karate.

  8. Would you be mad or concerned if, when discussing how you were out running late last night and you thought maybe it wasn’t the wisest idea because running in dark areas at night isn’t always safe for women, your bf ‘jokingly’ asked if you “oh, what, were you were running down X street (known for being sketchy)?”

    To me it sounded incredibly naive and stupid to make such a comment. He apologized after I called him out on it, but how clued out do you have to be to say something like that?

    1. I’m not sure I understand what’s wrong with the statement, but I may be dense. You were talking about running at night and how it’s unsafe, and he asked if you were running on a particularly bad street. How is that offensive?

      (I don’t mean this combatively, I’m genuinely asking because I feel like I must be missing something)

      2. Me too — I’m confused about why you’re upset — were you hoping for a “I hate that women are put in those situations” response? Or annoyed because bf was apparently under the impression that any street other than Sketchy Street shouldn’t be an issue? From your description, that doesn’t sound like your tone…

      3. The way I understood it was that she’d have to be in a particularly sketchy area well known for being sketchy in order to feel/be unsafe, and she could feel like he’d think the solution to not feeling unsafe is just staying away from obviously “bad” places, and therefore she would bear some responsibility for feeling unsafe or something bad happening.

        I wouldn’t have taken it that way, but I could see it.

        2. Hmm okay, if that’s how the OP took it. I don’t think I would’ve read into it that way.

          If that’s the case, OP, I see where you’re coming from, but I think it’s an overreaction to be “concerned” about this person for that comment. He probably meant nothing by it and was shocked by your reaction. I’m sure he won’t make that mistake again.

          1. Perhaps I was trying to make him sound better than he actually is and I didn’t explain my self fully. The exact quote was “what were you running down r*p* alley”?

          2. I get it–that would definitely make me eye roll and give him a lecture on why r*p* isn’t funny, but I wouldn’t truly be concerned unless there’s a pattern of behavior there. Sadly, so many comedians and even TV shows make jokes like this that people see it as a normal comment and don’t realize that the word has very weighted meanings to people. I don’t think it makes him a bad person, just ignorant.

          3. Yeah this is eyeroll behavior but not “concerning” to me — if you watch Master of None, in one of the episodes, this is a plot point — the two different experiences that Aziz and a female have when heading home from the same bar.

            In your shoes, I would also have said something (bc that’s a kind of clueless thing to say), but not picked a major battle over it.

    2. No one can be totally aware and clued in all the time. We all have our blind spots. To me, it depends on whether your bf “gets it” in general and this particular thing just did not occur to him in the moment, or if this is sort of a general feature of this guy/your relationship. Even as a feminist woman of color etc I’ve said things that were obviously dumb, but because I didn’t have a particular experience in the past, someone had to point it out as such. And I never made that particular mistake/thought that particular dumb thing again. It really is hard to just instinctively get these things in every way all the time if you haven’t experienced it. The question is was this an “duh of course” kind of learning experience for him, or is he just not that sensitive to these things? only you could know.

      1. Yes, in what tone did you make your comment about safety? I’m not sure what reaction you were trying to get. I doubt that bf doesn’t realize it’s often unsafe for women to run alone at night (I am a runner and TBH, I would never do this). What is your bf’s sense of humor like? Is that street commonly referred to like that in the local media?

        If I made a comment about safety while running in the dark to my former cop, criminologist bf (who has a daughter), he would probably go yea, no $hit sherlock, why are you doing it? I wouldn’t get offended by that because it’s a valid point.

  9. Every one here (and everywhere really) talks about how if you want to get out of law firm life, go in house. Am I the only one who has been trying to make an in house move for YEARS with no success? I know everyone will say — network. But it’s thru networking that I’ve even gotten a 6-12 interviews in the last 2 yrs and then I always end up not getting it or coming in 2nd place. It’s not like I’m a horrible interviewer — I tend to get thru multiple rounds of interviews (up to 6 at an investment bank) and have often gotten “we’re sorry we aren’t taking you but we LOVED you” calls afterwards.

