This post may contain affiliate links and Corporette® may earn commissions for purchases made through links in this post. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
These raffia Mary Jane flats are bestsellers at Bloomingdale's, with a few colors (including this pretty green) being on sale. We haven't talked about the trend for mesh shoes where, like these shoes, expose pretty much your entire foot… I would encourage caution when wearing these to work; definitely know your office.
(Here's a fun link back to our long ago discussion on whether “toe cleavage” was acceptable for work, if you're wondering why…)
Given that warning, though, I think they look like fun shoes — I could see them working with neutrals, or with the growing trend of wearing shoes that match your pants, although I've mostly seen that with sneakers.
If you're not a fan of the raffia look, they do come in regular leather and a woven leather (as well as mesh and satin) at Bloomingdale's, Nordstrom, Zappos, Loeffler Randall, Amazon, and others.
Our general favorite Mary Jane flats for work in 2024 include J.Crew, Loeffler Randall, Dolce Vita, Rothy's, and Sam Edelman. We also like comfort-first styles from Rothy's, Vionic, and Dansko.
Sales of note for 9.16.24
- Nordstrom – Summer Sale, save up to 60%
- Ann Taylor – Extra 30% off sale
- Banana Republic Factory – 50% off everything + extra 20% off
- Boden – 15% off new styles
- Eloquii – Extra 50% off sale
- J.Crew – 30% off wear-now styles
- J.Crew Factory – (ends 9/16 PM): 40% off everything + extra 70% off sale with code
- Lo & Sons – Warehouse sale, up to 70% off
- M.M.LaFleur – Save 25% sitewide
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
- Talbots – Extra 25% off all tops + markdowns
- Target – Car-seat trade-in event through 9/28 — bring in an old car seat to get a 20% discount on other baby/toddler stuff.
- White House Black Market – 40% off select styles
Anonymous
I am a fashion shoes at work person but would definitely not wear these to the office. In fact, I own very similar shoes in an even more work appropriate shape and a less foot-revealing weave and it has never occurred to me to wear them to work.
anon
these would be fine at my office
Anon
+1 and “foot-revealing” is hilarious to me. How scandalous, showing everyone your….foot.
Anon.
Do you live under a rock? Women make a lot of money selling feet pics. Many of us wear certain heels or sandals in shapes because they make our feet prettier. Yes, sandals and foot cleavage can be distracting for men who are mentally ill or inmates and for teenage boys.
Anon
lolwut? Women can make money selling pics of pretty much any part of their body. It doesn’t mean said body part is inappropriate to show it in public. Feet are not private parts. Crazy that that even needs to be said….
Brontosaurus
You’ve posted before about this and it’s very weird. Wear boots year round if you want but I’m not wearing socks when it’s 90 degrees because a man might look at them (?)
Anon
Please go away, we do not need to have this weird prison population foot fetsh convo again.
Anon
Umm do you live in Saudi Arabia? Normal women in western countries do not cover their feet to avoid tempting men.
Anon
Sounds like they need to work on their personal tools to avoid distraction!
Anon
My toe cleavage brings all the boys to the yard.
Anon
Pretty faces can be distracting too. Let’s not head down this road.
Anon
“Prison population foot fetish convo” hahahahaha. Is it bad I want this can of worms opened again?
Anon
Feet are common sources of stimulation for all humans. Take a look at the homunculus in the brain cortex where sensory maps of the human body locate feet right next to… you guessed it… the genitals. So there’s a bit of cross talk there… overlap….
No, not just for the mentally ill/inmates/teenage boys. All people. Maybe some folks who have more difficulty with self control hide it better, or people haven’t explored it so don’t realize.
Anon
What in the heck
PolyD
I do not think homunculus means what you think it means. A homunculus “is a small human being. Popularized in sixteenth-century alchemy and nineteenth-century fiction, it has historically referred to the creation of a miniature, fully formed human.”
I wear sandals to work all the time. My virtue remains intact.
Anon
I’m not signing onto the crazy here, but the cortical homunculus refers to this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortical_homunculus#/media/File:Sensory_Homunculus-en.svg
It’s a lot less obscure than the sixteenth century alchemy context.
Anon
This is pretty funny.
Yeah, that crazy homunculus picture is correct. We all learn it in Med school Neuroscience. Totally true. It’s quite interesting and most of it was determined by Neurosurgeons performing surgical treatments on patients with epilepsy, or from patients who have had strokes that cause them to loose sensation in part of their body.
Anon
Srsly may look into this as a side hustle. Can we get Only Fans but for feet?
Anon.
I didn’t make a post asking about foot cleavage. And most of the responses here are idiotic. Like the one about personal tools? What personal tools?
Anonymous
I don’t like seeing people’s snagglefoot at work, but I’ve accepted I’m the weird one. Society says feet are a-okay in professional settings now.
