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Updated: Sep 1, 2021 348 Comments · by

Thursday’s Workwear Report: Newport Tummy-Control Slim-Fit Pants

The Personal Shopper (TPS) |

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

I’ve been on a quest — some might call it “obsessive” — to find the perfect pair of work pants The winners so far have been the J.Crew Remi and this pair I stumbled upon on the Macy’s website. I wasn’t actively seeking out something with “tummy control,” but I appreciate that it gives a nice smooth look, even with an untucked shirt.

The pants are $41.59 at Macy's (marked down from $69.50) and come in sizes 4–18. They also come in black and white.

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Sales of note for 9.30.24

Sales of note for 9.30.24

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

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About Elizabeth

Elizabeth is a 30-something lawyer living on the East Coast. She spent seven years as a Biglaw associate in NYC, three years as a partner at a medium-sized firm, and is now in-house counsel for a large company. She loves Diet Coke, '90s sitcoms, and dresses with pockets.

Comments

  1. Anonymous

    I’m a private practice lawyer and realizing that 1) a particular area of practice (maybe 20% of what I do now) is one of the most lucrative for me, 2) I have a great opportunity as very few younger lawyers work in this area, but a new rule means there will be more work, and 3) this area causes me more stress than any other area of my practice. I only feel anxiety with this area— and I think it’s because I don’t have anyone to bounce ideas off or ask questions of.

    Any tips? I’ve thought about leaning into it and trying to develop an associate, although it’s not a big enough area of my work I’m not sure that’s possible, leaning out of it for my own stress levels, trying to build better national connections, only doing a discrete list of things within this area – I’m having a hard time balancing the business opportunity with how stressful it is.

    • EB

      Agree that we could give better advice if we knew the area, but one consideration might be whether it will be stressful forever. It sounds like you wish you had a mentor in the area. Maybe you could find one, and then it wouldn’t be so stressful. Or maybe if you did it more often, over time it would be less stressful because you would become more comfortable with it. That’s what happened with my law practice in general, so I would think it would be the same for you in this area.

    • Anonymous

      I have something like this, except that it’s not very lucrative so it’s easier to say no. If your practice can’t survive without it then my advice would be different. For me, I lean heavily on associates and other partners who specialize in this field. I’ll handle simple questions if I have time but otherwise it needs to go to someone else. I felt a little guilty at first but I got over it because it’s better for me in terms of liability and it’s more cost effective for the client to put them in touch with a specialist. I’ll do whatever handholding needs to happen to make sure the job gets done and the client is taken care of.

    • Senior Attorney

      How about joining a specialty bar association/practice group devoted to this area, so you can develop a network of people with whom to consult?

    • Anonymous

      I would take MCLE in the area, and then see if that helps you build a network of others with this practice.

    • Coach Laura

      If you’re going to do it long term, a way to manage, control and channel the stress and anxiety is key to your enjoyment, health and maybe even financial success. As others said, a mentor would be good. Are there any virtual conferences or groups that you could “attend” and then network and meet people? Even a peer instead of a mentor would be good. Especially a peer on the other side of the country who wouldn’t likely be a competitor. I often call contacts or peers in different areas or other companies and bounce questions off them. Like, “I have xyz situation and am considering abc actions. What do you think? Any other ideas?”

      Then to mentally deal with the anxiety, say to yourself, or write in your planner “Growth means stretching and stretching can be painful. This is just a temporary phase and I will manage it by getting more info/talking to people/releasing stress by doing fun things with friends/planning the steps to goal.” Since I don’t know what the particular triggers are for you, I’m not able to give more specific ideas but as you learn the area, the stress should lessen or you’ll be able to handle it better.

  2. Anon

    NY and NJ ‘rettes — how are you holding up after the torrential rain last night? My area (metro Detroit) had three rainstorms like that over the past year and they’re so tough – predicted 1 inch of rain, ended up getting nearly 8 in the span of two hours. The flooding was unlike any other and it took us a while to work through everything to clean up and file claims. If you lost anything, make sure you document everything to the best of your ability in both writing and pictures so you have backup for your insurance claims. Fingers crossed for you all.

    • Cat

      Don’t forget Philly… omg. Grateful our house stayed dry thanks to our block being just a few feet higher than the next one. Hope my fellow r-ttes are safe!

      • bbb

        Did water get in the houses? Just curious because, as a Houstonian, people will often say there is “flooding” which could mean either street flooding or water-in-houses flooding – two very different things. One is an inconvenience and one is a personal tragedy.

        I’m so glad you stayed dry.

      • Anon

        I own in deep South Philly and had no basement flooding. Our friends a few blocks east were not so lucky.

        • Anon

          My house is fine (I’m east of broad), but the flooding here is crazy – both roadways (676! Green lane bridge!) and in homes in some areas.

    • Anon

      I live on a steep hill, and have cursed that decision frequently over the past few years–particularly when I had to burn PTO during mild winter storms that stranded me but nobody else. But wow, is it paying off in this weather.

      I read a long post on r3ddit a couple of years ago about how to document your losses, created by an insurance adjuster. Be as detailed as possible about your lost items, and itemize them in a list with appropriate replacements linked via online shopping. Particular features that must be included for a reasonable replacement are key. So, don’t just say “coffee maker” but say “espresso maker with timer function, removable X and Y accessories, and gold filter” and attach a link to a comparable one at a web retailer.

      • Anon

        Also may be worth reminding people to check their insurance policies – homeowner’s insurance typically doesn’t cover damage due to water infiltration from the outside. You’d need a flood policy for that.

        • Anon

          +1
          Flood insurance is a federal program. Most people don’t buy it unless it’s required by their mortgage company, which in turn is determined by whether they’re likely to be flooded. So people who get flooded in non flood areas are often out of luck.

    • Anon

      NJ: had some water in my basement including a smaller carpeted area. Not a major loss though. Can anyone recommend a flooring material to replace the carpet? Vinyl plank or vinyl tile? I only have experience with hardwood and porcelain tile and neither is an option for my basement obviously.

      • Anon

        I’d probably put down something that would be easy to clean and easy to take up if this happens again – vinyl planks seem to fit the bill.

      • Anon

        Definitely LVP. It’s easy to clean, looks decent, and the least awful for acoustics.

    • Ellen

      I was suposed to go to the US Open today with my freind Fred, but he said that he could not pick me up because driving was to trecherous for him. So he is going to make it up to me by letting me go and stay with him at his posh place on the beach in the Hamtons. I am not sure about if I want to spend the whole weekend with him b/c I have not slept with him yet and would have to if I’m going to be there there 3 nites. I think he is thinking that it will happen as he asked me what kind of birth control I use and what I like for Breakfast. I am not really yet ready for any man to be huffeing and puffeing on top of me, even Fred, who I have known for months, and I do have another place for the weekend with Myrna. Any ideas?

    • Anonymous

      I drove from Hudson County to work in Essex County this morning, and there’s still lots of standing water and huge numbers of abandoned cars. A section of 78 was closed so I had to wind through the suburbs for 45 minutes. Lots of flood debris as well. My office picked a GREAT time to make us all start coming back in full time, really mad I couldn’t just work from home as I have successfully been doing for the last 18 months.

  3. Anon

    Thoughts on belts?
    I have seen tons of women’s pants like this with belt loops. But rarely do I see women actually wear a belt. Personally I think it’s just not necessay and causes extra trouble for me.

    • Anon

      I refuse to wear a belt unless I’m forced to, like when I had an unexpected funeral and my only black suit was three sizes too big.

      They give me stomach aches, dig into my flesh, and make an urgent bathroom break unnecessarily tense. If I legit NEED a belt, the pants don’t fit properly. (Caveat: I’m hourglassy AF and never have a problem with pants falling off. If you’re a straight stringbean, YMMV.)

    • Anon

      I love the look of a belt, but have a hard time finding one that I like and that stays in place.

    • Cat

      Never wear them and scarcely see them. I don’t like the added bulk or complications.

    • Anon

      I have to wear a belt with most pants because otherwise they fall down! I have big thighs/booty so pants are always too big in the waist.

      • Anonymous

        +1 million, still have not found pants that fit right and look good (small waist, athletic thighs, short inseam).

      • Anon

        I am the opposite, no booty and slim thighs. I always thought that the absence of hips and a** is why my pants slide down, and that hourglass folks fared better. Who knew?

        • Anon

          Agree with you, pants falling off with a small waist and big thighs makes no sense.

          • Curious

            Oh but it does… The opening is too wide so they slide down 2-3″ below where they belong. The saggy butt look is not my fave, but it’s my look if I don’t wear a belt.

          • Anon

            So it doesn’t happen to you because that’s not your shape, therefore you don’t believe the women are who are that shape saying it does?

          • Anon

            No, @12:02 PM, the opposite. It IS exactly my shape, thus why I’m saying it makes no sense.

    • anne-on

      I like the look of a belt to add a little definition/polish to a sheath dress, but had a hard time finding a good one. Kat linked to a few obi belts in the past, but I have two of these (burgundy and tan) and they are amazing – it solves the ‘how to make the belt ends look nice’ issue so well.
      https://thefoldlondon.com/product/britten-belt-burgundy/

    • anonshmanon

      I needed belts in the early years of this millennium, when all you could buy were super low rise jeans. I am glad we have moved on.

    • Jeffiner

      I can’t wear pants without a belt, they slide down on my hips. No belt loops on pants is a deal-breaker for me. I have an elastic lay-flat belt to wear if my top completely covers the waistband, and a few basic belts if you do see the top. I don’t match my belt to my shoes, but choosing a belt follows the same concept – some are accents, some are neutrals. An accent belt means neutral shoes, and vice versa.

    • MagicUnicorn

      I like the look of a belt but dislike how bulky buckles dig into my tummy and create weird lumps. Leather belt tails always seem either too long or too short, and D-ring belts are evil when the clasps go sideways and create chaos. However, now that life is somewhat more casual, I discovered that I actually like wearing a canvas belt with a flip-clip style buckle (no idea what they are called, but the Fjallraven Merano is what I mean). There are no preset holes in the wrong spots, and the buckle is very flat. They are comfortable, make me feel polished for real instead of like I’m just trying but failing, and I actually get compliments on my belt.

    • Pep

      My dad (former military) insisted that we kids wear belts with any pants that had loops, including jeans. I still wear belts almost all of the time out of habit.

    • Senior Attorney

      I am Team “If It Has Beltloops I Wear a Belt.” (Unless I am wearing an untucked top, in which case I may or may not skip it.) Empty belt loops look wrong to me.

      I have found that the key to belts is that the nice ones cost way more than you think they should. I’m wearing a belt today that I spent, like, $125 on about 10 years ago. At the time that seemed like an insane amount of money to spend on a belt but I have worn it multiple times a week ever since and the cost-per-wear is next to nothing at this point. I have a nice collection of nice belts now and I feel like they add polish to outfits.

    • Anon

      I sometimes need it to avoid my waist gaping if I need to sit, squat or lean over. This happens sometimes when I go to my volunteer activity. I suppose I could potentially avoid it if I tailored my jeans and pants at the waist, but I have only done that for a couple of pants and never for jeans.

  4. anon

    How do you deal with parents you’re close to really disappointing you? I’m in my early 30s and have always been very close to my parent, but they have some pretty big issues that sometimes pop up in the context of their interactions with other people. Parent is generally very selfish, quick to anger, and generally feels that whatever they do is justified by how they feel (usually about perceived or actual slights from others) but of course everyone else needs to act in ways very closely prescribed by parent, and parent is generally prone to outbursts and making a scene if things don’t go the way they want. Anyway, I have generally always been an exception for this type of behavior otherwise we wouldn’t be genuinely close, but the current impetus is that parent is now keep on snubbing a close relative who’s getting married who used to be close to parent, all in a bid to keep up a crazy grudge with parent’s sibling.

