ByKat Hours Updated
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Coffee Break: Magic Elixir

bottle reads Kiehl's Magic Elixir Hair Restructuring Concentrate with Rosemary Leaf and Avocado Oils for All Hair and Scalp Types

If your scalp sometimes feels dry and itchy, or if dandruff has been a concern to you in the past, here's my trick: Kiehl's Magic Elixir.

I tend to think of this as more for my scalp than my hair, but that's me. The dispensing tip is easy to apply the product directly to your scalp; you then massage it in. They say to let it sit for 10 minutes, then shampoo, but I've left it in for longer (if I was doing, say, a 20-minute face mask at the same time) and haven't had bad results. (On the other hand, do not leave a 20-minute face mask on for, say, 45 minutes because you get distracted on a phone call. Ouch.)

Sometimes I'll do this in conjunction with another hair mask for the ends of my hair, and then put a heated cap on top of all of it. The product is sulfate-free, synthetic fragrance-free, mineral oil-free, and artificial dye-free — I'm sensitive to fragrances but can't say I even recall this one.

Kiehl's Magic Elixir is $28 at Nordstrom; you can also find it at Amazon and other department stores.

Sales of note for 12.5

190 Comments

  1. What would be a good, small gift for our neighbors’ kids, who are around 5 and 3? They are such sweethearts and wave and say hi to us every time we see them. The older one just sent us his school picture, which is sooo cute.

      1. Cute gift and age appropriate, but unless you live in Palm Springs, maybe not weather appropriate right now. Three year olds in particular aren’t known for their patience. Source, have had three of them.

        1. Well, I am in the Midwest and we send our kid (8) out to the yard and neighborhood playground unless it is raining heavily, snowing, or below 30 F/0 C. And we used every opportunity of getting outside when he was in the age range you’re looking at.
          So I’d say chalk is still useful.

          Alternatively, there are fun colored bath soaps (I think they even have bath chalk) that kids can use to “paint” in the bathtub.
          Sticker books were also huge at that age.

    2. My 3 year old is very into little cars right now. She loves them. I don’t know where you’re located but a yard game or something could also work. They love the little soccer net.

    3. Sticker books, coloring books with color wonder markers (they only work on the special paper), bubbles, sidewalk chalk, bath toys.

    4. Target makes some really cute little crafting kids “Mondo LLamba” For this age range, anything without paint (which is often acrylic and stains) would probably be a big hit. They have some cute ones with foam and little glue spots for making ornaments that are only $5.

    5. Not what you asked, but. If you’re going to give a gift to these kids, which is awesome, I suggest giving it now or in mid-to-late January. Kids get so much stuff in December that another item is just going to get lost in the shuffle and not really matter to them.

    6. Oh, that’s the sweetest! Agree with sidewalk chalk. Also squirt guns; washable markers & paper; age-appropriate card games like Blink; books; paint-a-rock kit

    8. I have a 5 and 2.5 year old who love little craft kits from Michael’s or Target. Also popular: scribble scrubbies, small lego kits (5 is old enough for the regular kits, 3 needs the bigger kind), books, little animals, play doh, slightly different than usual art supplies (scented markers, glitter crayons, etc) and coloring books.

    9. My 4 and 2 year old LOVE bubble machines; they each have a little hand-held one. They work great in winter because the cold makes the bubbles last longer!

  2. I changed my phone to grayscale, deleted the news podcasts off my phone, and have not looked at the news today.

    But if I’m being honest, I am dopamine jonesing pretty bad. I spent the weekend outside doing yard projects but resumed screen time once it got dark.

    Resuming my once routine but abandoned hot yoga routine tonight as well.

    This is not easy.

    1. Do you like reading? My Kindle is great for ignoring my phone. I get free books from Libby.

      1. Yes and I have about 3 real books I want to read but I never put down my phone since probably Kamala was announced.

      2. Highly recommend Conclave the book as a good distraction. It’s not exactly high literature and its ending is wildly out there, but it is completely engrossing.

    2. The general advice is that it’s going to suck for 30 days, and the more attempts you make at making it through 30 days, the more it’s going to suck the attempt that works. In other words: it’s going to get harder before it gets easier, but it’s never going to be easier than the attempt you are currently making.

      Dopamine Nation by Lembke is a good look at the science behind the above.

      1. I read that book. It explains the science but then like most big idea books doesn’t really give any solutions. Good read though. I know what I was doing was wrong for my body but it’s so hard to break this pattern. It will be worth it. I’m on my work computer now fwiw.

        1. Haha, I also found it almost completely non-actionable. Look, I’ll be real. I’ve tried and struggled a bunch. I have had some successes (like I deleted both FB and TikTok and haven’t looked back), but I feel like other things have just taken their place.

