Thursday’s Workwear Report: Ponte Twist-Detail Dress

259 Comments

1. For those that have the shark flex style, do you use all the pieces it comes with or just the brush? I’m primarily interested in it for blow drying my wavy hair straight with ease and wondering if I need to actually get the Flexstyle or can just get the hairbrush (the SmoothStyle) which is a third of the price.

   1. I’m interested in this too especially since it’s much less expensive than the Dyson.

   2. Ok I have the Smoothstyle (bought it as an upgrade to my Revlon) and sold that to buy a Flexstyle. It’s silly, but I love that the Flexstyle is “all in one”. I can rough dry my hair with it then pop on the attachment the brush. I’ve gotten significantly more compliments on my hair doing this as opposed do just using the Smoothstyle.

      I can go from sopping wet hair to dry and styled in ~10 minutes, or towel dried wet hair to dry and styled in ~5 minutes.

      There are plenty of times I just rough dry my hair and love how quick that is too.

      90% of the time I just use dryer or brush attachment, but I am learning how to use the curling attachments and am excited to perfect that.

   3. I love my Shark and use it a lot (I actually have the Dyson too, but probably prefer the Shark). If you are not wanting to curl at all, the Smoothstyle would work, but I think the brush on the FlexStyle is better (it’s flexible, whereas the Smoothstyle has harder, less flexible bristles).

2. Please help me find new good suit shells.

   I wear a bunch of silk shells under my jackets. However, my new computer’s camera hits me at the exact wrong angle. They look fine in person, but I start every call by tugging down the back of my shit.

   I’m busty (DDD), high-set, and plus size (18). Any recommendations?

   1. Wanting to make sure I understand what you’re looking for . . . the comment about tugging down the back of your shirt might mean that you’re trying to adjust the neckline in the front? Are you looking for shells with a high neckline?

   2. This seems like a camera problem, not a clothing problem. Assuming it’s a laptop, have you tried raising your laptop, adjusting how far open the lid is, or using an external camera that you can position?

   3. People really liked that top at banana republic factory – I think it was featured here a Friday or two ago.

      Also the Calvin Klein tops that have some shirring or whatever at the top are high necks but pretty – macys or the zon

   4. I’m about the same measurements and I like the brand “Worthington” for solid, inexpensive, inoffensive work clothing that feels conservative and conventional but not ultra-boring, if that makes sense. I typically buy mine secondhand but I think they’re still in production through J.C. Penny.

   5. Are these too high-necked? https://bananarepublic.gap.com/browse/product.do?pid=755664072&cid=5037&pcid=5037&vid=1&cpos=22&cexp=2252&kcid=CategoryIDs%3D5037&cvar=17249&ctype=Listing&cpid=res24061307702486066009144#pdp-page-content

      Here’s a couple non-silk options at a lower price point: https://bananarepublicfactory.gapfactory.com/browse/product.do?pid=454089001&cid=1091674&pcid=1091674&vid=1&nav=meganav%3AWomen%3AWomen%27s%20Clothing%3ATops%20%26%20Blouses&cpos=40&kcid=CategoryIDs%3D1091674&ctype=Listing&cpid=res638538859731439784#pdp-page-content
      https://bananarepublicfactory.gapfactory.com/browse/product.do?pid=885441021&cid=1091674&pcid=1091674&vid=1&nav=meganav%3AWomen%3AWomen%27s%20Clothing%3ATops%20%26%20Blouses&cpos=2&kcid=CategoryIDs%3D1091674&ctype=Listing&cpid=res638538859731438654#pdp-page-content

   6. LOL at the typo, but Quince is good for this as long as you read the reviews to understand fit.

      The v-neck stretch silk tank is not your friend – too short, too open at the neckline. But the silk tee, the shell tank, and the dolman sleeve blouse are nice (nb I had to sew the placket of the blouse closed because it gaped a little).

      1. Unfortunately Quince doesn’t carry the silk tee in plus sizes – other silk pieces, yes, but not the tee. I see the tank and a button-front option.

      2. The Quince silk tee bunches up under my blazers.

   7. I buy the shells to sweater sets – preferably Brooks Brothers, but J Crew and J Crew Factory will do. Cotton for warm weather and wool or cashmere for cool weather. Sometimes you can get a really good deal on orphan shells whose cardigans are no longer available.

      1. Replying to myself to add: BB has at least one patterned sweater set every summer, for something that deviates from solids, although I don’t particularly care for this summer’s sunflower one.

3. Is it true that the new, lower-cost hearing aids you can get OTC are only good for mild hearing loss? My father finally agreed to testing in his retirement home and they’re saying it’s moderate to moderately severe and therefore we should go with their expensive vendor instead of OTC like we wanted. I don’t know enough about hearing loss to tell if this is truly an upsell or not.

   1. I would never just go with the nursing home’s vendor without getting an outside estimate.

      1. 1000+ this. The nursing home has an arrangement with a specific vendor for a %, or it’s a relative or friend of the director or owner or similar. Seek an independent opinion on this.

   2. My dad has gone through several pairs, each increasing in price. He says that the cheap ones really just amplify sounds into your ear, while the fancier ones can reduce background noise, amplify only the frequencies that you’re likely to want to hear (like people talking), and have connectivity features, apps, etc. You may or may not want all of those features. It may be helpful to start with the cheaper ones and then upgrade if you aren’t satisfied with them. A reputable audiologist can provide advice for the specific level of hearing loss.

      1. He had an appointment with the vendor’s audiologist, who is of course suggesting their hearing aids and visit plan. He actually has a Medicare Advantage plan that includes a hearing aid benefit, but I don’t have the details yet. All I know is that the nursing home vendor is NOT in network. Honestly, helping with this stuff is freaking exhausting because I don’t know what’s a scam and what isn’t.

         1. I have a kid with hearing aids. If I were you I’d go in order 1) in-network aids 2) Costco Audiologist hearing aids (probably out of network but well regarded and less expensive than most) 3) OTC aids 4) nursing home aids. Aids fitted by an audiologist are going to be better, but it’s not worth paying the nursing home vendor if you think he can manage the aids tech-wise himself (with help from you/audiologist).

            1. Agree w Costco. Thats where older folks in my like have gotten the best deals.

   3. I’m not a good source for this but I thought hearing tests and things is one of the ways nursing homes run the costs up? I just remember an aunt being frustrated that the nursing home kept giving her deaf mother hearing tests and trying to charge a lot.

      1. That’s exactly why I’m asking. He does have hearing loss, but the fact that they keep trying to steer him to their expensive vendor instead of even discussing whether OTC aids might be appropriate makes me think that this is all part of keeping costs high. Yes, I tend to be cynical about this sort of thing but I honestly think I have reason to when it comes to retirement communities.

         1. I don’t understand why you don’t take him to an in-network audiologist or Costco?

   4. So the kernel of truth they’re working from is that the OTC ones are for “mild to moderate” hearing loss (and that’s actually in their FDA approval); and sometimes people with more complex needs do still benefit from working with an audiologist. Does not seem good that they’re pushing you on using their vendor even though they’re out of network for your dad though

      Some of the OTC brands offer a 90 day trial – worth a shot, if they aren’t working for you, send them back and then try the audiologist route?

   5. My husband has needed hearing aids for the 22 years I’ve known him. At 50 (this year) he finally got them after pricing out and trying out MANY different types. He ended up getting the Jabra brand (yes the same brand as your speaker phone) and I cannot put into words the amazing life improvement he has had in these past 6 months. Try Jabra. We’ve been really impressed with their ongoing support, including the audiologist on demand as needed.

4. Posting here bc cmoms skews younger. My 5th grader (generally a good kid, minimal issues so far the most of which is not doing her math homework if it’s too hard) was at a friends, they lied to the friends dad about going biking, instead they came back to our house, stole 100 dollars from our drawer (to be fair my husband owed her like 80 from allowance he had forgotten to give her over the last month so she rationalized that way but he was upstairs and she could have asked him), and went to town (10 minute walk from us) and bought 100 dollars worth of candy. I am freaking out about the stealing and lying to the dad and that today’s it’s candy tomorrow it’s drugs. Help me on how to talk through this with her and consequences. We are not strict about candy and I am generally pretty ok with letting her be independent at her age and walk around our safe neighborhood, but this is the first time she went to town and didn’t ask, too.

   1. Also, I am torn if she should have more supervision than she currently has, we let her be fairly independent bc she has proven herself trustworthy, eg home alone for a few hours, walk to her friends houses or go to the playground with them alone.

      1. Thinking here. How much of this is also a bad friend group situation?

         I’d have a hard time not making my kid work it off with yard work at minimum wage plus some additional penalty. I haven’t had to do this hit that your house was offered up in a lie to other parents would bother me to the point of having a convo about it in person so that they don’t think you are OK with this or were sort of aware.