    I know this is vague I’m just really struggling with it. Parent genuinely means well and is a loving person, just has lots of issues and limitations that they can’t get over and don’t seem to be interested in doing, and I’m just……really disappointed. And I’m in therapy for other issues already, sigh.

    • Anon

      Sorry you’re dealing with this. Sounds similar to my parents, to be honest. The sooner you accept that this is the parent you’ve been “given” the sooner you’ll be able to move past. IME there is very little you can do to change behavior from a parent. Accepting is probably your best bet at this point. I wish I had a better answer for you!

      • Anonnymouse

        This is what I was going to say. It was an aha moment for me when I realized that striving for the relationship I wish I had with my parents, vs being accepting of the relationship I DO have, was just setting myself up for disappointment. Am I always great at this? No. But coming to terms with the fact that I can’t talk to my mom about everything, for example, has helped me a lot.
        This being said, this is also accompanied by me being appreciative of all the positive things I have in these relationships. It’s just the radical acceptance that they will never be perfect that takes work.

        • Anon

          You sound like my sister. She struggles with an idealized vision of what a visit back home will be vs what it actually is, and she’s inevitably disappointed.

          My relationship with my mom got better when I started seeing her for who she was vs who I thought she should be. She was flawed in ways that were different than my own flaws so I found them frustrating.

          It was when I let go of perfectionist goals for myself that I stopped having perfectionist criteria for my mom.

    • Geer

      Sorry. That sounds hard. Your mom sounds like my sister (who never meant to be a mean and spiteful person but she is so wrapped up in the hurt of how her marriage ended, and with it her economic stability and ability to provide for her kids beyond just keeping them fed and housed, that it has left her beyond the reach of reason and she has alienated almost everyone she has ever known). Hugs.

    • Anon

      I have parents that act this exact same way and I cannot be close to them. It is damaging to myself and my immediate family, so I had to set firm boundaries. They balked at my boundaries – and I don’t see much of them anymore. The description below fits my parent to a T, so I distance myself. It was hard at first, but I am so much better for it now.

      “Parent is generally very selfish, quick to anger, and generally feels that whatever they do is justified by how they feel (usually about perceived or actual slights from others) but of course everyone else needs to act in ways very closely prescribed by parent, and parent is generally prone to outbursts and making a scene if things don’t go the way they want.”

      • Anonymous

        Yeah I think you have a lot more unpacking to do if your own relationship and whether it is healthy

    • Anon

      I think part of growing up is realizing that your parents aren’t perfect and you don’t have to put up with their behaviour if you don’t want to.

    • anon

      My mom can be like this, albeit maybe not as extreme. It sucks, but I’ve had to make peace with it. It’s a process. Any attempts to even gently call out her behavior has not gone well, so I don’t try. And honestly, I feel some pity that she has never learned better ways of relating and her emotional intelligence is, well, lacking. It must be exhausting to go around holding that many grudges and seeing ill intentions everywhere, you know? I focus on the good parts of our relationship and just let the rest go.

    • Emma

      It’s hard. I’m an only child and very close to my parents, but they certain views that are… not my own and while I’ve had a great childhood, as I distance myself I have realized I internalized some crazy expectations and that they are kind of controlling. I’ve set boundaries- I live far away, I visit them and speak with them regularly but refuse to engage on certain topics and keep some parts of my life private.

    • anon

      I haven’t read it but I have heard recommendations for a book called something like Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents

      • Anon

        that book was amazing and was the gateway to so many others. highly recommend

    • Anonymous

      It took me a long time to realize that my relationship with my family members is not contingent on my parents. My mom went through a lot of drama with like half the family when I was a teenager and as a result I never had contact with them after that. My much-older brother maintained contact on his own and has managed to salvage relationships with some of them. Your parents aren’t going to change but you can try to nurture your relationships with other family members despite your parents actions.

    • Anon

      Hugs. It’s really hard when you know your parent could be/do better, but they don’t seem to have any interest. Unfortunately, you can’t make your parent change. You can only enforce boundaries that keep their poor behavior from impacting you and your relationship. I’d advise you to work on that. I’m right there with you and it’s not easy.

    • BelleRose

      “Parent is generally very selfish, quick to anger, and generally feels that whatever they do is justified by how they feel (usually about perceived or actual slights from others) but of course everyone else needs to act in ways very closely prescribed by parent, and parent is generally prone to outbursts and making a scene if things don’t go the way they want.”
      Sigh. Sounds so familiar, but unfortunately the parent is my MIL so that’s a whole ‘nother set of issues as well. Sending commiseration and sympathy!

  5. Anonymous

    Did anyone read The New Puritans in the Atlantic this week? It’s pretty chilling and just plain sad. Whatever you think about “cancel culture,” it’s worth a read. Personally, one of my takeaways is that I want an end to self-censorship not only because it leads to worse ideas, but because I have seen how stifled, formulaic, and pre-approved discourse has become in my circles (whenever controversial issues come up). Sometimes I hear the same viewpoints expressed near-verbatim. Anyway, good long read for upcoming long weekend.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/10/new-puritans-mob-justice-canceled/619818/

    • Anonymous

      Yeah I did and I think it’s nonsense. The actual puritans are still here. They are winning. TX banned abortion yesterday. It is not safe to be a black man in this country. People who do not confirm to gender expectations are murdered. Conversion therapy is still a thing.

      • Anonymous

        “Conforming to gender expectations” is protective for men. It’s not for women. There is no behavior or clothing or mannerism that women can adopt to protect themselves against sexual and physical violence, but men who adhere to stereotypes of masculinity are generally less likely to be abused by other men.

        • Anon

          And the reverse is also true. Men who do not conform to gender stereotypes are more likely to be abused by other men. And in many ways hyper-masculinity and all the negative things that entails are efforts by men to protect themselves from that abuse.

      • Monday

        All of this. And, of course, vaccines are considered suspicious and it’s better to risk their own and everyone else’s lives than get one.

      • anon

        For every book that ‘woke’ teachers decide not to focus on their curriculum because it , there are 10 books and movies being delisted in libraries on account of right wing evangelicals boycotts. For every harasser removed from a position of enormous privilege, there are 10 being protected by their colleagues, thereby signaling that it’s ok to exploit or demean people, as long as you drink the Koolaid, your cult will side with you.
        It makes me mad how freedom of speech, which used to be a protection for people speaking truth to power, is being used as a veil for spreading lies.

      • Monday

        +1. We never get rants about women or POC who get “canceled” for advocating for basic rights, but it’s far more common. I like Anne Applebaum’s other writings, but this is dumb.

        • Anonymous

          I can’t agree with you there. There are plenty of women who have been canceled (or attempted canceled) under extremely messed up circumstances, but setting that aside, I think the article is well-researched and argued. It’s certainly not “dumb” even if you personally disagree.

          • Monday

            I said “canceled for advocating for basic rights.” So yes, we heard rants about, for example, the canceled woman who tweeted a joke about how she was going to get AIDS in Africa. But nobody is up in arms about the backlash Moira Donegan got for starting the Sh*tty Media Men spreadsheet. They were busy defending the men. Basically all women who do similar things publicly get death and r@pe threats like clockwork.

            I can say “missing the forest for the trees, in a way that always favors privilege” instead of “dumb.”

      • Anon

        The podcast “You’re Wrong About” did a great episode on this. They basically argue that “cancel culture” became a thing people talked about when white men started getting canceled instead of women or POCs.

    • Anonymous

      I self censor, the stakes are just too high if I accidentally say something wrong. There’s a lot of seemingly innocuous ways to be offensive so the choice is risking everything or having a disingenuous conversation, it’s a pretty easy choice.

      • anon

        Agreed. I do not discuss political or hot-button cultural issues on social media, in the workplace, or in any social setting where I’m not extremely comfortable with everyone there.

        The only person I have seen feel comfortable publicly challenging some of the current orthodoxy on cultural issues (in this case, my company’s shift to equity focus rather than equality of opportunity in hiring) was a senior south Asian male exec. A white person who raised the same question would 100% have been disciplined based on our current DEI policy.

        I’ve also witnessed a serious movement within my company to try to terminate our provision of services to a Catholic NGO in another country on the basis that NGO advocated for traditional Catholic social values (i.e., was against abortion in most cases and against SSM although in favor of civil union) in a deeply conservative Catholic country. The fact that this NGO also argued for significant expansion of social safety nets for low-income mothers and children, prohibition of discrimination against unwed mothers, and for the abolition of the death penalty was not enough to appease those who felt that our ethics as a company meant that we could not serve an organization that took these positions. I was only able to prevent this by pointing out the massive media blowback that would come from us essentially saying “traditional Catholic social teaching is morally abhorrent to us.”

          • anon

            Great! So what determines whose moral beliefs get to rule the day? Because I believe that aborting children simply because they’ll have Down’s Syndrome is horrifying and I’d like to prohibit any org that advocates for allowing abortion on the basis of disability from receiving services from my company.

          • Anonymous

            Yep. Left the Catholic Church b/c I decided their political teachings disagreed with my morality (love is love, abortion is complicated so women should get to choose).

    • Thank you

      Thank you for sharing. Agree that there is an awful self-censorship and the mob can come for anyone.

      • AIMS

        I don’t self censor but I also think that this is just what happens when so many people live their life online. It’s much easier to have strong reactions to what someone “says” in writing than in an actual human conversation. But the whole thing is much more nuanced than either side of the cancel culture debate likes to admit. I don’t know what the answer is other than to spend less time on social media, which probably isn’t going to happen for most people. thanks for sharing the article, I’ll read it.

    • Anon

      Interesting article…watch The Chair on Netflix-an entertaining tale about these social challenges in an academic environment.

    • anon

      I read it and it very much resonated with my experience. I will full on admit that I’m afraid I’d lose my job (a somewhat prominent legal position at a public company) if I admitted to any of the following beliefs:

      -Racism and s*xism are real, although less pervasive than they once were.
      -The right approach to combatting the influence of racism and s*xism is working to ensure equality of opportunity.
      -Positive discrimination to try to achieve equality of outcome (the “equity” approach) is wrong. The answer to past wrongdoing (discrimination) is not to wrong other people in the present.
      -Free speech is a core value of our society even when it’s abhorrent, offensive, or unpopular.
      -We are a s*xually dimorphic species and biological s*x is a reality. Gender, as opposed to biological s*x, is socially constructed and how gender is presented varies significantly across societies. The vast majority of biologically female people have a female gender identity and it is okay to conflate the two in most circumstances, particularly because the combination of biologically female s*x and female gender identity has been the basis of massive societal discrimination and violence over the years. This does not mean it’s okay to be an a**hole to tr*ns people or to misgender them or to discriminate against them – it is affirmatively morally wrong to do that.

    • Anon

      I’m sure it really sucks for people who felt like they had the power and the privilege to say anything they want, about anyone they want, at any time to realize that actions have consequences, and people will now hold them accountable for saying things that betray their innate and ever-present racism, sexism/misogyny, ableism, homophobia, etc. Because that’s really what this is about – people can no longer get away with saying they had a “verbal slip” or the ever-popular “I’m just asking questions!” when their prejudices get displayed. If you don’t want to be held accountable for saying things that display your prejudices, one option would be to recognize your own biases and work to rid yourself of them. If that’s too uncomfortable for you, not running your mouth and putting your biases on display is definitely the better idea. It is not the job of everyone else in a room to make YOU feel comfortable because you’re wealthy, pretty, came from a good family, went to a good school, have a good job, or whatever other justification you want to come up with for your behavior and mindset.

      • Monday

        This too. “Cancel culture” is really about privileged people feeling that equality, or even anything remotely approaching it, is oppressive. Because compared to absolute unquestioned supremacy, it is. I understand but I don’t sympathize.

