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And some of our latest threadjacks here at Corporette (reader questions and commentary) — see more here!
Some of our latest threadjacks include:
- What to say to friends and family who threaten to not vote?
- What boots do you expect to wear this fall and winter?
- What beauty treatments do you do on a regular basis to look polished?
- Can I skip the annual family event my workplace holds, even if I'm a manager?
- What small steps can I take today to get myself a little more “together” and not feel so frazzled all of the time?
- The oldest daughter is America's social safety net — change my mind…
- What have you lost your taste for as you've aged?
- Tell me about your favorite adventure travels…
Anon
How do you deal with a boss who constantly puts down your ideas and suggestions at meetings, but a second later suggests the same ideas as her own? She does this in a really skillful way so that it’s not glaringly obvious. For example, if I say, “perhaps we can try having X give a presentation on topic Y?” She will snap at me in front of everyone and look exasperated, “X is pronounced __. Also, audience already knows Y.” But then she will say to everyone, “I think that X should emphasize the importance of Y.” So basically, she will nitpick and then construe whatever I say in a way to make it sound wrong somehow, and then propose whatever I just said in a slightly different way.
I’ve decided to avoid working with her as much as possible, but for now I’m stuck with her on a project. She seems to especially enjoy putting me down in front of the client and seems angry whenever I suggest an idea the client likes. The irony is that she has a decoration in her office that says “women supporting women.” She does have a bad reputation internally and no one likes working for her.
I think it’s important that I not let her shut me down, so i will keep proposing ideas to the team and the client. But sometimes it gets so humiliating that I just zone out. Maybe my life would be easier if I just nod and be a yes man, and repeat her ideas back to her? It does seem like an important skillset to have, the ability to put others down and take credit for their ideas. Maybe that’s why she’s so successful and able to be a rainmaker? But I just can’t bring myself to mimic her.
Anon
You keep your head down, find joy outside of work, strategically look for other opportunities so you can LEAVE.
I cannot believe how many stories I hear like this. Toxic people turn a perfectly nice office into a living he11 for their coworkers. You do not have to be like her to be successful. Trust me. There is a better way.
Anonymous
This
Anonymous
I had a male senior co-worker like this. The only thing that fixed it was his leaving the organization.
BeenThatGuy
I’m so sorry your boss is like this. My male boss does this from time to time. I often say “glad we are on the same page”. If I can’t say it in the moment, I’ll tell him privately “thanks for bringing my idea to light”. Obviously, delivery is key here if you are going to speak up. There can’t be any snark in your tone or facial expressions that give away how you really feel.
Women who claim to support other women, then don’t, have a special place in h e l l.
Anon
Sometimes I say, “yes, that’s what I meant.” But her response is usually to snicker. So I don’t think is works on her.
AZCPA
Its not really supposed to work on her, but brings awareness for non-toxic people in the room. I’d also say something slightly stronger – “that’s what I meant” indicates she said it better or somehow had to translate your suggestion.
AIMS
So this is a know your boss situation, but I’ve had success with a private talk where I went to my boss and basically said that the way that boss talked to me in a meeting with people outside the team was not appropriate (give very specific examples) and didn’t make us look good as a team and if boss wanted me to participate in future meetings he needed to change his tone because I did not intend to argue with him in front of other people and so my solution would be to just say nothing. I told him I didn’t need an apology, that I have no problem with being direct and having an unfiltered back and forth with him in private but it wasn’t something I would engage in with other people present. I think he really appreciated it and things did improve (not perfect, but vastly improved). I think this largely worked because he really just was oblivious to how he came across and no one ever called him out on it before. I don’t know if it’s a workable solution for every situation.
AIMS
Re-reading your question and I’m not sure if this will work if what she says is capable of being interpreted as not inappropriate. In my situation it was in some ways easier because comments were not susceptible to a positive spin.
Anonymous
Been there. Any chance your reporting relationship is likely to change? (Is this only for the project? Can you try to get in elsewhere at the company?) if not, start looking elsewhere since this will always hold you back and take up too much mental space. In the meantime, try to put ideas in emails with others on, continue presenting in meetings that others see. Try to maintain presence when you talk—focus on talking slowly, sit in a way that takes up space confidently. Do not badmouth her or her behaviors no matter how tempting since she does hold higher rank and it can look petty. No good leader does this and you should not pick up the habit, not just because it’s awful on a human level but it’s not effective. You wind up with a team too focused on credit and egos and squirreling away knowledge that is distracted from real issues. You said yourself—no one wants to work for her. Sorry you are going through this but know better is out there.
