If you’re on the hunt for a great app for strength training, here is my Fitbod app review!
I have always enjoyed weightlifting but have encountered a few problems over the years — The New Rules of Lifting for Women got repetitive for me, Faster Way to Fat Loss was great but too expensive for what it was, Les Mills on Demand‘s Body Pump (and similar classes) at this point are too advanced for me, and I get bored by other fitness videos on weightlifting such as ChaLEAN or Fitness Blender.
I’ve gotten a few other weightlifting books over the years (The Year One Challenge for Women, Strong Curves) and ran into problems with a) having to look up half the exercises or b) not having enough equipment. Plus, I often got stuck watching YouTubers spend three minutes telling me how to do a single exercise.
I forget how I found this one, but I’m LOVING it, so I thought I’d do a mini Fitbod app review. It’s an app that gives you weightlifting workouts and shows you simple animated gifs of the exercises (LOVE that).
You can tell the app which equipment you have access to so that it only gives you exercises with that equipment — and if you don’t like a certain one (die, burpees!), you can easily replace it with another exercise that works the same muscles. You can even choose whether to do “fresh muscle groups” each day, do a full body workout, or do an upper/lower split training.
The app gives you three workouts for free, but after that it’s $5 a month — and to me it’s really worth it. It’s a very smart program! Fitbod App
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Workwear sales of note for 3.24.23:
- Ann Taylor – 40% off everything
- Athleta – 20% off shorts, swim, linen & more
- Banana Republic Factory – 40% off everything; extra 15% off purchase
- Boden – Up to 50% off
- Brooks Brothers – Clearance styles to 70% off. Some pretty serious markdowns!
- Express – 40% off dresses & tops
- J.Crew – 25% off your purchase; up to 50% off special-occasion styles
- J.Crew Factory – Up to 50% off everything; extra 15% off 3 styles; extra 20% off 4 styles; extra 50% off clearance
- Sephora – Up to 50% off select beauty
- Talbots – 25% off select styles; 25% off markdowns
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
This post contains affiliate links and Corporette® may earn commissions for purchases made through links in this post. For more details see here. Thank you so much for your support!
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
Workwear sales of note for 3.24.23:
- Ann Taylor – 40% off everything
- Athleta – 20% off shorts, swim, linen & more
- Banana Republic Factory – 40% off everything; extra 15% off purchase
- Boden – Up to 50% off
- Brooks Brothers – Clearance styles to 70% off. Some pretty serious markdowns!
- Express – 40% off dresses & tops
- J.Crew – 25% off your purchase; up to 50% off special-occasion styles
- J.Crew Factory – Up to 50% off everything; extra 15% off 3 styles; extra 20% off 4 styles; extra 50% off clearance
- Sephora – Up to 50% off select beauty
- Talbots – 25% off select styles; 25% off markdowns
Some of our latest posts here at Corporette…
And some of our latest threadjacks here at Corporette (reader questions and commentary) — see more here!
- What are your favorite parts of a typical day?
- At what point in your life (age, income level, whatever) were you able to take an annual vacation?
- What shoes can I keep at the office to go for mid-day walks (that go with everything)?
- How do you release stress or trauma that’s stored in the body?
- What are the best “networking for women events” you’ve ever been to?
- I feel like we’re burning through any savings we acquire…
- I hate my job and make 30% of what DH makes – should I quit?
- What do you keep in your office?
Anon
Relevant to yesterday afternoon’s thread for high risk individuals, I posted that I was approached by a friend who wanted me to take a job in his office. Since I’m laid off, this should be a no brainer. But his workplace was one of the last to let people WFH and generally offered no occasional WFH flexibility, and had an absolute butts-in-seats culture.
As an immunocompromised person, this would be risking my life.
I called him last night and turned him down and told him why.
I hope more employers get the same message and change their ways.
Anon
Thank you for doing this. As a fellow high-risk individual (but with an “invisible” disability), it’s been hard to get people to take things seriously and understand that no, I’m not prioritizing office happy hour over my health. No, I’m not coming in to the office because Joe is an extrovert and less productive without his preferred office chatter. No, I’m not going back to public transit for an hour each away because the CEO likes “seeing our faces.” They can be responsible for their own mental health, and in the meantime, I’ll be kicking *ss and doing great work from home where I am so much healthier than I’ve ever been.
