ByElizabeth Hours Updated
Comments 373 Comments

Thursday’s Workwear Report: Split-Neck Ottoman Shell

A woman wearing a navy sleeveless top and white pants

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

Is it even summer if you don’t have to figure out how to dress for random picnics, retreats, and outdoor networking events? Even though my day-to-day officewear is firmly in the business casual area, I work in a more casual industry, so if I’m out and about, I’m usually looking for easy pieces that look polished, but not too stuffy.

This shell from Talbots would pair beautifully with some light summer pants and a pair of comfy flats or sandals. Add in some simple jewelry and you’ve got a perfect outfit for summertime wine tastings, baseball outings, or whatever event recruiting has planned.

The top is $54.50-64.50 at Talbots and comes in plus sizes X-3X, plus petite sizes X-3X, misses sizes XS-XL, and petite sizes P-XL.

Sales of note for 12.13

  • Nordstrom – Beauty deals on skincare including Charlotte Tilbury, Living Proof, Dyson, Shark Pro, and gift sets!
  • Ann Taylor – 50% off everything, including new arrivals (order via standard shipping for 12/23 expected delivery)
  • Banana Republic Factory – 50-70% off everything + extra 20% off
  • Eloquii – 400+ styles starting at $19
  • J.Crew – Up to 60% off almost everything + free shipping (12/13 only)
  • J.Crew Factory – 50% off everything and free shipping, no minimum
  • Macy's – $30 off every $150 beauty purchase on top brands
  • Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off, plus free shipping on everything (and 20% off your first order)
  • Talbots – 50% off entire purchase, and free shipping on $99+

373 Comments

  1. I find myself in need of a very small bag that I can stash in my work tote to use for things like taking my phone and keys to lunch. Would a wallet on chain style work if otherwise professional or does a chain read too evening? I’m typically wearing structured business casual clothes and I strongly prefer silver hardware. I see a lot of recommendations here for the Lo and Sons Pearl but it’s bigger than I want and a bit lackluster. My budget is around 500, but I will go up to 1000 for the right item if any readers have recommendations.

    1. I find myself in need of a very small bag that I can stash in my work tote to use for things like taking my phone and keys to lunch. Would a wallet on chain style work if otherwise professional or does a chain read too evening? I’m typically wearing structured business casual clothes and I strongly prefer silver hardware. I see a lot of recommendations here for the Lo and Sons Pearl but it’s bigger than I want and a bit lackluster. My budget is around 500, but I will go up to 1000 for the right item if any readers have recommendations.

      1. This is a good tip for others as I have card slots in my phone case and that works for me in my personal life. For work I don’t love the look of having my hands full when I’m trying to mingle and then ending up with a stack of two phones/keys/badge on the table. If only we could get pockets in our clothes.

        1. I hear you on pockets (but this is a lot for pockets).

          I see a lot of Obviously Spendy Bags in my city, which I don’t like as a look for work with clients who are inevitably sliding into rough patches, financially. I have an All Saints bag (prior year) which looks nice and use it for work events where I just have a small bag. I also have a black Saddleback Leather bag from a prior year and really want a Frank Clegg bag but haven’t pulled the trigger yet.

    2. So my team only went from suits to nicely end of business casual (no jeans even on Friday) during the pandemic.

      I don’t think a chain for your wallet on a chain would even register for anyone on my team. I tend to notice what people are wearing because I like fashion and if someone on my team uses a bag to go to lunch with, I have no idea.

      A bag would have to be egregious for me to a) notice that someone has one and b) think it’s inappropriate for the office. I think you’re fine.

      Only thing I’d note is that those can be small and might not fit your phones.

    3. Are you going to sit-down business lunches or grabbing lunch by yourself? If the latter you’re way overthinking this. Get a cheap wristlet, no one in line at Panera will notice your purse. If the former you’re slightly overthinking this. A chain strap isn’t going to raise eyebrows. But don’t waste $500 on this bag unless you love it and would use it off the clock.

      1. I’m going to sit down lunches, sometimes with executives. I know I’m overthinking this, but I tend to be a buy it for life kind of person so I enjoy the process of finding something really special that I will appreciate for years to come. I will also likely use it in my personal life as well.

        1. For buy it for life, I would not go with the wallet on a chain. It is a date stamped version of a more classic look.

          1. +1

            Agree

            I don’t have a good suggestion, as I always carry a bag that could be called ludicrously capacious.

        2. You can find a lot of nice, larger Coach wristlets on eBay. I’ve got several for this exact purpose. The leather is nice, logos are subtle (I don’t get the canvas print ones), and they’re big enough for a few cards, office door badge & two phones, chapstick, readers, etc. They’re small enough to put on my lap or on the chair beside me during lunches like this.

        3. I am a wristlet girl and only carry a purse if I really have to and then it is big enough to carry my laptop/tablet. I can afford an expensive brand wristlet but I I found the vegan thirtyone brand All About the Benjamins which comes in many, many colors and prints to be perfect for me. I am senior and also go to sit down lunches with execs. I have a red one but you can find lots of colors from other selling sites online. https://www.mythirtyone.com/us/en/product/9254

        4. I think a WOC would work, but if it’s going in a general compartment in your larger bag the long chain might be annoying or dent stuff. I would do a small leather wristlet pouch–maybe look into the Loewe “repeat mini debossed leather pouch” or Celine “POUCH WITH STRAP IN TRIOMPHE CANVAS AND CALFSKIN”. If your style is a little funkier you could do a color blocked Marni one, which are easy to find on sale around $300. I think a little wristlet is easier to deal with and can just sit on tables or in your lap at restaurants. Small WOC bags look silly on me during the day, especially if I’m wearing something bulky like a coat or blazer. I’m tall and the proportions are just off so I’d rather be holding something small in my hand rather than wearing it. The wristlet allows it to be hands-free if you’re carrying something else.

    4. Agree that you’re way overthinking this. Every woman going to lunch has some kind of pouch or wristlet. Nobody cares.

      1. I don’t disagree I’m overthinking it, but I thought a fashion blog would be a place where that was acceptable!

        1. Posted some actual suggestions for you below – I don’t know why handbag questions seem to attract such snark on a fashion blog!

        3. Totally agree and ignore the haters. I don’t have a suggestion though, I’ve been disappointed in everything in the 500 range lately and have taken to stalking vintage designer bags on eBay and using their authentication service (by only buying with their guarantee). For Cuyana dollars, I’ve picked up Prada. Oh typing that I do have an old Cuyana crossbody that’s very shallow and would work, but it’s also boring.

          1. I’ve found the classic British brands are great options in the ~500 range – Mulberry, DeMellier, and Aspinal of London – they all ship internationally and the quality is excellent.

        4. The Mulberry Small Darley was one I had been looking at. It sounds like maybe I should stay away from the metal strap though.

        5. Don’t you know that the only fashion we are allowed to talk about on here is whether or not therapists can wear sandals?

        6. It is exactly what this blog is for. But we have a group of middle school girls here.

          1. Mmm…. I would say more sarcasm than irony. When I was younger, I also mistook sarcasm for wit.

    5. If you’re just running across the street to grab a salad or whatever, just get an Athleta wristlet or whatever, no one is wearing fancy WOC for this.

    6. Are you sure you need anything? I just use my pockets – I have a Walli case for my phone that has a little wallet on the back for the rare times I can’t use Apple Pay and access badge.

    7. What about the DeMellier ‘vancouver’ clutch bag? I love the small top handle and the option to use the chain or not as you’d prefer. If you want something a bit fancier, the Saint Laurent manhattan clutch is a classic. If you REALLY want to splash out the st laurent is basically a high end dupe of the Hermes Kelly wallet to go which is gorgeous. I received the Constance to Go in a saddle brown color as a milestone birthday gift and while it’s not huge it truly is the platonic ideal of small, classic, shoulder bag that can also be used as a wallet/clutch as well.

      1. I love, love, love every item you suggested. It looks like I will have to up my budget though if I want to get one of them! The DeMellier ones are reasonably priced, but I cannot do gold hardware. It is just a weird pet peeve I’ve tried to get past before and I can’t.

        1. Oh my gosh, I thought I was the only person with a weird gold hardware aversion. Let us know what you end up getting!

      2. I feel like the dainty chain makes the Vancouver too evening and not lunch enough. The Hermes bag if perfect IMO, but there isn’t a store in my city (there was, it closed, we apparently aren’t spendy enough) and it’s not shown on the website (and based on the used ones Google pulled up, I’m relieved; the YSL looks great and like a relative bargain but has no strap (which I like at evening events where I like having my hands free for drinks and nibbles). Not the OP, but this is a good thread.

      3. I have a Mansur Gavriel zipper bag with a wrist strap that is similar in design to the Large Zip Pouch they have on their website, but mine is much smaller. I got it from The Real Real; not sure if searching there or on Poshmark or eBay would bring up options. I love mine because it fits my phone, work badge, and a small cardholder but is small enough to tote around easily and throw into a medium-size handbag when I want to carry my entire bag around.

    8. I like having a smaller nice bag inside my tote. PLus you can use it for other things. I don’t like chain bags because of the weight and also I do think it prevents you from carrying them with a more causal outfit on the weekend. I’d try to find a wallet on strap sort of situation.

    9. I don’t see how a wallet on a chain would hold your phone and keys. I tried the Lo and Sons Pearl and had the same reaction. If I still worked in an office I’d look at the Senreve Aria.

    10. I’d go with something like this:

      https://shop.rebag.com/products/handbags-prada-wallet-crossbody-saffiano-leather-2064801?g_acctid=218-424-2787&g_adgroupid=&g_adid=&g_adtype=none&g_campaign=PMax%3A+Google_Smart_Shopping_Catchall_NCA&g_campaignid=18320770539&g_keyword=&g_keywordid=&g_network=x&utm_campaign=18320770539.&utm_content={creative]&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&gclid=CjwKCAjw-IWkBhBTEiwA2exyOyXyXJOhWpYcVs_p9NBKysyro9XjI_5GHtlZIhQELNXabqGDLYujdRoCtrUQAvD_BwE

    12. I had the exact same need about 9 months ago and ended up with this. I’m still a little uneasy about the logo, but it has worked perfectly for what I needed. I now use it as my purse all the time on the weekends, so totally worth the splurge. I love having 2 separate pockets, and it is actually quite roomy but also slides right into my work tote easily without taking up much space. I can fit my wallet and keys in one pocket and my phone and sunglasses in the other. You may have luck finding something similar for less if used.

      https://us.louisvuitton.com/eng-us/products/double-zip-pochette-bicolor-monogram-empreinte-leather-nvprod2970026v/M80787

    15. I’m not sure if this will work for “stashing” in a tote, but I love the Staud Moon Bag that Rebecca-from-Ted-Lasso uses, and they have mini version. It’s below your budget but looks MORE expensive, IMO

      1. Oh my goodness, I thought that was going to be at least $!500 but it’s way less expensive! Super cute, I want one.

    17. I have a prior years version of this and it’s perfect for what you describe

      I can use the built in wallet for my cards without needing to carry my full wallet. It then fits my iPhone, keys, wallet, a lipstick or lip balm, and a tiny little tube of spf.

      2. *sunglasses, not wallet. I take them out of their case but since they have their own pocket in the bag they haven’t gotten scratched.

    18. I keep a small cross-body (All Saints Harley snake) in my office desk that fits a thin tote, my phone, and my ‘wallet’ which these days is the zip-top card case from Madewell.

    19. APC Albane Clutch. Go on their website, it’s on sale now. On other sites it’s discontinued

    20. I have a pouch from Clare V and I bought a wristlet loop from the accessories section of the site.

    21. This thread inspired me to take another look at the Dagne Dover Piper phone sling I was eyeing a while ago. It’s no longer sold but I found it on Poshmark.

    22. Check out the Tumi Langley or Mari crossbody bags. Both look similar to a Tumi bag I have that is several years old. It is big enough to hold glasses, phone, keys, lipstick and cards but still small enough to drop in a work bag or carry on bag. I use it for my daily purse for a large chunk of the year. No chain, looks professional, and so far it’s wearing like iron.

    23. Lo and Sons has a nice small purse that can be a wristlet or a crossbody that might work for you

  2. Has anyone had a child who moans really loud in his or her sleep? Like a bull frog! We can hear it at night but my bigger concern is when she goes to sleepaway camp. Is there anything to do about it?