        • Anonymous

          Monday, this sounds an awful lot like a couple of Instagram infographics I’ve seen floating around. What do you really think?

        • Anonymous

          You’re wrong. Cancel culture is people objecting when someone says something they don’t agree with, to the point you feel that person should be silenced. It’s very real, and is ruining education and open discourse.

          • Anonymous

            Personally I think “cancel culture” is when someone has gone off on a tangent and has been using their voice/privilege, loudly, to advocate for something I don’t agree with, and it means I can’t enjoy their original art without thinking about the later discussions. Harry Potter/JKR for sure – I really liked News Radio back in the day but Joe Rogan and Andy Dick have sullied the memory. Wagner music. Sia and autism. (SO sad b/c I really liked Sia.)

      • Anonymous

        No, that isn’t it. We’re not talking about the “right” to say racist things without consequences. We’re talking about self-censorship to the degree where you cannot express a view like anon at 10:30 has described above – something like how “equality of opportunity” is more just than “equality of outcome.” That is a legitimate viewpoint. It is not offensive or morally abhorrent. But it would 100% get her fired and that is wrong.

        We are also talking about proportionality. If you read the article, you’d see that historically, ostracism is one of the most severe punishments any community can enact on one of its members and it can drive people to suicide. I am not okay with that outcome for someone who says something innocuous, but makes the mistake of doing it in front of someone out for blood.

        • Anon

          I read the article. Minimal sympathy for privileged people (Amy Chua? FFS) whining about how they have been victimized because people have dared to ask questions about their behavior and their viewpoints. I don’t have time to go Google all the names, but how many of those poor, downtrodden people quoted in the article are white men? I am watching The Chair right now and what I’m getting from it is not that we are overdoing it in terms of “political correctness” – it’s that it’s amazing how emboldened white men are and have been about feeling they should be able to say literally anything and not ever be questioned about it or experience consequences from it. Please spare me the sympathy for people who have benefited in innumerable ways from structural racism, and are just now waking up to the fact that maybe they don’t actually deserve all the things that have been handed to them in their lives.

        • Monday

          Who has been fired for expressing that viewpoint (and for doing nothing but that)?

          • anon

            I am the poster at 10:30 and I can tell you that I am very confident that expressing that viewpoint would result in, at the least, being disciplined in my company. And I am not a conservative – I am a lifelong Democratic voter and have documented results as a person who successful builds and leads diverse teams. I’ve gotten awards for it. But this would absolutely be enough to significantly damage my career at my company.

            I should also say that I think this issue is not actually a left/right one. I’ve been on the other end of years ago when my SEUS law firm told me that I could either stop including anti-death penalty work in my professional bio or quit. Tolerance for dissenting views used to be a virtue on the left – one we had to defend against the right. Now it seems to be disfavored everywhere.

          • Monday

            So this sounds like taking some heat at work. But it’s not “100% get her fired.” I am genuinely interested if anyone can link to an example of someone losing their job solely for expressing a thought like that.

            It’s true that people have to take professional risks at times in advocating for what they feel is right, anywhere on the political spectrum. It’s hard, and I’ve done it myself.

          • anon

            “Taking some heat at work” is not so easy when you’re a single mother and the sole support of a child, as I am. And if I did lose my job over this, then no comparable institution would hire me.

          • Monday

            I’m not saying that getting fired isn’t a big deal. I’m saying I’m not aware of any instances where it has, over the issue we’re talking about and to the people we’re talking about.

      • Anon

        Yeah everybody who whines about “cancel culture” is whining about people experiencing consequences for their actions. They don’t have my sympathy.

        • Anon

          If we administered the death penalty for aggravated assault, would people opposing that be “whining about experiencing consequences for their actions”?

          Also, speech =/= conduct.

        • Anonymous

          Many of the examples in the article highlight that people ARE deserving of your sympathy – unless you truly believe that driving someone to suicide is the appropriate response when he or she has expressed an opinion that someone else disagreed with. Do you?

          • Anon

            I think people who consider committing suicide because someone “disagreed with their viewpoints” either need mental health care because there’s actual pathology there, or are terrified that they’re going to be outed for some really bad things they’ve done. Why do so many people accused of pedophilia or rape commit suicide in the face of overwhelming evidence they are guilty? It’s not because people are mean and their feelings got hurt. It’s because suicide is preferable to experiencing the consequences of their actions.

          • Anonymous

            “Sometimes advocates of the new mob justice claim that these are minor punishments, that the loss of a job is not serious, that people should be able to accept their situation and move on. But isolation plus public shaming plus loss of income are severe sanctions for adults, with long-term personal and psychological repercussions—especially because the “sentences” in these cases are of indeterminate length. Elliott contemplated suicide, and has written that “every first-hand account I’ve read of public shaming—and I’ve read more than my share—includes thoughts of suicide.” Massey did too: “I had a plan and the means to execute it; I then had a panic attack and took a cab to the ER.” David Bucci, the former chair of the Dartmouth brain-sciences department, who was named in a lawsuit against the college though he was not accused of any sexual misconduct, did kill himself after he realized he might never be able to restore his reputation.”

            Only one of these two men had been accused of sexual misconduct. The one who was not killed himself. Everyone here has talked about how social isolation during the pandemic is hard and that mental health is reason enough to open up the economy – but this is even worse because of the social shunning/rejection. It is absolutely a grave consequence.

      • AIMS

        I mean sure but also all people, including many of those who are the “privileged” used to have to pretend and say all sorts of things like they believe in g*d or the very idea of communism is evil, or that gay marriage is an abomination, or that women should not want good s*x or they would lose their jobs… I think just pretending that everyone who complains about “cancel culture” is just mad about their own personal shangri la being taken away is being a little dishonest, or maybe just forgetful/naive.

        And not acknowledging the huge tension between this and free speech rights is also crazy to me. I don’t mean this so much in the “Facebook ban” sense but read about the debates happening internally at the ACLU right now about who they should and shouldn’t defend. It’s way more complex and problematic than gets discussed much in these conversations.

        • Monday

          I agree that legal rights to speech is a different issue with a much higher bar for censorship. The ACLU has to grapple with that, and I don’t envy them having to make those judgments. But in most cases, we’re just talking about people’s social capital, positions of professional authority, or at-will employment.

          • anon

            Honestly, you’re acting like social ostracism and being fired are NBD. They are, in fact, a huge deal for most people. That’s why shunning is an effective and brutal means of social control.

          • Monday

            The shunning never lasts long though? Google anyone who was formerly canceled and they’ve always landed on their feet. Usually much sooner than you’d think.

          • Anonymous

            I agree. Monday, do you honestly, truly believe that being shunned to the degree described in the article and losing your job (and in the U.S., losing your health insurance as well) is the appropriate course of action for expressing a political viewpoint? It’s an extremely severe and damaging consequence. The article also illustrates how apologizing and trying to make it right is now basically impossible – there’s no forgiveness, no acknowledgment that people make mistakes. Do you truly believe in this?

          • Monday

            I believe that:

            1) People are rarely canceled simply for expressing unpopular beliefs. Applebaum left out important aspects of several of the cases involved, background that makes the cancel-ees much less sympathetic. Jessica Valenti’s response linked above gives details. Why use examples like these, leaving out pertinent information, if the person is fully defensible?

            2) As I said, “cancelations” never stand for long.

      • Anonymous

        Ha ha. I don’t care. Play victim for the rest of your life. God for you, not for me.

    • Anon

      I don’t think this is a real thing in the real world. Academia can be pretty weird though. I’ve seen some truly wild assumptions made about people’s politics if they’re not in absolute enthusiastic lockstep with the norm or because they missed some trending shibboleth. The assumption is that this always means the offending scholar is right wing, even when this is absurdly far from the truth (I think actual right wing scholars often get more respect as the department curmudgeon that everyone loves to hate).

      • Monday

        Spoilers for The Chair ahead.

        Bill had waaay more leeway than his female or POC peers when he wasn’t showing up for work, showed up under the influence, seemed to be considering sleeping with a student, etc. Then once he made a political gaffe, he was given numerous openings with both students and admins to clarify and make things right. He didn’t take any of them, on principle. Only after all of that was he fired. The show has its problems, and of course academic culture has huge problems, but I think this was a pretty accurate depiction of what happens. Most established white male academics with offensive views and/or documented histories of assaulting or harassing students, are still securely in their jobs.

        • Anon

          Yes, this! This plot point was so true to life (except the part where he actually got fired). The Professor Is In’s Google Doc of harassment stories didn’t include a lot of stories with consequences, which is true to what I’ve seen.

          My observation is that “cancellation” campaigns often hurt people who are vulnerable to begin with. I’ve seen some very privileged people wield faux wokeness against rivals who are PoC, international scholars, or from poor backgrounds; I think the reality is that it’s just easier to punch down.

          I’m still grateful that academia is a place where people are held to high standards (I don’t sympathize with 10:30 anon above). But guys a lot worse than Bill do just fine with their “freedom of speech” and/or their “predilection for blondes,” while people who don’t fit in as well are under a lot more scrutiny and have to choose their words carefully.

    • Super Anon (which is the point)

      Unfortunately I think we have reached the point where orthodoxy has taken over (on both the right and the left) and the expression of opinions that do not comply with the “accepted” ones have real world consequences that far outweigh the “sin” that as committed. And it absolutely leads to self-censorship.

      I can hear the chorus of people saying “this is not cancelling; it is consequences.” And yes – sometimes that is the case. But often it is not.

      I am going to give an example from my own experience. I was required to attend one fo those workplace seminars about racism. As part of it, they presented us with a list of “white” characteristics. And it included things like being on time; logical thinking; delayed gratification (and it went on). If it had been presented at a KKK rally, it would have been rightly identified as incredibly racist. And I could feel the murmurs around me that this was ridiculous. Being on time is a necessary aspect of being an attorney and the implication that non-white people are somehow not inherently capable of it is absurd. But not a single person – including me – said a word. Because you do not speak out against the orthodoxy without taking a professional risk. And there is no benefit to me in taking that risk.

      • Anonymous

        We had something similar happen during a training. The trainer was a woman of color and had displayed a “fact” on her PowerPoint slide that was obviously, clearly wrong – it looked like a typo or just a plain and simple copy-paste error. Three people messaged me privately about it, but only one person tentatively tried to mention it in the moment and then quickly stopped and said “never mind.” It was honestly absurd.

      • Anonymous

        I went to a meeting where the scientific method was called ‘white’ attendees were unimpressed but no one was brave enough to say anything

      • Anon

        I think this is being really poorly communicated in these workshops. It’s more about the importance placed on these cultural expectations and their historical baggage (which historically often is northern European, protestant, capitalist, colonial, and slaver). It’s about whether people view these expectations as making life better or worse on average, and the response to non-compliance (is it pathologized? criminalized? do people read ill intent where none exists?). When it comes to who is and isn’t capable, it may be helpful to read about “criptime” and other discussions of intersectionality and the historical connections between ableism, race, and eugenics. I think there are important things to discuss here, but it sounds like the point is being completely lost in presentations like the one you’re describing.

    • Anon for this

      I agree with this and I am not remotely conservative.

      In the past, I have also had my mind by expressing views that I now consider to be wrong. More recently, I try to mostly just shut up because I’m afraid of being attacked for saying something outside the current party line.

      You can be as angry as you want about it, but that is how I feel at the moment.

