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Updated: May 24, 2023 368 Comments · by

Wednesday’s Workwear Report: Shoko Ribbed Sweater Dress

The Personal Shopper (TPS) | ·

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A woman wearing a colorblock buttoned sweater dress with brown sandals

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

Staud is a really fun brand for weekend wear, but from time to time I come across an item that would work for a more casual office. This long sweater can be worn as a cardigan or a dress and comes in tons of bright, cheerful color combos. I love this blue version for a fun mix of jewel tones. I think I’d probably be more inclined to wear it as a long cardigan, but the dress does look pretty cute.

The sweater is $165 at Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdale's and comes in sizes XS–XL.

Sales of note for 9.30.24

About Elizabeth

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

Comments

  1. Anon

    I could use some help deciding what to wear to an upcoming wedding. Dress code is festive cocktail. Wedding starts at 5 pm. The entire event will be outdoors with temps around 60 degrees throughout.

    Here are my options:
    – Option A: https://poshmark.com/listing/JCrew-Cobalt-Blue-Lace-Dress-5a4c2bbfa619955d7900cd71
    – Option B: https://poshmark.com/listing/Anthropologie-Somerset-Maxi-Dress-in-Turquoise-63b2e0931741be8f69b37ca8
    – Option C: https://smartcloset.me/product/100025799428-blue-fade-floral/Chelsea28%20Flutter%20Sleeve%20Pliss%C3%A9%20Midi%20Dress%20in%20Blue%20Fade%20Floral

    I think Option A might be the best fit for the dress code, but am not sure if it looks dated? Options B and C are recent purchases, but potentially too casual? Note that I already own (or have purchased and can return) all of these. 

  2. Bag Brands

    I’m in the market for a new structured leather work tote and small crossbody. I used to be a huge Cuyana fan, but most of their current line is too slouchy for me and I have found the quality to be lacking in recent purchases. Any recommendations for brands with limited or no visible branding but that still look luxurious (not looking for something utilitarian like Lo and Sons)? Price point is 500-1000. I have found a few British brands that might fit the bill (Smythson and Mulberry), but before going through the hassle of ordering from overseas I want to rule out domestic options.

  3. Anon

    Help me hack work outfits. It has been a while and I used to be a dress person so I didn’t have to think so much lol. For no-lapel jackets, are they better with a v-neck underneath or scoop or crew neck? And if a jacket has lapels, what then? I single-berated jackets in both cases — I can’t pull off the giant double breasted jacket look (and am not sure it would be an office look, even in 2023).

    • Anonymous

      Whenever I am stuck with how to style a blazer I google “[color/style] blazer kate middleton” for inspiration. Lately I’ve been liking her monochromatic looks, so for example wearing an ivory crew silk top with a coordinating blazer over it.

    • Necklines

      I think V necks look funny with jackets. Either crew (necklace over the shirt) or scoop (necklace on the skin) look more harmonious with jackets IMO. Watch newscasters. Or, next time you attend a conference, watch the speakers. Solid color round-neck dress with a jacket could be your uniform?

      • Anonymous

        +1
        I prefer a scoop, to have my collarbones showing.
        I’m a busty hourglass, and with a v-neck under a jacket that gives a v on top of another v, the top just looks like an arrow to my cleavage. If I do wear a v, it has be low cut or fairly open collar – a high v is terrible on a big bust.

    • Cat

      I wear them with all three necklines. They’re a little trickier with a c-ll-r – I tend to do silk c-ll-red shirts only since they are slouchy enough to stay tucked into the jacket.

    • Anonymous

      I think any of those work with a no lapel jacket, but I particularly like the look of a scoop neck and a v-neck that matches the lines of the blazer very well. I don’t think it changes dramatically with a lapel other than better allowing for a collared shirt. The key for me is matching the lines of the jacket with a collared or v-neck shirt.

    • JHC

      Annie Gunn’s is great, but a little far from the city. Al’s is old school and delicious. Citizen Kane’s is good, esp for ribeyes, and is in an old Victorian. I also think Kreis’s Steakhouse is fantastic. The Tenderloin Room at the Chase is probably the fanciest on this list, but it’s a fun experience.

      • Anonymous

        Ditto to Kreis’s, if it’s not too late. Agree Annie Gunn’s too far!

  5. Anonymous

    I’d like to hear from anyone who went from a small to mid-sized regional firm to practicing solo or who left the firm to go into practice with one or two other attorneys from the firm.

    I’ve been with my firm for 7 years and will likely be up for shareholder vote this fall to become a shareholder in 2024. However, I’ve been recently frustrated with changes in my practice areas and comments made from the shareholders that maybe we should scale those practice areas back (it’s lack of finding a specific subset of paralegals, the practice area is booming and only limited by the back-end help). Additionally, I’m extremely fed up with some of the attitudes of my colleagues. After years of being willing to pitch in wherever needed for any attorney that asks (yes, I realize this is the role of an associate), I have an upcoming maternity leave, and I am experiencing a ton of pushback from the shareholders I have asked to handle minimal matters on files while I am out. On these minimal matters, the paralegals will do much of the work that would occur while I am out and only pull in the attorney if necessary for a particular legal question from a client or to review a prepared document. And, these matters are matters in which each shareholder brought in the file and shares at least half of the credit with me. Normally, I’m okay doing the work and sharing the credit. But, my recent preparations for leave have made me realize that I don’t feel like I am appreciated on the whole. In fact, a lot of the attorneys at my firm have the mindset of “why wouldn’t you want to work for us because we’re X?” Instead, we need to be showing attorneys why they would want to work here.

    • Anon

      Regarding paralegal help: have you looked into remote or flexible paralegal hires?

    • Anon

      I would hold on a little longer. If you do make SHH you will have a lot more control and influence and may find you can grow those practices areas yourself. You will also have more independence. If you ultimately decide to leave, leaving as a SHH is a better position than a senior associate as it looks like you didn’t/ weren’t going to get promoted.

      I’m sorry your partners aren’t stepping up. Is this a possible opportunity for a more senior associate?

    • Anon

      A few queries:

      – what makes you think you won’t be able to be more vocal and advocate better when you are a SH at this firm?
      – do you believe your values are aligned with the firmand your senior colleagues? Or are you just exhausted because you’re scrambing to get on leave? There are always times people at firms are not so helpful/busy with their own stuff.
      – do you generally place great store in offhanded comments? Do these comments bother you because they’re made by important people, or they mean the path forward is not really open to you? Were the comments more pointed? Are you setting the right amount of store in them?
      – is there someone at this firm that has your back or is your sponsor generally? Or do you feel like you’re
      – FWIW, I was a senior corporate transactional paralegal for a loooong time–but to me, if you are a law firm partner, the idea of running your business based only on the small roadblock of not being able to hire good help seems crazy. Recruiting is not what lawyers do–they’re off lawyering. But you can work with search firms, develop a program to teach and train if you have one or two good paralegals–there are ways around this. As a SH, you will be an owner, and do not need to be hamstrung by how things were done before, necessarily. Part of being a leader or executive is advocating for your business needs and getting them met. Is there a reason you think that won’t be possible?
      – not meaning to put more work on you when you’re an expecting senior associate, but do you feel like you could “be the change” or that your org is too rigid to change, culturally, in terms of trying to treat their talent well?

      You don’t necessarily need to answer here, but I hope you chew on some of these questions!

  6. Anne-on

    Question for everyone – do you (somewhat) regularly host parties/get-togethers? And what is your age?
    To provide some background: 42 now but have hosted since I was in my 20s (cheaper to have people over vs. gathering at a bar with bad entry level pay). I’ve hosted gatherings in every home I’ve had from a 500 sq ft city apartment up to our current suburban home. This came up recently with family and at work – apparently regularly hosting/inviting people over to your home is somewhat rare? I’ve had people comment that I’m ‘such an amazing host!’ whereas I think this is just a normal thing to do and I embrace the semi-homemade approach (make 2-3 dishes, buy or order in the rest). This was totally the norm for my family growing up and even as a tween/teen I was always encouraged to invite my friends over. So – do you host? Or is it something you avoid?

    • Hamish

      Regular host of dinner parties and holiday parties (RH, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah) and “because” parties (ie beaujolais nouveau in November). Since my early 20s. Now mid 50s. This and traveling are the things I miss most because of the pandemic (health issues). IME not many people know how to host/are comfortable hosting dinner parties. Which is a shame because lingering over the remains of the last course, refilling glasses/cups and conversing to the wee hours is so nice.

    • Anon

      Hosting since a teen, now in my 50s. Married to someone with high social anxiety, so this is rough to navigate. Never more than 20 people at my place except for open house type events. Have had larger events at a park or for organizational social events. It it matters, I am a Virgo and organizing things is my love language :)

    • Anon

      I’m 38 with a five year old kid. We don’t host parties and haven’t since my 20s. We have another couple over for dinner once in a while but it’s not a common occurrence, maybe once or twice a year. We don’t have many local friends and when we do meet friends we’re more likely to go a public place together than meet in someone’s home. My parents never entertained – like literally never so at least we’re doing slightly better than they did?

      We host lots of play dates for kids but I don’t really put that in the same category. We’re thankfully at the drop off play date stage so I don’t need to entertain a mom I don’t know. The kids mostly play without me present and when I am there it’s babysitting not “hosting.” My parents are also local and at our house for dinner most nights (with our permission) but again not really what I consider hosting.

    • DC Pandas

      Yes, I’d say I have a casual get-together on a monthly basis. Generally is more of a potluck or BYOB event so there’s plenty to go around. It’s one of the reasons why I won’t move from my current place. I find that inviting people over is more welcoming for friends who don’t drink or have unique diets/allergies than if we met at a bar or restaurant.

      I’ve been splitting a rowhouse with several roommates for most of my 20s- I love having access to a backyard, living room, and full kitchen. It can be a bit tiresome if I’m not in the right mindset, but I’m usually grateful by the time the event is in full swing.

      • anonshmanon

        A casual get-together on a monthly basis is my dream. I don’t mind prepping the house, and enjoy the food part (but we usually have people bringing stuff), but setting a date and telling everyone is what I get hung up on for inexplicable reasons. As a consequence, I only host bigger gatherings maybe 3 times per year, and otherwise might have a single friend over occasionally.
        I’d love if everyone including myself knew ‘last Thursday of the month is hangout time at anonshmanon’s place’.

    • Anon

      I used to do it a lot when I was in my 20’s / early 30’s. But most of my friends were students/early career, living modestly and not with much money. Loved it, enjoyed it, but even then not a lot of people hosted. People loved coming, and were gracious and not judgmental. But it is a lot of work/planning and costs money!!!

      Once I hit later 30’s and 40’s, people are so busy, families complicate things, including kids or not etc… and it is so much work to clean your home before/after and costs $$$ to do the food. People are often not as helpful as you’d like, and get more judgmental with age. People mess up things/break things and maybe I’m more irritable too about that. And since I live in an apartment and most of my friends are married and live in houses…. no, they often don’t want a simple hang out in a small space. So the big parties/gatherings ended.

      It’s only my wealthy friends that have big parties now, usually for “events”.

    • Cb

      I want to host more, like casual hangs but it feels like everyone is in the full on birthday party every weekend stage of life.
      We did some casual Sunday lunches during the winter, when everyone is bored and gloomy and you’ve inspired me to invite some friends to join us for our Friday night homemade pizza and movie nights.

      • Anne-on

        Yay! I honestly think casual hangs like that are so great – low pressure/high reward. Our neighbors will often text ‘popsicles and drinks after dinner?’ and we’ll all go to someone’s yard for an hour or so and chat while the kids run around. Honestly, that’s what ‘summer’ is if I picture it in my head – sticky kids running through sprinklers/yards while the adults loosely supervise and hang.

    • Sunshine

      I’m your age and grew up in a home where my parents loved having people over for dinner and would also host a larger party every few years for a specific event. I hate hosting and will be happy to never do it, so I meet friends for stuff like coffee or walk dates. I have two friends our age who like hosting a lot and do it a lot, and I always enjoy going to their houses. One of them likes having our regular coffee dates at her house – so she provides the coffee and I bring muffins. As a general statement, I find more of my friends meet at places rather than in someone’s home, but I think it’s lovely when people host.

    • Anonymous

      Only over the holidays, so once or twice a year.
      We tend to prefer going out any other time because then we don’t have to worry about the clean-up…

    • Cat

      No but that’s more personality-based I think. Introvert, home is sanctuary, prefer chatting with people outdoors or meeting up at restaurants, etc.

      • Anon

        +1 this is me. I’ve never been a host or wanted people other than immediate family to stay with me, and I’m now in my 40s. Happy to meet up at restaurants or bars with friends from time to time but that’s about it.

        • Anon

          My partner gets so nervous about having people over that it wrecks my enjoyment of an event so now I am driven to the bars. I have learned not to trust “yes, I’m fine with a casual hang with X and Y” that he just can’t make it happen.

          • Anon

            Honestly it’d be so hard for me to be married to someone who doesn’t enjoy having people over. Like, dealbreaker level hard.

          • anon

            Agreed, I’m the anon at 9:34 and I was always careful to date (and ultimately marry someone) men who were not super into hosting people regularly. I know I’d lose my mind if I were subjected to that anything more than 1-2x/year at most

          • Cat

            So true about choosing a partner that has similar desires as far as time spent with / hosting company, vs. time by yourselves. Anon at 11:11 would not be a happy partner of mine ;)

          • Anon

            Same. The pandemic was a great reset, in a bad way, for years and years of progress towards a shared use of our space that works for us both. Even a reset to the two-couple casual hang has been a struggle. But I refuse to give up. His anxiety before is overwhelming and yet he enjoys the event (no one is there wasted at 3am, no police come, everyone is happy). I ought to just send him on a day of errands and vacuuming, but the anxiety is strong.

