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Anon
If I want to start listening to Taylor Swift’s songs what album should I start with?
Anonymous
Just do the eras tour set list – it’s basically a ‘greatest hits’ collection.
I don’t love all her stuff but she has some great songs on various albums and I respect the effort she puts into her shows.
Anonymous
I would start with Midnights but I agree, Eras Tour set list would be a fun intro!
Anonymous
Interesting. In reading critiques of TTPD I am seeing a lot of negative criticism of Midnights, or people just saying it was a disappointment. Surprised at the rec here. (I am Switzerland as to her but you just can’t avoid her these days)
Anon
I think the critiques for both really depend on your taste for Jack Antonoff-produced synth pop. But Midnights has some of her best songs, in my opinion.
Anon
I’m a lifelong fan of her music (not so much her, especially recently) and I don’t get the Midnights hate! I really liked it, especially the extended version. It’s up there with 1989 and Red as my top Taylor albums. folklore and evermore have some amazing songs as well, but they have too much sameness and both have more songs I skip than the albums I listed.
pink nails
This will be highly debated by others, but this would be my personal current ranking:
1. “Midnights” (2022)
2. “The Tortured Poets Department” (2024)
3. “Taylor Swift” (2006) (nostalgia keeps it high on the list for me)
4. “Lover” (2019)
5. “Evermore” (2020)
6. “Red” (2012)
7. “Reputation” (2017)
8. “Folklore” (2020)
9. “1989” (2014)
10. “Fearless” (2008)
11. “Speak Now” (2010)
tss
I’d put 1989 between 5 and 6, but agree with this otherwise. Midnights hooked me
Anonymous
That is controversial!
Anon
Folklore/Evermore (two separate albums, but they both came out within months of each other in 2020) are the albums that fully moved her away from her teen pop reputation, and are less autobiographical than some of her other albums. I would start there if you’re just here for the music – its some of her best songwriting. My other suggestion would be to just watch the Eras Tour movie if you have Disney+, because the production really helps show why her poppier hits are so popular.
Anon
Folklore and Evermore don’t seem as fictional after the current album.
Anon
I think the themes were clearly things she was struggling with in her personal life, but they don’t have the same personal details that she bases other songs on.
Anon
Agreed.
Cat
I’m a casual fan and a decade older than Taylor. I started listening at Red and although some of the earlier albums have catchy songs, listening to them for the first time without the gloss of childhood nostalgia and long-memorized lyrics, she was in fact a teen writing them and it kind of shows in the word choice & themes.
I think the suggestion to start with the Eras list is a good one – from your faves there, branch out into listening to the album.
Anon
Agree to start with Eras or the movie. I really enjoyed the Eras movie, and now I would say I’m a bit of a Taylor fan. I had heard the song “All Too Well” before but I loved the 10 minute version in concert. And then I found her Tiny Desk concert and loved it there too, as well as the song “Lover.”
Anon
Hopefully a fun question for a Thursday morning: what are your own personal (or those of a friend) great comeback stories? It could be anything: career, hobbies, athletics, school, romance. When were you down and out, right up until you came roaring back?
Ellen
Good question! When I came out of law school, the only job I could get in NYC was as a process server where all the men there did NOT respect me for my mind and legal abilities, as I was not yet admitted. All they did was pinch my tuchus and call me cute. I lucked out by meeting the manageing partner in the elevator while serviing a subpeenie in his building and he hired me after I told him I was also a lawyer! I never looked back, and 16 year’s later, I am a partner and next-up for being the manageing partner when he retires! All b/c of luck when I got into the elevator and literally fell into the manageing partner. YAY!!!!
Anon
Maybe it’s not a comeback story so much as a come-up one. I have never had any athletic ability in my life and I have never been able to stick with any sort of exercise program. I have struggled with my weight my entire life. I started doing yoga in my basement during the pandemic. Absolutely loved it and started going in person when I could. I found amazing teachers and started studying yoga’s history and philosophy. Now I am in the best shape of my life, and in the midst of training to be a yoga teacher. My hope is that I can bring yoga to people in larger bodies, people with limitations, and people who just don’t think movement is for them. I am so happy.
Anon
Congratulations!!
anon
That’s amazing!
Vicky Austin
This is so wonderful to read. Way to go!
Deep South
My day has been a bucket of suck and this makes me so happy. Thank you for sharing and congratulations for finding such joy for yourself.
Anonymous
DH’s former boss who was very kind to him when he was starting his career after immigrating. He’s a national award winning scientist now in part due to her early support.
But this is the comeback story – she had a mediocre career and a horrible childless (his choice) marriage to a man with severe mental illness and repeated hospitalizations. They eventually divorced in their 40s and about 5 years later she started dating and married a widowed doctor. There’s an age gap of almost ten years but he is super active – like skiing vacations and running races in his late 60s active. His kids love her because she is just a great person and has never tried to replace their ‘mom’ and their dad is happy and active and taking sports based vacations with her every year. So basically she’s financially secure, living an active lifestyle and has stepkids and stepgrandkids to visit or who come visit at the holidays. When she divorced she was so worried she would always be alone.
Vicky Austin
God, that’s absolutely lovely. Paging the handful of readers here lately who have been divorcing partners for various reasons – look how good it can be!
Anon
Yes, to this and high-fives to our fellow readers is going through it right now. It will only get better.
Anon
My husband has lifelong depression and had a mental health crisis in early COVID. He has worked incredibly hard, years later is still doing twice-weekly therapy, set healthier boundaries in a lot of parts of his life, and now he is brighter than he has ever been. Along the way, I also did a lot of personal work and set my own boundaries. Four years later our marriage and family are doing incredibly well. This time of year brings back all the memories but this year I feel really at peace, proud, and grateful.
Anon
❤️❤️
Anon.
That is wonderful.
Vicky Austin
Thank you so much for saying this.
Anon.
I was doing my PhD in bioscience and had an incredibly hard time being bullied in the lab right after I started. I overcame this and worked for two years on my research, until another researcher in another university published a paper on the exact thing I was studying (aka I got spoofed).
So, restarted my PhD work from scratch after 2 years – a year later, had to throw 6 months of work into the trash can because of the incompetency of a collaborator who’d advised the wrong method to prep a sample. Cue me starting again. I finished my PhD after 6 years, but didn’t find a job (tough job market for fresh graduates at the time due to layoffs in the sector).
Moved to the US with my husband, aged 32, and started an MBA to get out of academia (had realized this is not the right environment for me). Struggled to get any internships as an international and young mom, was lucky to find one 8 weeks before the summer started, at a great company where I still work today (after 8 years).
I started saving aggressively for retirement, and still living a modest lifestyle, and I now make more money than any of my former lab bullies. Husband and I bought a house in cash, and just crossed $1M in assets not counting the house.
Going through a reorg at the moment with lots of uncertainty, so maybe I will go through another cycle of down with an ultimate upside? I’m sure all my previous experience with challenges will help weather the next storm.
Anon
😊😊
ALT
I struggled knowing what I wanted to do for a living pre-college so I kind of randomly picked a heavily creative major. I struggled through almost the full 4 years in that major and finally changed my spring semester of my senior year (my parent were honestly thrilled because I was so unhappy) to another major in the same college that was more balanced creativity-wise. I graduated with solid grades in the new major and only extended my college career by 2 years. It took ages to find a job out of school, and I ended up working for a string of bad companies making $30k/year out of desperation for a paycheck. I was fired (through no fault of my own I swear) from my first three grown-up jobs. It was completely demoralizing and trashed my self esteem and confidence in myself and my abilities.
I took an admin position at a company in a totally different industry (finance) and thrived for a handful of years, with multiple promotions and new roles. I left that company two years ago to move to a new company in the financial industry. I’m now making the most money I’ve ever made (6 figures), work with a team who respects me and encourages me and appreciates me, I feel challenged at work but also like I’m doing what I am supposed to do. This job is a natural fit and I’ve gotten glowing reviews from everyone I work with.
21 year old me would never believe I am where I am but I’m so happy I made it through what was probably the lowest period of my life and am now so much happier and healthier.
Anon
Congratulations!!
Anon
Double comeback story: my brother got kicked out of college for disciplinary issues (drinking, vandalism) and spent most of his twenties working as a waiter and partying. He had a wake up call when a good friend got HIV from shooting up, and attempted suicide following the diagnosis.
My brother joined the Army, quit smoking and drugs, became an officer, went back to college, and then law school. Married a great, normal, down to earth woman he met in college and now is a law firm partner with kids.
His friend with HIV got clean, got his life together, and is now a successful systems engineer with a kid and a lovely wife.
Anon
What a lovely story!
Anonymous
I was a teenage mother. I had my daughter my senior year of high school. Everyone, including my mother, told me I had ruined my life. It never felt like that to me. I knew I had made things harder on myself, but I knew how to work hard and felt like I could still do the things I wanted to do. Maybe not everything, but I did not feel like it had ruined my life or my education. I graduated high school on time, finished my undergraduate degree in four years, then went straight to law school. I got married to a wonderful man who was a great step-dad to my daughter while in law school. I have now been a lawyer for 15 years, have built a great career, had two more children, and outearn almost everyone in my family. (I have a cousin who didn’t go to college but made some good business investments who makes a ton of money haha). The lack of support from my mother really caused a rift that is slowly healing as she has gotten older and needed more of my help. That has been the saddest part to me.
Anon
Bravo!! Another teen mom here. How did you manage such a demanding schedule with childcare?
Btw, I finished college but it took 5 1/2 years. Two changes to my major and ended up with a social work degree that I never used. Transitioned to financial services but my career didn’t take off until he was in college. Bought my first home after he graduated college. after getting laid off last year, I got a job at a top investment bank and massively increased my salary. I’m doing things a bit backwards but I’m okay with it that way!
Anonymous
My college had a day care that low-income students could use for free. The university charged full price for professor and doctor’s children (there was a major teaching hospital at the university), and I’m guessing got grants, etc. So that provided enough child care when I was an undergrad. I waited tables in the evenings and on weekends and my daughter’s father’s family helped with child care. I started law school when my daughter was in pre-K at the same university day care and then she started full-time kindergarten at our local public school and went to aftercare. By that time, I was also married and my husband helped with child care and financially, though I also had loans and scholarships.
Anon
Amazing. So glad it worked out for you that way. Sounds like you had support and worked your tail off!
Anon
But I’m sorry about how your mom handled it. That’s disappointing and challenging. I wish you peace and healing there.
Anon
Wow! Amazing job.
I’m sorry for you that your mom wasn’t there for you.
KJ
Woke up to images of students and journalists being beaten and arrested at protests in NY, Boston, Austin, and LA. I’m not if I’m missing something glaring it just seems like Universities are frustrated there are protests at all so they’re asking the police to deal with it? Riot gear and batons for a bunch of kids in tents on the quad? Come on…
anon
Boston’s protest was not on the college campus in the traditional sense, fwiw. It was in an alleyway that is not solely owned by Emerson and it has public right-of-way access to non-Emerson buildings, including a state building. Not claiming right or wrong, just clarifying that it was not in a quad or any quad-like, exclusivly college-owned/accessible location.
Anon
+1. Emerson doesn’t have a traditional college campus with a quad. It has buildings in the middle of a busy section of downtown Boston. There are buildings and public sidewalks, so no quads to speak of. And the information above regarding the alleyway is correct. It’s a very frequently used public right of way that connects to a state office building.
Anon
They are adults, not kids.
Anon.
Most college students cannot legally drink until they are 21. They may not rent cars until the age of 25 because of corporate policy. They may continue on their parents’ insurance until age 26. The latest research suggests that adolescence continues through the mid-20s. So, they may not be children but they most certainly not adults until they have the same rights and responsibilities of all adults. We should not be arresting and beating college kids.