      2. I once had a camper tell me she was getting a pet frog after camp and was going to name it after me.

    3. This is not at all helpful, but you just reminded me of a friend who has a kid that laughs like Seth Rogan–it almost sounds like he’s choking. When he was around a year old she asked the pediatrician if there was anything they could do about it, and it’s endlessly funny to me that she asked the doctor if they could fix his goofy laugh, hahah.

      1. My son had what we called a monster laugh – it sounded like a raspy machine gun – from babyhood until mid elementary. He got called out on it by a teacher in about 2nd or 3rd grade and stopped using it, which is so sad to me.

        He still has a delightful laugh though. I guarantee that if he laughed around you, you’d start laughing too.

      1. Wow, I’ve never heard of that – but I was going to suggest going to an ENT to look at her adenoids/tonsils and it looks like that’s a solution to catathrenia also. Signed, one of my kids had a 90% obstruction with his adenoids and one had a 65% obstruction.

  3. I’m going to a Broadway show next Friday night. My 40-year-old remote working mom self has been living in super casual clothes for the last 3 years. Any advice on what to wear? Would the dress, jean jacket, and sneakers look I’m seeing in the wild be out of place?

    2. you can go in pajamas if you like. dress, jean jacket and sneakers is perfect.

      my sixteen year old met us at Hamilton straight from school and was in a sleeveless white gym shirt. he was stopped at security only because he had a plastic bag with protein powder in his backpack;) enjoy!!

    3. Nope. Theater has gotten more casual lately along with everything else, and Broadway has always been dominated by tourists who packed practical and not terribly fancy clothes. The symphony and opera tend to be dressier, IMO.

    4. Not at all. Was just at a Broadway show last Friday and people are much more casual than they used to be at shows, but a certain set does still get a bit dressed up. This means a casual dress is a great option (and what I wore too, with sneakers). I would make sure that your dress is long enough to sit comfortably in the seats (sometimes the upholstery is prickly) and that you have a light layer like aforementioned jean jacket or light wrap because the AC is often extreme, but if you get warm, there’s no convenient place to stuff it.

    6. I go to Broadway shows all the time and dress sneakers and jacket is fine. Jeans are fine. Dress and heels is fine.

    7. I was recently at a show and I saw people in cocktail dresses and people in jeans and sneakers.

    9. Totally fine! But, I’ve decided to start wearing my fantasy closet more – all the dresses and things I’ve collected for special occasions- and going to the theater is always a perfect excuse to dress up if you’d like. I love the theater so much for its true anything goes vibe.

    10. You will look exactly right. Before the pandemic, I got a last minute ticket to a matinee of original cast Hamilton and showed up in jean shorts and a t shirt. No one blinked.

  4. I knew this was Talbots as soon as I saw the picture! The neckline details are so specific to their aesthetic. I am one of the rare 50+ posters, and this is a shirt for my mom, not me.

    1. agreed. and those flats yesterday too. It’s concerning to me that corporette is leaning dowdy, it just confirms my feeling that the fashion industry has forsaken middle aged middle sized women.

      1. TikTok has confirmed my suspicions that nobody in the 35-55 demographic seems to know where to shop anymore for casual clothing. Athleisure, yup, got it covered. Ditto with business formal or even nicer business casual. Beyond that it seems my options are rufflepuff, stylish hippie art professor (eileen fisher) or dowdy (Talbots/JJill). I know there are some decent pieces in Talbots but I miss the days of being able to walk into a Jcrew or Banana Republic and buy 3-4 outfits for a seaon without much having to think about what bra I’m going to wear with this weird cut out shirt/is this thin poly dress going to show off every lump and bump, etc.

          1. I somehow can’t get on the Evereve train. The name sounds like a late-night TV marketing thing and the website reminds me of catalogue mail ordering. What was that giant mail-order clothes catalogue that used to be popular in the 90s? Spiegel?

        2. Sitting at a downtown coffee shop for two hours will also confirm this. Noticeably few women in the business district and none of them know what to wear!

        3. I’m 40 and I shop at Anthropologie a lot. J Crew Factory also has a lot of good stuff.

          1. Ditto to anthro. It skews a little ruffly or boho but you can definitely find great pieces that look normal. I love their jeans and shorts selection, in particular.

            And athleta has been stepping it up over the past couple years in their non-athleisure casual wear, but you really have to try it on, some of it looks in pics like it would be great (ahem their pants) but they still come off athletic wear in person. I’ve gotten a few really great skirts from there, though.

          3. The problem for many of us as we move into our late 40’s and early 50’s is that our bellies are bigger than the rest of our bodies so JCrew, Anthro, and Banana don’t quite fit right anymore. I like some things at JJill because of the fit but tunics are the worst as I used to be a pear and now I am pear-apple. I stick with Ann Taylor and JJill but I hav e to try on a lot of clothes and have a friend give an honest opinion on the frump.

        4. I’m solidly in that demographic and have been shopping at J Crew Factory. Once you get past the rufflepuff in the window, there are some good basics and elevated tops.

        6. I bought one of the boho peasant blouse style dresses that I feel that I’m supposed to wear and haven’t been able to bring myself to wear it out yet. It fits nicely; it is summary and on trend, and it’s not even a huge fashion statement since I picked a very subdued cut and color. I assume I’ll end up wearing it when it gets hot enough that I don’t care about fashion anymore? But I am just not sure how I feel about it!

          I keep seeing dresses that look really practical and THEN I see the huge cut out in the back.

          3. How does it look on? As I’ve gotten older, I have found that cheap clothes look bad on me. My body is less forgiving of bad tailoring, flimsy fabric, and the like.

          4. The quality and fit honestly all seem fine! Flattering even. I wanted to find fault with it, but I think I’m just not into this trend, even at the lower price point. I honestly wasn’t into the sister wife dress trend either. I think I am one of the people 10:04 described (can handle athleisure or business casual, but casual casual is eluding me).

    2. It strikes me as too office for outings and too casual for the office.

      My fashion game got less bad – not great, just less bad – when I tried making things work for different areas.

    3. Okay, I’m 48 so close but not quite over 50 and there’s some great brands out there. I’m loving Cinq au Sept, Me and Em, Frank and Eileen, Veronica Beard, Emerson Fry, those just come to mind. I’m not longer buying every trend and I pair a great jacket with Gap or JCrew jeans. Anthropologie is also making some great stuff these days.

      1. I agree on Anthro. My main issue is that the stores you mentioned don’t have much in the way of a bricks and mortar presence and at my age the quality of the fabric/cut matters a LOT so I prefer to shop IRL. I hate ordering a ton of things and shipping them back because the fabric is mostly see through, weirdly clingy, or cut for a shape that I don’t have. Boden for example – great for shoes but is always too long, narrow through the shoulders, and oddly high waisted?. My last few trips to major cities involved hunting down the 2-3 bricks and mortar locations of mostly online shops (Rothys for one, and The Fold when I was in London) to try things on for fit so I could order online going forward.

        1. My tip is get familiar with your measurements and what works on you, those brands all have great realistic size information. I hate returning too, but I’ve gotten really good at identifying what’s likely to work. I haven’t shopped brick in mortar in a decade – even when they exist, supply is limited. And just in case it’s handy, doordash picks up returns in some areas now for a nominal fee.

      2. To add to Anon 10:10: Joseph, Closed, Toteme, Nili Lotan, Staud, Samsoe Samsoe, Anine Bing, COS, Arket – the list goes on and on. I appreciate this blog for a ton of things, but their taste in fashion is not one of them. To Anne-on, I think that the online sections of department stores are tons better than the what Jcrew and BR or even the department stores themselves have in store these days. I miss those days too where you could just walk into a store and walk out with some great outfits, in fabrics that weren’t see-through or plastic feeling.

        1. To be honest I think what I’m *really* missing is the time/energy I used to have in my 20s as well as the proximity to all of the fun big name department and smaller designer stores in NYC. Working in SoHo and then browsing Saks/Bergdorfs/Bloomingdales on the weekends to shop with friends (window shopping tbh) was much easier than it is now with home/kid/life stuff going on. Clothing feels like one more ‘thing’ to check off my to do list instead of a fun activity or way to bond with friends. And I’d kill for a good Loehmanns….

          1. +1000. I was just thinking this morning that I miss thrift shopping. I just don’t have time with three young kids.

        2. 10:10 and absolutely agree on the narrow range of brands and fashion here, not at all what I come for except when there’s a rare comment like yours with some new to me brands! Thanks for posting!

        4. Love all of these and I find some many great deals for these brands online. It helps that I live walking distance to the UPS store though and can return stuff easily.
          I’m not ready to shop at old lady stores!

    4. i’m 38 and i’d wear this shirt. i mean not for a trendy night out, but i don’t see anything wrong with it

      1. This. I’m 43 and would totally wear it to the office. I’m only in office 3 days a week. The office isn’t for fashion, it’s for professional basics. I like my work and social fashion to be separate. Like putting on and taking off a uniform.

        I would wear something more fashionable to a winery tour or other social occasions.

      2. I’m 42 and would wear this to the office. Office wear is not adventurous; I’m looking for classic and put-together.

      4. I like the shirt, too. I enjoy a classic, preppy look and would wear this to the office or casually for school pickup, weekend stuff, etc. Early 40s.

      5. I’m 38 and I HAVE this shirt. Super comfortable, machine washable, looks polished. Not sure what exactly is “dowdy” about it.

    5. I am 33 and would wear this. Not sure what that says about me tbh…. Maybe I have some fashion soul searching to do! :)

    6. I’d wear this. I’ve been wearing Talbots since my early 20s (45 now). I appreciate that the clothes are generally good quality, flatter me and I can either blend in or stand out a bit depending on what I need my clothes to do. They are also one of the most consistent brands out there in terms of sizing, so I can order online and not really worry about if something will fit or not (Makes it easy to buy secondhand, too. I’m not made of money like some folks here).

      1. I would too – I’m 46. I wear a lot of Talbots stuff and the cuts just work for me (apple-shaped size 14). Most of their clothes (at least now) look polished without being super-preppy.

        1. I wore a Talbots dress that I bought in 1999 to a grad school awards dinner last month and got loads of compliments…. from other students (I’m old enough to be their mom). They aren’t lying about being “classic”.

      2. I would wear this too. In my 50’s and also a lifelong Talbots and Brooks Brothers customer. My classic/elegant/preppy aesthetic has remained constant my entire life. I guess that’s how others would categorize my style. To me it’s just how I dress. I picture the featured shirt with white cotton ankle pants, whatever my favorite sandals are that day, gold knot earrings, and some bangle bracelets, and my new Rag & Bone raffia bag that I am in love with. I get annoyed when people describe the kind of clothes that I wear as “dowdy”, because, ya know, I might have some adjectives for their style. But saying so would be rude so I don’t.

        2. I mean, we’re all anonymous here, right, so it’s not personal. I think it’s okay for people to be honest about how they perceive a piece.

          1. With the preface that I say this respectfully and not in a way to try to pick a fight or something: I think “dowdy” is burdened with two large components to its meaning. One is that it is applied to women not men. Nobody ever called a man dowdy. The other is that there is some ageism inherent in the word. It’s used either against older women as a put down on their appearance, or when used towards younger women it says “you look old and that’s not good”, which buys into the concept of only young is acceptable when it comes to women’s looks. “Dowdy” is such a loaded word.

        3. Your proposed outfit sounds cute to me. I can also imagine this top looking sad with the wrong pants and shoes.

        4. You are way younger than the demographic I associate that style with, but “dowdy” to me implies sloppy, and your outfit sounds very put together and I’m sure you look nice.

  5. I’m talking to someone about a job in 40 minutes and I’m really nervous. I’m not sure I want the job (that’s what the call is supposed to help with) and it’s with someone I’ve known for a decade, who I know is lovely, but all the butterflies over here. So awkward.

    1. It was fine. He’s on the hiring committee and gave me all the details. I feel less ambivalent now.

      1. Ambivalent as in you are interested, or you know it isn’t right? Hopefully this job is closer to home if you are interested!

        1. Closer to home but still a hellish commute and maybe too expensive to move somewhere nearby/nice, less prestigious university, bur maybe more enjoyable teaching. I’m not sure how much prestige matters if I want to stay in one place. If I continued to do good research (I don’t need much funding, just time), and did the public engagement stuff I enjoy, does it matter where I do it? Salary scales are the same wherever you go.