    I figured it’s my resume — had 8 yrs of NYC biglaw litigation and I know there are fewer spots in litigation than anything else. I’d be interested in not just doing lit but a generalist corporate role, but then when they have people to choose from who have 8 yrs of corporate experience, why are they going to choose a litigator who wants to branch out – rather than someone who directly has experience. I interviewed at a number of NYC banks, etc. and it just never worked. Figuring it was never happening, I moved on (had to leave the firm) onto a govt atty role in DC at the SEC — so it isn’t litigation but not quite corporate either (more compliance-ish). I haven’t been there long — just about a yr, but now I’m once again feeling the desire to go in house and wondering if having a resume with a slightly different kind of experience in addition to 8 yrs of biglaw lit will do anything for me. Thing is — I just moved and kind of need to stay in DC now instead of moving again. I want to be in house, not for the hours or the work life, but bc I am REALLY passionate about business. I think I could do some good coming into a company thru legal and then really helping to grow a company (but of course I don’t say this in an interview bc no one wants to hire someone who wants to move on). WWYD?

    1. I am by no means an expert, but do work in house for a large company. I don’t know that a passion for business and wanting to grow a company really lines up with general in-house legal. It is definitely a more business-oriented perspective than a law firm, but (at least in my experience) it is an advisory role that doesn’t involve actually making business decisions. If that is what you are looking for, you probably only fit into a small sub-set of companies (maybe more start-up based?) that are small enough that legal is very active in business decisions. It is going to be harder and take longer to find that kind of job because it isn’t as common.

      If you are interested in more general in-house legal (and not growing a business), I think experience in compliance-ish work would be very helpful. I would stay there for a while and then leverage that compliance experience.

      1. Yay Kat! I am a fan of these shirt’s but NOT the collar’s so much. I think it show’s to much of my CLAVICELs – and Frank would start to talk about seeing MORE. FOOEY on Frank!

        As for the OP, it is NOT easy to go from being a HI-Power’d litiegator like you (and me) to an in-house job. Roberta told me I was OVER Qualified for being an inhouse person at her company, and she is right. It is alot easier to work inhouse b/c you just farm out the tough stuff to hi-power’d OUTSIDE council, like us. But then, why would you ever leave in house, b/c you go home at 5:30 every day, and take a 2 hour lunch. That is NOT much worse then goverment work, where you come in at 9:15, have a 2 hour lunch, MORNING and AFTERNOOD 15 minute cofee brakes, and always leave at 5.

        I wanted to stay in DC, but they would NOT make me a GS 11 attorney advizor, so I went back to NYC w/o a job. Do NOT worry. You can get a job if you find a NITCH like I have and then see if there are inhouse alternatives. If Roberta ever retires, she will recomend me, but she has a schlubby son she has to support, so she does NOT see leaveing any time soon. She also wanted him to date me, but I said NO. I did NOT want to mix busness with THAT. FOOEY!

        BTW, did anyone watch the MADOFF movie on TV last night? It was so realistic! I can NOT beleive that peeople fell for all of that BS! And Blythe Danner is such a good Ruth Madoff! And the schlubbey peeople on the 19th floor makeing all that money? OMG, what a bunch of loosers we were for NOT findeing out earleir about those Shananagan’s! TRIPEL FOOEY ON THE SEC!

      2. To be clear – I have never (and would never) go into any in house interview large or small and tell them I want in because I want to jump to the business side. I have actual interests in advising a company – one continuous client; learning what they do/their challenges etc. THEN if the opportunity ever presented itself, I’d want to transition over (and if not – I do love being a lawyer too).

        It just feels like such a dead end when you think you can end up in house somewhere and after yrs of looking, it doesn’t ever work out. I’m at a point where I want out of the gov’t already as I know it’s a bad fit — but will have at least 1-2 yrs of experience minimum (or likely more) before moving on.