Anon
Me neither. I don’t like seeing men’s or women’s feet at work. It feels oddly disrespectful. I also really hate wearing open shoes (feels so vulnerable?) so this might be projection.
Cat
uh, FWIW, I agree with you. These shoes are the equivalent of wearing a nap dress to the office. Not omgscandalous, but not designed for work.
Anecdata
yeah, these would be fine at my office (she said glancing at her birks), but if they weren’t, it would be because they’re too casual, not because they’re immodest or something
Anonymous
Right. It isn’t about scandalous or even the visible feet appealing to someone. It’s just not workwear anywhere. I love them with the garden dress I bought them to coordinate with and I’ve worn them with a few other casual dresses and outfits on social occasions.
anon
This is the perfect analogy. No, these are not work shoes.
anon
Anyone else just see blisters from these shoes? Have memories of these from the last time they were popular being terrible uncomfortable.
Anon
Depends I think. I had a pair from Pay Less (RIP) that were surprisingly comfortable. I wouldn’t have walked 10 miles in them but they were fine for every day wear.
Anon
I have them in tan color, and they are remarkable comfortable. No blisters whatsoever. I also wear them to the office.
Anon
I’ve been volunteering once a week phonebanking for Kamala, and it’s been surprisingly fun! Most people hang up if they don’t want to talk to you, but I’ve had several good conversations with undecided voters (a large portion of the independents I called were undecided, which feels like there’s a lot of potential for persuasion!). For the decided Kamala voters, the coordinator provides a script you can use to give information on how they can access their ballots and find a polling place in their area.
They also say any phone-banking serves as good for data collection for the campaign – marking the Trump voters, the Kamala voters, and undecided voters so they can strategize GOTV efforts accordingly. I’m in a solidly blue state, but it feels like the closest I can get to knocking on doors.
I’d really recommend it for anyone looking for a tangible way to get involved! It’s one of many touches needed to remind voters to vote or sway undecideds, so the more volunteers the better in getting out millions of calls!
There are tons of opportunities on mobilize.us to peruse if you are interested :)
Anon
Thanks for posting and explaining what you are doing!
I joined my local League of Women’s Voters. I’m in a blue state in the midwest surrounded by red/purple states. There are a lot of colleges/universities/young people in my urban area and lots of the students are from out of state. So I do reach out events showing young people how to get registered and let them know if their home state allows them to vote via absentee ballot.
I figure the highest yield in my area is getting distracted and out of touch young people more engaged by getting them registered. So many people don’t vote. I figure it’s easier to get them voting than convince a Trump voter not to repeat.
Anon
btw – all of the events are organized by LWV. You can just choose when/where to help out for an hour or two when it works for your schedule.
Anon
This is amazing! I have been thinking that if all the students at colleges in cities like Philadelphia and Miami registered to vote and turned out, we could turn some swing states solidly blue! Getting young people registered to vote is major low-hanging fruit.
Anon
As a Philadelphian who stayed in state (but not in Philly) for college, IME students from solidly blue states change their registration to PA. Students from swing states usually keep their registration in their home state. I didn’t have any friends from deep red states, but my friend from Austin kept her registration in Texas so she could try to turn Texas purple (and vote locally in Austin for dems).
My friends from NY and NJ were fine to switch to PA for voting purposes, but a lot of my friends also came from purple states so their calculus was trickier.
Anon
I went to college in Philly and this was my experience as well. Basically everyone registered as a PA voter if they were from a solidly blue state (which most were).
Anon
So what’s the secret to not getting calls? I’m blocking numbers and politely asking when I do answer, but this is crazy making in intensity. I don’t remember nearly this number of calls in past elections.
Anon
Blocking the numbers and/or asking to be removed from the list is all you can do! There are a ton of different groups calling, so that’s likely why you’re still getting calls after requesting to be removed from others’ lists.
Anonymous
It’s the 90s Jan stop answering unknown numbers
Anon
So I’ll just ignore the potential calls from the il’s caretakers and the contractors working on our out of state property. I’ll still need to clear out the text messages and the voice mails.
Anon
I’m guessing you live in a key state?
I don’t answer unknown numbers.
Anon
Nope, not at all. Dependably blue.
Anon
If your state has early voting, go vote at the first opportunity. Once you’re recorded as having voted, you’ll come off the lists, if the orgs doing the calling are refreshing them regularly. Until then, there’s nothing you can really do except delete the messages and ask to be removed.
Anon
I had a surprisingly nice little (very quick) text chat with a volunteer the other day. He said his name was Robert and I said something like “if this is really Robert and not a bot, no worries. I’m voting for Kamala, but I’m not clicking your link”. Then he said yes he really is Robert, and the link is to sign up for phone banking. I still didn’t click it but I told him I would not be phone banking this time (I did in 2016) and then he didn’t keep bugging me. He was actually very polite.