            Ironically, he is also very sincerely disappointed at me for not throwing him a surprise major birthday party (but you have 3 friends and hate having people over and don’t do well with change). Dude, you were asked. You said nothing about wanting this. I am not psychic and you have a track record.

    • Anonymous

      I find that it is rare nowadays! When I was coming up as an associate in a law firm, I hosted friends from my class at my apartment several times. I then began to notice that no one reciprocated — we’d meet at a restaurant or bar, but never at anyone else’s house. So I stopped doing it too, since it’s a bit of effort. Now I only host close friends and family. It is changing a bit as we have small kids and have other families over for play dates though.

    • Pep

      I guess this falls under the category of “hosting” – we often go out to dinner with various friends and almost always invite them back for “dessert and coffee” afterwards.

    • Anon

      I host something about every other week. These days it’s likely to be lunch with a few friends or a pool hangout and I buy the food. Back in the day it was a prepared-by-me multi course sit down suppers for ten or twelve, cook outs for a couple of dozen, or once in a fit of insanity, a four course holiday luncheon for 31 women in a 1400 square foot house. I just don’t have that kind of energy anymore. Also, most people don’t reciprocate and as much as I loved doing it, it started to feel like “always giving, never receiving”.

    • anon

      I like the idea of hosting, but not the effort and my husband and I rarely do so – we didn’t even plan a second birthday party for our kid. But I work with someone who thrives on it and he and his wife will do dinner parties at least once a month, probably. He’s in his 80s and has mentioned before how disappointing it is how few of his acquaintances will host parties.

    • Anon

      We host friends like…once a year? Once every two years? I’m 36 with three young kids and the amount of cleaning and prep and coordinating schedules and making sure no one needs a nap or bed makes it hard. And I’m an introvert and agree with the above points on wanting to be able to retreat back to my house and not wait for people to leave. (This does not include having the neighbor mom/toddler over for a casual play in the basement, etc. I’m talking about about hosting full families and serving a meal.) Though we just moved to a new house this year so will probably host much more than normal this summer, as we want to visit with old friends and people want to see the house.

      I do get the sense that hosting big gatherings is on a downward trend…back in “the day” people didn’t have social media so they didn’t feel so self-conscious about the state of their homes and decor. I also think the average family didn’t go to restaurants as much as they do now, so dinner at someone else’s house was a real treat and hosting was the way to have meals with people. Plus, people seem busier today – longer working hours, bigger time commitment for kids activities, more upkeep required in bigger houses/yards – so it’s harder to fit in time to host or even attend gatherings. My parents hosted all the time and it was nothing fancy and our house was messy…all good memories, but somehow I can’t bring myself to invite people over without tons of stress.

      • Anne-on

        This is a good point though I think that someone being judgy about the state of my house (normal dust/wear and tear, not like, active mice or bug infestations) if I’m hosting says WAY more about that person than it does about me and I’d simply cut them from future invite lists. I do make it a point to clean before guests of coures but that’s more like dust/vacuum/freshen up downstairs toilet and make sure the trash is empty/dishwasher and sink are empty so I can use them to prep and clean up. I’m not, like, creating tabelescapes and buying new furniture…except during covid when I did buy more outdoor tables/chairs so we could have bigger outdoor bbqs!

    • Anon

      My husband and I love to entertain and host something all the time, pretty much weekly. We do dinner parties, backyard bbq’s, cocktails at our place before or after dinner at restaurants. I keep it easy like Ina G. and husband is a wonderful cook and partner in this.

    • Anon

      In my 20s and I host a lot. 1-3 bigger parties a year (20-30+ people in my 650 sq Ft apartment), smaller (4-6 people) get togethers to watch sports, pregame an event, game night, drinks in at my apartment, movie night, etc 1-5x a month, and 1-3 friends over for a drink or a meal approximately weekly.

      My parents host pretty often, so I grew up around regular extended family dinners, family friends barbecues, watching football with friends and dinner parties.

      It never occurred to me to not host?!

      I’d say my friends host similarly often.

      I mostly keep hosting simple: beer and wine, easy snacks / appetizers. When I have friends over for dinner it’s very casual (baked salmon and bagged salad, pasta, etc).

    • Anonymous

      Pre kids, DH and I hosted a ton. We love it. Everything from formal sit down dinner party to cocktail parties to brunch. COVID threw a wrench in what we had traditionally done. We last hosted a dinner party in February 2020.

      Now, most of our friend have kids and that complicates things, because dinners and cocktail parties require babysitters and there are just more logistics generally. We have offered to just have people come over for what I have called “family dinner” where we order pizza/similar food and hang out and kids eat and play a bad adults eat and talk and there’s no stress about being in a restaurant. And…. People seem really reluctant to do that? When I’ve said “or if it’s easier, we can go eat at the restaurant.” people also say that’s too stressful about having their kids behave. I don’t get it, so I’ve stopped trying that. Maybe people just don’t like us anymore.

      We just had my son’s third birthday party and had like 35 people to our house for that and I do miss having gatherings.

      • Anon

        Oh that’s a shame. We did “casual family dinners” as you call them 1-2x a month when our kids were young!

    • Anon

      I love to do it. Love it. Consider it my greatest hobby. Read cookbooks just to imagine what dishes I’ll make at some future gathering. But my second husband (we’re early 40s, married 5 years ago) haaaates it, so I’m lucky if I get to do it twice a year. Before we married, I’d probably host something every 6-8 weeks.

      • Anon

        Aww… commiseration. My husband (married for 10+ years) hates it too and it seems to have gotten worse over the years. When we were in grad school we used to have friends casually drop by all the time and now he is stressed about cleaning and having everything look just so. Since our house is never perfect looking, we host once a year at most.

    • No Face

      I love hosting! I missed it deeply during the pandemic. I am just getting back into the swing of things.

      My get-togethers are very casual. Friends come over to watch new episodes of tv shows we like (Game of Thrones, Succession). Kids play on the weekends while the adults sip. Slip in slides and kiddie pools in the summer. Board game nights after bedtime in the winter. I’ve always done this.

      If I cook, it is a taco bar, a vat of chili, or giant piles of pasta. Potlucks for massive groups. Takeout for spontaneous gatherings.

      • Hamish

        @No Face – can you comment on how you transitioned back into hosting – capacity limits on guest list, negative test, open windows – that kind of thing? We are up to hosting 4 different households outdoors, but the next step is a challenge virus-wise. Thanks for any words of wisdom.

        • Anon

          Honestly, no one is doing Covid precautions like this anymore. Maybe in 2020 or 2021 but certainly not now.

          • Anon

            I am one of the (very) few who still wears masks in public and even we attend small gatherings indoors with no masks. I agree with the above comment that basically nobody is taking Covid precautions anymore and definitely not in small group settings. I don’t think you can ask people to test or mask before a gathering at this point. About all you can do is continue hosting outdoors, which is fine as long as the weather is decent.

    • ollie

      DH and I host semi-regularly, early 30s no kids. Most often this is smaller dinners with 3-5 friends, and a couple of larger gatherings during the year (Super Bowl, 4th of July, things like that). DH loves to cook and uses hosting as an opportunity to try out different recipes, and I’m in charge of making a dessert and getting the house ready. We ask guests to bring drinks or additional dessert. I really like it since we get to spend more time with friends over dinner, rather than feeling rushed to leave a restaurant or attempting to find a bar to go to after.

    • MBAMags

      We don’t host often- usually one larger football-watching party for 20-30 and then a big family Christmas gathering. I would love to host more, because like Anon at 10:26 I love the planning and cooking and the whole act of hospitality. My dream is to host weekly very Ina style- drinks, dinners, big parties and everything in between. Not sure how to get there though. I’m an introvert and married to an extrovert, but in our late 30’s/ early 40’s his friends have lots of kid activities. Friends are challenging for me, so I don’t really have any.

    • Anon

      We used to do a lot of entertaining, but we became the “default hosts” – at one point, I was asked to host a birthday party for someone I barely knew because “you’re just so good at hosting!” and I realized that A. it was a lot of work and basically killed an entire weekend for us, and we’d go into the next week cranky from being too tired and B. hardly anyone ever reciprocated our invitations. I likely would have kept hosting some gatherings if we had, more than very rarely, been invited over to someone else’s house. But it didn’t happen, and I started feeling like people were taking advantage.

      After we had our kid, I got diagnosed with IBS and worked with a gastro and a nutritionist to get it under control. One of the biggest triggers for IBS flares is stress and being overtired. It’s more important for me to protect my health – when I have a flare, it’s hard for me to do anything but be in the bathroom; working, parenting, etc. are difficult enough – than it is for me to wear myself out giving parties. We will have another couple or two over for dinner from time to time, but the big parties are mostly in the past for us. We’ll throw one next year for an important family graduation, but that may be it for a long time. I will add in, my husband and I are both introverts and so not having parties isn’t exactly a hardship for us.

    • Anon

      I love hosting, but I never host anything formal – just have friends over for wine. And this is very common with my friends groups, as they have kids and it’s easier to go to someone’s house than out to a bar or restaurant. I don’t have the space to host large dinners but I would if I could!

    • Anon

      I love hosting and my parents always hosted. My husband did not grow up having ppl over but he enjoys it now even though he does get anxious beforehand.

      We have a lot of casual get togethers and also larger parties. We live in a small modest home, and utilize our space well. Everything is casual and I never ever put out formal place settings etc. all my serving ware is cheap stuff from home goods that I wouldn’t care if breaks. I would love to have nice expensive things one day, but I have 2 under 2 and no storage space for pretty plates or the emotional capacity for maintaining fragile things.

      The secret to making it work: keep it simple and have a system. I have a giant storage bin with napkins, cups, utensils, Tablecloths. I have two folding tables that we set up as well as lots of extra folding chairs I’ve bought over the years from marketplace. We buy water bottles, beer, and seltzer in bulk and keep it in the basement. I have one pizza place, one Chinese place, and one Italian place that I always cater the same things from. I buy the same appetizers from TJs and make the same salad each time. If it’s a big party I hire cleaners the day before.

      As long as there’s plenty of food, drink, and toilet paper, our friends seem to enjoy themselves and keep coming back. Also, hosting is the only way for us to hangout with people because we have 2 small kids.

    • Anon

      I use to love hosting and did it frequently. I loved being the house where the gatherings happened. But as I got older (50’s) it always feels like too much work between shopping, cooking and cleaning the house.

    • Anonymous

      I would love to host but I can’t stand doing it because our little old house is just not set up for it. It desperately needs a complete reno–laminate is peeling off kitchen cabinets, doors and woodwork are grimy beyond the point of cleaning, windows have failed and are foggy, etc. We don’t have a table in our dining room and our kitchen table and chairs are too small and old and gross. Our family room and living room don’t have adequate seating. It’s so inhospitable that when we suggest having the family over MIL will usually say “just come over to our house.” It’s frankly embarrassing because we are in our late 40s and could afford to renovate and furnish our house, but my husband is just too cheap and anxious about money to do it. But he is constantly telling me I’m antisocial because I don’t want to invite friends over to our hovel. Completely maddening.

      • Anon

        Rough. I can relate.

        Have you thought about counseling? Couples… or for him… ;)

        My parents had a similar dynamic. Only once my father was retired, and he saw that he was likely financially secure, did he finally agree to “fix the house”. Unfortunately, my parents both died soon after, before they could do it / enjoy it. It was kind of heartbreaking. My Mom always hated the house, and had given up in frustration decades before. She was the highest breadwinner, btw.

        Unfortunately, it is quite expensive to do all renovations, and most contractors don’t do a great job/mess things up/have to watched like a hawk.

        I suspect your husband’s childhood/financial anxiety is related to childhood experiences, as was my father’s. Only very late in life did I finally grow to understand who he is and why, and it helped me become less judgmental.

        • Anonymous

          Oh, the financial anxiety is definitely related to childhood experiences, but not in the way you’d expect. In real dollars his dad earned five times as much as the two of us do put together. As a result he thinks we’re poor. He doesn’t want to spend any money until we have enough in the bank to fund our kids’ college and our own retirement at the present moment, and is not satisfied with the financial advisor’s opinion that our savings is on track to be able to afford those things when we need to pay for them.

    • Anonymous

      I host parties and get-togethers, but not dinner parties. My available space for hosting is a combined kitchen and living room of around 250 sq ft. I cannot host more than 4-5 people without rearranging furniture and loads of prep, but I can make it work for 15-18 if I do.

      I would host more if I had more space, but inner city apartments are not really ideal for large crowds.

    • Explorette

      I mostly avoid it. It’s cheaper yes, but so much extra work to shop, cook, do dishes. Plus, if we meet out at a restaurant, I can leave whenever I want to.

    • Anonymous

      I love having people over. With two little ones now that I’m 40, it definitely looks different than my early 30s when I’d have adult dinner parties. Figuring out that other families would indeed like to come over for pizza and wine on Friday nights was a total game changer for me. When we renovated our house we did a 10 foot island open to the family room. It works like a magnet for everyone from chatting parents to kids grabbing a slice of pizza. It’s the bar, the kitchen table, and the buffet. If I’m cooking it’s never anything complicated and I just make it in front of everyone like the world’s most boring cooking show. Behold, baked ziti.

    • Anon

      We hosted this past weekend! Mid-30s with a toddler. We used to host frequently pre-kid/Covid and did small parties (think Super Bowl, various sporting events, etc.) We had felt like we couldn’t host a larger gathering in our current house, so we’d been resistant to hosting something with kids… However, we were starting to get a little frustrated with our social lives. Everyone always seemed busy and hesitant to plan anything… but we have been inspired by another couple we are friends with that seems to just throw spontaneous parties in their backyard and invite everyone they know and see who comes, etc. We texted a group of people last Monday to come over for dinner on Friday. We prepped the main and a few other items. Others brought sides to share, etc. (In the future, I would probably just cater the rest of the meal, but doing it this way made it seem more casual at the time.) As it turns out, most of the people we were invited were free, and I think everyone had a really nice time!