         TBH I did this as an older teen (lying about whereabouts, not stealing), it was such a bad lie that I deserved to be caught and have loss of car as punishment, which would have stung. 11 is young to be lying.

         I have one kid with a friend with older brothers and a lot of non-secured booze and big gatherings with no parent present. I love those people, but I’m not sending my 13YO girl into that (friend is a boy). When the kids were younger, the parents were there if they had a guest over.

         1. I have no idea. They all seem like good kids because they are so young. She is friends with the country club crowd who is into being popular and live in 10M houses etc, so that worries me. She shouldn’t be seeing them much in middle school bc she will be in mostly different classes than them based on their placements, so hopefully the friends change.

            1. I wonder if there was some pressure from Friend to go on a spending spree, since it sounds like they are very wealthy.
               To me, this seems like a “not great, but not dire” situation. There should be consequences, but maybe don’t bring the hammer down. My concern is that being too harsh might lead to further lying/sneaking down the road. And good luck – 5th and 6th grades are tough!

            2. I’m not a parent, but that’s sort of how it strikes me. Purchasing $100 worth of candy is a lot, and in some ways has an air of silliness/childishness about it that makes me feel like this is a childlike error in judgement rather than something nefarious. Lying and stealing* is still wrong, though. I could see this being an error in judgment due to peer pressure. If so, this is a great opportunity to address this type of situation. I was a very good kid, hated breaking rules, but once had a “wrong crowd” friend when I was 10 who convinced me to do something very mean that got us sent to the principal’s office. It didn’t feel right to me then, but I went along with it, and it shocked everyone. But my parents hammered home the consequences of friends who make/pressure to make bad choices, and that was pretty much the end of that for me.
               *I can see a smart kid trying to fit in rationalizing her owed allowance.

   2. People post about this age group and older on cmons all the time, fyi.

      I’d be more concerned about the stealing than the lying/exploring and would focus on that. Wouldn’t even mention the money was for candy.

   3. From the details you shared, I am not clear where the lie came in. It doesn’t sound like they lied to the other dad about going biking, just on that biking trip they Robin Hooded themselves a bit more cash than properly owed, then blew it on candy. Not a great series of decisions, but not quite so clear that they lied and stole.

      I don’t think you should let it go without a discussion, but I think focusing on the importance of proper disclosure and clear communication in building trust with parents and friends’ parents is the more productive route to take here.

      1. It clear that she stole???

         1. It, yes.

   4. Forget what they blew the money on. It’s the deceit that’s the real problem. I would always get in WAY more trouble for a lie than for whatever thing I’d done that I was trying to cover up.

      When caught lying the consequences were proportional- like I was checked up on way more often for the next month or two.

      1. Clarity vs deceit is the battle here.

   5. People post about kids this age in moms all the time. Mom questions belong there. And yes a natural consequence to this is less independence because she’s proven she isn’t trustworthy right now. This is why grounding exists. And for all your judging about country club kids your kid is the one who stole.

   6. I’d be proud of her, this was absolutely normal kid behavior when I was growing up. My friends and I did stuff like this all the time. It’s how we learned to be independent and self sufficient. None of us turned into drug addicts.

      1. Right, but hopefully you suffered consequences if you were caught, yes?

         1. Nope, it was the 80s and we just ran around like that. Parenting today is so ridiculous and OTT.

            1. If your parents caught you stealing money, they wouldn’t have done anything? IME, parenting back then was more permissive in terms of the freedom to come and go and make your own plans, but it came with harsher consequences than now.

      2. Same

      3. Proud that she stole money? That seems odd.

   7. So whenever a lie (or any compounded bad behavior like disrespect) is involved, we do one punishment for lying and one punishment for whatever else.

      For stealing, I’d have a financial penalty: no allowance until it’s paid back, chores at a set hourly rate til it’s paid back, or if your kid does any local jobs (babysitting or yard work), they have to use that money earned in future jobs to pay you back.

      For lying, I’d probably do grounding since they lied about there whereabouts / plans. I try to make the punishment fit the crime – so lying about going out with friends means losing the ability to do that.

      I’d also be having a few serious converserions: why the felt the need to do that / not just ask for the money / why they felt like they had to sneak the candy / why sneaking is bad because candy is one thing but it could become something dangerous / why it’s dangerous to not tell people where you are.

      Sounds like she has a fair amount of freedom (which is good!) so why did she feel like she needed to lie and sneak? And, with a lot of freedom comes the responsibility of acting appropriately – you let her bike around and go out with friends, so you expect her to behave appropriately when she does that. And, the alternative, if she can’t handle this responsibility, is to have more limits in her freedom.

      1. Also, why did dad fail to give her allowance and run up an $80 tab?

         1. This jumped out at me as well.

            1. Eh, it’s because kids don’t use folding money like we did. So it’s just a series of credits to them anyway.

         2. Right, maybe if she actually had her own money she wouldn’t be tempted to steal.

         3. I only received my allowance if I showed my father my log book. I would let it run up to a couple of hundred dollars at a time.

   8. Ok I get that the lying and stealing is bad but I think it’s hilarious she bought $100 worth of candy. She’s not going to start doing drugs, chill.

      1. I’m also stuck on the $100 worth of candy. I certainly snuck over to 7-11 at her age with one dollar and bought candy without asking for permission. But I’m thinking to myself…. what kind of “candy’ does the Country Club crowd buy!!!

         1. I mean, a bag of Dove chocolate squares is like $10 at CVS, so it’s not THAT hard to imagine.

            1. Yeah I bet I could spend $100 on candy without too much effort. Especially if it’s fudge.

         2. As a candy/chocolate lover it’s my dream to spend $100 on candy!

         3. right, candy costs a lot more than when we were kids.

      2. Me too. It’s been a long time since I have lived in the US but how did they carry that much candy? Was it really fancy candy?

         1. In a bag presumably

      3. Given that these friends live in $10M houses, I bet there is a fancy candy store downtown, where chocolate bars cost $20 and there are walls of $15/pound bulk candy.

   9. “Like 80” isn’t very precise; it sounds like husband took the allowance way less seriously than a kid who has few other sources of $ took it. I think that is important context here. Think about why she didn’t want to go upstairs and ask him for money he had already agreed he would give her but then just forgot.

   10. Like other posters I’d treat the taking of money and lying about location separately, and start with a conversation. Why didn’t she ask for her allowance? In our house, a kid taking cash to buy candy from the drawer without asking or even telling would be in real trouble – someone might have need of it, whether it not she was technically owed $80. I’d have her work to pay it back. The lying is also problematic, and it was also lying by omission to you (I assume you thought she was at the friends house, not walking to town). In 5th grade, I would expect a call or text to tell me kid was changing locations. (This expectation would change around high school). That means grounding.

       On another note, I also am often technically in debt to my elementary age kids on allowance, which means it’s always “can I buy this? I’m sure you owe me x”. my plan is to open up a bank account that allows them to have a debit card that auto funds…just need to actually do it….

       1. Honestly? Do better. Don’t promise your kids allowance and then be too lazy to actually give it to them.

          1. And for a whole month!

          2. Gee, thanks for the very helpful advice!

             1. What ya get for straying from the moms page with this 💅

             2. You’re welcome!

          3. I suspect she didn’t ask her dad because he was so behind and she knew he’d say “soon” or “sorry but not today” or something.

             1. Honestly if the purpose of an allowance is to encourage independence, begging probably shouldn’t be part of the process of doling it out.

          4. Yeah I’m just wondering what the consequences for dad will be!

             1. Charging interest. OP’s DD will learn real fast what interest is and how much of a burden (or asset) it can be by charging dad interest.

          5. Eh, parents may not carry folding money these days. Hard to Venmo your kid and who has $7 or whatever allowance is these days. It’s all just a series of blips on a screen these days.

             1. Adults so not be so lazy that they promise kids an allowance and then can’t be bothered figuring out how to hand it out.

             2. OTOH, if a kid is owed $8, it is a dad problem if you charge him interest. If you let dad run up an $80 IOU (or any other creditor), it got to the point of it being a “you” problem. Self-help isn’t a good remedy — it’s enforcing remedies early — you impose a late fee, you charge interest; this is the equivalent of sending a REPO man within the family and blows up trust. Not cool kiddo. Manage your internal creditors better.

             3. TBH, everyone is late in a family setting (maybe unless there is big older daughter energy). Late on chores, late on allowance, spotty on performance evaluations and job descriptions. It’s a FAMILY, so I get that. But the pearl-clutching here is amazing.