Dimes Boot
Does anyone have the Dimes boot (either knee high boot or the ankle boot) from Madewell and can comment on comfort and quality? They fit my ideal boot to wear with dresses or pants but wondering if the price is too good to be true. I generally love Madewell shoes but the last couple pairs I’ve bought have been fine, not great.
Anon
Isn’t the point of shoes to protect your feet from the elements…?
Anon
Yes, clothes should be purely functional 100% of the time and that’s why we’re all congregating here on a fashion blog. Eye roll.
Anon
I don’t know if you knew this, but there are many fashionable shoes that perform the basic goal of being a shoe!
Anon
I think the basic goal of a shoe is to have something between the sole of your foot and the ground, which this shoe does. I don’t see how this is any different than a sandal.
Anon
How is this different than wearing sandals?
eertmeert
That doesn’t bother me as much as all the leather edges rubbing against my skin. I would have to lay down heel to toe Band-Aids to rock these :)
Anon
I can’t wait until you hear about sandals! Seriously though, just like sandals, there are places I would wear these and places I wouldn’t, based both on aesthetics and also on keeping crud off my feet.
Anon
These are clearly worse than sandals? Dirt and sweat will collect under each of the places where the strings intersect and cause blisters/chafing.
Anon
Your concerntrolling about these shoes is hilarious.
Anon.
Are we really going to discuss the controversial-only-on-this-page discussion of whether feet are sexy again? I mean, of course they are because people make a fortune on feet pics but the ladies here thought it was ridiculous that toes peeking out of sandals are inappropriate especially when dealing with vulnerable populations of men.
Anon
Omg can we please not do this again.
Anon
Haha, I missed that conversation but I genuinely hate seeing people’s toes at work. I keep it to myself, but ICK.
Anon
Same. I can live with a peep toe, which is not a current style anyway, but do I want to see all five of your toes in all their glory? At work? No thanks.
Eliza
+1000
Anon
Are feet enticing only to the mentally ill and prisoners, or a large percentage of other men as well? I feel like that changes when you should only cover your feet in prisons or if this extends to the workplace.
Anon.
Normla men should be able to work around women. Of course, sick or vulnerable men are not good with social norms so why wear toe cleavage if you are working with them?
Girl-on-a-wireless
Years ago, a close friend of mine renewed her drivers’ license during our lunch break. While she was waiting at the secretary of state, some rando asked if she would take off one of her shoes so he could sniff it.
Anon
I don’t think the issue of showing too much foot at work is about feet being sexy. I think it’s more about feet being sort of borderline gross. Not so much that they’re completely off-limits ever in public, but enough so that they’re not really appropriate in a formal environment.
(That said, I kick my shoes off the minute I get to my desk, but I do put them back on if someone comes by.)
Anon
This is why I don’t want men wearing shoes like this in the office anyway!
Anonymous
Only feet that are cute are baby feet. Those things are adorable. It only gets grosser after that.
Anon
Has anyone used PODS in advance of selling a home to sort through “need to take with me” things and then rented a dumpster to clear out the rest that isn’t suitable for donation? Is it super-expensive to store / retrieve them? That’s sort of my worry. Would be a move to 10 hours away from my current location and a major downsizing (house to 1-BR apartment).
Brontosaurus
So we did a cross-country, downsizing move and we did use PODS, but I’m not sure I understand your plan. Are you planning to keep the POD on-site at your current place, clear the house, and then sort items?
Anon
You should be able to get this info online by faking your way through a quote. We got them for my mom to do a big move last year and sort through things at her leisure, but I can’t remember what we paid. IIRC, the whole thing was maybe $12k after the coming and going of all the pods and the labor. I remember getting a quote from regular movers, and it would have cost us the same to just to go with them. So there’s really no cost savings – just the convenience of time to do the loading and unloading.
Anonymous
if you’re tired midday, when do you take a nap vs push through vs use a pickmeup like coffee?
Anon
For me, a nap is almost always the answer. I used to do it when I had to work in an office in person and I do it now that I WFH.
Wildkitten
Scientists say the best combo is to down a coffee and take a 20 minute nap so you sleep and wake up when the caffeine hits. That only works for me if you’re *so* tired you can fall asleep immediately in which case just go to sleep, so ymmv!
NaoNao
The “nappachino”! I too like this. To be fair it only works about 50% of the time but when it hits…divine.
ALT
If I’m working from home, I’ll use my “lunch break” as a nap session. If I’m at work, where it’s frowned upon to nap, I’ll power through or drink a coffee.
Anon
Being in an office almost full time, I can’t nap so I just push through or get an afternoon coffee
Anon
Neither. I can’t sleep at night if I nap or have coffee after noon.