    • Anon

      I host nearly weekly but I keep it simple.

      My house is already pretty clean so I never feel like I have to clean up for guests.

      90% of my hosting is having a girlfriend or a small group over for drinks and snacks. I just buy the large boxes of wine (I like Black Box) so I always have wine on hand. Snacks are usually cheese + crackers (which I also usually have on hand).

      I do bake for guests (I live alone so if I bake I need people to come eat it!). I watch the Bachelor and sports with friends almost weekly – we rotate who hosts – so this is a good excuse for baked goods.

      If I host someone for a meal it’s usually just 1 friend and we just have whatever I’d make anyways: pasta, salad, chicken + roast veggies. 1-2 times a year I will have 4-6 friends over for dinner but it’s only slightly more elevated: quiche + salad, soup, tacos.

      I have parties (20ish people) 1-2x a year. This is the only hosting I have to prep for: rearrange some furniture, a bigger food and alcohol shop, etc.

    • Anon

      I’m a little surprised about the comments about hosting being so much work?

      Admittedly I choose to host easy events (wine and cheese and crackers on a Friday after work, order pizza and grab beer to watch the NFL, grill burgers and eat on the deck, etc) but I really don’t find hosting to be much work.

      I never clean up to host; I do a full apartment clean once a week so it’s always clean enough (and clean enough is fine), I rarely cook when I host but when I do it’s easy. I always provide food / drink but it’s either stuff I have on hand or east to quickly grab (and friends reciprocate hosting often so I dont feel like I’m spending lots of money). I have a dishwasher and throw literally everything in it (I don’t believe in hand wash only! Life is hard enough as is).

      • Anon

        “I do a full apartment clean once a week”

        Right. You live in an apartment. I live in a 2800 square foot house with a husband, two medium-size sheddy dogs and a teenage boy. So cleaning up for company absolutely requires more work than our average weekly clean, unless I want people to come over and see grimy doorknobs and light switches, undone laundry, etc.

        As for food – if you’re in the phase of life where people are cool with cheese and crackers or pizza, great. My personal feeling is that if I want to have cheese and crackers and wine or pizza, I can do that at home and don’t need to bother schlepping to someone’s house for it. I far, far, FAR prefer to meet people at restaurants, always as I have dietary restrictions and could not eat the cheese and crackers or pizza most people serve (I am gluten and dairy free, and hate to put the burden of accommodating that on my host. Let’s just go to a restaurant; I’ll get a salad or something off the vegan menu and we’ll be golden).

        Also want to throw out there: for a lot of us introverts, the experience of having people in our space is stressful/takes mental energy to deal with. Someone upthread talked about their home is their sanctuary – I feel the same way. I am not interested in showing my house off to others – I decorated it for me, to my own tastes – and I just don’t really enjoy having people come over and spend lots of time in my house. I’m okay with it for limited stints (like 4-5 hours, maybe 6) but those big gatherings where people invite 10 people to come over, spend the entire weekend together, some people stay in the house with them, etc.? Nightmare fuel. No thank you. I would be in complete introvert overload by that time and need days to recover from being around that many people that much, for that long.

        • Anon

          I guess it’s different values. I’d rather spend time with people even if the food isn’t my preference.

          I have friends with food allergies and the hosts y accommodate that (very easy to do salsa and chips or veggies and hummus instead of cheese and crackers!)

          You only need to clean the rooms people will see (1 bathroom, living room, maybe dining room or kitchen. This time of year you can keep it outdoors so outdoor space + powder room).

          No one I’m inviting over is looking at my light switches or at my laundry closet. But even so how often are your light switches getting grimey? That’s not even something I clean very often because it doesn’t get grimey often?

          With sheddy dogs, I absolutely see running the vacuum again before people come over but that’s not a lot of time or effort.

          Occasionally things get out of hand and I throw my clutter in a closet, shut the door deal with it later.

          It’s totally fine if you don’t enjoy hosting – there’s no need to do it- but the cleaning and food prep isn’t a burden.

          • Anon

            LMAO – no idea why you’re trying to make this into an argument? How bizarre! Is it not okay for you to do you and other people to do what works for them, for some reason? I also don’t think the person you responding to asked for your housekeeping advice, just FYI. Wow, girl! You are really doing the most here, lol

      • Anon

        Maybe it’s a kids issue…I’ve got three young kids and, while we pick up and clean something every day, I still don’t feel my house is generally clean enough for a group of other people without at least a few dedicated hours of putting things back in order and wiping down surfaces. Planning to host is also mentally hard (at least with my kids) – will they get along with the other kids? Will there be other kids? Am I going to spend the whole party moving people’s plates and drinks out of reach of the toddler? Having people over tends to turns my kids into balls of excited energy and it’s not always pretty!

        • Anon

          We’ve been doing casual family hang outs with my kids and my friends and their kids since our kids were infants so they’re all friends too. Keeps it nice and easy – kids run and play, adults hang out.

          My friends and I all have elementary age kids so we all know what houses with young kids look like. The house is never perfect but it’s always clean enough. We also have a 15 minute family clean up each night to help cut down on the madness (and toys all live in kids rooms or the “playroom” (an enclosed porch off of the living room), so those rooms may be a disaster but at least my living room is clean enough. I’d rather see my friends in a messy house than not see them!

          • Anon

            Okay? So? That works for you; it may not work for the poster above and that’s completely okay.

            This is honestly just so strange. No one is devaluing or questioning your choices because they don’t do exactly what you do. Why are you acting like this? Are you just naturally really insecure, and need complete strangers to validate everything you do?

          • Anon

            4:06 you sound like the person who was getting on people’s cases for having differ wedding ideas besides your brunch wedding. The point of these threads is to discuss ideas. I don’t see either of the people you’re responding to seeing “validation,” they’re putting out their POVs. Please stop accusing everyone of needing validation, perhaps that’s what you need but I’m not seeing anyone looking for it.

      • Anonymous

        I’m one of the people who do host, and I also do find it to be a lot of work. I do it anyway, but yes, work.
        I don’t consider having one or two friends over for snacks hosting, that’s just having a guest. Hosting for me is more like a party, and more than 4 or 5 guests.

        I live in a small apartment, and the only place my guests will not see is my bedroom. I don’t have to clean more than for myself, but I do need the time to clean and pick up in addition to other preparations.

        I have just the one bathroom, which is also the laundry room, and I do have to clear away a little since my life is normally rigged for everyday ease of access, not for guests. I don’t want my literal dirty laundry basket in my guests’ face. I always hang laundry to dry, and that normally happens in the living area, which means I have to handle any laundry to be put away. Again, not more work than for me alone, but it has to be done at a specific time instead of whenever.

        If I have more guests than fit in my regular set-up small living area, I have to get the extra chairs, move things around, get the leaf for the dining table and make room for people to be able to sit. Some items might be stored in the building’s storage area, so up and down stairs. All WFH stuff is in the living room, and has to be moved. I’m sure some guests wouldn’t mind, but my employer certainly would.

        None of these things are major obstacles, but it adds up, and all of this is before thinking about food and drink. And then the next day, everything has to be done again, in reverse, to get everything back to normal.

        Nothing about this is weird or surprising, it’s just a matter of mismatch between available sq feet and number of people.

    • Anon

      I am 39 and I love hosting and so does my spouse. Like OP we’ve hosted in tiny apartments and now in our smallish city house. We try to throw one party (30+ invited) per quarter, and also try to invite our friends and their kids over for casual dinners once or twice a month. Parties are a great way to catch up with a lot of people since it’s so hard to coordinate individual schedules. And if a person can’t make it, it provides an excuse to follow up and connect. My parents threw a few parties when I was growing up and we also were the house to hang out at when I was a teenager.

      We have been invited to a few get togethers at friends houses but we are definitely the main hosts, and that’s fine with us.

      • Anon

        Also key to our success in a small house is an extendable table and folding chairs. Nothing gives me more joy than being able to say “stay for dinner!” to a family of 5 and being able to all sit together in a jiffy. (Thanks OP for the prompt – I had never really thought about hosting as kind of a family value and it’s fun to realize that for us, it is.)

    • Anon

      Every time I watch one of those home improvement shows and the homeowners talk about “entertaining” I’m like “they do not.”

      I do have people over but usually just a few at a time. I rarely have large parties. It’s a lot of work! And even though I am a fairly infrequent host, I host more often than anyone I know. I meet up with people to socialize at bars and restaurants but the times they’ve had me to their homes I can pretty much count on one hand for each of my closest friends, and there are a couple whose homes I’ve yet to see at all.

      • Anne-on

        Ha, agree on the HGTV people! We told our realtor that we wanted a dining room that could fit at least 10 people and she was like ‘really? is that really something you do?’ as most people she worked with just turned the dining room into an extra living space. I think our biggest party was my son’s 1st birthday. We’re not religious so it was equivalent to a christening. We had 40 people – it was a blast but definitely the upper limits of our hosting ability at home (we had people spill over into the backyard/patio area which helped).

        • Anonymous

          We don’t have big parties, but we have a huge family because my husband has a gazillion siblings, each of whom has a gazillion kids and grandkids. A typical Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner with just one branch of the extended family is a minimum of 20 people. I’d love a dining table for 12 plus an adjoining living room for a folding table.

    • Senior Attorney

      We are Olds (60s and 70s) and we entertain at home at least monthly. This month we had one friend over for casual homemade pizza and frosé last weekend, and this weekend we are doing a more elaborate sit down dinner for six or maybe eight. We’ve been doing it for years and have our routine pretty much down pat so it’s not that hard. That’s a typical month. And I always hosted Thanksgiving and Christmas although that is a bit up in the air now that my parents have passed and my daughter has moved away.

      Yes, my parents entertained when I was growing up, and I’ve pretty much always done it (although not as much when I was married to the guy who nobody could stand to be in the same room with for very long).

    • Anonymous

      This is a very interesting survey!
      I’m 41, married, two kids. We have always hosted frequently. Pre-kids, dinner parties at least monthly but often more, holiday celebrations (we are Jewish and there are a lot of holidays) , birthday parties, just-because parties. That was harder with tiny kids and we also moved with tiny kids to a new area, but would often have friends with kids over during the day in those years. Our entire circle avoided indoor gatherings 2020-2022 so we are really just getting back into it this school year. Kids are now old enough for much easier dinner parties and we are trying to do that or another get together at least monthly.

  7. Anon

    Can anyone suggest a therapist in Chicago? I know someone coming to the city to start college, and they need a new therapist for PTSD/Anxiety. They might need a psychiatrist too.

    Anyone know how it works when you are a college student and you are still covered by your parent’s health insurance, but you move to another state for college? I’m sure it varies from plan to plan, but I suspect all doctor visits switch to ‘out of network” so things get pricey, yes?

    Do they even have “student health” clinics at colleges these days? Back in the day, I remember our student health clinics were notoriously bad, even at schools that were well funded and had medical schools/hospitals on site.

    She has a therapist in her home state, and I wondered if she could telehealth…. but recently I was told that telehealth doctor’s appointments can’t cross state lines unless you are licensed in the new state.

    Thanks.

    • Anon

      yes, they do have student health at colleges these days and with all the mental health challenges out there, there are more mental health services at colleges than ever before, though still not enough. i’d actually recommend reaching out to the college and asking for their list of referrals. that is what i did in college and my sister as well.

    • Anon

      I can speak to the in/out of network in my experience. My husband is employed by an organization in a different state and he and our daughter have BCBS insurance. Their insurance has in-network doctors in every state – I think it is called Blue Network. So we have been able to find providers for them – essentially if they take my upper level BCBS they take his.
      TLDR – don’t assume out of network, check with the insurance

    • Sarah

      When I was at UChicago (fairly recently) I had a panic attack -> called student health and got an appointment that afternoon -> talked to a therapist there a few times -> they found me another therapist nearby who had worked with uchicago students before. It was very organized and helpful.

      • Anon

        Thank you so much for sharing this. They will be at UofC.

        I just looked online at the Student Health counseling options, and it looks like they have a pretty substantial group. Did you move to an outside therapist for insurance/ease of scheduling reasons? Or you needed to look for a better fit?

        Thanks to all the posters for sharing their personal experiences. It is really helpful, and reassuring.

        • Sarah

          I think there was a limit to the number of sessions you can do with the Student Health counselors. Its a decent amount, and they do fully help you transition to a different therapist. I also was on my parents insurance, not UChicagos, not sure if that played a role.

  8. Anon

    I love this pick worn as a dress, but you’d have to have the body of the model to pull it off!

  10. anon

    What magazines are you all subscribing to in print?

    I’m thinking about cancelling my Texas Monthly subscription even though there’s great long form writing in there because so much of the news/politics stuff is so depressing I find myself not wanting to open it. I’m still getting Garden & Gun and People, even though I don’t think I’m paying for the People subscription (I think they started sending it when Entertainment Weekly ended, but that was a long time ago!). I’m not much into music or sports writing, but anything else you can recommend?

    • Anon

      Nothing in print, I cannot stand the clutter and can get everything neatly online.

    • anon

      I get Vogue, Elle, Architectural Digest, Dwell, and Cook’s Illustrated (all at significant discount through discountmag.) Vogue and Architectural Digest are the only ones with articles I frequently read, and usually Vogue has more things of interest to me.

      As far as the clutter of it, I keep the AD, Dwell, and Cook’s Illustrated for reference, and give the Vogue and Elle to friends who are happy to take them…

    • Anon

      I get probably 6-8 print magazines, all cooking or shelter magazines. Country Living is my very favorite of them all.

    • Anonymous

      The Atlantic, Harpers, and Fine Cooking
      I especially like having magazines to grab for things like getting a pedicure and plane trips. My vision is declining and I find paper to be a lot less taxing on my eyes.

