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Wednesday’s Workwear Report: High-Rise Straight Italian Wool Pant

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A woman wearing green tailored pants, black sandals, and a white shirt (upper body cropped out)

Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices.

Is it just me or is Banana Republic really knocking it out of the park these days? These high-rise pants are made of 100% wool and have a really beautiful straight-leg fit. (NB: They’re not lined, so if that’s a dealbreaker for you, you’ll have to look elsewhere!)

I particularly appreciate the wide range of colors and the wide range of sizes. They’ve got regular and petite cuts, and the regular sizes come in sizes 0–20 with short, regular, and long inseams. I’d probably buy a shorter inseam so I could wear these with flats, but you do you!

The pants are $150 at Banana Republic.

Eloquii has an option in a similar shade of green that's available in sizes 14–28 in three lengths; the pants are $79.95 full price with 40% off today.

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Sales of note for 3/26/25:

  • Nordstrom – 15% off beauty (ends 3/30) + Nordy Club members earn 3X the points!
  • Ann Taylor – Extra 50% off sale + additional 20% off + 30% off your purchase
  • Banana Republic Factory – Friends & Family Event: 50% off purchase + extra 20% off
  • Eloquii – 50% off select styles + extra 50% off all sale
  • J.Crew – 30% off tops, tees, dresses, accessories, sale styles + warm-weather styles
  • J.Crew Factory – Shorts under $30 + extra 60% off clearance + up to 60% off everything
  • M.M.LaFleur – 25% off travel favorites + use code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off
  • Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
  • Talbots – $64.50 spring cardigans + BOGO 50% off everything else

Sales of note for 3/26/25:

  • Nordstrom – 15% off beauty (ends 3/30) + Nordy Club members earn 3X the points!
  • Ann Taylor – Extra 50% off sale + additional 20% off + 30% off your purchase
  • Banana Republic Factory – Friends & Family Event: 50% off purchase + extra 20% off
  • Eloquii – 50% off select styles + extra 50% off all sale
  • J.Crew – 30% off tops, tees, dresses, accessories, sale styles + warm-weather styles
  • J.Crew Factory – Shorts under $30 + extra 60% off clearance + up to 60% off everything
  • M.M.LaFleur – 25% off travel favorites + use code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off
  • Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
  • Talbots – $64.50 spring cardigans + BOGO 50% off everything else

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

Some of our latest threadjacks include:

320 Comments

  1. Full length pants! I’m so tired of ankle pants, so I hope to start seeing more of these.

    1. Looking at the reviews on these pants, apparently these are full length plus (many “regular” size buying in petites, shorter women saying the petite sizes are too long with heels). This makes me sad.

      1. This tracks for me, because my initial reaction to these pants was “must have this whole ensemble” and then I checked myself and thought “but what you really want is a body on which this would look the same as the picture.”

      2. Better to be a bit long and allow for hemming to the desired length than the other way around.

        1. Ummm, these come in regular sizes and petites. Why should the petites be made so long that they only fit average height women?

          1. It’s not possible to make one pair of pants that fits everyone, right? There are petite women with various inseams. That’s what hemming is for. Pants don’t automatically perfectly fit women of other heights either.

          2. As someone who’s 6 feet tall – Banana Republic is literally one of the only stores I can shop at. It’s very easy to make clothes shorter/smaller. The same can’t be said to make pants longer. If a pair of pants is too short for me, then I can’t wear them – period. Also, the average woman in the US is 5’4”. A “regular” size by that measure would be a good 8 inches too short for someone like me.

        2. As long as the length id only in the inseams. But with high waists being in style, the last pair of pants I bought that was unusually long also had a very long crotch so they could not be easily altered for anyone under about 5′ 10″ with a long waist. I could have held those pants up with my bra instead of a belt.

      3. A simple hem at the tailor is inexpensive so I don’t mind. Looking at the model’s proportions I do think I’d end up hemming off a solid foot of fabric to have the same look on myself!

        1. Cat do you have a tailor you recommend? I believe we’re both in South Philly

          1. I’m in Center City – my longtime favorite was Master Tailor on the 1600 block of Spruce. The owners sold the business and I haven’t been back, only coincidentally because of the switch to Ubiquitous Ankle Pants and then Covid – but looks like the new owners are good as they are getting solid reviews!

      4. I bought a pair of BR bootcut pants recently. They fit awesome, but I had to get them significantly hemmed. In regular sizes. And I’m 5’9″. Better to have the option to hem than the other way around, I guess!

        2. I feel like 20+ years ago, these pants would have been sold unhemmed. Do any brands still do that?

    3. These pants are also pear-friendly. Agree 1000% on the hemming, but you can’t add fabric to what’s on the market now (and there are no hems to let out). But I’d think that tall women would be OK with the standard length (and BR frequently also has talls, so I shop for my tall teen here while I’m a petite / short length leg person who still needs hemming).

      I am wearing my thigh society bottoms that I got this past summer for chub rub. 4 season wear from those things :) Otherwise, the wool hasn’t been a problem a thin layer of nylon wouldn’t solve.

    5. I looooved ankle pants! They worked with all my shoes. I may not have been super fashionable, but I wasn’t tripping over my pants or having them drag on the floor, and they never looked like floods on me.

      Oh well, I’ll probably only be going to the office a couple of times a week once we get back, so I guess I will only have to deal with having one or two pairs of pants hemmed to the right length, for specific shoes.

      1. Oh me too! All the pants could be worn with flats or any height heel. I really enjoyed the flexibility and hate the thought of “these pants can only be worn with these height shoes”. Bleh.

    6. FWIW, I had to get new suiting pants (mine are these) and I have two pairs of them: one hemmed for heels and one hemmed for flats. I plan to get another plan in a fun color (hot pink?) and will just hem those for flats. I don’t see that changing in my life (and since everything is cropped, maybe they’d eventually look OK with boots / some heels).

    7. I’ve been eyeing these pants for an upcoming event. Them being featured here is a sign!

  2. Possibly going to Prague this summer. I’ve never been to Europe before. In high school, my best friend went on a couple of orchestra tours in Europe and talked about having to wear this pouch under her clothes for her passport and money and everything. Is it necessary for American travelers to wear money belts or is that going overboard?

    1. My parents did this when I was growing up. I think it’s unnecessary and have never worn one as an adult. It’s safer to leave your passport at the hotel than to carry it with you everywhere.

      1. OOh enjoy, Prague is such a great city! I did it when I was on a high school trip because we were supposed to, but haven’t since. I tuck my passport someplace non-obvious in the hotel, with a debit card or credit card, and carry a card, my phone, some cash. Crossbody bag or a waistpack now that those are supposedly hip again?

        1. Be very careful with the waist bags (bum bags to people my age). They can often be unclipped quite easily (as can those very popular small crossbodied bags where you can swap out the shoulder strap). Any bag where they can unclipped it instead of having to cut it off you is an easy target.

    2. overboard IMHO. Act as you would in a big city at home as far as being attentive to your surroundings. Take photos of your passport, credit cards, and vax cards and email them to yourself in case you lose them. Def don’t carry your actual passport around with you all day!

      If you are going to be in a super touristy area (like, the equivalent of the Louvre courtyard or under the Eiffel Tower in Paris) keep extra wits about you for scams.

      1. Yep, general big city awareness is key. Don’t put your wallet in the outer pocket of a backpack, avoid purses that can easily be grabbed from you, keep your things about you when sitting down in a restaurant.

    3. I only do it when backpacking and only for passports and a spare credit card. Saved my bacon when I was pickpocketed in Manchester.

      1. But as others have mentioned, I don’t do it in most cities when I have a secure hotel room.

    4. I haven’t been to Prague specifically, but in other places in Europe I do find it is necessary to take a lot of precaution to avoid being pickpocketed in tourist areas and on transit. That said, in my well-traveled family, there has only been one incident and it was when my stepfather had his money and passport taken from a bag in St. Petersburg.

    5. How did that get started, the idea of carrying your passport around all day? Was it ever necessary?

      I went to France as a high schooler in 1985, don’t remember what I did with my passport. Next trip to Europe was Amsterdam in 2000, I think we might have had to leave the passports at the hotel desk? Or we left them in the hotel room. I guess you wouldn’t want to if you stayed in a dodgy hotel, maybe.

      1. I commented above that my parents would do this. I’m not really sure what their reasoning was, but I think they thought maybe the maid would steal the passport? But that’s far less likely to happen than getting pickpocketed and if you’re really worried you can put it in a safe. I actually think body wallets make you a target for pickpocketers because it screams “American tourist.”

        1. Yeah, I just wonder why anyone would steal a passport. I mean, I would assume the owner would immediately report it stolen so wouldn’t that make it hard for someone else to use? Although I suppose back in the day it might take a couple of days to notify borders and such to be on the lookout for a stolen passport. I guess they could use it to make counterfeit passports, but that doesn’t seem too likely either.

          Eh, one of those legends lost in the mists of time!

          1. For whatever reason, passports do get stolen. It happened to several people I knew in the 1990s when my friends and I were all of the age when one tends to backpack or volunteer abroad.

          2. My friend got his passport stolen at a bus stop in Turkey and then someone from ISIS started impersonating him and the CIA got involved. There is a whole documentary about it. He’s totally fine but it was quite the story!

      2. I have had circumstances that required me to produce my passport on the spot in two countries. I was very glad to have them on hand, and truly believe that there would have been a protracted ordeal had I not had my passport available.

        1. Would a color copy have served in those circumstances? That is what I carry, and it has worked in most cases (except for passport checks on bus or train rides), but I am white and also speak a couple languages well enough to explain/argue/beg. Dark-skinned friends absolutely carry their original documents, which sucks.

          To the OP: I use a little card sleeve when I travel with a single credit card,a copy of my passport, and some local cash tucked in. That goes in my pocket during the day. When I travel asleep with my passport, I do keep it in a pouch under my clothes. Otherwise it lives in an inner pouch of my backpack or suitcase. This has served me well in 30 countries. I did have my purse contents pinched once in Ecuador when I was distracted by a boy (yup). They got my camera (ah, the pre smart phone days) and the little wallet sleeve, but I still had my main documents.