    2. As anecdata, the senior counsel for the business unit in which I work regularly defers to the business folks when there is something in a contract that is outside the legal terms of the agreement (legal terms meaning indemnification, LoL, etc.). For instance, if there is something about what products can be returned and when, counsel doesn’t make the final decision on whether the terms are acceptable, the business unit/folks, finance, or product manager does (or a combination of all stakeholders). Counsel may provide an opinion that it’s not the best idea to accept certain terms, but counsel doesn’t make the final decision and often states he can get comfortable with certain legal terms if the business folks are okay with the business terms. This extends to terms such as warranty, shipping/packaging, statements of work, product specs, anything that is clearly a business decision and doesn’t put us in violation of the law.

      I wouldn’t suggest an in-house job if what you really want to do is make\strongly influence business decisions. I am contract administrator with a JD (with 5 years prior transactional experience) and I probably have more influence on business decisions than legal counsel does because I interact with the PMs, engineers, sales folks more often . Now, that doesn’t mean I get to make the final decision on any of these things, but I can easily report what we have done with other customers, where it’s worked, what problems have arisen, etc. If you want to truly influence business decisions, IMO, you need to be a business role, not a legal role.

      1. OP here – thank you. Do you have any thoughts on how to transition from being a lawyer for 10 yrs to a business role with an established business (i.e. not starting my own start up and calling myself CEO which I’m not interested in)? I have the right pedigree — but not the right work experience, I think; as almost a decade of biglaw litigation and a bit of gov’t/regulatory doesn’t seem relevant to a real estate company or a company selling products of any variety (my regulatory experience isn’t FDA) or an airline or something.

        1. Anon at 11:27 a.m. here (aka CountC but didn’t populate).

          I am happy to try to offer some advice, but my advice will depend on what type of business role you are looking for. Do you want to be involved on the product side? Procurement? Risk analysis? Marketing? Sales? Customer service? Generally speaking, based on my work experience prior to law school and my observations at the international company where I now work, if you don’t have the right experience, you are going to have to start at a lower level than you would be if you went into a legal role based on your legal experience, perhaps even entry level, depending. If that’s not a problem for you, then you can probably go for any position that you want. In that scenario, you are going to be fighting an uphill battle on why you want to take a step back and why you want to change fields, but it’s not impossible. I am happy to talk more about the company where I work and how they encourage lateral moves to new areas within the company. For example, after 8 months, I was approached by the pricing team for a position there based on my work in contracts. You can email me at $hitmensaytowomen at the Google mail service if you’d like (inserting the letter S for the $)!

    3. Are you committed to continuing the practice law as a lawyer? A lot of the big consulting companies have positions that are JD-preferred, business-oriented compliance gigs. No judgment if that’s not what you’re looking for, just thought I’d throw it out there.

      1. OP here — I want to either do law or do business — NOT compliance/regulatory. I took the gig bc I needed to get out of my biglaw firm (I knew I wouldn’t make partner when business in my dept suddenly turned) and I wanted to get down to DC so I figured an SEC gig wouldn’t be a bad was to go. Overall though I don’t have any interest in regulatory/compliance, though wouldn’t mind general business consulting. I gave it a try to apply for consulting (strategy) jobs last yr and no dice. I have the right schools etc. but honestly no one believed that after 10 yrs of experience as an atty, I would leave it all and start over at a lower salary as a junior-ish consultant — despite my assurances that yes, that is what I want.

        I am not trying to get away from law — I’m one of the rare ones that likes it a LOT. But I also like the business side a lot and if there was some way to combine it, I would.

    4. Probably not what you wanted to hear, but I know two people who had similar backgrounds as you, who ended up going to a top tier MBA program and ended up in successful business roles afterwards. If you are passionate about business, you may find the program enjoyable as well.

  10. Got an email about the 4 new Banana Republic pant styles…. Ryan, Sloan, Avery, Logan. Am I the only one who HATES the “naming” of the different fits of pants? So many stores do this and I find it so annoying and hard to keep track of. Also, these places have such sh!tty quality control that it’s not like the different pairs of Size 8 “Martin” or “Julie” or whatever pants ever fit the same anyway.

    1. Yeah, I’m with you. I prefer names that have some relation to the actual fit — like JCrew’s matchstick, toothpick, etc.