          Anyway, I’m at the point where if you want to be anonymous email support buddies, I’m down. I don’t know if that’s weird. But like, I keep picking up books where someone checks their screen time and is horrified that it’s, like, four hours. Mine is absolutely not four hours. And I feel like no one in my real life really gets it. But if it sounds appealing to have a real person doing this with you (albeit anonymously) who you can vent to when you want to just binge read online news or whatever, I’d be down to give it a go? Maybe this is weird to even suggest? I don’t know.

          3. Not OP but I think my screen time was something like 80% of the time I was awake and I had no idea. 4 hours seems low.

          4. Not OP but in the same boat, friend. I’m too far gone to even offer to be an e-mail support buddy. Wish you luck.

    3. Do you need something to do with your hands? I got back into knitting because it kept my hands busy and off my phone.

      1. Do you need something to do with your hands? I got back into knitting because it kept my hands busy and off my phone.

      2. Not op, but am crafting challenged. I got off social media a few years ago, and honestly the winter was hard bc it was dark early and I’m not a tv person.

        I color, which my kids love and come do next to me
        Small Lego kits
        Magazines helped. Short articles with pretty pictures (Travel magazines, Outside, any hobby magazine)
        Baking

        And on nights when it was really bad, I just…went to sleep really early (habit borrowed from my now sober friend who would crave booze at night and couldn’t find a substitute. She said it ended up being the healthiest she ever was)

      3. I literally just took up cross stitch because of this. I’m also not that crafty but cross stitch is very methodical and meditative.

    4. Keeping my hands busy is important – doing a real crossword, cooking something messy from a real book, house projects, etc.

    6. I had a fairly good weekend. Averaged 2.5 hours per day (down from 4!!!)- trying not to backslide today.
      Stay strong friend.

    7. Puzzles are great for keeping hands busy and requiring just enough concentration. Mindless tv or music in the background if you like.

  3. Hey ladies, I am heading to Manhattan tomorrow for a few days and it’s been a while so I’m not super up on restaurants any more. Any ideas for a nice Saturday night after-matinee dinner, a Sunday before-matinee brunch/lunch, weeknight pre-show dinner, and/or anything else that comes to mind in the theatre district? We are staying near friends in Jersey City so any suggestions over there are welcome, as well. We eat all kinds of food so bring it on!

    1. Maison Pickle is my favorite place for pre- or post-theater (UWS).

      NYMag.com has some really great suggestions.

    2. Aldo Sohm Wine Bar, Jupiter, Lambs Club, the Bar Room at the Modern, 53 (only open for dinner), Cafe Un Deux Trois

      If you’re open to downtown on your way back to Jersey City, One White Street in Tribeca is excellent. I also had a very good dinner at Justine’s on Hudson in the West Village recently.

      1. Just went to Aldo Sohm Wine Bar last week for the first time and I think it might be a new favorite. Great place to grab small bites and interesting wines by the glass.

    3. My daughter and I went to Bad Roman before a show on a recommendation from this group, and we loved it.

    4. What about ABC Kitchen? I feel like you might also like the attached furniture store… Le Rock, Jupiter, and Lodi all at Rockefeller Center would be gorgeous.

    8. Highly recommend Duomo 51 for a nice dinner. As others have said Aldo Sohm wine bar is very nice and if you really want to splurge there’s always Le Bernardin.

      In JC, I heard good things about Mathews, Dullboy, Battello for a great view, and the Kitchen Step.

      If you’re into whiskey, my favorite whiskey bar if the Brandy Library in Tribeca. Not too in convenient from JC and they have a nice fireplace.

      https://www.duomo51.com/

  4. I am so deeply, deeply tired. I’m in a busy period at work, haven’t been working out, haven’t been sleeping well..,it’s all catching up to me right now and I’m struggling. I could honestly lay down on my desk and fall asleep right now and sleep until next week. I just did a B12 patch to see if that helps but so far coffee hasn’t helped with the fatigue and brain fog. I’m mid-30s, so wondering if this is just aging combined with everything else?

    I’ll take any ideas to combat this!

      1. What?!? I hope you are joking. You would never take steroids – used for medical conditions – for the OP reporting (common) abusing your body with not enough sleep/high stress/no exercise et al…

        You can get away with it more when you are younger, yes, but this is not aging. This is abusing your body.

        1. This is definitely a joke; prednisone sucks (and can leave people w/terrible complications post treatment).

        2. I also know it was a joke, but I had to take a four day course of steroids a couple of weeks ago and BOY did I get a lot done!