          1. Oh yes, as per the below — passport copy *and* my driver’s license or other real photo ID.

      3. It’s legally required to carry it with you in France at all times, although I think it’s very infrequently enforced for tourists. I know when I lived there I was told I had to have my residency card and my passport on me at all times (I carried my residency card as my ID, but never the passport. Not worth the risk, and I knew as a young white woman I probably would never get in trouble for not having my passport on me). I know some people also don’t trust their hotel safes, and when I stayed in dodgy hostels, I definitely carried mine in a belt inside my shirt rather than lock it up in one of their lockers.

        I do use an RFID blocking pouch when I’m carrying my passport while in transit, FWIW.

        1. Ditto – in France for almost anything remotely official you have to provide proof of identity, which for Americans means your passport. So I carry mine around – zipped inside an interior pouch of a crossbody bag that would require major effort to detach from me. And I did once see a French guy (white, middle-class looking) being harrassed by the police for failing to have proof of identity. Haven’t been to Prague, but Barcelona is the only European city I’ve been to at all recently where I’d be seriously worried. Just saw sooooo many people get pickpocketed there during a conference. I plan to use an under-clothing money pouch when I go there in April.

      4. Folks used to carry it around so a hospital would know to contact the US embassy if they came in unconscious.

    6. I dont know Prague but for most mainland European cities I make sure to lock valuables in the hotel safe (assuming it’s a decent hotel with a decent looking safe). For travelling between cities I like passports etc in a slimline pouch which is strapped around my waist, under my clothes. I think the pouches around the neck, inside the jacket are rather obvious and can be taken quite easily.

      Any valuables I have to carry get buried deep in zipped interior bag pockets and I only use more robust bags. I tend to favour heavy duty canvas bags which can be worn crossbodied and I can still wear when sitting down for lunch. They might not be as stylish as all the small designery crossbody bags I see about, but there is no point in carrying anything with a strap that can be cut easily.

      Some cities feel safer than others but the main “touristy” ones tend to have problems with pickpockets and muggers targeting tourists at tourist hotshots. Some like Barcelona are notorious.

    7. Prague is my absolute favorite. To answer your question: entirely unnecessary unless you’re my sister and have zero self awareness in public. If you’re otherwise used to an urban setting, take public transportation, etc, just be smart the way you would walking through Times Square in the heat of tourist season.

      BTW I never wander around with my actual passport. I take a photocopy with me and leave the passport in the safe at the hotel or just discretely in my baggage at the hotel.

    8. I feel like that’s something that my parents’ generation would advise but I’ve never found it to be necessary.

    9. I used a crossbody purse instead of a backpack and kept an eye on it, but this seems overkill.

    10. I leave my passport in my hotel room and carry a copy in my wallet. I have also left a copy with family members. I also think it depends on which city. I heard Paris and Barcelona are known for pickpocketing. A former colleague was robbed in Barcelona. Don’t take all your cash with you for the day and maybe leave one credit card at your hotel too. Those under the clothes things probably work well but aren’t practical.

    11. Just something to be aware of – in many European countries it is required that you carry ID with you at all times. I will add that I have never been asked for it by police, but at times you need a passport for using credit cards. No idea of the rules in the Czech republic.

      1. Just came back from Prague actually. I took my US drivers license so I had an ID if they cared to check it against my vax card. Never had an issue.

    12. I wear a zip top small crossbody with credit card and cash in an interior pocket or a foldover button down crossbody with the flap turned toward me. In places where snatching is more of a concern than pure pickpocketing, then I find a hard to reach place for money and a card (thinking about Kuala Lumpur, for example, where snatching a purse from a motorbike was not uncommon).

      In theory people carry passports around all day because many countries mandate you carry evidence of nationality/status, but in practicality you won’t experience random checks in most of Europe so there is little need for the original and you do risk it getting stolen if you have it on your person. Carrying a photocopy out and about should suffice. If the original is stolen, the consular section at the closest embassy or consulate can access all the info electronically and does not need a copy, but it will derail your visit.

    13. Overboard, I think (though I did that on my first trip abroad in high school too). I carry my passport and spare emergency credit card zipped in an inside pocket of a zipped cross-body bag, leave color copies in my hotel, and am just very aware of where my bag is if I take it off (it’s one of those travel purses where I could snap it around a chair so it can’t just be grabbed).

    15. As far as leaving valuables in the hotel, I would consider carefully whether your hotel is actually “secure.” We stayed in a highly recommended, well-reviewed hotel in Paris a few years ago and had my phone and some jewelry and cash stolen from the room. I had left the phone behind to charge while we grabbed dinner around the corner. Luckily the jewelry was cheap and there was very little cash, so it was mostly an inconvenience. But there was no safe in the room and we’re just lucky they didn’t get around to finding our iPads. Next time we travel anywhere that we’ll be staying in a hotel I’m investing in a portable safe to secure anything we leave in the room during the day.

    16. I have lived in Prague for 10y and never had anything stolen from me. I would keep passport in hotel safe, carry copy with you. Although you are required to have some ID on you, police never bothers to stop tourists or locals, unless they are violating some law.
      Keep your purse cross-body, to keep an eye on it. I think open-top bags or backpacks are easier to steal from vs small handbags. Keep some small cash with you as in some small stores (think small corner grocery store the size of an elevator), cards are not accepted or just go to the next store which accepts cards. I rarely used cash in Czech rep.
      Keep your money belt for backpacking trips in South America or Asia.

    17. I used to live in Prague, it is a great city and wonderful place to visit. I hope you have a fantastic time!
      The only place to really worry about pickpocketing in Prague is tram 22 up to the castle. That’s usually the spot some obvious tourists get marked.

      May I recommend dinner one night at Maly Buddha? There is also a great (and expensive for Prague) cocktail bar right around from Old Town Square called Tynska Bar & Books. Make sure you see the national theater, Narodni Divadlo! And brunch at Cafe Savoy! Ah, now I want to go back to Prague!

    18. Differing slightly from the other posters, when I go to Europe I wear a money belt under my clothes (not a fanny pack) with my passport and my daughter’s passport. On the few occasions where I need to carry my second credit card (moving between cities) or large amounts of cash (for paying my guide in Rome) I put that in there too. This is partly because I have travelled in countries where having your passport with you is technically legally required; partly because when daughter was a teen she did not have a driver’s license and I needed proof of her age for youth admission; and partly so I can carry things securely when traveling by train between cities where pickpocketing and luggage theft is common.

      If I do not need my passport and can leave it in a safe and do not need either my second credit card or large amounts of cash, I do not wear it but I find it comfortable and secure.

      And yes – there is a thriving business in stealing US passports. I have a friend who had hers stolen in Rome and getting it replaced was a massive PITA and cost her several days of her vacation so I see no need to risk it.

  3. For ‘CFS’ from yesterday, I wrote you a long response late in the day so hope you see it.

    1. I did, thank you. Yes, it’s ME I have.
      I think I need to go and annoy my doctor again.
      Fingers crossed.

      1. Can I ask, are you able to do any exercise between relapses? I don’t know whether to risk trying anything in the good periods. I don’t expect to ever get back to where I was bit I’d love to be able to do more than a gentle walk on the flat.

        1. So sorry to hear it’s ME. You are right, don’t risk it.

          Be extremely careful with exercise, use a heart monitor and read the Workwell Foundation’s guidance on anaerobic exercise.
          I do extremely gentle yoga lying in bed but I have severe ME after overdoing it following terrible advice from my doctor (graded exercise and CBT have been disproven).

          I have difficulty even using an electric wheelchair as the cognitive impairment makes steering challenging. This sucks after being a hiker and a political adviser working long hours in a pressured environment.

          When I was mild, gentle swimming was recommended as that also helps with orthostatic intolerance.

          Other things I’d recommend: cutting out artificial fragrances and putting any toxic loads on your body. I started to become sensitive to perfumes and things but kind of ignored it and now I am super sensitive to fabric softener, diesel fumes, air fresheners, new clothes, new furniture etc.

          If you can afford it, regular massages and IV vitamin infusions help me. Giving yourself B12 injections is a cheaper way.

          ME Association (UK), ME International and ME Action (US based) are reliable sources of information. S4ME forums are good for questions. Hopefully the Long Covid research (which I think is probably ME) benefits us.

  4. This green is gorgeous. I always get excited for these types of clothes, buy them, wear them with nothing with white tops, then realize I hate bothering with mixing and matching and go back to my gray and black uniform.

    2. IDK, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wearing colorful pants with neutrals! Makes things easy, but you still get a nice spot of color. I love the red and pink versions of this pair … both colors are way too bright near my face but I could do pants!

      1. I think these green ones would look so nice with a gray or navy top, or beige/camel. Of course, I would look better with green near my face and camel on the bottom, but I still kind of like these pants.

    3. I am big on white, black, and grey tops and sweaters (sometimes layers of all the above). And I have pants that are black, grey, white, or vivid pinks.

  5. I’m going to Palm Springs for a milestone birthday with my mom and siblings!

    First order of business – we need a hotel that isn’t party central. Any ideas?

    And then we’ll also need all of the other usual recommendations. Y’all are the best, always.

    1. We recently went on a family trip and had a house, so I’m useless on hotel front. We enjoyed horseback riding with smoketree stables and a Red Jeep tour. We went to Joshua Tree for a day and that was perfect. Get a date shake at Shields if you like basically a mainline of sugar (they are delicious). Have fun! It is beautiful!

    2. Just got back from a trip to Palm Springs! I stayed at the Omni Rancho Mirage, which was about 25 minutes from downtown Palm Springs and good for us as we planned a lot of hiking toward that way, but wasn’t too far to drive in for dinners. Our room was very spacious and fairly quiet– two-story hotel spread throughout the property in individual buildings (sure there’s a name for this style but I’m not thinking of it) so very little hallway/neighbor noise.
      Happy to share hiking reccs if you’re interested; for food, we liked Tac/quila (get the margarita flight!), brunch at Farm (gorgeous patio!), and the patio at Boozehounds, which is super dog friendly.

    3. We’ve stayed at the Old Ranch Inn, a boutique hotel with maybe 9-ish rooms around a pool. It’s close enough to downtown to walk to dinner/shopping, but far enough away to be very quiet. If you like hiking, there are lots of great hikes that are easy to get to. Palm Springs is a surprisingly good place to bike. And there is always golf and tennis everywhere.