             4. Off topic, but I think that physical money is an important teaching tool for allowance. Being able to visualize and concretize real actual dollars and cents helps kids understand money as more than just an abstract swipe of a credit card. It can also help teach kids responsibility for belongings–you forgot your wallet at home or can’t remember which pants pockets you put that fiver in? Oh well, natural consequence

                Ditto with getting “paid” the allowance on a regular schedule. Planning and budgeting work best with predictability and consistency

   11. In terms of the rationalization, allowance comes from mom and dad. If it is unpaid, the remedy is to ask for it, not to take money that belongs to her parents. So yes, it’s stealing, and there should be a punishment for that. Separately, get her a Greenlight account and set up automatic payment on the allowance.

       1. This. At least treat it like an ATM and put a note with how much you took, who did it, what the urgency was, and mention it to me before I find it first.

   12. Sit her down, tell her that her friends were not honest about where they were going, and then taking money without asking is not okay. [People who are focused on the $80 owed are missing the point here. And it doesn’t matter what the money was spent on]. Tell her that you usually give her a lot of freedom, but that she’s shown that for now she doesn’t merit that freedom, because with freedom comes responsibility and trust. She and her friends broke that trust.

       Then you can mete out “natural consequences.” She’s shown she can’t be fully trusted running around with friends, so for the next X days, she can’t do that. She knows she’s supposed to ask to go to town & didn’t, so for X days she can’t do that. Etc.

       1. I agree with this.

       2. Yeah, this is what I would do. I’d also think hard about what that friend is like and whether they should hang out together in the short or long term.

   13. I have a 5th grader. I would think about this in a few pieces. In order of most importance to me:
       1. Not going where you said you were going. I don’t let my kid have a phone and I don’t tag/track her, but our deal is she has to be where she says she is, full stop. If she runs late, that’s one thing, but going somewhere else entirely is a non-starter that would result in no longer being able to go places independently for X weeks.
       2. The stealing…this one seems like an intention thing. Did she intend to actually steal all the money? Did she act “caught”? Or is she just a dumb 10/11 year old who knew they were owed money and took it and didn’t think to ask first (been there myself…).

       I’m also curious how they were “caught” and what happened right after. This is really personal about your parenting style and kid dynamic but my 5th grader is my oldest and we have a very straightforward relationship – I can level with her, and she values being trustworthy. She’s also one of the most responsible kids in her grade/friend group and is always the one asking for the time so she’s not late to wherever she needs to be.

       1. She was caught because both myself and friends dad found the candy in our kids rooms (she didn’t even bother hiding it, left it on top of her nightstand). Friends dad texted me asking me if it was my kids money bc he couldn’t figure out where they found the money. She told me the full story as soon as I asked her, and friends dad filled me in on details on what he allowed them to do on the bikes (to bike around the neighborhood, but they were not allowed to go to our house to get money or to town).

          1. It was A LOT of candy.. hard to miss lol.

             1. As to what happened after, this was fairly late, so we just took the candy away for now (what should I do with it???) and mostly asked questions. She started crying and felt very guilty, so we didn’t push to hard and said we would talk tomorrow and she should just go to bed. We wanted her to get enough sleep and also to give us time to think through it. We talked with her a little as to why she felt this was a good idea and to understand her thinking.

             2. Hmmm…. This is interesting. She just left the candy out, clearly not hiding it as if she didn’t think she did anything wrong.

             3. This almost sounds like a misunderstanding or miscommunication of some kind if she made no attempt to hide the candy at all!

             4. I read this to my husband and he laughed out loud and said that in 5th grade he would have done the same. Not saying it’s ok, but at least one functioning member of society doesn’t think this means your kid is going to turn into a hardened criminal over this.

          2. With this info, regardless of Dad owing her money, it’s obvious that both girls were trying to sneak around (going into town to buy the candy, the amount of candy they bought). Even if the friend is the one pushing it, they both separately worked to deceive their parents.

             I also understand not getting into it late at night. I think it’s good to have time to sit and think on what you’ll do. Also it sounds like the friend’s dad is generally aligned with your values. Even if the friend is an instigator, I would handle this as a one-off occasion with appropriate consequences, and not yet worry if the friend is a bad influence. I mean I recall a few kids trying cigarettes around 5th and 6th grade, so candy isn’t so bad.

             I like the idea of telling her that you will pay her the $80 owed after a delay (two weeks?) but she has to work off the $100 taken with chores. Also I hope she bought some good candy, so you can enjoy it at work at least :)

       2. Agree – not being clear about location is a huge deal to me, more so than the money taking under the circumstances. It is not okay for kids to wander about with no adult knowing where they are. If she wants more independence, figure out together how she can show you she’s ready for it but as a team, not sneaking around.

   14. I’m not a mom, so may be missing some of your concerns, but I do have several thoughts.

       Kids around that age are much more attuned to the approval of their peers than their parents and teachers, so it’s a time when kids take risks to impress each other. Obviously lying about where they are going and stealing cash are not acceptable, but I think it’s important that she was with friends when she did this, not by herself.

       The unpaid allowance may be a factor. You and your husband broke her trust before she broke yours. When you punish her, you need to address this.

       Did you know that she knew that there was that amount of cash in a drawer in the house? If it was a secret stash, then that means you may need to discuss respecting privacy. If not, then she knew that the money for her allowance was available and just not being given to her. Either way, it’s a thing.

       The consequences need to be meaningful. Since time with friends is likely what motivates her most, old-school grounding (including limiting her phone/computer access) is probably the right way to address it. But you need to sit down and really talk with her (which at that age totally feels like its own punishment) about how the independence you grant her is because you trust her, and how when she breaks that trust, she loses independence. Let her talk about why she did what she did, and if she has valid points – like the unpaid allowance – you need to own up to your piece of it and make amends.

       1. I have no idea why my husband didn’t give her the allowance, but yes; that’s on us. I think she forgot to ask and he forgot to give it to her. He generally gives it to her as going to the ATM is his chore, it’s a good question to the both of them… they usually handle it.

          1. Being late on allowance is not a breach of trust, good lord.

             1. Lol, tell me how you feel if your employer decided not to pay you on your payment date

   15. my Very Good kid had some issues with lying and “stealing” (but just candy from his brother’s stash) around 4th/5th… make sure she understands that if she lies to you once or twice it is going to affect your relationship in big ways. I didn’t make this clear enough, I don’t think, and my DS is still fibbing now and then and trust has eroded. He’s still a very good kid and gets straight As and blah blah but it takes a lot more for me to believe him. Like the time I went off on a teacher for making a small daily task a huge part of their grade without telling the kids… it turned out she had made this incredibly clear and he had (in discussion with her) known this, and just hadn’t done it /figured he could do it all at the end and ran out of time.

   16. I have a 5th grader who is also a generally good kid. We are lucky.

       She violated some rules, some of which it may have seemed justified in her head. If it were my kid, I would sit them down and talk to them about the spirit of the rules. The rules aren’t just black and white boundaries, they are meant to keep her safe. So for example, she was owed the money. Yes, and her dad should have paid on time, but she can’t help herself to petty cash. If she had a job and did that, she would be fired. There’s a process to follow. And in that process, she’s allowed to point out where her dad didn’t meet his obligation, but she still has to follow the process. With respect to the lying, I would explain that she can’t lie to parents and trusted adults because it prevents them from keeping her safe. If she wanted to go into town, she should have asked. She’s allowed to have a discussion about the fairness, but at the end of the day it’s not her call. Maybe you discuss what rules could be loosened as you’re discussing what rules are firm. And so on…

       That’s just how I would handle it. I would try to reason with her and have a real discussion about it. Show her your point of view, try to understand hers, and try to get to an agreement about the future. That’s just my 2 cents…

       You’re a good mom.

       1. This is a great response!

   17. Okay, I’m old enough to be her grandma and I’m finding this rather hilarious. Assuming they were in fact biking but biked to your house, that’s not a GIGANTIC lie so I’m not inclined to make a federal case out of it. I agree with the people who say you and your husband need to take the allowance way more seriously — in the manner of making sure employees get paid on time. I find the $100 worth of candy completely endearing (although I wonder whether there might be some food issues here? Is candy generally forbidden? Might that be worth a look? Just asking) and childlike in a sweet way.

       Please don’t freak out on her and make her think she’s a bad kid and one step away from being a drug addict. Sit her down with an attitude of curiousity about how this all went down and maybe you will learn something interesting about … I don’t know. Maybe she was pressured by her friend? Maybe they were just impulsive? Anyway the way to find out what was going on is to ask her in an environment in which she’ll feel safe telling you.

       1. I would be tempted to take a picture for memories. Odds are that she’ll end up a well established adult and you and your hubby can look back at this as a (privately funny) teaching moment.