        3. Just a reminder that when you’re rundown is also the worst since your body is most vulnerable to infections.

    2. I always thought “have you been checked for vitamin deficiency” comments were stupid until I was checked for vitamin deficiencies and discovered I was iron deficient. Treating that changed my life. So if you have not had routine bloodwork, including a look at thyroid, vitamin D, and ferritin, it’s worth evaluating for medical issues. It’s easy to chalk exhaustion up to stress, but sometimes stress can drive behavioral choices that creates medical issues, and treating those medical issues will help with the exhaustion in a way that just addressing the stress cannot.

      2. + 1 on checking Ferritin specifically. My doc told me to take an iron pill to rebuild my iron only to call me back the next day to schedule iron infusions. My ferritin level was so low. If they only checked for hemoglobin, I wouldn’t have known how bad it was. My energy levels soared in about a month.

    3. The testing stuff is way easier than it used to be to get and some look at hormone levels too. In the meantime maybe a multivitamin temporarily. Emergen-C packet. Lots of water. Fight or flight isn’t sustainable. Make sure you get outside for 20 minutes of no sunglasses light.

      My chosen career has big swings of necessary overload and then lesser stress but most times I know when they are coming. I force myself to plan a sauna/cold plunge and book a massage or pedi with extra massage during these times.

      1. Counterpoint, this is exactly what aging into my mid 30s has been like for me. I can’t push like I used to at work.

    6. Take two 4-hour strength sudafed with your coffee in the morning to perk yourself up in a low-risk manner. Not good if you have high blood pressure, etc., but this decongestant can have a mild stimulant effect.

      1. What terrible advice!

        It’s also habit forming. And you can become dependent upon it.

  5. I started a book club at work and am now second guessing this idea. How do you come up with good questions or topics of discussion? Do you try to direct the conversation or just let it go where it will?

    The book is Witchcraft: a history in 13 trials. About 15 people RSVP’d but I doubt they will all come. Everyone knows everyone but not super well. We are all lawyers.

    1. How fun – you can do it! Search for this, essentially. I did the same for an online book club and found various prompts for fiction, non-fiction, etc. There are also some books that are more designed for a book club and they have a discussion guide. A librarian might be able to help too!

    2. Some books have book club questions in the back of the book. If yours doesn’t then you can probably find some online. I’ll usually pick 3-5 questions and otherwise let the conversation flow. The questions are more of a conversation starter imo.

    3. In a similar group and about half do attend. Books range widely but the leader circulates a discussion guide prior and if the conversation doesn’t flow naturally we pull that up to review questions. Someone else writes them. I’m not sure where she gets them but they’re public links.

      I will also say we’ve had ours 8 years so it survived Covid but sometimes it’s 2-3 and sometimes 10.

      Setting a schedule for the year was very helpful. We move it sometimes based on feedback between meetings but it also helps people avoid conflicts and get the books with plenty of time.

      I’m adding that book to ours!

    4. My book club will just start with a “Who read the book?” “What did you all think?” “Did you like it?” and then it naturally evolves from there.

    5. Search on line for title + discussion guide, title + book club guide, title + discussion questions, etc. Have several questions but be prepared not to get to them all. If you’re all lawyers it would be fun to pick apart the trials. In my book group there are a few of us who deal with IRBs and we went to town on the clinical trial in No Cure for Being Human.

    6. I just googled the book title and “book club discussion guide” and it gave pretty good AI response!

      Good luck and congratulations for doing this! Also? Wine!

    7. My bookclub always starts with the host counting everyone down, and then we hold up our fingers with our “Goodreads” rating (i.e. on a scale of 1-5). If everyone is in agreement except one person who had a very different take on the book, that person usually kicks off the discussion with what they most liked/disliked about the book. Like, if most people rated 3 or 4 and one person gave it a 1, or most people gave it 2 or 3 and one person gave it a 5.

    8. my book club is pretty “let it go where it does” but I think it’s good to have questions on hand in case folks are shy or just to get convo going in a new group. Common things we discuss:
      We like – rating it on our own arbitrary scales (e.g. would read again, recommending to everyone i know, didn’t enjoy it but glad I read it, etc.)
      – if relevant, how compares to other thing we’ve read by author
      – how we felt about the ending
      – narrative style & structure. If there’s a prologue, was it effective/additive?
      – feelings about specific characters, character development
      – if historical/reality-based – did it feel accurate/realistic? what choices did we agree/disagree with?

      also – as a new group, I think it’s good to have someone (you) help moderate so everyone participates – not in a forced way, but help ensure it’s not just 2 people dominating the conversation & someone who doesn’t want to interrupt never gets a chance.

    9. Feels like a job for a chatbot – I bet one could come up with tons of conversation starters.

    11. Never would I ever in this day and age start a book club at work, too much potential for offending people. Do it with friends.