Anon
Response stuck in m0d but I agree and am grateful to you for speaking up. Hopefully this kind of action will lead to change over time.
Anonymous
This will differ by individual and company. My F100 employer only allowed work from home by exception (doctor’s appointment, etc.) pre-pandemic. During the pandemic, being in the office follows the rules for that state. For example, my state allows 50% capacity in offices for non-essential workers, so I’m in the office about 40% right now. (FWIW, for all other COVID 19 safety measures, we follow the rules of the strictest state in all offices.)
The company is very clear at all times that working remotely is not allowed. We provide a critical, essential (non-medical) service where 80%+ of the work must be done in person. Management believe we are more effective, and it’s fairer, that the same rules apply to everyone. People that want to work mostly virtually self select out. It’s a very large, well run company and I’m sure they make whatever accommodations are required under the ADA.
I prefer to work in the office, and not remotely. Working at home two or so days a week is OK right now because train service hasn’t fully returned, but otherwise I’m really happy back in the office. My point being not everyone wants to work remotely, and if a company is up front about their rules on remote work, that’s fair enough.
Anon
I am not sure what your point is and how it applies to me, the OP, but thanks I guess? I did select out. But I would hope one of the outcomes of the pandemic is that employers are going to see how well many people do work from home, and that by now they have replaced antiquated systems that require someone to sit in a particular place to use them.
My work is in a specialty area of finance and everything is on the computer. There’s no reason I need to be in the office every day to do what I do. The only reason the job I turned down requires everyone to be there is that “Tom, the senior manager, is old-school,” which is not a sufficient reason for me to risk my life. Your mileage may vary.
Anon
That’s the point that high-risk people have made time and time again ever since this pandemic began. Never once have we argued that EVERYONE should stay home FOREVER, even people working in essential jobs like medicine. We have not argued for a radical reorganization of society and a mass strike against the concept of ever working in the office again. We have merely argued for an end to the insane butt-in-seat cultures that place us at risk for NO justifiable benefit – and “Tom loves people in the office” isn’t one.
Anon
New to this thread, but I personally think that “Tom” is a micromanager and doesn’t trust people to do their work from home. I saw this time and time again pre-pandemic. That’s not “old school” as they like to put it…it’s a toxic culture that I want to stay away from.
Aunt Jamesina
I feel like the most vocal butt-in-seat people at my workplace (who are thankfully in the minority) often aren’t the best performers, but instead are the type during normal times that stay really long hours and talk to anyone who will listen about how long and hard they work.
Anon
Omg Aunt J, you just described my annoying ex-coworker perfectly.
pugsnbourbon
I don’t know that you can call it “self-selecting out” when an immunocompromised person has to quit or risk death? Remember that these posts are about high-risk people. I get that some essential services need to be done in-person, and that’s unavoidable, but it sounds like even the non-essential staff are required to be in the office at least some of the time. Is it worth losing a valuable staff member for that idea of “fairness?”
“It’s a very large, well run company and I’m sure they make whatever accommodations are required under the ADA” – are you sure? Even at large, well-run companies this is rarely an easy experience.
Anon
Exactly. Is it fair for high-risk people to lose out on job opportunities (much the same way that disabled people historically have) because some managers prioritize office work due to their own preferences (or in the case of one of my coworkers, “because he doesn’t want to be alone with his thoughts”)? Yes, in-office work can have beneficial impacts for some industries. Sometimes it leads to better collegiality and mentorship, for one. It’s not true for everyone, though, and it comes at a severe cost. I’d rather work somewhere that promotes remote mentorship for ALL, not just in-person mentorship for a lucky able-bodied few.
Also, it’s unfair to be like “remote work doesn’t work well…because we’ve thrown no resources into improving it!” That’s like planting two gardens, only watering one, and then saying “see, this one was better all along!”
Anonymous
IDK — I feel like these remote workers much not also have kids b/c WFH with kids is basically working merely part of the time. It’s just bad work. I love my work, but it is getting interrupted b/c the zoom link is glitchy or they need help with fractions or they each have different lunch periods or they love me. That last one kills me. Offices let work happen for me. If I had to WFH, I’d need an apartment to be built a few blocks away so switch off with my spouse throughout the day.
Anon
Anonymous 4:24 –
Are you high risk? If not, no one is talking about making you work from home forever. We are taking about accommodating high risk people. Why does this need to be about you?