      I’m also laughing a little because an acquaintance of mine was SUPER proud of her baby name Avery a year ago (so literary! so unique!) and now it’s a BR pant name…. ok evil thought over for today.

      1. Avery is unique and unusual? I remember when it had a brief moment in the sun in the Murphy Brown days.

        1. To be fair, it was the first baby Avery I’ve known. Sorry to say that many of my generation wouldn’t use Murphy Brown as a cultural reference for baby naming… I’ve seen an episode or two and have a general familiarity only.

          1. So apparently (in the modern era) it IS a unique and unusual name! Why make fun of her for thinking the same thing?

          2. Because I just looked up baby name popularity out of curiosity and see that it’s been hovering in the #15 spot for 4 years (not exactly unheard of, although the first in my circle), the fact that BR is using it as a pants label means it is firmly mass market, the person in question has a long history of special snowflake behavior, and I’m grouchy and venting to the only audience I currently have!

        2. There’s also a character named Avery in the show Nashville. And he’s not someone I’d want my kid to emulate.

          1. You wouldn’t want your child to emulate a guy who grew up and is a good father, friend and (was) a husband?

          2. Ah. Here’s where being a few seasons behind makes me look stupid. In the episodes I’ve watched he’s mean, borderline abusive, and destructive.

      2. Ah I feel bad for the kids who have brand names. Ages ago (like 20 years) I worked with a woman who named her daughter Avalon. She and her husband were big music fans and that was one of their favorite songs.

        Then Toyota came out with the Avalon.

        She was so upset.

        1. I remember reading somewhere (one of the Freakonomics books, perhaps) that Aviva was going to be the next name of Jewish origin to hit Hannah-levels of popularity.
          This was just after one of the major insurance companies in my country changed its name to Aviva….

        2. My name is Alli. And it was super-great when that became the name of diet pills that can call splarts.

          1. I laughed so hard I almost splarted.

            Poor Alli. I don’t think anyone remembers that awful drug anymore, thank goodness.

  11. Just saw my dream job posted – I’m two years short on qualifications but would still absolutely apply… if I hadn’t started a new job four months ago. Where was this job when I was networking and searching this summer?! I’m in big law (this job is not) trying to get more experience. This job is at the one organization in town I most want to work for, and I’m not sure how often they hire.

    So I guess, my questions are 1) at what point can you apply for new jobs, agh! This job is a fine fit and everyone has been nice to me. I think I’d burn bridges. 2) is it worth while to talk to them about what they are looking for so that someday down the road I can apply again? 3) argh.

    1. Apply. You aren’t hurting anything by applying.

      And what is the rest of your job history? Fairly stable or lots of job hopping? If it’s been fairly stable, go ahead and pursue this. People understand life changes, as long as you handle it responsibly.

      If it all works out and you get the job, give as much notice as you can and help with transitioning and bridges will be maintained :)

      1. Apply but make sure you explain why you want to make such a quick change in your cover letter.

        1. If you explain in your cover letter, make sure you stick to that explanation! I will never forget the guy who gave a somewhat inflammatory explanation of why he wanted to leave in his cover letter and then tried to give a completely different, very understandable reason in his interview. When pressed on why the reason had changed, he completely fell apart and got kind of aggressive. Needless to say he did not get the job.

    2. I would absolutely apply. The fact that you’re in Big Law now is a plus — they have so many associates anyways and you’re hardly indispensable. I would feel differently if you were in a small firm with just a few associates. At my BigLaw firm, we had some people who left after less than a year. Not typical, but not unprecedented certainly.

      1. I agree, I think if you’re Biglaw, you won’t really burn bridges, unless there’s someone who has really taken a special interest in you and looked out for you. Biglaw firms expect, and in fact rely on, attrition of junior associates. If you do have some sort of special mentor at the firm, I’d take the time if/when you give notice to explain that it’s your dream job, that the timing wasn’t exactly what you were planning but that the opportunity was too good to pass up. (And you most certainly should apply, anyway).