        1. I was responding to the other person thinking about it and it didn’t thread. But seriously, something to really think about. It’s also very easy to let book clubs just dissolve.

      2. Thankfully I know my office well and this didn’t even occur to me.

        Thank you everyone for the suggestions!
        Sadly no wine because it’s at work but I will bring cookies.

    12. I look for a book-focused podcast on the book if I can find one and listen to that and use thoughts from there to guide the discussion

  6. repost from AM, didn’t realize the afternoon post was up!

    if you changed your name when you got married, how long did you keep your maiden name in your work signature line?

    currently mine is First Last (Maiden) and email is first.last (emails sent to first.maiden) come through fine as well, indefinitely.

    I got married late spring, changed name at work early summer. FWIW, I’m at a largeish company (3k employees) and do work with a variety of teams but 90% of my work is with folks I’m frequently in contact with. Fairly visible role internally, not customer-facing.

    1. I went by First Maiden Last at work for about a year, after which I switched to First M. Last.

    2. I kept my maiden in parenthesis for a while. I think I was mostly too lazy to change it but I think a year is plenty of time. People adjusted really quickly – despite it feeling like a HuGe event to me, people (women) still change their names all the time so it’s not that shocking.

    3. I got married while still in undergrad, so I was able to switch it over without issue. Finished up an internship, got married, got a new job, started my senior year all within a month. Just had to tell the new job people “yeah, I interviewed with X last name but I got married 2 weeks ago so now I’m Y”
      In your circumstance, I’d leave it for 6-12 months or so and then drop it.

  7. I’m permanent WFH and I’m looking for Zoom-appropriate tops for winter. I really enjoy having a uniform to make mornings easier. For the summer, I own a rainbow of linen button-down shirts in all the pretty shades and wear one every day of the week. Professional on camera, wash-and-wear, zero thought required. What’s my winter equivalent? Links appreciated! It can’t be a wool sweater because I am just not handwashing my entire work “wardrobe” for a season. Note: we keep the house pretty cool, so it does need to be something warm. Thanks!

    1. for me this is 100% sweater season! warm & comfy but still looks polished. the jcrew teddy sweaters (wool cotton blend) hold up well for me with machine wash & hang dry. or something like the Perfectly Soft Crew-Neck Sweater from BR.

    2. I like Gap and JCrew and Old Navy sweaters for this. I especially prefer acrylic sweaters because I’m allergic to wool, and they’re warmer than cotton.

    3. I have “zoom scarves” so I can wear uniqlo heattech shirt plus sherpa hoodie and then just throw the scarf on top!

    4. Old navy has a lot of solid flannels that are warm and comfy. They also have traditional
      Plaid patterns. My wfh office is super casual so I am usually in a flannel/sweater and a vest when it’s really cold.
      To me in a more formal setting, unless the the sweater has some heft or detail like cable knit, it can look like a tshirt on camera

    5. Winter is definitely sweater season. As long as you’re wearing something under them and sitting at a desk all day, you should only have to wash them occasionally.

    7. I like knit mock turtles and layered open front sweaters. Mine are the ones from Talbots that are thicker than a layering turtle and have buttons on their sleeves.

    8. I’m also a uniform person. I also now have a drooly rescue dog who likes to cuddle, so all of my beautiful wool and cashmere sweaters remained from last winter pre-dog. I’ve bought quite a few cotton sweaters from places like Gap Factory, Banana Republic Factory, or even Amazon Essentials that are machine washable. They’re warm enough when layered over a heat tech, and I often wear a puffer vest around the house. I shrug it off for zoom calls.

      Fortunately my dog knows that cuddle time is toward the end of the day. :)

    10. Talbots and J Crew Factory often have sweatshirt material tops with a cowl neck or other detail that make them look nice on camera but comfortable to wear all day.

  8. If someone were giving you a gift at a holiday gathering, what would you find the most useful/least annoying? This is a long standing gathering and at least some of the women will bring me gifts so I need to have something. Holiday kitchen towels?Coffee chain (Peet’s/Starbucks/Coffee Bean) gift card? Don’t know anyone’s coffee habits. Hand lotion? Lip gloss?

    I need to give everyone the same thing. $20ish range is best for me. 5-10 professional women in the 40s-50s age range, mostly high earners.

      3. Yes this. I like to pick out my own hand lotion and lip gloss. Gift cards all the way.

    2. A bag of your favorite local coffee, whole bean. Those who like coffee will enjoy it and it’s very easily re gift able for those who don’t.

      1. That sounds wonderful to me because coffee smells wonderful but I don’t know who uses a pod type coffee maker (I know one of them loves her Keurig) and another is always saying “I need more coffee!” But I don’t actually know where she gets it.