Anon
And when incidents happen to the protestors (in NYC, an outside agitator with a knife was chasing and attempting to attack protesting students) the police watch and do nothing (as witnessed and reported by a journalist)
Anon
I’m not claiming that it’s right to beat protesters. I haven’t seen that, but if you have proof and if that is happening, I don’t believe it’s OK. That said, universities are cracking down on the protests because they are harassing, abusive, and blocking others from an education. Many administrators have tried to negotiate and been met with spoiled adults screaming back in their faces that they will never negotiate in 1 million years. Protesters are chanting hate speech that would have gotten them instantly expelled and arrested if it were against any other group besides Jews. They’re no innocent lambs here – they’ve deliberately pushed the illegality of their protests to make a bigger impact and then they want to whine about any pushback.
It’s also pretty clear that many chanting “we don’t want no two states, we want 1948” are actually pining for 1942.
Anonymous
“It’s also pretty clear that many chanting “we don’t want no two states, we want 1948” are actually pining for 1942.”
This. And it’s not just in the US. London protests had chants referencing support for massacres of Jewish communities in the Middle East hundreds of years ago. And a protest in Ottawa is being investigated for hate speech because there were speakers celebrating the Oct 7 attacks.
These protestors are not calling for two state solutions.
Anon
And there seems to be no awareness of what set this all off. October 7 is all “look what you made me do” to . . . little old ladies? women and children? random civilians?
Anonymous
What set this all off is Palestine being consistently sidelined and ignored, tabled for another day, as if their situation is just fine, while Israel, with the active support of the US, improved its position and relations with virtually every other country in the region. It was humiliating (as it always has been) and frustrating for Palestinians. It doesn’t justify the disgusting acts that occurred. Nothing could
Anon
Why don’t you ask Hamas why they did so little for their people other than dig tunnels? Or why their Arab neighbors don’t do anything to help? Egypt borders Gaza. Jordan borders the West Bank.
Anon
I don’t agree that Israel normalizing relations with partners in the Middle East was going to be bad for Palestinians. In fact, I think it would have been better for them. Clearly Iran and Hamas disagreed; there are reports that October 7 was a direct response to potential normalization of relations with Saudi Arabia.
Look, in the end, Hamas needs to get with the program – Israel and its partners are never going to agree that Israel and Jews should be destroyed. It’s not going to happen. Hamas can seethe and murder and it will always be alone.
Anon
Anon at 10:40 — I think you are spot-on.
Anonymous
+1
Anon
Yes I’ve seen students being arrested as they should be. There is no right to protest (even peacefully) wherever you want, whenever you want on public or private property
Anon
This seems like such a myopic view of the history of protest in the US. I think there are certainly reasonable limits to be enacted, and protestors on private property certainly will have to deal with consequences up to abd including arrest. But come on… the whole point of protest is disruption. Think about the counter sit-ins during the civil rights era.
Anon.
Civil disobedience is a form of protest but not necessarily protected speech.
Anon
That’s exactly my point. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be consequences, but it’s the ‘arrested as they should be’ smugness that seems to fundamentally understand the point of protest.
Anonymous
The right to protest has limits; you don’t have the right to substantially disrupt campus business or without a permit block roads. And just speech can tip over to conduct that is criminal.
Anon
Good. About time.
Anonymous
+100
Anon
Good morning! Someone recently said they pay for gpt-4 since it is so much more helpful for admin tasks. Interested parties want to know – what can it do? What do you use it for? What does it help you with? Thank you!
Cb
I do! My uni won’t fund it but it saves me a couple of hours a week, so it feels worth it to be able to upload files (not available in the free version). I don’t think I’m maximising its potential, but I’m still figuring things out.
I do a lot of archival work, and it will do the OCR of screenshots/photos and format them nicely. It works really well for survey analysis – core themes, etc.
I did an event this week where I had 50 responses and I was able to summarise and group them in 90 seconds and share immediately with attendees (who were all very impressed).
My next step is to turn a lecture outline into slides with photos.
Anonymous
I know someone who uses chatGPT to draft the wrong answers for multiple-choice exam questions. She says it saves her hours.
anonshmanon
I use the free version to draft difficult emails, and iterate, basically a thesaurus that can do full paragraphs. Things I have asked it:
write me a job rejection email that stresses points a, b, and c? Can you rewrite this to also mention d?
what’s a professional way to say x?
what are different ways to say he is a native of Canada?
can you suggest possible titles for an event about x?
What’s a very polite way to say this is not my problem?
Basically Chatgpt is highly nimble with words and takes seconds to brainstorm. A lot of the ideas will not be your final product, but it accelerates me getting there.
anon
I agree with all of this. It is a starting point, and a helpful one at that. It does not replace my brain and judgment, however. :)
Pizza Rat
This is how I use it, too. Keeps me from getting stuck on a blank page.
Cb
The titles are surprisingly good! I’m running a summer school and it jazzed up the description once I explained the audience, content, and the neet for a catchy title.
pink nails
Did the title it came up with have a colon in it? every time I ask for a list of possible titles, every single title has colons in them. I’m not necessarily against colon titles but I don’t like to use them every time.
anon
you could probably ask it to give you titles with no colon, or titles less than 5 words or something.
pink nails
The asking for a title in 5 words less is smart! I’ll try that next time! I usually ask it to make a list without colons once it gives me the list without colons to middling success.
pink nails
+1 same here. I use it for first drafts, give it prompts to revise, and then ultimately copy/paste it and tweak it myself from there.
editrix
I fed the free version a job description and a overlong resume. It returned a spectacular cover letter and recast the resume.
Anon
During the years around 2020 I made an effort to follow on social media people of color and minority voices. I’m a white, privileged woman and clearly there’s lots I didn’t (and still don’t) understand. I appreciated learning from and feeling challenged by their content. (And I’m not just talking the Shaun Kings of the world, but people from many regions and faiths, from IRL acquaintances and small accounts that wouldn’t consider themselves influencers to more well-known ones.)
In the current conflict, I’ve noticed nearly across the board that these accounts take a very different perspective than white spaces, even people who call themselves super liberal, and including this board. They are nearly unequivocally supportive of the protests, noting that throughout the last century protesting students have always been on the right side of history. They are also pointing out that the allyship of white women only goes so far, and when the status quo is challenged we will dig in our heels no matter how “progressive” we consider ourselves. As I’ve been making it a point to really listen these last years, and push away knee jerk reactions, this dichotomy has been striking to me. (And aside from the protests, they have been the most consistent supporters of the people of Gaza.)
Not trying to stir anything up, just wondering if others have noticed this.
Anon
I think these people are kidding themselves if they think that Hamas would treat them as well as they treat Hamas. Like that kid who was anti-Israel because gay marriage isn’t recognized there.
Notes
There are always examples of stupid people in every group, but it’s an incorrect assumption that is repeatedly done on this site to assume that someone who is against Israel automatically supports Hamas. People are justifiably against BOTH, but only one side is backed by THIS country.
You don’t see protests against Hamas because no one (other than Iran) supports them. Hamas isn’t lobbying our representatives, AIPAC is; Hamas doesn’t receive billions in military funding from the world’s strongest militaries, Israel does; Hamas leaders doesn’t come speak in our Congress; Netanyahu does; Hamas doesn’t have almost every American representative passing resolutions and bill in their favor; Israel does. So protesting against Hamas to the same extent protesting against Israel accomplishes what exactly? How much less support can they get when they already get none from THIS country?
Zionist take the imbalance of opposition voices as a sign of anti Semitism, but don’t take into account the imbalance of political power when making such statements. The more powerful side in ANY conflict, whether on an individual level or on a global level, has a greater responsibility and THAT is what these protestors are speaking to.
Anon
This isn’t true. An estimated 70% of Palestinians living in Gaza support Hamas and literally on October 8, before Israel took a single action, there were congratulatory celebrations all around the world. Don’t kid yourself that no one support Hamas. This very second, kids on college campuses halfway around the world are celebrating Hamas.
Lily
50%+ of people in Gaza are under 18. Are you seriously suggesting that babies, toddlers and children’s political opinions (to the extent they even exist which is laughable) should factor into whether we protect them from being bombed and starved?
Anon
This. I think it’s fair to say the majority of protestors are not pro Hamas. But some definitely are.
And equating Israel and Hamas as equally bad, which this comment seems to, is way off base. Hamas expressly calls for the destruction of Israel and the extermination of Jews. Whatever you think of their foreign policy, Israel is clearly not trying to exterminate all non-Jews in the area (about 25% of Israel’s population is non Jewish).
Notes
okay, but none of those action are the response of the American government ? which is what is being protested against. Again, you will always have stupid voices, but the political power in this country is largely all one side, despite the overwhelming evidence that both sides have committed and continue to commit unspeakable atrocities.
anon
100
Anonymous
” You don’t see protests against Hamas because no one (other than Iran) supports them.”
This is not remotely true. Many of the protestors are openly supportive of Hamas. Early on London was blanketed with posters supporting Hamas. Many of the Muslim countries in the middle east provide direct and indirect support to Hamas whether through housing and protecting their leadership (Qatar) or through direct military or financial support. Many countries in the middle east are motivated to encourage their population’s anger towards Israel because it redirects attention away from issues in their own countries and/or the genocidal actions of Arab militias in the Sudan
It is shocking to me that all these protestors are consumed by the middle east narrative and are completely ignoring the horrific situation unfolding in the Sudan. But it’s easier to be antisemitic and call for the downfall of Israel than try to understand the complex situation between the African population and Arab militias in the Sudan. Would be nice if someone was paying attention to the rising potential for another Rwanda (which was a genocide that killed more than 20 times the number of people killed to date in Gaza conflict)
anon
Yes
Anon
Yeah, like…are people forgetting the protestors who were using the image of a Hamas paraglider for their signs? That is pretty clearly embracing not just Hamas but what they did on 10/7.
I am really not comfortable with the way Israel is conducting aspects of this war. But I am deeply troubled by the degree of antisemitism I’m seeing in the protests and in the way a lot of the criticism of Israel is couched. Criticizing Israel isn’t inherently antisemitic, but when I see that criticism bundled up with references to Jewish wealth, for example, that sure is.
Anon
If you’re going to call out Qatar for supporting Hamas, are you also not going to acknowledge Israeli leadership (in particular Netanyahu)’s implicit support for Hamas and away from a two state solution? I’m serious.
anon88
Yeah I keep my mouth shut around here because I don’t think it’s worthwhile to get in arguments with internet strangers but everyone else in my online and real life circles (mostly thirties lefties in the northeast) supports the student protests, and wants the united states to stop funding genocide. This includes my Jewish friends.
Anon
It seems that your friends are very quick to label something that isn’t a genocide a genocide and also content to ignore actual genocide in China and Ethiopia. Why the double standard?
Notes
Probably her friends are protesting the actions of THIS country. Unless you’re suggesting that America is funding a genocide in China or Ethiopia.
Anon
The fact that you are using the term “Zionist” says a lot.
Notes
I suppose Anti-Palestinian would be more accurate.
Anon
Please elaborate what you find problematic about the term Zionist. J think it’s a helpful descriptor that is more precise than Israeli or Jew. It represents a particular political perspective.