Anon
ableists want to preserve opportunities for themselves. Also, companies may decide to go more remote for cost saving reasons – those who insist they can only work in offices may be seen as liabilities. It’s not just the real estate dollars saved, it’s the heating, cooling, equipment, security, etc.
Anonymous
Yes, actually I am sure. The company is not federally regulated, but is in a regulatory adjacent vertical. Not only do they carefully adhere to all federal and local laws, but they do a phenomenal job working to make our products accessible, and the entire accessibility team consists of people with accessibility requirements. One of my co-workers is deaf and legally blind, and I see the accommodations that are in place every day. Another co-worker who is at higher risk due to high blood pressure has been working at home since early March.
My point is that companies can decide if and how they want to have remote working. We decide where we want to work. But, I have no problem at all with companies that are up front about what they expect, and it’s short sighted of people to think that they are going to “change their ways.”
Anon
Conversely, it’s short-sighted of companies to think they’re going to retain the best talent when they have pointless butt-in-seat requirements. Yes, there are times when people need to be on-site (as we have all said), but I have personally seen people turn down jobs for not being flexible, modern, and adaptable. I for one have no interest in working at a toxic workplace that thinks one-size-fits-all approaches are best for workers.
Anon
In my very specific case (I’m OP), I have a skill set that is unusual and hard to find. For the same reason it’s hard for me to find the exact spot that needs my skills. But this one was one of those unicorn spots, and I’m a unicorn to them as well. And they didn’t get me because Tom is old-school. So maybe they’ll learn. I hope so.
Meanwhile, my friend who was trying to get me to come over may find a way to hire me as a contractor. Which is great for me, because I make a lot more that way. But really stupid financially on the part of the company.
Anon
OP, I hope your friend passes your feedback along!!
Anon
The lack of empathy displayed by some posters this morning was upsetting, but I guess I’m used to it. It’s a big reminder that we have to advocate for ourselves because no one else will, even when you’ve laid out your case and explained your position. “But are you saying I have to work from home forever too?!!!!!11” Literally no and stop making it all about you. You can go anywhere else in society if that’s what you want to do but on threads for high risk people, butt out.
Anon
+1
I don’t mind empathetic people who are not high risk butting in, but the poster this morning was like Narcissus, with eyes that turned only inward.
Anon
So were a few other respondents on that thread. The needless lack of empathy you see there (when they could have easily opted out of reading) is just so harmful to people struggling with high-risk conditions right now. At least we know how people really feel, right, so we can be more confident in our decisions to take care of ourselves and not listen to the opinions of people who, for whatever reason, are incapable of empathizing with others.
Anon
Seriously. The tl;dr is
High risk people: we need employers to be more WFH friendly for high risk people
Non high risk people: ew, no. I hate working from home.
Anon
I love how you are basically justifying your own narcissism by pointing out the “narcissism” of others.
It’s not all about you. I am empathetic about your health condition. But your life limitations are not reasons for me to limit my life (I am living with my own life limitations). And if the “lack of empathy” (i.e., people sharing opinions that are different than yours) is so triggering for you, consider taking a break from reading here.
Anon
I think a lot of people ignoring the concerns of the immunocompromised are lonely and bored without the office interaction. That’s too bad and I’m sympathetic to the struggles of the pandemic, however they affect people, but it’s also not your workplace’s job to provide you with everything you need in life. If you find that you’re lonely when high-risk people work from home, consider cultivating other friendships, hobbies, and interests to provide you with fulfillment separate from your place of employment. My boss clearly falls into that camp and has very social little life outside of work, but it’s not my role to fix her mental health and social life. It’s my job to do my best work and I do, from home. I’ve also made extra effort to connect with people at work, including starting a new mentoring initiative for younger female employees, and that’s something I never did in the office when I was burned tf out on nonstop chatter.
Anon
Again, Anon at 5:47, how does my being able to WFH affect you? No one is requiring you to do the same.
I think I’m done arguing with blank walls.