    4. We recently stayed at the Ritz there (Rancho Mirage), and it was heaven. We did not leave the property so cannot comment on other recs, but the hotel was great. I think it was about 10 minutes from downtown Palm Springs. Food was solid (the fancier restaurant was closed for some reason, but we had our kids with us so the main restaurant was a great balance between good food but semi casual). Service all around excellent. There were a few other kids but it was not kid central, there were a lot of couples and friend groups with the age skewing older, no party crowd.

  6. I’ve stopped drinking during the pandemic and a neighbor just invited me over for wine. I don’t want to show up empty handed. Would it be weird to show up with a big bottle of sparkling water?

    1. I’d bring sparkling water for myself and either wine or bakery good for the host.

      1. + bring your drink of choice and a snack (cheese and crackers?) to share with the host

      2. +1 or a six-pack of your non-alcoholic drink. A big bottle doesn’t scream “shareable.”

    2. Nope, not at all! I have a thing for grapefruit soda and it’s what I usually bring. Most of the time it’s a complete total non-issue, but I have general scripts in my head for the usual nosy, but well intentioned questions.

      1. OMG I love grapefruit soda! What brand do you like? We have a very local brand that used to be great but is now terrible after being bought out.

        1. Not the poster from 9:14, but I love Fevertree grapefruit soda – crisp and actually tastes like grapefruit.

        2. Fevertree grapefruit soda is my favorite by a mile. I’m not too picky, though, and enjoy plain old Fresca, too.

          1. I love, love love Fresca but I haven’t been able to find it in months. I may have to start hunting it down in convenience stores. Fresca with a splash of tequila tastes like summer.

        1. My “Why aren’t you drinking?” is “I have a tough class, so I’m having a sober semester”. Folks really don’t pry further (Thanks to COVID, I’ve gotten 2 years out of that one). The other question I get with any regularity is what kind of glass I want – not gonna lie, sometimes I do like my grapefruit soda in a wineglass. It’s sort of silly-fancy.
          Only one or two people have ever pried further, and at that point I say, “I initially quit because of classes, but pretty soon realized it’s best if I stay quit. So, tell me about what you’ve been up to….”

        2. Why lie or have a script? I understand it’s no one’s business, but usually the questions come from people who are your friends. And I tell my friends what’s actually going on with me.

          1. It’s not a lie, but whether I’ve decided to not drink for now or for forever isn’t a conversation that needs to happen at a lighthearted gathering where everyone is drinking. I absolutely don’t care what other people decide to drink or not to drink, and would prefer that no one cares about my decision. I’m also fairly awkward about gatherings and small talk, so have a script for pretty much everything. It’s just part of getting by when you’re a bit odd.

          2. Because I don’t share my diagnosis with anyone other than my spouse and my parent, and saying I don’t drink for medical reasons doesn’t make everyone stop pushing.

    3. Personally, I would probably go a step further and bring the water plus a shrub or bitters or kombucha or something to make it more like a mocktail someone else might like to try, rather than a statement.

      1. I need to again sing the praises of ginger beer as a non-alcoholic drink that’s a little elevated from water or soda.

        1. Agree. My favorite cocktail is ginger beer, verjus, and pomegranate bitters. Stolen from a now-shuttered local restaurant. But if OP is also avoiding sugar, the water may be her preference.

        2. I thought ginger beer was soda. Is there another type I’m missing out on? Very intrigued.

          1. (In the US) ginger beer has a nice, prominent ginger flavor compared to ginger ale (which doesn’t taste like ginger at all to me).

          2. Oh yeah, it’s absolutely soda, in terms of sugar content. It’s just so flavorful and ginger-y, that, to me, it’s worth the calories.

    4. Why didn’t you tell your neighbor you don’t drink? I’d bring the sparkling water and a bottle of wine to drink or leave there.

      1. It’s high-maintenance and unnecessary to announce that you don’t drink in response to an invitation. Just bring a six-pack of seltzer or a bottle of sparkling water to share.

        1. I dunno – it doesn’t say “high maintenance” to me. I’d appreciate the heads up so I know what to get – we’ve had some great ideas for mocktails in the last couple days so I’d grab something like that.

        2. If someone invites you to dinner or to go for a walk, it’s high maintenance and unnecessary to announce you don’t drink. If someone invites you over for the express purpose of drinking, it’s pretty weird to not disclose that you don’t drink. I don’t drink and I can’t imagine accepting an invitation to a wine night, especially one without any other guests. Many people hate drinking alone, so this may put the host in a really uncomfortable position.

          1. +1 sorry. If she invited you over for a glass of wine I think the response is “I don’t drink but I’d love to have soda and catch up!” If she just invited you over you don’t need to tell her that you don’t drink.

    5. As your wine drinking neighbor, I’d just like to suggest you make sure she knows in advance that you don’t drink/aren’t drinking right now. I would feel suuuuper awkward inviting someone over for wine, having Wine Night all set up, and have her not drink it.

      “Sounds great! I’m on a break from alcohol right now but I’ll bring and . Can’t wait to see you!”

      2. I agree this is ideal. That way, as the host, I can have something to offer you. I’d be fine if you stuck to what you brought but feel better about having been a generous host, as well.

        1. Totally agreed. One of my coworkers doesn’t drink and the first time I hosted backyard happy hour, I appreciated the heads-up so I could make sure to have a nice mocktail option available for her.

      3. weird, that was supposed to say “Sounds great! I’m on a break from alcohol right now but I’ll bring [snacks] and [beverage]. Can’t wait to see you!”

        As your neighbor I would still have wine, but I wouldn’t mentally have Wine Night set up because if it’s just the two of us, that’s weird and having two bottles of wine just for myself is silly.

      4. Right — I won’t bother to make sangria for me, but would do that for company. But I don’t need a pitcher of sangria if there is only me to drink it :( Just warn me so I don’t over prep and can devote that budget to good things, like more cheese and nibbles.

        1. +1 I’m really happy to prepare sangria for a guest and me or to prepare something nonalcoholic and equally delicious for us.

          I’d hate to put in the work to make something my guest doesn’t drink and isn’t so useful for just me (I drink, but not a pitcher of sangria by myself).

      5. Yeah, as the wine drinker, I’m just inviting you over for a socially acceptable beverage. I don’t particularly want to drink alone, so if you show up after I’ve already opened a bottle and tell me you’re not imbibing, you’re going to make me feel awkward and waste my wine. If you don’t drink alcohol, then let’s just get together for a cup of tea or a mock tail or some other shared beverage of choice.

  7. I’m a junior partner and I have way, way too much to do. I am struggling to do more than sleep and work. I know I need to develop associates and train them so I can delegate more – I tried in early 2021 and was so disappointed with the lack of effort, I pretty much just stopped.
    How can I get better at delegating and training?

    1. Following b/c I am at a loss, too. It is so hard when no one is in the office (despite supposed to be on a 3 in 2 out schedule in a smaller city) and responses to e-mails come hours later on matters that are not leisure research projects (I am using my words, I just don’t think that people bother to read e-mails any more). I see a whole couple of cohorts of associates being weeded out for merely being adequate, sadly.

      1. Has it occurred to you that they might be busy doing other work for people who don’t dump fires that need to be put out sooner than 2 hours later on them?

        1. The answer to people being not psychic is for them to also use their words to say “Tied up until 4; can look at after that.” Takes 2 seconds and buys you a lot of good will. That is being responsive vs just not responding.

        2. We see the workload reports, so when they are ticking the box for “Busy 1 out of 5; please send work,” they should at least say “I can get to this in a few hours” or whatever. I think that this generation never got office communication norms b/c there was no osmosis for them to have when everyone is OOO.

          1. Well, law firm communication norms are different from other businesses and, while I get it, we all also realize that actually getting anything done while prioritizing the constant interruptions is pretty inefficient and stressful. Partner A is looking for last edits on an appellate brief due today and Partner B is blowing up my email and then my phone rings 6 minutes later and I’m being lectured for being unresponsive to the Partner B plus his client who needs something in 3 days and emailed 11 minutes ago without a response. All to be followed by a lecture for being both inefficient and missing deadlines. Then there is trying to bill for 4 minutes focused on A; 3 mins on phone on B; 2 minutes on email on C; 8 minutes focused on A. The system isn’t broken, it never worked.

          2. I deal just with external clients and believe me, they are all important and need tending do in some manner that leaves me able to actually do work. I get it. But the external clients keep a roof over my head, so you have to give them what they need (or learn how to manage their expectations so they are happy). Internal clients are no different and if you don’t treat them well, they will move on and you really can’t afford that. Think of it this way: are you being the equivalent of a good waiter? B/c we have all had bad restaurant experiences and we all want wait staff that takes care of us — be that sort of worker at your job.

          3. In my practice area, BigLaw is like being an air traffic controller. Other areas may be different, but this is just how it is. I have maybe 10% “take some to analyze and deeply think” work, but mostly it’s like air traffic control or working in an ER (all from what I’ve seen on TV).

          4. You should also consider if you are being a good and decent customer, though. The follow-up calls to an email within minutes about something not absolutely on fire are the worst. It’s the equivalent of hailing down a very busy waiter with 6 or 8 tables during your appetizer course and inviting they go check the status of your dessert right then and report back immediately. They will rightly spit in your food.