Anon
the point is that it is more nuanced than a catchy slogan. what exactly is your solution to this conflict? eliminating Israel all together? a two state solution? I do not like the term “Anti Israel” because what exactly does that mean? if it means eliminating the existence of Israel I do think that is anti semitic. I realize this is a very simplistic view, but if we could just go back to 1947 and avoid the Arab-Israeli War there could’ve been two states for many years…however, i do not know what a country is supposed to do when there are people that fundamentally dont agree with its existence
Lily
the point is that it is more nuanced than a catchy slogan. what exactly is your solution to this conflict? eliminating Israel all together? a two state solution? I do not like the term “Anti Israel” because what exactly does that mean? if it means eliminating the existence of Israel I do think that is anti semitic. I realize this is a very simplistic view, but if we could just go back to 1947 and avoid the Arab-Israeli War there could’ve been two states for many years…however, i do not know what a country is supposed to do when there are people that fundamentally dont agree with its existence
Anon
The Democratic Socialists of America, which includes prominent politicians on its roster list, was literally marching in the streets of Manhattan on October 8. There are photos of protesters that very day with swastikas right alongside their keffiyehs. You need to approach this with some intellectual honesty, which you haven’t done in any post I’ve seen.
Anon
+1
Anon
I mean, she’s the same commenter who was writing yesterday about how Israeli Jews are the “whiter” population oppressing the POC Palestinians, so she’s coming to this with, let’s say, a very specific interpretive perspective.
Notes
But the actual US government just approved billions of dollars for Israel’s military so they can kill more children. An actual elected congressman called for the killings of all Palestinians (not Hamas, specifically for Palestinians), another one wrote a bill about how all Palestinian refugees should be expelled out of America.
For everyone who is against the campus protest because they are hateful and racist or discriminatory, where are the words of condemnation against these governmental actions which holds real sway and power?
Anonymous
Oh, the “deport Palestinians” idea has really taken a foothold. I heard it from a friend-of-a-friend sitting across from me at brunch quite recently, and it got head nods from the others at the table (except me).
Anon
Useful idiots was what the USSR called them.
Notes
And yet, when viewed historically, the protesting side has pretty much always been proven right
Anon
That’s short sighted. There have been neo-na*is and white power groups that protest too. Just by calling it a protest you are elevating the speech.
Notes
I’ll clarify what I thought was obvious from my previous comment given what the context of this thread was: **large student protests that have taken place in American universities in the past century speaking out against unjust governmental actions have pretty much always historically been proven right** not every single random protest that has happened ever at any point at a university.
Anecdata
I think there’s a logical fallacy in your analysis: student protests against *unjust* governmental actions are eventually proven right. By definition, the things that you are currently thinking of as unjust, is /because/ overall public opinion now supports the protestor position
anonshmanon
I cycled past the maybe dozen tents on the Berkeley campus that were neatly tucked on a single lawn in front of a single building on campus, and maybe 60 people standing in front listening to whatever speeches were going on. The rest of the plaza were unobstructed and students and staff were going about their day. Looked like a lout minority to me, nothing more.
Anonymous
What’s the evidence that the protesting side has been proven right? There are often protests at universities about all types of things. We only note the most remarkable and successful protests. I read somewhere this week, and I’m sorry I don’t recall where that the only thing Americans hated more than the Vietnam war was the protests.
It’s also a stupid argument that other people have been right in the past, so therefore we are right too. Lazy, self-indulgent reasoning.
If people want to protest that the U.S. must hold Israel accountable for allowing aid and following international laws, I’m there. In my sorry opinion, there is no “right side” and I have no patience or interest in performative protests.
Notes
Protests are inherently performative. That’s literally what they are there for. You want to discount all the protest that are happening for exactly what you said you would support – U.S. must hold Israel accountable for allowing aid and following international laws – so you can use the more extreme protestors as an excuse to not really support anything.
Anonymous
Yeah people of any color can be antisemitic
Notes
And people who have been historically oppressed, like Jews, can still be oppressors (although, I fully recognize that many Jews are fighting for Palestine so this doesn’t apply to them)
Anon
This is a point that often gets glossed over by the “if you question Israel’s actions and policies you’re antisemitic” crowd here that I am thoroughly unimpressed with.
Anon
Literally no one has said that all criticisms of Israel are antisemitic but go off.
Anonymous
Seriously asking – what criticism of Israel is NOT considered to be antisemitic? I have seen people say that Israel’s response is disproportionate and they should not be killing Palestinian civilians and children, to which the response seems to be, Well, Israel is justified because of what Hamas did and saying Israel is responding disproportionately means you think Israel can’t defend itself and that is antisemitism.
Also, the accusations of rampant antisemitism among pro-Palestinian protestors because some participants genuinely do seem to be antisemtic kind of reminds me of how the BLM movement was considered “violent” because some people took advantage of the protests to do some looting. In other words, protests can be convenient cover for bad actors who have agendas that have nothing to do with the protest.
Notes
I’ve brought up in previous threads about how a lot of governments of black and brown majority countries are against what Israel is doing and the response actually said that’s because they are anti-Semitic.
I’ve also heard it’s anti Semitic when people protest against Israel but not the Uyghers in China or the famine in Sudan. Unless I’m missing something, the US isn’t funding those.
Also, the comment further down about DEI lumps both Israel and Jews together as one group, kindof proving the point.
Anon
The majority of people I know (many of them Jewish) disapprove of Israeli foreign policy, and that’s not antisemitic. I have seen plenty of disagreement here about whether Israel’s actions are justified, but I have not seen a single comment calling anyone antisemitic for saying they don’t agree with Netanyahu’s foreign policy.
The discussions of anti semitism are in the context of things like people celebrating Hamas on Oct 7, saying Israelis are white and Palestinians are POC and protestors harassing Jewish students, and all of these things go far beyond just saying “Israel’s current foreign policy is bad.”
Anonymous
@1:10 – Nah. I got called a Nazi here for sticking up for Palestinian civilians.
Anon
+1
Anon
I remember the tricks of the old Al Sharpton. IDK how he has managed to sanitize his image and how so many people older than me conveniently forget, but here we are.
Anon
I have noticed the same thing as the OP. I think it is worth paying attention to the unusually consistent perspective from this part of our society. One might agree or disagree, but it is important to understand and be informed.
Anon
Unrelated to the content of the protests, what options do universities have? When I was in college there was a sit in in the principal’s office to protest tuition hikes. The university issued multiple warnings asking the students to leave. Eventually they didn’t know what else to do so they called the police. The police showed up in full riot gear and stormed the campus. I happened to walk buy and it was really scary. But also, I’m not sure what alternatives there are if the university ´s activities are being disrupted and warnings have been issued.
Anon
Agreed. The content shouldn’t matter. There is no right to protest wherever and whenever you want
Anon
In recent years, people have pushed the idea that racism only goes one direction, from white people out to everyone else. I’ve always disagreed with that. I think anyone can be racist and bigoted and if you want to comment on structure in a given society, you could use the words white supremacy or caste superiority or whatever applies. I think now you’re seeing the fact that Black people and other people of color can be very much antisemitic. You’re also seeing that the left blindly circles wagons without ever looking deeply into the facts.
Anon
The left also includes a large swath of white people, many of whom in Congress are showing unconditional support for Israel. Maybe to your point, both these factions on the left are operating on emotion and tribalism, not facts.
But the history of white people centering themselves and their opinions in every debate gives me pause.
Notes
Thank you for taking the time to consider the pause.
I’ve said this before on these Israel/Palestine threads, but there is a reason that this conflict largely splits on color lines. You could say that every brown or black majority country or group that is against what Israel is doing is anti-Semitic (which is what was claimed last time), or even visibly white but oppressed regions, like Ireland, is anti-Semitic.
Or maybe, just maybe, these populations are watching a conflict in which historical oppressors of their own people, like the British, the US, and other Western countries are all backing a power against a poorer, less powerful group. They see the death tolls on either side, with it being overwhelming on one side. Most of the countries sympathetic to the Palestinians have at one point been thought of as as animals, as inherently more violent, or as savages from Western powers. They see echoes of their history in what is happening.
Anon
You know, I don’t even fully disagree with you, I think you make some good points. But I also think that the US and other powers supporting Israel has other geopolitical considerations that most of us aren’t even aware of. We need Israel to be a backstop against Iran, to name just one factor. Israel is an ally against other terrorist groups. I don’t think it comes down to the US considering Palestinians savages.
Anon
yes to the Anon at 10:39. This involves a lot more than just israelis vs. palestinians. the Israelis do a lot of our dirty work in the region.
Anon
here is my question for you – does this mean Israel shouldn’t exist? a two state solution? what is the solution you are advocating for?
Notes
Anon at 10:39 – Iran is an interesting bit in all this. It’s current extreme government came into power when the US meddled in Iranian’s politics in the 70s, helped get rid of the elected government, and installed the shah. A pattern it has done more or less in other countries. And we continue to pay for this meddling today with instability all throughout the ME and then have to do more meddling to keep ourselves safe from the extreme governments that arose because of our meddling. This doesn’t even include the disasterous and useless decades in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Many Americans, including myself, are tired of the proxy wars in the ME under the guise of safety and security. I think it’s especially true of younger generations who are already jaded about institutions and governments and have a bleaker outlook on life than older generations.
Notes
Anon 11:01 – The only practical solution is a two state one; there is no way to go back to the 1942 borders without displacing millions of Israelis which in turn just repeats the same egregious behavior over and over again. But, and I cannot stress this enough, Israel must stop the settlement building and give back the land the settlers have already unlawfully taken from the Palestinians. It must prosecute those citizens who do this. It must also stop the the unlawful and indefinite detentions without charges. Give the Palestinians more right of movement, etc. etc.
And I know I’m going to hear about what about Hamas, so I’ll say this. Israel, as the more powerful entity backed by the most powerful entity, has the greater responsibility here and should take the first step. South Africa is a great example of how reconciliation can happen. The Palestinians have been oppressed for decades now and see no one fighting for them except Hamas. Palestinians are not inherently bad people. If they are treated with dignity, then Hamas won’t have it’s brigades full of willing fighters.
Anon
can i ask what your (realistic) solution is? some people come and enter your country and kill, kidnap and rape people and you do nothing? you withdraw even when there are hostages still being held? someone the other day said they should carry out an operation like they did against those involved in the Munich Olympics Massacre? Those taken hostage were already dead. Currently there are hostages still alive and the attack wasn’t on their own soil
Anon
I think it needs to be a three state solution. Israel already raised a two state solution and it was rejected because . . . Israel would still have existed.
Anon
“If they are treated with dignity, then Hamas won’t have its brigades full of willing fighters.”
This seems… incredibly naive. Terrorist groups exist all over the world, and have had no problems recruiting.
Notes
Terrorist groups everywhere have always and will always pull from disenfranchised groups. That’s not naïve to say. Study the origins of any group labeled a terrorist group, and they have that one thing in common. People who feel comfortable and safe in their lives are not going to upend it for violence (something that can apply to both sides of the present conflict). Palestinians are not some inherently violent group wanting to murder.
Israel’s two-state solution without action to fix what it has done wrong is meaningless. No solution that Israel has put forward addresses the settlements, the displacements, or addresses the individual rights of the Palestinians. Again, as the more powerful of the two backed by America, Israel must put that forward if it’s going to coexist with its neighbors.
Anonymous
Just today, it has been reported that a Hamas leader has indicated they are open to laying down arms for a two-state solution. I have a lot of skepticism of both sides, but I do hope this is a real indication that resolution is on the horizon.
Anon
Yes there is a link between oppression and terrorist recruitment but to suggest Hamas will have no willing participants if Israel left the territories is incredibly naive. That’s not because Palestinians are “inherently violent” that’s because there are bad people everywhere.
Anon
This exactly.
Anonymous
This site it not the place for radical thinking, mentioning any cause which goes against the cushy jobs will get you flamed: anti-capitalism, low waste, veganism, etc. I appreciate this site for decoding wild office norms but it’s the place to engage on a superficial level because any discussion of morals will rapidly devolve.
Anonymous
Yah if you’re posting on a literally corporate site looking for radicalism you’re lost.