      • Super Anon (which is the point)

        And to add on to my prior comment, what I have mostly learned as a white person from the current orthodoxy is (1) I can give money to approved organizations but should otherwise stay out of it for fear of being accused of “making it about me.” In any discussion about racism, I can nod and agree with whatever is said, including that I am an irredeemable racist because I am white. (2) I should just not talk to BIPOC in my office beyond “good morning” because even the most inane comment can be construed as a micro aggression and I am always wrong when that happens. (And before I am accused of exaggerating – did you know that complimenting the work product of a Black co-worker is racist because it implies you are surprised by their ability?); (3) White people and Black people cannot really be friends because friendship implies equality and the ability to have honest discussions. I am apparently allowed to be friends with Asian-Americans. The jury seems to be out on “Latinx” (a term which every person I have ever met to whom it applies hates but we all have to use anyway). Which is good because I live in LA and half the people I know and hang out with are Mexican-American.

        I could not say any of this under my own name because I would at the very least be “counseled” and I might be fired. Not to mention my clients would be pressured to drop me. And that might not be a big deal for some people but I have a kid and a mortgage.

        And it makes me crazy because it 100% plays into the message from the Trump supporters. And if it makes my life-long Democrat, pro-choice, pro-gun control, pro immigrant, pro-LGBT rights self furious and frustrated and inclined to disengage from political discourse, I can only imagine how its plays to swing voters.

        • Anon for this

          This hasn’t been my experience at all and is very different than what I was talking about

        • Anon

          …I think you need to talk to real POC, it doesn’t sound like you have interactions beyond vaguely friendly work relationships if that’s the conclusion you’ve made about ALL those groups – you’re very much making sweeping statements which is a huge problem. And uniquely all of it has to do with how YOU feel victimized…I hope you can understand the problem there. If you want your world to remain well…just like you that’s fine but don’t make yourself the victim.

        • anon

          your #2 sounds a lot like ‘welp, I can’t have substantive work conversations with female colleagues, because anything I say could be construed as sexist’. It comes across like you aren’t interested in learning how to interact with people of color.

          • Super Anon (which is the point)

            You are missing my point. I was expressly told at a seminar put on by my employer that saying “Nice work on x” to a co-worker who is a person of color is racist. Naturally that is ridiculous and it does not stop me from talking to my co-workers (although my non-white colleagues are much more likely to be Hispanic than Black due to where I live and work). But when you tell people that even the simplest comment is racist, despite their intent, and that they face disciplinary consequences for making them, you are seriously limiting their willingness to interact with those co-workers. Which is not helping anyone and leads them to discount whatever else you are saying.

            But one CANNOT point that out in public and under one’s own name. Because if you do so, people will cause you of making generalizations and not being willing to engage with POC.

  6. Anonymous

    I’m wondering how or if to question my office’s new Covid policy. My office wants everyone back in the office at least PT, no exceptions. Before FDA approval, unvaxxed employees had to wear masks in common areas. It’s not that large of an office so I know who was unvaxxed. As soon as FDA approval came out, the office prohibited unvaxxed employees from coming into the office anymore, and anyone who doesn’t have a valid reason to not be vaxxed within 8 weeks of FDA approval will be terminated. In other words, all the unvaxxed employees need to wfh until they’re either vaxxed or fired. Well, some of the higher level employees who were unvaxxed at least as of a few weeks ago are continuing to come into the office. At least they’re wearing masks. I’m really uncomfortable with this idea that my office doesn’t have to tell me if I’m being exposed to an unvaxxed person either because 1) the office isn’t enforcing its policies or 2) the unvaxxed people have excuses the office considers to be valid. If it’s their choice whether to get the vax then why isn’t it my choice to whether to be exposed to them? Or at least to be informed?

    • Anonymous

      I would address it with HR. I absolutely agree that it is your decision. I’d probably just look for another job though – “everyone in the office no exceptions” doesn’t fly with me anymore.

    • Anon

      FDA approval came out like a week ago, right? so some of the people coming in i guess could be in the process of vaccination, though then i suppose based on the policy, if they are unvaxxed you shouldn’t be coming in at all until your vaccination kicks in? who was in charge of coming up with and implementing this policy? technically the valid excuses should be pretty narrow. for the people who are unvaxxed and have a legitimate excuse – are they allowed to come in right now?

      • OP

        You’re correct, only fully vaxxed people are supposed to come in the office. So if someone just got their first shot they shouldn’t be coming in. Unvaxxed people with a valid excuse are allowed to come in.

    • Anonymous

      If you have some heightened issue that means you being vaccinated and wearing a mask isn’t safe enough request an accommodation. If not, you aren’t entitled to other employees info and need to focus on yourself.

      • OP

        Yeah I suspect this is how they would react too. I guess I’m just mad about it. I understand that I am not entitled to other employees’ medical or religious information, but I don’t agree that something bland actually discloses private information: “Bob is allowed in the office unvaxxed.” Meanwhile Bob has spent the summer and plans to spend the fall flying all over the country to attend big graduations, weddings, family reunions, and vacations where he posts pictures of himself in packed bars. I would feel more comfortable if I knew he was vaxxed but instead I have to just try to avoid him as much as possible? Like why is Bob allowed to be unvaxxed but I’m not allowed to know whether he’s unvaxxed?

        It’s bizarre to me that vax status is this private thing. Like, I can’t get a flu shot because I’m allergic to one of the components, I always thank my coworkers who get flu shots because they’re keeping me safe! If I needed to wear a mask during flu season to return the favor then I would. I think it’s only fair for everyone to know their risks.

    • NYNY

      Are you certain that those people are unvaxxed? Current guidance is to wear a mask indoors around other people, vaxxed or not.

      Either way, I would ask the powers that be about delta variant guidance and enforcement policies. Be professional, but also be a pain in the ass. And maybe make your PT in the office as PT as possible until you’re sure how they’re handling enforcement.

    • Anon

      Vaccine policies still have to comply with Title VII and the ADA, so they may very well have a medical or religious exemption. If they just do not want to get vaccinated then that’s a totally different story.

    • PLB

      The required legal exceptions to a vaccine mandate are medical or religious. Maybe the individuals you’re referring to have one or the other. It would be fraught for your employer to have other, subjective exceptions, but that could be the case I guess.

    • Anon

      Who are the higher level unvaxxed employees? Are you certain they’re unvaxxed? Everyone in my office is vaxxed and also wearing masks around. I know no one “higher level” (presumably higher income) that isn’t vaxxed at this point .

  7. Another anon

    Any fellow wallpaper lovers want to help me pick something for my small home office / gym? I want to do something fun and feminine that will look decent as a zoom background. Room doesn’t get a ton of natural light if that matters!

    • Anon

      To me, fun and feminine = Katie Kime. Not sure how that will come off on zoom, but I do love it (not enough for wallpaper, but for the pajamas in the same print, I have NYC but do love the Marfa Toile and the Dallas Toile). It’s not all various toiles.

    • Anonymous

      I just bought some wallpaper I love from Lord Twig. It’s a small curated collection and the customer service was great.

    • Anon

      I’d browse anthropologie! great wallpaper selection and definitely fun and feminine included.

  8. Embarrassed Anon

    Guys, I’m embarrassed about this but I haven’t been to the dentist in over 10 years. I don’t really have an excuse other than I just didn’t prioritize it. I know I just need to make an appointment and go but I’m so worried I’m going to have like 20 cavities or worse. Anyone waited awhile to see one and it turned out ok? Or any horror stories so I can prep myself for that?

    • Go for it

      Yes, this was me a long time ago. Don’t sweat it. Even those of us who now go regularly still have plaque, stains, and cavities. Just do it and you’ll be happy you did.

    • Anon

      I didn’t go to dentist for 5 years (anxiety, lack of insurance, other factors). When I finally went in, last year, I had a LOT of plaque, but the dental hygienist was really kind. We had to schedule additional sessions to remove the plaque (I think 2 sessions total) plus follow-up sessions at 3-month interval. I ended up having cavities in 3 teeth but was able to get those fixed without needing a root canal. Overall, my experience was full of people being kind and understanding regarding the issues that kept me from going to the dentist, and more focused about putting me on a good path going forward. Hoping for the same for you!

    • Minnie Beebe

      I once went 3 or 4 years without going to the dentist and was worried about the same things. I was fine. Do you think you have cavities? Can you feel any discomfort in your teeth? If not, you probably don’t have any major problems.

      Just schedule an appointment. Do it today. Find the dentist closest to your house or office, or closest to a store you like so you can go shopping after. No need to overthink it! And then just be honest with the dentist when you go. It’ll feel so good to get the worry and guilt out of your system!

    • Anon

      Well, start flossing now. It will de-gunk your teeth a bit and if you are bleeding a lot, that would be helpful for the dentist to know.

    • Anon

      Not me, but my husband hadn’t gone for at least 6-7 years when I finally made him go. He was pretty much fine- no cavities or other issues. I don’t want to imply that cleanings don’t matter, but genetics and things like dry mouth from medications and allergies matter a lot too and some people are just lucky about that stuff (he does brush and floss well). You should just go and get it over with, it probably won’t be as bad as you think… and if it is, at least it’s not as bad as it will be if you put it off even longer!

    • Anon

      I went without going for 5 or 6 years once. Nothing bad happened. I did have a bunch of cavities (my first ones ever) when I went, but I had also recently been pregnant, which does a real number on your body, including your teeth. They filled the cavities and it was fine. I haven’t had any cavities since.

      • OP

        You ladies are the best! Thank you for not making me feel so bad and just pushing me to do it. I don’t have any pain and am actually pretty good about flossing, but it looks like my teeth are rotting in some places or maybe it’s tartar build up, not sure. Similar to Tea/Coffee, I’ve had dental insurance the whole time so it’s really dumb that I haven’t gone in so long. I also don’t have a fear of going to the dentist, it was just more the fear of judgment from putting it off so long and hearing how awful my teeth may be. Thank you for letting me know it might be ok and if not, I’ll just have to deal! Going to book today.

        • Cornellian

          If it’s an anxiety issue, talk to the dentist or your GP about a single dose of Xanax or something similar. I understand that’s a more widely available option than ten years ago.

        • Anon

          Possibly demineralization. Start using a mouthwash with fluoride and don’t eat or drink for half an hour after using it.

    • Tea/Coffee

      I once waited that long and i was embarrassed but the dentist said it was nbd esp since i hadnt had any pain or specific concerns. I did have some tartar buildup in a few areas but otherwise escaped unscathed.
      What kills me – now – is that i had dental insurance that entire time. I was just too lazy to find a dentist in a new area and go. SMH at myself!

    • Anonymous Grouch

      I once went 18 years w/out a dental visit. I finally went, and told the dentist it had been “a while”, but not actually how long. They complimented how clean my teeth were (I use an electric toothbrush). I had one tiny cavity, which I went back and got filled in for $200. My advice would be to be vague about the length of time with no visits, and if they come up with a ton of problems get a second opinion.

    • SB8

      I went ~4 years without seeing a dentist and the first visit wasn’t exactly fun – there was a lot of scraping – but I got through it.
      When I feel insecure about something medical, I tell myself I’m probably not the worst the provider has seen. And if I am, then I’m helping them with professional growth.

    • No Problem

      My only advice is to just go. Be honest with the scheduler and hygienist that you haven’t been to the dentist in a very long time. They’ll do all the x-rays and tell you what work you will need to have done. Ask a lot of questions if they say you need that many fillings, like whether you need to do them all now all at once or whether you can do them over the course of a few weeks or months. And if the dentist is shaming you or aggressive or angry or anything, ask for a copy of your x-rays on your way out and find another dentist. There are plenty of good dentists out there. Ask your friends or coworkers for recommendations if they have a dentist they like.

      I was at the dentist once waiting for a Novocain shot to kick in and could overhear the dentist in the cubbie across the way talking to the patient there. It sounded like he was coming to my dentist for a second opinion. My dentist was shuffling through some papers (I’m assuming the records from the other dentist) and told him he saw maybe 8-9 fillings the guy needed and suggested they do them one quadrant at a time in separate early morning appointments so he wouldn’t have a totally numb mouth, and offered to do the first set that day. He was approaching it very matter-of-fact and not shaming the guy, and trying to find a way to get his teeth healthy while accommodating the guy’s busy schedule.