   18. I have a 6th grader. When he got a phone, we developed a family contract that outlines expectations for not only phone behavior, but school and general things like lying. We also have the rules for how allowance is earned or lost – we always pay in cash for the exact reasons you’ve said – learning financial responsibility is so nebulous when it’s just an electronic deposit. Anyway, in this situation it would have already established the expectation and outlined the punishment. This makes me more consistent in how I parent and takes the emotion out of it. Plus he knows ahead of time what he’s wagering when he chooses to act a certain way.

   19. At that age, I would go to the store and buy one candy bar and steal another. It is a natural desire to be a little bit bad. I am glad you give her independance to walk around and go to friends so please don’t cut back on that. I would punish but not to harshly. This is normal teenage development. Good luck as she heads into puberty!

       1. Gosh, this comment resonates. On the scale of bad teenage (tweenage) behavior, this is so minor. She stole… from you… money that she was arguably owed. At her age I had a collection of nail polish that was unequivocally owned by Walmart. I turned out okay. “It is a natural desire to be a little bit bad.” help her figure out appropriate guardrails for that instinct. You’re doing just fine <3

   20. I don’t think she lied or stole. She did go for a bike ride and she took the money you owed her, plus interest. Kids shouldn’t have to beg to get their allowance. Obviously you should have a discussion about how that’s not acceptable behavior going forward, but I wouldn’t be that upset about it given the circumstances. You’re at least as much at fault as she is in this situation.

       1. What? She lied and stole. This take is bizarre.

   21. Okay I may be a bad person, and I completely understand your concern, but this is kind of adorable and hilarious me? Def think there should be consequences for lying and for taking the money without saying anything to dad, but it sounds like she is a good kid and this is not a 1000% black-and-white situation

       But also, maybe don’t run up an $80 allowance bill to her! I think having physical money to look at and keep track of is a valuable teaching tool

   22. Omg it doesn’t skew *that* young.

       1. This! People say this all the time, but I really think the majority of people there have school age kids and many have a kid who is 10+

5. I need to replace some of the cardigans I wear at work, as my current ones are starting to show some wear. I prefer lightweight and more classic than trendy in style, and my work attire is on the formalish side. I have several MMLF jardigans already and am not looking to purchase more.

   I bought several of my existing cardigans from Ann Taylor, but I’m sure there are better options. Suggestions?

   1. I used to lean on my featherweight merino cardigans from Gap for casual days, even in summer. In the past few years I have collected a few JCF cotton sweater blazers and they are absolute workhorse pieces for me. I cannot emphasize enough how much I love these, especially since they are just as comfy as cardigans while having a slightly elevated look because of the blazer styling. Just wish they came in more colors.

   2. Charming cardigans from Talbots are workhorses.

   3. -Brooks Brothers – currently the gold standard for a classic cardigan as far as I am concerned
      -J Crew (kinda thin but go through washer and dryer fine)
      -J Crew Factory (ditto)
      -Talbots – although I am not as fond of their relatively new fabric blend as I was of the 100% cotton of olden days.
      -Brora

      1. I used to be a fan of JCrew / JCF but why must they make EVERYTHING so cropped? I would just like a normal length cardigan!
         Also agree I miss the Talbots cardigans of yore, specifically circa 2015. I dislike that they are always slightly tweaking them (pockets, no pockets, length neckline, etc.).

         1. A million percent agree! I would be buying so many more things from JC if they weren’t cropped. The cardigans are great when I’m wearing a dress (for a long time, I couldn’t find that length to wear with dresses) but I’m wearing jeans most of the time in this casual world. I wear a higher rise jean or pant but I just don’t think it looks quite right. Everything else with the sweater game has been great lately–better fabrics, those cute buttons, etc. But the darn length just kills me.

   4. For a long wearing and natural fibers, I like Eileen Fisher. You didn’t say what fabric you prefer, but in the winter I wear a lot of her merino wool cardigans. In the summer, I wear a lot of her cotton, linen, or cotton-linen blend cardigans.

   5. I like Elie Tahari and Lafayette 148.

   6. check out the Tory Burch Simone (classic and 100% wool IIRC) and the Veronica Beard Solene

6. More older parent issues. Dad was sideswiped by someone on his country road yesterday. Another neighbor saw. They exchanged numbers and insurance info in a no-fault state. No one called the police (mistake #1). Dad’s insurance doesn’t seem to want any info on neighbor. I told him to take any offered rental cars (repair place is about 20 miles away). Mom is in a nursing home where dad goes from 9-6 each day and cell reception is bad (and dad barely understands the iPhone, which seems to have shifted to night shift or he can’t figure out how to undo). I told him to give State Farm my number but I live way out of state and am the closest relative. At least Dad is physically fine but we already had a complex situation up there and I feel like it’s a very fragile out-of-balance situation now. I was planning to visit in a couple of weeks. No teen neighbors to go to for phone help (I asked him to see if anyone at the nursing home or where he gets lunch could help).

   1. Can’t he just file the police report now? In my no-fault state’s semi-rural county they have a policy of not coming to an accident to take a report unless there is an injury, property damage, a vehicle is not drivable, or there is some traffic impediment that they need to mitigate. If you call from the accident scene they tell you to go home then call or submit your report online.

      1. It’s the same in busy NJ suburbs. If you don’t call the police on the spot, you can still file a report later.

   2. If your dad was not the one at fault, he should file an insurance claim with the other person’s company. The other company will provide info about a rental car and will probably have a list of auto body shops they want him to use. When this happened to me last year, I took it to my own trusted shop and they worked everything out with insurance.

      1. My only accident was in a fault state (VA) where my insurance co got the police report citing the other driver and had their insurance pay. My car was totaled and my rates didn’t go up.

      2. If OP’s father is in a no-fault state, this would not apply. The entire point of no-fault laws is that you look to your own insurance for reimbursement. OP – if he needs a police report for his claim, he can request it late. Not having a report prepared at the time of the accident is incredibly common. He should be sure to provide the information for the witness. (The biggest problem with no-fault insurance is fraudulent claims but even identifying a witness goes a long way toward convincing an insurance company that is not occurring.)

      3. In my no fault state you file with your own insurance company, not with the at-fault party’s insurance. Your insurance takes care of you and subrogates to the at-fault party/their insurance. A police report helps determine fault if the other party is not cooperating, not identified, etc.

         1. +1. I was recently rear-ended and my insurance company handled everything. OP, is there an actual local State Farm insurance agent in your parents town? I would call them directly and discuss with them. They can help explain/navigate the process. When I was rear-ended last year, my insurance agent started the process but didn’t actually do anything with it after that aside from check in with it now and then, and when I had questions a couple of times they were able to check in with the process and let me know the answers.

         2. It’s similar in my no-fault state, but people rarely call the police. While the police arrived at both of my accidents, I was never asked for a police report by my insurance company even though one was a hit-and-run and the other was one where I was clearly at fault.

   3. If nursing home staff can’t help with the phone can he go to the library and ask for help?

7. As my oldest is moving from preschool to K next year, I find myself wanting to rethink my career. Due to school breaks, summers, days off, and a shorter school day I want to go part time and find something that works better for my family.

   I enjoy working and having something in my life that’s non optional and not about my family (I have hobbies and friends, but they’re increasingly family focused too). I don’t think I’d enjoy being a SAHM, and I also like the independence and knowledge that I’m financially contributing. However, I’m also fine bring the primary parent (DH has weeks where he works 30 hours and weeks where he works 80 hours). Financially I don’t need to work, but I want to. But, I want the schedule freedom to be able to avoid the 5-7:30 pm mad dash of pick up kids, make dinner, bath and bed, be the family who can host play dates on teacher service days, take the kids to the park after school at 3pm, and attend school and after school events (11am school play, chaperone a field trip, 3pm soccer), avoid spending the entire summer at camp, and the like.

   I’m trying to brainstorm different types of jobs I’d be interested in. Currently, I work in government in program management and previously was a technical writer in government. My work is public safety adjacent, and I do enjoy and thrive in the fast paced, high pressure environments. I definitely want to stay in a helping profession. The ability to be per diem or contract would be great, but I’m also okay with a set schedule. I have a Master’s in Public Administration, but am open to going back to school (I’d prefer ti do a certificate, certification, or associates – would like to avoid another Masters!). I have no clinical experience but have been toying with maybe becoming an ultrasound or xray tech? General interests are public health, education, communications, emergency / crisis management, and pretty much anything public administration. But, flexible to really anything. No preference on being remote or in person. Don’t need benefits but I’ll take them (like a job in higher ed with tuition reimbursement). No salary expectations, but I do want to make money (as opposed to volunteering) – we can definitely live off of my husbands salary but would like to use my income to increase 529 contributions and for wants (vacations, home improvement, and the like).

   1. An ultrasound tech isn’t a flexible job. If you have a shift you have to work you can’t waltz out at 11am for a school picnic.

