Coffee Break: Marcie Flat
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These trendy Sam Edelman shoes look great and are winning rave reviews for comfort.
I think these would be great in a casual office (or on a casual day). There are a lot of great user-submitted photos of reviewers wearing the shoes with dresses, and while I'm not usually on Team Flats with Dresses, these are flats that even I can get behind.
The shoes are $140 at Nordstrom, Shopbop, and other department stores; Nordstrom has them in 5 colors.
Sales of note for 6/2:
- Nordstrom – Designer clearance up to 40% off!
- Ann Taylor – 30% off dresses, jackets, and shoes
- AYR – Ooh, good sale section — but lots on final sale. Readers love these comfy work pants and these jeans.
- Boden – 15% off new women's wear styles with code
- Express – Today only (6/2): all clearance up to 85% off when you take an extra 20-50% off
- J.Crew – 20% off $200, including new styles
- J.Crew Factory – Extra 50% off clearance + 40-60% off everything else
- Loft – 60% off sale styles
- M.M.LaFleur– Up to 70% off, plus new styles added! (Try code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off)
- Nordstrom Rack – Clear the Rack! Nice selection of Vince, Veronica Beard, Reiss and Rag & Bone, a ton of affordable work basics from Calvin Klein and dresses from Maggy London, Eliza J, and Donna Morgan
- Talbots – Buy one, get one 50% off everything!
We have an open door office and also can come and go whenever we want. I have a next door office neighbor who almost always has her door shut and never says anything to me when she comes and goes. When I come in, I try to say “hello” to everyone as I pass them by – we are a tiny boutique law firm with 6 partners and we all work together well. She and I are the only women partners. I should just chalk it up to her wanting a lot of alone time, right? I feel weird that she doesn’t ever say hi to me unless I say hi first. My office has been next to hers for a few years now so I know this will not change. Time for me to just let it go, right? I don’t know why it annoys me but it does.
Sincere question: If it’s been a few years now, what is happening this week or today that is especially annoying about this?
Yes. This is your neurosis. You don’t need to chalk it up to anything; this is just how she works and how she passes people in the hall. It doesn’t mean anything.
That’s rude and wouldn’t fly in certain European offices (it’s considered rude not to greet people in elevators and doctor waiting rooms in Germany, FFS). It’s definitely annoying but what can you do.
It sounded like she was reciprocating greetings. Agree it would be rude to ignore a “hi.”
soooooooo saying hi to me and expecting a response daily would annoy the bejesus out of me. i’m adhd and get into my little workflows and that would yank me right out and then i’d need like 15 minutes playing my dumb phone game to try to recover.
Social norms exist so we can all rub along in the world together. If you don’t say hi in a small office, fine, but be prepared to take a hit for that.
But this social norm is making it harder to rub along in the world together? If you say hi to everyone you pass and expect a greeting, be prepared to take a hit for being needy and annoying.
Not the OP, but the vibe is not what I think of when it comes to “boutique.” To me, that is more of a warm team, not just a statement of size. Like people function as one, maybe because they talk to each other?
Do you ever as part of a bigger group talk shop, go over cases, talk about new laws or caselaw? I feel that frost at a smaller firm is just not great. But clearly we can live this way.
I’m in a bit of a silo at BigLaw and hate it. But I’d hate the frost at a smaller shop because it would feel more personal.
Maybe ask if she wants to grab lunch sometime. “I’d love to know more about what you work on; maybe we could work together on some opportunities.” In work, it’s not all business or social, but you can’t move the business forward when you don’t have a baseline relationship with a person and a handle on would you even want to bring them on to a project. Selfishly, coldly, she should know this and move it forward or say politely something making it clear it’s not you “I’d love to, but I have twins in the NICU and an elder on hospice and when I come up for air, let’s catch up.”
If you’re a partner, you need to be the change you want to have be the vibe of your firm.
I assumed based on “we all work together well” that nothing was amiss in terms of baseline relationship. Did I misinterpret OP?
I wouldn’t invite someone to lunch just because you are miffed they don’t say hi to you every day.
I am in a similar situation but in a three attorney firm. When I started here, the other female attorney in my office told me, unprompted, that she isn’t friends with her coworkers. She also keeps her door closed and on the off chance I need something from her, it is a toss up whether it will be a pleasant experience or not.
I used to work in a firm that was on the smaller side, and we had an open-door culture. I worked between the reception desk and the kitchen. I developed blinders on who was coming and going, and people had to actively say hello to me for me to look up from my computer. Even then, I rarely returned more than a cursory “good morning” unless someone stopped at my office and initiated a conversation. It was truly the only way to stay in any type of workflow.