      Also? Unless you’re a smoker, I promise that your dentist has seen worse. Much worse.

    • anon for this

      I have always gone because I’m not afraid of needles and I love the cleaning process BUT I have read that the every-six-months recommendation is a random marketing “thing” designed to gin up business.

      Don’t feel bad! If you haven’t had any pain, I doubt there’s anything going on under the surface. But I do agree with those who are saying to double up on the flossing now. There will be less blood when the hygienist does it. (And I think you’ll be pleased with what they offer in offices now–massage chairs, HGTV, aromatherapy . . . )

      • Anon

        The “every six months” thing isn’t based on any science that says that you need to go that often to get better results; it’s something dentists came up with back in the early 20th century to keep business flowing steadily and because people’s teeth were so awful back then that it did take that much contact with the dentist to get people’s mouths healthy. (I have a friend whose academic field is the history of medicine and he loves to talk about this.) As someone said above, individual body chemistry, hygiene habits, medications, etc. all affect dental health, and so dentists apparently should be making individualized recommendations to patients – some may need to come in every 4 months if they have gum disease, some every 6 months, some once a year and some every two years. But the system is set up for “every six months” – that’s what insurance will pay for, etc. and so dentists stick with that. My friend said he read a study that the number of people who actually go to the dentist every six months on a consistent schedule is around 50%.

    • Anon

      My mom didn’t go for about 12 years and when she went, there were issues and she had to have a couple of procedures done. But she went to a really great, empathetic dentist who was non-judgemental and helped her deal with her anxiety around going to the dentist. She now goes regularly and hasn’t had any more problems.

      My husband had a really terrible experience when he was a small child – a dentist drilled one of his teeth and ignored my husband saying that the anesthesia wasn’t working – and he has a lot of anxiety around going to the dentist as a result. He only ends up going about once every two years (and every time his teeth are fine; he has really good hygiene habits is the only thing I can attribute it to). We found a dentist who said they specialize in “gentle dentistry” and he prescribed my husband Valium for when he has to go in. It’s not maybe the most elegant solution but it works. I’d rather have him take Valium and go than not take Valium and not go. So consider something like that if you’d be comfortable with it.

    • Anon

      Yeah, I didn’t go the dentist for about 6 years (didn’t have insurance, didn’t have urgent teeth issues) and it was totally fine. My teeth needed a good cleaning and some fluoride treatment. I lucked into a practice where they are very much about positive reinforcement and did not shame me at all.

    • Smokey

      No advice except make your appointment today! The longer you put this off, the harder it will be to do. Do it today!

    • anon

      I skipped the dentist entirely in my 20s and finally went in my mid 30s. No reason other than I didn’t have a dentist and didn’t bother to find one, which I know is insane because I had dental insurance. When I went, it was a long first cleaning (be sure to tell them it has been a while since you have been to a dentist when you make the appointment so they set aside enough time). I had no cavities or other issues. They just had me come in every three months for the first year for cleanings. Since then, I have been religious with twice a year cleanings and annual xrays.

    • Emma

      Married to a dentist here – this happens all the time and is a non issue. If they ask when your last appointment was, just say a few years. If you don’t have significant pain you are unlikely to have significant issues. If you’re afraid, feel free to let them know – there are some things they can do to adjust and tell you what’s going on.

    • Ribena

      Yes, I left it a long time too. Especially due to Covid dentists are very understanding. Just let them know you’re nervous when you book your appointment

      • Bean74

        I went four years without a cleaning. I have anxiety around dentist appointments due to getting my wisdom teeth out under local anesthesia instead of general. It was fine. More scrapping than normal, and I had to come back within a month for them to check my gums again, but have been good since. It really will most likely be fine. I asked the dentist and the hygienist if mine were the worst and they said not by a long shot.

    • Anonymous

      i sometimes put off things like this due to anxiety. Every once in a while I have a Do Hard Things day and I try to do as many of the things I’ve been putting off due to anxiety all at once. Like doctors appointments (or making the appointment), administrative stuff that stresses me out, etc. I try to do them at least 2-3x a year. I find that having a landing place for these stressful things is very helpful (e.g,. I don’t need to stress – I’ll do it on my next Do Hard Things day).

    • Anon

      This happened to me few years back and I had a few cavities and needed a root canal. Since then, I am going religiously for cleaning every 6m and for dental check-up every year. In fact, a dentist checks my teeth at every cleaning too. I still get cavities and all other issues (and I am the OP with serious dental regime).
      I would first go for dental hygiene to remove plaque and tartar and the hygienest will tell you about any problems they detect. Then schedule dentist appointment. My dentist did not ask anything after he heard I haven’t seen a dentist in 5y. Rolled his eyes and moved on.

    • Anonymous

      Can I piggyback on this? I haven’t been in since covid. Before that every six months. But I dread dread the dentist. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t floss but I have never ever been to the dentist when I didn’t feel totally ashamed. They accuse me of never flossing or flossing wrong, not brushing, ect. Once I was even accused of smoking bc the hygienist said I had such yellow teeth. I’ve been to two different dentist and a lot of different hygienists and the experience is always the same. I feel like I’m just disgusting but this thread is giving me hope. Is it possible to find a dentist/hygienist who won’t make me feel so bad? Where do you start?

      • Anon

        Where do you live? My teeth came in yellow-ish and have only gotten darker with age and tea-drinking. I don’t care what they look like. My pediatric dentist used to tell me I obviously didn’t floss as he scraped my gums (not my teeth), as his reading-glasses prescription changed from visit to visit. Yes, I noticed these things even at 12 years old.

        My ex was English with English teeth. It made a huge difference when we found a dentist that really lived up to their name of Gentle Dental. Valium helped, and so did the very nice people working there. These offices do exist –ask around! Keep hunting!

      • AIMS

        Not sure if you’re still reading, but look for dentists that say they specialize in dental phobias. They are generally much kinder. I am naturally predisposed to cavities and basically stopped seeing a dentist who kept insisting that I must just not be aware that I am eating sugar. He even told me some absurd story about some patient that had cavities and swore she ate no sugar and then it turned out that she would have a spoonful of honey before sleep (and after brushing) to have “sweet dreams” – and I am still offended he would think I would be so dumb that it wouldn’t occur to me that this was a problem!

    • Anonymous

      I have terrible teeth (genetics plus issues related to childhood) so I’m on a strict 6 mo rotation even during the pandemic. A few tips just in case it’s not great.

      First, the dentist SCARES me, so one internet stranger to another, proud of you for dealing with this.

      Do start flossing daily in advance of the appointment if the appointment is at least a few weeks out.

      Do tell them how long it’s been when you schedule and if you’re freaked out by the dentist, tell them.

      Do eat before any dental appointment unless told otherwise. Not eating can mess with their local anesthetics, and cause it not to work. Ask me how I know.

      Do write down all medicines you take in advance, some can impact teeth. Tell them if you’ve been pregnant or had covid, which may also impact teeth.

      Consider if you think you clench or grind and tell them. Dentists can help with that.

      Finally, not a horror story, but I’ve spent a lot of money at the dentist. However, I’ve never regretted it. It’s like roof repairs. You just handle it when you become aware, like you are now. Go you!

    • HW

      I remind myself that dentists see the worst of the worst – so they’re not going to be phased by you showing up with what sound like pretty normal teeth.

    • Anon

      I can offer you a story. For *reasons* there was a 15 year gap for me between going to the dentist as a freshman in college and my prior visit. I was also feeling very ashamed about that (and basically didn’t know what going to the dentist was like). I knew it was bad because I had a lot of hot/cold sensitivity, and – wait for it – basically a crater in my far back upper molar, like there was a giant cavity hole I could feel with my tongue. Dentists are medical practitioners, they will take care of your dental issues. You are worth taking care of so just look at this as a part of getting the care you need now.

  9. Elegant Giraffe

    Has anyone travelled on an international itinerary through Miami airport lately? Will be returning to the US next Thursday and have a two hour layover there before a domestic flight. Do I have time to check a bag? I assume I’d have to retrieve after customs and recheck into the second flight. I think the answer is no… I have global entry. Flying on AA. Not traveling with children. Have never been to that airport before.

    • Cat

      We’ve done this in Normal Times with no issue (retrieve & recheck bag, Global Entry) with 2 hours being sufficient, but our latest experience in July was that MIA was overflowing with people, so would recommend carryon only if at all possible.

    • Anon

      Two hours seems like plenty of time to recheck a bag if needed. I have flow internationally through Miami and don’t remember any issues.

    • Flats Only

      I went through MIA in May on a domestic flight (MIA was my destination) and TBH is was a bit of a sh*tshow.
      Long lines for everything and seemingly every function understaffed for the volume they were trying to accommodate. Maybe the international side would be better, but I would not chance it. OTOH, if it’s just got dirty clothes in it a delayed checked bag on your return isn’t that big of a deal – the airline will deliver it to your house. Generally for the type of transfer you describe you go through immigration, take your bag off a belt (and you probably don’t have to wait long since you waited a bit at immigration while the bag caught up), walk through “customs” and drop it right back on another belt, assuming it’s tagged through to your final destination, so it could work out fine.

    • Elegant Giraffe

      Thanks all! I like Flats’ compromise to stuff the checked bag with dirty clothes and be pleasantly surprised if it makes the second flight.

      • Flats Only

        One more point – we once had a checked bag not appear at to be claimed before customs as we changed to our domestic return flight in CLT. We worried, but the airline rep said it would catch up to us, and it did. It did not go into some sort of hell hole of unclaimed international luggage like I feared it would (all my resort wear would have been lost!!).

    • Curious

      Late to this, but my experience with MIA was that even pre-COVID, bag transfer and recheck took a while, potentially because of staffing and also because of thunderstorms. I think you found a good solution though;

  10. NYNY

    Has anyone seen a nice trenchcoat lately? I realized my old one bit the dust in spring 2020, but I haven’t needed one in the meantime. I’m back in the office 3 days/week, and looking for a replacement in the $200-$600 range. I prefer navy, but would do black or grey. Knee length or longer. I’m seeing lots of lovely trenchcoats in beige or tan, which make me look like I died. TIA!

  11. House shopping

    I posted this the other day but I don’t think it ever got out of mod so trying again. Has anyone bought a new house before selling their existing home? If so, did you have enough cash for a down payment or how did you make it work?

    Home sale contingencies are a thing of the past in our target area and I’m trying to decide whether we need to continue shopping only in the price range we can manage with a cash down payment, or whether there’s a better way.

    • Flats Only

      Ask your mortgage lender about a “bridge loan”. I’ve never had one, but I know they exist for this exact scenario.

    • AugNon

      It got out of Mod and you got some responses.
      I think the options are save up the cash for downpayment or deal with contingencies. Had to do this with my last house sale/purchsae when we had ~1 month in between the two closings. Also a lot of finger-crossing that second sale would go through, and planning that we might be on the hook for two mortgage payments for awhile.

    • anon

      I responded. Yes, but neither of my homes have exceeded $200k and I didn’t care about putting 20% down bc PMI is/was negligible.

      • OP

        Makes sense. I wouldn’t care about putting 20% down except that it’s essentially required to have an offer accepted in the market/area we are dealing with.

    • Smokey

      Are you able to take out a home equity line of credit on your current home to access your equity?

    • Anon

      I responded if you want to go look, but we used a 401k loan to finance the down payment on our new house until our old house sold. We looked into bridge loans, but they were expensive (in terms of fees and interest) compared to loaning ourselves the money from our 401k. We’d had to deplete our cash savings updating our old house to sell it, and I didn’t feel comfortable draining it further to pay the down payment. When we sold our old house, we were able to pay back the 401k loan, pay back our savings for the updates, and put more money down in a mortgage recast so that we didn’t have to pay PMI. And we still had some money left over.