        1. Yeah, but you can’t please everyone, and even if they only use k-cups/instant/whatever, they know someone who will like it.

    3. I like hand lotion and/or a fancy bar of soap. Coffee gift cards are always good too—they can be used for snacks or whatever, not just on coffee.

      Or a pretty ornament is a nice gift. Anthropologie has cute ones that aren’t terribly expensive.

    4. La Neige lip mask is a hit and right in that price range.

      I also really like great hand cream this time of year.

    6. Gift card would be least annoying to me. No one needs more lotion/candles and people are so particular about what they like and it creates more labor of figuring out what ti do with it. If this is a travel heavy group, luggage tags can be good. Or honestly I’d appreciate a card saying you made a donation in my name.

      1. gloves, phone chargers (with a funny or cute angle if you must), good chapstick or lotion, a donation…. something essentially disposable.

      2. I feel like every conference I’ve been to in the last 10 years is giving out luggage tags!

    7. I think a gift card would be least annoying. I also think a 6 foot charging cable is a useful, albeit not super exciting, gift. I also wouldn’t mind a good hand lotion that I could keep at work or in my purse.

    8. Please no towels! Both my mom and MIL are constantly giving us holiday towels and I don’t understand it. I vote for nice hand lotion or a gift card.

    9. Good quality, cozy winter socks.

      It always hurts a bit to spend $20ish dollars on one pair of socks. So I always love when people give them to me at Xmas!

      1. I share your love of the gift of socks. A pair of Smartwool or Darntough socks is a great gift IMO.

      2. I like this. And I might be more frivolous than Smartwool, something soft. You could even get a variety and put them in a grab bag for everyone so you don’t have to try to match tastes for specific people.

      3. I don’t wear socks unless I’m running, and “cozy socks” give me the creepy crawlies in my skin! So I think this one is also a “depends on your crowd” one.

        1. Then you don’t live in a wintry place. We would freeze without socks in winter. You just can’t relate.

          1. I live in Wisconsin, haha. I hate them!!! I wear running socks inside my boots. I would never wear a “cozy” sock.

          3. OP here. I wear “cozy” socks to bed because I can’t get to sleep with cold feet, and I prefer a loose sock that doesn’t give me an elastic mark around my ankle or calf for this purpose. But noted! I wasn’t considering giving anyone cozy socks. :)

            to address some comments below: The reason I’m giving everyone the same thing is that I only really know three of these women, the others are friends of theirs, and I’m a friend of the three from the perspective of others, I guess. People do bring little gifts every year, and I hate to be the only one with nothing to give back. The gifts I receive tend to be also the same thing that giver gave everyone.

            I’m leaning toward the coffee gift cards! Thanks all for the feedback on that.

            My young adult daughter asked if she could take a bottle of wine I received at this thing last year with her when she went back to her apartment after the holidays last year. Her roommate apparently googled the bottle of wine and it was $80! But I have also received a single kitchen towel at the same event, and I’m also not in the same income bracket as the very generous wine afficionado, so I’ll have to be comfortable giving what I can afford. :)

    10. I just don’t understand one size fits all gifts. People aren’t one size fits all and it seems to completely defeat the purpose of a gift if you’re putting so little thought into the person that you can give the same thing to everyone. Just to go with the examples here, I hate scents and have horribly sensitive skin, so candles and most soaps and lotions and makeup immediately get trashed (but if you did get me a nice, unscented, sensitive skin lotion I might appreciate it… or it might still give me a terrible rash, because my skin is just that annoying). I do wear socks, but only smartwool or similar merino socks, so whenever people give me another kind of sock, they get donated without being worn. Don’t drink coffee or alcohol, so those would either be trashed or dumped on someone else, but I’d probably eventually use a coffee shop giftcard. I like towels well enough, but you can only use so many holiday towels, so I’d rather have one that wasn’t holiday themed. Phone chargers are useful, but I have a lot of them already. Can you really not get a mix of things and let people chose the one that suits them best? Even if you picked a category like coffee and tea and hot chocolate and then had several different kinds to pick from. Or a few different kinds of snacks (chocolate, nuts, fruit, caramels, chocolate covered pretzels, peppermint bark, etc.)? If not, I’d just go with coffee giftcards.

        1. Well, anon at 6:00pm is right though… if you’re just pre-buying a batch of generic gifts there is no personal thought, and arguably really no point to the gifts. Unlike anon I probably WOULD use most of the gifts listed (socks, soap, lotion, lip balm, candles, gift cards) but still it would feel impersonal and generic…. essentially the reason we stopped exchanging Christmas gifts with my parents… What’s the point of a gift? Why not just hand me $20 in cash?