  6. Has anyone bought from Queen of Sparkles? I am doing a Hard Thing (going to camp for a week with the girl scout cadets, where I will be in a tent and mainly using a porta-potty or pit toilet) soon and have decided that something fun from them will be my reward. IDK what the sizing is like and am somewhat concerned that it is sized for the Bama Rush crowd (and I’m the age of their mothers — a size 8 who is also pear-shaped). Any ordering hints? As far as I can tell, it’s not sold locally in my city. That and a massage and a very cold stiff drinks are my reward.

    1. I have nothing to contribute concerning the sizes, but go you! Amazing effort beyond and above in your spare time, you 100 percent need sparkles!

  7. Crosspost – on the Mom’s site as well.

    Has anyone left a job with a toxic boss without something lined up? If so can you tell me how it went for you?

    I may be in this situation and I’m terrified and feel like a quitter. I also love the actual work and organization, but I know if I keep going there is a slim chance things will improve. I also know the market is very weird right now and I’m a senior (non-executive) hire that costs places money.

    I’ve started applying to jobs/networking so I won’t be going from scratch, and we will be ok financially, but I just feel really…guilty about all of it.

    1. Yes, I’ve quit jobs without another one lined up. It worked out.
      It sounds like you’d be OK practically, but your emotions and self-judgment are really clouding your ability to make a strong decision here. I’d suggest delving further into the terror (what are you terrified of? how realistic are these terrors?), the feeling of being a quitter (do you have a high value for ‘always power through, no matter how bad it is’?), and the guilt (what are you doing wrong in this scenario that you’re guilty of? Are you breaking a value that you hold closely? Crossing a moral line somewhere? Crossing a family or cultural line somewhere?).

    2. No, but I guess I feel like unless the job is seriously endangering your mental or physical health, why quit? Why not just lean waaaay out? Worst case they fire you, and you’re in basically the same spot you would have been if you’d quit voluntarily. Best (and imo, much more likely) case is that you find a new job before anything bad happens.

      1. This. Also, it’s much easier to get another job when you’re employed. I would be nervous about market conditions too, doesn’t seem like a great time to voluntarily lay yourself off.

      2. There’s a good chance you’d be passing up a severance package by quitting – even if you lean out, more likely you’ll get caught up in layoffs rather than fired for cause.

        2. +1 even underperformers are typically dealt with through layoffs and then you get severance and/or unemployment benefits

      3. Leaning way out would be a good tactic if the problem was the stress of the workload. But I don’t see how it helps with a toxic boss. OP is still going to have to spend 8 hours a day dealing with it.

    3. I literally JUST did this, although it was less about a toxic boss and more about a just overall unsustainable work environment (military). It was tough – there was a lot of guilt, tons of emotions, but I made sure I had a therapist lined up to talk through it with. I didn’t have anything lined up, but knew i had to get out for my mental health and attempts to keep my overall family life intact. The big thing I kept reminding myself/my husband reminding me, is that we worked hard and saved money for situations like this, and that things arent going to get any better/provide more marketable skills while being there.

      I just got a job after two months of searching. I was VERY surprised by the process – my first non-military/federal hiring experiences, but overall the time off was the best thing for me and my family.

      Another thing – do you know others that have left/are leaving? I’ve found a very weird, but very supportive network of other “quitters” lol who all made similiar decisions. Seeing them come out on the other side has been very motivational.

      1. I think it is much easier to get hired as someone who has left the military than as someone who has quit a job without something else lined up. An end to military service, regardless of the reason, is looked upon as a normal transition, and most employers look very favorably on ex-military candidates. A candidate who didn’t just leave the military and is not currently employed is looked upon with suspicion. Was she fired? Did she quit because she was a bad or volatile employee?

    4. I quit a Very Good job without something lined up when I was 21, just out of university. Obviously things worked out and it was the right move for me because I just literally could not. Even then, it was a hard choice and everyone thought I was crazy.

      I would not quit your job in your position unless you are crying every night and most mornings thinking of work. Network, get the new job, then leave. Growing up I saw my father, a lawyer, struggle for years to get a new job after he had to leave his in house role for ethical reasons – he worked some in between, but a short stint for a failed start up, consulting, etc. It was horrible and honestly made me who I am today, working in a fine but not amazing job-for-life situation.

    5. My friend did this. She had started interviewing, and planned for / wanted a bit of a break. She started a new job after 3 months and it’s going well. It ook her a while to decompress from the toxic boss.

    6. I am in a similar situation. I am senior enough and specialized enough that one of a small handful of potential employers basically has to create a job for me unless I want to retrain and switch fields. I have been hanging on since the fall while networking like crazy and although there have been a couple of “almosts” nothing has come through. The complicating factor is that my current employer is destroying my professional reputation by putting me in a lot of no-win situations, which will make it harder and harder for me to find something new as time goes on and word gets out that I am unreliable and do poor quality work. We won’t go into debt or anything if I quit without another job lined up, but we will have to stop saving and I don’t know how we will pay for college a year from now, which was largely going to be cash-flowed. At this point I am pretty hopeless about being able to find another job. It’s so hard to know when to say when.

      1. If your professional reputation is being ruined bc of what your current company is having you do, it’s time to quit.

      2. I’m in a similar situation. I’ve been in my job for nearly 10 years so I’m getting to the point where I’m too qualified to be considered for anything relatively junior, but since I haven’t been promoted or been given the increased responsibility that someone with my level of experience would normally get, I’m not qualified for more senior jobs. An added complication is that I’m a trailing spouse who lives in the middle of nowhere for my husband’s job, so I really need a fully remote position, not hybrid, and that’s getting harder and harder to find lately. Definitely feels very hopeless to me at this point.

    7. Yes, right out of law school and after three months. I was ready to wait on tables if I had to but I got a new job in two weeks.

    8. No, personally I’d find the lack of income far more stressful than any boss. My answer would be different if I was married to a high earner, had lots of savings, etc.

    9. I have not, but my husband did – largely at my insistence, after I realized he was throwing up every morning before leaving for work, and trying to hide it from me – and it worked out fine. He was out of work for about three months and he got more stressed out than I did about finding something, but he ended up in a MUCH (like – 200x better) job, at a higher rate of pay, he stayed in that job for 8 years and got promoted three times, and his career trajectory has continued on just fine. It was not a repeat issue – he’s never had an experience like that again, and I’ve never had an experience like that at all. There are some weird situations out there that can evolve and sometimes the only reasonable thing you can do is get out, before your health (mental and physical) gets compromised.

      Also, I know this isn’t helpful for me to say, but I’ll say it anyway: there’s no need or reason for you to feel guilty. I’m sure you have tried a lot of things to make the situation better, and if those things haven’t worked, pouring more energy into the job is not going to help anything, most likely. You don’t owe your company anything and your coworkers may be upset that you’re leaving, but they will carry on. Do what’s right for you; don’t worry about everyone else. They will figure out their own paths forward.

    10. I did. I felt like a bear caught in a trap that was gnawing its own arm off to escape.

      If you can at all avoid it, do so. If that involves taking FMLA (if eligible), do that. Talk to your EAP. Do whatever you can to take enough stress off so that you can work and job hunt.

    11. This is super helpful, thank you all. I know no one can make the decision for me – but here are some more factors that may help people provide opinion.

      1. I have a legit toxic boss who loves to micromanage and put me down and put others down when she speaks to me about them – e.g. “Well it was her decision to have two small kids and live 45 minutes away from the office”; “Maybe I just need to spoonfeed you more so I can get a better product”; “Well you only had X hours of meetings on Monday so I’m not sure why it took you this long to finish deliverable.”

      2. I’ve surfaced my concerns to my boss directly – and while it seemingly went well in the meeting, she quickly about faced, which resulted in me being put on a PIP. I’ve been very open to feedback, improving, etc. even pre-PIP (this has been noted several times and documented in reviews from my boss). I’m sure I have areas to improve on, but not to the level of a PIP. The good news is now it’s not just me and her – someone else neutral (not HR) is involved in check-ins around the PIP (but it is on HR’s radar). Once I got on the PIP, despite being told I was “high potential” and “such a value add”, and that they “really want me to be successful and grow here” – I decided to really start looking into other opportunities because we all know the deal. And honestly if someone is as great as they tell me I am – you don’t put them on a PIP.

      3. Financials are fine – partner works in big law and is up for partner this year. I’d just feel a lot of guilt and like I failed relying on one income, switch of health insurance, etc. temporarily in this type of scenario.

      4. Thankfully I am in therapy and do have a great therapist!

      1. 1. Get off the PIP.
        2. Once off, lean waaaay out and job hunt like crazy.
        3. Document the crap your boss does. She shouldn’t be discriminating against mothers with children; that’s not okay.
        4. Keep job hunting.

        1. Sorry… that’s your plan of action. First things first, get off the PIP. Then focus on the job hunt.

          1. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

            Of course after I directly told her it’s a problem, she’s calmed down on #3 but I do have enough documented (and will continue to do so)

      2. The PIP would have me poised to quit right before it is scheduled to end. You don’t put someone on a PIP unless you want to fire them.

      3. If you’re on a PIP they are probably boiling up to let you go. In that case lean way out and bide your time until they boot you. You’ll be able to collect unemployment, which isn’t much but is usually enough to make a bit of a dent in the household bills. This is assuming the job is bad but not actually-dangerous-to-mental/physical-health bad. In that case just walk out the door.

      4. Oh, if you’re already on a PIP my answer is different. You probably have 1-2 months at most so if you don’t need the income you might as well quit.

    12. Me me me!

      I rage-quit in February from the most incredibly toxic place. I have 20+ years of experience and have never understood people when they talked about toxic jobs, but now I do. Sob.

      I’m senior and it was a busy time so they paid me a hefty retention bonus to stay on another 8 weeks, but I almost turned down the offer. However I’m the main breadwinner in our house so I was/am nervous. I’m actually still unemployed but close to a few offers and still feeling optimistic.

      I continue to heal (not to sound cheesy) from the havoc that place wreaked on me in the short year I was there. I lost confidence in myself and my abilities, and have spent a lot of deep thinking time trying to unravel what happened. I’ve realized my boss (the CEO) was relying on my to do a lot of her emotional labor, in addition to diminishing the actual work I did. A very bizarre situation. I do NOT regret leaving.

      1. Girl, your last paragraph – I’m right there with you. It’s going to take me some time to get back to my baseline confidence. Good luck on hopefully that last push before you end up somewhere great for you!

  8. Can anyone comment on Smythe sizing? After seeing one of their products here a few days ago, I am very intrigued but it is out of my price range. So I am looking for deals on poshmark. I wear a 6p in blazers at Ann Taylor, and 8P in blazers at J. Crew. Thanks!

    1. Do you know your designer sizing? I wear anywhere from a 2-6 in blazers/tops but I’m almost always a size 6 in ‘designer’ brands and a UK 10/US 6 usually works for me. I found that I needed to go up a size (UK 12/US 8) for Smythe. Fwiw, I ordered the Duchess blazer when Princess Kate wore it a while back and then returned it after trying it on. I was very surprised by how thin it was and it just didn’t feel like a ‘luxury’ piece the same way Boss/Veronica Beard blazers in the same price range did.

  9. Has anyone attended the Online MBA program through UNC Chapel Hill? Is it worth the whopping $125k price tag? Were there scholarship/funding opportunities?

    On the other hand, as a hiring manager, would you be more significantly impressed with an MBA from UNC Chapel Hill than say, UNC Charlotte or UNC Wilmington (which are comparatively about $18k total)?

    1. Are you in Charlotte? In that case, go to UNCC in person for their MBA. Virtual for 125K and you are in Charlotte (where UNC-CH now has some sort of footprint for the MBA) — it doesn’t make sense to me.

    2. The KFBS brand is much more nationally and internationally respected and sought after than UNCC or UNCW, which are solid but have very local-only reputations. The pricetag is high, yes. The new Exec MBA in Charlotte from UNC KFBS is slightly less expensive and gives you a more in-person campus feel on a working professional schedule.

      If online is your preference, but the price tag isn’t, consider the program at IU Kelley. Super solid reputation and program, lower cost.

      Source: I work in MBA administration.

      1. Curious as to your thoughts on whether any MBS is worth it if it’s not in-person and you want to trade up and move cities after a few years of relevant work experience. If you are a CPA in Charlotte (or anywhere where there re low-cost MBS programs in person that you could do PT while working, like an Ex-MBA program) and want an MBS to advance locally, IDK that you ever really recoup the $ of UNC-CH. If you do a residential FT program, you lose two years of income and incur a lot of debt. If you really just need the credential to make it past hiring bots that screen for it, IDK how the cost and opportunity costs are ever worth it. I hate to sound so defeatist, but I can’t make it make sense for me.