Anon
And yet the comments are full of women who proclaim themselves to bleed liberal and support progressive causes…when it affects them, I guess. No one looks in a mirror, instead blaming all the social ills on “that side.” Like, think about your anger towards abortion rights being curtailed — huge segments of humanity feel as much or more righteous anger over the crisis in Gaza, but since it’s not a tidy liberal issue we’ll just obfuscate.
Anon
*White women. And yes, it matters.
– WOC
Notes
LOL. As someone who is posting a lot on this thread, it’s very true. I get caught up, but this site really ain’t the place for this.
Anon
Not sure who made you the arbitrator of all that is righteous and good.
Anon
It’s possible to be against Hamas and also against indiscriminate bombing and starvation of children with no clear path to actually eradicating Hamas. That’s the position of most of the world. You can support Israel and the Jewish people and think that there’s no safe future that doesn’t also value the lives of the people of Gaza. I think that many of the protestors have this situation wrong by looking at it on a oppressor/oppressed, white/non-white basis that sometimes veers into gross antisemitism, but in the end, I think that they do have the moral right of the issue, though it’s a complicated problem and there are no simple solutions. The suffering caused by the Israeli government can’t be justified at this point and the US certainly shouldn’t be helping them cause more.
Anon
+100000000000
Anon
They seem to be fans of an oppressor vs oppressed framework and tend to assume Jews are white and therefore must fall into the oppressor framework
Anon
Or they consider babies and children being bombed and starved to be the oppressed, and the people bombing and starving them (the IDF/Israeli government) to be their oppressors?
Anon
If only they protested Hamas at all, ever. This is all on them. And yet, so much silence.
Anon
People protest against centers of power they think they can influence. Did Americans protest Bin Laden after 9/11? Largely, no, and if they did, it would have been completely pointless. Americans did protest the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, though.
Anon
I agree there are factions that incredulously seem to give Hamas a free pass, but again, what would protesting Hamas in America DO? The US govt doesn’t prop up Hamas. The universities are not investing in Hamas. Hamas wouldn’t even pay attention to Americans protesting them.
These protests are absolutely getting attention in America, and among politicians.
Anonymous
Protesting Hamas is like signing a petition declaring you are against violence. What would come of it? Who are we making our voices heard by? Hamas? The protesters are asking institutions in their countries to change. The US government. The UK government. And large institutions within those countries. I can shout about Hamas all day and those institutions will say – “Heard. We’ll just keep doing what we are doing.” And I will have gotten what I want. Unless, of course, what you want is for the institutions to encourage and fund Israel to kill and starve more and more and more Palestinians indiscriminately until you finally feel better, avenged for the loss of 1300 Jews, “safe”, whatever. What is the number when you will finally breathe a sigh of relief? Think about it. Is it all of them?
Anon
So many of their platitudes are suddenly in reversal:
“Listen to POC!” (But not Jews)
“Believe women!” (But not Jews)
“We stand for the downtrodden!” (But not Jews)
“Words are violence!” (Not anymore)
“Impact over intent!” (Not anymore)
“Microaggressions are real!” (But actual aggression against Jews is OK)
Anon
Yep, exactly this. CRT was always problematic and the hypocrisy is just stunning.
Anon
+ 100
Anonon
Why doesn’t this comment also include Palestinians/Arabs/Muslims? Remember the Arab baby that was murdered a few months back by the racist white man? or the three men who were shot in Vermont while wearing kefiyahs? What about the bills being introduced by members of Congress to expel Palestinians? What about all the words that all the Palestinians should be killed (including from our elected Reps)? How about the rise of threats to mosques? What about the words of an actual candidate for President saying the people of Gaza should not enter the US?
Anon
Exactly. Israel exists because thousands of years of persecution proved Jews will never be safe unless they have their own country and military. The current wave of anti-semitism and its excusal (especially by people on the Left) just demonstrate this point further. Meanwhile Hamas’s charter says they want to wipe Jews off the face of the planet and they vowed to repeat October 7. This is the only time in history Jews have had a political or military advantage, Israel is fighting for its own survival, but somehow they’re being painted solely as an evil oppressor. The situation is a lot more complex than that.
Anon
This was mentioned on here i think yesterday as well. I also think there is a big difference between protesting in support of the people of Gaza, getting more aid to them, potentially a ceasefire with hostage release and two state solution….versus protesting against Israel, protesting in support of abolishing Israel and shouting things like go back to Poland. I might disagree with but can understand the former, but not the latter. The issue with these protests is that all of these sides are commingled, and I personally think if you’re going to participate in a protest that includes Hamas supporters then you are just as bad as they are
Notes
Protests of all causes have and always be comingled because it’s impossible to unmingle them. When people come to a large scale protest, it’s a gathering of strangers. So if a small percentage of people, let’s say .1% of thousands hold an extremist view, you just pack up and go home every single time? You tell complete strangers who you have no authority over to leave? In the BLM protests I attended, there were people who broke stuff and smashed stuff, does that invalidate the movement? No. What they did was wrong, but the protests are against large governmental or institutional actors and the words or actions of a few individuals is not equal to the wrong of such large scale actors.
Anon
I can honestly say that if I went to a protest and found myself standing alongside people holding swastikas, I would conclude that there is too much overlap between our views and I would go home. Apparently that’s a rare position.
Anonon
Then you’re pretty disconnected from politics, because there is plenty of overlap between different groups of people on different sides. For example, a lot of Israel’s supporters are siding with the right wing in America although the right very much hates Jews and the swastika sign holders that you mention belong to that side of politics.
Anonymous
Yes. A lot of supporters of Israel the state are haters of Jews. They may couch it as shepherding of the Chosen People but in the end it is their demise (or conversion for a few, I think?) they pray for.
Anon
yes i do leave if they have swastikas, are shouting things like go back to poland, are holding signs supporting Hamas. i don’t want to be associated with antisemites. i can find another way to be involved – letter writing, phone calls, donations, etc. your comparison is not the same.
Anonon
The way some of you write about this stuff, makes me think you’ve never actually been to a large scale protest about anything. Literally, there are hundreds, if not thousands of people. You can see a a short distance from yourself at any one point. Heck if you know what is being said at the front or the back of the protest or even one foot past you.
Later on the news, you’ll see an uproar about some sign that was wrong or inappropriate, but you walked by hundreds that were just fine. But the bad one is what gets on the news because it’s what brings attention. And then anonymous commenters on the internet are all “look how awful and bad all those people are, I would never!”
Anonymous
This is correct. If you stay with the swastikas, and people shouting about “go back to Poland,” meaning go be exterminated, then you may not be a Nazi, but you are a collaborator.
Anon
Our city seems to have a bunch of protesters who just want to smash things, stand on interstates, overturn cars, and maybe start some fires. Makes the average person turn off any message or nuance and avoid them entirely.
Anon
I hope it would make the average person wonder how things got to this point and why they feel they have so little to lose or what cause they feel warrants this level of protest.
Anonymous
I just read that at my alma mater, the students are chanting about Gaza as well as a controversial local police training center under construction. Make it make sense.
Anon
Yes. This.
Anon
Keep drinking their koolaid and pretty soon you won’t have any rights left at all.
Anon
here read this: https://nypost.com/2023/10/18/i-was-a-dei-director-dei-drives-campus-antisemitism/
Anon
i posted a link to an article featuring a black woman who used to be a DEI director. Here are some quotes
“In fact, I can safely say that toxic DEI ideology deliberately stokes hatred toward Israel and the Jewish people.
I was hired to head the DEI department at Silicon Valley’s De Anza College in 2021.
As a black woman, I was the perfect person for the job — on paper.
Yet I made the mistake of trying to create an authentically inclusive learning environment for everyone, including Jewish students.
Turns out, a toxic form of DEI (which is more accurately called “critical social justice”) demanded I do the opposite. …
Some campus leaders and colleagues repeatedly told me I shouldn’t raise issues about Jewish inclusion or antisemitism.
I was told in no uncertain terms that Jews are “white oppressors” and our job as faculty and staff members was to “decenter whiteness.”
I was astounded, but I shouldn’t have been.
At its worst, DEI is built on the unshakable belief that the world is divided into two groups of people: the oppressors and the oppressed.
Jews are categorically placed in the oppressor category, while Israel is branded a “genocidal, settler, colonialist state.”
In this worldview, criticizing Israel and the Jewish people is not only acceptable but praiseworthy. …
If you don’t go after them — or worse, if you defend them — you’re actively abetting racist oppression.
I have never encountered a more hostile environment toward the members of any racial, ethnic or religious group.”
Anonon
It’s ironic that this comment is lumping Israel and Jews together in one group and upthread there is someone dismissing the notion that you can’t criticize Israel without being called anti Semitic.
As I have been told by many Jews, Israel does not represent them, or their views, and they resent the implications. The loudest and most strident critics of Israel I have ever met were Jews.
Anon
Critics of Israel, yes. Critics of Israel’s right to exist? I doubt the most strident are Jewish.
Anon
This.
Notes
You can’t make a single argument against Israel without an anti-Palestinian turning it into an argument against Israel’s right to exist, ie. anti Semitic. Examples from this site when people have brought up how Israel’s collective punishment against all Palestinians is wrong.
– What about China or Ethiopia or Sudan? How come you’re not protesting against them, you must be anti Semitic
– You don’t think Israel should be able to defend itself? Jews have been persecuted for centuries
Anonymous
No one conflates Jews with Israelis more consistently and fiercely than Israelis. They conscript all Jews into their cause in their rhetoric. And when one person objected to that on a big platform, he got roundly criticized, mostly by diaspora Jews. (Israelis also generally ignore the 25% non-Jewish population in that same rhetoric unless it suits them in the specific circumstances.)
Anon
Dear Anon @ 9:04 (OP), What you are describing is very common. I am an Ashkenazi Jew and have spent my adult life working with fellow progressives for voting rights, reproductive rights, BLM/racial equality, gay and lesbian rights (my adult life started in the 1980s – don’t judge), etc. Since October 7, all of my progressive friends have forsaken whatever connection we had to throw their lot in with BIPOC supporters of Palestine. It is sobering and unhelpful for long term solutions.
Because you mentioned you are researching these issues and interested in learning, I will add that I have learned two things: as an Ashkenazi Jew, I am white, except when I’m not; and antisemitism is the font of all other hatreds because it can be twisted to fit any set of facts (both “Jews are weak and infirm” and “Jews are powerful and control everything”) and can be used to explain any set of facts (“Jews are responsible for brown people overrunning our border”). There is no winning.
I recommend this set of videos by Hillel and, for a lighter take, “Alex Edelman: Just For Us” on Netflix.
https://www.hillel.org/three-part-video-series-on-antisemitism/
Seventh Sister
Maybe I’m just cynical from my experience with small-town politics and allyship, but the very same neighbors who put up the “In This House We Believe [various progressive positions]” and BLM yard signs are the very same ones who turn out to vociferously oppose multifamily housing of any kind in their single-family neighborhoods. The same ones that want to do away with advanced classes in public schools have their kids in the single section of accelerated instruction. Allyship only goes so far for most people.
Anon
My teens are exploring the German side of their family (on my MIL’s side). For any German readers who were there then, how accurate did you find The Lives of Others? The family came over before that but they are curious about all of the history in advance of a visit that will include Berlin and Checkpoint Charlie.
Cb
I loved Beyond the Wall by Katja Hoyer, if they want some accessible reading ahead of their trip.
Anon
Not German, but I lived there for several months and still speak German. We watched The Lives of Others in German class (with a German professor from East Berlin) and she said it was dead accurate. It’s my favorite movie.
Anon.
German reader here, originally from East Berlin.
The Lives of Others is a very good depiction of how government and personal lives were intertwined. So yes to watching that. If you’re interested in the Stasi, there is a museum in Berlin where former prisoners give guided tours and tell about their own story.