Anon
Anon at 5:58, I have no idea who in my office is high-risk and needs to work from home as a result and who is not. I seriously doubt it’s so many people that I would feel “lonely” if they didn’t come back to work. Additionally, I haven’t seen anyone say that they want to go back to work just because they need a social outlet. I would like to go back to working in person at least part-time because I have had waaayyy too many half-hour conference calls about issues that could have been solved in five minutes if we could have pulled the right people together in person in the office. A lot of communication happens nonverbally and a lot of context is lost when people only communicate via phone or video call. I’m sorry you’re in the situation you’re in with your boss but I think you are extrapolating your situation and thinking everyone is in the same situation as you. Absolutely not the case.
Op from the other thread
My issue was definitely not that high risk individuals stay home during a pandemic. It was that people (high risk and not) were insisting there is little value to in-person interaction and suggesting our workplaces and charity work and social lives should be reimagined and conducted remotely from here on out for reasons of convenience, environment concerns and non-covid health risks.
I fully support any high risk person requesting to wfh and I’m not sure why everyone said I didn’t. I personally find it depressing and hope society isn’t rearranged to foster less in person interaction once the risk of covid subsides.
Anonymous
@ Op from the other thread … that original thread was not for you or about you. I’m not high risk so I didn’t participate & I don’t know why you can’t handle letting a specific group of people speak openly on a thread created just for them. You could create your own thread for low risk people to discuss what they’re doing, etc, but instead you’re determined to be offended that some high risk people had a conversation … it’s weird and I’m having a hard time understanding how it’s not … ableist/wrong.
The Lone Ranger
@OP from the other thread, I think you are reacting to my post about reducing curbside service, and a small volunteer board I belong to and a social group I belong to. I am expressing sadness that Covid is still a threat to me, and is making my world smaller and smaller, but at no point am I insisting that anyone do anything. I asked the Board about the Zoom meetings and they said no, fine. I can be replaced on the Board, and they can continue to spend the first 10 minutes of every meeting complaining about how they had to drive to the meeting. I asked my friends about the Zoom meetings to replace outside socially distanced meetings, and they aren’t interested, fine, I’ll find another group to socialize with online during the cold months. I’m sad that restaurants are reducing curbside service, something I know able-bodied people took advantage of as much as I did, but I also know that offering it was not necessarily good for the bottom line, I don’t need to eat take out that much. I can feel sad and isolated, and express those feelings here, but you don’t have to do anything about my feelings, nor do you have to blow my feelings up into a thing to make it sound like I am asking the entire world to change, because I’m not. I asked 2 very small groups of people who have known me for over 20 years to do me a favor, and they said no. I’ve moved on, you can too.
Anonymous
Ethics/common sense question… I specialize in an area of employment law, let’s say employee benefits. Sometimes clients call me and ask a general policy question. I bill that to a general matter. Sometimes clients call and ask me about a specific employee’s benefits. I’ve noticed that the supervising partner in my area never asks the employee’s name or address information for conflicts purposes. Instead, we just talk about “the employee” or sometimes, a first name (“John wants paid leave, we don’t think he’s eligible.”) If I help a non-employment partner on an issue, however, they always get the employee name and check conflicts. My firm does a fair amount of work for individual clients – estate planning, divorce, personal injury, etc. I asked my supervising partner if I should get the employee’s name and he said he doesn’t usually get it unless there’s an active lawsuit.
What should I do when I get new files? Do you think I should get the employee’s name every time, all the time? I’m not going to cross the supervising partner, but I honestly don’t know what best practice is here.
Anon
Your client is the employer, not the employee. Conflicts would be with your client, the employer. The employee can get their own counsel who’s not you.
SmallLawAtl
I am in a similar field and do not ever, if I can help it, get the employee’s name and address for conflicts (or any other) purposes, for two reasons. First, I do not think that is usually considered adversarial to the employee. Your local bar might be a good resource for this. I know ours (GA) has a hotline that you can call for these kinds of questions. Second, my firm, perhaps unlike yours, would be quite unlikely to have represented the individual. I appreciate your dilemma, but I would think most of these cases with individuals could be handled with good engagement letter language, e.g., “This is not a permanent engagement; it concludes when your will/divorce/case is over.” That would significantly decrease the odds of there being an active engagement with the employee your client is calling abo
employment lawyer
You raise an interesting question and I wonder where the line is. Certainly, once there’s litigation or litigation is almost certain, notes should be made for conflicts. I don’t think a question about how leave statutes works under a particular fact pattern requires getting a name for conflicts purposes in my jurisdiction.