        Like I’ve thought about it and doing a BA-BSN program and then getting to be a CRNA made a ton more sense than an MBA (just looking at the numbers; it’s not just numbers, but if you will never live without roommates due to school debt, it’s still something to consider — not going backwards while you try to go forwards).

    3. Hi – no shade to UNC, it’s a great school. I know industry and location will factor into this, so take what I say with a grain of salt. I had a strong major at a “public ivy” for undergrad and then went to a T2 law school – so not much prestige in my own resume – so keep that in mind, too.

      I lived in D.C. for ~8 years. I literally never heard as much name dropping of where one went to undergrad and/or grad school. I had a colleague who was a recent grad with a MPH and would constantly say “Well, at Hopkins…” However I never saw that prestige in school always = excellent person to work for/with.

      Now I have a boss that went to top-flight schools in their fields. She’s clearly very, very smart. However she’s a terrible manager and still name drops them all the time…and she’s ~20 years out from most of these programs.

      TLDR – Name recognition is nice but I’m always more interested in the person themselves, their experience, etc.

    4. IMHO, the only point of business school is going to a great one to develop a personal network. That will not happen online. As a hiring manager, I think it’s the most irrelevant degree. The people I know with the most success with MBAs achieved that by meeting powerhouses in b-school.

      1. I’ve never gone to B school but this is what I’ve heard. You’re going to build the network.

    5. I am of the mindset that the only MBAs worth paying 6 figures for are the top 15 or so programs (or, if you’re tied to a specific area the top program in your area) and only in person.

      For any other MBA, I’d be relying on employer reimbursement or scholarships. I would not take out a loan for an MBA program that isn’t top tier.

      So much of MBAs is networking, which will be hindered in an online environment.

      If you’re in Charlotte, I think it makes the most sense to do UNCC.

    6. Why do you need an MBA? If you are looking to do a full on career change/pivot, go in person to UNC Chapel Hill. You go in person to top schools for their network and connections, neither of which you really get from an online program.

      If you are mid-career and feel like you need an MBA to check a box, then go to wherever you can get one. This is also true if you are not looking for the most upper crust/elite jobs. I’m mid-career (just turned 40) making $350k a year with an MBA from Boston U that I got 4 years out of undergrad. I got an MBA to get an MBA. I got into UVA and briefly considered moving from Boston to C-ville, then BU offered me a massive scholarship and I negotiated going part time at my job (~15-25 hours/week), so I went to b-school full time and graduated with only about $10k in debt. I have never once ever regretted that decision.

      Another story: my colleague went to a public ivy type undergrad. He applied and got into a few top tier b-schools when we were about 25. He ended up sinking $200k into a start up idea he had instead of tuition. Now he’s 40 and has sold 3 companies, just started a 4th and tells me rejecting his b-school offers is the best decision he’s ever made.

    7. Hi there, went to KFBS and graduated in the last few years. I did the full-time in person perogram and would not recommend if you have to take out debt for it. I definitely would not recomend the onlline MBA unless your employer is paying for it/MBA is a check the box requirement for a higher earning role or you’re a physician moving into management. I had a full scholarship and still go back and forth about whether it was worth it, both for my specifc goals and more generally given my classmates’ experiences. It used to be a much better program than it is now and from the direction of the administration in recent years, I think it’s only going to get worse. These days, the admin relies too much on the prestige of UNC Chapel Hill overall and the student culture is full of HBS level of arrogance (not saying that’s justified either) but comparatively mediocre salary and job outcomes. The actual business education and networking leave much to be desired. I realize this sounds elitist, but they’re charging an elite price tag.
      Feel free to post an anon email if you want to chat further, but I would be hestitant to recommend any of the MBA options at KFBS.

  10. Hey there! I wanted to share something and hear your thoughts on it. I live in a small, conservative, Christian community in the Midwest and recently a group of liberal folks decided to throw a pride fest to show support for LGBTQ individuals. I’ve been following this group on Facebook and had planned to attend the festival this upcoming weekend with my youngest son. It’s supposed to be family-friendly and a great way to show our support. However, a friend of mine who works in the schools mentioned that this group has been quite vocal/pushy and it’s making things harder for LGBTQ kids in the local schools. Due to this, my friend won’t attend despite being a huge ally in general… which makes me question if I should.

    Additionally, I’ve noticed signs advertising the festival being torn down and mistreated, which makes me worried. On top of that, we live in an open-carry state, which is something I’m not too fond of, but I have to consider. I’m not sure what I should do about all these factors, so I wanted to get your thoughts. Thanks in advance!

    1. You should go. If you care about the issue show up. It’s not being pushy that makes kids lives hard it’s all the people who won’t do or say anything.

    3. I think that this is going to be so community-specific that it will be hard for us to give great advice. That said, if there’s concern that this group isn’t adopting the right tactics in its advocacy, my view is that broadening the base of support helps with that. Why not go see for yourself?

      1. This right here! Go, see for yourself. Particularly because this is a first attempt at a Pride event in your city, just being another person there, attending and being present matters.

    4. I live in what sounds like a similar community and we had our Pride festival this past weekend. It was very luckily the biggest turnout they have had and everything went without incident. They did have metal detectors at the entrance and encouraged clear bags, but it was otherwise all good. Hopefully yours will be too!

    5. I stay away from big gatherings like this for safety reasons. I certainly wouldn’t take a kid, both for the kid’s safety and because having a kid impedes your ability to pay attention to what’s going on around you and move quickly.

    6. I hear you. I’m in a mid-sized community in the Midwest and plan to attend Pride this weekend with my kids, though not without some concerns about safety. I would keep your friend’s cautions in the back of your mind but see for yourself what the vibe is. I think this gets really tricky in less diverse communities. Is every organization perfect? Absolutely not. But sometimes, you get what you get, and showing support is important even if the organization is imperfect and has stumbled at times. I hope that makes sense.

    7. Pre-COVID, my then-11-yo and I volunteered at our church’s booth at the family-friendly Pride festival in our big blue city. While I’d been to Actual Adult Pride* in the same city a few times pre-kids, I was nervous because there are plenty of not-OK-with-gay-people people in Southern CA. It turned out fine, but I made sure we were wearing sneakers (for a quick exit) and I didn’t carry my big heavy purse. Just a little bit of advance planning made me feel safe enough, and it turned out to be REALLY fun and heart-warming.

      As for the “making things harder in local schools,” organizations are imperfect and I think reasonable people showing up and supporting good causes is way to buffer the zealots. But I get your friend – I’m all about improving bus and bike access, but I’m currently in a snit with our local bike activists due to personal threats (directed at my kids) and insults (I’m not a fan of DJT just because I want to revise a bike lane).

      *Actual Adult Pride was/is usually in the Big Gay Neighborhood, while the one we attended was on a big shopping street that’s popular with a wider group of people.

      1. Bike activists are the worst. Holier-than-thou, ableist, ageist, whiny. I’m in the middle of a snit with them as well. You have my sympathies.

        1. Wow. Just wow. Bike/ped/mass transit infrastructure is absolutely not ageist or ableist. Lots of older & disabled people ride and use mobility devices. Still more disabled people use the little bits of existing infra to get around because they can’t drive. Lots more should not drive but do because there are so few useful bus/bike/ped alternatives.
          It’s past time to reframe it as actual infrastructure (because it is!) rather than a nice-to-have recreational amenity.
          See y’all at the next city commission meeting. I’ll be the one who’s a little sweaty.

          1. I’m a wheelchair user and cycling infrastructure helps me enormously.

            In addition to paths and curb cuts, I’m much safer around cyclists (who can see me) than around SUVs (who may not be able to see me).

            I also have breathing problems and car fumes affect me badly.

        2. Thank you. The ones who are frying my bacon right now are all of those things, and surprisingly s*xist. One in particular never misses the opportunity to shame any mother who points out that it is almost impossible to get kids to afterschool or weekend sports stuff without a car.

          1. Yes, but that’s a chicken and egg problem, right? I live in a large city, with a car, with mediocre bike infrastructure and still often bike or use public transit to get my children to school and activities because I hate finding parking in the city. More people would be able to do that and not use a car if there were adequate and safe bike, pedestrian, and public transit.

            Some bike activists are jerks. But a lot are just trying to make it safer to get around without a car, which ultimately is super helpful to the young, the elderly, and those with disabilities.

          2. Yes, I wish we had some non-jerk ones in my town. And I get that in a volunteer organization, you don’t necessarily get to pick the people who “do the work” for the cause. But “your kid won’t have a world to live in if you take them to travel soccer, you climate arsonist,” just isn’t going to motivate people to help a cause (unless the only people want you want as supporters are <30 yo fit white guys with too much time on their hands).

          3. Would love to see you get a 13 YO to hockey practice with their gear in January in MN. Go you.

          4. While I appreciate the passive aggressive note, I’m not asking for everyone to do what I do. I’m suggesting that more people could bike or walk in many situations if they felt safer from being hit by a car. That would increase a 13 year olds’ independence in many other contexts. Obviously there are situations, like hockey practice in minnesota in January, where a car makes sense – I live in a similar climate and drive plenty in those circumstances.

          5. And I appreciate that you are not asking me or others to do the 13 YO to hockey practice, but there are bike activists here in MN that are asking just that and insinuating that if I don’t give up my vehicle and support their perception and vision of what “safe biking” requires (as opposed to actual, data-driven needs for infrastructure), I’m not climate-conscious and the whole world will go to h*ll in a handbasket. I fully support those who want and can make their life work without a vehicle. But there are so many activists here who presume to know my abilities and responsibilities and believe it’s their way or the highway, it’s seriously frustrating.

          6. And yet families do it all the time, in spite of, rather than because of existing non-car infra. Wouldn’t it be inclusive of families to have safe routes where kids can get themselves to/from some places?
            If you don’t want to give up your SUV, fine, but a whole bunch of us do see other, better, ways to get around that are more inclusive than our existing auto-centric culture.

    8. Attend and assess for yourself if this group is worth your time, or if they are not people you want to represent you.

  11. Probably a dumb question . . . I bought a car for the first time. This is my first time owning a car, its new, bought about 6 months ago. Last month, I was parked and waiting in the car for a friend when another car sideswiped me as they were moving out of the way of oncoming traffic. Not a bad accident, just a few scrapes and scratches at the front corner of my car. The police came, the driver was very upfront about his fault, the police took all our info and filed a report. I’m not sure what to do next? It’s been a few weeks and I haven’t heard from their insurance or mine. If I report it to my insurance, will it increase my costs in the long run?

    1. You call their insurance and go to get it repaired and they pay directly or you call your insurance and give them the other driver’s information and go through them. State dependent, but in mine if it’s not your fault, your rates cannot go up.

      1. Yes, contact the other driver’s insurance company. The other driver should have reported it, but if they didn’t then you can.

    2. Is it purely cosmetic? I would probably just let it go, especially if you live in an urban area and park on the street frequently, since you’re likely to get more bumps and scratches.

      If you do want to repair it, I wouldn’t file a claim with insurance because that will increase rates for a long time and is likely to cost you more overall between the deductible and the rate increase. If you do file a claim, you call your insurance to get the ball rolling. The police don’t contact your insurer, and the other drive wouldn’t be motivated to since they were at fault.

      1. This is terrible advice when it’s the other drivers’ fault. Most states don’t permit rate increases when it’s not your fault. Put in a claim and fix your car, you can’t sell a junker for much.

        2. Good to know! Looks like insurers can increase your premiums when you aren’t at-fault in just 12 states. I had this experience a decade ago, didn’t realize it wasn’t true elsewhere.

    3. You need to report it to your insurance company ASAP and give them the other driver’s info along with the police report number.

      In my state, my insurer has to pay my costs if the at-fault driver didn’t have insurance, so my insurer is very motivated to get the other party to pay up and handles all those logistics on my behalf. I don’t need to speak with the other driver’s insurer at all. In fact, the only time the other driver’s insurance company contacted me directly they very underhandedly tried to get me to admit fault (the police report was clear the other driver was entirely at fault, so I don’t know how they thought that would even work). In my state, rates only go up if my insurer has to pay out or if I got ticketed.

    4. You contact your insurance and give them the details of the other car’s insurance, and the details. Your insurance will contact their insurance. Your insurance will not go up if this was not your fault at all. You step out of it as soon as you tell your insurance.