    2. Here are some practices I have found helpful having spent 10 years in biglaw:

      1. Focus on team building. I always got the best work from junior associates who felt invested in the overall team strategy, even if they were working on a tiny piece of it. I did this by looping them into emails/meetings as often as I could and by always explaining the context of their assignments and how their work is helping us meet our client’s goals.
      2. I set up regular 1-1 meetings with junior associates to talk through ongoing projects and check in more broadly about how they were doing.
      3. I asked what kind of work the junior members of the team liked to do and wanted to do more of, and I made an effort to get them those assignments (in addition to whatever else just had to be done).
      3. I referred them to samples and templates so they could see exactly what I was looking for in the final work.
      3. I set clear expectations and explained them, not only in terms of assignment details but also in terms of deadlines. For example, if I had set aside time on Thursday afternoon to review their memo to send it to the client on Friday morning, I told them that so they understood why the deadline mattered.
      4. I said thank you and acknowledged when the situation sucked, like when we were working late or over a weekend. Yes, it’s the job, but it still sucked sometimes.
      5. I gave credit for their work when discussing with higher-ups (e.g., thanks to X’s great research, we can make the following argument…)
      6. I set interim deadlines and checked in on progress, especially if they were new to a task or new to working with me. This way we could address issues as they came up, and they had a designated time to ask questions. (I accepted questions whenever, but some people are shy about asking for help because they fear looking dumb so a scheduled check-in meeting helped.)
      7. I gave feedback in the moment and set up feedback meetings to talk about complex assignments or areas where they were struggling. When giving feedback, skip the judgment and focus on clear things they can do better. If there was a problem, like a missed deadline, ask open questions letting them explain.
      8. I delegated at the beginning of the project; before I dove into something substantive, I would sit for a minute to think about what I could delegate and I would do it right away. You can delegate in pieces if the overall project is too overwhelming in scope. That’s a great way to build in interim deadlines – the junior team member checks in with you after completing task 1 and by that time you are ready to assign task 2.

      It takes time to do all of this, and it can be tempting to forego it and do the work yourself, but it is so rewarding when you have some junior team members you can trust to handle assignments to your expectations without much oversight.

      1. This is an awesome approach and one that partners take all too rarely.

        Your last tip, about thinking upfront about what can be delegated and doing the delegating first, is a big one for time management. That gives the associates the most time possible to work your matter into their calendar!

        1. I used to do this and spent so much time nurturing people that I honestly felt very office mom about how I ran things. BUT I was looking over some old files last night and these associates were beyond awesome and so, so, so good. Now, I’m probably too personally exhausted and burned out. I’m hoping that by the time we are really back in the office, I’m back on my A game.

          1. +1 to time management! I always liked to delegate up front because it was helpful for me as the project manager. I felt more organized and secure that everything would get done when I knew multiple pieces were already in progress.

      3. ::standing ovation:: I wish all bosses were like you. Can you teach a CLE on how to train and retain associates? Like Cat said, this approach is all too rare.

      4. So much this. Signed, former biglaw associate who was delegated to a lot and then became a senior associate who had to delegate to others.
        Also, I do think it’s been extra hard for the last two generations of first years, so I tried to spend some extra time explaining things on the phone (like “here is why we need to do this and how it fits into the bigger picture of this transaction”) because I noticed no one was really doing that and they were missing out on a lot of knowledge that we used to acquire by osmosis back in the day from just being in the deal room and talking to people in person (or overhearing the partner screaming in his office, lol).

      5. Thanks, all! I was lucky to work for some incredible bosses when I was junior and learned a lot of these tips by modeling their behavior. I’m also really interested in this kind of thing – I left biglaw last year to start a business focused on professional development skills and coaching for lawyers, so I think about delegation and similar topics a lot. (Shameless plug: my site should be linked in my initials if anyone is interested in learning more about my work)

      6. This sounds great. The other tip I would add is to review their work first before doing your own. That way they get more time to work on revisions during the day. I like early mornings for this, before all the Zooms. Oh, and when you assign something, check to see if they have drafted something like it before, and for whom; that will give you a better sense of how much time you should spend explaining the assignment or providing samples.

      7. This is fantastic feedback. I am copying and pasting into my professional development file.

  8. Those of you on top of your game with household paperwork, talk to me. I am drowning in papers because I’m scared to get rid of anything that might be important. I know the general recommendations for tax info, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. I have a lot of one-off stuff that doesn’t categorize well: a giant stack of paperwork from when I needed a permit to replace my driveway and the township fought us on it but eventually gave approval, all the paperwork from when my car was nearly totaled but got fixed because it was only three months old, just the messiness of life.

    I also just changed to a job with an HSA, so now I’m staring down the idea of keeping medical bills for years in order to let my account grow and then get reimbursed after retirement.

    If I still worked in an office, I’d run stacks through the two-sided self-feeding printer and go with the option of “scan it all and let God sort it out” but I have a single-page scanner at home, so it will be a serious time investment. I need to cull first.

    1. If it’s going to cost you a lost of time to go through it all, I would just do a very quick initial toss of things you know you don’t need (can you get rid of everything re: the driveway except the final approval) and then take the rest of the stack to fedex and pay to scan it there so you can shred the lot and move on. I keep very, very little hard copies of paperwork and it’s never been an issue – I think pretty much everything these days is reproduceable from an electronic source anyway.

    2. Question: what is the benefit of getting reimbursed for the medical bills later vs paying for them with the HSA as they come up?

      1. There has to be some limit on how far back you can reimburse yourself, right?? Like is the OP planning to save co-pays from 2022 for reimbursement in 20 years??

        I do know people who use the HSA as essentially a long term care buffer and pay their medical expenses out of pocket rather than use the HSA money that year — but NOT with the expectation they’d eventually seek reimbursement for them years later.

        1. No for HSA I believe it’s an unlimited time frame for reimbursement. But I agree the logistical headache is not worth it.

          1. +1 My retirement advisor recommended this as another tax-free vehicle for saving. I haven’t gotten too into it yet though; DH had a knee surgery that wiped the account last year. I do like the idea in theory, although the paperwork is hassle.

          2. There are situations where your time and effort just simply aren’t worth the money involved. I’d suggest this is one of those times. Even if there is allegedly a reimburse forever mode, I wouldn’t bank on that getting fixed or a 20+ year old bill being accepted in the future either. OP, I would just get reimbursed now and forget this headache.

        2. There is not. As long as the expense qualifies and you were covered under the plan when the expense was incurred, you can seek reimbursement years later.

          1. Oh interesting! Good to know. I am new to HSA as just switched to a HDHP this year… but the headache of tracking decades of receipts is definitely a downside of that feature.

      2. Because you can invest the money, so starting with more means ending with more, via compounding. They’re triple tax-advantaged: pre-tax going in, earn interest and investment growth tax-free, and then distributions are tax-free if used for qualifying expenses.

        1. You can invest non HSA money too. Unless you’re retiring in the next couple years the odds you will lose enough bills to wipe out the tax advantaged growth are very high.

          1. I wiped out my entire HSA this year for surgery, and will have ongoing testing for years to come. Y’all are lucky to be healthy.

          2. But you are very likely to eventually use those funds for medical care in retirement, so using the HSA is still the better investment strategy.

      3. Leaving the money in your HSA means there is more to compound over time. Another benefit is if you’re reimbursing yourself for medical costs you’ve already paid, the money you are taking out of the HSA in the future, to reimburse yourself for past medical costs (that you’ve already paid out of pocket) is now yours to do with as you please.
        I think HSA money for medical costs is yours to use tax free (someone smarter than me confirm this please?) so it’s a real deal if you can stash money in your HSA for a decade or more, pay your medical bills as needed out of your pocket, and then reimburse yourself later when/if you need money in retirement or some other reason.
        It’s clever, if you can swing paying out of pocket for medical costs for years, all the while maxing out your HSA.

        1. I think of my HSA as an extra back-up emergency fund. I got it tax-free, I’m growing it tax-free, and I can pull it out tax-free, whenever I actually need the money. Keeping one digital file of medical receipts and one paper file of medical receipts isn’t too difficult.

    3. I keep no paper, not even taxes. Everything is scanned and in a google drive storage folder. I think the only actual paper is birth certificates, car titles, and home purchasing paperwork because that’s a giant folder and I just haven’t brought myself around to scanning it all yet. But, once I do, in the shredder it goes.

    4. I keep nothing in paper. I have copies of everything accessible electronically (most come that way. I do not get any paper bills). This has never been an issue for me in the 20+ years of my adult life.

    5. I would just pay the bills out of HSA now. Trying to get reimbursed after retirement for bills incurred now seems like a logistical nightmare.

      I honestly have almost no paper documents. I don’t save stuff related to cars or house construction once it’s completed. All our tax/finance stuff is electronic. I have one file folder with birth certificates and stuff like that.

    6. Why do you have any paper? None of it matters. Get electronic billing for everything, save nothing else. I’m not drowning because I refuse to let paranoia force me into hoarding paper.

      1. People often get paper bills because they have no other option. Local utilities are small operations that don’t bother to update their business methods, a medical bill comes from some random outfit in another state because bloodwork is sent to be read by the lowest bidder, etc. Sure you can get Hulu and Blue Cross to send e-bills, but not everything works that way.

        2. That’s true, but how much of it do you really need to keep forever? For some reason we get paper water bills, but we autopay online and I can’t think of any reason I’d actually need to keep them (our usage is exactly the same every month), so I stash one in our bin of papers every year or so in case we need a record of the account number and toss the rest. Likewise for medical bills, if you get an electronic EOB from the insurance company and it matches the paper bill that you paid, that’s all that matters, you don’t need to keep the paper bill (your FSA/HSA wants the EOB anyway). Obviously medical bills can get complicated and they often don’t match, but that’s a whole other issue which doesn’t seem to be what the OP is asking about. Once something is settled, you only need one thing documenting it.

    7. My biggest tip is to make as much digital as possible, which is easiest when it starts out that way, so get electronic statements for everything, buy things online and get emailed receipts, etc.

      After that, I don’t have that much so I don’t worry too much about sorting it- all my paper just goes in one small bin, and the digital is easy to sort- all my email is just in my email, and the healthcare stuff just in one folder on my computer. I don’t need to go back to it that often, though I have a FSA not a HSA so I get reimbursed immediately (and I understand the idea behind waiting until retirement to submit stuff but I’m not totally convinced it makes sense given issues with losing paperwork or changing rules). I also don’t itemize taxes, so all I need for that is a digital W2 and 1099s for each year, which is pretty easy to keep track of.

      1. Exactly, it’s a fine plan until you lose a bill or two and wipe out all your tax savings and then some. Its a nice idea in theory but most people are not going to come out ahead doing this in practice.

        1. That’s not how this works, though. Even if she doesn’t have an old bill for reimbursement, she can keep the money and use it in retirement, so there is no actual loss,

          1. She could die suddenly before incurring major healthcare expenses in retirement. She could even die before retirement age. It just seems kind of foolish to me to not spend HSA money (which is either free money if your employer contributes, or at least tax-sheltered money) now when you know you have expenses. Spending your own post tax money now and saving the free or tax advantages money could backfire if you don’t end up getting to spend it before you die.