        2. I am fun… when I’m not an itchy, rashy, sneezing, headachy, nauseated mess from using scents and lotions or eating and drinking things that bother me. Unfortunately I’m stuck with a body that seems to react badly to a lot of things and if I want to be able to stay productive and able to have fun, I’ve learned I’m better off avoiding the things that make me feel lousy. In real life, I don’t really talk about it, though, so only people who are actually around me a lot and paying attention will notice that I avoid all those things, which I know makes me a very difficult person to get presents for (though I really don’t want anything in the first place, so I’m actually easy! If you’re my friend, I just want to see you!).

    11. I do this with a group of friends and makeup has been the biggest hit. The best items have been a really good mascara and popular lipsticks in different shades so people can trade around. Glossier and RMS have both been hits. Sure there’s always someone who doesn’t wear makeup but even low maintenance people tend to like a subtle lip something. I’d rather give and get a real gift that risks being “not perfect” than a boring gift card.

    12. Headlamp or reflective tags or bands for outdoor winter walking? Mulled wine or cider kit? (Either white wine, or non-alcoholic apple something, and a pouch/glass with aniseed, cloves, dried ginger, cinnamon sticks, nutmeg nuts, green and black cardamom pods and a couple of oranges)

      I would love a bag of nice locally roasted coffee with a card with a favorite holiday cookie recipe more than a gift card (which I would forget I had and never use, as per usual). Would not love anything scented, as I’m super particular and hate scented hand lotions, candles etc. For the towels idea – would rather have some more generic red or green check ones from a professional kitchen suppliers than holiday ones, something to use rather than display.

  9. We had a bunch of COVID hires who were recent graduates who had our job as their first job ever. We had lots of problems with prioritization, responsiveness, ghosting, etc. at a company that is afraid to fire people or even have come-to-Jesus talks. Eventually, when people realized that we couldn’t let people go and try again, the problem employees were quiet fired. One came around after burning some bridges and others left, a few were told to start looking for new jobs after years of problematic work.

    Now that it is time to hire new people, any advice re helping the burned managers some around? They know that they need to hire. They are nervous about remote work, especially given how our company doesn’t have accountability and doesn’t support managers, so the managers were doing their job and the bad employees’ job for years (while often having a lot of personal problems, like closed schools and eldercare).

    I get that the managers are all “It’s OK for me to work remotely b/c I get stuff done” and yet they know they must now come in to train new hires. And for new hires, we want to be flexible as long as you are responsive. Is the problem really our company not being one where accountability is real? And without that, not amount of return-to-office matters?

    Maybe I need to hear how other places are actually accountable and how it’s not remote work’s fault for our messes?

    1. I don’t think this is a remote work only thing. Not being able to fire people is probably a bigger problem. At other orgs remote or not people are expected to get tasks completed and are held accountable if not. At my org everyone is equally as reachable and responsive as they would be in person (as much as time zones allow).

    2. How was hiring & onboarding pre covid?

      No amount of RTO is going to solve “managers aren’t empowered to manage their teams” or “we have no accountability”

      But running a strong team remote does require different kinds of management – you can’t just send everyone home and assume all of your old processes will transfer perfectly. If your team was generally good at hiring, onboarding and performance management pre covid, and just never figured out how to do it remotely, then I think there’s a reasonable chance you’ll have much better outcomes in office

      1. Everything is a cluster. Hiring is centralized and to curry favor with feeder schools. Letting people go is bad, reputationally. Everyone knows this. People with work to do don’t get a say in hiring. It’s messed up.

    3. Are the managers encouraged to complete any sort of company wide team management style? (Ex. Kanban, Agile methods, etc.). In my years working with mostly remote workers, even before Covid, most managers have weekly team meetings to make sure everyone had tasks for the week and then followed up to ensure those tasks were completed.
      In our organization, the managers that either do not set priority of work for a specified time, hence making all tasks last minute and urgent emergencies typically see a lack of performance in employees new in their career or not.

    4. I don’t think any how to hire people advice or how to manage people advice is going to help here unless you actually let your managers manage. If you’re above these managers in the hierarchy, and it sounds like you are, it’s time to stop wringing your hands with the “that’s just how this place is” bit and start taking long-overdue steps to change it. It has to start somewhere.

    5. There’s a bunch of different problems here:

      Early-career hires are a whole different beast. Can they hire more senior candidates?

      Is it possible to require in-person onboarding and/or an in-person off-site early in their tenure? I hired a cohort of first-job candidates and we had an in-person off-site about a month after they were started. This helped set the tone, build trust and rapport, etc.

      Does the team have clear performance expectations, and are you empowered to PIP/fire as needed? Because if you can’t do those things (which, based on your post, it sounds like you can’t), then no amount of documentation, conversations, etc. will help. These managers actually know what they’re getting into, which is why they’re wary!