Anon
Can anyone help me brainstorm ideas for a 3 or 4 night trip for my 40th birthday with a friend next May? We are looking for:
-Short or short-ish flight from Toronto so we’re not wasting a whole vacation day on a plane
– A beach that’s warm enough to swim
-Stuff to do other than lying on a beach
-No need for a car
-Adult vibe – we don’t want to be around lots of kids
-Not stupidly expensive
I’m thinking I might just book a Mexican all-inclusive and call it a day, because it seems to be the best value for food and alcohol. But I’m curious if there’s anything I’m not thinking of. I was looking at Charleston or New Orleans but WOW, hotels and restaurants are $$$ in Canadian dollars.
Anon
Hey May 1985 birthday buddy! Happy bday :)
I highly recommend a Mexican all-inclusive, but make sure you book an adults only resort because any resort that allows kids will have lots of families at that time of year (US schools start letting out for the summer in mid-May and even before school gets out you’ll find lots of families with toddlers). DH & I LOVED the Live Aqua resort there, although it was a while ago that we last went. I’ve also heard great things about LeBlanc which is a slightly higher price point.
Bermuda might be another option to explore, although I doubt it wouuld be cheaper than New Orleans or Charleston.
Anon
I’m also May 1985. DH and I are looking into a Mexican all inclusive. Were you there recently?
Anon
We haven’t been to that specific resort since before the pandemic but from online reviews it still seems great. We were in Cancun last year. We love that area and go most years. We have kids now so can’t stay at Live Aqua anymore though.
Anonymous
Yeah you’re describing a Mexican all inclusive
Annony
Have you considered Key West?
Anon
i work at the university where there was a murder suicide yesterday on the first day of classes. i am just so sad and distracted and i didn’t even know the student. my heart breaks for the student and her family, her friends and i also cant imagine living in a dorm where a murder took place. i’m just so distracted and need to figure out how to focus. i realize this is an unusual situation, but any tips?
Anon
That is devastating, I’m so sorry. Prioritize self-care and taking rest as you need it. Take walks, journal, do anything that will allow you to process and center.
Anon
No tips, but I did live in a dorm, a few rooms down, from where a famous murder took place a few decades prior. It was really odd googling your residence hall as an incoming freshman to find out where it was on campus only to find articles about the murder. Just something for administration to consider down the road.
Anon
How awful. I don’t have any advice except allow yourself to grieve and don’t be afraid to take off some mental health days if you need it. I also work on a college campus and a student was murdered here by a roommate last year. I don’t work in a student-facing role and didn’t know anyone involved at all, but it was still pretty devastating. A lot of staff and students were having a hard time and I think the university should have done more to support us. Hopefully your institution does a better job.
Anonymous
Like what? Not argumentatively but I’m in a position to advocate for this support and I’d love to know what would have been helpful.
Anon
At least one day of canceled classes for students and paid day off for staff would be a good starting point. Looks like OP’s university at least did the former; mine did neither. Making counseling services available for students and staff, especially those who knew the victim or perpetrator.
Anon
But dining hall and many other staff can’t get a day off — I feel like these days off are so performative. My guess is that some housekeeping staff will be tasked with literally cleaning this up — start with counseling for them and public safety and the actually impacted people maybe.
Anon
No, housekeeping staff don’t have to clean up a crime scene. That’s obviously it’s outsourced to professionals. I agree that the people closest should get the most support, but it was pretty hard on everyone on campus and I think a lot of people who have appreciated just one day to pause normal life. Even “essential” staff like janitors can and should be given the day off when something like this happens. University campuses aren’t hospitals; no one will die if everyone has a day off.l and it has been done in other circumstances like bad blizzards.
Anon
Public safety tho?
And dining halls aren’t likely to close if dorms are open.
Anon
They could give essential staff alternating days off. Like half of them are off one day and half the other day.
Anon
I don’t think being understaffed by 50% would improve anyone’s stress levels.
Anon
Trust me, 99% of essential staff are not actually essential.
Anonymous
We had a co-worker who was murdered and our office closed for the week, they brought in grief counselors and did both group and individual sessions for a few months and made it very easy to just pop in to the group session if you wanted to and didn’t have to share anything. Going forward, they have done some memorial-type things (scholarship, renamed a room, etc).
Nesprin
That’s awful- a campus is a community and losing a student in such a horrible way hurts the community, whether or not you knew the student.
Anon
I’m so sorry. I used to live in Houston, and I have many friends who attended Rice. I’d give yourself time and recognize that you’re going to feel rattled and distracted in a very unresolved way for at least a few days, more likely weeks to months off-and-on. There was a murder-suicide on the floor below me while I was in college. We were awakened by police pounding on the door first thing in the morning, shouting not to come out of our rooms until it was clear. Even though I barely knew the students involved, I felt sad, scared, and unsettled for a long time afterwards.
Anon
Unfortunately not very unusual, all four universities I’ve attended or worked at have had a murder while I was there, including a couple mass shootings, and suicides are pretty common, though they usually try to keep them quiet to prevent copycats. The universities have all done a pretty good job of providing support services and events for students, though staff don’t always get expressly included, especially those who aren’t in student facing roles, so if you feel like you’re in need of more support, make a point of seeking that out. Depending on your role on campus, you might feel more comfortable attending events on campus or just spending supportive time with friends and family or doing things to help you reset outside of work.