Another movie that depicts some aspects of the GDR/Reunification in a humorous way is Goodbye Lenin. I watched it with my husband (from West Germany) many years ago in the cinema, and you could tell who in the audience was from the East because we laughed at different times in the movie than our West German friends. For example, there is a scene where over night the products in the East German supermarkets are switched out from East German to West German goods, and the people in the movie wandering through the supermarket with wide open eyes as if aliens had taken over. East Germans in the audience laughed because this was actually really accurate – supermarkets would close for a day or two, and reopen with exclusively West German branded products on the shelves! Imagine if Walmart closes and reopens the next day with only British brands – that was how it went down!
Local production died because people were so eager to buy Coca Cola, Nestle and Kraft products, and only years later there was a realization that people missed some of the old stuff, and some companies actually saw a renaissance.
Anon.
Also, be aware that East German history is something that is very much present in the lived experience of people even today.
In my family, we have examples of people being spied on, and one uncle (now in his 80s) being held in prison for weeks in the 60s because he overheard an anti-GDR comment in a pub and didn’t report it, but an informer who was present did. Some of the spying stuff only came out after the reunification, when one of my relatives (no in their mid 60s) accessed their recovered Stasi files – in the folder, they found descriptions and protocols of situations that an informer had reported, and by the description, my relative figured out that the informer was one of his best friends. There are too many stories to tell, really…
Highly recommend reading up on Wikipedia about this topic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi#Recovery_of_Stasi_files
Vicky Austin
I’m not German myself, but this is an interest of mine, and I’d recommend The Postcard by Anne Berest (true story, won some book awards in 2023) and The House By the Lake by Thomas Harding. Both really wonderful true stories about German life – House By the Lake covers the entire 20th century.
Anon
Not OP but these look great – adding to my reading list. Winter: A Berlin Family by Len Deighton was also good.
Vicky Austin
Ooh, thanks for the rec!
anonshmanon
Two really neat activities to learn about the Berlin Wall in Berlin in particular are this guided walking tour that chronicles attempts to escape under the Berlin Wall https://www.berliner-unterwelten.de/en/guided-tours/public-tours/under-the-berlin-wall.html (all their tours are amazing) and a big free outdoor museum along part of the former Berlin Wall. You get off at metro stop Nordbahnhof or subway stop Bernauer Strasse and there it is, with bilingual explanations on building the wall, living in the divided city, the so-called death strip and more.
Anon
I am one of the older readers here and I had an older dad – my dad worked the Berlin Airlift when he was in the US Air Force! Another fascinating thing to learn about.
Anon
Any Sézane fans here? Any advice on how sizing runs there? I’m eyeing some sweaters / jackets; nervous about ordering any dress or pants since I’m 5-4 and a pear.
Anon
I love their styles but find the sizing inconsistent. I don’t buy their pants unless I cant try on in person, and even their tops are weirdly sized. I got a gorgeous blouse that was way too wide at the waist (I had sized up) but still weirdly tight on the arms. Their sweaters are soft so it’s ok. They seem to work well for Jean Wang at Extra Petite, not so well on my size 8 with curvy hips and muscular arms and shoulders.
Anon
I like many Sezane dresses; I always conclude that a dress is either much too short or much too long so I have never ordered.
Anonymous
I want to like them but I can’t make their designs work for me. Many times the shirts are too twee/low cut for work (or have odd cut outs) or too boho. They seem to be a go to for Joanna at Cup of Jo and that seems to be their target demographic – wealthy, thin, tall women who don’t go to an office, love artsy clothing, and don’t seem to need to wear a bra.
On a related topic – if anyone has suggestions for cute tops that aren’t see through, that I can wear a normal bra with, and are washable I’m all ears!
Anon
They do a lot of marketing via influencers, so it’s hard to say whether or not they’d really wear the clothing in real life.
NaoNao
Nic + Zoe seems to have some really pretty tops that aren’t eyelet/sheer/cutout city. I’d also list Vince and Parker NYC as well here.
Ellen
Ummm….FYI, CEZANNE is a very famous French impressionist painter. He is not currently involved in fashion clotheing for women, at least to the best of my knowledge.
Anonymous
I really like Sezane. I’m 5’3” and have only ordered shirts so far: I find them to be the perfect length for high waist pants. Sorry I’m not more help. Their returns process is very easy and efficient.
Anonymous
I tried one of their dresses and thought it ran a size smaller than mall brands, more like Reformation. I returned it because it was really frumpy on me. I have not tried any other styles because most of them seem frumpy or both frumpy and revealing at the same time, like weird old-fashioned styles but with low necklines.
NYCer
I find the sizing to be a bit variable, but overall on the bigger side. They usually give sizing notes for each item, which is helpful. If they ever suggest ordering a smaller size, I would do that. Many of the short dresses are too short on me, but I am 5’9 and slim, so they probably would be fine on you at 5’4. I have a couple of the longer or midi dresses, and those are fine.
The denim runs more TTS in my experience.
Lily
I order a ton of Sezane and love it – I very rarely return anything. I agree pants are tough so I avoid those (but I do like their linen shorts and skirts). Dresses, tops, sweaters, all fit me really well. I’m 5’4, 150 lbs, 34DD, and usually order a M in t-shirts/sweaters (very occasionally a small if the description says to order a size down) and a US size 10 (France size 40) in dresses/blouses. The length of skirts/dresses is usually spot on for me. I agree some stuff is fairly low cut but I can wear regular bras with almost everything. I do not order the body con stuff because I try not to highlight my lower stomach.
I try to buy the stuff that is made in Europe of natural materials.
Their leather bags are really nice quality, too.
anon88
I recommend checking out the sezane fb groups or subr eddit for sizing on specific pieces. I have a couple sezane items I love but in general I feel like I look like a pilgrim instead of a waifish french woman in their clothes.
Anon
Pilgrim — I love it! But I know what you mean.
It does not help at all that they picture a jacket worn, not just without a shirt, like companies do here, but also obviously without a bra. How is this supposed to help me decide or order more items to style it with (I will buy an entire outfit sometimes, if it is just picked out for me)?
Anonymous
Bar Mitzvah help! My 5th grade daughter was just invited essentially as a +1 to her best friend’s brother’s Bar Mitzvah. I talked to the parents and the plan is that I’ll take my daughter to the ceremony and keep her company. Later, I’ll drop daughter at the party and pick her up when it’s over.
1) What do I wear to the ceremony as essentially a chaperone of a guest? A dark solid color dress? Springtime dress (a “church dress”?)? More like a work sheath? If I have to buy a new outfit, I’m sending DH instead because he can just throw on a suit and a kippah and be good to go.
2) What does daughter wear to the ceremony? Can she change between the ceremony and the party or is that Extra? in my day it was common but I am now Old. The dress we are looking at for the party isn’t really temple-appropriate in that it’s sleeveless and sparkly. Do we throw a sweater over it and call it a day? Bestie is wearing a fancy black party dress so won’t be changing but black feels too formal for a guest.
3) What amount do we gift? Our connection is the younger sister, not the birthday boy, though my daughter spends so much time at their house that he’s essentially my daughter’s de-facto big brother. I’m thinking $118 but don’t want to be cheap or weirdly over-gift. We are in a position to be as generous as appropriate. The card will come from “Daughter & Family.” For Bestie in a couple years, we’d gift as if she were a niece (she is basically our 3rd kid) and will likely attend as a family, but for her big brother it feels different.
We are in a wealthy suburb of a non-NYC HCOL and we will have many more Bar and Bat Mitzvahs in our future, just not really until my daughters friends start turning 13 in a few years. My husband and I both grew up going to these events but (1) it was 30 years in the NYC burbs and (2) it was never this sort of “+1” situation. I texted around and got feedback that “friend gifts” in our area are $52-$118-ish. And as another data point, a recent birthday party of 5th graders in my kid’s close friend group had gifts like a $35 gift card to ulta, a lululemon water bottle ($45), or a stanley ($40).
Ellen
I remember my bat mitzvah and the boys were invited but they were to young then to be ooogeling us, which was a good thing. With the ways things are now, I would make sure your daughter is aware of the boys and that she needs to be careful and not be alone with any of them. FOOEY on those boys for trying to take advantage of my neice.
Anon
1) Either church clothes or work clothes are fine
2) I think it’s fine to change between ceremony and reception, or wear a sweater over the party dress to the temple
3) it’s traditional to give multiples of 18 so 108 would be more common than 118. I think 108 is very generous but perfectly appropriate, but if you’re more comfortable giving 54 that’s totally fine too.
Anonymous
I can’t do math. $108!!
Anon
Do you know if this is a reform temple or conservative? That might make a difference. If it’s reform, then a “church dress” works; if it’s conservative, a bit more staid — cover shoulders and cleavage. If it’s very conservative, then cover elbows and knees. For your daughter, if it’s reform, sparkles are great and just put on a cardigan for temple.
She can change between ceremony and party, but YMMV depending on the group. Can you find out what others are doing?
$118 is perfect for the gift.
Anon
No need to cover elbows and knees unless it’s an Orthodox service, which you would know already if it was. Any nice dress with a sleeve (even cap) should be ok elsewhere.
Anonymous
It’s reform for sure.
Anon
Then anything you’d wear to church would work! And I can’t do math either — $108 is the right number!
Enjoy!
Anon
I think some people do 118 because it has the “18” in it, even though it’s not a multiple. I’ve heard of both.
Anon
(1) unless this is an orthodox service a church dress or work dress is probably fine. and even if it is, it likely can be made fun. i’d say if it is conservative temple I’d try to cover your shoulders, if it is reform that probably does not matter.
(2) is this party right after the service or is it later in the day? i think either way it is probably fine
(3) i think 118 is probably fine or 180. very much know your area. people in NYC suburbs give insane amounts of money for weddings, bat mitzvahs etc. My family moved from NYC to a wealthy suburb of DC and my parents were apparently overly generous for a large number of years.
and how nice – I hope she has fun!
Anon
Find out what other people are going to wear, there’s a wide range especially at the party after.
Anon
I have a pic of my daughter and her friend group all dressed to head off to the first Bat Mitzvah in their friend group. Every single girl is wearing a short sleeved, knee length dress and white sneakers. :)
Anonymous
To the ceremony? Or to the party (or both)?
Anon
Both.
Work Help
Going to try to be pretty vague so apologies in advance. I have an — err — situation/dynamic/series of events at work that I’m dealing with. It’s been perpetuated by two individuals who are currently in low-level leadership (above me), but should be said that I have strong support above them. The choices they’re making are directly impacting my discrete business. Senior leadership is in the process of learning what’s happened (only got my side recently) and are effectively trying to evaluate how to proceed. If senior leaders agree with me, and they’ve been sympathetic so far, as they dig deeper that they are a huge problem and they get shuffled, reprimanded or managed out, I could stay and keep on keeping on as I have been before they did the Bad Things.
I’ve been her for almost 15 years and, while my job is very hard and it’s a man’s world (nice of finance/i-banking), I’ve been generally very well paid, personally satisfied and so the juice has been worth the squeeze. I signed a multi-year contract that came with $$ that expires June 30, 2025, so just a little more than a year remaining. If I leave before the term, I repay the money. It’s not an unsubstantial amount, so I’m not leaving before that date.
That all said, I’m no slouch or fool. Sr Leadership may side with these bad actors or just try to make us all work it out, which I’m unwilling to do in any long-term way (if forced, I would play along to run out the rest of my contract). Or, if these guys stay and get reshuffled, they could still cause issues.
I’m unsure if I should start to very quietly initiate conversations with some niche-specific recruiters or not, particularly if my end date is more than a year out and this whole thing is still in limbo. I know some people get jobs immediately when they start looking, but I also know that’s not the norm. Is it too soon to start putting early feelers out if I know my drop down date is a year away? Is that a waste of a recruiter’s time? What if I start convos with recruiters but decide to stay? FWIW, the recruiters in mind are small, boutique firms so relationships with them do matter and they are very, very well connected. WWYD?