    • Anon

      We haven’t had paper subscriptions in years; the magazines build up and then have to be tossed in the recycling. I have several online subscriptions but we get nothing on paper any more.

    • Anne-on

      Have you tried Substack yet? I’ve been shocked at how much I like it – many of my favorite long form writers have their own substacks. Anne Helen Peterson, Doree Shafir, HIllary Kerr, and The Fug Girls (drinks with broads) have their own. The fug girls substack subscription is 100% the best $60 I’ve ever spent, I get SO much enjoyment out of their newsletter and chats!

    • anon

      Just the Economist. I have print+ digital but mostly listen to the audio on the app so am considering cutting out the print.

    • Anon

      Vanity fair, but I need to discontinue it because I rarely read more than one article per issue.

    • Senior Attorney

      The only ones we get at our house are The Economist (which only my husband reads) and Food and Wine (which we both love). Oh, and Cook’s Illustrated. And Milk Street. Obviously we love our cooking mags.

    • Sybil

      Wow I had no idea EW was no longer in print.

      I think the only magazine I get right now is Real Simple, and it hasn’t been great over the last year or two, which is disappointing.

    • Anon

      Currently only my alumni magazines, as I will move soon. Time is shorter these days anyway so I just use the NYT and online blogs/mags.

      But when I was subscribing more, my favorites were the New Yorker, Interview, Food mags (Gourmet or Cooks Illustrated), and some specialized music magazines (The Strad etc..).

    • Anonymous

      Food Network Magazine. The irony? I don’t cook. But if I did, the recipes are mostly all doable and I love hearing about the new food items and gadgets on the market. Great photos with everything. Just really well-designed and easy to read in small bits while I daydream of a life where I have more time.

    • Anonymous

      Golf, ad, Elle decor, house beautiful, real simple, Bon appetite, food and wine, wine spectator. (My dad gives them as gifts; it’s fun to get non-junk mail.)

      Wine spectator is my favorite. You get to read about how wine makers in the southern Rhône are using less granache and also about some guy who owns a vineyard in Napa and races helicopters for fun and why it was a great year for Bordeaux. It’s half farming and half “lifestyles of the rich and famous” plus you get better at ordering wine at dinner and the pictures are great.

    • go for it

      The Sun. Stunning black and white photos, great writing and NO ads at all!

    • anon

      Garden & Gun is the only print mag I get. It’s such a pleasure to read it, I save it for a block of me time to read cover to cover.

    • Hootster

      The Atlantic, the Nib (RIP). I would love to have enough time to justify Harpers and the Economist again.

  11. Anon

    I’m feeling a little directionless in my professional life. I’m a government lawyer and like what I do but feel like I need some fresh goals to reinvigorate (but not overwhelm) my professional life. Where do you turn when you need professional inspiration, ideas, goals, etc?

    • Pompom

      Designing Your Life is good for this, but I find it a lot more useful paired with a program/workshop or coaching.

      Portfolio Life is a new book by Christina Wallance at HBS, and it’s excellent. Super actionable, likely relatable to many of the women on this board age and career wise, and it’s a quick read!

    • anon

      My mentors. I have very open and honest relationships with two more senior female attorneys who are always more than happy to help me in this arena.

    • Anon

      I am a long-time governmental attorney. I love my job, largely because it has evolved with me. When I felt “stuck” in the moment, I developed expertise in an evolving hot topic, asked to be assigned to a client facing particular changes or challenges, offered to write a regulation or policy that would require substantial tinkering. I have stepped up to mentor younger attorneys, supervised law clerks, offered to cover for an attorney’s FML (or a portion of the workload). It all sounds like a lot of work, but this is spread out over two decades and it has kept me engaged and intellectually challenged.

  12. Anonymous

    Need some feedback here. My boss asked my to try some cases (bench trials) this week. Things went ok- but our adversary has a twist on their argument that we hadn’t considered and it seemed possible that the judge was buying it. After a reserved decision on the first case, we settled both cases. Settlement was favorable to my client but not better than they’d have done before trial. Boss called after to ask how it went and I said ok, I could have done better. She said I need to stop always being so self deprecating, that I was chosen for a reason, ect. I just…honestly think I’m not great at this? I’m
    also a little annoyed because I think my office and client have a tendency to think their position at trial is stronger than it actually is. I’m concerned that the constant posturing keeps everyone from having a realistic view of the cases and yet I’m supposed to say “oh it went great!” When really, I struggled a bit, was unpolished and possibly missed some opportunities to make our case stronger. How do you talk to your boss about this stuff?

    • Anon

      One way to stop being self depreciating is to explain how it actually went, like “we reached X settlement”. Don’t opine it went well or poorly. Just stick to the facts of the outcome. Then your boss can react with “that’s good!” And don’t be so hard on yourself!

      • Anon

        This. And also bring the strength perspective up sooner. Your firm is doing your client a major disservice pushing things so far.

    • An.On.

      I hate litigation because it feels like it’s built on posturing – clients have unreasonable ideas about trials, attorneys are needlessly aggressive rather than trying to arrive at a mutual resolution, the expense almost never justifies the procedure, and a lot of time it seems like presentation can matter more than the facts/law.

      However, I think that a favorable resolution to your client in the face of a novel opposing argument is still an achievement. Maybe you’re just not built for litigation. I ended up switching to a more transactional practice and it’s a huge weight off. I did it for two years and was getting so much better at it but I just hated the process.

    • Anonymous

      Try separating the initial response/reaction from the request for help. So, the prior poster’s suggestion to respond factually to the initial question is great. Take the time to celebrate or at least don’t make your boss manage your disappointment for you. If you have specific questions about how you could have handled a challenge better, ask those in a 1:1 with your boss later and set up the convo by highlighting what you thought went well before getting to the areas for improvement.

    • No Face

      “I could have done better” is not an appropriate response. It just sounds like you’re beating yourself up because of some personal issue like rather than imparting useful information about the case.

      A better response would be to say that the clients settled on favorable terms after the judge took it under submission.

      Also, do you have a therapist to work through the way you view yourself? You are so, so negative here when you got a good result. No trial is perfect and it sounds you like you handled multiple bench trials in a week with great results and all you can do is insult yourself.

      • Op

        Thanks that is helpful, you’re right. Part of the problem is that I’m “trained” on trials like this by people who rarely try them. When something does go forward, the messy reality is just different than the supervisors imagine and fingers are sometimes pointed at trial attorneys. It’s a real “man in the arena” problem but I’m just so used to filtering my performance through their hyper critical lens that it’s hard not to mention.

    • Anon

      I’ve been trying criminal cases for over a decade, and every trial still throws something unexpected, no matter how well you prepare. As long as you and your client are satisfied with the result, the answer to your boss is that it went well. You should definitely sit down for your own self and think through how you could have prepared better and what areas of your practice you want to shore up, and ask for feedback from anyone more experienced who was present on how you could improve. In my jurisdiction, it is common for junior attorneys to speak to the judge after the verdict (usually a few days later) to ask for feedback on how they can improve as trial attorneys. Poise and polish and the ability to accurately assess a case come with experience. With experience also comes many instances of seeing attorneys significantly less prepared and less skilled than yourself. With experience also a better toolbox for discussing the strength of the case with your clients — but as long as you tried your best to introduce them to reality, ultimately their feelings are out of your control.

    • Anonymous

      Trial lawyer here. DUDE. You are being way too hard on yourself. Here’s another framing:

      “At trial, the other side raised a brand new issue that had never been previously disclosed. The judge appeared to be sympathetic to the argument, and if they had prevailed on that argument, we would have lost entirely. After she reserved on the decision, we immediately moved to negotiate a resolution with the other side. Despite the fact that the other side was holding all the cards, we nevertheless extracted a very favorable settlement from the other side and the client is very happy.”

      Then, LATER, when you have celebrated your victory, you go to your boss and say:

      “Hey Boss. I was happy with the outcome of the last trial and I’m looking forward to doing more. I’d like to invest some time in polishing my skills so that I can learn from this last one and be even stronger at the next. Do you have any tips for me? [Would the firm pay for me to attend a NITA trial advocacy program? Or find coaching? Or whatever?]”

      Finally, no one ever feels good about a settlement. Settlements only work if both sides feel a little awful about it. You have to learn to sell the settlement as a victory, even when it doesn’t feel like that, because FOR YOUR CLIENT, it is.

  13. anoncar

    I was in a car accident this weekend. It was not my fault, and the other driver was cited by police. My car is totaled and I am dealing with some injuries. Any tips on what to say or not say to the other party’s insurance adjuster? I do not currently have a lawyer. Not asking for legal advice here – just curious to hear any major dos/don’ts or best practices from anyone who has been there done that.

    • Anon

      I was in your situation, and the lawyer was worth her weight in gold. The standard where I live is they take 40% of the settlement.

    • anon

      Do you have to talk to their insurance? I never have and always went through my own insurance. Seconding getting an attorney involved, esp given injury. You’d be amazed at what they can do.

    • Anon

      Ugh, I’m sorry this happened to you. Agree with other posters that you should get a lawyer.

    • Anonymous

      I agree you should get a lawyer. But if you do speak with them, be sure not to box yourself in as far as what you are seeking to recover for. Leave things open-ended – e.g., I understand my insurer is still assessing the damage to the vehicle, and I am hurt and it is unclear what the extent of my injuries will turn out to be. Do not agree to any percent or element of fault on your part. Talk to the lawyer before agreeing to give an account of the accident. If anything, refer them to the police report as to that.

    • No Face

      Don’t personally speak to their attorney or their insurance company. Report to your insurance company and let your insurance’s attorney handle it.

      • Anonymous

        I have had a couple of accidents where the other driver was at fault and my insurance company refused to handle it once they’d determined the other party was at fault. They made me deal directly with the other driver’s insurance company for repairs, rental car, etc. How can you get your own insurance company to remain involved?

    • Anon

      For car accidents, we generally contact our health insurance and have their lawyers deal with everything. Don’t communicate with the other driver’s folks at all.

      For car accidents where serious/persistent injuries are involved, absolutely hire a personal injury lawyer. Ask your friends for recommendations. Again, still don’t talk to the other driver’s folks. I actually had to hire an attorney, as my health insurance refused to pay for my hospitalization/ongoing care when they figured out it was due to a car accident. The doctors often report when visits are related to an accident. Health insurance companies always want the liability to go to the person responsible for the accident, and will refuse to pay if someone else can pay. And of course, the person who hurt you is not going to easily say “sure, just send me all your bills!”. The lawyer had to talk to my health insurance company and the hospitals etc… At times, I couldn’t get treatment because they said I had an unpaid balance and I was a poor graduate student with no money. And once I received a modest settlement (1 or 2 years later?), my health insurance was paid back for every penny they spent on me and the lawyer took their huge 40%, so very little was left for me and I was left with quite a few injuries/disabilities for life.

      When we’ve had small injuries from an accident (eg. a superficial cut, simple stuff that quickly heals, nothing that requires medical care), we don’t bother with hiring our own attorney. It can be a big hassle going the attorney route, even in the best of circumstances.

    • Flats Only

      Do not under any circumstances talk to the other party’s lawyer. They should never hear your voice. That’s what my lawyer told me in a similar situation. YOUR lawyer will work on contingency, and will probably take 25 – 30% of the settlement, but will get enough that what’s left over for you will amply cover your bills, lost time at work, etc. Get a lawyer now.

  14. Anon

    I had to provide my social security number to Poshmark because I apparently sold more than $600 worth of goods this year, and Poshmark will send me a 1099. Does anyone know if the $600+ will be treated as income? The original cost was well over what I told for.

    • Anon

      It’s a 1099-K which should be reported as “other income,” yes. You should be able to deduct any expenses associated with your Poshmark “business” (e.g., shipping fees) but not the original purchase price of the clothes.

      • Senior Attorney

        Why on earth not? You’re selling used items at a loss and it is inconceivable to me that this would be taxable income.

    • Anon

      Yes, if you are 1099’d for it. There’s a lot of tax articles about this, but google Paypal $600 1099, and a bunch will come up. The IRS is coming for casual sellers.

      • Anon

        But only for income taxes, which aren’t owed on any loss transaction. It will be a hassle but you shouldn’t owe taxes.

    • Anon

      Yes, it’s income.

      On a side note, that $600 limit has been in place since the ‘90s at least. I wish it would adjust annually for inflation, or at least be reviewed every couple of years.

    • Runcible Spoon

      As they say, check with your tax adviser, but I alway understood selling depreciating personal property (like a car) does not count as generating income.

      • Runcible Spoon

        Specifically, if you sell a personal item for less than you paid or less than it cost the gift giver if you received it as a gift, that is, if you sell a personal item at a loss, then you have no gain to report on your income taxes. But check with your tax adviser on tax questions. Just because a third-party payment system issues you a 1099 doesn’t mean all those transactions are reportable income for example, if you used VENMO to reimburse a friend for your share of a restaurant bill.

    • Anonymous

      This is the first year that the threshold has been this low for 1099 reporting, so you’re not likely to find great answers yet. The good news is that the IRS has an exception for “garage sale” type income that won’t require you to have records for the cost of the inventory you sold — they have a 9 point test to see whether you fit the exception. If I had to guess, there will be a bunch of FAQ articles on tax preparer sites later this year/early 2024 for people in your situation. Most of the info out there now is for people who use sites like Poshmark as a side business where they source clothes and sell them for profit.

      • Anonymous

        Agreed with other posters that the $600 threshold is not new generally— I meant that it’s the first year that Poshmark has used that threshold.

    • Anonymous

      It depends if you’re running a business (in which case it is business income) or if this is a hobby (in which case it is income). There is no need to incorporate or anything in the former case. Also, this rule was in place in 2022 and the IRS decided in Dec 2022 to delay implementation. I think there is a widespread feeling that $600 is too low, but I’m not sure if Congress will act in time.