  12. I’m over seventy and want a job. Even with a carefully edited resume blurring the age thing I’ve only gotten to one interview. I’m looking for part time or remote. I am up to date on tech, physically in fine shape.

    Any tips?

    1. Hate to say it, but I’d try small employers not big companies. I think you need to network, too – a resume isn’t the way into anything.

    2. what kind of job do you want/what skills do you have? I’d probably look for freelance gig-type work on sites like Fiverr or Upwork.

      1. From OP. My experience is in non-profit, politics, labor unions. I’ve done short term stuff recently. I suppose that’s going to have to be the way but I’d rather have a regular schedule.

        1. That’s a very interesting history… In this case, I would reach out to your network – anyone you know who is still working in unions/politics etc… Even cold call some of the union branch offices in your area. Some of the unions hire consultants/consulting companies to do writing/research projects for them. I know someone who does this and works totally remote and is paid quite well. So it isn’t exactly what you asked for…. not a regular schedule, but they always have new projects waiting for them when they finish one, and they work every day like a typical job. And when they finish a job, if they feel like taking a week or two off for a quick vacation, they do!

          But these consulting jobs have terrible downsides like no benefits. If you are trying to find something so you can hook into better health insurance (as I know Medicare isn’t great…), then I wonder if government jobs might be possible?

    3. Just put the last couple of jobs on you resume or back no longer than last 10 years, not everything you have ever done. Do not put dates on any graduations.

    7. Have you worked in the past five years? If so, did those jobs go well? Could you connect with colleagues from those positions who might be in positions to hire part time workers or consultants if so? My mom is a CPA, 68 and still working in a role like this. Supposedly she consults 20-25 hours a week but most weeks it is closer to 45.

    8. Not sure what your industry is, but check out WAHVE (work at home vintage experts). It’s basically WFH contractor jobs for people in certain industries. I’m in insurance and oversee a group of these folks, who all tell me they love the job. At least at my company they set their own hours and are very flexible in terms of scheduling. In insurance there’s a lot of demand for WAHVEs.

      1. Completely left out the whole point of WAHVE, which is that it’s specific for people around retirement age. I know at least one of our WAHVEs is over 70, and most are at least in their 60s.

    9. How many jobs are you applying to? These days, some people apply to hundreds.

      Are you using modern platforms – LinkedIn, ZipReceuiter? Is LinkedIn inadvertently showing your age?

      Have you linked up with Kelly and Randstad? Temp agencies are now a lot more sophisticated than being a “Kelly Girl;” they can hire at quite reasonable salaries for skilled professional work.

  13. Going off the unpopular opinion convo yesterday, people who don’t like WFH keep trying to convince me that WFH is making my life worse, but everything in my life is DRAMATICALLY improved – like, it’s not even a contest. I sleep better, I’m happier, my husband is happier (also WFH), our cat is happier, we exercise more, we feel more engaged and happy to chat with coworkers on the phone or Zoom because we have more energy, I’m not cold all the time, I’m eating better breakfasts and lunches, I’m saving money, my chronic health condition became 1000x easier to manage, I restarted an old hobby that I love, I’ve had much more flexibility for helping a family member with dementia and another that went through a (thankfully temporary) health crisis, I’ve gotten promoted twice, I can dress comfortably all day, I have more energy for adventures on the weekend because I’m not exhausted from 3 hours a day of commuting, I don’t have to waste time chatting with people I dislike, I could go on and on. Hell, we even have fewer carbon emissions. It made me a better person and now I can be a better friend, wife, coworker, neighbor, acquaintance, and family member to others – which can only be a good thing for all of us. I’m less involved in the community where my office was, it’s true, but my time and energy have increased for my local community instead and we make an effort to support local businesses. We didn’t think we could handle being parents before because of the stress and the logistics (VHCOL area with few daycare options that worked with our in-office schedules and public transit nightmares), but now we think we can and we’re TTC.

    I think it comes down to a few different things – especially whether your industry is remote-friendly by nature (mine is), whether you’re an introvert or extrovert (introvert here – which, FWIW, is not synonymous with socially stunted), whether you have a disability or chronic condition (I do), and what your commute is (mine was horrid and we couldn’t afford to move closer). There’s no one solution that’s right for everyone, but it’s okay for some of us to LOVE this new norm and push for the option to last. This experience has taught me that flexibility is the best thing firms can offer employees. Make it fun for those who want to go to the office, offer good hybrid choices for those who want some of both, and make it seamless for those who want to be remote. If you all love going to the office as much as I love WFH, then I want to support you in doing that.

    1. I think WFH can be great for so many personal reasons like those you listed, but it’s a net societal loss since it’s one more way people become more isolated and lose social ties.

      1. That’s the thing, though – my experience has been the opposite. I’m more engaged in my local community and with my friends and family than ever before. I keep hearing about all these social costs but it’s not at all my experience.

      2. I think one point from the above is that she’s NOT becoming more isolated and losing social ties. She says she’s more involved in her local community and local businesses, and she’s able to help family members who are sick more often.

        The vast vast majority of my social ties are not related to my job, and the same is true for lots of people. I know there are folks who have most of their interaction related to their jobs, and that’s great! They should work in the office or hybrid schedules. That’s actually one reason I like hybrid–the best of both worlds (for me).

      3. Wrong. Saving time getting ready and commuting has meant more time for me to volunteer.

        1. Yep! I have a horrific commute (involves a plane 20 weeks a year) but when I’m at home, I’m very involved in the community. I’m heading up the school active travel committee to make it safer for walkers/cyclists and running the school uniform bank. If I was going into the city/office everyday, I wouldn’t be able to do that.
          I know all my neighbours, try and have lunch 1x a week at a local independent cafe, get my bike fixed locally, go to local shops versus ordering online.

        2. Yes, some people will avail themselves of those opportunities, but on a macro scale, I think it leads to decreased social interaction. Just like how the internet and smartphones have led to fewer interactions and social ties.

          1. Is there any empirical evidence that WFH has led to decreased social interaction, or is it your experience? I truly don’t know.

          2. Yeah, that’s what I think as well. It keeps getting repeated that work from home is bad for social connections but I have yet to see any empirical evidence presented, other than the very real problem of office vacancy and cities not doing anything to reimagine their downtowns to fit the new norm.

          3. I’m sure we’ll have more empirical evidence (in either direction) in coming years, but there are a few studies mentioned in an Atlantic article titled “The Hidden Toll of Remote Work”. I’m just basing it off the reality that every other aspect of communities and interactions moving online has slowly chipped away at our social ties and in-person interactions.

          4. And yet, here you are, for the second day in a row, repeatedly posting on an anonymous online message board, having “social interaction” with people you don’t even know and will never know IRL.

            Do you put this much energy and time into your offline relationships?

            Is it possible you, yourself, could be using this space as a substitute for the human social interaction you seem to be so concerned about?

            How is what you’re doing here materially different (and somehow more acceptable, I guess?) than people who WFH interacting with each other via phone, video calls/meetings, etc.?

            It’s just fascinating to me that you’re so concerned about this and you keep posting about it and yet – I would love to know the number of hours you’ve spent on this site in the last week alone, vs. being “out there” interacting with real humans.

          5. I also think its untrue that the internet has led to fewer social ties. I am heavily engaged in a global community that only exists because the internet makes it possible. My closest friends are from that group and I’ve met a number of them in person and found the interactions no more or less meaningful. That pre-existing community made the covid isolation much more bearable for me.

          7. Anon at 12:21. Is there a reason you needed to make this personal and nasty? Wow. She is allowed to have an opinion.

      4. I agree – it can be personally beneficial for some (and personally detrimental to others!) but it’s detrimental to society, unless other aspects of society change a lot.

        1. I think if the social ties are just shifting, then its neutral to society. There are a lot of other societal trends I’m much more concerned about than more flexible workplaces.

          1. Yeah I’m less concerned if there’s an uptick to joining civic groups, interest based clubs, other clubs for adults. But, I haven’t seen that yet.

          3. perhaps there hasn’t been an uptick in joining because everyone is concerned that they will be called back to the office. Once things stabilize, people may be more likely to create and join clubs.

          4. “Yeah I’m less concerned if there’s an uptick to joining civic groups, interest based clubs, other clubs for adults. But, I haven’t seen that yet.”

            Way before rampant WFH I never saw people my age (40s) doing those things unless it was athletic-focused. Like, running and cycling and triathlon training and hiking groups on our local Meetup are very large and have very frequent activities. But “civic clubs” – you mean, like Rotary or Lions Club or whatever? No offense to Senior Attorney, whom I know is part of Rotary and loves it, but – what a snoozefest. And also not very accessible to people who have to work and have kids/family obligations, if the meetings are in the early mornings or at night. My dad was part of Lions Club at the tail end of his career and could not wait to quit because in his opinion, they did very little for the community and it was mostly just about older people sitting around bullsh-tting and telling stories. Kind of like how social fraternities and sororities claim to do “service activities” but the real focus is on having parties.

            Also, just want to say this. I understand past generations did all of this joining, schmoozing, socializing in things like Lions Club, country clubs, etc. As a younger person, if I have time away from work, I want to do things with my husband and my kid, and my friends and my extended family members. I am not going to sign up for something like Lions Club where I have to socialize with people I may not have much in common with for what appears to be no good reason, and that takes time away from being with my family and friends. Not all of us need to join “clubs for adults” because we got married/partnered, had children, made friends, and maintained ties with our parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. I don’t need a substitute family, I have a family. I don’t need fake friends I pay to hang out with; I have real friends. I don’t need clubs because I have a real life that I’ve built for myself. Sorry for anyone who didn’t bother to do that and is now lonely as a result.

          5. Anon at 12:29, you’re presenting such a false dichotomy here. I have a thriving social and family life, but I can still want more interactions with more (different, new) people via either in-person work or activities.

            I’m 28 and dating, and I definitely hope to have a husband and children in the next 10 years. I see my parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins weekly. I see my friends nearly daily. I belong to a running group and play on a rec basketball team. However, I live alone, so if I were full-time WFH, those interactions with family, friends, and through athletics would be my only social interactions. On a weeknight that’s 1-3 hours a day, which for me, is not enough time to interact.

            Even though I know my neighbors casually and many of my friends live nearby, I do think it’d be great to be more involved in my neighborhood community. However, the few times I’ve tried to go to neighborhood association meetings or events, it has been, as you say, a “snoozefest”.

            I do a lot to build community; I co-founded my running group and I am the captain of my soccer team. I volunteer at a food pantry monthly. I take sewing classes from a local store. I try to patronize the local mom and pop coffee shops and restaurants in my community instead of Starbucks.

            I really hate the way that those looking for interaction have been painted on this site: friendless, single, and lonely. That’s certainly not the case for me, or for any of my friends (several of whom quit jobs that went full time WFH in favor of finding hybrid jobs).

          6. Anon at 12:48 – sorry, but I think you are one of those super-extroverted people who just can’t bear to be alone/spend time with your thoughts and I do have empathy for that, trust me. You should absolutely go back to an in-office job because it’s clear you are miserable working from home. But extrapolating your experience and saying “this is how I feel so everyone else must feel this way too” is a function either of your youth or an unhealthy amount of self-focus. You are not the main character in everyone else’s story. Not everyone is like you, thinks like you do, wants what you want, etc. If you hate your WFH situation, then fix that situation FOR YOURSELF. Stop saying it’s a general social problem and everyone needs to go back to working in an office, because if you can stop centering yourself in the narrative for five minutes – you’d be able to see, just from this discussion today, that is not true.

          7. Anon at 12:29. If your life were as full as you claim it is, you wouldn’t be so mean to women on this site. Perhaps if you got out of your bubble with people in real life, you would learn how to act?

          8. Anon at 3:56 – well, I definitely wouldn’t be wandering around patting myself on the back for being such a good person and “contributor to society” because I subjected some poor person in the elevator, who may not have even wanted to talk to me, to my scintillating wit and personality.

      5. Agreed. It’s a very selfish perspective. She may interact with her closed network but society loses out on interacting with her. This compounds when everyone does it. Cities decline, culture declines, it’s terrible for the collective good.

        1. How does society miss out on interacting with the OP if she is more able to interact in person with and support local businesses and community groups? Even if one sector of society is “missing out,” another sector is gaining, right?

          1. Also, I will say that in my diverse (racially and economically) community, the arts seem to be booming. Since COVID, there are several local theater companies that have become successful in my area, along with new book stores opening and thriving, and local galleries full of new art. New murals are popping up everywhere. People are turning up to neighborhood festivals EVERY weekend. That doesn’t seem like a reduction in culture to me.