Ellen
Yes, I think you should start talking to the head hunters. This happened to my friend Myrna, who is also in the banking industry. I never knew about this b/c I found my jobs unconventionally, but if you are making big money, and are of a certain age (like me), the big paying jobs are not going to come to you unless you know somebody. The headhunters get paid alot of money to place you, so they will work with you to make money. Myrna got a new job making the same money, but with stock options that will benefit her alot if the price of the company stock goes up. You should ask for that if you expect to be moving to a pubic company, as Myrna did.
Anon
I would quietly meet with an employment attorney. The exact specifics of your contract matter, as does the nature of the wrongdoing and the regulations in your industry.
Anon
I think a major concern is whether something fraudulent or illegal has happened and if you are a witness or may be implicated. I’d concern speaking to a knowledgeable SEC/financial industry whistleblower attorney.
Anon
Right, if it’s just people being assholes or taking credit for other people’s work or typical corporate petty BS, that’s an entirely different situation than fraud or breaking the law or regulations. The latter needs to be escalated beyond “Sr mgmt is sympathetic”
S
It’s hard to offer advice without specifics on the level of wrongdoing and how your contract is set up and the circumstances of the other parties.
Generally, I think most likely outcome is you will be asked to work together since companies often don’t want the risk or cost of letting someone go or having to retrain. I wouldn’t put too much stake in the higher leadership having your back—respect for authority above you is usually important. There also may be strong financial incentive to have an excuse to let you go given the pay out dynamics you describe.
Next steps would depend on a lot of this. I’d be tempted to keep quiet and try not to make waves for a year and begin looking a few months shy of your targeted leave. If it is super small circles you don’t want to unnecessarily risk being associated with possibly looking difficult. Fair? No, but probably the safest and most beneficial route for you (again, though, not knowing key pieces of dynamics here).
Anonymous
I would approach recruiters now, let them know your target date, and see whether they have advice for how/when to start the search. They will understand the contract situation. But don’t reveal to them anything about the situation, just say something anodyne – you know you are going to be ready to move on, it’s no longer a good fit, you want to grow, whatever.
OP
This is helpful. Thank you.
Anonymous
The downside of this approach, though, is that if the OP has said it’s a 14-month horizon and suddenly has her contract terminated, then the recruiters are going to know she’s damaged goods. Normally, this wouldn’t be a big deal, but if she is in a niche enough field, it might be (unless folks are likely to know there was trouble regardless because it’s so, so tiny of a community). I’d wait to start looking until you’re released or you are a few months closer to end of contract, whichever comes first. No sense in potentially spoiling the tie with the recruiter over this. (A sudden contract termination without her being in touch already looks more like a financial decision to pivot or other neutral job-ending event.)
Anon
14 months out seems very early to me to start looking.
OP
I’ll clarify, the bad acting is not of regulatory concern. No fraud or anything transaction related. Think personnel moves – adds, subtractions, replacements without my knowledge, input or consent. FMLA and gender discrimination would be the angle if I pursued legal recourse, which I’m not sure I will because I just don’t know how much fight I have in me left. Just trying to figure out how to stay or go.
Anon
Tell the recruiters up front you’d need a sign on bonus to make you whole on your stranded compensation if you were to consider a move.
Anon
If these people are senior to you, they don’t need your consent to make organizational changes.
OP
I appreciate your reply, but this is not accurate. Seniority is not linear. Trying to be vague but I understand it may be misleading unintentionally.
Anon
+1, unless something important got lost in the desire to keep it generic, this makes it sound like OP just doesn’t like the management and thinks that is a scandal in and of itself.
Anonymous
Wow. Way to minimize the OP and her understanding of her own circumstances.
OP
Thank you, Anonymous at 12:30. This has been a lot to read. What happened to trusting women? Or at least just answering the question at asked, which was about recruiters and such, not your interpretation of the problem (which is incorrect, and I said at the outset I needed to be vague)? Sigh.
Anon
OP is talking about lawyering up and a reality check is needed here.
Anon
Shopping help needed. I have a Beis mini weekender bag which I love but the strap always hurts the arm holding it so I’m looking for a backpack style bag to evenly distribute the weight and one that has the trolley pass through for traveling. My old Jansport backpack doesn’t have one so it’s annoying to take through the airport. Any suggestions? I’m pretty open to different options but would like one that can also be appropriate in the office and is under $150. TIA!
NY CPA
Shopping help needed. I have a Beis mini weekender bag which I love but the strap always hurts the arm holding it so I’m looking for a backpack style bag to evenly distribute the weight and one that has the trolley pass through for traveling. My old Jansport backpack doesn’t have one so it’s annoying to take through the airport. Any suggestions? I’m pretty open to different options but would like one that can also be appropriate in the office and is under $150. TIA!
Vicky Austin
I think Portland Leather has something like this? Hold please.
Cerulean
I love my Transit backpack from Everlane.
FP
The lululemon “New Crew Backpack 22L” may be what you’re looking for – I have a previous version of it in black and think it’s office appropriate and still holds a ton.
JTM
I lost my mother last August, and with Mother’s Day coming up, I’m really dreading any type of celebration. I know my kids will want to do something for me, but I’m not looking forward to the family celebration with my in-laws. For those who have lost your moms, how does Mother’s Day look different for you? Do you do anything to honor your mom?
Anon
I’m so sorry about your loss. I’m not a mom myself, so can’t comment on that aspect, but I lost my mom in August several years ago. The first Mother’s Day afterward was brutal – nearly every sign, sale, commercial, etc. made me cry. I still miss her immensely, but Mother’s Day doesn’t hit me that way at all anymore, it just makes me think about all of the women in my life who are doing incredible work raising their kids. So here to say only that it can get easier! (YMMV, of course, grief is totally weird and unpredictable…)
Anon
I am a mother who lost my own mother. Mother’s Day is (just as prior to my mother’s death) low-key celebrated. I kind of lean into the day a little bit, focusing on how lucky I was to have won the megamillions in the best mother lottery. My mother is on my mind that day, and I have great memories. Your grief is a sign of the love. Happy mother’s day, and may your mother’s memory be a blessing.
Anon
I’m sorry for your loss. I think it’s totally reasonable to opt out of in-law celebrations this year.
Anon
This. I’m not a mom but I think of Mother’s Day as a day for the mom to do whatever they want even if it is to spend the majority of the day alone or skipping events. My SIL will skip Mother’s Day events with my family if she wants and that’s totally fine!!
Anon
Yes completely – they should understand and if they don’t, I don’t care on your behalf! I’d think about what would make you feel peaceful for the day. Maybe do something to honor your mom or alternatively something very distracting with a friend?
Cerulean
I agree. I’m also a bit of a grinch and won’t do in-law celebrations on Mother’s Day. My husband usually goes to see his mom with flowers and our kid in tow so I get some me time (which is what I really want!).
Anon
Agree. You can opt out. I still have my mom, but after my dad died, I just left town for the first couple of Father’s Days. I could not deal, especially with going to see my father-in-law who was not the kind of grandfather my dad so badly wanted to be. My husband (who is a wonderful father to our children and deserves to be celebrated) understood.
Anon for this
I’m sorry for your loss. I have not lost my mom but am on the flip side – wasn’t able to conceive. I made peace with it but it’s still hard when strangers assume every 40-something woman should be wished happy Mother’s Day.
Can you just send your husband and kids to the in-laws’ this year? Anyone not understanding why a quiet afternoon to yourself might be needed this year is exceptionally clueless.
Anon
I’ve 99% of the Mother’s Days in my life without my mother. This is very individual, but I absolutely hate if people come up to me with sad eyes and say “how are you doing today?”
Anon
Yeah. I kinda hate that too. My mom has been gone for close to a decade now. I’m a mom. I just focus on the experience my own kids are having as they have a living, breathing mother right now.
Anonymous
You don’t need to go to a family celebration with your in laws your first Mother’s Day without your mom. Say no to that now unapologetically.
anon
I am so sorry for your loss. I think you should have full permission to opt out of any celebrations this year. And if anybody argues, it’s their problem.
Anon
i do not really honor my mother on mothers day, but rather on her birthday, which was just last weekend. she loved tea, jelly beans and scones, so i have a tea party with my kids in her honor. i have fortunately managed to avoid my in-laws on mothers day bc they dont live locally, but ive told DH i’m not up for that, even though it has been 4.5 years since her passing
Anonymous
My mom is alive but we don’t have a great relationship. I send her a card,
My grandmother passed away this year and we were close. We went extra elaborate with her favorite traditions on her favorite holiday, had her favorite meal and cocktail on her birthday, and for mothers day I am going to plant one of her favorite plants in my yard.
Anon
I’m so sorry for your loss. You’re not even a year out, which is basically the blink-of-an-eye in grief timing. This is not an exact match to your story, but for the first Father’s Day after my father’s very unexpected death, I used the day to focus on how grateful I was to have 29 years with my wonderful, supportive dad. My emotions were still very raw and erratic, but it helped me to reframe the day as a celebration of my dad, knowing that several of my friends had lost a parent at a much younger age. I didn’t have kids at the time, but I do now, and when Father’s Day rolls around, I spend a few minutes showing them photos of my dad and telling them how much he would have loved watching them grow up, how lucky I feel that he was in my life, as well as a few stories of him being a goofball dad. Honestly, I’m tearing up as I type this (and it’s been 18 year since he died!), but it’s from tenderness.
All that being said, I think it’s ok to tell your kids and in-laws that this Mother’s Day feels different for you, and that you need a quieter day. You can still express [insert whatever emotion you feel towards your MIL: love, gratitude, admiration, respect] without having to slap on a happy face and pretend like it feels like a normal day for you.
Anon
I hope the family celebration is not your whole day. Communicate with your partner that you want at least some of Mother’s Day to be just you and your kids and husband. You can meet with his mom later.
anon
Easy solution, husband tells his parents … wife just lost her mom, and needs mother’s day to be really low key this year so we won’t be coming over. Then, depending on your in laws, he follows that up with a request for them to watch your kids for a weekend in May so that the two of you can do something chill from sitting on your sofa to going to a weekend at a nice hotel. From one internet stranger to another, just give yourself permission for this month to suck (it will get better, but this year is likely going to be RAW) and also, for you to do whatever makes you happy – even if you just decide it is a filet-o-fish for lunch on a random Wednesday.
Anon
Eh, husband has a mother too. He can peel off and go see his own mom for a while. OP doesn’t need to be part of that.
Anonymous
And his mother isn’t as important as his wife and the mother of his children is grieving. And unless she’s a jerk, she’d agree with that.
anon for this
I am so sorry for your loss. This day was always hard for me and after I had kids it because nearly unbearable.
The best thing I can tell you is to give yourself grace, and also to talk to your spouse NOW about your feelings and why this is not all sunshine and celebrations for you. I have found, over the years, that what I want differs from year to year and sometimes in unpredictable ways. For the last couple of years, I have found it easiest to do my family celebration first thing in the day (breakfast in bed from kids, usually), and then I disappear to be on my own for a few hours. Sometimes to a spa. Sometimes just for an aimless drive or a walk. And then I return to dinner that my husband arranges.
It’s helped me to frame the day less about me, myself, and more about giving my kids a chance to do something for me. But I really hate the ritual overall, and there are always tears (though I try to keep them from my kids).
Senior Attorney
My mom is gone and my only child is far away, so this year my husband and I are doing a volunteer shift on Mother’s Day in order to let the people who want to be with their families, be with their families. It’s at our local showcase design house so there will be a lot of happy families celebrating by visiting, so I feel like it will be a nice way to observe Mother’s Day even though I won’t have any family around. I think we are going to make it an annual tradition.