      • OP

        Thanks! Sorry I missed the responses, I will go back and look. But I’m going to look into this option. We should have quite a bit of equity in our current home and while we have some cash for a down payment, it would really help to have $20-40k more.

        • Anon

          Happy to answer any questions you have, although we bought/sold in 2018 and the market was really different then (although in a way that didn’t benefit us as sellers). I had never really contemplated doing a 401k loan but it worked really well for us in that circumstance. I wouldn’t take out a 401k loan for a car or for home remodeling or whatever but taking out the loan knowing it would be paid back in full in a matter of months when we closed our house sale felt okay, and even though it took longer to sell our old house than we anticipated, it all did turn out okay.

    • Anon

      I’m in suburban Boston and home sale contingences are basically not a thing.

      We took out a HELOC on our old home ahead of bidding on new houses. We were able to get a HELOC up to 85% of Old Home’s value despite the fact our own mortgage was only around 60%, so it created a pretty good lump of cash to access. The HELOC plus cash on hand was enough for the down payment on the new house. We closed on New Home by drawing HELOC on Old Home. We owned two homes for 5 weeks. Once Old Home sold, we paid HELOC off. I know not everyone is in that boat with so much equity in their home (we struck it right with market appreciation – sheer luck), but if you can swing it, it’s a nice solution.

    • anon

      We have always done this when we move. Trying to figure out the timing to sell and buy at one time stresses me out way too much. If we don’t have enough cash for the down payment, we refi the current home and take money out. We use the same mortgage broker for both transactions so there are no issues with qualifying for the mortgage on the new home.

    • Anonymous

      We did this with our current house. At the time, it was taking banks about 90 days to close in HELOCs. We did not have that kind of time to come up with the additional cash to buy the new house, so a HELOC wasn’t an option for us.

      So, we took out a loan against our investment portfolio (this is NOT a loan against our 401(k)s). Every financial institution that does this has slightly different way of doing it, but for us there were no closing costs, no application process,… it was essentially just as easy as opening another account at a place where you already do you banking. Due to the fact that my spouse works at the same financial institution as where our investment accounts are managed, plus the amount of investments under management, this line of credit for us has a super, super low interest rate (1.75% currently, the rate is variable based on the prime rate). We immediately paid off the loan after selling our old house, but the account is still there and active should we ever need to use it. We literally have a check book where we could write a check and it would just start a loan against the portfolio.

      Also, unlike a HELOC, it doesn’t have a set time frame (my understanding is HELOCs generally have a draw period of ten years). This line will just be there until we close it. We plan on using it for some larger renovation costs because the interest rate is so low.

    • Anon

      We just did this over the summer. Contingencies are a no-go in our market as well. We put 10% down on the new house. The key to getting our offer accepted at that rate was a pre-approval (more definitive than a pre-qualification) for the loan. Apparently there was a competing offer with 20% down but they only had a pre-qual so the sellers went with us.

      Our old house sold in less than a week but closing date was a month after our new one. Once it closed, the process was pretty easy to the recast our loan and put down the 20% to get rid of PMI. We had talked to the lender and explained that we planned to recast the loan as soon as our old house sold and we could put down more, so I think maybe that helped ease the process?

  12. Anon

    Is Campbell’s of Beauly like an LL Bean but in Scotland or is it something truly a notch above? Asking sort of with an eye to if it is more gift-able / fancy (will go to a late-teen niece who lives in Flyover USA and yearns for seeing the world but COVID and $ just have her being very dreamy lately). I wouldn’t get her LL Bean as a present (but love it myself); to me, Campbell’s feels a bit more of a Kate Middleton-type outdoorsy but feminine vibe (but maybe that’s just me projecting).

    • Ribena

      I’ve never heard of them (based in Scotland). I’d be tempted to look at the likes of Barbour accessories

    • Anonymous

      It’s definitely above LLBean but idk that it’s really a great gift for a teenager who longs to see the world? I mean. It’s wool sweaters.

      • Anon

        Kiddo is in Minnesota, so I feel like it’s a 9-month item there. And I think kids are into Fair Isles with their [whatever jeans type they are wearing this year]. I’m fine b/c it’s not another crop top :) My last gift to her was Lululemon, but I don’t want to put that on auto-repeat.

        [I do know thanks to googling at the DMV earlier that it is a brand Kate Middleton wears, which made me want something for me there also now that my workwear is essentially good preppy mom attire.]

          • Anon

            Not the person who wrote that, but they were last year. My son just ordered another for college so I assume the trend continues. I have two teenagers.

        • Anon

          I’m not sure where you’re getting your info but look at the kids on Tik Tok – they’re not obsessing over wool sweaters.

          • Anon

            I don’t know why you think you know everything about what teens actually wear from watching tik toks but it’s barely September. They were indeed wearing fair isle sweaters last year and I know this is absolutely true because I have teenagers. I wanted to buy my daughter another at Christmas time and they were sold out everywhere.

          • AIMS

            There was just an article somewhere about how the latest obsession on Tik Tok, fashion wise, is anything that looks “old money” & preppy so I would say that fair isle sweaters are fair game. And I definitely see a ton of them on the cool kids in NYC.

            OP, you sound like a thoughtful auntie.

    • Anon

      It looks like Kate Middleton has worn them before, so you’re not wrong! (Bless these blogs who have spent ten years IDing what she wears, that’s dedication.) I’d take that as a sign of quality, and their stuff looks cute.

  13. Bathroom Breaks

    For those of you that are moderately active, how much water do you drink in 24 hours? I was seeing an OBGYN with a urology practice recently about something else, but happened to mention my issue with frequent urination (about 15 times in 24 hours). She basically told me it was my own fault for drinking 90ish ounces of water a day, and that I should drink no more than 64. I work out and am in the heat for at least a little while each day, and Dr. Google seems to think my intake is fine. Looking to the hive for some anecdata.

    • Anon

      I don’t think it’s a problem per se, but if peeing too much is a problem for you and drinking a ton of water all day is the cause then it seems like sound advice to cut it back.

      • Anonymous

        Agreed. I used to drink a ton of water. I started when I was doing hot yoga regularly and kept it up because I thought it was good for me. I started having pelvic floor issues and kept a bladder diary for several days. The PT pointed out that I was drinking a lot of water and recommended trying less. I started drinking less water, only when I was thirsty and checking to make sure my urine was still relatively light (sorry, TMI) and a lot of my issues resolved. Anyway, it’s pretty easy to experiment with, so why not give it a try?

        • Bathroom Break

          The problem is even with the 90 ounces my urine is still dark yellow and I already only drink when I’m thirsty. I wake up at night thirsty and in the morning I chug a bottle I am so thirsty. I have tried drinking less but end up feeling dehydrated with a headache.

          • Pompom

            This sounds like an issue for an endocrinologist or another specialty. Sorry you’re dealing with this!

          • Curious

            This is concerning and sounds like what they told me to look for for gestational diabetes. I feel like there’s more going on here than just “you drink too much water.”

          • Anon

            Definitely check with your doctor but vitamins affect urine color so it could be something benign.

          • Anon

            unfortunately continuous thirst can be an early warning sign for diabetes, i’d definitely go to the doctor for a general check up

      • Anon

        Agree with this. There’s no one answer of how much to drink (which includes fluid intake from food) and it’s also affected by exercise, health conditions, weather, and medications. It’s really about what works for you, and it seems like this isn’t working for you.

    • Anonymous

      I mean. You’re drinking a lot lot of water so yeah. You need to pee a lot.

    • pee

      Well, 15 times a day is …. a lot. Are you a small person with a small bladder? That must inhibit your life a bit, as you always need to be near a bathroom?

      But I do agree with the uroloigst. What goes in must go out.

      Honestly, I probably only drink about 1/3 of what you do, more if I exercise. Remember, you also get fluid from food you eat.

      The obsession with drinking a ton of water is a bit of a marketing ploy for folks to buy bottled water and water bottles. If you follow your thirst, and drink then, and up your drinking when you exercise/sweating in the heat, or are sick with fever etc… then you will be fine. Drinking too much plain water can actually cause some instability in your sodium levels in the blood.

    • anon

      I am very active but I don’t track my water intake. I instead go by the color of my pee. Keep in mind that other beverages and some foods will contribute to hydration. It’s not just water.

    • Cornellian

      I am not a doctor or PT but spent a lot of time with a pelvic PT after my pregnancy, and she did not recommend lowering water intake, but gradually increasing the time between urination. Some tricks she gave: when you feel the urge, stay still. walking and moving around can increase the frequency. She also mentioned that the urge tends to come in waves, so try to make it past the first crest or two before you actually go. Essentially we should be going every 3-4 hours and not at all at night (unless you’re pregnant or elderly) so you should work up to that to avoid weakening your bladder.

      • I hear you

        Be careful… this is advice for someone who has a specific urologic dysfunction/problem, probably NOT drinking 90 oz of water a day.

        It is not good advice to train yourself how to ignore/dampen your urinary urge/reflex. That leads to reflux of urine back up to the kidneys due to increased pressure, UTIs and kidney stones.

        You do not actively weaken your bladder muscle by going to the bathroom more often. That is not physiologically correct.

      • anon

        Holding it in can be an issue if you are prone to kidney stones, though. Everything in moderation, I guess.

        • Anon

          I think what Cornellian is talking about is the phenomenon where you start peeing at the slightest fullness and that trains your bladder to signal urgency to you when it’s only 1/4 to 1/2 full. I’ve had issues with this. The solution is to wait a little longer so you can train it back the other way. She’s not wrong.

          • Cornellian

            Yeah, that’s right. I didn’t have urologic dysfunction, this was just background pelvic health training she was recommending. Bug obviously everyone should talk to their own doctors.

            I’ve noticed WFH that I sometimes go to the bathroom to break up my day, more or less, which is not great.

    • Anonymous

      I’ve heard you should drink half your body weight in water but that includes black coffee and unsweetened drinks. If you’re drinking lemon water you absolutely will be peeing a ton because it’s a diuretic. If you don’t want to pee so much drink less or drink different things… but if I drink half my body weight in liquids (100 oz+) after a few days I adjust and only go maybe 8x a day.

      • Anon

        What? Half of your body weight in water would be absurd, I don’t think that it would be physically possible?

        • Anon

          It depends how much you weigh, right? It’s not hard for my 110 pound mom. It would be really hard for 180 pound me and impossible for my 250 pound dad.

    • Anon

      I drink a lot, exercise daily and go to bathroom max 8x. I have good bladder and strong pelvic muscles. I drink around 2-2.3 liters of water/tea/coffee during the day. You can definitely train your bladder!

    • Anon

      My doctor said that water without electrolytes wouldn’t go as far. Are you counting water in foods and getting enough salt, potassium, and magnesium?

      • Anon

        Oh. And I’m kind of assuming they already checked blood glucose/A1C (my doctor did), since checking for diabetes is part of the DDx for “urinating too much” and since it’s pretty routine to check now that CDC estimates a third of adult Americans are at least prediabetic.

        • Bathroom Break

          No, they did not check for diabetes. I was in for another unrelated urinate issue and this just came up and she said in passing it was too much. It has been going on for more than 5 years and I have brought it up with other doctors who also blew me off.

          • Anon

            I personally think it would be reasonable to ask to have those tests done. They are cheap and routine tests.

            I think a lot of doctors downplay things assuming the patients who really have something wrong will be more insistent. I didn’t get great medical care until I started advocating for myself a bit more strongly.