    • DC Pandas

      Yes- this is definitely income. Even if you hadn’t hit $600 it would still be considered income, just unreported or underreported.
      Now that there’s a 1099, a copy goes to you and a copy goes to the IRS.

      • Anon

        Income is based on the sales price less cost so not income in a tax sense. Selling at a loss generates sales proceeds but not all sales proceeds are income.

      • DC Pandas

        From IRS Website: Is the gain or loss on the sale of a personal item used to compute my taxable income? Is that reported on a Form 1099-K? (updated March 22, 2023)

        A. Gain or loss on the sale of a personal item is generally the difference between the amount you paid for the item (the purchase price) and the amount you receive when you sell it (the sales price).

        For example, if you bought a refrigerator for $1,000 (the purchase price) and sold it for $600 (the sales price), you have a loss of $400. $600 sales price – $1,000 purchase price = ($400) loss amount.

        On the other hand, if you bought concert tickets for $500 (the purchase price) and sold them for $900 (the sales price), you have a gain of $400. $900 sales price – $500 purchase price = $400 gain amount.

        The gain on the sale of a personal item is taxable. You must report the transaction (gain on sale) on Form 8949, Sales and Other Dispositions of Capital AssetsPDF, and Form 1040, U.S. Individual Income Tax Return, Schedule D, Capital Gains and LossesPDF. See Publication 551, Basis of AssetsPDF, for guidance in determining your basis.

        The gain on the sale of a personal item might be reported on a Form 1099-K.

        The loss on the sale of a personal item is not deductible. For calendar year 2022 tax returns, if you receive a Form 1099-K, for the sale of a personal item that resulted in a loss, you should make offsetting entries on Form 1040, U.S. Individual Income Tax Return, Schedule 1, Additional Income and Adjustments to Income, as follows:

        Report your proceeds (the Form 1099-K amount) on Part I – Line 8z – Other Income, using the description “Form 1099-K Personal Item Sold at a Loss.”

        Report your costs, up to but not more than the proceeds amount (the Form 1099-K amount), on Part II – Line 24z – Other Adjustments, using the description “Form 1099-K Personal Item Sold at a Loss.”

        In the example of the refrigerator sale above, if you received a Form 1099-K for $600 for the refrigerator for which you originally paid $1,000, you should report the loss transaction as follows:

        Form 1040, Schedule 1, Part I – Line 8z, Other Income. List type and amount: “Form 1099-K Personal Item Sold at a Loss …. $600” to show the proceeds from the sale reported on the Form 1099-K

        and,

        Form 1040, Schedule 1, Part II – Line 24z, Other Adjustments. List type and amount: “Form 1099-K Personal Item Sold at a Loss…. $600” to show the amount of the purchase price that offsets the reported proceeds. Do not report the $1,000 you paid for the refrigerator because the loss on the sale of a personal item is not deductible.

        You can use Form 8949 and Schedule D to report the sale of a personal item at a loss instead of Schedule 1 if you wish, for example, because you have other transactions that require you to file Form 8949 and Schedule D anyway. Because the loss isn’t deductible, enter an adjustment when reporting the proceeds and basis of the personal item on Form 8949 as follows. Enter “L” in column (f) as the code explaining the loss is nondeductible. Then enter the amount of the nondeductible loss as a positive number in column (g). In the example of the refrigerator sale above, enter $600 in column (d) for the proceeds, $1,000 in column (e) for the cost or other basis, “L” in column (f), and $400 in column (g) as the amount of the adjustment. This will result in $0 as the gain or loss in column (h).

    • Anonymous

      As someone who has a lot of sources of income, I’m shocked that Poshmark is doing this – I have companies I’ve made $50K+ from who’ve told me I’m below their threshold for a 1099. I still report the income but I don’t get a 1099 to confirm how much I’ve made or anything.

      • Anon

        The rules changed this year for payment processors. $600 has always been the limit for contractors, but the limit for payment processors used to be much higher.

    • Anonymous

      If you can prove that you paid more for the items than you sold them for, then you shouldn’t owe taxes. I imagine that’s a big if for most people. I didn’t sell a designer bag I never use because I no longer have the receipt so I can’t prove how much I paid for it. I’ll definitely be sure to save receipts for future purchases!

  15. Anon

    Recommendations for places to outdoor dine in Carmel and Monterey? Taste skews more casual to mid-range.

    • Anon

      Tiktok has tons of great carmel/monterey itineraries. Search there!
      Sunset magazine will also have great recs.

    • Anon

      The Lodge at Pebble Beach (can’t beat the view), Mission Ranch (must do!), Little Napoli, Portabella. Most a little on the pricier side but not formal. Most sit down restaurants in Carmel skew on the pricier side from my experience.

      • Anon

        Mission Ranch looks beautiful. Do you recommend dining or just cocktails? I see they don’t take reservations and we’d be there at a busy time…

    • DC Pandas

      Love! Have so much fun, these are the two I’d recommend:
      Carmel’s Bistro Giovanni – great seasonal specials.
      Sur Burger – relaxed burger & beer spot.

    • anon

      Earthbound Farms has a good casual cafe and spacious, beautiful grounds for outdoor dining, playing cornhole, and general touring. It’s a bit inland in Carmel Valley rather than Carmel, but it’s well worth a stop if you’re in the area.

  16. Anonymous

    TW: weight loss

    Weird question, but I’m trying to figure out what course to take right now. I desperately need to lose weight (50-100 lbs). I know exactly what to do but am not doing it; dinner and weekends just go out the window. Partly because I’m tired, don’t wanna, emotional drinking then emotional eating. I’m very rarely hungry; my fitness goals are doing ok. I’ve worked with a variety of coaches in the past, including a macro coach and a WW coach and personal fitness trainers. I also did a very journal-centric program with lots of planning and then reviewing why things didn’t go to plan.

    So my question for you is this: If you had some extra cash to invest in your weight loss journey, what would you do? Would you hire another coach? Maybe try a meal delivery service, like Jenny Craig or Optavia? Or perhaps even see an obesity doctor? I know that cooking simple meals like broiled chicken or meal prepping could be a big help, but I’m just not doing it. I also have a family (husband and 2 kids) who could benefit from some healthy changes too.

    • Anon

      I’ve known what I need to do as well, but the only thing that has made the difference is weight loss medication. The emotional eating you are describing sounds like what a lot of people (myself included) call “food noise.” Weight loss medications turned that completely off for me. I’m on Saxenda just because my insurance covers it, it was readily available when Wegovy was not, and it’s working. Wegovy and Mounjaro are supposed to work better, and I will switch to Wegovy if and when I plateau on Saxenda.

      • anon

        +1, for losing that amount of weight I would seriously consider one of the new GLP-1s. I am considering one myself even though I only have about 10-15 lbs to lose; I’m prediabetic, with family history of diabetes on both sides, and had GD with my pregnancies. My endo is prescribing metformin for step therapy purposes (but it’s given me stomach issues before so I doubt I will stay on it long) and then will submit my prior authorization for Ozempic/Mounjaro.

        • Anon

          But the OP mentions that she isn’t hungry. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought these new medications were most helpful for turning off the hunger signals that are set too low because of hormonal shifts with weight gain.

          If she admits to no time/emotional eating/not eating healthy food, don’t these issues have to be addressed, for her long term health anyway? Sounds like she needs a multifaceted approach, that includes more family help with meal planning/cooking, stress management or behavioral health help etc…

          What am I missing here? I thought the meds were best for people who had optimized what they can in their life, but were still falling short. Are you suggesting that instead, they have cognitive effects, like ?anxiety reduction and lead to general better wellbeing, that leads to better food planning/healthier eating too?

          • Anon

            I don’t take one but the meds are apparently helping with all kids of semi-obsessive thought patterns like online shopping addictions. If your food pattern is sort of compulsive I can see how that would be helpful. Anyway, the evidence is pretty clear that it works for weight loss.

          • Anonymous

            Yes the meds absolutely have cognitive effects. They make all those healthy changes easier to do.

          • anon

            Yes, there was an article in The Atlantic about this recently. This class of drugs seems to inadvertently also reduce these types of behaviors.

          • Anon

            Yep, the article mentioned actually talks about how it has helped people with picking their skin, nail biting, etc. I’m hoping that’s a side benefit for me in addition to weight loss and controlling my blood sugar. The subreddits on these have really amazed me in terms of the impact on people who have been consistently using them.

      • Anonymous

        OP here – thank you for this info. I’ll read the Atlantic article – I saw the headlines in the NYT about how it also seemed to curtail interest in drinking. I got on the schedule to see my doc on June 2, apparently there might be a fight with insurance so we’ll see.

    • Anon

      i am also trying to lose weight and i find that cutting alcohol has helped me a ton because i sort of lose control when i drink. also having tons of fresh cut fruit available to eat, as well as not keeping lots of junk in the house. and then i somehow need to get in the mindset. i’m also an emotional eater. i really like the blog runs for cookies if you are looking for some inspiration

    • Anonymous

      In the situation you describe, I’d spend the extra cash on helping you with why, not what.

      I would address the emotional needs and the tiredness, and throw money at that end. Do you need a cleaning service, a nanny or baby sitter, some alone time, a new mattress, a cpap or similar for the tiredness? Do you need a new therapist or similar to help with strategies for handling emotions in a more varied way? Do you need to reconnect with your partner or change how you divide labor so that you can be less tired?

      Unless you address the emotional needs, there is less chance of the diet changes to stick. It sounds like you need some new and positive dopamine rushes that are not food or drink related.

    • Anon

      Lean on healthy prepped food – things like rotisserie chickens, veggie trays and pre-cut fruit, etc. Make the healthy choice the easiest one. A meal kit service might be useful, but not Optavia (they’re an MLM). You probably have local options for meal kits or prepped dinners.

    • Anon

      I would try to find a counselor who works specifically with people who have trouble with food. No amount of coaching or WW or Jenny Craig or meal prep will make this not-emotional for you, and the emotional part is the hurdle. I don’t say this with judgement – analytically, you have the ability to eat well and presumably have discipline in other areas of your life. It’s not knowledge, habits, or discipline; it’s emotional. Which happens!

    • Anonymous

      What worked for me to lose about 30lbs in a similar situation was to: quit drinking (and later moderate with lower calorie drinks); let myself get hungry; and then learn what full feels like (vs. overfull) and decide to never let myself quite get there before I stopped eating, knowing that full eventually comes.
      If you are rarely hungry, I would suggest starting by letting yourself get hungry. I am not, by any means, suggesting that you starve yourself, or that you routinely fast. But resetting with a short one-to-two-day near fast from which you can start over could be helpful. It was for me. Then it was about making really good choices about what to eat each time I felt hungry. Answer – “What will nourish me and satiate me?” instead of “What am I craving right now?” The answer to the first for me is nearly always a reasonable serving of something heavy on protein and fat (eggs, peanut butter, yogurt, tinned fish, nuts) combined with vegetables or occasionally fruit.

    • Senior Attorney

      I would absolutely get myself to a bariatric surgeon and look into a sleeve gastrectomy.

      Oh, wait. That’s what I did. Best decision I ever made and I never looked back.

      • Anonymous

        I would try to rule out all other medical options first, though. Sleep apnea etc.

      • Anon

        While this has been a great choice in the past, I think these days doctors are going to lean towards the new medications first.

      • Anon

        Surgery for 50-100 pounds? Do they really do that? I thought surgery was for when people need to lose massive amounts.

        • Anon

          100 lbs is a lot of weight to lose! 50 could be as well, depending on what it means that the person “needs” to lose the weight. Like 50 lbs into the morbid obesity category is much different from 50 lbs over the lowest healthy weight on the BMI scale.

        • Trixie

          Assuming that you are the original poster, go to a well established weight loss center at a hospital that provides a variety of options. Options would include surgery, medications, support groups, nutritionists, and more. Medications might help you, and if not, maybe surgery. With this much weight to lose, you need support.

    • Anonymous

      I started working with a dietician at the recommendation of my primary care doctor. She has focused a lot on making sure balance is right (like the “biome” of your gut), so you don’t have cravings. When physical cravings stop, the emotional stuff gets easier to tackle. Frankly, a lot of the stuff that I thought was emotional seems to have just kind of disappeared. It has been phases. First was a “gut reset” of two weeks with shakes then moving on to shake and paleo then all paleo and now focused on regular healthier eating. I’m shocked how my whole way of looking at food and feelings around food have shifted. In the past, the only thing that has worked was strict calorie counting. This has been more like a physical health change that has become supported by information that has helped me move to a different lifestyle. I see my primary doctor again in a month for consideration of a weight loss drug (not ozempic, but a stimulant my insurance would cover), but I’m not sure I feel I need it anymore.

    • Anon

      I would absolutely see a obesity doc and a dietician. Emotional drinking and eating can be medical (related to dopamine levels, blood sugar levels, etc.).

    • Anonymous

      First I’d ditch hormonal BC and investigate all possible medical causes for the extra weight. Then I’d try to attack the tiredness. For me that would mean hiring a cleaning service and maybe some good prepared dinners so the healthy option is also the easiest and most appealing. Then I’d sign up for an exercise class or sport that was really fun and also tiring enough to make me sleep better.

      • Anonymous

        OP here – I think I’ll look into the meds, but: not on BC, no real medical causes for the extra weight. The tiredness and depression are both due to a family situation that cannot be changed (short of institutionalizing my child).

        • Anonymous

          That sounds like the culprit right there. Issues with a child are so incredibly stressful and can really destroy the parent’s quality of life. Can you use some of that money to hire respite care and/or more regular assistance from caregivers? If the stress comes from the fact that your child’s issues are not being properly diagnosed and treated can you switch their care providers and hire a therapist for yourself so you have a safe place to vent? Can you pick up a fitness hobby that’s fun, gets you some time out of the house away from the chaos, and has long-lasting stress-reducing benefits?

    • Anonymous

      I would 100% explore bariatric surgery or a weight loss medicine like Mounjaro. The research and data is actually quite clear: nothing else really works.