Seventh Sister
When I was in college, there was a murder-suicide at a different local college. Definitely scary and unsettling.
Anon
These violent men need to commit suicide and leave women alone. Sorry, not sorry. They are scum of the earth.
PLB
I could not agree more!
Anon
I was just looking for something else and came across this gem on the 2/26/2020 post in response to “should I stockpile some groceries and supplies?”: Haha good times.
– OMG Stop. It’s a bad cold for most people. My only fear is going on vacation this summer to Europe and getting stuck in a foreign country under some kind of lockdown/quarintine for weeks.
– What about getting stuck in your home under lockdown or quarantine, though? How are you going to get food and toilet paper?
– Amazon
– And if Amazon doesn’t have food and toilet paper because supply chains are disrupted?
Someone else responded with sarcasm about an underground bunker.
Anon
If you are the person who has been rage-posting about COVID, I think something else is going on for you. Kindly, most people have moved on, and there isn’t really a broader conversation anymore about who was right or wrong (or which precautions are right or wrong.) Take some space to journal about where your feelings around this are coming from…
Anon
I am not.
Anonymous
What purpose does this serve?
Anon
Serious question, why are you trying to rehash this right now?
Anon
Shockingly, in a truly unprecedented time, people did not know how things would play out. Stop the presses.
Anon
Genuine question: why are you trying to rehash an argument from 4.5 years ago on a topic most people have moved on from? It feels like you are really getting stuck in the past, in addition to wishing we were at a place in the pandemic discourse we no longer are.
Anon
The acute symptoms for most people were then and have always been the symptoms of a bad cold. (The lingering effects are very different, but not everyone cared about those then or now.)
I remember someone predicting supply change disruptions for years to come (correctly).
Despite everything we knew about the incompetence of the people running the USA at the time, I don’t think anyone predicted just how badly they’d bungle the response (no testing at first because they messed up the CDC test and declined tests produced elsewhere, contact tracing and suppression measures not designed for airborne transmission even though SARS-1 was airborne, lockdown instead of quarantine, and more).
Anon
Yeah it was a lesson for me that we absolutely cannot depend on government during crises.
Anon
It’s a shame, because the USA set the standard in public health for generations! I realize public health had been losing ground as political tides shifted. But that was like dropping off a cliff, and now there are people competing with each other to lower standards going forward. I can’t imagine what the public health will look like if that team gets a second term in office.
Anon
I know a lot of classic Democrats/pro-government liberals who are so disillusioned with the CDC in particular – going back to the days of “don’t mask because they don’t work for COVID, but make sure to save them for health care workers” and extending through now when the isolation/testing/masking guidelines are in no way evidence-based. Trust levels have absolutely plummeted among people who previously had no reason to ever distrust the agency.
Anon
I keep hoping Kamala will do more than Biden did to undo the damage. Biden honestly added to it with some of his poorly chosen appointees.
Anon
(Also, what but a government can really coordinate a successful public health campaign to respond to a pandemic? It feels like exactly the kind of crisis that could lead an anarchic people to come up with a government in the first place!)
Anon
“The acute symptoms for most people were then and have always been the symptoms of a bad cold.”
This isn’t true. Now, with vaccines, the acute effects are like a bad cold. Pre-vaccine the case fatality rate of Covid was 1.7% which, to put it mildly, is not a cold or even a flu. Colds can kill extremely immunocompromised people but they never kill healthy people and even a bad seasonal flu does not kill anywhere near 2% of people.
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/study-vaccines-44-covid-19-patients-icu-died
Anon
The acute symptoms for most ( = a majority of ) people were always like a bad cold. Even with vaccines, COVID has a higher fatality rate than any cold. These are consistent statements.
Remember that polio is totally asymptomatic for most people. It doesn’t mean it’s safe to catch or spread polio. It might mean that if polio were a novel virus in 2020, we wouldn’t have bothered eradicating it, since public health is more okay with writing off the people who draw the short straw these days.
Anon
Also symptoms are defined as things the patient notices and reports (asymptomatic doesn’t mean safe or fine; people can’t “feel” that their cardiovascular risk has gone up, etc.).
Anon
Well history proved the commenter you’re making fun of correct.
Anon
Actually it was the toilet paper comment that made me laugh in hindsight.
I did to a big grocery shop around that time and I’m super glad I did! But I didn’t think I’d need extra toilet paper.
Anon
Hoarding was the cause of a lot of supply chain problems. It’s kind of a chicken-or-the-egg thing.
txatty
I was just on a call dealing with an agreement discussion and, not shockingly, pandemics MUST be included in the Force Majeure clause of our contracts now and we are getting push back on that from the other side. And I quote from the other side’s business person “Something like Covid has happened once in my life. It could never happen again. This shouldn’t hold up this deal.”