OP, I definitely agree you get a pass from the in-law celebration.
Me
OP, I’m just a few months ahead of you on the grief journey after my mom died last year. I don’t have an answer to your question because I’m struggling with how to do holidays without her. I just want holidays to cease to exist because all of my holiday traditions were mine with my mom. I do not have kids of my own.
The first holiday after she died was Easter. And I opted out of going to my in-laws’ because I didn’t want to do a family celebration of any kind without her. I stayed home alone while DH, with my encouragement, went to the family thing. Staying home alone was also miserable because it felt so lonely. For Thanksgiving and Christmas, I forced myself to do stuff with DH’s family. While I would not call those holidays fulfilling, they were better than being alone. You have every reason to not go to a Mother’s Day celebration if you don’t want to, but I encourage you to imagine what it will feel like to be alone before you make your decision. This is the lesser of two bad choises. Perhaps Senior Attorney’s suggestion that you do something like volunteering is a good option to pursue.
Anonia
Any Bermuda length shorts recommendations? I want something with a little more coverage than 2-4 inch inseams. Size 16-18w, pull on styling preferred but not required. Fun colors would be awesome!
Cat
https://www.jcrew.com/p/womens/categories/clothing/shorts/pull-on/long-tropez-short-in-linen/BY818?display=standard&fit=Classic&color_name=flax&colorProductCode=BY818
Goes up to 3X
Anon
Talbots has a perfect short with a 9 inch or 10.5 inch inseam. They also have a variety of other fun colored shorts with longer inseams. Not pull on, but I find that with their range of sizing, I can get a much better fit so I don’t wish for the pull on quite as much.
Moose
Tons here: https://www.universalstandard.com/collections/shorts
Moose
Land’s End has a bunch of styles
Anon
The above post made me think — my cousins recently lost their mother after a long battle with dementia. This is their first mothers day without her. She was like a second mother to me. What could / should I do for my cousins and my uncle? The loss is still raw — it was around Easter.
Anon
I would call them or write a note with some favorite memories. The specific anecdotes, rather than general platitudes, really celebrate the person your cousins and uncle (and you) lost. They don’t need to be big or important memories to make the person present.
anon
+1
This is really lovely, and thoughtful.
Me
+10,000. Share memories. Say you miss her and why you miss her. And keep doing it with frequency over the next year.
pink nails
+1 or a text. It doesn’t have to be long, but something sharing that you are thinking of her as well. My best friend lost her mom when we were in high school quite a few years ago, and she has shared that she feels the loss more on mother’s day, her mom’s birthday, and the date she died. I try and remember these dates and do a little check in, text a little memory (in the mix of our constant texting), and do something more special during this time period (mothers day and the day she died are within a couple weeks of each other, so it’s a double wham).
Anon
The post and comments yesterday about a poster choosing between a dull but steady job vs a challenging job with equal pay was really eye-opening for me! We the hive HAVE gotten older and more burned out. Remember there used to be questions all the time from law students, and I almost never seen any now. (The eyeroll comments about “not this again” probably didn’t help retain a youth-friendly energy.) We were all climbing the ladder and building our careers, and now we’re all here with elder care and college admissions problems.
Anyways, I wanted to say, to the extent there are young people lurking here, you’re still welcome! Come on out and say hello :) Ignore any old grouches you encounter – in life and here ;)
Anon
I’d also be surprised if any of the younger readers ever decide to get married based on some of the comments here.
anon
Well, that trend has already been increasing for many years.
Anon
I hope to god they’re smart enough to not make decisions based solely on anonymous internet message boards full of grumpy people.
anonshmanon
what do you mean, I keep seeing comments here that to even live with a man, marriage is a must!
Anon
Right you have to get married first so that you can hate his guts every single day all while calling him DH.
Cat
I think it’s the frequency of posts where people ask for help with a problem in their marriage.
As far as the seemingly conservative advice about living together — I think we’re now a collectively old enough group that either we or our friends have been burned by a guy who kept saying “oh I really love you, let’s keep living together to make sure we’re ready for marriage” stringing along a proposal, only to break up because he just wasn’t ready to commit like 5-6 years later. Advising someone that someone unready to commit after 3 years of dating may never be ready? Whether that’s the OP herself or her partner? Good advice IMHO.
Anon
There *is* a body of research showing that living together before marriage is correlated with a higher divorce rate. It’s not “conservative” advice for the sake of being a party pooper. My husband and I moved in together once we were engaged, and married within the year. To me, that approach worked great because we made a decision that wasn’t influenced by “oh we live together, may as well get married” thinking.
Anon
And then he marries someone else within two years!
I’ve seen it the other way too (he finally wraps his head around the commitment after 6+ years of dating, leading to a happy marriage), but not nearly as often.
Anon
Agree wholeheartedly.
Men have a longer theoretical runway for having children than we do. (I say “theoretical” because I know several who hit their late 40s and were gobsmacked that they could not, in fact, “just” marry a woman 10-15 years younger.) If kids are in the cards, don’t let him waste your time.
I have long believed that “you can have a kid at 40” is valuable in certain contexts. It’s good to throw at misogynists who make all sorts of noises about how we “should” have kids at 25. It is encouraging for women in their 30s who desperately want to find someone and have kids. It is not, however, a life plan for those who want to procrastinate for the sake of procrastinating.
Senior Attorney
I think the correlation of divorce with living together is more a correlation between “cultures where it’s no okay to live together before marriage are the same cultures where it’s not okay to divorce.”
Anon
+1 to Senior Attorney. It’s correlation, not causation.
Anon
I think you conflate being financially cautious with some moral issue with living together. I’ve advised not moving in a thousand times because of the sunk cost fallacy and other financial costs of commingling a life without legal recourse. By all means sleep with whoever you want, I think you should sleep with a ton of people before you get married, just watch your wallet.
Anonymous
That’s not pearl clutching, that’s good financial sense.
Too many women in my generation (older Millennial) lived with a guy in his house or condo where they were contributing to the household in various financial arrangements and hoping for a ring but he was never planning to get married or at least not to them. They would have been better having a frank conversation about financial and life goals and then investing in their own mortgage and building equity in their own property instead of just moving in because a lease was up.
anonshmanon
That’s just what I find so irrational. As a base assumption, a man is bound to cheat you and disappoint if you don’t get them to commit and marry you. But once they say those vows, suddenly they are magically trustworthy, and having fully combined finances and absolutely commingle your financial futures is the only way to have a “real marriage”? Because divorces and spendthrift partners are not a thing?
Not getting married and/or having separate finances are perfectly valid options, if we want to be strategic about finances.
Senior Attorney
No, but at least if you’re married you have some legal rights in the event of a divorce. My former assistant lived with a guy for years in a home he owned, and paid rent which of course he applied to the mortgage. One day he said he wanted her out and she was left with nothing. If they’d been married she would have been entitled to more than nothing.
Anon
I think in that case it’s the paying rent to a man who’s applying it a mortgage in his name only that was the big mistake.
If you move in and share a rent payment or own a home and both pay the mortgage you won’t be worse off when you split.
Anonymous
A frank conversation about financial and life goals doesn’t mean marriage is the only valid option. I don’t mean to imply that at all. But far too many people move in together because a lease is up and not because they have had an open conversation about their plans and goals. Not sure what cheating has to do with any of it and why you brought that into it.
Of course it’s totally fine to have separate finances and not get married. Do what works for you. But a frank conversation about finances and expectations is still super important. Don’t do the ‘my lease is over, I’ll just move into your house’ and then be surprised when in 5 years things don’t look like you think they will.
Anon
As a happily married Old, my only advice here is not to marry the guy you had to pressure or talk into marrying you. You should only marry someone who absolutely knows he wants to marry you.
Chl
I noticed that too and was thinking about it. I don’t know if it’s pandemic related or some of the shifts in the financials and expectations of high achieving careers over time (like the corporatization of medicine or the rise of tech companies since I started reading in…2010). I had always thought of myself as ambitious and looking for advice about how to rise but lately I care more about how to make my overall life better which might not include working all the time for a place that would happily lay me off, for pay that buys less in the market, etc.
Anon
I’m a big fan of working from home and think employers should be more supportive if they want to keep the best workforce. But it doesn’t trump the unchallenging, seemingly dead end job yesterday’s OP was describing.
Anon
(And also, it seems like she felt she would only need childcare if she took the new job. If she’s currently working “full time” from home with a toddler, she needs childcare now.)
Nora
How many tasks/projects do you work on at one time at work?
Like right now I’d say there are 2 things I have to review, 2 current projects I have to work on, 1 waiting on a meeting tomorrow, and 1 waiting on another team doing something first. So 6 things total.
I have a direct report who feels overwhelmed when there are more than 2 things on her plate. Neither of those things are all-consuming, and they wouldn’t have any additional requests other than what’s in the specs. It’s not like having multiple clients in law or consulting where anything could come up.
If she wants to work on only 2 projects I would expect to be done fairly quickly (and then move on to the next thing). Basically, projects A,B,C,and D should take 4 weeks all together. I can give her all 4 in the beginning of the month and say they’re due at the end of the month. I could also give her 1 each week and they take a week. Instead I give her project A and it takes 1.5-2 weeks instead.
I’ve of course asked her what’s up and basically she never gives a clear explanation other than “its just taking longer”. I’ve offered help, to delegate some of it, training, etc
Anon
Why are you letting her set the deadlines? Tell her it needs to be done in a week, not 2.
anon
This seems to me to be the problem. You need to sit her down and explain to her what the expectations are.
Nora
The thing is, I absolutely have. In person, in the tracker, on the doc.
She says it isn’t possible to do in a week. I guess if you work really slowly
Cat
Looking at my overall project tracker, approximately 25. 1 or 2 at a time?!?
Cat
also, her strategy of deferring C and D is bad if, upon starting work, she realizes she needs input from others. All of a sudden it’s a rush for them (or delayed overall) because she decided she didn’t want to take a look at it in week 1.
Nora
Yeah thats really why there are tasks A,B,C, D – review one, ask for what you need, work on the other one, etc etc
anonshmanon
same!
anon
I am in an area of transactional law and I have 21 open deals (deals at some stage of the process where something could come up), and 8 deals that need substantial attention in the next 2 days for sure. That does not count firm service committees and external (but work-related) committees that have deliverables in the next 10 days.
To be fair to your direct report, this is one of the things I hate about my job and I would much prefer to work on things sequentially, one at a time – but that’s not how it works.
I’ve had some success after reading Cal Newport’s Deep Work in scheduling a “deep work” block of time most days to work on just one matter, which helps me manage the overwhelmed feeling (I check/respond to email the last 6 minutes of every hour so I’m not unresponsive the whole time).
Nora
She is a big fan of Deep Work! That would be fine if she got her work done. Instead she goes into work blocks but doesn’t have that much to show for it at the end.
I feel like I’m being forced to micromanage her but would prefer not to.
Anon
I currently have 60 cases assigned to me. Some (maybe 25?) require no work at this time because I’m waiting on a ruling from the Court or a settlement payment. During the average week, I probably work on 10 to 15 of them. Over the course of a month, I do something on about 30 of my cases. Even when I was in biglaw and had massive cases, I would still be juggling dozens of tasks on the case at once.
If she is not getting a sufficient amount of work done, that’s what you need to focus on. Give her deadlines and tell her how much she needs to get done over a month.
Anon
I would say at any given time I have about 5-10 files I need to draft something relatively substantial (usually 1-3 hours or work on each file) and then probably another 10 or so that require timely follow up of some kind and then probably another 20 or so which are still open and pending something, but not necessarily any current action needed by me.
No Problem
How did she handle college or high school? Surely she must have had 5-7 classes at a time back then and managed to juggle them all. Or maybe she didn’t juggle them well!