When I was in biglaw, I was never instructed to make note of an employee’s name for our conflicts records, even for employment or separation agreements. FWIW, I didn’t handle litigation, and my firm rarely represented individuals. The kinds of individual clients we did have were probably a few rungs above what I handled (I wasn’t drafting the separation agreements for people with eight figure comp packages).
Vicky Austin
…I think I’ve been waiting for this app my whole life.
Anon
I have a question about this app, or maybe an ask for recommendations.
I am an absolute beginner with free weights. I have a very very basic setup of hand weights and bands in various strengths. I would like an app that is appropriate for an out of shape newbie, that shows clearly how to do the exercises correctly without hurting oneself.
Kat G
Give this one the 3-day try — you can choose body-weight only options or the “toning” track is very low weights, and there are exercises with bands.
Anon
Thanks Kat. I will!
Anon
Picking up on yesterday’s midday post: I’m really struggling with how to balance my anxiety (which I think is grounded in very real fears about the pandemic, election, Trump, etc etc etc) with being a functioning human in 2020.
I already do all the things everyone tells you to do: virtual therapy, meditate, walk outside daily, do yoga, work out most days of the week, don’t drink, eat a healthy diet, don’t have notifications on my phone, and get 8 hours of sleep. Even with all those supposedly helpful behaviors on my side, I feel like I’m going to lose my mind at least 5 times a day. I live alone and WFH which definitely does not help. I’m in my own head way too much. What else can I do?
Sloan Sabbith
Medication. If you’re doing everything you should be and you’re still anxious, call your PCP and ask for meds.
Anonymous
Yes exactly. If you’re doing your best at self care and struggling with normal daily life, absolutely medication.
anon
I’m working on accepting that this is going to be a year where anxiety is a constant companion. I know accepting anxiety is not a popular opinion, but if you’re steadfastly doing everything you list….adding another thing on top of it all might not be the right answer.
If you need a new activity: Screaming or buying some old dishes to break on purpose might help here.
It’s that kind of year for every reason you listed above. I keep telling myself I just have to breathe through the anxiety, and just keep swimming (Finding Nemo). It’s OK that the swimming is slower, harder, and possibly less rewarding than in the before times. This year is one to get through, and kudos for everyone trying to do just that, best they can.
Anon
Medication and a vacation.
Anonymous
Beyond the usual, get enough sleep/exercise/healthy food, the thing that has helped me since DJT won the election is to never ever listen to him speak or watch him speak. I read the news online to keep up with what is going on but there is an extra infuriating experience in actually giving his voice space in my life. I check 2-3 news sources everyday – usually NY times, BBC News and my local paper’s website. Then I stop reading. I remind myself that we used to just get our news via the morning paper and that was enough. It’s still enough.
Anon
Lexapro. Seriously. Call your doctor. It’s time to stop beating yourself up that you should be able to fix it yourself and take advantage of the help that is widely available to all of us. You are not a failure for needing a little help.
Anon
Not OP, but does medication make a difference to grief or grief-like trauma? I’ve always heard that antidepressants don’t have a rule in “normal” grief and I think that a lot of people are going through a trauma of sorts right now. Of course people who truly need medications should take them, but can most people struggling with anxiety due to the very real, unprecedented situation were in actually benefit from them?
Anon
I went through an intense grief period due to a death. I did both counseling and medication. The medication helped me to function day to day, because I needed to work and all of that, while I learned to deal with the grief though therapy.
Hugs to you.
Sloan Sabbith
Yes. I’m not sure if this is correct medically, but I’d wager to bet that anxiety is the same physiologic phenomenon regardless of the cause. I’ve benefited from antidepressants/anti anxiety meds for grief and also some really significant health anxiety (similar to what I think a lot of it are feeling now). It helped for both. It let me function- I wasn’t happy, by any means, but I was functional.
Anon
Not even close to being an actual doctor so I don’t know, but I think if the issues are big enough that they’re affecting daily life, it’s worth asking a doctor anyway.
Anonymous
Add some activities that keep you busy/keep you’re mind off things? Become a rabid fan of something, read, take a class, etc. It’s human nature to want to focus on the important stuff, but for your own health, you might need to tune out of that for a while. Do what you can within your limits (vote!), but perhaps put a restriction on the amount of time you spend on certain topics and deliberately focus your mind elsewhere.