          2. Where are you, 12:13 Anon, because I want to move there. My city lost so many small businesses and arts groups. Mediocre chains have taken their place and folks here are generally fine with that… they see it as somehow better because it’s a name brand.

        2. How does society lose out? Sitting in an office does not equate to interacting with society. If anything, I’m out and about more now than I ever was when I was in office full time.

          1. Same. I am now at my gym three or four times a week and will go pick up coffee or lunch once a week as a treat for myself. When I worked in an office, I was basically chained to my desk in a distant office park 5 days a week and rarely saw anyone out in “society.”

        3. Or her network expands because its not limited to the people in and around her office building?

        4. “society loses out on interacting with her”

          What a bold assumption that “society” cares. A lot of the “societal interactions” I see on the news these days involve mass shootings; I guess we should be glad that at least those people were out and about and not sitting at home?

          What an absolutely crap take. Wow.

        5. This is how you make people feel held hostage. I have never regretted escaping a social environment that tried to frame my absence as selfishness on my part.

      6. Counter to that, should work be your main source of social ties? I would say no. (And I realize that’s not what you are saying, but for some people work is/was their main social outlet.) Working from home gives me more time and energy to build and strengthen friendships outside the office. I still have my work friends, too. But most of the people I work with aren’t even in my state.

        1. Work isn’t my main source of social interaction, but well over half of the friends I made post-college I made at work.

          I have a large social circle in my city of work and non-work friebds, i play in social sports leagues, I go to weekly bar trivia, I volunteer. But still, most of the friends I made as an adult I made through work.

          We now all work elsewhere but maintained our friendship, we’re not “work friends”, we’re real friends who happened to meet at work.

          I do feel for thé young 20 somethings; I learned so much and made a bunch of friends by working in person when I was fresh out of school.

          I should also add, this happened at a company of 40 people so it’s not like I was one of 500 members of an incoming Big 4 class.

        2. When I say “social ties”, I don’t just mean friendships and warm fuzzy ties. I mean all the small (and big) social interactions that make up your day.

          1. And if those are improved for people who enjoy working from home, shouldn’t that be a win in your eyes?

          2. But it seems like some of these people are saying they continue having small and big social interactions throughout the day that are just different from when they worked in an office. It’s okay if some people have a different experience from you!

          3. +1

            It’s not just friends but it’s having a congenial relationship with my colleagues or that guy I see in the elevator every day and we chat even if I don’t know his name and the office cleaning staff and the train conductor and the barista

          4. No one is saying that you can’t have those kinds of interactions at the office, but you all need to acknowledge that many people are saying that they are having those interactions in greater quantities working from home.

          5. When I had to commute for 2 hours a day, that was 2 hours a day that I couldn’t spend engaged in my community. Meetings would end by the time I would be able to get off work and commute back to my small city. I couldn’t go to run club because my day was already too long.

            Sure if you have a 5 minute commute, working in person might net out to a social positive, but many people are forced into long commutes. They live in Rhode Island, not Wellesley, because that’s where they can afford but it means their commute into Boston is insane. Their spouse works at a tiny university in EBF, and they split the difference between EBF and Billings Montana. Maybe they are on a strained budget and saving $20 a day on commuting costs means they have the money to engage in their communities in other ways.

            The raging privilege to assume that everyone is able to waste hours each day, and a lot of money in commuting, to make you feel better about your interactions at Starbucks, is nuts.

          6. I’m hybrid. Personally I have a lot of chit chat with all sorts of people when I’m in the office but on my 2 weekly wfh days I don’t interact with anyone all day until after work (I have a rule that I must make social plans on days I wfh).

          7. So, I don’t know what kind of life you were living pre-pandemic, but my life pre-pandemic, when I was working in an office was:
            – Wake up and talk to my husband and son
            – Drive to work alone in my car
            – Sit at desk and talk to maybe 5 people throughout the day in person. I worked in a large company and saw plenty of people, but never interacted with the vast majority of them because there was no reason to, and in my profession, people are not generally extroverted and keep to themselves.
            – Sit on Skype meetings and interact with another 20-25 people virtually (which I still do)
            – Drive home from work alone
            – Interact with immediate family members
            – Go to bed.

            We rarely went to the gym or out to eat on weeknights because my husband and I were generally too tired to want to do that after long days in the office. Now, we’re at the gym 3-4 days a week and go out to lunch or dinner once a week because we have more time and energy.

            Girl, you are just not getting it: not everyone is like you. Not everyone wants to be like you. Some of us are very happy being introverts and not having tons of friends or engaging in tons of “social interactions” on a daily basis.

            P.S., a lot of those store clerks, baristas, waitpersons and other service personnel that you chat with for minutes on end wish you would just shut up and move along with your day, because they’re there to do a job, and not serve as a surrogate friend to you. They’re being nice and acting interested because that’s part of their job and they may be evaluated on “friendliness” or hope that they’ll be able to sell you something. Or at least don’t want to be complained about by some lady who feels they didn’t get enough of an ego-massage from the serviceperson. They are not really your friends and they do not really care about you. Ask me how I know.

          8. “It’s not just friends but it’s having a congenial relationship with my colleagues or that guy I see in the elevator every day and we chat even if I don’t know his name and the office cleaning staff and the train conductor and the barista”

            Sorry, but I just don’t get this. Those people are not your friends! You know that, right? Why is it so important that you have “congenial relationships” with people who likely do not even remember that you exist the minute you walk out the door away from them? Either this is about a deep pathological need to be liked or you really feel like your the main character in everyone else’s story.

      7. This is your opinion and not something that I believe is backed up by research or data that’s definitive or longitudinal. Anecdotally, myself and other folks I know who are now WFH are developing stronger social ties because we have more time and energy for socializing. I also know my neighbors better because they’re home more and I see them during the day when I’m out in the neighborhood. You can have your opinion (and we all know what they say about opinions…) but stating your opinion as fact is not a great look.

      9. I disagree. Working from home, I can sleep in an hour later and avoid the entire exhausting commute. This allows me to have enough energy to actually socialize after work rather than just collapse. Granted I live with chronic pain, so my case is a bit different, but WFH makes it so much easier to see my friends.

    2. I was one of the people who posted yesterday in agreement that WFH is fundamentally changing society, and not always for the better. Here is where I’m coming from:
      1) Is WFH better for individuals’ lifestyles, in many of the ways you mention? Absolutely yes; that’s why people want to do it.
      2) Am I seeing an erosion in people’s abilities to work together or just understand the bigger picture of what’s happening in their office environment that they cannot see from home, doing their individual assignments? Also yes.

      It’s not a big leap to say that less interaction with a variety of individuals is possibly having the side effect of making us less open and aware to individuals who are different from ourselves. Not just our coworkers, but just in general. In the office, I will see everyone. Executives, entry level folks, mid-career folks, janitors, assistants, landscapers, building maintenance crews, etc. And yeah, I talk to them. That’s a much broader range of individuals than I interact with to do my actual job.

      So, not here to bash WFH, but that’s where I’m coming from.

      1. I own my own firm and work from home except for court and the jail. While I enjoy the privileged, I think the trend will have social and emotional consequences in the long run for all of us. The increased use in social interactions only on the computer has resulted in increasingly toxic communication for many.

        1. If you’re a solo practitioner, what’s the difference between working from home and working alone in an office?

          1. Many solos work in shared spaces. There are great old house downtown that house 4 or 5 lawyers with a receptionist but I can’t afford it yet. If I could afford it, I would probably go in 4 hours a day and work the rest of the day at home. I miss being in an office where I could say, “hey, I have this case where such and such is happening. What do you think judge X would say?” but that isn’t the kind of question I would call someone about or post on a listserv.

      2. Not all jobs are in big buildings with a variety of individuals. My old job was a small group in a small building. I talk to considerably more people now because (for example) I do my shopping in person now instead of delivery, have time to chat with the mailman, go for a walk and say hi to the moms at the playground.

        1. There’s a cashier at our grocery store who seems to regularly work at the times we shop. She knows me and my husband and our baby. If she sees us, she makes time to come say hi and we chat. I enjoy it every week and would never have the chance for that when I didn’t have time to do more than a curbside pickup at the end of a long commute.

          Here is an example of my life pre-WFH: Get up early to prepare for work, say hi to kid and husband as they head off to daycare, drive to office alone in car, walk into office briefly saying hi to the front desk and guard but no conversation, spend all day sitting in my office working alone, say bye to guard and front desk, drive home alone, say thanks to person bringing shopping to my car, get home and be too tired to go anywhere else for social ties other than husband and kid, sleep, repeat.

          I don’t think my example day is that unusual. I don’t think my example of increased social ties is unusual either.

          1. I posted elsewhere but that was almost my exact same schedule when I worked in the office. I interact with far more people now in-person, on a daily basis, than when I was commuting to the office and spending 45 minutes in the car each way alone, to and from work.

          2. She runs the self checkout, so she doesn’t need to come over. We’re not forcing conversation while she’s stuck there. I try and be mindful of that and take the lead of the person working.

      3. Not everyone works at a company where all employees are located in a single office. The people I work with on a daily basis are located in India and scattered across the U.S. I’m in the midwest and my boss is on the west coast. When I used to go info the office, I would spend most of the day at my desk on conference calls. I chatted with people around me, but none of them were in my department or did the same work I did. My company shut down my office building in 2020 so I was forced to WFH. I work in tech and I’ve worked in a distributed work force since I first started 20 years ago, so the transition to WFH has not been as difficult.

        1. Yeah, back when I went into the office, I reported into senior leadership (5 hours away by car) and worked with colleagues spread across six different states.

      4. My team is spread out all over the country, so even when I’m in the office, I end up sitting alone and talking to people through my computer screen. In offices where most everyone is local and the job is at least someone collaborative, it makes sense to have office time. In situations like mine, it’s pretty pointless.

      5. I think a factor that may be in play here is that more people are pulling back from work, setting more boundaries, not gunning for a career, leaning into their private life and working primarily for a paycheck. That would explain why you observe “an erosion in people’s abilities to work together or just understand the bigger picture of what’s happening in their office environment”.
        I could easily see that as not an unintended consequence of WFH, but a choice on the part of many employees, who reconsidered their personal values, and how much or how little they want to tie their identity to a job. That reckoning was talked about frequently in the early pandemic, and we are potentially seeing the impact in the working world. I wouldn’t necessarily draw conclusions from the professional sphere to broader society.

        1. I think it’s 100% this. Whether I work in an office or not, I no longer see work as the center of my life and I’m not going to work as much or as hard, or get as stressed out about work as I did pre-pandemic. Because it’s just not worth it. My health, my free time and my family are more important. I still get accomplish plenty, but will never ever go back to prioritizing work over the rest of my life. And if that means I don’t get promoted or make a ton of money? I’m completely fine with that.

    3. Absolutely. Flexibility so that each person can do what works best for them within the needs of the job.

    4. I would say the exact same things about WFH — well, except the kids part, I already raised my kids by the time I started WFH. I honestly do not see any down sides to it at all. I do egret that WFH did not start sooner, it would have really changed my life for the better when I was younger.

    5. I think I have a chip on my shoulder because not only do I have an in-person only job but so do most of my relatives. Our jobs are mostly helping jobs which are typically already underpaid and now have an additional barrier of in-person work. These jobs already sometimes feel second class, even though we’re well educated, and I fear on missing out on doing things at my kids school, joining civic or interest based groups and being connected to my community because the ways to get involved will all shift to make it difficult, if not impossible, for those who are in person.

      1. I think we generally need to move towards making as many things as possible as flexible as possible. Which includes making it possible for work-in-person people to join groups and be connected and involved.

        1. Agree. I don’t think the solution is “everyone needs to work in an office 5 days a week” or “everyone who can needs to work from home.” My husband is hybrid and it’s much better for him than FT WFH. I am technically FT WFH but travel a couple times a month to a nearby city to meet with coworkers, and I like that and am fine with it. We need flexibility, not rigidity. Understanding that people have different needs, wants, preferences, family situations, health situations etc. Heck, we may need situations where people can go from WFH to work-in-office and then back to hybrid as their careers progress. But one thing I am sure of: we need to center people in the conversation, and not corporations or real-estate investment companies. Because the needs of the average worker should matter more than rich people continuing to get richer. If we want to talk about what’s “hurting society”? Wealth disparity and the erosion of the middle class is hurting society. As are mass shootings, which I am convinced is causing a lot of people to avoid both in-office work and social activities. I know several people who won’t go to malls or concerts any more over the fear of shootings.