I really felt like we all needed to knock on some wood.
Anon
I really don’t think a pandemic is an act of God – more like a failure of societal management!
Anon.
This, right here.
Anonymous
This is nerdy and technical, but force majeure is not the same as act of God and in fact often is triggered by an event that you might characterize as “a failure of societal management.”
Anon
I’ve come across old threads from that time and really didn’t enjoy reading them. That was a scary time and nastiness here didn’t help. I suggest just closing out next time you stumble on one – it helped me!
Anon
Yeah, I know I had my Shingrix vaccinations around that time & recall asking about it on here because they made me dizzy for a couple of days. I was just Googling trying to see if I could identify my own posts because I have to fill out a medical form that is asking me to put the exact dates of those vaccinations and I thought I could find them easily here.
Anon
FWIW I don’t really think the nastiness here has lessened.
Anon
I highly doubt she stumbled on it accidentally.
Anon
Believe what you want to believe, I guess. I was just laughing about toilet paper. I’m OP.
Runcible
Ha-ha, so funny to be concerned about supply-chain disruptions while not knowing how long all of this was going to last. Great sense of humor there. Knock it off — it’s not funny to make fun of panicky posters during an unprecedented pandemic and it’s not productive to repost about them. Shame on you for making light of a very human tragedy. Or whatever, you have to live with yourself; I can just collapse this comment thread. Sheesh.
Anon
Any recommendations on selling jewelry? I have a few nice pieces of diamond jewelry that were gifts over the years from my now ex-husband. They are just sitting in a drawer. I’d love to sell them and use the money to buy something I love or an experience that will bring me joy. Should I start with local jewelry stores? Somewhere online? Any recommendations appreciated!
Anon
The better bang for your buck will be having them dismantled then made into something that will bring you joy that you had a hand in designing.
Anon
True. You will get fleeced in the resale market. But if you just want to be done with it and move on with your life, see if there’s a Circa near you. They popped up on my instagram feed recently. I consign with an Etsy seller and it takes forever, but stuff does eventually move.
Anon
I did this with my “bold gold” from the late 90s and got a really nice solid gold bracelet out of it. They just melted down my earrings and one or two chains and now – boom – bangle.
But now I wear an Apple Watch and no bangle, so I wonder if I ought to do something new with all that gold! It’s fun to start from scratch.
Ses
I did this – just found a local jewellery consignment store with good reviews and they sold it for me and sent payment when it sold.
Anon
You’ll get only a tiny fraction of what it’s worth. Better to use the stones and have it remade, as someone else said. Years ago I followed a jewelry redesigner on IG – I wish I could find her now – she had the best before and afters!
Anon
Spur inNYC and Lauren is a Fox are both great reworkers with very different styles.
Anonymous
Just wanted to share a win that I can’t say in real life. My career switched pretty majorly recently and I’m now a SME expected to do a fair amount of public speaking. I attended a major conference in my industry with about 700 folks where I had to give a brief presentation and then moderate a panel related to the topic, and one of the panelists was the outgoing chairman of the organization. I was so darn nervous. Like literally keep your job or lose it stakes as our whole leadership team was in the audience, many of my new colleagues, and some investors the company is woo-ing (and our competitors). Afterward folks told me I did a good job. But I also recognize folks are always going to say that.
Anyway, I’m now going over video from the event. I have been procrastinating on reviewing. It’s always cringe watching yourself, and I can literally remember every moment of stress standing there and wondering whether I could keep us to the time points I was trying to hit or trying to listen to their points so I could make meaningful transitions. And you know? I honestly did do a really good job. I’m amazed that I don’t look at all nervous. I hit everything I needed to. I even made a few jokes at times that landed really well with the audience. I seriously knocked this out of the park.
I am so glad that was taped. I wonder how many other things in life we perceive one way when its really quite different?
I’m going to take this as a lesson to push myself outside of my comfort zone more often.
Anon
That’s awesome!
Good point about the discrepancy between our perception and actual outcome. I know I’m way harder on myself than I need to be most of the time.
Anon
Dumb question – but can people literally lose their jobs over one poor presentation?
Anonymous
OP here. In this particular circumstance it was. I was hired with the expectation for publishing, but it has now shifted considerably to live event speaking. Our leadership team sees this as most important for pipeline.
None of the events the rest of the year will be like this one though. The pressure with this one was the particular audience and me not having proved myself yet. I not only needed to prove my value to my employer as a speaker (not what I was initially for), but a lot of folks in the audience will control regional and state speaking opportunities with the host organization. So flub there, and you are going to have a hard time getting selected for more. (A lot of the speaker RFPs make you list past experience, and this event was the big “get” to judge us on.) I probably wouldn’t be let go right away. But you don’t get booked, and you lose value in having you. So it was indeed an “adapt or get out” sort of moment in time.