  17. anon

    low stakes business question. I am going to a conference in Chicago. Plan is for my boyfriend to meet me for part of it, arrange to have some meetings in Chicago and we would have the evenings together (we both are divorced with school aged kids, not so easy to arrange.) My employer’s outside counsel invited me to a dinner one of the nights. Is it rude/ unprofessional/ not advisable to say no. Obviously I “can” go just don’t much want to… thoughts?

    • Anonymous

      No it’s fine. They’re trying to woo you. If this is NACUA it’s prob a group dinner anyway. Just say you already have plans but look forward to meeting up with them during the conference and make a point of finding them to connect.

    • Anon

      It’s ok to say no. You can’t attend every business meeting, lunch, dinner, etc. Enjoy your time there.

    • Anon

      “Thank you so much – I’ve made other plans while I’m in town.” And extend an offer for a lunch if you won’t be dining together all day anyways.

      My clients frequently do this and I’m always a bit relieved that I get to go home to my own family!

    • Anon

      I think you really need to go if you value that relationship. It might be acceptable to bring your boyfriend, but only if you have a a friendly relationship rather than a formal one. Generally, I’d opt against it.

    • No Face

      Networking is the most important part of a conference. If you really want to keep dinner open, can you respond with an offer for coffee, lunch, a drink, etc? You are the client in this situation, so the dynamic is different than the other way around. (I am outside counsel and if someone from the client wanted dinner I would absolutely go).

    • Colette

      I’d split the difference and suggest that you meet for a drink after work/conference.

      That way you can connect in person but still have the majority of your evening to yourself.

    • Anon

      You can turn down the invite. You are the client and they want to wine and dine you to maintain/strengthen the relationship, which is understandable. But since you are the client, you can say no and they have to be gracious about it. I used to be in house and had this happen all the time. Maybe offer to have coffee or lunch if you have time.

    • Anon

      I 100% decline all outside counsel dinner invites. It’s absolutely fine. Here vendors seeking your business, no need to go unless you want to or see it as a networking opportunity. Since you have other plans, fine to decline. One of my rules for business trips, and I travel a lot, is they don’t get all my time. I always make a point to visit friends or see the area I’m going to and refuse business meals every night, again, unless I want to. Sometimes it’s fun.

      • Anonymous

        Yeah if you were the outside counsel, you’d definitely need to attend a dinner with your client, but since it’s the other way around I think you’re free to decline!

    • Anon

      As the client, you can decline. If you would otherwise like to do it, say you can’t the night they proposed and offer one of the nights your boyfriend is not in town

    • Anonie

      As former OC, and current in house counsel, I would absolutely skip this. OC taking clients out to dinner is mainly to the benefit of the OC. If you genuinely thought it would be helpful or enjoyable to go, fine, but if you have other plans, go for it.

  18. Anonymous

    Thank you to whoever recommended the NYT “Generation Connie” article about Asian women who were named after Connie Chung. I finally read it this weekend and it deeply resonated with me.

    While not named Connie, I’m of similar age and background and have an Angelo name. My parents’ immigration and assimilation experience closely matched the author’s—down to the father pursuing graduate studies and the mother leaving behind a professional job to start over.

    Fascinating to see what has changed and has not changed with Asian representation in the last 30-40 years.

    What do others think?

    • Anan

      Same.
      Taiwanese American here – my three kids all have Anglo names, and it never even occurred to me to do otherwise. (My Husband is white, from the Midwest.) As my kids get older, though, I do wonder why I never thought to give them Chinese names. (I mean first off, I wouldn’t have known how to pick one, though my parents did give my kids Chinese middle names.) I myself was given a Chinese name legally when I was born, as was my brother, but we were also quickly given an Anglo name which we still use today. I can’t remember the last time someone used my Chinese name. All of my cousins were given Anglo names. I find it interesting how most Taiwanese/Chinese/ South East Asian people I know give their kids Anglo names, but I see a lot of people from other cultures choose names that if not completely from their native culture, then at least straddle both their native culture and their new culture. I’ve often wondered about why this is and, I know I’m bordering on generalizations here, but I have wondered if there is something specific to South East Asian Immigrants’ attitudes that would explain it.

      • Seventh Sister

        When I got to college as a clueless white girl from my pretty-much-all-white exurb, I was charmed and a little surprised that many of my new Asian-American friends had old-fashioned, Anglo names. I remember a few Connies, but also Susans and Marys and Carols in a frequency I associated more with my mom’s generation. White girls my age were more of the Jennifer/Jessica/Karen variety. I certainly noticed that my parents (and other older white people) responded positively to my friends who had names like Lorraine Chu or Agnes Chin.

    • Anon

      I will look for that article. Thanks.

      I remember how startled I was when a friend of mine – born in China but living in the US for 15 years – changed her name to an English name that to her represented assimilation and success. It seemed so odd to me, and sad, as she had a lovely and simple Chinese name that was easy to pronounce.

      My niece is half Taiwanese, and has a classic American first name and a Chinese middle name.

    • Anon

      I grew up with more than 50% Chinese-American friends (and am myself a white immigrant) so the article resonated with me as well. Most of my Chinese-American friends have anglo names and have given their kids anglo names and a Chinese middle. I simplified my name when I naturalized to the nickname that I use anyway (think Katya from Yekaterina) and I don’t regret it — it’s still a bit ethnic but life logistics are much easier.

    • Anon

      I’m 58. My Asian American friends (Bay Area) have English names from a slightly older generation – Doris, Eunice, Milton, etc. I always wondered why.

    • Anonymous

      I think with more of that generation growing up and intermarrying other ethnicities, names become more and more Anglo or of the other ethnicities. I have a hard to pronounce transliterated Chinese name despite being American born, and I’m not gonna lie, life would have been a lot easier if my legal name was Anglo like “Sophia,” even though my name guaranteed that I wasn’t one of many many Asian American girls named Jennifer, Jessica, Katie, Tiffany, or Sarah of the 80s.

      interestingly enough, my mom and her sisters attended a Catholic school in Taiwan, and were given saints names in English, so most of my aunts use those names when they immigrated US, tho my mom kept her Chinese name “Li” because it’s easy to pronounce in English, unlike one of my aunts who has the hard to pronounce in English “zhjuan” in her Chinese name.

      I don’t have children yet but when I do, I will insist on at least a Chinese middle name that’s official on their birth certificate and passport, if not used in daily life. my cousins kid has a completely Anglo name from first middle to last, and I kinda don’t like how that erases part of the kid’s heritage tho I’ve obviously never said that to my cousin.

    • Anom

      Obviously different situation but some analogies?: Jewish American here married to a white non-Jew. My parents in the post-WW2 era didn’t want to give my sister and I Jewish sounding names bc they were still struggling with the aftermath of the holocaust (my grandparents are survivors). DH didn’t want to name our kids anything that sounded “weird” because he’s not used to it. In any case, I am a little jealous of people who have the “weird” non-Anglo names. Maybe it’s a little of the white person who doesn’t want to be boring, but it’s also about being proud of your ancestors and the struggles they went through so you could have a better life.

    • Anon

      It was a really good article. I’m not Asian but my husband is, and the article gave me a window into the world his family emigrated to in the ‘70s. His parents, if they’d had a girl, are the kind who might have named her Connie. My husband and his brother both have official Chinese names but use more common Anglo names in day to day life.

    • Anon

      I think this is where South Asia and Southeast Asia differ. I don’t know any Indian or Pakistani without a desi name. And I know barely any southeast Asians who don’t have an Anglo name, whether or not they have an ethnic culture name as well.

  19. Anonymous

    Related to the hosting/gathering question…. Curious what people’s thoughts are on this. If you’re hosting a holiday meal, like Thanksgiving, it is (in my personal opinion) relatively easy to incorporate people’s dietary preferences. I’m not talking about allergies, but rather, someone who chooses to not eat gluten vs. someone who has celiacs. In this scenario, you can do an au jus instead of gravy, and have other side dishes besides stuffing.

    However, if you’re having a dinner party where the purpose of the gathering is to have a specific food and you know the person does not eat that food, do you still invite them? For example, if you make homemade pasta and you want to have others over for a specific pasta eating event. Or if you’re smoking brisket and the point is to eat the brisket, do you still invite someone who is a vegan?

    • Anon

      I don’t host like that, I invite first and consider our guests’ dietary preferences when setting the meal plan. We have a lot of friends with various dietary restrictions and just make food that everyone can eat. I save my homemade pasta or whatever for another time.

    • Anon

      I pick the menu to match the guests, and think it would be inappropriate to invite somebody in the examples you gave. However, then you have to be thoughtful about who you do invite to such an event. If you have a friend group, you can’t invite everyone but the vegan. Invite friends from outside the group or only a small percentage of the group

    • anonshmanon

      First, I get the conundrum! I guess in the end, if you are passionate enough about food to host a food-themed gathering, there is a good chance you will not mind preparing/procuring a few thoughtfully chosen side dishes that could still give a good culinary experience to a person forgoing the main event. At least, that’s where I land. And couple that with an invite that says ‘you will find something to eat, but also no pressure to attend!’.

    • Anon

      First, I get the conundrum! I guess in the end, if you are passionate enough about food to host a food-themed gathering, there is a good chance you will not mind preparing/procuring a few thoughtfully chosen side dishes that could still give a good culinary experience to a person forgoing the main event. At least, that’s where I land. And couple that with an invite that says ‘you will find something to eat, but also no pressure to attend!’.

    • Anon

      It depends. If you have a normal group of friends you regularly invite to dinner and that group includes a vegan, you still invite the vegan to the brisket dinner. Tell them there will be some side dishes, but they should bring their own main dish if they want to come (they might not). If you’re just inviting a few random people of all the many people you know, then it makes sense to only invite people who actually like brisket. I’m a vegan and have no interest in a brisket dinner, but I do like to spend time with my friends, and would be sad to be excluded from a big party just because they wanted to eat meat. I don’t mind bringing some extra food to share.

      • Explorette

        This. If you would normally invite this person, don’t exclude them. Just let them know what the menu is and they can bring their own food. I would not expect you to make separate food for them.

        • Senior Attorney

          Agree with this.

          That said, it doesn’t really come up for me. I have a lot of friends and I make it a point to mix and match, and everybody knows they aren’t invited to everything (just like they don’t invite me to all their things), so I would feel free to have a meat-eaters-only event or whatever. But I definitely do my best to accommodate everybody’s dietary issues once they’re invited.

    • Anonymous

      I include them and let them know what the menu is so they can bring something else. I have a couple of friends who are vegetarian, and a bunch of friends who cycle through no-carb or gluten free diets (and I have zero interest in keeping track of everyone’s fad diets), so I have heavy-but-easy sides/snacks, usually including something cheesy (or um cheese and crackers), a veggie tray with hummus, and a bowl of nuts.

    • Anon

      Depending on the relationship, if it’s someone that would otherwise be included without hesitation, I’d ask them how they feel about it? I have relatives who are kosher (who I am not particularly close with), and we invited them to a bbq recently and had to have this discussion. They brought their own grill, food, plates, utensils, etc. I think that is generally how they handle it.

    • anon

      I don’t exclude ppl based on menu, and I do make something that person can eat. Doesn’t need to be complex or amazing, but needs to be a full meal that’s actually good. If that means I host less often then that’s fine with me.

    • Anonymous

      Vegan – it would depend on why they are vegan. I would not invite a vegan who is know to proselytize and make speeches (to upset others) to a party where smoking a brisket, piglet, lamb or similar is the main focus of the party, and not somebody who is physically disgusted by meat and who will be upset themselves. I would absolutely invite a vegan who just prefers or have a medical need to focus on plant based foods, and would make sure to have a different style smoked protein available, as well as naturally vegan sides.

      Pasta – I would not expect somebody with celiac to want to come to a homemade pasta event since it might be dangerous in terms of all the cross-contamination, but I would ask them, if I were inviting everybody else in a group that they normally would be part of (and not a random collection of a few people not connected). Pasta is just a plain starch, though, and the sauce is always more interesting, so would be prepared to have sauces and sides that are gluten free that can be enjoyed on it’s own, unless it’s a lasagna or similar.

    • anan

      We have a big meat party every year for a very specific meat preparation. I send the invite to all the people I would like to hang out with and if the vegetarian/vegans responds, I do a portabello mushroom variation for them.
      I guess to my mind – I host parties to see my friends. The food is just the excuse to gather and should not prevent us from gathering.

      • Anon

        Just commenting to say I love the idea of “a big meat party for a very specific meat preparation” – thinking about it I can think of events that fit the bill (like a pig roast) but I just love how the almost-clinical description sounds!

    • Anonymous

      Op here – thanks all for the thoughtful replies. It seems to come down to whether the focus is the group of people or the food itself. Generally I also host based on the group and accommodate dietary preferences. A few years ago, my husband got very into the idea of having a dinner party with a specific menu that was all gluten forward, and it meant that we didn’t invite a couple (who is not part of our close, close friend group, but who I’d otherwise typically invite to larger gatherings) because one of them doesn’t eat gluten. We often invite a mix of people from different areas of our life (kids friends parents, work friends, neighbors and close friends). I’d just always kind of wondered how other people approached it. For example, I don’t eat seafood and the smell makes me nauseous and about half true time I get so nauseous that I end up getting physically sick. I’d be happier to not be invited to a crawfish boil or clam bake due to this reason, even if other food is offered, but recognize I’m in a very small minority here.

      • Anonymous

        I responded separately but things like gluten are especially tricky. Some people can never eat gluten for health reasons, but some people might occasionally go on a gluten free diet. Unless you are way more involved in your friends’ dieting habits than I care to be, you’re not necessarily going to know who’s not eating gluten this week. So if you exclude someone who’s gluten free for health reasons like celiacs, but then (inadvertently) include someone who’s gluten free because they’re trying out keto (and “everyone knows” she’s doing keto), I worry that it comes off a bit like you’re excluding someone because of their health issues.