I was actually quite happy to chat if someone came and started a conversation with me, but I wasn’t going to interrupt my work multiple times per day just to exchange pleasantries. It’s so hard to get back to work once I’m interrupted!
This was my interpretation; if she keeps the door closed, it sounds like she is the kind of person who benefits from uninterrupted focus, and she’s probably not saying “hi” because she’s still in that headspace until interrupted. It’s not a slight or a personal thing or frosty in this scenario.
I agree with this. It’s great to be the warm, friendly person, but if someone else wants to focus on their work and isn’t going out of their way to greet you every day, just let them do their thing.
I would keep saying hello, being as warm and pleasant to her as everybody else, and other than that let it go.
As for why it annoys you, who knows? Maybe it’s because it’s next door, maybe it’s because you would have loved to have a female ally as partner and feel sad about the loss, maybe it’s a light form of internalised expectation that a woman should be friendly, maybe it sets of a tiny insecurity, maybe you’re conflict avoidant and it feels like rejection, maybe you’re an excellent networker and extrovert and genuinely feel puzzled by why anybody might not want to chat!
She’s not a golden retriever; she doesn’t owe you a cheerful daily greeting. It was absolutely not the norm at my last firm to say hello to everyone every morning. We’re all adults and we all have work to do.
how comfortable are you with apps where your financial institutions connect to something like Simplifi or Monarch? my friend was saying he hates those and doesn’t trust htme.
We opt out.
No thank you, will definitely not use.
I don’t know what either of those are, but I opt out of and shut off all connectors that are not mandatory for a task I am doing. That data sharing and access isn’t altruistic.
Getting a new car question: What is the upside of a hatchback vs. a sedan? I’ve never had a hatchback.
You can fit more stuff back there with easy seat lie-down. They’re much more practical for outdoorsy lifestyles. There’s also usually better headroom for the rear seat passengers.
Would you ever want to carry large things in your trunk? I.e. dogs, bicycles, tools/materials, camping kit, groceries for 6 mos, etc? If so, get a hatchback.
Passenger row = A
Rear trunk = B
In sedan, you get A and B for storage, but often only a small pass through for the length of A+B, possibly for something narrow like skis, but not something bigger, like many rubbermaid tubs or a cooler.
In a hatchback, you can put down the seatback and get the full length of A+B for larger items, like a kitchen table with the legs taken off.
Cargo space and versatility
Much more flexible use of the interior space than in a sedan.
I am old enough to remember when 60/40 split folding rear seats came into play and that was amazing for being able to lug stuff around without borrowing a pickup truck. Hatchbacks take that optionality up another notch.
My almost 11 year old has underarm hair. She’s very fair with black hair. She hasn’t said anything about it, but i don’t want her to get teased. Do I stay silent until she approaches me? Or do I teach her to shave it? Anyone have experience with this?
You stay silent until she approaches you. Don’t give her something to be self-conscious about. Society will do enough of that.
do you have the american girl books the care and keeping of you? they have some pages on hair growth and options.
Would stay silent for now.
If you have somewhere that you keep extra toiletries (that she knows where is) stock some extra pads and tampons of differnt sizes, razors, shower gel, shampoo, deodorant, toilet paper etc. for the whole family. Open any multipacks and remove plastic as routine. If she wants to experiment, there’s some easily available to sneak, and if she asks you, there’s some easily available for you to give.
When I was that age, I snuck into my parent’s bathroom and shaved with their razor. I was too embarrassed to talk about it with my parents but felt ashamed about my hair. I would have been relieved if my mom had said, “Here’s a razor and shaving cream you can use if you want. I’m happy to explain if you’re interested.”
Let her know she can come to you if she ever has questions about her body or how to take care of it, whether it’s hair, periods, acne, bras, hips, whatever.
My own kid had dark underarm hair that she preferred to keep natural (and she is now an adult). Her peer group wasn’t in to shaving the way my peer group was at that age.
Can someone who understands meds and pharmacy benefit managers tell me if I can ever fill a 90-day ADHD Rx for Ritalin? Or by mail? Or if it has to be 30-day in person and show an ID (so no delivery option)?
Ditto for sleep meds (zolpidem).
Trying to manage meds for a kid and an elder.
Call the insurers and ask their policies. They may allow 90 days by mail when they only allow 30 days in person. Every plan is frustratingly different.