Brontosaurus
You crushed it! That is so awesome, well done!
And kudos for being able to watch yourself on video (my person hell is hearing my own recorded voice).
anonshmanon
YAY, you rockstar!!
Anon
Honestly, I don’t know if this will help you, but I often tape myself to prepare myself for anything that I think is going to make me nervous. The first time through my practice, watching that video is cringe city, but I do improve after doing it like three times, and then I usually realize it’s not as bad as I think!
Been there
Congratulations!!! I do a lot of public speaking and if it’s recorded, I always view it. It can be hard/cringy but it’s a good way to learn. It’s just as important to notice what you did well along with what you can improve. Well done!
Anon
I pretty much exclusively wear sandals to work in the summer, but these are ugly and, as stated above, not in a style for work (because they’re akin to a nap dress).
Nothing wrong with wearing a “revealing” shoe to work, but it has to be the right “revealing” shoe.
Moose
What sandals do you wear? Always looking for recs for work.
Anon
Not OP but I wore Birk Mayaris when I worked in person. I’m in higher ed though, so definitely pretty casual.
Girl, it's so confusing sometimes to be a girl
My beautiful, brilliant daughter has always been large, with a BMI well above “normal”. This year, she’s just started high school and she is really concerned about it. She’s getting teased a little, but mostly she feels profoundly self conscious. She’s stopped eating in public – she only takes fruit to school for lunch, and she refuses to order anything except soup at restaurants with us. We’ve always focused on health at any size and how you FEEL and what you can DO, not how you LOOK, but that is not very helpful to her right now when horrible 14 year old boys are making fun of her for being fat.
I do not want her to have to go through life in a body that makes her feel bad about herself. I’d like to explore with her whether she wants to do anything about her weight (like meds), but I also am concerned that she is developing signs of disordered eating. I frankly do not know what to do. I am quite confident that no amount of “diet and exercise” will really make a difference – she already exercises a lot and she’s still big. I think that, like me, she is a genetically large woman and dieting is going to just mess up her life for good. But she is really unhappy in the body she has. I’m not necessarily looking for advice, but if you have any experience in this universe, I would love to just hear about your experiences.
Anon
Ilona Maher is not a small woman and she is magnificent. If your daughter is active and just larger, maybe that is her tribe — she’d be an asset to a women’s rugby team.
Anon
Agree with getting involved with a team. It makes all the difference.
Anon
The field events at track and field may open her eyes to what an athlete looks like, especially a female athlete. We are not all waifs. Not all men like waifs. Sometimes sports get things righter than the non-sports world.
Anon
Michele Carter, who goes by ShotDiva on IG is a shot putter who is totally beautiful and into hair and makeup. She has the most upbeat social media and is a lovely person to follow.
Girl, it's so confusing sometimes to be a girl
I love Ilona Maher and follow her TikTok account! My daughter is already playing water polo and softball, both sports where there are surprisingly lots of body types.
Anon
Young, recently trained dieticians from good programs should be very sensitive about eating disorders (they almost err on the side of being just straight up against diets, but that is the side you want them to err on in this situation). I personally think eating only fruit for lunch already warrants a supportive conversation with a dietician. Everyone has to make decisions about what to eat every day, and most of us transitioned from eating more like a kid to eating more like an adult at some point. If there are signs that someone needs extra support with this, in my mind that’s what a good dietician who sees young people is for.
I went through something different as a young person (an at-the-time undiagnosed thyroid condition was making appetite and weight very hard to manage), and the dietician I saw back then in the 90s was not super helpful (“count calories and eat a lot of sugar free jello!”), so I’ve been glad to see these changes happening.
Anon
And food is tricky — it’s not like drinking where stopping is an option. Good fuel honors the body and lets it serve you well.
Anonymous
This is really helpful. I am skeptical of dieticians because I had such horrific experiences with them and it makes me just think of all the hours I wasted in a Weight Watchers meeting listening to people make suggestions like “Just use a smaller plate!” “Fill up on zero point soup!””Sugar free jello!”
It feels awkward to worry about disordered eating and obesity at the same time, but I am worried about both.
Anon
Look into the incredible work of Jillian Greaves, Michelle Shapiro, Erin Holt. They’re a new wave of change makers in this area. All three are dietitians that are doing great work, could not be further from weight watchers. All three have informative podcasts.
I was much like your daughter growing up, Jillian Greaves helped me change my whole relationship with food, while getting me the healthiest I’ve ever been. I would have given so much to have worked with her earlier in my life.