          1. “As are mass shootings, which I am convinced is causing a lot of people to avoid both in-office work and social activities.”

            Just as anecdata the other way, I don’t know anyone who wants to WFH because of mass shootings. I am pro-gun control but this is not even in my top 20 reasons I like WFH.

        1. Okay but going into work isn’t suffering. We all did it for years and years.

          People who can’t wfh actually did suffer during the pandemic; they either were furloughed / laid off or had to risk their health going into work. As stated, these people also usually work at lower paid jobs without perks. Not saying the lawyers shouldn’t ever wfh to make it fair for the nurses, but the essential workers have already had a h3ll of a time.

          1. For someone who loooves to call other people out repeatedly for being rude, Trish, you sure can be rude when you feel like it. Who are you to define what “suffering” means to someone else?

      3. Frankly as an essential worker, anyone who complains about any in office requirement can eff off. It’s so privileged to complain about having to come to the office on occasion

    6. Totally agree it can be (and often is) a net positive for an individual. Certainly sounds like it has been for you. I personally have received many of the same benefits from teleworking . I now have almost 100% control over who I see and talk to throughout the day. Does that make me happy? As an introvert – you bet.

      But. I live in the suburbs. I almost never see or interact with poor people. Or people who aren’t in white collars jobs like mine. I have almost no spontaneous interactions. And on a more global level, don’t know if it’s really good or healthy for me, or for society overall now that there are millions and millions of others like me, to now have very little perspective or insight into the lives of of those who aren’t in my immediate neighborhood or workspace.

      It’s not a perfect analogy, but I think of it similarly to how I think of private vs public school. Would it be a net positive for my individual kid to have him go to a well funded, private school who got to pick the best teachers and the brightest students? Probably yes. Is it good for a society overall if all of the parents who can afford to do so pull their kids out of school to interact only with similarly situated peers? Probably not. I think it leads to further stratification into the haves / have nots, and I see work from home in kind of the same way.

      We’ve got to learn to live with each other, including those who are outside of our preferred little communities. And work from home makes it awfully easy and comfortable to only see and be with those very similar to yourself.

      1. That’s really a suburb problem. Plenty of jobs don’t expose you to a wider range of people.

        1. +1 my community (including neighbors, kids’ schools, local business, etc) is a lot more diverse than my office is.

      2. This is how I feel about it, and I also second the comment above about always-in-person helping professionals becoming marginalized. And these jobs are the ones that still bring the most diverse groups of people together in community spaces, where everyone has to work toward a common goal, such as public schools and hospitals.

      3. Did you interact with a lot of poor people before work from home? In a meaningful way?

      4. I see way more people that aren’t like me now that I can be out and about in my neighborhood and city during the day, vs. driving from my bougie neighborhood to my gated office park and back every weekday, and not getting out much beyond that because we were too busy or tired to do it.

        1. All these people talk about being out and about in their neighborhoods because of wfh. This is where I’m confused. When I wfh I don’t leave my apartment during the day because I’m working?

          1. I take an ~1 hour walk every day (not necessarily at lunch time, but I consider it my lunch hour).

          2. You should change that. I walk my dogs at lunchtime and get to go talk to my neighbors, and will sometimes do a quick errand, like run to Walgreens or the post office. And then because I no longer have a commute I do things after I sign off of work like run errands, go out to eat, go to the gym, etc. It’s not always “during the day” meaning 9-5 but I am out much more on weekdays, because I no longer have the in-office commitment. We used to do all our errands, etc. on the weekends.

    7. Totally agreed 100%. Not having to commute now gives me the ability to both get enough sleep AND work out everyday (and I’ve discovered that I love it!). My company has a large presence in my city (but no official workspace) and we regularly get together for lunch/volunteer events/happy hour. I’ve been able to clean up my diet since I’m no longer tempted with unhealthy things in the cafeteria. At this point, I never want a non-WFH job again.

      IMO my company has done this the right way – folks who are still local can come into the office as much or as little as they want; no mandate. They have made the office spaces (which the company owns outright) very inviting, and also invested in hybrid rooms with better cameras/speakers. At the same time, they’ve allowed new hires to be remote or move if they choose, and tenured folks were allowed to go remote, and are approved to travel to HQ quarterly. I love that I’m able to stay with my company and still have a flourishing career (been promoted since I went remote) but also be where I need to be geographically for my family.

      1. That sounds awesome. I think companies like yours are going to be best poised to recruit talent.

    8. In my own situation, I work WFH one day a week, but the thing that makes it hard is that I don’t have a great space for it. If I had a study/home office/etc., I’d probably do it more often but I can only stand my dining room table and/or bedroom for so long. My friends who WFH full-time mostly have a dedicated space for it (either a back house or an actual room as an office).

      1. I’m 29 and live in a large city with roommates. When the pandemic hit I lived in a 4 person house; our open-concept common space was large but our bedrooms were TINY. This didn’t matter because at the time bedrooms were only for sleeping.

        The the pandemic hit. We all had to find a way to cram desks into our rooms. We couldn’t work in the living room because it was distracting and loud with us all on calls. I ended up spending 16-20 hours a day in a small bedroom; I could touch my desk from my bed. Not only was this unhealthy for me, but also I was chastised for having my (made, well kept and appropriate) bed visible behind me on video calls by an older supervisor who lived in the suburbs and had space (and made 3x what I did).

        I moved to the city to be walking distance from work, near friends, and near things to do.

        I do now laugh when that same older supervisor complains about coming in because she doesn’t like to commute and “since everyone has a home office, I’m not sure why we have to come I “. She somehow still hasn’t learned that no, we don’t all have home offices!

        1. When my kids were doing Zoom school, several of their teachers were actually broadcasting from the school building because it was more space/easier for them to be at the school than at home with roommates and other family members.

    9. I agree with you. WFH has given me way more time to get involved in my kids’ schools and activities, spend time with my aging parents, volunteer with people outside my family, contribute time to political causes I care about and spend money at local businesses. It’s good for me, but I also think it’s better for my community.

      I also don’t really understand this idea that WFH is ruining society. Very few people are fully WFH at this point (I’d say less than 1 in 20), so even if WFH is detrimental to society surely it can’t be having that much impact?

      1. I think it can have an outsized impact when the greatest concentration of WFH flexibility is among highly-educated and high-earning people. It means this specific group gets less exposure to everyone else, and vice versa.

        1. Yeah as the sole white collar person in my family, I feel like most white collar being wfh or hybrid while most blue or pink collar jobs must be in person is only widening the gap and it makes me uncomfortable.

          Not only does this give the white collar workers yet another “perk” that blue collar workers don’t have, but it means there’s so much less interaction between different groups.

          I feel like wfh is the new ivory tower.

          1. This is what I was getting at. I am not claiming to understand everyone’s individual situation, I am talking on the whole.

          2. Yes. I also wonder about college students who are going into careers that might be fully WFH. How will that shape the course of their lives?

        2. I agree with you that WFH is concentrated among highly educated and/or high-earning people, but even among this group I think being fully remote is quite rare. It seems like almost everyone I know is in the office at least a couple days per week, and I’m not convinced there’s much meaningful difference between 1-2 days in the office and 5 days in the office (other than greater flexibility and convenience for the employee).

        3. I don’t agree with this. If people are out and about in their local communities much more because they have more time in their schedules and more flexibility, then it’s a net gain for those interactions. Lots of people here are reporting exactly that.

        4. If this specific group is spending more time out of the office and interacting with the wider world, isn’t that more exposure to everyone else?

        5. Have you listened to the conversations about trailing spouses? A lot of us live, not by our own choice, in small areas with limited job opportunities. I’m thankful that WFH gives me more career options (which I shouldn’t have to sacrifice to make you or anyone else feel better about “society”), and I’m also thankful that I get to interact with people in Chicago and Denver (our two main locations), not just rural Bible Belt.

          1. +1 and also the flipside of that is that my husband and I are in a bubble at our university jobs. There’s ethnic diversity at the university, but not much socio-economic or political diversity. Interacting with the local community and meeting “townies” is how we get to know people who are different than us, and WFH has made that much more doable.

        6. Not sure how sitting in an office with other highly educated and high earning people is getting me more exposure to everyone else. I see no one on my commute, my building doesn’t have a doorman or an elevator guy or baristas or any of these other social ties I’m supposedly losing if I’m at home instead.

          1. I never said that a specific person needs to go into the office. I only said that there’s an aggregate effect of professional WFH.

          2. Some of these comments seem to be from people living in huge cities where a lot of people live and work in a small geographic area (like NYC or Chicago). And it seems impossible for those folks to conceive that not everyone lives like they do.

        7. Highly educated, high earning people are so often isolated by neighborhood (including the neighborhood their office is in) anyway. Even in places that didn’t used to be that expensive, the service workers are commuting in from far outside of town because they can’t afford to live near the people they serve. This seems like a much bigger issue to me than whether people are at home or in the office.

          1. Agreed, and this comment speaks to 12:58 above too–since “local communities” are still usually pretty homogenous. Our society overall is highly segregated by SES, and working from home is one component of that that has risen since Covid.

          2. I grew up in a small town that’s in the close-in suburbs of a major city. I find that this diversity is much more common in close-in, older suburbs than further out ones.

            My town has million dollar 6 bedroom stately Victorian homes and 200k 2 bed/1 bath row homes. A very unexpected crime happened recently and the local news tried to paint it as something racial and we were able to clap back and explain how racially diverse our neighborhood is too. Our town is walkable, has a train (20 min ride) into the city, and pretty good public schools so that community feeling is there but it’s also an easy commute into the city.

            Homes are old so can be awkwardly laid out which leads to people hanging out outside and really knowing their neighbors. We have small yards so houses are close by. Most houses have front porches which are used extensively.

            I know the vibe of the town is old fashioned, but it works. A close knit community that’s a reasonable commute from most jobs. Best of both worlds.

            If these walkable and transit friendly communities were more common I do think it’d help with a lot of issues mentioned here. The only people I know with a 45+ minute commute chose to live further out in a very large house (3k sq Ft or larger) and / or with a lot of land. That’s fine if they want that, but that definitely changes how they live their lives.

    10. I just have to say, I love that “I’m not cold all the time” was on this list. That made me chuckle in solidarity.

    11. This is clearly a debate that is never going to be solved. The people who enjoy having a friendly* relationship with the barista will never see eye to eye with those who think that members of the first group either need to be the main character, have a pathological need to be liked, or don’t understand the difference between a friend vs an acquaintance.

      *I am a member of this group and I don’t mistake these people for my friends. I have plenty of real friends. But it does brighten up my day a bit when I can share a quick 90 second conversation with the security guy / cleaner / barista / random guy in the elevator who I recognize. It really builds community to have these relationships, regardless of if it’s in the office or at home.

      ** when I worked as a barista and a cashier and in a deli I loved having these interactions too. I wasn’t friendly because I felt I had to be or I’d have repercussions. It was because I enjoyed it and it’s generally a nice thing to do.

      1. I’m an introvert and will admit I don’t much care about being friendly to strangers (polite, yes; friendly, no) but I also don’t understand what this has to do with the WFH debate. WFH people get coffee too?

        1. And also assume that everyone who works in an office has these kinds of interactions that they’re losing if they move to work from home

          1. Exactly! I’m so baffled by the comments that assume people who WFH don’t continue having these types of interactions. They’re just with different baristas, etc.

          1. I tend to agree with the person upthread who said the barista does not want to make chit chat with you and is only doing so because being friendly is basically part of their job description. I’m not sure that imposing on a service worker adds value to society but I guess YMMV.

            I also agree with the person above that these interactions aren’t a given even if you go to an office daily. I commuted solo by car pre-pandemic and rarely interacted with anyone outside my immediate co-worker group and immediate family. A lot of these posts seems to be very big city-centric where everyone takes public transit and/or walks to their job, but most people live in suburbia and rural areas and drive everywhere and carpooling is pretty rare, so plenty of people spend their commute entirely alone.

            I do think that something is lost in terms of work relationships when you don’t have casual interactions with co-workers, but I’m not someone who feels like I need to have a tight bond with my co-workers. I want to show up, do a decent job, get paid and go home, and I think a lot of people feel similarly. If someone likes being close to their co-workers they should feel free to go into the office, but I don’t think it should be obligatory for everyone just because a minority of people really want to be tight with their co-workers.