          • Nesprin

            Yup- diabetes literally means peeing too much (and the mellitus means sweet, since in classic diabetes you pee out sugar). There’s also diabetes insipidus, where you just don’t concentrate pee right, but if you’re ever seeing yellow to dark yellow pee you prob don’t have that.

    • Cat

      wow 90 oz is a lot! I try to drink a 1.5L bottle each day (50 oz) plus more if I’m exercising in the heat.

    • JL

      Easily 125, probably closer to 150 most days where I’m in my routine. That includes a 35 minute jog most days. I pee a lot, but I don’t have a problem holding it or with leakage. And I’ve had a kiddo. I’ve never counted how often I go, though. It’s never bothered me, so there hasn’t been a reson to.

  14. blueberries

    I woke up to a huge loss for rule of law and an institution I grew up revering. One would think I’d have gotten used to these kinds of blows, but this one really hits me.

    How do I mourn? I have political giving on my to-do list, but it doesn’t feel like enough to mark this kind of loss.

    • Anonymous

      You don’t mourn. You take action. I’m not waiting around for the idiot Democrats to save me anymore – I’ve done that all my life, but now we have Biden in charge and he doesn’t GAF about the Texas law. My elected officials within CA don’t GAF about women either, on this or any other issue. My focus now is making sure women know how to use misoprostol.

    • Anon

      Not sure what this is in reference to. I’m maybe a bit busy with Haiti, Afganistan, COVID, Louisiana, other local flooding . . . hard to keep up but that is 2021 for you.

    • I hear you

      Support voter registration efforts in Texas.

      All my life I have always chosen where to live partially based on the presumed cultural atmosphere of the state/city. I realize now that clustering the vast majority of progressive/democratic individuals in jam packed cities that do not have proportionate voting power does us a disservice. I mean, if all of the great women on this board decided to move together to beautiful Montana or Idaho or Georgia, we could really shift the balance and the tone of those areas and start rebalancing this country so that representation is more fair. We should not be running away from these places, but help them to evolve. Sorry, that sounds so arrogant…

      When my personal situation changes, as I am currently locked to a certain city for caregiving reasons, I have decided I am going to move to a part of the country where I can make a real impact.

    • pugsnbourbon

      Yeah even though I figured this was coming and I don’t have much trust in most institutions, this morning’s ruling was a gut-punch.
      I’m not doing political giving. Democrats haven’t shown any backbone w/r/t repro justice so why should I prop up their BS? I’m only giving to abortion funds and other mutual aid orgs. Find the people on the ground who have been doing the real work of making abortion accessible and support them.

  15. Meeting help

    Can anyone point to a source that defines different types of meetings? I’m new to tech and have been tasked with repurposing an existing meeting (I’m an EA.) When discussed by the group, people were throwing things out like “I don’t want this to become another roundtable or stand up” and I realized I need a better baseline before I start.

    • Anonymous

      Sounds like the point here is to have a clear reason for the meeting – which means solid agenda and solid actions.
      If its a roundtable/standup, that sounds like a relatively open meeting where people just come in and address whatever is on their mind that day. Sometimes needed, but not always.

    • cat socks

      Scrum/agile is a popular methodology that’s being used now, so you could start there. A stand-up is a daily status meeting. Each person talks about what they worked on yesterday, what they want to accomplish today and if they have any issues that are blocking completion of their work. It’s supposed to be short and only last around 15 minutes. When I first started in tech, it was literally a meeting where people were standing in a meeting room (as opposed so sitting) because it was supposed to be a quick meeting.

      Other than stand-up/status meetings, it’s important to create an agenda so you have a focus for what specifically needs to be accomplished in a meeting. You could get some feedback from people on what issues they need to address and then invite the appropriate people to the meeting to have the discussion.

    • roxie

      1. Read Priya Parker’s the Art of Gathering.
      2. look at The Management Center and adopt a POP model, or their other meeting templates.
      3. Look at Training for Change’s website and peruse their templates

  16. anon

    I have a super-naive question inspired by the OP who is questioning her office’s return to work policy. I understand that most vaccine mandates carve out a religious exemption. I guess I have two questions – are there any places where there is no such exemption (in settings where staff work with vulnerable client population)? And my main question – isn’t the religious exemption basically an honor system? If I check that box, surely the employer can’t require evidence of my religious affiliation, or evidence that the leaders or the scriptures of my religious group advocate against taking a vaccine? Being neither religious nor from the US, I have long wondered about the practical implementation of this.

    • Anonymous

      In healthcare, historically with the flu shot staff who said they had a religious exemption have to wear a face mask all flu season long to protect patients.

    • Anon

      I know someone who applied for a religious exemption. They had to provide a written statement as evidence. Not really sure what the point of the statement is as this person cited a bunch of things they don’t actually believe in, so it’s not really doing anything beyond checking a box, but it is a thing.

    • Anonymous

      In practice, most employers do not second guess an employee’s assertion that they have a sincerely held religious belief that prohibits the vaccine. The analysis then shifts to, assuming your religious claim is real, can we accommodate it without causing an undue burden? That is job and employer specific. For example, I represent day cares. Some of them are now firing people saying they cannot accommodate a religious exemption because young children cannot effectively wear masks or social distance.

    • EB

      Yes, the religious and medical exemptions are based on Title VII (religious discrimination) and the ADA (disability discrimination). Under either, the exemption must be reasonable, which means different things under the two laws, but there are certain workplaces where the exemption is not reasonable. The medical exemption is quite a high burden – in most cases, the employer needs to accommodate it. The religious exemption is a lower bar – it must be accommodated in fewer instances. You are correct that the religious exemption is effectively on the honor system – it does not have to be a recognized religion, and employer’s ability to ask for documentation is limited (but not zero). The employee does have to articulate the religion or basis for their request, they cannot just say “it is against my religion” and provide no details.

      • Anonymous

        Yeah, isn’t there usually language around the “sincerely-held beliefs”?

        • EB

          Yes, but in most cases I have advised my clients that they shouldn’t step into the role of deciding whether a belief is sincerely held (the exception being obviously untruthful cases). That’s a minefield. Rather, we focus on whether they can accommodate the request or whether it imposes more than a de minimis burden on the employer – which it usually does.

    • NYNY

      In my organization – a large academic medical center, so likely more strict than most – requests for religious exemptions can and are being denied, and the requesters must submit evidence of a sincerely held belief, which I believe means a letter from a religious leader confirming both your membership in the religion and the group’s opposition to vaccines.

    • AugNon

      Religious exemptions do not require that the person be allowed endanger others around them. So while there may be legal reasons to allow someone to be exempt from a vaccine mandate, the employer should be taking steps to protect the employee from infecting their co-workers clients (typically all-the-time masking, testing, sometimes keeping the person on remote work/out of certain facilities, etc). The terms you can look for if you want more reading on the subject include religious accommodation, undue hardship, sincerely held belief. The EEOC has published guidelines and updates on this in the last several months

  17. Anonymous

    Thanks to everyone here for pushing me to FINALLY look into refinancing our mortgage. 2% for a 15 year fixed is great! If you’re a Costco member you can save big on closing costs.

    • anon

      Can you please explain this a bit? I’m interested to learn as I do have a Costco membership and am thinking about refinancing also. TIA!

      • Anonymous

        I was looking through my email trying to find people we’d talked to when we bought the house and an old Costco came up, so I clicked through to this website – https://costcofinance.com/ (you can also get there by searching the Costco site for “mortgage”). I had just been quoted about $5K in closing costs by my guy at Wells Fargo but people in the Costco program offer a bundle of the closing costs for $250.

        Warning they’re VERY aggressive – I got 4 guys chasing me within minutes. Went with one, told the rest no thank you. Wound up paying $1750 in closing costs total, which is still less than $5K so I was happy.

  18. Language teachers

    Is there another good “find a professional to teach you a language” platform outside of iTalki? I’m totally going to try iTalki but wondering if there’s another site I should be looking at? I specifically need an actual teacher (grammar lessons etc), not just someone to practice conversations with.

    • Anon

      What language? There are lots of schools that specialize in one language or another that have gone online during the pandemic. The Berges Institute for Spanish comes to mind.

    • Anon

      Have you checked your local community college’s offerings? Sometimes school districts also offer these kinds of classes at night.

  19. MK

    Help me calm my anxiety? After a year of searching, I finally have a home under contract. After being outbid several times, my husband and I went all out (13% over listing price). We are waiting for the appraisal to come back. I know that in reality, if it comes in low, we can make up the difference or put less down (maybe a 10% down payment instead of 20%) and pay PMI, but I’m also thinking about worst case scenarios. Does anyone have experience with an appraisal gap? We’re in a hot market and our agent told us that several other houses she sold in our neighborhood were appraised over the sale price, so I’m trying to assure myself that if there’s any gap, it’s not likely to be catastrophic.

    • Anon

      Buying a house is so stressful because it is kind of a hybrid of personal values/lifestyle and investment. Try to remember that the primary purpose in buying a home is lifestyle, not investment. Hopefully you will make a significant profit over the period of time that you own the house, but you will certainly have utilized the house as a home.

    • Cornellian

      If you’re looking to live in the home long-term and can make the payments, I wouldn’t be worried. I would be worried if you wanted it as an investment property and needed to make money off of it. I also would find out more about local property taxes and their trends, because if the hot market is taken in to account by the local government, you may end up paying more property taxes than you expected.

    • Anon

      oh are you me? we did not have an appraisal gap, but just generally so much anxiety over the purchase. i’ve never spent so much money on anything and it feels so permanent (even though it’s not)

      • MK

        it’s the most money i have ever spent on anything! i keep telling myself, “you’re really only paying for half of this” because i’m buying it with a spouse, not that it helps haha

    • Anon

      I’m confused by a couple of things in your post

      1) if the appraisal comes in low, you put more down, not less down, because the lender will not want to finance more than 80% of the appraised value. Do you mean you’d put a lower % down?

      2) if the appraisal comes in high, as your realtor suggested, there is literally nothing to worry about

      • MK

        If the appraisal comes in like $5-10k low, yes, we’ll just cover it. But if it’s a lot lower, we’d likely tap into our down payment fund to cover the gap, and put a lower % down and just pay PMI.

        This is helpful advice from everyone! I want to live in this house 30+ years, so the price we’re paying is worth it to me. It’s just making me uneasy that how I value it is disconnected from how the market may value it.

    • Anon

      Are appraisal gaps really a thing? Appraisers always appraise at the sales price where I live.

    • Senior Attorney

      If you want the house and it’s worth the price you bid, to you, and you can cover any appraisal gap, then you’re fine. And yes, I have experience with this from, like, 30 years ago in a hot market. We increased our down payment. (And then sold at a loss a few years later when the bubble burst, but here I am still standing and happy as can be, having lived to tell the tale, so…)

    • Yes

      We had an appraisal gap (of 30K or so) and didn’t feel right about moving forward. We bid on another house a few months later, and that came in 1K over purchase price. Made me feel better.

      We pulled out b/c we personally did not want to have to bring extra money onto the table or negatively affect our loan-to-value ratio. But if you love the house, have the money, and won’t feel buyer’s remorse if you end up thinking you overpaid, then go for it. It’s a really personal decision.

      Not sure if you waived the contingency, but if you didn’t, you can go back to the seller and see what they say, though be prepared to walk away. That said, if the comps support the proposed sale price, you will probably be ok. Best of luck and please keep us updated if you’re willing.

  20. 312

    With labor day approaching, when you have to bring a dish to an outdoor get together, what do you bring? With bugs and heat, I overthink it. Curious as to anyone’s go-to ideas.

    • Anon in Dallas

      Healthy Garden Salad on Allrecipes – make it the night before and let the flavors blend together. My friends and family usually keep food covered with plastic wrap except when we are actively making plates

    • anon

      I would keep it simple with watermelon or other cut fruit. Just keep it covered when it’s not being served.