          2. Anon at 10:11 – That is terrible advice. From that perspective, none of us should be saving fir retirement. HSAs are specifically designed to assist with long-term savings, not immediate use like FSAs.

          3. Obviously I save for retirement, because almost everyone will eventually retire and even if you’re terribly unlucky and get hit by a bus before age 65 you have to plan for the much more likely scenario in which you retire and need retirement savings. I’m not actually convinced most people need huge sums from an HSA in retirement. Sure, if you live to be 90 and need nursing care you’re going to need all the healthcare money you can get your hands on, but that’s not everyone. My parents are in their mid-70s, not that much below the average life expectancy in the US and they don’t have huge medical bills. Between private insurance and Medicare, they only have to pay deductibles and co-pays, it amounts to no more than a couple thousand dollars a year between the two of them. If they had tens or hundreds of thousands sitting in an HSA it would not have been used at this point, and maybe wouldn’t be used at all. If you use an HSA to pay current medical bills, you’re putting the money to use instead of potentially letting it go to waste. You don’t NEED HSA money in retirement if you have other good retirement savings you will be fine without it, so this advice is not at all synonymous with “don’t save for retirement.”

            Your children also cannot inherit HSA accounts, so that’s another way in which it’s different (worse) than traditional retirement savings. Many people consider it valuable to pass on money to their children, so unspent retirement savings don’t go to waste the same way an unspent HSA does.

          4. Unspent HSA money doesn’t just disappear at death, it is distributed with the estate. Y’all are crazy if you’re spending HSA money now (if you have the money to cash flow expenses as they come) and not taking advantage of the triple tax advantage. I intend to use it for medical expenses in retirement but also look at it as an extra form of emergency savings, keeping receipts for expenses and knowing if it came down to it I can get reimbursed at any time.

          5. You can use HSA funds for anything after 65. If it’s not a qualified expense, it will be taxed but not penalized. And if she needs $30k for treatment at age 56, she can reach into the HSA with no penalty but that is not true for a 401k. It is a good strategy.

          6. Anon at 11:09 – HSA funds don’t just disappear! They go to the named beneficiary or, if there isn’t one, then pass as part of your estate. This is terrible advice.

      2. Yeah, I don’t sort. I have a file box that I put things in and just go through it when I need something? The hour that I spend going through looking for a piece of paper twice a year is significantly less than I’d spend setting up an elaborate filing or scanning system.

        1. +1 this is me. I do keep the paperwork sorted into different boxes by year, but as I get less and less actual paper I might end up combining some years.

    8. Can save the electronic copies? Perhaps your billing statements available online, so you can just save them instead of going to the hassle of scanning things?

    9. One day I poured myself a glass of wine and sat down with my cr@ppy at home scanner and got it done. None of those documents seem challenging to file based on my own system, for example the driveway paperwork would go into the ‘house’ folder and then the ‘permits’ sub folder. I had been procrastinating for over 2 years until I could use the good office scanner but the mess made me miserable so spending a Tuesday night dealing with it even if it was less efficient was sooooo worth it.

    10. If I were you (and I have been you), I’d get 2 bankers boxes and a set of file folders.

      Sit down and sort:
      Trash (all the back and forth leading up to your driveway permit)
      Important Stuff to Keep Forever Just In Case (driveway permit, car paperwork, paid bills)
      Important Stuff that will need my attention soon (medical bills requiring reimbursement, etc)

      Throw away the trash. Put all the Keep Forever stuff in a big bankers box and throw it in the attic. You’ll have it if you need it but in all liklihood you will move it around until you die. That’s okay, it’s just a box.

      Take the action-requiring papers and file them accordingly.

    11. Some easy things: Get rid of the giant stack of paperwork related to the closed permit. The permit was issued and finished, right? If you keep anything, just the permit itself is sufficient. Though your township will have a record of it. Also check if it’s digital–my city has all permits available on a portal. But the town isn’t going to retroactively revoke a permit related to finished work. No buyer is going to want to see the plans behind a permit if they pull the history of it. A permit exists to indicate the work was planned and executed to code. Think of it like a transcript–the transcript is evidence of your coursework and degree, not the stack of papers you wrote for your philosophy class.

    12. If you want to go digital, take the plunge and buy a $250 two-sided printer. But make sure you have the capacity to at least roughly file or label documents.

      I am old fashioned and keep paper because I’ve been burned by crashing hard drives more than once, and this way it’s easy for both DH and I to access critical documents if we need to. I make a pile and file them when the pile gets big enough. For things like health receipts, I group by year and at the beginning of each new year get rid of things that are 3 years old. I think you can keep paper and also purge on a reasonable schedule.

    13. All this is in google drive:
      —I have an excel file/google sheets with a tab for each year. I list each expense that I incurred (rarely more a dozen a year, fortunately).
      —I keep a folder for each year. All the digital bills go in there. Paper bills are scanned using Genius Scan app (free) and then paper is tossed.

      I plan on using the HSA funds to pay for Medicare premiums in retirement. Meanwhile, the money grows triple tax free and will pass to my beneficiaries if I don’t use it before I pass.

  9. Anyone have a great travel agent to recommend? Family wedding in the south of France this summer and we’d (we = 2 adults and a kindergartner) like to spend a few days in Paris first and then head down to the wedding locale. I’m fine to plan the Paris part (though it’s been a handful of years since I’ve been, and never with a kid), but when it comes to deciding on trains, car rentals, outings for the rest of the trip, I’d love some guidance.

    1. Look at back issues of Conde Nast Traveller for their Travel agent awards. They will have someone who specializes in France. Also, there are two Travellers–one with one L, one with two. Look for both! GL!

  10. Anyone want to help me style a dress for an outdoor wedding in Memphis in early April? I know the event will be on the casual side, and the weather will be a toss up that time of year: could be chilly, could be warm. Specific links to shoes, jewelry, and/or bags would be helpful – this is not my natural skillset. What kind of cardigan/wrap could I use if it’s chilly? Thank you!! https://www.nordstrom.com/s/eliza-j-floral-v-neck-stretch-knit-maxi-dress/5900369

    1. Pretty! With an outdoor wedding I would do taupe shoes with a block heel – either sandals or booties, depending on the weather. For a wrap our cardigan, I don’t have a specific item but I think a rosy pink or mauve would look great with the navy.

      1. Thank you Pugs. I wouldn’t have thought of pink/mauve for the warming layer.

  11. In your experience, what is the normal turnaround time from the date you apply to a job to the date when you are contacted for an interview? My very large employer seems to take forever, even for internal candidates, but I’m not sure if that is normal

      1. No normal.
        When I did hiring at a medium non-profit it was 3-4 weeks for entry-level roles. Directors and higher could be 6-8 weeks.
        In my current job we just turned around an internal role in 3 weeks, but that’s definitely the fastest I’ve seen.
        I interviewed for a city gov role in December, was told I’d hear back in a week, and finally got the “yea we’re not filling this job” the last week of January.

    2. I work at a state university and two to three months from posting a job to setting up interviews is not uncommon for staff jobs (I don’t think I’ve ever seen it take less than three weeks, 1-2 months is moving quickly). Faculty jobs are more like three to five months.

      1. I also work for a state university and its quite a bit faster for us. A month is probably average and I’ve never heard of anyone taking 3 months to set up an initial interview for a staff position. The entire hiring process can take that long, but that includes several rounds of interviews plus reference checks etc.
        For my current position I had a phone screen within a few days of applying and an in-person interview scheduled maybe two weeks later and had the offer another two or three weeks after that. But the manager at the time was super efficient.
        Faculty is completely different of course, since they have a specific time of year for interviewing and hiring.

        1. Do you not have a set job posting period before review begins? We don’t even look at applications until a certain posting period has passed. I believe the minimum is two weeks, but we often extend it to 3 or 4 weeks. So we can’t contact anyone for an interview until the two weeks is up, we’ve gone through the applications, and we’ve gotten approval for the initial list of interviewees. That’s pretty much three weeks under the best of circumstances, but people get busy, and like I said, the posting period is often longer, which extends it to a month or two. What causes delays beyond that, I couldn’t tell you, other than to say that I’ve personally been both the interviewee and on the search committee (but not in control of the timeline) for jobs that have taken much longer and never gotten any explanation for why!

          2. I don’t think we have a formal requirement like that, although many managers do wait a couple weeks to review applications before calling anyone for phone interviews. I would certainly not expect to hear anything immediately, especially if you apply as soon as the job is posted. But not hearing anything for 3 months and then getting an interview would be very unusual at our institution, and it would typically mean the first round of hiring failed and they started over with a new pool of interviews.

    3. I started applying for jobs at the end of March 2021. I applied to 4 jobs at the one very large company. I got my first call for an interview a month later, then within 2 weeks had gotten calls for interviews for 2 of the other positions. I had an offer 2 weeks after that, so about 2 months from applying.
      Takeaway – there is no normal and it is extremely team/department dependent in a large company. Some just move faster than others on hiring.

      1. Yes! I’m a very strong candidate for this role, but I’ve heard nothing since applying a couple of weeks ago. Given how long it took for this role to be posted, I shouldn’t be surprised, but it feels like an eternity.

    6. To be honest, the times I’ve gotten a job through applying, the turnaround time’s been pretty quick. Sometimes a company will get back to me weeks or even months after I’ve applied, but I rarely make it far in the process when that happens, and in my experience a company that takes forever to engage me in the process is more likely to ghost after the interview, because they just don’t have their stuff together.

  12. What do you do when you bought some high-quality footwear that is still servicable but just dated? Circa 2012 LaCanadienne booties are just not cutting it now that even workwear has jogger cuffs or is cropped. But they are waterproof and in good shape. Just put in the back of the closet for nasty weather (maybe OK with one straight legged full-length pair of jeans)? Donate? I have no idea what is a current good look and I’m mentally done with winterfootwear (but it’s a good time for sales), but I have about a month of footwear to figure out still and all of my attempts yield a solid B until you get to the feet and then it’s a D-.

    1. It sounds like it’s important to you that your footwear be current. If that’s the case, then it’s fine to buy something that strikes you as more current. Keep the LaCanadiennes for nasty weather or donate if you have something else to wear in that kind of weather.