      1. +1. My cousin is an ultrasound tech, and yes you could work part time hours, but the job really isn’t flexible in the way you’re describing.

      2. +1 most corporate jobs are going to give you way more flexibility to attend an 11 am school play than if you were an ultrasound tech.

      3. I’m fine with that – I just don’t want to work 40 hours a week at this stage. I’m fine with working 8-4 (or whatever) 2-3x a week or working 9-1 (or whatever) M-F.

         I have no desire to attend every school event (I don’t want to set that expectation with my kids; I actually want them to see that mom can’t do XYZ because she has to work. But I also don’t want to miss everything because I have to work).

         I’ve worked 3x12s shift work in a 24/7 environment before (so I worked overnights, every other weekend, and half of the holidays) so I very much understand the nature of shift work – I’m fine with that.

         1. I am in medicine, and from your background, I think you would become bored with a radiology/ultrasound tech job fairly quickly. It is a stable, decent paying job, but becomes…. boring fast. Unless that’s ok? You will have patient contact, which can be nice, but it is fleeting, with minimal interaction that’s meaningful. In fact, you aren’t really allowed to give the patient any info/reassurance, as the doctor has to do the interpretation. And you are so busy/rushed, that you don’t have time to hear the patient’s story/chat etc…

            1. I probably would be, but also the more interesting jobs are less likely to be part time (and I don’t think I have the bandwidth to take on a nursing degree right now).

               I will say that when I had my breast cancer scare, even if the techs couldn’t say anything, I really really appreciated their kindness and calmness. That’s kind of what gave me that idea.

            2. That’s what stuck out to me too. Those jobs are the opposite of fast paced.

               OP, consider what it is (other than fast paced) that you like about your job and what you don’t (other than butt in seat 9-5). That will help you prioritize what the next move is.

               Personally, I’d see if my current job would be open to a part time and very flexible schedule (ie work whenever as long as it gets done). However, my gut reaction is that fast paced, reactive work is harder to mold that way – because by definition it can’t be asynchronous. So switch fields, perhaps to something unsung your writing skills?

               I also wonder if you are under thinking the value of being able to set and negotiate your own schedule. The difference between “I can’t attend the play because I have to finish this brief/am in trial “ (I’m a lawyer, obvs) and “I can’t attend because dumb manager assigned me this shift and Mary is out of town and no one will swap with me” is huge to me, psychologically. And you’d get the worst shifts (in most jobs) when you start out, with the least social capital to spend.

      4. Everyone always says medical is an endlessly growing field, and given the demographics of this country I agree it should be.

         But as an anecdote, my niece went to one of those ultrasound tech training college programs, graduated number one in her class, had an internship, and then it took her a year to find a full-time job.

         There just aren’t that many jobs, and all the people graduating in her same class said the same thing. To get her job, she basically had to wait for someone to retire.

   2. Maybe you should consider policy research consulting on your own hours or on a part-time basis. You could work for a government contractor if you didn’t want to go alone.

      1. I should have mentioned that I much prefer having an employer / not consulting or contracting on my own.

      2. An MPA is not qualified for policy research consulting; it’s a management degree. You need an MPP or preferably a PhD for policy research.

         1. +1

   3. I’m a technical writer in higher ed who works full time from home, and basically has the schedule you describe (home with my kids after school, able to attend mid-day events and field trips, able to volunteer at school, able to host my kids’ friends on teacher work days) and a similar financial situation (we live off DH’s salary and mine funds vacations and extra savings). However it is somewhat manager/team dependent. I get my work done so no one is checking that I’m working exactly 9-5. It’s also kid-dependent. By age 5, mine were able to play alone for an hour, so if I need to be on a call after school it’s not a big issue. But that’s not all kids.

      I do think work from home is a big factor. Much easier to host all the neighbor kids on a teacher work day if you’re working from home than if you have to go into an office.

      1. Thanks, this is good to know! Since higher ed tends to offer lots of time off, I would consider being FT. Like I don’t want to have to battle it out to not work during the holidays so I can be home with my family but with a university closure that’s not an issue.

         My older kid can occupy himself for an hour or so if needed (and if for whatever reason he’s struggling to do so, I don’t have qualms of turning on the TV). I do have a 3 year old who we’d plan on keeping in more or less FT daycare (I like the idea of having time to run errands, work out, care for aging parents (if needed) while she’s in school.

         1. Yep, I have 5 weeks of vacation leave, unlimited sick time (which can be used on kid and aging parent health issues as well) and a 10 day winter break. Between sickness, vacation, holidays and the winter break I’m usually off about 11 or 12 weeks a year total (although being home with a sick kid or driving an aging parent to a medial procedure obviously isn’t a vacation). There are so many things I hate about higher ed, but the PTO and flexible work schedule make it very unlikely I’ll leave this job while my kids are young and/or my parents are alive.

            But yeah, if you work from home and are comfortable turning on the TV in a pinch, I think it’s very doable to have kids age 5+ home with you after school, and will only get easier as they get older.

         2. FYI – most university staff do not have the same breaks as students or faculty. My former university gave us the week between Christmas and NYE, which was great. It didn’t solve my childcare needs during the other week and a half my kid was out. Staff also didn’t get spring break or fall break. I think higher ed could be a great fit for you, but I think you should look at part-time roles.

            1. You don’t get spring or fall breaks, but you get so much vacation time that it’s easy to take spring break, fall break, plus at least a couple weeks during the summer.

            2. I understand that the break isn’t the same, but only having to use a few days of PTO is much better than having to use 8 or 9.

            3. +1. Also, we get a ton of vacation time, but depending on the role, it can be difficult to actually take it without falling behind because everyone is so leanly staffed.

            4. Higher ed is not uniformly generous with PTO these days. I work in higher ed and only get 10 days vacation per year plus separate sick leave. The only people who get more than 10 days are the tippy-top level administrators and people who have been at the university for decades and were hired under a different PTO scheme.

               At my first job in higher ed a zillion years ago we got 20 days vacation, 12 sick days, and 3 personal days. Times have changed.

      2. Generous PTO is not nearly universal in higher ed. The university system I work in (very large) provides three weeks of annual leave for employees who have worked for five years or less, which is acquired at a rate of 10 hrs/per month.

         1. It’s not universal, but it’s much more common than the private sector. I know people at dozens of different universities who all have more generous PTO than most (US-based) private sector employees.

   4. I just posted on the mom’s page about struggling with wanting to quit my job today. In a similar field and basically you can either get a super flexible gig where you work asynchronously on a contract basis (often grant funded), work super part time, or be something like a substitute teacher.

      I actually keep thinking I’d really like to teach at either a community college or in a grad program. I have a similar degree to you (plus additional classes above that) and would love to go teach grad students about my field.

      1. I have a response in Mod on your post!

         I feel like adjunct pay is so low it’s not worth it, but I think working in a college writing center might be something I’m interested in.

         1. Agree with you on adjunct pay being terrible, and there can be a lot of competition for adjunct positions, despite how poor they can be.

            1. +1 I think the competition is a bigger thing than the pay. You have summers off and even during the school year don’t normally work 40 hours per week, so a lot of people are willing to accept crappy pay for that. I work at a public R1 and the competition for adjunct positions that pay $30k/year is intense. I personally think you’re better off in a full time staff position that pays only slightly more, but with benefits and more flexibility. If you teach in person you actually have less flexibility than most 9-5 office workers. (I’m the 9:53 poster in higher ed staff, and I handle pretty much all kid sick days because my professor husband can’t cancel class for routine childhood illness).

         2. Writing centers are usually staffed by students and run by graduate students with a professor as the center director. The director also has research, classroom teaching, and publication requirements. Professor positions are very competitive & people often have to relocate for those jobs as they rarely have openings.

            Maybe look into paraeducator roles at your local schools instead?

   5. I don’t know many professional jobs that afford the kind of flexibility you’re talking about. Wouldn’t we all love that? Most of the people I know who have made this work have become consultants or freelancers or whatever allows them to set their own hours. I’ve spent my entire career in higher ed or government. Yes, there’s flexibility to an extent, but there are still core hours when you’re expected to be there. And there is way less wiggle room to say, I want to work 25 hours a week and no more. Maybe if you’ve been there forever and have built up lots of goodwill and people want to keep you, but in general, no, it’s not a thing. Start thinking about how you can strike out on your own, using your skills.

   6. IMHO, you’re looking for a total unicorn job. Only way to get total flexibility is to work for yourself. That said, as you get more senior or increase your length of tenure and build up a credibility bank with your employer, you will likely gain flexibility. But that also means that you have to prove you show and perform on a regular basis and when your team needs you.