      And honestly? Don’t make the same managers take on the junior people all the time. I got stuck with a junior team for nearly 3 years, and it’s EXHAUSTING. I do not have the cycles to manage any more newbies for quite a long time. I have a junior person who will likely leave in the next year, and I just don’t have it in me to make them successful. It requires too much hand-holding, and they’re not enough of a self-starter to get a promotion. So, when they inevitably get frustrated that they aren’t getting promoted and decide to leave, I’m not going to fight for them. I’ve told them they’re not up for promotion this cycle, the expectations for what needs to happen for them to get promoted, and they aren’t doing it. That attrition is fine, but I will fight to up-level the position because I don’t want to deal with another newbie for quite a while.

      These managers are not wrong to be skeptical about bringing on junior, fully-remote, can’t-performance-manage-them hires.

    6. This doesn’t sound like a remote problem. It sounds like you don’t know how to manage. I hold weekly check ins with my reports and more frequent if the projects are pressing. I ask them what they plan for next steps and timing, and we walk through together the potential for missteps. I review work product and give feedback. If you let people drift, in office or wfh, then you can’t be surprised when they seem lost about expectations. Fear of being fired shouldn’t have to be the go-to motivation. Most reasonable people actually want to do a good job and feel like it’s being noticed.

  10. Ranting into the universe: I look forward to the day when toxic positivity (and I don’t use that term lightly) is understood to be the gaslighting bs that it is.

    Anyone else with me?

      1. I mean, I think you either know what I’m talking about or you don’t. Nevertheless, here’s a few actual examples:

        To someone whose 5 year old daughter died: “At least you have three other children.”

        To someone whose father died two days prior: “It’s been a few days; you should be over it.”

        To someone who was permanently injured in a car accident after being hit by a reckless driver: “At least there is light at the end of the tunnel.”

        1. Well, those are just examples of cruelty – socially inappropriate responses. Even my autistic very concrete speaking sibling would not say these things out loud.

          I wish people would stop throwing around phrases like toxic positivity and gaslighting like they were a trained psychotherapist.

          1. Okay, you seem to be determined to pick at me.

            Why? It’s obviously about some issue you have.

          2. I have a very hard time imagining someone would say that anyone should just “be over” the death of a parent after a few days. Also OP’s reaction at 4:37 seems like she just wants to pick a fight.

          3. @5:00 I’m not OP but I have lost a child and you would not believe some of the “look on the bright side” things people said to me. No, I haven’t forgotten.

          4. I’m so sorry Anon @ 5:25. That insensitivity I have experienced as well.

            It is not something I would call “toxic positivity”.
            Or is that some new re-definition on Tic Toc these days.

          5. An ex-friend cruelly assessed my grief timeline after parental loss. These monsters live amongst us.

    2. I’m in USA where it’s looking like the plan is to take this as far as it will go first! (I know this movement looks like negativity from without, but within it’s all love and positivity and insistence on positivity.)

    4. God yes. There have been so many times in my life that it would have helped to have someone say “yeah that 100% sucks and I’m so sorry that’s happening- you don’t deserve that. Can I help brainstorm solutions or do you want to vent?”

      1. Even just “that really sucks and I’m sorry for you.”

        Sometimes, people need to know that it is happening but don’t need to get involved in the emotions of it. “My email address is changing; I’m going back to my maiden name post divorce” is a logistics issue, not an invitation to inject happy into an objectively tough situation or pry for details, ya know?

    5. 100%

      I had a major, major medical event this year (think heart attack, not a small one) and seeing various specialists I was advised to see after the hospitalization, I had not one but two MD specialists say to me “it could have been worse.”

      Yeah? But it could also have been better. How does that useless tidbit help me figure out why it happened (something no one seems interested in figuring out) and how to prevent it happening again?

      I’m actually grateful it wasn’t worse, but it wasn’t small, and the “cheer up, it could have been worse,” medical advice wasn’t worth my co-pay, Sir(s). Wonder if they do the same with their male patients.

      1. I’m sorry that happened and I hope you are able to heal.

        Famously, Dick Hoyt was told that his heart attack could have been worse, and would have been worse (likely dead) if he hadn’t spent a few decades pushing his son in a wheelchair in marathons.

        Aside from “this amazing thing you do with your son saved your life,” I’m of the mind that “it could be worse” is usually unhelpful.

      2. A physician absolutely should be contextualizing the medical event you went through for you? That’s like half the point of what they are there for: to tell you objectively how bad it was so you can better understand the situation you just went through from a medical perspective. That objective perspective does not invalidate your subjective experience of what happened, but cardiologists are not primarily there to focus on the subjective experience. A psychologist would be there to do that.