Anon
Yes, I plan to keep myself busy with other groups so I won’t have to work with her again. I do find that when I speak up in a confident and firm manner, she finds it harder to knock on me.
anon
Leave, get out from under her, whatever. I have had one boss like that who made my life miserable. Had another who did it behind my back–also terrible. There is no reforming her behavior. I’m so sorry. It really sucks.
Elbe
“Wow – short laugh – at first it sounded like you didn’t like this idea but now I see that you agree with me!”
private sector hiring help
Interview tomorrow with a private company I’m really interested in — I’ve had two phone interviews already and this is my in-person. I’ll be meeting with the hiring manager and the head of the division.
I spent my last 5 years in government first as a contractor then as a fed so this is a change of pace for me. Anything I need to be aware of/tips for the interview process? The work I’ll be doing will be largely the same (though a promotion) and I’m not a lawyer/this isn’t for a legal job but it is for another public-facing function.
Why do you want to work here?
As you mention public-facing, I’d say you should have a ready answer to “Why here, particularly?” As the interviewer I’d want to see that you’ve studied up on the company and can talk a bit, with enthusiasm, on some aspect that makes it stand out among its competitors.
Good luck! Rooting for you!
anonchicago
Ideas for a last minute Labor Day getaway from Chicago? We didn’t book anything because I have a big deadline at work and may need to work that weekend, but it looks like that deadline may shift in which case I want to get away for the weekend. Won’t know for sure until the week before.
Don’t want to spend too much because we have a big intl vacay in a few months. I bought a National Park pass this year so we’d like to do some hiking if possible. We go to Indiana Dunes a few times a year anyway and have been to the MI beaches but may consider that again. Ideas?
Anon
This isn’t a national park, but Indianapolis is a great city escape that’s ~3 hours from you (I live between Indy and Chicago and find Indy almost as much fun to visit as Chicago, and much more affordable).
LifeScienceMBA
I live in between Indy and Chicago, too! Hi fellow cornfield-person!
Anon
Hi! Are you a fellow Boilermaker or somewhere else in the cornfields between Indy and Chicago? :)
LifeScienceMBA
Boilermaker! Let’s connect? My burner email: lifesciencemba2019 at the mail of G.
Anon
Yes, lets! I will email you tonight. :)
Anon
Montreal or Banff! All are a reasonable flight away for a 3-day weekend. There are hikes outside Montreal.
Come to Toronto
I would recommend Toronto! So much to do and very accessible from Chicago. You’re not going to be able to use your US National Park pass. However, the exchange rate American to Canadian dollar is in your favour.
Berta
I would definitely NOT recommend Banff for just 3 days from Chicago. It’s a 3.5hr flight to Calgary, plus an additional 1.5hr drive time to Banff. Not worth the travel time for a total of three days. Toronto or Montreal would be do-able… factor in the customs line-up on a long weekend, though!
Anon
Yeah Banff is beautiful but not that accessible from Chicago for such a short timeframe.
LifeScienceMBA
Turkey Run State Park In Indiana. We’ve stayed in Cabins & Candlelight B&B by Thorntown, IN, which was very relaxing.
Indy can be fun for a weekend, too: If you’re outdoorsy, go to Eagle Creek State Park, hike/bike on the Monon Trail, or along the White River closer to downtown. There are many museums (I like Eiteljorg museum of Native American Art, and there’s a sports-related museum, too.)
Carmel and Fishers are Indy suburbs with nice little downtown areas and many food options.
For Lake Michigan activities, we like La Porte, Indiana as a “base camp” – the town has a few cute hotels and lakes to rent a boat/kayak. There is a bison farm in Hobart, IN, that’s fun to visit, as well as the Heston train museum – both a 20 min drive from La Porte. St. Joseph is also a nice destination, as is anything up north (Holland, Whitehall, Muskegon).
Alternatively, you could go to Louisville, KY, and do some whiskey-related stuff. Also, Cincinnati?
Original Moonstone
Those cabins look really nice. Thanks for the recommendation.
Anon
Louisville has amazing food! I read an article that said it’s the new Charleston. I would not go that far but we found a lot of good food.
Daisy
Harper’s Ferry in West Virginia is absolutely beautiful, and it’s a hiker’s town because it’s the hub of the AT. You could fly into DC and drive out there in under 90 minutes (less than an hour if you fly into Dulles).
Law mama
Madison and Spring Green, Wisconsin! Madison has great restaurants, amazing weekend farmers market, and you can go on a nice bike ride around town. Spring Green has Taliesin (Frank Lloyd Wright house), good supper clubs, House on the Rock, and American Players Theater.
Anon123
We also live in Chicago and just spent last weekend in Milwaukee. Stayed at the Kinn Guest House, which was fantastic. Great museums, had nice dinners that were walking distance from the inn, and enjoyed the beautiful lakefront. Great for kids, and so,so easy from Chicago.