Anonymous
That is, choose a really silly hobby that brings you some joy. Romance novels, long walks, trying every flavor of ice cream & watching horror flicks … idk
eertmeert
I love the “DBT911” app, i think you can get on android and iphone. It has lots of techniques for self-soothing, using different senses.
The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook also helped me immensely when i was having many panic attacks. Nowadays i use those skills (and the DBT ones from above) to manage my anxiety before it gets to that level. It becomes second nature.
Also, I love Glenn Harrold. https://glennharrold.com/ I used his hypnotherapy apps (Relax and Sleep Well is one of them) for meditation and anxiety soothing for years. He has an English accent, which is fun, and the tracks are so relaxing and supportive. One of the things he says at the beginning of one of them is “your mind is designed to think, and thoughts are perfectly natural” which i always think about when i start getting wound up in my thoughts. I don’t have to take whatever my brain is dishing out at the moment, I can guide and shape what I want to experience and with practice it allows me to self-soothe.
I also like to distract myself with light hearted books and shopping (whether or not i actually purchase is another thing)
Oh, and meds. Lexapro – even just a little bit – really supports me (and keeps my pms from descending into homicidal madness, ha)
Fullyfunctional
Get in the car and go somewhere regularly. Just run an errand, go drive around, get a change of scenery. Just leaving the house helps me a lot.
Anonymous
Medical/research person here who has also been diagnosed with major depression, attributed to anxiety. (Data shows that) medication doesn’t really help anxiety in the long term. Instead, it’s about developing coping skills. Sound like you are putting in the work for developing coping skills, this is excellent!
Something that helps me is to have designated times for things that stress me out. Like when I notice social media is stressing me, I allow myself on social media at X time per day, and that’s it. More recently it was too much perfectionism with online shopping, so I gave myself a restriction on when my next shopping time would be. Another poster commented about limiting news time, this is a good idea.
I also liked the book “a liberated mind” for learning about a framework to manage anxious feelings. It is very evidence based. Some of us do just run anxious but we can still learn how keep doing important stuff with those feelings in the background.
Anonymous
Medication was described to me as wearing a jacket when it’s cold outside; it keeps you warm, and you take it off (stop taking medicine) when you don’t need it any more, either because you figured out how to stay warm or the conditions changed. Somehow, that framing helped me be okay with taking medicine.
JTM
Is anyone here in consulting? I’m looking for interview advice. I just learned I’m a finalist for an internal consultant role in my current company (so it’s an internal move, and would be a promotion for me). I’m a rockstar at SBO interview questions, but I will get case questions for the first time. Any suggestions of resources to use to prep for these? For context, I’ve worked in a data analytics role the past 8yrs so I’m very comfortable using data to make decisions, and I’ve been on several CFTs where I’m the “data person” making the case for the business initiative. I know I can do it, but I haven’t actually done one of these questions in an interview, so I’m trying to make sure I’m as prepared as possible.
Annony
If you search for Bain consulting interview, they have a lot of great resources, including some case interview prep.
BB
Former consultant here who did a lot of interviewing (on both sides of the table). Looking at case prep resources from McKinsey/Bain/BCG are very helpful. And if you can, try to get someone to play the interviewer role for you. Ideally someone who’s done them before, but even if not, it’ll be useful. Case interviews are very strange, and difficult to get into the swing of if you haven’t done them before. Also, given your background, I would probably focus on ensuring you can structure a high-level response without getting too wrapped up in the data. Don’t get lost in all the myriad ways you can analyze/calculate the data and focus on the result/outcome.
Serafina
Former MBB consultant here with data analytics experience. Do practice cases! Try to get someone to give them to you if at all possible. Cases are less are about data, much more about structure, business intuition, and communication. General resources from the consulting firms on case practice is good. There’s also Case in Point, but I find it way overboard with the structures.
$
As a kid, I used to think that the learned professions were how to make $. Now, when you factor in cost of schooling and years not making $, that doesn’t seem to be the case. If I wanted to make $ straight out of college, I think I’d figure out if I was a sales-type and just do that. Or doing something you can do with a BA (commercial banking, etc.). If my few years of working have shown me anything, it is that I was nervous as a cost center within a business (never mind how needed I was) and once I was a profit center, everyone loved me. Now, I think that it’s nice to love what you do, but it’s OK to like what you do and love your hobbies. Financial security is just so important to me now, probably more than a lot of things. I hate that kids are told “follow your dreams” — it’s not very helpful.