      • Nesprin

        I think this might be an ask/guess culture thing- in some cultures asking someone is rude and so to be polite means you don’t ask questions where the answer could be no. In other cultures asking is fine but you accept that the question is occasionally a no.

        It sounds like you’d prefer not to be invited to seafood heavy things vs saying being asked and having to say no.

    • Anonie

      I think it’s completely fine to host a gathering at which you’re serving a specific menu of your choice, and to invite someone whose dietary restrictions may not match that menu. I think we can treat our friends like the adults they are – I’m hosting X event, serving Y food, please join us if you’d like! Vegans are VERY used to being at events where meat is served, so they can decide whether they want to attend and just socialize, or skip it.

    • Anon

      For large events, I make a broad range of foods that pretty much anyone can eat. For smaller themed events, say 8-10 people, I invite those that would enjoy that theme and try to include everyone I ‘need’ to include eventually but it’s not entirely the same crowd to every.single.thing (and I don’t owe everyone an invite to everything I host). The vegan gets invited to the pasta party and cocktails night but not the brisket party. The Grill Guy gets invited to the pasta party and the brisket party but since he doesn’t drink, not to the cocktails night. (yes mocktails stuff available but you get the picture, and he was invited to pasta and brisket so there.) It’s not the same 8-10 people and I like hosting some smaller events and I like to mix-match people.

    • Anonymous

      The point is never to eat the brisket; not really. The point is to come over and spend time together. The brisket is just the bait. I invite the whole friend or family group and arrange for a vegan option.

    • Anon

      This isn’t really related….. but I had a group of friends that all ate similarly (no major issues/allergies, adventurous eaters, but not big meat eaters). One of my friend’s boyfriend was an extremely picky Momma’s boy. Meaning, only his Mom’s stuff tasted good enough. Anyway, so she gets engaged, and we throw them an engagement dinner party. And we surprise him at the party by having purchased a beautiful expensive prime piece of meat that we knew he would love, just for him, and were searing it to his well known specs when he came into the kitchen and told us that he wasn’t hungry. He ate dinner before coming to the dinner party in his honor because he thought we wouldn’t make anything he would like. :\

    • Anon

      I posted in the thread above that I am gluten- and dairy-free (I’m not celiac but I am lactose intolerant, but I have to avoid gluten as it’s my main IBS trigger). My close friends know this and so when they have me (or us) over, either they make or I bring a big salad and a potato-based side dish with no dairy and I eat that and am fine. If we get invited to someone’s house that we don’t know very well and they’re just serving finger foods/heavy apps, I eat beforehand and then at the party eat whatever’s available that I can, even if it’s just crudites; no one has ever said anything to me.

      I haven’t been to a sit-down dinner at anyone’s house that I don’t know fairly well in some time, but if I did get an invite, I’d offer to bring a big salad or otherwise bring my own food so I can eat and not sit at the table not eating; I have found that makes other people nervous. We suggest going out to eat with people a lot for this reason: there are restaurants in town that have “allergy-friendly” or vegan menus with gluten-free options that work really well for me.

      I would just ask: please understand that when those of us with dietary restrictions offer to bring our own food, we are not being “extra” and we’re not trying to make extra work for people, or screw up your carefully-planned menu. If I eat gluten or dairy in any kind of quantity, I might have a flare and be in a situation where I can’t leave the bathroom for three days. It’s not worth it to me to go to a party, “go with the flow” and eat what I’m given, and then end up sick. I’d rather just not go to the party. When people offer to bring food and say they have food allergies – let us bring some food! I’m really good at putting together delicious salads and GF/DF dishes, at this point and then I can come to your gathering, everyone can share what I made, everyone can have a good time and it’s no extra work for you.

    • Anon

      This is silly – IMO. I can’t imaging not inviting a friend just because they can’t eat some/most of what food is being served. Do you not invite someone who abstains from alcohol to a cocktail party?

      I am Celiac, but I would think it would be easy enough to just boil a pot of water on the side and throw in some GF pasta for me. The host would serve (I assume) sides that were GF (salad, vegetables, meat, etc) that I could also eat.

      I think most people with dietary restrictions/allergies/etc (myself included) do not expect to be able to eat everything being served, but just to have something to eat at the party is enough. I am always touched when someone attempts to make replacement/GF items for me, but it is not necessary!

      • Anon

        Maybe this is why I don’t have many dinner parties anymore. I wouldn’t have a couple extra burners to make another meal (pasta+sauce) that I now have to time to be ready along with everything else. Just because it is only for 1 person, it doesn’t make it any less work, you know?

      • Anonymous

        I would invite a person who is sober/abstaining from alcohol to a cocktail party, but in this scenario, the debate seems to be focused on whether you’d invite that person to a champagne or bourbon tasting. I see a big difference between a “party” where there would be mingling and the cocktails are a vehicle to get people to the party and a tasting, because the tasting is the event.

    • Anonymous

      OP again here – to be clear, I am not talking about food allergies. Those are serious matters and I take them seriously. Id never have an ice cream sundae party and invite a bunch of people who are lactose intolerant and not have dairy free ice cream. I’m talking about food preferences. For thanksgiving for our larger family, we accommodate several allergies and dietary preferences. The vast majority of hosting that my husband and I do is for big groups and includes a variety of foods that accommodate many different palettes. Pre COVID, we did a ton of sit down dinner party hosting . Then we started discussing between ourselves that it would be fun to try and make X item of food, just for a dinner for us on a weeknight. Then it became a fun thing we did to try and perfect the recipes. Among the recipes we were making were beignets, chicken and sausage gumbo, and bread pudding. We then wanted to have a NoLa themed dinner party and make these foods. None of these dishes are friendly to a person who is eating gluten free, and we were really excited about the specific menu. After discussing it and having received “Yes” RSVPs from six of our very close friends (who we have known for 15 years and don’t have any food allergies and were all excited about the menu) , we decided to invite one couple (who we knew had no food allergies, and they loved the menu) over another couple where one of the members of that couple is gluten free by choice. We are closer with this second couple (but they are not part of the friend group mentioned above) than the couple we ultimately invited. Our dining table seats ten, so we were maxed out in space. I am just wondering how others would have approached it.

      I liken it to going to a pro sports game. I think a lot of people, if you had tickets to a game in your city, you could offer to a wide variety of people and have many people enjoy the experience. Maybe they wear the teams jersey, maybe not. Maybe they know the players and follow the sport religiously, maybe not. But someone who says yes, and since it’s in your city there’s no overnight stays or significant travel, is probably going to have a good time. And this group of people you could potentially invite is fairly big. But if you are a diehard fan of this sport and this team, are you going to invite someone who is a casual fan to go with you to an away game and commit to staying overnight and going to tailgates, etc.? I think the group of people who enjoy this second experience is much smaller, and I think the group of people I’d invite to this away game is much smaller, even if they liked the first game experience.

  20. Anon

    How many people here feel that their job is where they’re meant to be / what they’re meant to be doing and how many feel like it’s just a job?

    FWIW, I recently left a job that was “pinch me, I’m dreaming” great in terms of job duties but not great for pay, leadership or work-life balance. I’m now at a job I don’t like that pays better and ends at 5pm everyday. I think a job I don’t like but provides me an okay life is more common, but I’m curious

    • Anon

      Just a job, and a pretty crummy one at that. But it pays me enough for the lifestyle I want (when combined with husband’s income), it gives me lots of flexibility for kid and life stuff, and I don’t have to work very hard. So it’s fine for now.

    • JTM

      My job has elements of “what I’m supposed to be doing” but overall it’s just a way to make money for me. I use my free time to lean more into my passions/talents/”what I’m supposed to be doing” feeling.

    • Anonymous

      I am a cynical person by nature, so I don’t think there’s any “meant to be” in life, love, or work. There are things that are a good fit though. I think my job is a good fit for me.

    • Anon

      In general I don’t think that there is such a thing as a “dream job” or being “called” to do something in particular. It’s work. It’s something I have to do to make money. I have a job I enjoy, but it’s not more than that.

      • Anon

        Also when hobbies turn into jobs they cease to be fun. I used to be a freelance travel writer and even though writing about travel is one of my biggest passions, when I did it for a living it was really “just a job.” I’ve seen similar things with friends who opened bakeries and other “dream jobs.” There’s always a lot of work in any job that doesn’t align with your passion. E.g., freelance writers have to network and pitch editors and send invoices, bakery owners have to manage staff and keep track of the books, etc. It’s naive to think that if you own a bakery you’ll spend all your time baking, but that’s the vision a lot of us have in our heads.

      • Anon

        I know this board gets up in arms about the term helping professions, but as someone who is a social worker who has many friends and family members who are teachers, work in medicine and healthcare, some “unusual” government jobs (emergency management, search and rescue, environmental response), I do think a lot of people view their job as a calling.

        Now, speaking as a social worker: a calling bleeds you dry. You work long hours for low pay and you’re often always thinking about work / your clients (or students, patients, whatever) when you’re off. It requires you to give and give and give.

        • OP

          It’s funny you say that because I used to work in the charitable sector, and was chronically overworked and underpaid because it’s a field where people think you SHOULD feel like it’s a calling. But it’s such an unhealthy environment.

          • Real OP

            I am the actual OP of this thread, but my “pinch me” job was a helping profession. I loved it but not the hours or the pay!

        • Monday

          Thank you for being a social worker! I work in health care and also feel it is a calling. Employers and insurers exploiting that (and sexism, with the feminization of some of these fields) are the problem.

          If the term “big job” is allowed on here, then the term “helping profession” should be too.

          • Anon

            +1 that if we can have big jobs as a term we can use helping professions.

            The convo with people rolling their eyes at the term helping profession was super, super frustrating as someone with a helping profession

        • Anon

          Same experience, an “unusual government job” similar to those listed as examples. I love my work. My salary is more than adequate for my needs but significantly less than I could make in the private sector. The job has issues — hours, management, bureaucracy — but I separate the job and the work in my mind. The hours are sometimes awful, but not any worse than my partner’s, who is in the private sector, and I have significantly more flexibility now that I’m pretty senior. It’s definitely not for everyone but I have no desire to do anything else. Every job has job issues, but the pride in my work is personally worth more to me than the extra salary would be.

    • Anon

      I want to like, not necessarily love my job and want it to pay me enough to live comfortably while still having a personal life. I don’t think the fantasy of a job you love that pays well and is not demanding exists. You just need to pick which aspects are really important to you. ie: creative job that you love but doesn’t pay well versus corporate job that pays very well, you don’t love and long hours.

    • Anne-on

      I LIKE my job but it’s not my entire identity and I don’t expect it to deeply fulfill me in the way I would if I was an artist/doctor/working for a NGO. To be frank, I think it’s healthier to work to live and not live to work -many of the people I know or interact with who are consumed by/defined by their career are brilliant and dedicated but profoundly unhappy in many other parts of their life. Of course I would never say this to them – it’s a ‘good for you! not for me’ situation in my book.

    • Anon

      I truly feel that my field/industry is a perfect combination of fit for my skills and compensation. Do I have a major, major passion for it? Not really, but I’m grateful I found something I’m good at that gives me a good standard of living.

      • Anon

        This is how I feel. I’m great at my job, and it lets my strong suits really shine, but it certainly isn’t a passion job! It’s also a pretty strict 9-5 and I make enough money to pursue hobbies and travel.

      • Curious

        +1 though I don’t know if I even have a minor passion for it. I do like what I do, because I work with smart people and solve interesting problems, but my passion lies 100% elsewhere.

    • Anon

      I am in a “helping profession” and I’ve vacillated between “field work” and admin or “desk job” roles.

      When I’m in the field I absolutely feel like I’m living out my calling. But, as passionate as I am about the work and as much as I feel like I’m “meant to be there”, it is exhausting so every few years I find myself drawn to the admin side. Which I immediately get bored and resentful of.

    • smurf

      A little of both for me – I don’t feel like I’m ‘meant to be’ doing what I am but I’m pretty happy with it – well paid, great culture, have moved up pretty quickly, enjoy most of my coworkers, and I like most of my work responsibilities. But it’s the culture/pay/work-life balance that have kept me here more than the actual job.

      FWIW my previous company was much more glamourous on paper (fancy tech, well known company, heavy travel to desirable locations) but the culture was toxic, insane hours, and full of sales bros that behaved very inappropriately. Never again.

    • Anon

      I’m actually applying to programs for people with degrees in non-teaching to get a Masters in education and a teaching cert to become a teacher.

      I realized over the last few years that I really want to be in a school, working with kids, and teaching. I was recently a presenter to a few classes at my old high school and had a “yes, this is it” feeling.

    • Anon

      I’m an environmental lawyer and I feel both. I feel drawn towards the mission and like this profession is a good fit for my skill set, but it still has all the aspects of work that I think everyone struggles with (too many mundane tasks, frustrating situations, generally would rather be at the beach). So yes I feel like this profession is the right one for me, but it’s also still a job.

      • Panda Bear

        +1. I know I’m in the right profession/industry, although the job itself has the usual frustrations endemic to office (well, work from home office) life.

    • Anon

      I generally like my field, and feel like the field is a calling, but I’ve become much more agnostic about my actual role in that field. Prestige and impact used to matter above all else to me, now I prioritize nice colleagues and a comfortable salary. What that meant in practical terms was a move away from thematic on the ground work and toward strategy and operations.

    • Anon

      To answer the poll: I am in a “helping” profession and it is definitely a calling/career, not “just a job.” I am lucky that it is also fairly flexible, pays enough, and lets me have outside interests (young kids, on the other hand, do not let me have too many outside interests at this stage which is ok).
      The other part of your question, “is this what you’re meant to be doing?” is less clear… I think I could have also been happy in some other (semi-related) fields, but my path led me here and I’m happy with it.