    3. Definitely apply. If it’s your perfect job, don’t worry about burning bridges. Even if you don’t get the job this time, they may consider you for later positions.

    4. Go for it. If you get it, your firm will love having someone in house who could potentially send them business. I just went in house and am constantly being invited to lunches and happy hours from my old colleagues–I was never this popular when I worked there!

      1. I agree, but it doesn’t sound like this job is in-house. Might be at govt or non-profit, in which case Big Law would not care about the contact. I still say go for it, OP!

  12. I just gave notice at my government job and accepted an offer to work for a private attorney. I am so excited. SO excited. So happy. SOOOOO happy.

    1. An interesting summary but calling it non-partisan is a stretch. For example, calling an increase in the minimum wage pro-women doesn’t seem unbiased.

        1. The usual poster-child for increasing the minimum wage is a woman who is supporting her children on a pittance. She clearly needs help but I’d argue the way to assist her is through programs like the earned income tax credit, not by increasing the minimum wage. It’s not universally believed that increasing the minimum wage is good for low-wage people. To take an extreme case, if the minimum wage were $100/hour I, and many others, would be unemployed and the economy would tank.

          Naturally, a lot of people disagree with this analysis. Good! We should have a serious discussion about how to help the poor. But to say that raising the minimum wage is unarguably good for all women doesn’t reflect the current political debate.

          1. I get it. And I think you’re right – it is a partisan issue. Thanks for explaining!

  14. I’m looking for kitten heeled pumps with a pointy toe that are somewhat comfortable. Does anyone have a recommendation? I tried some on at Talbots and loved the way they looked but they were super uncomfortable, which I find generally to be the case for Talbots’ shoes.

    2. I do find that comfortable kitten heels are harder to find. I don’t know if it’s because they are somehow more difficult to balance correctly with that heel height? But I definitely need to try them on in person and don’t care to shop online for that reason.

    4. The heels are pretty tall (2 1/4) for a kitten, but I have multiple pairs of the MK Flex Kitten pumps (available from Zappos and Macys) and I love them.

    5. I just saw these today in a catalog I got in the mail. They’re super-girly, but I like them! In my experience, Van Eli patent breaks in easily and is really comfortable. These also come in wide (and very narrow) and in bigfoot sizes too.

      http://shop.marmishoes.com/taren.html

    6. I like the JCrew Dulci style — materials/colors vary by season, so check back as spring styles roll in.

  15. My sister is in labor. I am so excited I can’t concentrate on anything at work today but compulsively checking my phone. Yay for sweet little newborn babies!

    3. Ack! I wouldn’t be able to get anything done either!

      Now you get to go into full blown spoiling mode. Spoil that infant! All the hugs and kisses and oh the baby feet.

    4. Thanks! It’s the best of both worlds. Quite little chubby baby without having to go through labor :)

  16. I am three years into BigLaw litigation and I’ve had it. I have no desire to make partner (the politics and just how insane you have to work leading up to partnership). I don’t like the pettyness and ego-stroking at the expense of the client. I don’t like the feast and famine cycles of litigation. My health is suffering – terrible sleep for months, blurred vision every night, constant migraines and stress headaches, skin rashes, and my own doctor telling me to ease up.

    I just do not like litigation. I know this and am trying to get out. I’ve been very interested in trusts & estates – it was actually what I went to law school to pursue and I’m trying to re-gain that career path again now. I am also looking in-house as I think a litigation background creates a strong skillset for in-house. I’ve been applying for a while now in these areas but still nothing. Not really looking for responses, I guess, I just need to vent. It’s so frustrating when you just never hear anything. On the plus side, I will say that work has been more palatable knowing I am actively working to get out, but I still just can’t wait. I know it will work out – if for no other reason that I won’t stop until something pans out – but still ahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

    Please send positive vibes. And hire me. :)

    2. My tip: get out however you can. Find a regional firm with a T&E practice. Get them to hire you as a litigator. You’ll be out of big law hell at least. Tell all the T&E partners how fascinated you are in their practice and offer to help on their litigations. Then say you really would love a drafting role as well.