      1. Yeah that’s why I’m willing to pivot into a new field (even one unrelated or “less prestigious” than what I do now) to go part time.

         FWIW, flexibility was maybe the wrong word. I’m happy to work 8-1 M-F or work 9-5 twice a week or whatever. I just don’t want to juggle full time work + limited flexibility + family stuff since I don’t have to.

         1. Again, we would all love this…. it is the unicorn.

            1. I mean a PT or per dien medical shift work role isn’t really a unicorn – lots of people do that and it sounds like she’s interested in that.

            2. i have a friend who is a doctor who works 3 days a week, one who is a psychiatric nurse practitioner with extremely flex hours, one who works in PR/communications type stuff who convinced her company to hire her part time, with only one day in office, growing up my mom convinced multiple employers to hire her ‘full time,’ but with a flex schedule, so 4 days a week worked 8-3, 1 day 8-6 and had no problem ducking out for school performances, i have another friend who fully works from home and is not on calls all day so has flexibility to do things like meet for a walk in the middle of the day, take her kid to PT- the key is either flexibility and/or shift work

         2. Yeah, that really doesn’t exist most places. Maybe a nonprofit that’s trying to cheap out on hiring full-time staff.

   7. Have you explored possibilities with your current job? Not everything needs to be as dramatic as a new job, more school, etc. depending on what you do, they might be fine with moving you to part time.

   8. The community college near me seems to have lots of part time advising or student support jobs. I was an adjunct at a CC and felt it was so much more impactful than working at a university because usually the CC students needed more support and I felt like I was doing more for the students there.

      Likewise, could you adjunct or work in the writing center? Or tutor writing?

      1. I have also worked at community colleges and think this could be a route for OP. Even the full-time jobs are pretty flexible and you accrue PTO at an alarming rate (in part bc the pay is generally bad). But overall this could be a good fit.

   9. Can you go part time at your current job? I would start there.

      I see above that you said you would be fine with shift work, but I truly think that, in general, office jobs are more flexible than shift work.

      1. Unfortunately there are no PT options, otherwise I’d do that!

         I’m fine with trading flexibility for part time work. I just don’t want inflexible FT work anymore.

         1. Why don’t you ask if they can make one for you? That seems the easiest way to get what you want.

   10. I’d look into staff or teaching jobs at community colleges or smaller colleges, tutoring / writing center / writing teacher jobs at a variety of locations (well funded K-12 schools, tutoring centers, colleges), and non profits. Basically I’d target jobs that probably can’t afford to pay someone FT.

       1. The writing center jobs at my university are pretty competitive, FYI. Many of the people working there (for <$40k/year) have PhDs or at least master's degrees in English or education, so I wouldn't assume someone who doesn't have an advanced degree and hasn't worked in the field in a long time could get hired easily.

          1. Writing gigs are only getting more competitive with AI taking a lot of the SEO and comms work and so many long-time writers and editors glutting the market with the death of print publishing (even association magazines are dying). I would honestly look into something other than writing-related opportunities.

   11. What about book keeping, grant writing, or development jobs that you could do remotely and part time? The work itself isn’t inherently helping but you couid do it at a mission based organization.

   12. Work for your town in some way. So many of our town jobs are 8-4/ flex. I know a lot of parents that took a job like that when they were in your situation (kids going into elem, still want to work, don’t need to make exec level salary)

       1. I wouldn’t expect a government job to be that flexible.

   13. I would look for part-time program coordinator or other staff roles at local colleges and universities. I would probably also look at private k-12 schools. Try to find a connection in your network and reach out. If you apply blindly, you might get tossed because you look overqualified. In my experience, higher ed institutions and k-12 private schools have a lot of folks in your position.

       1. +1 re looking for a job at a K-12 private.

          1. Yeah, and at these institutions (unlike higher ed) you will likely get all the breaks the students and faculty get.

   14. Why not become a consultant in technical writing?

       1. This isn’t a thing.

          1. I’ve worked with a number of Medical Writers who work from home or come in two days a month, some are consultants and some part time. Pharmaceutical development project management can be done primarily from home and partially asynchronously. Are you able to pivot your skills to either of these?

             1. I’ve been a healthcare writer for more than 25 years and have a master’s degree in journalism. Technical writing isn’t something folks regularly hire consultants for–you would have an editor perform that function. Freelance technical writing gigs are a thing but can be extremely difficult without a ready network. If you pursue writing for life sciences, you will compete with those with clinical backgrounds and struggle. If you pursue writing for health tech or the like, there are a lot more opportunities. It really helps to have a ready network though, especially these days. Many of the “build a reputation as a freelancer” gigs have gone to AI. Agency assignments tend to be more steady, but they tend to stand in the middle– so you’re not building a relationship with the client (or sometimes no one but the person assigning) and the pay is hardly worth the time. However, if you can get a few steady clients (especially B2B), it can be a wonderful way to have frequent work while affording flexibility. Other than traveling to the occasional conference, I am based from home and can pick and choose when I work. Even when employed as a full-time editor, I had a lot of WFH back when that was pretty unusual.

          2. I don’t think being a technical writer consultant is a thing, but technical writing is an easy thing to do freelance and many jobs are fully remote.

   15. I would consider looking for some consulting work at nonprofits or grant writing.

   16. Have you thought about something with the financial side of healthcare? Lot more part-time gigs, clear certification tracks, lot of mobility to take on more challenging roles as the kids get older or if you decide you want more growth. There is also the opportunity for patient interaction depending on the direction, whether you’re helping preauthorize a procedure or coordinate benefits or work on fighting a denial with an insurance company. The work is really important and time sensitive. There is a lot of flexibility on what the workplace could look like–something like coding is often home-based while patient access may be in a physician’s office or hospital. Set hours with no pressure to be on after hours to meet deadlines like corporate jobs often require.

   17. I don’t think what you’re looking for is a unicorn. I am a lawyer and did that during my kid-intense years. I still do, actually, but I paid my dues as a BigLaw associate for 6 or 7 years before I could leave for a boutique that gave me that sort of flexibility and good pay. I have to say, though, that getting paid by the hour makes the work a hundred times more bearable.
       Is there a benefit that would be particularly valuable to you? I knew a woman who went back to work in her kids’ private school cafeteria solely for the tuition break and another mom who worked the front desk at a gym for free gymnastics for her kids. Another woman I know worked part-time in baggage handling for an airline so she got flight benefits. That could be a good way to leverage lower-paying work into something more valuable to your family.

   18. It’s tech focused but not tech exclusive, but the jobs board “The Mom Project” includes a lot of listings for part time, flexible or contract work – maybe start browsing there for options?

   19. Before you go into a medical field, consider shadowing. Work hours are typically in shifts and those shifts are assigned. Not as flexible as you might think

8. Dementia is brutal.

   My mother forgot her beloved sister died several years ago and that she battled cancer for several years before that. She kept asking when her sister was coming over and refused to go to bed until she did, so the normal deflection/redirection didn’t work. Then she mourned her all over again.

   I hate this disease so much.

   1. I hate it so much too. I posted yesterday about the indignities of seeing my relative with dementia randomly and gratuitously insult my father -and that was just yesterday’s fun surprise. You and I both know that the disease is cruel, but it doesn’t make the burden on the caregiver any easier to know that. We are supposed to be endlessly patient and always redirect and never challenge anything and basically be saints and even then, it doesn’t “work.” Hugs!

   2. It’s a horrible disease. My sympathies.

   3. It is awful.

      Just remember – go where they are. Telling the truth is not always necessary, especially if it is painful.

      Night-time is never the time to tell painful reality. Night-time is when they are most confused (sun-downing). It is the time to reassure. To touch her gently, play her favorite music. Nighttime regular routine is reassuring.

      Sister can’t come tonight, but will come in the morning…. she is still on vacation…. or is visiting her sick friend Sally…. or whatever…

      It is very, very hard. I’m so sorry.

      The Alzheimer’s association family caregivers local support group was so helpful for me.

      1. Agree with that. “She’ll be here in the morning,” I think, is a fine way to get through bedtime on any given night.

   4. Ugh, I’m so sorry! I feel your pain — after my mom died, my dad thought that she had left him. And then when we explained she had died, he went through a phase where he thought she had killed herself, which was horrifying! We finally settled on “she got sick and died,” repeated as necessary, but it was just awful.

   5. I’m sorry. I remember one friend whose mother suffered from dementia, and the father died first (unexpectedly) from kidney issues. They decided not to even tell the mother because the daughter would have to keep telling her over and over. Heartbreaking.

   6. I hate it too. My mom has it too. It’s just so sad.

9. I missed the comment yesterday afternoon about wanting to quit your job before a big presentation. If that person is reading, I wanted to let you know that the overwhelming majority of people you have ever seen speak publicly are afraid of public speaking. You probably didn’t notice because the overwhelming majority also manage to pull it off. And you will too!