        • Anon

          Academic medicine. I could make a lot more money in private practice, but now I do a blend of seeing patients (1/2 day per week), research, teaching, and hospital-based diagnostic test interpretation which I love. I do like my specialty, but I could have probably been happy in another specialty.
          I also think that I would have enjoyed being a biostatistician collaborating on medical research or in public health – I do a lot of this type of research, and absolutely love it!

    • anonshmanon

      75% this is where I am meant to be, 25% everyday grievances with red tape and office politics. Same industry that I went to college for, but hard pivot after 15 years pursuing a certain type of role that would have been a bad fit for me. The fit for my skills and interests is part of what I like, but good compensation, work life balance and job security are also major factors in my job satisfaction and the lack thereof was a major source of dissatisfaction on my previous trajectory.

    • Anon

      On the other side, how many people have felt that a job was clearly NOT what they were meant to be doing and NOT where they were meant to be? So that it was not “just a job” but whatever-the-opposite-of-a-calling is.

      • Monday

        I was a paralegal in Biglaw right after I graduated from college. I’ve had a lot of unhappy work situations, but that was so obviously not where I was supposed to be. I had planned to go to law school, but changed my mind because I saw how much overlap there was between my work and the junior associates’ (who all seemed miserable too). I was great at the job, but only because I’m organized and efficient. I didn’t like the people and I didn’t feel any pride in what we were doing.

    • Nesprin

      Theoretically I’m where I’m meant to be, but day to day I do a ton of administrivia instead of the interesting, challenging work I trained for a decade to do and that they hired me for. This is a source of continued annoyance.

    • Anon

      There are parts I love and parts I hate but I think I’m a natural for my actual profession and I’m so grateful I fell into it!

  21. ALT

    Shopping help needed!

    I have a tweedy shift dress with short sleeves that I love and wear all the time for work since it’s an easy, office-appropriate piece. Mine is old from Ann Taylor and I can’t find anything similar in their current offerings. Any ideas?

    I’m wanting one specifically with short sleeves, would prefer a fit and flare/A line or shift style, doesn’t need to be tweed/boucle but want a fabric with a bit of structure so it doesn’t wrinkle, Ann Taylor price point or a bit higher. Probably a size 8 or 10.

    Thanks!

  22. Anon

    Love my husband to pieces, but he has no ability to suppress negative reactions like eye rolling, sighing, exclaiming things like “$20!! For a salad?!” It tends to hurt my feelings (for example, I got the above reaction when I asked him to pick up my take out order on his way home). He says I’m taking him too seriously and overthinking his reactions and should just ignore them. For the most part, I do. I don’t want to police his eye rolling, and I guess it’s true that I can only control my reactions, not his. It bothers me though that it’s turned into a “me” problem, and that I’m expected to control my reactions and but he’s not. Any advice how to navigate this issue?

    • anonshmanon

      No advice but commiseration. Every time we drive one particular road, he remarks on this giant pothole coming up, that is too big to avoid. Whenever I am driving (and slowing down to what I perceive a reasonable speed, but not to the crawl he usually does), he lets out a little shriek while the car wobbles over the bump. Drives me bonkers because it feels like my driving is being criticized by that shriek. He knows the wobble is coming, is it so hard to shut up for 2 seconds? I probably should let it go…

    • Anon

      Commiseration. I am very much a live and let live person but most of my relatives (parents and siblings) have tempers and have similar reactions to what I view as such minor things. I don’t understand their mindset but it is grating to be around!

    • Anon

      I think when you are in a romantic relationship with someone, you have an obligation to stop doing things that are hurtful to them. It is more than fair to ask him to stop eyerolling.

      • Senior Attorney

        +1,000

        Good Lord. Give him some Gottman to read and highlight the part about “contempt” being one of the Four Horsemen of the [Relationship] Apocalypse.

      • daylight

        Yes, agree with this. I used to be a BIG eyeroller, but learned how to control myself in my early twenties after my boss called me on it. I’m glad he did because it was a good habit to break. It may seem like something that is involuntary but it is not, it’s habit. I still roll my eyes sometimes, but I don’t do it AT people, if that makes sense.

    • Anonymous

      A while ago I sort of got into the habit of doing this to my husband (mostly with driving too) and he actually sat me down and said it was hurting his feelings, so I’ve made a significant effort to stop. I don’t feel like my reactions are being policed — I want to stop doing something that was making him feel bad! It was helpful for him to tell me how my actions were affecting him because I didn’t realize it was a big deal to him.

    • Anon

      He does have the ability to control this, though. Presumably he doesn’t roll his eyes or scoff at his boss or in other situations. I’d talk to him at a time separate from when it’s happening and come from a calm place but tell him directly that it hurts your feelings. It’s not an unreasonable request not to be derided and subjected to eye rolling in your ostensibly most loving relationship!

    • Anonymous

      If it’s directed at you, you can absolutely police his eyerolling.
      Unless it’s part of a tic disorder, he can surpress it, he just chooses not to. Start telling him to knock it off every time he does it.

    • Anonymous

      Wait so did he sigh about the price of the salad or about picking up for you? Those are very different things. One is the dad-like complaining. This is right up there with “turn off the lights!” and “get off my lawn!” If your life were a sitcom, the laugh track would be going off.

      But sighing about doing you a favor is different. It makes you feel like a burden. Like he doesn’t care about you enough to go out of his way and do something kind for you. Like you can’t ask him for help when you’re feeling burdened. No one wants to feel that way. It’s really very destructive to the marriage.

    • Anonie

      Tell him he is not being kind to you, and he should be. It’s really as simple as that.

      • Senior Attorney

        Wow, this is really triggering my relationship PTSD.

        OP, if you are in the position where you are having to tell your spouse repeatedly that he needs to be kind to you, and/or he is pushing back against the concept that he owes you basic civility, this is a big giant relationship red flag. Expressions of contempt for one’s partner (which is exactly what eye-rolling and sighing are) are not normal, they are not kind, and they are a “him” problem, not a “you” problem. This is not a price of admission anybody should have to pay to be in a relationship.

        • Anon

          I agree 100%. It’s really not okay for him to keep hurting you when you’ve asked him not to. It’s also not okay for him to do it period, but even assuming he didn’t realize it was hurtful, he should have stopped when you said something!

        • Anonymous

          Thank you SO, no OP but that was exactly the reason why I split whit the guy I was seen last year. He started with expressions of contempt and from there to critize basically everything about me. I remember you saying as requirement in a possible partner “He has to be crazy about me and being kind”. Reading that after the split really resonate with me. Thanks.

    • Anon

      That’s very much contempt and criticism, and is one of those insidious things that can lead to much deeper issues over time. His response isn’t reasonable because 1) he can absolutely control his judgmental responses and eyerolling and b) it’s hurting your feelings and he shouldn’t want to do that. Sit him down, tell him it hurts your feelings every time he does it, ask if he wants to continue to hurt your feelings, and if he says no, work together to find a way to have him stop. If he says “I can’t help it,” say, “I feel that you can, and it matters a lot. This will continue to hurt me when you do it, and so if you choose not to stop, please just know that my feelings will continue to be hurt every time that you do.”

    • Anon

      He does not have an uncontrollable tic disorder. It’s absolutely in his control to stop!

      You deserve better.

    • Anon

      Oh my husband does that and it drives me crazy. It makes me feel like I can’t enjoy going to a restaurant with him.

      I have told him politely many times to shut the f up, and these days it’s much less polite.

      If I know in advance we are going to a restaurant where the prices are going to bother him (frankly, anything more expensive than fast food) then I tell him ahead of time that we’ve committed to spending the money, don’t moan about the prices and let me enjoy the evening.

      But the random comments, like your take out salad example, still come up and drive me nuts. You have my sympathies!

      • Anon

        (On the other hand, when I occasionally get to take him to one of my work events where there’s a buffet or what I think of as a very average plated dinner, he gets delightfully excited, which I enjoy, so that is the flip side of the coin.)

  23. anon

    Would you consider a new job where the pay was essentially the same but the new job came with about 35k per year in benefits if the new job entailed a decent amount of travel? Both jobs hybrid, both jobs no billable hours.

    • Anon

      This depends so much on your own situation. How much do you need the benefits? How much will travel disrupt your life? If you travel, does that count against your in office time or are you expected to be in the office after being out on travel?

    • Anokha

      I think it depends. Do you like travel? Do you have other people in your life who would immediately impacted by your travel? (e.g., partners, kids, etc.)

      • anon

        Good question. The benefits would help as my spouse does not have adequate retirement savings. While the travel will not be amazing, I don’t have children or a personal situation that would be greatly impacted by it.

    • Anonie

      Definitely not, but I have a spouse with a big job and 2 elementary age kids. Only you can answer this question for yourself.

      • OP

        Yeah I have a spouse with the opposite of a big job and no kids. It’s such a hard decision.

    • Anon

      Nope, business travel is exhausting and a benefits increase isn’t worth it.

    • Anon

      Not currently (I have a 5 year old). In 10 years when my kid is driving, yes, definitely.

    • Anne-on

      If the benefits are an extra $35k year/pension contributions and better health care I’d definitely consider it strongly.

  24. Sasha

    DMV rettes who live alone, what area are you in and what does your rent/mortgage look like? Considering a move out there next year–I live alone in my current city paying $2k/month for a 1 bed in a mid-rise. I figure that number would go up in DC but trying to get a sense of just how much.

    • Anon

      I’m in upper NW very close to a metro stop and pay a mortgage/hoa of $2200 for my one bedroom condo. My neighborhood is safe and very livable but it’s not trendy.

    • Anon

      650 sq ft studio in Alexandria that’s going to be roughly $1800 when my lease renews in August – it’s in a building with a bunch of amenities (gym, pool, etc.) and is right by a metro station.

    • Anonymous

      Paid $2350 for a one bedroom (including utilities) downtown DC in a very convenient location. Dishwasher and W/D included.

      Generally, while DC rent is high, it’s no where near the NYC/SF heights.

    • Anonymous

      I got really lucky but I bought a 1500 sq ft townhouse in the MD burbs in 2016 and currently pay $1600/mo mortgage for a new construction 3 bed 3 full bath. The downside is that because it’s in the burbs and not a burb like Rockville or Bethesda, I still need to drive to most places outside of the CVS within walking distance.

    • DC Inhouse Counsel

      I don’t live alone, but I live in a townhouse in the H Street/NE Capitol Hill/NoMa area that has a separate 1 bedroom basement apartment. We just got new neighbors in the basement apartment and we saw that it was listed at ~$2k. There are also a few “luxury” apartment buildings less than 5 years old within 3 blocks from me and 1 bedrooms in those buildings also go for ~$2k.

    • Anon

      Used to live in Rosslyn and really enjoyed the area. Lived in a mid-rise one-bed that was right outside a 38B bus stop and equidistant between Court House and Rosslyn metro stops. I’d say roughly 50/50 split between renters and owners in the building, so it was always kept very clean and updated. Rent was $2200/mo. which included one garage spot and a small storage unit. I appreciated the slightly less VA income tax while being able to walk to Georgetown in ~15 mins / Lyft to Kennedy Center in 10 mins or Union Station in 15 to 20 minutes. Plus I worked downtown and would often walk home after work if the weather was nice (~90 minutes if I wasn’t enticed to browse a Georgetown shop on my way home).

    • Arlington

      One BR, 740 sq ft in Long Branch neighborhood of Arlington, about $2050. Includes covered parking and in-unit laundry; complex has gym and pool; bus to Metro station.

  25. OOO

    We are staying at my in-laws’ house for the weekend. It’s a lake house in northern MI. Thinking we should offer to make at least one of the meals over the weekend. They have a small grocery store in their town that carries the basics only. What is a simple summer meal that can be made with ingredients that can be found in most grocery stores? MIL usually makes brats and barbecue chicken so I want to make something other than that. Or should I buy/make from home and take it up to their house? Drive is 3 hours. Would like to shift this mental labor to DH but it involves planning and cooking, neither of which are his forte, unfortunately. Looking for the easiest option.

    • Anon

      For this, we typically do a big pot of pasta or lasagna if you want to put in the time, a pot of chilli (protein of your choice), or make your own tacos/quesadillas. Add some good bread and butter (or garlic bread if you want to put in the effort), and a salad and you are done

      If you will have a grill – hamburgers, grilled vegetables on skewers.

    • Senior Attorney

      How about a pot of chili and some cornbread from a box mix? The basic ingredients should be easy to transport and you can buy the meat (and cheese — gotta top it with grated cheese!) when you get there.

      • Senior Attorney

        Ugh mod…
        How about a pot of chili and some cornbread from a box mix? The basic ingredients should be easy to t r a n s port and you can buy the meat (and cheese — gotta top it with grated cheese!) when you get there.

    • Anonymous

      I’d do a big, hearty salad:
      Nicoise – bring olives, olive oil and nice tuna, buy potatoes, eggs, onion and other veg locally.
      Caesar salad – bring a bottle of Newman’s or similar, get romaine, chicken and bread locally. Or bring bread, since you want it to go stale.

    • Anon

      If there are fresh tomatoes, cut them and some basil up and toss with salt and olive oil. Boil pasta (I like penne), drain, and add to the tomatoes still hot and slightly wet. Toss.

      It’s delicious as-is, and you can add all kinds of things to it. Some people like adding a soft cheese to get a bit melty but I like a good grated Parmesan and fresh ground pepper.

    • Bean74

      I’m making Nancy’s Chopped Salad to take on a beach trip for one lunch this weekend. I’m making the dressing and chopping anything that needs to be chopped at home, storing the components in separate ziploc bags, and tossing it all in the cooler for the drive. Then it only needs to be tossed. Picking up a loaf of bread to have with it.

      https://smittenkitchen.com/2014/06/nancys-chopped-salad/

      I make it at least once during every summer visit at my parents’ house in SE Michigan!

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