Anon
My experience is of being your daughter – I was 5’4 by 11 years old and by high school was larger (fuller bust, wider hips, just bigger adult size) than every single one of my peers, and many of the teachers too. I really feel for her. Other kids can be really horrific – one grabbed my batwing underarms from behind and jiggled them around in the cafeteria (I didn’t wear sleeveless tops for a decade after that), another told me in front of my then-crush that I would never have someone love me because I was too fat. I loved learning but dreaded being around my peers, especially dreaded getting dressed for school, and developed an eating disorder (bulimia, but no binge eating, rather I restricted what I ate at school just like your daughter). So I think your instinct that something is really urgent here is the correct one and offer my personal story to tell you it might be much worse than what you can see.
Here’s what I wish I had had: ways and time to make friends outside of school, awareness among administrators of this kind of bullying in the school, healthy food at home (my busy parents ordered take-out all the time and considered a giant Costco muffin a snack), and a greater understanding of nutrition.
If I had understood then how many calories my body needed in high school based on my activity level, and understood how many calories different foods have, I probably could have made educated choices about what I ate, such as prioritizing protein and fiber, or eating a big salad. But I didn’t know any of this, and neither did my parents, so I just tried to eat less often. Maybe for your family it could be different, and you could provide your daughter with the information to make her own choices, but you know better than an internet commenter what might work with her.
In terms of messaging, what would have really helped me in my home is hearing my mom talk positively about her own body. The one thing my mom did really do right was tell me that I just ‘grew faster’ and that eventually ‘everything would even out/other kids would catch up’. That helped me contextualize my experience as a temporary misery and it proved to be true. Promoting the variety of bodies that exist and do amazing things would have been helpful for me too – for example, look at the huge variety of women’s bodies at the olympics. It might have helped me see beyond the social bubble I was in. Finally, don’t make ‘her’ equivalent to ‘her body’. Shower your praise and affection on her personality, her kindness, her laugh, her sharp wit, all the things that make her her.
Girl, it's so confusing sometimes to be a girl
Thank you so much for this. I really appreciate that you shared your story and lots of great ideas.
anon
You’re an awesome mom and I wish so many people I care about had parents like you. On the flip side, I’ve seen parents encourage disordered eating to lose weight and it turns out badly for the kid.
I too would be concerned about disordered eating and my first stop for this kind of concern would be our excellent pediatrician, who could help figure out how disordered the eating is now, give practical advice, and refer to appropriate resources. I’m certain our pediatrician has seen a lot of kids going down this path. I hope you have an excellent pediatrician you can loop in.
Anon
I agree with this – there are too many parents out there who are secretly hoping that the disordered eating they’re witnessing will at least lead to weight loss and it needs to stop.
I also second the call for a ped visit. They can talk about the importance of nutrients for the growing brain and bones, for one, and hopefully help your daughter see the bigger picture. I hope it goes well for you.
Girl, it's so confusing sometimes to be a girl
I just emailed the pediatrician. Thank you for the push.
Anon
I don’t have any advice but I just want to say that you sound like an incredible mom. What a lucky daughter & family to have you on their side.
Anonymous
No don’t put your child on weight loss meds
Anon
This is overly simplistic. I could have written this about a 16-year-old family member. She has always (since early childhood) been large, and it got more serious as she got older. We are not talking about not being thin or being athletic with a BMI that is correspondingly high. I am talking could not ride rides Disney because she did not fit. To make it worse she has a sister who does not have the same issue.
She was very active though her early teens but started having serious issues with her knees, including surgeries. She was pre-diabetic. Her blood pressure was concerning. More important, she was miserable and self-conscious. She started restricting her food in public, but that just led to binging when she was alone. She started weight loss drugs six months ago and they are life-altering for her. She still has a long way to go but she is so much happier and more hopeful. And yes, she may be on them forever, but she was otherwise going to be on a list of other medications to manage her weight-related symptoms.
For some people, weight is a real health issue and should be treated like one.
Anon
I was bigger when I started HS and also had my share of disordered eating. I think my parents let me live off of apples for a solid month at 15 years old. I grew out of it and my weight eventually stabilized. But looking back, we always had snacks at the house and I was always eating. Real meals higher in protein would have helped me tremendously.
Plate by Plate book
I’m friends with one of the authors of a book that might be helpful: How to Nourish Your Child Through an Eating Disorder: A Simple, Plate-by-Plate Approach to Rebuilding a Healthy Relationship with Food
She’s a registered dietician with kids of her own, and she’s done a ton of work in this space to make sure it’s a healthy approach. She’s also generally body positive, encourages an active lifestyle, etc., so a more holistic approach.
I haven’t read the book because I don’t struggle in this area and I don’t have kids, but spending time with her makes me think the book will be helpful, and there’s nearly 300 reviews on Amazon resulting in a 4.7 star rating.
txatty
Anyone else considering flying to the UK to see Oasis next summer? I saw them two decades ago (where did the years go?) at ACL and I would really love to again. I know they say they’re coming to the US too but honestly I assume the Gallaghers will get into another whiny fight and cancel the whole tour after a handful of shows.
Anon
That’s my assumption as well.