      1. Thanks – my city has a lot of firms with t&e litigation, so I am trying to market myself as a good fit for that. I’m even willing to start as a first year again in t&e. Just hoping something sticks!

    3. So, I did this. 3 years of BigLaw litigation, then switched to a tax field (not T&E, but I had a T&E offer). I did a few 0n-line CLEs and then wrote a letter to every T&E and tax group head in my city mentioning that I’m interested in transitioning to tax, I have taken CLEs on X, I also have [relevant coursework], and I’d be willing to take LL.M classes in the evenings, and I would like to meet with them and see if they have any advice for me. That’s it. 3 department heads called me, including a partner who just lost his main associate, and then I ended up working with him. Every person who asked me about why I chose litigation got the same answer about the economy being down and I enjoyed law school and did not know a whole lot about other practice areas, etc. In other words, I kept it positive and did not mention at all that I am not adversarial, I hate conflict, I hate discovery, and I don’t like working on one thing for months and years on end.

      1. Thank you, Hollis! I’ve been taking all sorts of CLEs, bootcamps, etc. to prepare myself on my own and have a list of more things to do (like LLMs, certificate courses, etc.) I’ve heard my cover letter is very compelling, so I think I’m close, it’s just a matter of openings and the fact that I’m still *officially* inexperienced in the field. And I’m definitely keeping it positive! I would never voice the complaints in an interview, nor would I apply for things just to get out – I’d apply to things I have an interest in and express those interests in the interview. There are certain parts of litigation I enjoy – which is why I’d do T&E lit in a hybrid capacity or work in-house. Just nice to know I can vent those specific biglaw lit complaints here, since I can’t elsewhere.

        Really appreciate the commentary here, as always. It just so happens that in the last hour I got an email from a firm I reached out to, so fingers crossed! I literally closed my door and jumped up and down!

  17. I’m on regular birth control (21 days on, 7 days off) and should be finishing up my pack on Saturday — then starting my off-week. I haven’t missed any days, but I just got my period. Has that ever happened to anyone else, where you get your period even when you’re taking the active pills? I sent a message to my doc, but I’m just curious about other women’s experiences.

    2. It’s never happened to me, but I agree it could just be a weird hormone thing. Fun fact, if I start having LGPs with a new partner, my period will either be early or (most of the time) late the next month. It evens out but when you’re used to your period coming like clockwork, it’s a little scary to be late right after a new partner. Took me 3 long term relationships to realize what was going on.

    3. super late in the day but if you’re still reading– are you taking it at the same time everyday? I spot if I don’t.

  18. Armchair medical diagnosis needed

    For the past week or so I have been smelling cigarette smoke everywhere I go. No one in our family smokes and I haven’t don’t anything different other than have my hair coloured last week.

    Is this something to talk to the doctor about? My husb says its nothing and that it will go away on it’s own.

    1. This happened to me and I figured out that it was related to a dry cleaner. I switched dry cleaners and the problem solved itself. It made me CRAZY when it happened!

  19. I have a call tomorrow with the boss at my side job where I will probably leave the team. She is asking for a bigger time commitment than I am interested or really able to give and I am just no longer passionate about the work, product, or industry, and I have a lot of conflict with the other person who works in my area of expertise (we just don’t get along personally and I kind of feel like, life is to short to keep fighting politics outside of the office? I get plenty of those at work.)

    The thing that sucks is I never got a compensation plan/contract in place so I will probably never be compensated for the close-to year I spent working on this venture. Expensive lesson learned, I guess. I’m not out anything besides my time and I have some other opportunities coming up.

    I knew the group personally before getting involved and I should have pulled the plug a long time ago. It just feels like giving up and I’m kind of bummed. (still totally secure and successful at my day job)

    1. I don’t think there’s a reason you can’t get compensated. If it’s a startup, ask for equity and get the Bd to make the grant before you leave. If you’re leaving, I would discuss how many hours you put and what you think a fair wage would be.

      You certainly won’t get anything if you don’t bring it up!

Comments are closed.