Anon
After the folx conversation yesterday I got to thinking and realized I don’t say Latinx out loud, because I wasn’t quite sure how to pronounce it and didn’t want to embarrass myself. I googled it (and now can confidently pronounce when needed :) ) and came across this McSweeney’s article which gave me a smile.
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/once-i-figure-out-how-latinx-is-pronounced-im-going-to-be-so-offended-when-white-people-dont-use-it
Anon
Are you looking for head pats now or just when you use the word in a room full of unenlightened white people?
LaurenB
Hey anon at 9:23 am? Lighten up. It was funny.
Panda Bear
Oh, ignore the condescension! I wasn’t sure how to pronounce it when I first encountered it as well, and the McSweeny’s article made me laugh, so thanks for sharing.
Anonymous
Does it sort-of sound like “Windex”?
The first time I saw Latino/a my mind read it as “Latinola” and now I can’t shake it when I see that.
[But Spanish is an inherently gendered language. And I took that after Latin, where Agricola and Nauta are both masculine. But some things in Latin are neuter (so, three categories). How does all of this fit in with language that are gendered? Maybe it should be “Latine” and not “Latinx”? Like a better ending that makes it neutered adjective and not one that is just not-an-o-and-not-an-a? Like whatever it is, it should keep words pronounceable and not make them unpronouncable?]
anon
I think the idea is to create a new linguistic form that is meant to include m+f, but that doesn’t mean it is neuter, it’s just a novel thing. My mother language is also gendered and closely related to latin, and some people likewise use an -x ending, because it doesn’t resemble any existing suffixes in the language.
Anonymous
What do gendered languages do now? I guess La Falda would be feminine, unless you are in Scotland (unless there is a Spanish word for kilt), but it seems so random sometimes what things get what genders (like why does an orange need a gender? did people know that most fruits are basically the ovaries of plants, so female makes sense? But what about El Maiz?).
Anon
Grammatical gender in the sense of an orange having gender has nothing to do with people gender though. It would be ridiculous to try to change the genders (or the genderedness) of common nouns.
anonshmanon
so, gendered nouns for inanimate objects are fine (sometimes weird, but if it’s your language you don’t really think about it too much). This is really a debate around gender equity, because nouns relating to people are also gendered. You know latino/latina, but there is also hardly ever a non-gendered form when you talk about profession (e.g. médico/médica for doctor). Most countries have had gender equality on paper for many decades, but a persistant glass ceiling, so around the time when research got more into subtle concepts like implicit bias, microaggressions, in countries of gendered languages, researchers also started looking at how language is shaping the world around us: always using the male version of the word when talking about doctors, leaders, professors, does that do something to how we perceive doctors, leaders or professors? Of course, it does.
So, now there are different approaches to this. A lot of places have just a disclaimer ‘we will use the male form as default, but we mean to include any gender’. A few places flipped it, saying ‘we will use the female form as default, but we mean to include any gender’. You won’t be surprised when I tell you that resulted in shitstorms. A lot of places will include male and female genders every time in every sentence, which is of course binarynormative and also makes things less readable. Some people use -x suffixes to be inclusive. There is no consensus as far as I can tell.
CarlyC
I mean vestido is dress, and that’s masculine
anon
To save everyone the google, per Wikipedia: /ləˈtiːnɛks, læ-/ or /ləˈtɪŋks, læ-/ lə-TEE-neks, la- or lə-TINKS. Or, since I never learned to read that stuff, either latin-x or la-TEEN-ex, per a handful of random websites :).
Anon
Does anyone else feel that white people often fetishize people of color, especially indigenous people, in these conversations? Per Hermione’s vigorous defense of “folx” yesterday, some believe that the “x” signifies a special welcome to indigenous and other groups who have been excluded in the past (it’s unclear from what without further information). Am I the only one who finds it cringe-worthy to think of a group of executives in a business meeting using “folx” for that purpose when there are very likely no indigenous people present? There’s almost this unhealthy, voyeuristic framing of all indigenous people (or non-binary) as monolithic and then placing them on a pedestal so all their opinions and thoughts can be elevated, even if they have the same foibles, cruel thoughts, and stupid ideas all humans have. I see this all the time in conversations about “listening to ___” and “centering ____” in conversations that have nothing to do with ethnic or sexual identity. I also dislike how many white people fasten on to the idea of “two-spirit” individuals as if the concept is both universal among indigenous groups and noble – a modern-day noble savage. Can’t we just work on being actually inclusive (such as hiring more people of color or sponsoring scholarships for Native Americans) without taking it to this weird, creepy degree? Maybe I’m alone in this but I thought I’d put it out there.