Anonymous
Why are you making this announcement?
Anon
Lol this poster does these non-sequitur-style posts (very distinct style), but there’s usually an interesting point in there. I agree that we need to promote entry into high-skill, non-degree fields like electrician work and construction and so on. This whole “follow your bliss” approach to employment is doomed to fail IMO.
Anon
I’m not OP but I agree about follow your bliss. My daughter is in college and is wavering between English and psych. The college lists average salaries for degree holders in various majors from their university and those two are at the bottom.
She thinks she doesn’t care about money but I suspect she will care very much once she’s off my payroll. She has no clue.
I’m trying to push at least a business minor, but at the moment she’s following her bliss, as she has been told to do all of her life by, apparently, everyone other than me.
Anon
Totally agree… no one ever says to teens to sit down and describe what they want the rest of their life to be like – do they want to own a house, go on vacation, eat out, live in a certain area, etc? Or what do they want to do with your degree as a job vs do they like learning about the subject the degree is in.
Anonymous
FWIW I was a psych major and I make a ton of money. I went to a very name brand school, though, and got a good internship while in undergrad and a good job when I got out. I eventually went back to school and got an MPA and run a major department at a large hospital.
I think Psych, History and English majors tend to get a bad wrap because they are a default for many people.
anon
It’s easy to say you don’t care about money when you are young and not really supporting yourself and know you are not materialistic and prefer work that’s interesting, has meaning, etc. (I know because this was me!) You’re imagining that you’re choosing between option A, which is a comfortable salary where you have enough for a reasonable standard of living, and option B, where you have extra money where you can buy fancy things, live in a big house, go fancy places. Turns out it’s not like that at all. You might very well be choosing hidden option C, which is struggling to even get to that reasonable standard of living. Most college bound kids with parents who also completed higher education don’t realize that option C is on the table them. Option C awaits people who majored in theater, underwater basket weaving, art, or people who didn’t go to college at all and have to work min wage jobs—surely not someone with a history degree from a good school. Wrong. “Caring about money” is a different ball game entirely when you truly have to support yourself.
Anon
5:34 I’m happy to hear that! My daughter sees a therapist off and on for anxiety, and thinks she’d like to be a therapist. Which I know requires a master’s degree at least.
As hard as it is to find a therapist who will take you, I would hope they make a ton of money. But that’s not really what the college’s statistics say.
anon
I also considered both of these majors and eventually went with psych. As you noted, starting salaries in the field are very low. Ultimately I went to law school because I wanted a more comfortable salary, and I do fine now but I’m pretty sure I’d still be making five figures if I hadn’t.
Anon
I think Anon at 6:10 is spot on about how young people from the middle class or upper class think about what their money life will look like. It certainly was the case for me. Option C is real.
Anon
There are a number of certifications one can self-study for, like webmaster and server administrator type roles that land you in fairly well paying jobs without college.
Anon
Fun game: Tr ll who speaks English as a second language, or bot?
follow your dreams
I think there’s a balance to be found. My parents made a big deal of the fact that you need to make money, but I was also into following my dreams. I think it’s worked out well. The need for money doesn’t mean you just have into a “safe” or “stable” career. You’ll do well in a career if you’re passionate and interested and motivated – along with there being a market for it. At first I definitely thought that I “had” to do one of the more typical careers, but I’ve found a happy medium in a field I’m truly fascinated by, and in a niche where I will be financially fine as well.
Hubby got a haircut
My DH got a haircut for the first time since March 12th. Be still my beating heart! He looks like the guy I married again (well, a lot more gray, maybe a few more pounds…) instead of a shlub. I’m so happy about this. Woohoo!
Anonymous
I get it. My BF may be meeting my parents for the first time (briefly and at a distance) in a few weeks and I am silently really hoping he decides to get a haircut before then. My mother is very judgmental, even in a pandemic. I also know he wants a haircut but just hasn’t figured out the right place to go.
Anonymous
Why don’t you give him a haircut? It’s pretty easy if he has a style that you can use clippers on. Or if it’s a disaster maybe you could both have a good laugh about it with your parents.
Elegant Giraffe
Buy a creaclip and do it yourself (or have him do it).