    • Smokey

      Caprese salad, home made baked beans, black bean salad, deviled eggs, pasta salad, home made cookies or brownies are a few options.

    • oil in houston

      my go-to tends to be cakes for that reason, if you want savoury ideas I’d say nothing raw, usually I go for a rice salad – rice, tomatoes, corn, pepper, maybe some tuna, in a nice balsamic dressing

    • Anon

      Brownies. I have never ever come home with even a single brownie when I have taken brownies to a party. Even plain-Jane, no-frills brownies are beloved.

    • Anan

      Cookies, or watermelon or a grain salad are my go-tos. Make sure i bring it in a container with a lid.

    • Anon

      Corn salad
      Brownies
      Rice Krispy treats

      Or everyone’s all time hands-down favorite

      A bucket of KFC

      Which will be gobbled up instantly

      • Senior Attorney

        Funny story that I may have told on here before:

        Some years ago my then-husband and I were at a concert in our box at the Hollywood Bowl, where it’s customary for people to pack VERY ELABORATE picnics. On this particular night our guests had canceled at the last minute and it was just the two of us, so we decided to just pick up dinner at KFC. Well. We were having a grand old time with our delicious dinner, spread out with just the two of us in our four-person box.

        The couple in the box next to us were VERY UPTIGHT. Apparently they were expecting very important business guests, and the wife had prepared this VERY FANCY feast, and the guests were late, and you could cut the tension with a knife. Finally the guests arrived and everyone oo’d and aah’d over the VERY FANCY picnic dinner and sat down to eat the homemade pate and I don’t know what-all.

        And then the guests peeked over the side into our box and exclaimedm “Oh, wow! KFC! WE LOVE KFC!! What a great idea!”

        • Anon

          “That family” used to bring KFC to church pot luck every month, and my mom and all the other moms who had slaved over their casseroles and jello molds were livid because all the kids (and dads) adored the KFC. It was always eaten first. Thanks for the memory, SA!

        • Anon

          Too funny. The KFC idea is from my friend in LA! She’s a moneyed equestrian who drives her Range Rover out to the valley to go to the barn every spare moment she has, dog in the front seat, the whole thing. She’s hanging out with Disneys and Hiltons.

          I was complaining that I had to go to yet another school potluck and had to come up with something to bring and she said “Honey. Go though the KFC drive thru. Pick up a bucket of chicken. They will eat it up. That’s what I always do.” And I’ve done it ever since, and she was right, as usual. It’s the first thing devoured at any get together.

          My friend sounds like your fancy neighbors at the Bowl!

          • Senior Attorney

            Yep I have a friend who always brings it to book club potluck with same result! (See also: takeout pizza.)

          • PolyD

            As grad students, a friend and I were given the task of bringing food to a grad student get-together. We went to KFC and asked for about 60 pieces of chicken. The guys behind the counter were a bit nonplussed, but we got the chicken.

            My car smelled like fried chicken for days. This was in a place and time where I’m pretty sure no one was vegetarian, so the chicken went over well.

        • Anon

          I’ve shared this story before, but at a previous employer my husband had to attend quarterly potluck lunches that were “attendance mandatory.” A few times he made something for the potluck, but the vast majority of the time he just brought a 12-piece bucket of KFC and it was always devoured within minutes. Usually it was gone well before the very elaborate casseroles or salads other people brought. By the time he left the company he had started bringing two 12-piece buckets because people would complain that they were never able to get any fried chicken. Hard to go wrong with KFC.

  21. Tweeter

    I basically only wear charter club pants to the office now. I’ve never tried this cut but I wear the Cambridge cut often. My office is pretty causal end of business casual when we’re not on client site – NJ based MBB consulting office

  22. Anon

    Is anyone here a military spouse? Can anyone think of another line of work where you’re expected to socialize with your spouse’s colleagues’ spouses regularly? Like literally, why do I give a rat’s behind who my husband’s coworker’s wife is? I don’t see my law firm inviting all the spouses to a spouse-only happy hour. Sure, the firm does an annual family day, but we don’t organize monthly get-togethers where the spouses are supposed to hang out without the employee.

    Just crabby that I’ve been invited to a Zoom happy hour tonight with my husband’s bosses’ bosses’ wives. Texted my husband when I got the invite and he was like, “Up to you. But it’d probably be good to pop your head in and introduce yourself.” So it’s NOT optional and by marrying this dude with a particular occupation, I’ve been drafted unwillingly into some Mad Men-era sorority. AUGH. Why.is.this.a.thing.in.2021?!

      • Anon

        Ah, good point! I often wonder how Dr. Jill (or any of them) feels about all the stuff she has to do.

        • Anon

          I would volunteer to be the ceremonial spouse if ever needed. IDK why but I eat that stuff up. Dress up and go somewhere with people to do a thing? With some small talk? Sign this extrovert up.

        • Senior Attorney

          If I were in Congress I would introduce a bill to PAY the First Lady or First Gentleman for the work he or she is expected to do. Good grief.

          • Anon

            Do you see how rich people are when they leave the White House? I don’t think Michelle Obama is suffering in her $15M Martha’s Vineyard getaway.

          • Senior Attorney

            That’s not the point. It’s unseemly to expect a woman to work for free because she’s a woman. Or a man to work for free because of his marriage.

          • Anon

            1. First Ladies and Gentlemen have no requirement to work.
            2. There is something unseemly about the hiring of family members, especially the mandatory “hiring” of family members. Exactly what arrangement are you proposing?
            3. They are given free room, board, transportation, protection, and staff, and their spouses get paid and lifetime pensions. In a marriage, one spouse’s income is available to the entire family.

        • anon

          Angela Merkel’s husband (until recently, an active researcher and university professor, now retired) was known for ducking out of these as often as possible. He was basically only there when Germany hosted summits or visits to the White House. Otherwise he had his own engagements to keep.

    • Anon

      Just imagine how the late Prince Philip must have felt.

      OTOH, military spouses are such a unique group. You can really commiserate with each other. I know lots of smart women who threw in the career towel as military spouses with small kids at home and a few who have managed (nurses, accountant who could always work remotely, specialized science writer). You are away from family and friends. You do sort of need to know each other. It is good for you to go. Military families need to be team players for each other. You will reflect on your husband and he will reflect on you. [Not military myself, but it is maybe 20% of my family and long-term friends, including where the guy is the military spouse.]

    • Anon

      I’m not sure what YOUR husband is doing, but many military spouses are deployed, have their stations change every three years, and generally are given assignments that are tremendously stressful on their families. Supporting the spouses isn’t optional, and you can’t support people you don’t know.

      FWIW, we’re going to my husband’s colleague’s house for dinner next week. Academia. My corporate world is very different, but that’s not the issue – the issue is that it’s the norm in my husband’s profession and I abide by it, just as he supports me and abides by the norms in my profession (such as by doing daycare drop-offs so I can be in the office at a normal hour).

      • Senior Attorney

        Yeah, I feel like it may seem super annoying when it’s Zoom happy hour but it pays off if, God forbid, your husband is deployed or injured or worse.

      • Anon

        Academic spouse here. We’re also going to my husband’s colleagues house for Labor Day. But in academia the socialization is usually colleagues + spouses as a group. I agree it’s different than the corporate world, but it’s not like the wives are all hanging out together without the husbands, like OP describes. And it’s much less forced in academia. Even pre-tenure it’s not something you *have* to do, and post-tenure there’s zero pressure to socialize with anyone who you don’t want to socialize with. Also, while academia is still too straight male-dominated, there are more women professors and more LGBT couples and even in STEM departments like my husband’s, not all the spouses are women. There’s something very Mad Men-ish about a group of wives whose husbands work together hanging out and it would feel pretty icky to me, even though I really enjoy socializing with my husband, his colleagues and their spouses.

        • anon

          yeah, inviting the family to work-sponsored/work-adjacent events is one thing, but work-sponsored events exclusively FOR the spouses has a different quality to it.

    • Anon

      My husband is sad that bar associations no longer have “fun spouse activities” to do during events. He would love that stuff (he is also stuck at home with minor children for 7 more years). We have one annual event with spouses that we can never get a sitter for. He has been robbed.

      His work has 1 “with spouse” event a year and I love it. I have a profession in common with one other girlfriend and she and I can chat but I mostly adore it b/c it feels so NOT like a work event for me. My job is to be moderately witty and not vomit — done and done.

    • Anon

      I feel like this as a “band wife”

      My husband is in two bar bands and the wives are all expected to attend and sit together and even run the door (cover charge.)

      I’m frequently too busy to attend.

      I do kind of like the one band husband whose wife is the singer in the second band, mainly because we’re in a similar line of work, but other than that I don’t really have much in common with the spouses.

      Fortunately, conversation is nearly impossible when either band is playing.

    • Anonymous

      It clearly is optional. He said it was optional. If you don’t want to, don’t! It won’t hurt his career. It will mean you don’t develop a support network but that’s your call.

    • Anonymous

      No married to military so IDK but I always thought this kind of community would be nice, no? Is it not like that and more like watch every word you say lest the higher ups wife tells her spouse and it somehow affects your husband?

      • roxie

        I would not find any community whose entrance was tied only to the man in my life and wherein my only identity was that of “wife of So-and-so” to be a nice space, no.

        • InHouse Anon

          Late in the day, so probably no point in responding, but…generally milspouse communities are not this. They’re just not. Maybe they were decades ago, and maybe some still exist that are like Mad Men where worth is tied to husband’s rank. But this is a sort of ignorant and borderline offensive comment to me, speaking as the “wife of so-and-so.” You know who called me today? The chaplain of my husband’s group to make sure my kids had school supplies. Because husband is currently deployed, so he can’t speak to husband directly. You know who didn’t call me today? Any of my civilian friends or neighbors (and that’s fine! It’s not their job! But the military is a unique community that has a unique culture for a reason).
          Also, my best milspouse friends are men because their wives are the servicemembers, so…

    • Anon

      IME public school teaching is a lot like this, especially if you’re the wife of a male elementary teacher.

    • Anonymous

      DH is ex-military and I agree the culture of military wives is wild. They attach their social status to their husbands rank, they have no identity of their own. I was very unpopular among the wives because not only would I not play the game, but I am more educated and make more money than my husband (and theirs too). Women who aren’t subservient are ostracized.

    • InHouse Anon

      Yes, milspouse here. Our “rule” is that everything is optional unless my husband tells me otherwise — basically, would it hurt his career if I don’t attend. So far, nothing has been “required” but I’ve certainly participated in lots.
      You sound a lot like me when my husband re-joined the army; I had a generally pretty bad attitude about participation. I regret that now, and over the past 15 or so years I’ve learned so much and have really embraced our community. Post a burner email if you want to chat about life as a milspouse when you have your own career and professional identity. There are a lot of us out there but due to so many reasons (looking at you, 3 PCSs in 3 years) we’re a minority.

    • Anonymous

      When my now-husband, then just (long term) boyfriend was interviewing at his firm, after they made him an offer and he was considering, they asked if I wanted to meet the other wives. He politely told them he didn’t think that would be necessary. We laugh about that a lot. His firm is crazy old school and they still seem perplexed when I, also a very busy lawyer at the largest firm in town, can’t come to some social event at his firm because I’m, you know, working.

    • Anonymous

      Military wife here. The military is more than a job, it’s a lifestyle. Those coworkers are also friends and some will be like family. I like socializing with them. I don’t know anyone else where DH is stationed (I don’t live there FT), so they’re my only friends when I visit. I’m a biglaw partner and all of my milspouse friends are SAHMs who understand my hours and are some of the best cheerleaders I’ve ever had. I’ve had nothing but positive experiences with everyone. And fwiw my husband totally understands that he will be expected to play nice with the spouses during my firm’s annual partner retreat.

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