   I am a litigator, frequently speak at conferences, and have several public-facing roles that require me to speak publicly in front of hundreds or thousands of people, sometimes while on camera. I have nausea and diarrhea every day before I speak. My fingers tremble so much that I have to hold a pen while I’m at the podium because I speak with my hands and it would be very obvious on TV that my hands are shaking. I have contemplated quitting or calling in sick before nearly every appearance. I’ve been doing this for 15 years and people told me it would get better. I suppose it has, in that I know to expect these feelings and so it doesn’t feel as catastrophic, but I totally still feel that way every time. All this is to say – you’re not alone, and you got this!

   1. Likewise wanted to weigh in- you can also bring in a written speech. Try cutting regular 8.5×11 inch paper in half (so it’s 8.5×5.5 inches) and write your speech down. Practice alone reading a sentence very slowly out loud from the cue card, then looking up and delivering it to a wall. When you give the presentation, reach each sentence to yourself quickly, then look up at the audience and deliver it. You might also engage a public speaking coach like Nicole at present dot llc to help you prep for it.

      1. I had to do a make it or break it presentation to an external audience at a midpoint in my career, where that exposure to senior management from my company could really make a difference to my career. And it did in the long run.

         I was nervous as hell for the presentation, so I sat myself down in my hotel room and recorded myself saying all the words of my presentation on a video on my phone. I watched the film and critiqued myself, which was torture. But then I did it like three more times and it got better and better , so even though I absolutely hated doing it, it was the thing that made the difference.

         By the time I got to the venue for the presentation the next day, I had practiced it so many times I was just sort of on auto pilot. It didn’t go perfectly, but it went well enough, and that’s all that mattered.

         1. I took a public speaking class in college and this was basically how it worked. Every week you would give a presentation, and then later go to office hours and watch the presentation with the professor and he would critique you. And then next week you had to have at least improved on those critiques.

      2. I think it’s not really recommended, but I often write myself a script, especially in the beginning phases of putting a talk together. And I’ll keep using that script to practice. For me, if I have the script down, I can go off it a little at the time of the talk and sound more natural.

         But writing a script is part of my process, I guess.

         1. I wrote a long post about this yesterday–scripting and then practicing until I’ve internalized the material so well that I don’t need to stick to the script is definitely part of my process.

         2. I would also say that between skipping a presentation and reading a script, Read The Script! Perfect is the enemy of the good enough.

            When I am less familiar with material, I typically write extensive notes out on my slides too, then I go back and either wing it without reading the notes or edit them down

         3. The idea that writing a script makes for a bad talk is just so silly- teleprompters are a thing for a reason.

   2. Oh gosh, yes. I missed this yesterday.

      I don’t have to do a lot of public speaking, but do give talks occasionally. I will always be nervous before them, but it has gotten better over time. Practice, make sure you know your material, and keep in mind that unless you completely short circuit, most of your listeners will think, Good talk. Maybe not brilliant talk, but a good talk gets the job done. And you always notice your fumbles more than anyone else does, if I base this on how my colleagues always think they did a bad job speaking, and I honestly think they did a very nice job.

      Sometimes before a talk I will sort of walk firmly and briskly around the office and think about how it will all be over in X minutes.

   3. I didn’t realize that was so common, even among those who speak or make presentations frequently or who have done so for a long time. A couple of weeks ago, while watching closing arguments in a fairly high profile white collar criminal trial, I was surprised to see the prosecutor’s hands shaking. With this information (and some posts yesterday) I now think it’s not so unusual.

      1. Yes, fear of public speaking is very common, and so is the courage to get up in front of people despite that fear.

         It’s also possible that that prosecutor had a tremor unrelated to fear.

      2. On one survey 75% of classical musicians reported using beta blockers at some point. Even if that’s an exaggeration, it’s the world’s worst-kept secret that a whole lot of professional musicians are on beta blockers. Most people get nervous.

   4. You know the old joke, right? More people are afraid of public speaking than of death, so most people would rather be the corpse at a funeral than the one giving the eulogy!

      Big hugs to yesterday’s poster!

      1. Love this.

         Original OP, and to all who have extreme stage fright, talk to your doctor. There are options that are better than diarrhea, quitting your job, and sheer terror….

   5. Thank you for all of this, and I’m re-reading the replies yesterday too.

      I have so many notes yesterday that I couldn’t read them. Going to spend the weekend memorizing, rehearsing more, and practicing the techniques everybody shared. My colleagues are being especially kind to me today, which is nice but also embarrassing all over again. I haven’t spoken with my boss yet.

      I am also picking up a beta blocker prescription later today.

      1. I’m an appellate lawyer, and I argue frequently in court in addition to giving many presentations. I get horribly nervous every time. Beta blockers are a godsend for me. They don’t get rid of the anxiety exactly, but diminish all the physical manifestations for me. Many more people take them than you realize. Good luck!!

      2. OP – We’ll all be here to cheer for you after you crush this presentation. You got this!

         If you need permission from another stranger to have your script with you while you speak you have it. Make sure to have some water near by. If you find yourself getting flustered or panicked take a pause to have a sip of water and re find your place in your notes and take a breath! Pauses and silent moment feel like eons when you’re the one talking, but I promise the audience only experiences a few seconds.

         Also, every time I’ve watched a nervous colleague give a presentation, I may have noticed a shakey hand, a shakey voice or a blush. I’m way more impressed by their ability to keep going and I sit there sending their mental cheers.

         bravery isn’t doing something without fear, it’s doing the thing anyway.

10. I know some here are fortunate enough to fly international business or premium economy regularly. Charities that support cancer patients will gladly accept the hand lotions, lip balms and tissue packets that come in the amenity kits. I just donated a bunch of stuff that had been sitting in my bathroom drawer for years.

    1. Also some homeless shelters and facilities for immigrants will take.

    2. Thanks for this! I hate to leave that stuff behind but I never know what to do with it.

       1. Give ’em to the Women’s Room in Pasadena.

          1. YES!! Thanks!!

11. Can any running ‘rettes remind me that a week off because of the flu won’t completely derail my fall half training? I seem to be caught in a negative thought spiral.

    1. Definitely will not! Especially since the fall is several months away. It takes time to build up stamina, and time to lose it.

    2. Take the time you need to recover (remember that heart inflammation can resolve more slowly than other symptoms). The best way not to be derailed is to recover fully.

    3. Taking the week off because you’re sick will improve your training for your fall half. Of course you wish you hadn’t gotten sick at all. But that ship has sailed. Now that you are sick, your time and energy are best spent recovering from the flu and then getting back to your training. Going back to your training before being fully recovered is actually counter-productive. And when you are recovered and do return, give yourself a week to ease into training – slower runs, lighter weights if you also lift, etc. After 7-10 days, you’ll be back. You have a lot of weeks until a fall event, which is plenty of time to recover. And, frankly, sometimes a forced break like this can be good for your body in the midst of a training cycle, especially when you have so much time until your event.

       Hope you feel better soon!
       Signed,
       Multiple marathons, half marathons, and triathlons finisher

    4. Oh goodness, it definitely won’t! That half in the fall is months away. Take the time, rest your body, hydrate, and start back slowly as you feel able. This will be a blip come the fall. Good luck!

    5. You have plenty of time to build up to the half by this fall! Don’t sabotage yourself by trying to push while your body is healing.

    6. Everything that’s been said already is spot on. If you are a person who needs a goal to focus on, focus on staying hydrated for now.

    7. You’re way too far out for that to matter. Also, most/all training plans are designed for life to happen. If you hit 95% of your workouts (especially the key ones – long runs, HM pace runs, tempo runs), it’s fine.

    8. It absolutely will not. A week of rest, even if it’s due to the flu, will probably help more than it hurts you!

    9. Competitive marathoner here – take the time off to be sick. Your runs right now will be unproductive garbage anyway. My last marathon build started with the flu during the first month, and it took about three weeks to get my lungs back. But my race was good in spite of missing the time. Yours will be too!

    10. What will totally derail your training is trying to push through the flu and ending up with pneumonia.

12. Title 9 swimwear, yay or nay?

    1. Yay, except it sometimes fades. Love it for fit and its incredible ability to stay put.

    2. I think they’re reselling other brands, like Carve and Nani. I have some Carve items purchased elsewhere that I like.

       1. T9 sells other brands and gives the styles their own names to make it more difficult to comparison-shop.

    3. Title 9 carries good sporty brands, but they never seem to have both the top and the matching bottom in stock in my size. Shipping is slow and returns are more of a pain than with other retailers.