    3. Do you love them? Wide leg pants are back in style. Maybe you could have a pair hemmed to make them appropriate for the shoes.

    4. I absolutely keep high quality items that fit me well and are in good condition. La Canadiennes I keep forever. They will be trendy again, if that is important to you.

      1. Same. From someone who finally donated beloved Doc Martens one season before they came back on trend. Keep the stuff you love.

  13. Senior associate in biglaw here in a niche practice. What’s the conventional wisdom on the meaning when your firm does not schedule an annual review? I did the self review in Nov, typically have the review meeting in late Dec/early Jan. Hasn’t been scheduled. I did get a good sized bonus on Jan 15.

    1. I haven’t heard of this happening for any reason other than the supervising partner/reviewer being too busy and/or bad at management.

    2. IDK could just be 2022? Is there some junior partner type or more senior person you trust that you could ask? I wouldn’t rule out disfunction but you could also be about to be sacked for all I know (all of our people got bonuses, even those who are horrible and should be counseled out).

    3. Thanks, you guys. At my old firm, when they bringing up negative things at the (twice yearly) review, it meant they were gathering ammunition to let you go. Wasn’t sure I was missing obvious signs here.

    4. I would assume it’s because it’s easy to push off a positive review from someone’s to-do list. ways to get intel would be (1) asking a partner you have good rapport with, (2) asking the admin for the partner who usually schedules the reviews – like if it’s the practice group head or something – in a non pushy way.

  14. Trip help please.

    I’m planning a US National park trip and would prefer to fly from the east coast and pick up a tour rather than do the logistics myself. There are 3 of us going all from same location.
    Does anyone have a tour company recommendation. The web is giving me too much info to sort through.

    1. I think Gate1 does domestic travel. My parents have traveled with them in Europe and they skew a bit older. Not sure what it is like domestically. You can review some of the itineraries on their site.

    2. Gate 1 is good- I have taken an international tour with them. Everything was well planned and worked fine. I don’t know about their US tours, but I would expect it to skew to travelers in their 60s and up and include multiple stops at craft stores/”cultural” stops that have a large sales component.

      I think Tauck is the gold standard for these kinds of bus tours- the nicest hotels, best guides, and so forth. The group will also skew older.

      Have a wonderful time!

    3. Late to the game, but for Yellowstone and Grand Teton, Ecotour Adventures out of Jackson, WY might help out with most of the logistics if not the flights.

    4. REI does these trips too! I haven’t taken one myself, but my friends who have say they are really nice, if on the expensive side.

  15. For those of you with toddlers, do you have alarms on your doors leading outside? Any recommendations? We are purchasing for our parents, who have a pool and who watch our daughter two days a week. I don’t know if getting individual door alarms or a security system would be better in this situation.

    1. No, but we also don’t have a pool and our kid has never been the type to wander outside without us. It really depends on the kid’s personality.

    2. My son went through a phase of using the broom to unlock the deadbolt and then go outside at like 4 AM. I ultimately just got a cheap magnetic door alarm like the kind they have at bodegas, that just dings (or makes an alarm sound) when the piece on the door moves away from the piece on the frame. He wasn’t a runner, so as long as I knew he had opened the door I had plenty of time to get him.

      1. This is probably the best option for doors because an alarm system requires someone to arm it, and it’s really easy for Grandma to think Grandpa did and vice versa. But a fence with a high latch and pool alarm is the safest option.

      1. They are also installing a fence but because of contractor availability, it won’t happen until the summer.

          1. Agreed. I think I’m a fairly chill parent in general but pool safety is a big thing for me and I would not leave my toddler at a house with an ungated pool.

    4. We have a Ring system with sensors on the doors. They make a noise whenever the doors are opened, even when the alarm isn’t set. I also have high locks on those doors so they can’t be opened unless we want them to be.

      1. Yeah, you can have a regular security system like this and it pings any time the door is opened (not the alarm noise, a quick bell).

    5. Get a Safety Turtle wearable alarm for your kid. Attach it to their ankle. Tell parents if you EVER see the kid without it they will never go back to parents house. Drowning is the NUMBER 1 cause of death for children under 18 in the US and the number one cause of death for children under 5. Not a joke.

  16. Has anyone here lateraled internationally? Is this a bad idea?

    6th year cdn biglaw here in a hopping practice area (techy). I like my firm, I like my work, I like my clients. Reasonably good chances of making partner here, although I vacillate on whether that’s the life for me.

    I’m getting emails from recruiters offering 2x my base salary in comp if I move to a secondary US biglaw market + signing bonus + regular bonus and I’m starting to get tempted. No kids, DH is down for the move (and could keep his job). Billable target is 150 hours higher, but within the range I’ve been doing consistently.

    This wouldn’t be a forever move, but it’s pretty tempting to go to Austin (or wherever) and sock away some cash for 2-4 years and then figure out next steps. We’d keep our house in Canada and rent it out. A change of scenery sounds like fun.

    I’d never be able to come back to a Canadian firm right? Is this a full off ramp from partnership? I assume I’ll get fired as soon as the market corrects.

    1. I’m sure this depends on your secondary market, but I worked at Paul, Weiss and had lots of Canadian colleagues that had gone between Canadian and US BigLaw. The impression seemed to be that the workload was decidedly way worse in US (but this was NYC, so your mileage may vary). Out of curiosity, I texted two of them I’m close with and they said there has been a ~700 billable hour difference. They’re transactional lawyers, for whatever that is worth.

      It also sounds like you’d be tied to your employer for visa status, right? Something to consider.

      It sounds like fun and a great way to sock away cash, but I’m not sure I’d make the jump given the above two points. Can’t speak to partnership chances in Canada, but that would probably worry me less since you’re not deadset on partnership. You might find some alternate passion or pathway while you’re here.

      1. The visa status is huge. I had a good friend who had a horrible boss but had to stay at the company and in her role because of her visa, and she was miserable. Make sure you really like the people because your mobility will be very limited to none/ you have to go back to Canada.

    2. Reposting, I used a bad word.

      I’m sure this depends on your secondary market, but I worked at Paul, Weiss and had lots of Canadian colleagues that had been in both Canadian and US BigLaw. The impression seemed to be that the workload was decidedly way worse in US (but this was NYC, so your mileage may vary). Out of curiosity, I texted two of them I’m close with and they said there has been a ~700 billable hour difference. They’re tr-nsactional lawyers, for whatever that is worth.

      It also sounds like you’d be tied to your employer for visa status, right? Something to consider.

      It sounds like fun and a great way to sock away cash, but I’m not sure I’d make the jump given the above two points. Can’t speak to partnership chances in Canada, but that would probably worry me less since you’re not deadset on partnership. You might find some alternate passion or pathway while you’re here.

    3. I’m generally in the camp of “go for the risk that sounds like fun and offers new experiences and opens up your life in new ways” over the camp of “ensure you have the best possible career pathway.” So I’d do it.

    4. Canadian 7th year techy person here :) I just went in house, but I had looked into this pre-pandemic when DH was looking into a fellowship in the US. It seems pretty easy to get a job in the US as long as you aren’t going into litigation. I have the NY bar, not sure if you would need a local bar – if so look into it because it’s a whole process. I think you could probably come back to Canada and I’ve seen people do it for sure, although the timeline might be tricky if you want to come back to a firm where you will have been off the partner track for a while and coming back as a 8-9-10th year associate. You would have a good profile for an in-house position at an international company though!

    5. So I’m not a lawyer but I’m a Canadian in a lawyer heavy industry. I’ve known 5 colleagues who have gone to the US and they all came back, they all had different reasons but generally speaking the grass wasn’t greener it was poison ivy.

    6. Austin is insanely expensive right now. I doubt you would sock away cash at the rate you think you would.

    7. I’m not sure about the specific facts, but my firm has hired several associates from Canada in the past few years (really since I’ve been here (15 years) but it seems to have increased recently). We have a few partners who are Canadian so have recruited that way. When people have left (if they go back to Canada), they have generally gone in-house, FWIW.

    8. I’m a Toronto lawyer who was American born-and-raised in secondary (and smaller…) markets. Whatever the career impacts are, also consider whether you would like your life in the secondary market you are considering. There is a huge cultural and work style difference between Toronto big law and what you are thinking of, and it may not be to your liking.

      Personally I would never ever ever consider the move unless the goal was to stay in the States. If you want more money, it would make more sense to pursue partnership here or lateral to another firm that values you more highly.

    9. If you’re coming from Toronto I think it would be a huge COL improvement despite what people say here. FWIW, in many areas of Toronto, a tear down lot of 25 feet wide is approaching $2million, much more for the fancy areas. You also wouldnt be paying state income tax.

      If you are comfortable with potentially working significantly more than you do now for a few years for the experience, I would do it. Austin is lots of fun, you’d make great connections. I think there would a way to come back to a Canadian firm, it might require a few extra years to make partner.

      Most people probably leave because you can only stay on certain visas for X years unless you apply for permanent residency and you need a sponsor to do that.

  17. Thank you all for teaching me to just “do the thing.” For weeks I’ve needed to send an email to set up a meeting. Not even doing the actual meeting, just sending possible dates! Your virtual voices of encouragement were in my head :)

    1. I did the thing. I did not more than 5 minutes of squats 2 days ago. No weights, just body weight. Now I can’t walk without a lot ouches and creaking. This pandemic has literally broken me.

      1. Haha congratulations and squats are hard! I always struggle to walk down stairs for a couple days afterwards… keep it up!

    2. Same. I went ahead and paid the attorney to kick off my estate planning process. I had my initial meeting with her last summer and sat on the information for all these months. Now that I’ve paid, the ball is rolling and I will have this important task off my list before my milestone birthday later this year.

    3. Isn’t it silly how the Thing is always something so simple that feels so hard? It always feels so good to get it done.

  18. Same. I went ahead and paid the attorney to kick off my estate planning process. I had my initial meeting with her last summer and sat on the information for all these months. Now that I’ve paid, the ball is rolling and I will have this important task off my list before my milestone birthday later this year.

  19. Hi all – random question for today – but recently the rings I wear every day are tight/one so tight I had to remove. My diet hasn’t changed, i.e. not like one salty meal where things feel tight. Also, not pregnant (and actually went through my entire pregnancy without my rings being too tight – just didn’t experience swelling). Anyone have a similar experience? Its freaking me out!