        1. Like, if your oncologist says “at least we caught it early,” that is an entirely appropriate thing for an oncologist to say. It helps you understand that this is “early” from their perspective, which is helpful in bringing your subjective evaluation of the risk in line with their more objective / medical evaluation of the risk. It does not mean it is not scary or traumatic or a big deal. It’s just a medical provider providing medical perspective.

        2. I don’t think so. I’m 5:07. One of the specialists was subbing in for the main doctor, who was on maternity leave when I came in. When I went to my follow up with her, I told her what he’d said to me, and she said “I’m so sorry. What happened to you was not small or minor. I don’t know why he said that.”

          1. So, that is also helpful contextualizing from a medical professional! It’s no more or less valid than the doc who said it could have been worse (unless that doc was wrong and you were, in fact, the worst case ever). “Could’ve been worse” does not equal “small or minor”; an event that is 80% of the way to catastrophic absolutely could’ve been worse but no one would call it small/minor.

            Anyway, I’m sorry you went through this. It sounds really traumatizing! And I think it’s very important to get care that works for you. But I just think it’s okay for doctors to contextualize medical events using their medical experience, and I’d hate to see them shape that contextualization based on how a specific patient processed the experience instead of on how this case fits in the spectrum of the cases they’ve seen.

            Again—I think how you’re feeling really matters, and I’m glad you’re getting care that is working better for you now. And I really hope recovery goes smoothly and well for you.

          2. Not the OP, but wouldn’t proper context involve both sides and an explanation of what factors make it less bad or more bad than other circumstances? It also could have been better (or not happened at all), and that is part of the context.

            Also, by definition, if you’re talking to a living person, the medical emergency always could have been worse: they could be dead.

          3. I admit that I was assuming that the doctors said more than that single sentence to OP, as most doctors do. I assumed that she was just highlighting the sentence she found objectionable.

  11. I never have cash on hand. Neither does DH. Do you all stop at the bank on a routine basis to withdraw cash? I now have to go to the bank so I can pay our admin $2 for baby shower raffle tickets.

    2. I get about $500 two to four times a year. I use it to pay the lawn guy, buy lunch at my cash-only work cafe, pay for split bills or when I send my BF to the store, tip, etc. Usually I just keep it at home and take a small amount with me or grab more when I anticipate needing it.

    4. Yes. I go to the actual bank about once a quarter and take out a few hundred in small bills which gets stored in a drawer, to replenish tip money in our wallet. We also live in the city so we need cash for valet, tipping on a regular basis.

    6. No, I get cash back with my debit card at the grocery store or target on occasion. I try to have a $20 on me for emergencies but also use cash at the farmers market in the summer.

    7. Yes – some places I still use cash (small farmers market purchases and similar) but… offices have really moved to Venmo for this kind of thing so I feel you!

    8. Yes, but regularly is like once a quarter. I use cash mostly for the farmer’s market and my favorite corner taco truck and that’s about it.

    9. I never have cash. Seriously. I try to have a couple of ones when I head to the airport to tip the parking lot shuttle guy, then I have none. There’s an ATM from my bank at the airport, so I get like $60 there, get some change at the airport by buying some tea and some mints (separately) so I can tip housekeeping and the shuttle driver on the home trip. But that’s the only time I really use cash anymore!

      1. PS I hit at least four farmers markets in different cities this summer and it never occurred to me that I might need cash. They all used iPhones or iPads to take my card.

    12. I always have cash for general convenience and in case of personal or general emergency (ie, my bank account is hacked or there’s an earthquake).

    13. I only recently started carrying cash when restaurants started passing along the 3% credit card fee.

    14. I was in a major natural disaster once where there was no power for 2 +weeks. I was very glad to have cash on hand. Now I keep 5k in my sock drawer for emergencies.

      1. Wow, $5K is a lot! I keep a hundreds in a safe for similar reasons (earthquake country) but had never considered keeping several thousand.

    15. I have close to $1000 that I just keep on hand as back up, but regularly go to the bank to get money for the farmers market and occasional babysitters, our cleaning lady and my Facialist.

    16. I keep some around for tips, small donations, a junk food emergency slush fund. And amazingly, there are two neighborhood eateries that only accept cash! They’ve been around forever and have fun, tasty relatively inexpensive food. I think there are more places that only accept cards.

    17. I stop by the bank at least once a quarter and get cash. I use it to tip for coffee (even if I charge the coffee itself) and breakfast, pay for anything where there is a credit card fee, and things like you mentioned.

    18. I only use cash to pay our cleaners, so I go once a month or so to get enough for a few cleanings at a time. (They would accept a check but I am less likely on a given day to be able to actually find my checkbook!).

  12. Late to the party but just want to say I use and love this product. It also last a long time.

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