13. For the first time in my career, I have a manager who is focused on supporting me in my career progression rather than just keeping me happy in my current role. They floated the idea of establishing a mentor and asked me to think about who might be a good fit. I am on board with this, but don’t know what to look for in a mentor. I have a few candidates who popped to mind, but feel like I should have some concrete ideas about what I am looking for in a mentoring relationship and why these people would fit with that. Does anyone have suggestions on where to start with this?

    1. Things I look for in a mentor:
       * Strong rapport with them – I need to be able to have frank, honest conversation and I need someone that I “click” with
       * Identified skills or expertise in an area that I need help – this isn’t always something technical, my best mentor has been a former manager who has taught me a lot about interpersonal relationships and managing senior leader expectations.
       * Ability to coach – not everyone has the ability or temperament to teach/coach/support someone

    2. I think the #1 thing you want in a mentor is someone who is in a position of power related to where you want to be in your career.

    3. I’ve had one formal mentor and many informal ones. The formal mentorship wasn’t really valuable. I was connected with a very nice leader reaching the end of her career who had minimal political sway and not much to teach me. We had some nice conversations, but that was it.

       My informal mentors have done so much more for me. Some have been my champions, pushing my name to the top of the list for visible projects or recognition. Some have been teachers, especially in soft skills like managing up. And some have been advisors, listening to me and helping me determine priorities and pathways. I’m guessing the people you identified can do one or more of those things for you, OP.

    4. I don’t have advice but you are smart to ask this question. My institution offers various mentoring programs and it’s strongly recommended to sign up for them. When I was new, I just asked for a mentor to help me better get to know the department and I got something out of it. The next time, I didn’t really have specific questions but I felt like it was expected to sign up anyway. I don’t think it was a great use of my mentor’s or my time.

    5. My mentor was assigned to me by the bar when I disclosed my alcoholism. She practiced in a different area of law but for 25 years, she has been my ethical and spiritual guide for how to practice 12 steps in the legal field. You never know who will end up being your mentor.

14. Is there a good instant message desktop app? I haven’t used anything since the days of gchat and AIM

    1. For work or personal use? For work, it likely depends on what systems and support your office provides. Teams and Slack are the two I have used.

       For personal, I just use my phone or ipad and stick with the native Apple message app.

15. I have a 2022 Kindle that randomly refuses to sync/download new books. I have tried turning it off and back on again, and disconnecting and reconnecting the wifi. Anybody know what might be causing this?

    1. Have you tried doing the hard reset? My 2022 kindle is wonky af so maybe it was a bad year for them (I did not have these problems with my old kindle that finally gave up the ghost after many years, or the one before that) but a hard reset usually helps.

       1. +1. My 2020ish kindle is also slow/laggy but a hard reset usually helps. I agree than my old as the hills kindle was MUCH better and lasted for a good 12 years so I’m very annoyed at the ‘new’ one having issue after only a few years.

       2. Is that different from “restart”? Because if it is, then no, I haven’t tried that. Glad it’s not just me though!

    2. What internet frequency are you using? I had problems with an older Kindle that wasn’t compatible with 5 GHz connections.

       1. I have no idea but that might be part of it!

    3. how many books do you have downloaded locally? If you are butting up against the storage limit, you might not have room to download, or running into some processing issues that then causes it to time out?

    4. Kindles are like everything else unfortunately, and made to break after so long. I have one from 2020 that’s still going strong, though – do the hard reset (I’ll try to find a link for you of what I’ve done) and then also check the frequency, I think it’s 2.5 vs 5?

       I think this is what you want — I remember there being something with lights blinking in a certain frequency to know you’re doing ok but who knows. I think I’ve also done a factory reset without any major issues. (All of your books are still in the cloud, but it would suck if you’re somewhere without wifi when you have to do it.)

       https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?ref_=hp_left_v4_sib&nodeId=G9WDGDTCSDQMSU7Z

       Also — maybe see if your kindle can use your phone’s personal hotspot as wifi? It’s good to set up anyway because then when you’re traveling you’re all set.

    5. Also check how much memory (“storage“) you’re using and if it’s more than half, remove some books from that device (you can always download them again later).
       The 5G vs 2.5G someone else mentioned has caused me issues before too. The older kindles connect oddly – I’ve noticed it when tethering to my phone too, and needed to set my personal hotspot “maximise compatibility” setting on.

16. is this meant to be a joke, https://www.nordstrom.com/s/panty-front-pencil-skirt/7747091?origin=category-personalizedsort&breadcrumb=Home%2FHoliday%20Deals%2FNew%20Markdowns&color=001

    1. A modest way to participate in the trendy pants-less trendy?

    2. Heh I guess you wear it with the bra shirt: https://www.nordstrom.com/s/bra-cotton-button-down-shirt/7747094?origin=category-personalizedsort&breadcrumb=Home%2FBrands%2FVaquera&color=100

    3. It is ugly. They should at least have gone for a Trompe-l’œil effect if they were going to try at all

17. Have a work question:
    I’ll try to summarize here but it’s complex:

    I’m in a learning and dev position not leadership but mid-career. Our large (10,000+ employees) company is “all in” on various AI initiatives. I pitched a curriculum idea that is around AI (after quite a bit of research and careful construction and design) which was lauded and picked up and championed by our VP (and her leadership team). I did a dog and pony show of presentation of the idea/framework and a sneak peek of proof of concept at her behest and got a formal final approval to move forward. Typically people in my role are assigned work in a very standard, rote way so this is a touch outside the norm but not “not done” or out of line in any way.

    At a large all-hands meeting (like 100+ participants) recently a colleague (direct peer, same exact job title and duties, same reporting line) who I thought I was friendly with made a comment in the public group chat thread for the meeting about my work/idea being “duplicative”. I’ve presented this to hundreds of people at all levels in the company and done extensive research to ensure it’s not, but I had some stats ready for this concern and gave them to her. I also took it to private IM as I didn’t want to argue in a public forum. I was stung and angry about being “called out” like that on the group chat but tried to give her the benefit of the doubt.

    She doubled down and insisted it’s duplicate work in the private chat. I asked her for proof (basically) and I got a “well the conflicting courses aren’t published yet” and some vague “I’m sure it’s duplicate work” without any real elaboration. I’m not aware of her directly working on anything like this, and in fact she mentioned a third party completely outside of our team as the creator of the conflicting work. So far, additional extensive research and efforts haven’t turned up any sign of “duplicate work”.

    I went on PTO for a week and thought if I just politely ignored it/let it drop it would fizzle out. Nope. She set up a meeting to discuss and dragged someone in at 7AM for this (this is upcoming). It’s baffling and weird.

    I’m frankly beyond irritated and feel this is an over-reach, over-step, waste of time, etc. I’ve reached out to the third party she named to get more information but I could use some help managing this. I don’t want to validate her idea that I need permission or approval of any kind to continue (the meeting wording had phrasing like “exploring your idea” WTF. I’m in alpha testing about to publish in 2 weeks with VP final approval weeks ago?) or be put on the defensive “proving” that my work is not duplicate.

    Part of me is just baffled, like…who cares even if it IS duplicate? The company is huge, with thousands of projects. So what if there’s a slight overlap with a project that *she’s not even working on!*

    Any insights here? Any idea on how to manage/control this? I know that I can’t lose my cool and must be very faux-teamwork and faux-upbeat but I feel this is basically “mean girl” bullying of some kind I don’t quite understand.

    1. Reject the meeting invite and email the attendees. I’m a bit fried so don’t use this exact language, just the general idea.

       “Cheryl,

       I will not be at this meeting. VP approved this product on 31 May and our rollout is scheduled for next Monday. Discussions with Third Party have shown that this is not a duplicative contract. Company’s priority is meeting the rollout deadline and your concerns have been addressed by management.

       Please reach out with any questions.

       Sarah”

    2. What kind of weirdo schedules a 7AM meeting? I’m reach out to ask the person about their effort (and not accept a meeting for 7am because ew why) and see what they’re up to. Working on something that is similar to what someone else is doing isn’t a big deal – it happens all the time. I’d chat with them for 10 minutes, though, just to see. I don’t think it’s necessarily mean to point the possibility out to you.

       1. I totally agree it’s not “mean” to point out “hey, this looks similar to something else, FYI” but the doubling down after the quick chat, and the big production number meeting feels like something else. Combined with a public calling out that 100% could have happened privately at another time, not in a an on-camera/in person meeting with 100+ on the line, it feels…icky and deliberate in a way that raises my hackles.

    3. You can’t prove a negative, that it’s not duplicative, except with the research you’ve already done. That research didn’t find any duplication. I wonder if she’s consulting on the side with some other duplicative effort that isn’t public.

       I wouldn’t take the 7 AM meeting (what??) and would use the script above to remind her that the project has the necessary approvals to move forward.

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