    12. Three hours of commuting is bananas. No wonder you didn’t have time!

      I don’t like WFH bc we do not have sufficient space (and we are not moving). I hated working in my bedroom. So I go in more than required and swap wfh days with my partner.

      1. +1

        I clearly live a very different life than many people here because my longest commute I’ve ever had was 30 minutes. I’ve lived and worked in both the city and the suburbs. I have commuted on foot, on bike, by subway, by commuter rail and by car. I’ve lived In HCOL (DC) and MCOL cities. I know 2 people with 45 minute commutes but everyone else is 30 minutes or less.

        I cannot imagine a situation in which I’d abide a 2+ hour commute.

        If you have a 3 hour commute, then you made a choice to make that happen. You also probably live far enough out where you have space for a desk in your house. I’ve chosen to live in smaller / older houses with livable commutes but wfh was awful because I didn’t have space for a designated workspace

        1. OP here and it’s Bay Area – couldn’t afford to live in San Francisco. We rent in a distant suburb (2 bedroom run-down apt, so not choosing luxury by any means). That’s life here.

        2. I had a 15 minute commute pre-pandemic but I still love WFH. Even 30 minutes a day makes a difference to my life.

    13. Another point that is often lost in these debates is that even if there is a true downside to our working productivity when we’re at home (which I dispute, but for the sake of argument), many of us are willing to take that hit for the benefits. 10% less productive? Don’t care, not when it makes me 500% happier. I miss out on some nebulous benefit of chatting with Joe in the hallway? Cool. We’ll both survive it. Those downsides, if they exist at all, just aren’t significant to me.

    14. I think it’s super interesting that Salesforce is donating to charity when workers come into the office. Sadly, I doubt it will do much to get people in the office though

    15. Ok, good for you. You should find jobs that are 100% remote. The reality is, employers hold most of the cards here. With the exception of a few super stars, people are relatively fungible. We hate to think that of ourselves, but it’s true. If employers want people onsite, they can do so by mandates or persuasion. The economy goes up and down, and when jobs are relatively scarce, employers will have more power to require people to come to the office, travel, or whatever. I don’t think our “happiness” really matters to companies, if you’re unhappy and quit, they’ll miss you for a nanosecond and move on.

    16. I realise the unpopular secrets thead was yesterday, but here is mine:

      I think in-person jobs are more valuable to society. I think the people who work at hospitals, grocery stores, railway stations, schools, theatres, dentristy’s offices, garbage disposal, police stations, fire stations, road construction, building sites, care homes, kindergartens, schools, piano lessons, border control, forest service, animal shelter, prisons, warehouses, libraries, transport and logistics, and on and on.

      I think these jobs are more valuable to society than a generic office job that can be done WFH.

      I support anybody who has a job that’s suitable and who prefers and can work from home, but I think those other people’s jobs are more useful to society, overall. Of course there are essential jobs that can be done WFH, but that’s different from generic office job workers. My job, even though it is considered essential, will be far less useful to society over time than having dentistry and police.

      I think that if you do have a generic-ish office job and want to WFT, go you. If your health will improve and you will occupy less tax money, great. If you think that you do better on your own, I guess, fine, but I don’t believe you on a societal level, since those other peope are more important to keep society functional.

      1. I don’t think this is an opinion, I think this is a fact! But, I have a government job that has to be done in person because I work directly with the community so.

        My friends are relatives are healthcare workers, teachers, firefighters, mailmen, waitresses, and environmental scientists. This whole discussion is weird to me because most people I know are essential workers who never have WFH’d.

      2. I mean, I hope you realize that what you’re saying isn’t an original idea or all that controversial? After I read the book Bullsh*t Jobs, I came to realize that about 50% of jobs in modern life are, as the title says, bullsh*t – they don’t produce anything of value, and they really just exist, per the author’s thesis, to keep people busy so they don’t overthrow the current government or become agitated enough to advocate for more regulated capitalism. Many jobs are indirectly funded by some level of the government (think: defense contracting; government contracts for state and local services) because it’s more palatable, in our American society, to do that than offer something like Universal Basic Income, where the government gives people money directly. If you haven’t read the book, read it – it’s enlightening and I think you’d enjoy it.

        Nothing you’re saying is incorrect, but it also kind of doesn’t matter, because unless we do something about unfettered capitalism and our “hands off the military budget” attitude toward government spending, the current system – where I get paid a ridiculous amount of money to do something that’s honestly not that important to society, and my cousin the middle-school teacher gets paid a fraction of what I do – is going to keep on truckin’.

        I mean – surely you’ve seen the memes on Instagram and elsewhere about “I want one of those jobs where you send a couple of emails and go to a meeting and take a two-hour lunch and have a badge that says you’re Deputy Vice President of Content Marketing and make $110k a year”? I have one of those jobs, and I would hazard a guess that a lot of people here do too. It’s a Bullsh*t Job, and I make no bones about it. My husband is also in a Bullsh*t Job, as is my best friend, as is my other best friend. And we all own it. But until we make a decision as a society that being a teacher is a more important job and that teachers deserve more compensation than those of us who move numbers around on spreadsheets all day, or sell big companies events and conferences at hotels, or make PowerPoint slides for presentations to the Department of Defense – this is the “society” we’ve got, hon.

        And btw, for anyone who was wondering? – it’s money that makes society what it is. Not micro-interactions between people at Starbucks.

        1. I agree with this, although just having a job that has to be done in person doesn’t make it a non-BS job. A lot of my family members are university professors and I don’t think it’s really a very essential job. Definitely way less essential and important than K-12 teaching, IMO. And tenure is a racket. (But I don’t think that opinion is terribly unpopular outside of academia.)

  14. Saw a woman in Starbucks this morning who looked AMAZING. She was wearing olive BR barrel pants, a striped tank (the kind that is like a crew neck tee without sleeves, not the kind with narrow straps) and Toms style shoes. She was probably about my age (45) and looked pulled together and current. I was literally googling searching for her trousers while we waited for our coffees.

  15. In the same vein as the MBA discussion above, I have a question of similar topic. Would it be weird to combine an MBA with a MS in Criminal Justice? I know MBAs are often combined with other things, but I’ve never heard of this combination before. Background – I work in banking in financial crime. My undergrad is in criminal justice. My hope is to teach financial crime courses one day (starting out in community college). So my focus with the MS would be financial crime. However, the MBA courses interest me too and there’s a banking concentration that I think would look great on my resume. Is it weird to go for both?

    1. If you have the time and money to do both, go for it.

      I’m 3/4 done my MS in Criminal Justice and I don’t know anyone who is doing both but if you can, why not?

      1. Here’s my why not on joint degrees: it says you have one foot in another world. For JD/MBA, the finance people think you want to practice law and the law people think you really want to be a client vs a lawyer, so neither wants you b/c it seems that you don’t want them as a first choice.

        MBA to me means one thing.
        MS in criminal justice to me means something very different entirely.

        Ask your school, sincerely, who would hire you? And would the other degree look hinky to them? And talk to recent grads in each who is working before you spend any $ on this path.

        1. That has not been my experience at all. I’m in a position like OP and when I tell people what my masters is in their reaction is “oh that makes sense” and “clearly you wanted to do this”.

        2. I’m the Anon currently getting a MS in CJ.

          I work in corporate security at a F50 company. About half my colleagues have subject matter Masters and half have MBAs. In order to progress here, you need to show you have a thorough understanding of both security and the business. Being an excellent intelligence analyst with poor business acumen isn’t going to cut it. I’d imagine with the OP working in a bank it’d be similar.

          Before I went corporate, I was a civilian analyst in law enforcement. Many police commanders had MBAs, as did their civilian counterparts in city government. At a certain level, regardless of industry or sector, everyone needs those skills.

        3. I have a JD/MPP. It makes me employable at the PhD level at the intersection of the two degrees, although I would have been better off with a PhD in a related field. When I was interviewing for my first job out of school the JD was definitely a liability for the MPP jobs–interviewers seemed suspicious that it was a backup job just in case a biglaw offer fell through, or that I’d jump ship for law practice, especially because I was at the top of my law school class. I did not do OCI for law firm jobs but a couple of my classmates with joint degrees found those just fine.

          1. I have an MPP and one of my true regrets in life is that I didn’t do the joint JD program with it. It would have opened more doors for me.

    3. I would look at the degrees of people who have the career you want and go from there. Do CC tend to have courses on financial crimes?

    5. Why criminal justice and not criminology? One is nuts and bolts for cops and probation officers and the other is policy and involves abstract thought.

      1. This. A master’s in criminal justice is not an academic degree. It’s a professional certification for probation officers and the like. Criminology is a research degree.

        If you want to teach financial crime, why the MBA? Why not a JD?

      2. I’m the anon currently working on a masters in CJ. In my experience, criminology masters programs were solely stepping stones to a PhD and academia. I had the choice between my program or a criminology program and at the other program every graduate moved on to a PhD program.

        I have a handful of LEOs in my program (all of whom are high ranking and involved in departmental policy)but many more people work in industry or government. Mandatory classes at my school include 2 theory classes and 2 research methods classes, ethics, law and professional writing. The program is housed within the sociology department.

        I think a lot of undergrad CJ programs are nuts and bolts (though I don’t know, I studied international relations as an undergrad), but I haven’t seen that transfer over to the masters level.

        1. That’s good to hear. I am just underwhelmed with the defense investigators with undergraduate degrees in CJ. In my experience, more intellectual or rigorous courses mean the person will get the information I need.

    6. Hot take: terrible idea.

      If you want to get into “financial crimes,” I assume you’re meaning white collar crimes. Are you looking to be a forensic accountant? An attorney who works with the DOJ or in white collar CD?

      I’m completely unclear as to what MBA + MCJ would do for you, as in, what exact career it would help you in. “It looks cool” isn’t how hiring is done, except maybe straight out of college or something.

  16. Starting to date someone and he is very overweight. He is working on it but it will be a long road. Because of it, he has numerous medical problems that the doctor thinks will resolve with weight loss. One of them is ED which may or may not resolve, it’s unknown. I’ve never dated someone with ED and want to be sensitive to him. What should I know abut dating someone with ED (also if you have thoughts on anything I should know about dating someone with significant obesity, that’s helpful too).

    Thanks!

    1. Are you actually attracted to this guy? What happens if he doesn’t lose the weight? Because especially if he’s over 35, unless he’s willing to use Ozempic/Mounjaro or get bariatric surgery, it’s unlikely to happen.

      Also: I admire the optimistic and hopeful spirit people show in posting these kinds of questions, but sometimes it is just not possible to receive specific coaching and advice from strangers for dealing with a very personal and emotionally fraught situation with another human being. Your best bet to learn about how to deal with the ED issue is to talk to him about what he wants, needs and thinks about it. We can’t possibly tell you what’s in his head; only he can do that.

    2. The ED gives you a terrific opportunity to think about what you want and need from a sexual relationship. In so many straight cis relationships, PIV is basically the whole menu, with a few other options thrown in as foreplay. If that’s off the table completely, then you’ll need to be creative and open, and both talk about your needs. If he can achieve an erection with pharmaceutical help, the most important thing to prepare yourself for is that it will reduce spontaneity.

      In both cases, it means that you are navigating your physical connection with him in a deliberate way, which is great, even if it feels awkward. Men often develop ED while already in long-term relationships, so it’s a change that is hard to navigate for both parties. If you’re dealing with it from the start of the relationship, you can develop really healthy communication and connection around sexuality from the beginning.

    3. I don’t think you should be in a relationship assuming he will make a drastic change, whether weight loss, or anything. I think it’s important to meet your partner where they are now and be happy with that. No one knows what the future holds so I wouldn’t date someone assuming they’ll change or improve. That seems like a recipe for failure.

      As for the gardening issue….My husband is fit and active, but he also deals with ED. He has a prescription and uses a rubber ring, which work about 85% of the time. He still gets embarrassed the other 15% of the time, but it has been a great opportunity to explore other ways to garden besides PIV like toys and massage with different oils. I honestly do not have a problem during that 15% of the time, because it happens. We are all humans with bodies that do weird things. It used to bother him a lot more when we were dating, but I kept assuring him it was ok.

  17. Dumb question – I just upgrade my Microsoft Office at home and lost all of my pinned documents. I cannot for the life of me find one now. Is there a way to search the text of internal documents in the Windows file system? If I made PDFs from one of the Excel docs is there a way to find out what the source was called? Dumb, I know.

    1. I can’t tell you how, because I use a mac, but when you google “how to search in windows” you will find detailed instructions (I just tried it).

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