FWIW I’m in consulting and routinely have 3-6 projects that need my attention in a given week. Some of them swap out fairly frequently: it’s not uncommon for me to work on something for only 3-4 weeks before it’s over. But then there are many, many tasks within each project, so easily triple that many tasks within a single week if they’re quick turn tasks.
Nora
I suspect that she is neurodiverse in some way. I don’t know how high school/college worked, but you’re right, that would have involved multiple projects.
I used to work in consulting too so I wanted to make sure that wasn’t biasing me in the wrong direction.
No Problem
That’s fair about her being ND. Is the work actually too much for her to do in a week? Maybe you need to talk through her process with her. There could be process improvements or shortcuts you assume she would utilize that she doesn’t know about.
Nora
I don’t think it is. I think mainly I need her to tell me what the problem is. I’ve asked and she just . . . doesn’t say anything.
If in the beginning of the month she said project A will take 2 weeks because of XYZ I could work with that. It’s an issue when she says okay to 1 week but then at that time says its only half done.
I think I do need to ask for more details in the interim. It’s just hard when every single question or conversation about ongoing work is like pulling teeth to get more detailed answers.
Anon
Easily two dozen at the moment for me.
Some details are unclear from your description. When you give her Project A, do you tell her the ideal turnaround time is 1 week, or do you just let her take what time it takes and then quiz her on the status and ask her what’s up without ever having articulated a deadline?
Does her work product depend on other parties, such that she has downtime between portions of it which she could spend working on Project B, but you haven’t actually given that to her yet?
Have you ever given her A, B, C, and D at one time and also told her she can manage the timeline however she thinks best as long as she gets them all done in the next 4 weeks?
Nora
Y’all, of course I tell her the turnaround time is in 1 week. And I ask her if its doable – at the time she says “sure” or “okay”.
I’ve given her A,B,C,and D before and its been a disaster. I would prefer to do that. But I just don’t think she can organize her time like that. THere’s a lot of “oh I’ve started it” or “I’m researching it” and then at the end of 4 weeks it turns out that A is 75% done, B is half done, C and D are barely touched.
Anon
Okay, then you need to start managing her more closely.
Maybe that is regular check-ins every few days where you get the status of each project and give guidance around what next steps should be and on what timeline they should be completed. Maybe it is a direct conversation to explore whether the scope of the projects is larger than you believe, so you can determine whether the timelines are truly realistic. Maybe instead you explain to her output is far too little and significantly increasing it is a requirement if she wants to stay in this role.
Anon
Does she work from home? If in the office, is she in all day? Honestly, from what you have said, I bet she isn’t working full time. Those are the answers I give if I haven’t really started something but don’t want to say that
Anon
I’d ask her for daily COB reports on what she has accomplished. The status quo is just not acceptable or reasonable.
Anon
I would like to get a sapphire necklace and earrings for Mother’s Day. Any recommendations for jewelry stores to look at? I’m in DC, if anyone has local recommendations. Also, any idea on what I should expect to spend? I don’t want to spend an arm and a leg, but am willing to splurge some. Sapphire is my daughter’s birthstone, and I want this to be something that will get passed down to her in the future.
Anon
For work clothes, I’m good with JCrew and Banana. For jewelry, avoid anything mass market. Go to a local jeweler. If you’re in San Francisco, I like No,3, Lang and Fiat Lux. All very different styles (modern/vintage, antique, and very modern). Try things on in person.
Anon
Agree you should go to a local jeweler. Look for one that has a full bench, a place that does repairs in-house and doesn’t send it out.
There’s no way to estimate price because it depends on how big & what quality you want the sapphires to be. I’d just go browse and see if any of the styles appeal to you. Different jewelers have different styles.
My favorite part of buying jewelry from my local bench jeweler is choosing stones separately from the setting. I’ve bought some items from them as-is from their displays, but most of my favorite pieces were like – I like this ring but I want the stones to be different, or I like these earrings but I want to add a pearl, etc.
Tiny Jewel Box
I recommend Tiny Jewel Box on Connecticut Avenue. Great local jewelry store. I got my engagement ring there. They also have a nice vintage selection if you are interested in that.
FormerlyPhilly
Who wants to shop for me?
In a few weeks I’ll be visiting a female cousin (37yo) in a European country who loves name-brand things along the lines of Coach, Michael Kors, etc. I don’t buy name-brand things for myself (I have other expensive hobbies) so I’m lost on what to give as a gift. Prefer to spend less than $150ish. Not a wallet, because that’s what my mom is bringing as a gift. Open to other name-brands, again I don’t know them.
Ideas? What do young people like these days?
Pep
If you know what kind of cell phone she has, a name-brand/logo-ed cell phone case might be nice.
Anon
I’d get her a small cross body from Coach like this one. Endlessly practical but still Coach.
https://www.macys.com/shop/product/coach-pebble-leather-hayden-crossbody-with-removable-strap?ID=17968161
FP
What about a silk scarf in the logo print? This would also not take up a lot of space. https://www.coach.com/products/vintage-signature-print-silk-skinny-scarf/C2783.html?frp=C2783+TY6++ONE
NaoNao
Branded key chain or purse charm! These are usually right around $100 and are a really fun and cute gift that most people won’t buy for themselves.
Miz Swizz
How do you keep track of tasks that need to be done but not any time soon? I use a paper planner for my weekly/near term tasks but I have some tasks that I need to keep on my radar but aren’t time sensitive.
Anon
I’m old school, but use a pad of paper for a to do list. I will write down any projects I need to work on as I think of them. I then use my outlook calendar to track deadlines.
I’ll also sometimes give myself goal deadlines for those no-deadline tasks, and list them in my outlook calendar. They may get moved back if necessary, but it keeps it on my mind.
pink nails
Currently I’m using a running Notes checklist that I keep up on one screen. I also snooze emails so that they pop up when I need to take action – using my email inbox as a default to do list. I do not recommend using the inbox this way fwiw.
I have a paper planner that I used religiously for years. I would copy the running list from week to week on Friday afternoons and use it to plan the following week. It provided a nice closure to the week and blueprint for next week. The items that didn’t need to immediately get done just got copied over. I should really start doing that again.
I currently have an open tab on my phone for an app called Motion – I’m intrigued about it. I’ve never really made an electronic planning system stick, but maybe it’s time.
Anon
For personal tasks I use the Keep Notes app on my phone (it comes preloaded on my google phone and you can add checkboxes).
For work I use OneNote, which you can also add checkboxes to a list.
Anon
I use qlist.cc for random one offs that are not very important
workflowy for actual projects and anything important
Anon
Honestly? In my head. But not well. :)
NYNY
Set calendar reminders for when I’m less busy and/or the task will become more pressing. If I remember it and get to it before then, I can dismiss the reminder, but there’s a solid chance I will forget it completely, so having a reminder is good.
Flats Only
I keep track of a lot of this type of thing for my boss (“remind me to reach out to XXX after I’ve had the meeting with YYY” ). I put an appointment in my own Outlook calendar with relevant emails, etc. attached, on a date that makes sense for the task, then bring it up to my boss when it’s time for him to be reminded. He thinks I have an amazing memory!
Anonymous
Personal – TickTick
Work – Microsoft Outlook task manager
Anon
I add it to my calendar with multiple reminders. For example, I need to complete something by Labor Day and it should take me about a month. I’ll add a reminder on both July 1 and August 1 so I have ample time to plan.
Anonymous
Where would you go for a 2-3 day trip with your spouse or significant other to celebrate a milestone birthday? We are making fairly last minute plans to travel at the end of June, leaving from Boston or potentially another airport within driving distance. Kids are staying home with Grandma.
Anonymous
London.
Anon
Paris.
Anonymous
Yep, Paris or London.
Anon
YMMV but I think the Caribbean can be worth it for three days if you get a nonstop flight, and you should have decent options from Boston. June is low season there so you can get good deals on flights and hotels but hurricane risk is still pretty low.
pink nails
I don’t like plane travel and personally wouldn’t get on a plane for 2-3 day trip. It’s too short for the hassle.
I would drive up to Acadia National Park. Looks like it’s about 5 hr away from Boston, so far enough that it’s a getaway trip but close enough to easily drive.
Anon
I was going to mention Acadia too, although the 5 hour drive can take MUCH longer if you’ll be heading up on Friday and returning on Sunday, so beware. I’ve done that drive a lot and it’s taken me up to 9 hours each way in peak traffic. If you have to travel at peak times and have the budget, it’s worth flying from Boston to the Bar Harbor airport (in Trenton, ME, about 20 minutes from Bar Harbor). It’s pricey but will save you a lot of time vs weekend traffic. The flight is scheduled as ~1 hour but is only about 15 minutes in the air. JetBlue operates flights.
Anon
It’s a brutal five hours: traffic, traffic, tolls, then desolate (and not in a fun way).
IMHO, Acadia is more fun for people outside of New England than for people in New England. Everything it offers – coastline, mountains, cute shops and restaurants, seafood – you can get without all that much trouble a lot closer to home.
Anon
Eh I live in Boston and love Acadia and coastal Maine in general. It’s true that it’s probably more exciting for those who don’t live here but it is much more scenic than most of New England and a lot of the food up there is unique to Maine. That said, I agree it’s not a fun drive and I wouldn’t go for 2-3 days. There are closer places like Newport that are better suited to a weekend trip.
Anon
What do you like to do? And how long do you want to travel for 2-3 days?
For a lazy beach vacation, maybe Bermuda? For a city, foodie-type destination, maybe Charleston or Savannah? For something active & adventurous, maybe Newfoundland or even Iceland?
Anon
Bermuda. Keep the flight to 2-3 hours so you actually enjoy the vacation.
Anon
Bermuda is the right answer.
I love plane travel and am not above going to Europe for a long (4-5 day) weekend, but a three day trip means you’ll only have one full day at the destination – I can’t imagine going all the way to London or Paris for one day.
Senior Attorney
Quebec City. Paris without the long flight.
Cat
2-3 days including travel time, or at the destination? DH and I went to London for a long weekend once (landed Fri AM, flew home Monday afternoon) – and from Boston it’s not that much further than going to CA for the weekend.
JetBlue flies to a bunch of islands from Boston – Caribbean is beautiful in early summer and you benefit from off season pricing.
Anon
Take the flight and go somewhere great! With just 36 hours in Paris, you could have 3-4 amazing meals, tons of delicious pastries and snacks, and see a bunch of major sights. It’s always worth it to make the extra effort and it’s not THAT long a flight from Boston. You can do SO much in short chunks of time.
Anon
Take me with you!!
Anonymous
Fingerlakes.
Anonymous
I’d go to a very fancy beach destination – Bahamas, Bermuda, etc. Basically lounge on the beach, get massages, nap, eat yummy food, etc.
Anon
This is exactly what my husband and I do when we get a trip away without he kids. On our first kidfree trip we went to a famous sightseeing destination and we tried to pack too much stuff in, and it ended up being neither relaxing nor very romantic. I love to travel and do active stuff, but our kids are old enough now that we can do that kind of trip with them and when it’s just us we love to go to a luxury adults only hotel, get couples massages, lounge on the beach/pool and eat gourmet meals.
nuqotw
Drive up the east coast, eat all the seafood, and take long walks on the beach.
LT
Burlington VT is magical in the summer and only about 3.5-4 hrs from Boston.
Anon
Montreal or Toronto.
Anon
With that short of a time frame I’d probably just go to a local-ish spa resort. I’ve heard good things about Miraval in the Berkshires although I haven’t personally been to that one (I’ve been to and loved the Miraval in Arizona).
Unpopular opinion, but I was very underwhelmed by Bermuda and if you really want to lie at a beach I’d just go to Florida.
Anan
Atlantic Cananda.