    1. This does not answer you question, and you may not want to take such drastic steps yet, but I found that resizing my ring was very simple – I took it to a local jeweler and they stretched it; within 30 minutes I was out the door.

      1. +1 over the years my fingers have just gotten bigger and I’ve had to have my rings resized several times. It’s not a big deal.

    2. My rings go from loose and spinning to “requires effort to get off” depending on weather and humidity and diet in addition to time of the month. If it’s a rainy week right before my period… they’re tight, lol.

    3. My finger size fluctuates so much more now that I am older. I started noticing it around 30-35, fwiw. It could be that I didn’t have enough water or drank an extra beer. Could be hormones. Could be weather related. I also noticed recently that they swell more when I eat more dairy, which makes me sad. They usually go back down within a couple of days.

    4. What everyone else said is true – it can be random. If you do any “grippy” sports/activities, that can also change your finger size, although typically over a longer period. I’ve had to change which finger I wear rings on due to finger/knuckle related changes from intense grip training for aerial silks.

    5. I noticed that my finger size changed over the years – I’ve been wearing the same wedding rings for >17 years and had to get them resized up a couple of years after my last kid. My jeweler says this is common as you get older and it wasn’t expensive. I felt silly about waiting so long.

    6. This started happening to me before I realized that my body wanted me to quit dairy. Have you noticed any other changes, like stomach upset or increased chin or neck breakouts?

    7. Has your exercise routine changed, whether what you are doing or when you are doing it? I experience more swelling with exercise like hiking than with things like HIIT. A change to a morning workout might mean you are wearing rings after swelling when you might not put them on after an evening workout.

  20. Hi all – random question for today – but recently the rings I wear every day are tight/one so tight I had to remove. My diet hasn’t changed, i.e. not like one salty meal where things feel tight. Also, not pregnant (and actually went through my entire pregnancy without my rings being too tight – just didn’t experience swelling). Anyone have a similar experience? Its freaking me out!

  21. We have paddle-type door handles b/c we are older (so our parents are very old). Fine, whatever. Then the pandemic happened and our parents have never been to our new house and then we got a big dog. Who has been eyeing the door handles. He’s going to figure this out, right?

    1. My dog can open and close our interior doors easily. (He could open exterior doors too but we keep them locked.) So we used it as an opportunity. He opens doors on command, which is insanely helpful. We added decorate ropes so he can pull doors closed on command as well.

      2. I love this! I always ask my dog why she didn’t close the door when she comes inside. Lol. Dogs are great.

    2. You dog will totally figure it out. My cats did, so it’s knobs for me! It was a very simple and easy DIY to switch them.

    3. Yep! Our big dog opens our interior doors and the back door to the outside. I keep saying we need to train her to close them and seeing that X has done exactly that has inspired me to actually get on that!

      1. We also trained our amazing dog to turn lights on and off on command. He is our furry version of a clapper light.

    4. The reason I have a tuxedo shorthair is because she opened the garage door, walked into the house, and climbed up on the sofa for a nap. She is good at being adorable, so she stayed.

  22. First year lawyer here, trying to develop good habits and break some bad ones. I work way better under pressure, so waste time when things are slow (and I could pound through some work) and then work like mad when it gets piled on, where I am productive and efficient but working late into the night. Anyone been like this and successful in establishing better work habits?

    1. No but let me know when you figure it out!

      Or move into transactional work where this is sort of the model?

    3. When I was a junior associate, I had an Excel chart set up to track my billable hours against my yearly 1900 hour goal and I updated it every day so I knew where I was. It accounted for taking all my vacation (which I never actually did) so it had some cushion built in. I think I was “supposed” to bill 7.9 hours each weekday. It gave me a push to try to get as much as I could done as early in the day as possible. It was also fun because if I ended up over target for the week but didn’t have anything time sensitive at the end of the week, I would leave a little early on Friday for guilt-free happy hour as my reward to myself.

      1. +1000, I did it by week. Nothing like seeing a growing deficit staring you in the face to light a fire!

    4. I find making myself a big list of what needs to be done on all my matters, and to hit my CLE, will panic me enough to get me moving.

    5. I was the same way, and I changed in response to being in a practice and having a life that could change at any minute (the deal we thought was dead came back, kid has a fever and needs my care, etc.).

    6. This is me… I can only work with pressure abc a pressing deadline and it’s the worst.

    8. Being calm, efficient, and creative under pressure is my #1 ADHD symptom. I need that dopamine to function. Working ahead nets me nothing useable.

  23. OK – one of my “things” is to get wills and estate planning in order. Any recs for a Twin Cities estate lawyer?

    2. We had Bill Post do ours – he was recommended by a friend who’s a lawyer (different practice area) – (http://www.postlaw.com/). He wasn’t cheap but he was very thorough and we were happy with his advice as well.

  24. We’re getting an indoor security camera for the first time while we’re travelling in a few weeks. A new pet sitter is going to be coming in daily. Is it polite of me to leave a note saying that FYI we have a camera? It’s pretty big, so they may notice it anyway. I’m not super worried about the sitter – I’m more doing it to be able to see our animals, but not sure what the etiquette is here these days.

    1. I would mention it as “we do have an interior camera so we can watch the dogs when we’re gone. Just know you’re on camera when you are here.” Don’t mention that it’s new just to avoid the sitter feeling like the target.

    3. Yes, it’s polite. I just say something like, hey, we have a camera that we use to watch the dogs.

    5. Tell your pet sitter! Mine will watch reality tv and snuggle the pets sometimes (which I 100% support) but I can imagine it would be awkward to have that on camera.

    6. Thanks! I figured I should tell them, but didn’t want it to come off as “We have cameras watching you, so you’d better behave!” type of thing. Also, these security cameras seems so ubiquitous now that I wasn’t sure if it’s just assumed.

      1. No! I would never assume somebody had cameras *inside* their house. You definitely have to tell somebody that otherwise it’s very, very creepy.

  25. Has anyone here cruise on Azamara? We’re looking at booking a Croatia cruise for next summer. We chose them mostly for their itineraries, which have more port days and more unique ports than the big cruise lines, but I’m also intrigued by the chance to go on a smaller ship at a fairly affordable price.

  26. Asking here instead of the mom’s board because I think there’s more moms with older kids over here.

    My kids are older now (12 and 7), so they’re at the age where family getaways are fun and something I really want to do. Especially during the summer, which is so short. I’ve realized that I feel like I’m missing important time that I’m never going to get back. I want the freedom to spend all afternoon watching my kid swim at the pool. Or go to the lake without it taking a big chunk of the weekend. So, here’s the question: I’ve accrued enough vacation time that I could take every Friday off during the summer and essentially work part-time for a temporary period of time. Have any of you requested this from your bosses, and how did it go?

    The other sticking point is that I tend to have a heavy workload during the summer. It is what it is. Am I shooting myself in the foot by reducing my hours and/or potentially making other days longer? IDK. I would love to hear from anyone who has managed to temporarily cut their hours.

    1. My kids are younger but I feel the same way fwiw. If you have the vacation leave I say go for it! I save my vacation leave for actual trips, but I sort of put myself on unofficial summer Fridays a few years ago. I monitor email and will work if sometime urgent comes up but otherwise I try to work M-T and take Fridays mostly off in the summer. Summer is not my busy season though.

    2. My husband did 4 day work weeks all summer for the last two summers in the office using his accrued vacation. It was no problem and everyone got used to it pretty quickly.

    3. Someone in my office will have a month or two where they take off the same day every week in order to use up leave (govt.). People totally adjust. I’d do it if you want to! Also I’ve been surprised that while my kids do need me as teens/preteens, they also don’t want to hang out with me for hours on end when they have free time. This should not surprise me, but it’s so different from elementary school kids that can be very “mommy mommy mommy.” They are happy to spend it with friends and doing stuff on their own.

    4. I think my moodiness at 13/14 spoiled a lot of the fun on family trips. I hope you have more luck!

      1. I have absolutely terrible memories of family trips when I was in late middle school and high school. I’m an only child so it was just me and my parents and they would tell me when and where we were going and what we were doing and I got zero input. They even planned one last minute trip over Christmas break when I was 16 where they told me the day before we left. Those trips were so miserable, I don’t understand why my parents didn’t either give up or realize they should give me *some* amount of input.

        1. Sorry, that was a tangent that has nothing to do with this post! I’m just . . . feeling a lot of feelings about my parents today.

        2. I’m an only child whose parents also traveled a lot and planned trips almost entirely without my input. I definitely complained a lot about their trips as a teen. But honestly I’m not sure you can win with teens. My high school best friend was left at home several times when her parents went to Europe and was furious at the time and is still insanely bitter about it as an adult. Whereas I complained a lot on the trips as a teen, but now that I’m an adult I appreciate all the travel experiences my parents gave me. I know it would have been easier (and significantly cheaper) for them to leave me home, so I appreciate all the effort they went to on my behalf.

          1. Now I’m feeling like an outlier because I generally enjoyed trips with my parents as an only child (including as a moody teen). For some trips we met up with some friends who had kids my age, and I was allowed to invite my close friend on a few other trips which was very nice. But even without that, I generally enjoyed my parents’ company and got to see the world, which I am thankful for.

          2. I wouldn’t say I hated the trips at the time. There was a lot about them I enjoyed. But I complained about everything and I know I made the trips unpleasant for my parents at time. However, I think I would have complained even if I’d had more input into planning and I *know* I would have complained if I’d been left home. Hence, “you can’t win with teens.”

    5. Every Friday off during the summer is a not-uncommon request that I’ve seen. I don’t think it would be unreasonable at all for you to ask for it.

    6. Go for it and enjoy the memories!

      But also realize your kids may be more into friends than hanging with mom (which is ok!).

      At 12 I was still happy, but not long after I became a very moody teen. Enjoy the time you have before you get to the moody teenage years.

      1. Yeah, fully don’t expect at least the 12-year-old to want to spend all his time with me. :) But he DOES need a ride to the pool where he can meet his friends, so there’s that.

        He’s still sweet, and we haven’t had much ‘tude yet. I am dreading the mood swings ahead, though.

    7. My dad would take the entire month of December to spend time with us on our college break. I say go for it.

  27. Oh, no. I just realized I left my Fitbit at home. I’m starting to get withdrawal palpitations already…

    1. I forgot my Garmin on the charger when I ran a half marathon last year. It was the WORST (still used Strava, but not the same)

    2. When we go for weekends hikes, if either DH or I forget to wear a GPS watch, we turn around and one of us will say “not doing it if we don’t get credit for the steps.” We are clearly only motivated by stats.

    3. Hope this doesn’t show up too late, but you can switch the Fitbit app on your phone to track the steps based on your device rather than the fitbit. You just have to remember to switch it back.

      1. (click your user in the upper left, go to “Set up a device” and add MobileTrack which uses your phone as the device)

      2. Oh, wow, thanks!

        I will keep this in mind for next time. For today I am muddling through with MapMyWalkm which is synced with my Fitbit so we’ll see what happens.

        And Anon at 1:38, I was SO TEMPTED to just bag it but so far I’m doing it anyway!

  28. Now that I’m in house and don’t have to keep my time in 6 minute increments, the simple but tedious task that I’ve become awful at is saving down my emails. I have between 2 and 8 deals at a time, plus some minor other projects, and I need to, with some regularity, save down my emails to the various local folders.

    I basically never do this, until I do the next vintage of that deal and go back to look at last year’s version, and realize I saved nothing down and am a garbage person. How do folks remember to do it? once a day? when a deal’s done?

      1. They will after some point, but the concern is more that I or my assistant or colleague need to go find “Oh, how did we handle that in Deal X when this external counsel A was the GP’s lawyer”? so keeping my emails forever doesn’t solve it, as other folks need to access them as well. It’s also a bit of a CYA, so that if business folks say they never agreed to that, I have the document or notes that says they did in fact agree to a point.

    2. Did you enable an auto archive feature in your email client that saves all of your emails before they’re deleted off the email server?

      1. I can try to do that, but that just kicks the can down the road because other folks need to be able to see what I emailed/received and what was attached. Maybe I just need to block out 30 min once a week and see if I can start catching up.

    3. We use outlook and IT has set it to auto-archive after a year. So I have an alert on Dec 23 and then Jan 5 to move all of my emails from the past year into a personal folder. I just save it in a folder called “2021” and then use the search feature to find what I need. I don’t find that this takes me THAT much longer than filing things away, but saves me a ton of time trying to keep up with random filing systems.

    4. Create a OneNote notebook for each deal where you keep a tab for notes (where you document all calls you have, ideas you may have, etc.), a tab for correspondence (with separate subpages by topic of recipient), and a tab with the various redlined drafts. Each notebook can be saved to the specific local folder. I do this for my work, and it has been so helpful.

    5. Also in-house and I wish I knew the answer to this. At least at a firm, everything was assigned to a client number and a matter number. Now, I get oddball requests that defy all organization in addition to the enormous number of small projects that generate regular email traffic.

      The harder truth is that I get paid the same regardless of whether I spend 4 hours a week sorting emails or not. Since it’s not billable work and nobody gets to see my Inbox, there are no repercussions for my disorganization and no prizes for me making an effort in this area. Maybe that’s why I haven’t made progress on this?

  29. What percentage of marriages/relationships would you say are happy after a certain point? I’m in my twenties and I feel like I don’t have any frame of reference for what healthy relationships look like. I’d love to hear from the hive how you feel about your partners or relationships, and what the secret is to being long-lasting/loving relationships.

    1. I’m 38, have been married for 13 years. 3 kids. We’ve had our ups and our downs, and some really rough patches.

      Communication and assuming good intentions goes a really, really long way. We were bad at both for a while. Function as a “team.” Apologize. Be kind.

    3. I suggest you re-post this tomorrow on the morning thread, but much earlier in the morning. I think you’ll get a lot more responses.

      I agree with everything Anonymous said. I have only been married 7 years, we are 40 years old, and no kids. We have hit two very challenging stages, but we pushed through and have been doing really well for the last 3 years. Communication, assuming good intentions, kindness, and apologies are all essential. I also think that having a combination of activities you enjoy together and separately is important. One person simply cannot be your everything and cannot complete you. You must be whole yourself and have several people/activities beyond your spouse who contribute meaningfully to your life.

    4. A marriage counselor once told me 50 percent (or whatever) of marriages end in divorce, but not everyone who stays married is happy — something like half of those marriages are unhappy but continue for reasons (not believing in divorce per religion, not being financially sound enough to leave, deciding to live separately but not divorce, etc). So I guess less than 25% are happy (without even accounting for longevity).

      Personally spent a decade with the wrong person unhappily & now a decade with the right (different) person happily. I would say some important points are having mutual respect & common outlooks on life & friendship/willingness to talk openly. I would also say that although people can grow together & change over time — never partner with someone who would only be bearable (or adequate) if they do change (as in abusers, those with serious dependency issues/immaturity/selfishness, etc.) You can’t count on the other person changing & have to take them as they are or NOT take them.

      It’s also a blessing when both partners are capable, independent people who have experienced living alone/who are able to pick up household duties or decision-maker responsibilities if the other person is unavailable (grieving, hospitalized, etc).

      Also have fun & make good memories that will carry you through difficult times. Figure out how to support each other.

    5. Luck. Assuming good intentions is really good advice too. 45, married 10 yrs, together for 17 yrs, 9 and 6 yr old daughters. Carving out time for each other and appreciating the little things. Don’t keep track of who is contributing more to the team bc life changes and then the other person gets a turn to pick up slack. It’s a marathon not a race.

    6. For us, I’d say 1) respect and 2)individual interests within an agreed system. Fwiw – we didn’t have some big epiphany and we didn’t work hard to get here. I guess we just got lucky and lots of things lined up for us, so I have no great advice on HOW to get there. Almost 22 years with my SO, dating+married, and I’m very happy with how things are. Every couple is different. In our case, we firmly support individual hobbies/interests/friends, and didn’t want to have a joint-everything relationship. We have enough together to have shared interests and enough different that there is always something new to bring to the conversation. For example: We don’t watch the same shows or really like the same movies, but sometimes read the same books, and do read the same newspaper. We have music we put on when we’re both in the same room but otherwise have very different tastes when alone. He hangs out with his friends, and I have mine. We also have joint friends, or he’ll join me for a while if one of mine comes over then leaves us to our thing. I like it because it means I haven’t had to make compromises on some of the little things that make me happy, like shows he would hate but …not worried! We don’t need to watch together! At the same time, we are 100% in agreement on all things money, 98% agree on religion, 90% agree on parenting (some differences in style), and 70% agreement in politics. We have dinner together at least 6 nights per week. I just noticed one other missing thing (because it’s not An Issue): we have no problems with division of labor on any household/cleaning/tasks issue. He’s changed at least as many (uh, probably more) diapers as I have, cooks well, etc etc.

    7. Low expectations.
      Of course I don’t mean that in a depressing way or a “don’t have standards” way or stay in an abusive relationship kind of way. Carolyn Hax once wrote that all anger and resentment lies in the gap between expectations and reality, and I really think that is true. I’ve been married for twelve years, three kids and I dk think having low expectations allows for us to acknowledge they can work on some things and be accepting of other things.
      Also depends what you mean by “happy.” I think “happy” is a pretty useless rubric.

    8. My secret? I was wildly single through almost all of my 20s and 30s (def had some fun NYC wild years though, to be clear) as I watched high school friends marry early then divorce, and got to witness a lot of what I DIDN’T want. I had the privilege of knowing I wanted to remain childfree and likely never marry. This means I did not have to make the hard choice that many women make about finding a “good enough for now” person to marry and have kids with (I say this with only some judgment; i guess if you want kids that much you do what you have to do).

      Found my person in my late 30s and spend every day absolutely thrilled to be with someone who improves my life. I loved my single life but I love this as mush as or more and that was a standard I wouldn’t budge on. If he didn’t contribute to my happiness every day I’d be gone but luckily he does :)

      He’s an actualized self-sufficient grown up and we both feel like we’re the lucky on in the relationship.

    9. I have been married 28 years. Two kids who are grown/in college. I would describe my marriage as happy right now – although we went through a rough patch during the early pandemic when both kids were home, neither of us could leave the house and we were getting on each other’s last nerve. We got through by taking long walks with the dogs and WITHOUT each other. And to be clear, it was not the first and will probably not be the last and sometimes those “patches” lasted a year or more.

      As to the secret – Mostly it has been sheer stubbornness and refusal to give up. We both had divorced, financially irresponsible parents and we were both absolutely determined that we were not going to do that to our children. (I am not going to insert the standard disclaimer about abuse – the man is never, ever, ever going to hit me; I will believe the moon will fall from the sky first). Over the years there were times that things were hard but we were not getting divorced, ever, and by God that meant we had better learn to be happy with each other. It helps that our values around critical things aligned. Money is meant to be saved; credit card debt is evil, children should be taught to be respectful and polite but allowed to be themselves, Sundays are for church, family and football, and we must have at least 2 dogs at all times.

      Add to that we do not get hung up on small insignificant arguments but are clear about genuinely non-negotiable (and I mean like 1-2 things each)? I clean the house and cook all the dinners – and no our household burdens and “emotional labor” are not even close to being even – but he always does the dishes, takes care of all car and yard work, buys me flowers for all major occasions, and irons his own shirts. It balances out over the years and we are spouses and not relationship accountants. Finally, he 100% has my back with anyone else and I do the same for him. Our problems are between the two of us. Anyone else faces a united front.

      I am not a perfect person. He is not a perfect person. But he is a pretty cool dude so I put up with the complete inability to put his shoes away or cook (and he puts up with my obsessive need to triple check the door locks and tendency to kill every plant I touch).

      I could make a longer list but that really sums it up.

    10. Married 13 years, very happy, despite going through some pretty rough stuff together (kid with significant disabilities as the most prominent – turns out that making sure he gets adequate services is essentially another full time job).

      The reason, honestly? Picking the right partner, which was mostly luck. My husband is just a genuinely very very good person. Obviously it matters that I’m attracted to him and find him funny, etc., but it’s the being-a-good-person part that has made our partnership work so well during difficult times.

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