Anon
I don’t think you’re alone. I feel the same way, and there was a Native/LGBT person who commented on the thread and said she thought folx was “baffling and unnecessary” and “there are countless other ways” she wished people would show support for the Native communities.
anonymous
I agree. Using “folx” isn’t going to erase years of oppression and racism. Actions speak louder than words.
Anon
Oh, sure, then so let’s just not even bother.
Anon
It’s not “let’s not even bother,” but “let’s not be creepy and fetishistic instead of doing real things.”
Anon
The problem with things like folx is that to me it’s like thoughts and prayers. It makes the person saying it feel better and like they’ve done something which makes them less likely to take actions that will actually have an impact.
Besides no one has explained why folks is/was exclusionary
LaurenB
Bingo – using folx is exactly like sending thoughts and prayers. Meaningless virtue-signaling babble that accomplishes nothing.
Inspired By Hermione
Women on this board SO CLEARLY come from upper middle class WASP-y culture.
Just because you don’t like it or think it’s useless doesn’t mean it is to people who don’t have the same beliefs and experiences as you.
Just because you don’t believe folks may not be as inclusive as possible doesn’t mean all people agree with you.
Just because your bubble doesn’t include radically different communities who think this phrase means something doesn’t mean they don’t exist or matter.
I’m sick of all the underhanded “word police” “just so hard” “I’m a good person!” BS/justified bigotry you all pat yourself on the back for.
Think I’m pretty GD done with you all. Good luck with your basic conservative white lady lives!
all about eevee
This is not an airport. No need to announce your departure.
LaurenB
You couldn’t be more off base if you tried, Hermione. Not a WASP bone in my body, and a working class upbringing. Though is there something inherently wrong about being an upper class WASP? Seems like you think there is, so all your “folx inclusion” is for show, since you deliberately wish to exclude upper middle class WASPs from discourse.
Anonymous
Wow okay then bye Hermione
Anon
Wow, epic flounce!
Inspired By Hermione
It’s a word that can be used in communities who value that explicit inclusion and think that “folx” signifies it.
I haven’t seen anyone saying it should become universally used. Inclusivity is important but my defense was against that people were saying it’s made up for no reason or unnecessary or silly or useless. For some communities, it feels necessary and meaningful and like it has a purpose. Not all communities, even communities who have been excluded. And not all within those communities find it to be necessary or beneficial. But it’s not useless or silly because some women on the internet don’t like it or don’t agree with its purpose.
My org works with LGBTQ organizations who use it within their work and outreach. Because they’ve decided it says something they want to say or means something they want to express. I don’t use it on a day to day basis. I’m not part of the community that may use it. Most of the people commenting yesterday weren’t, as far as I could tell. And for the one person who commented that was, again, no one was saying they had to use it to define themselves or their community. But for people who choose to use it, it’s real and important and they believe it signifies something they don’t see in “folks.”
I’m out.
Anon
So we’re all just WASP bigots because we don’t agree with your unconvincing take on “folx.” OK, peace out.
Anon
Don’t forget conservative! Even though 95%+ of the women who regularly comment here vote for Dems at every opportunity.
Anon
Yup. I guess my votes, letter writing, phone banking and donations for progressive causes don’t count. Until I start saying folx instead of folks I’m just a basic conservative white lady.
This is why my family located in the Midwest hate the left despite my best efforts to convert them
Anon
Yeah I’m not generally a fan of blaming the far left for Trump, since I believe he, the people who voted for him and the R politicians who fell in line are primarily to blame. But calling dedicated progressive women “bigoted” and “conservative” because they aren’t eager to use an unnecessary, entirely made-up word is definitely part of why we have Trump. This is an example of the extreme PC culture that sparked such a backlash.
LaurenB
Shorter Hermione-“I value inclusion and diversity of opinion, unless you disagree with me!”
I’ve seen “folx” in correspondence with some academic administrators I have occasion to correspond with. I have no need to use it myself – I can use people, or students, or members, or attendees, or even the actual word “folks,” all of which are perfectly inclusive to everybody. Problem solved!
Anon
This, and the bigger issue with Hermione-style advocacy (demonizing people for not using esoteric and/or nonsensical jargon) is that research consistently shows that it backfires. Calling people bigots or stupid conservative white ladies because they use an established word instead of an extremely niche word drives them away from your cause. It’s an entirely rational response too – who would want to associate with someone who clearly has absolutely no respect for your opinion or even your right to your opinion? The same trend happens over and over again on all kinds of issues and there is no question that it drives moderate voters away because they don’t feel at all welcome in progressivism or able to keep up with the ever-changing jargon. Given all the real issues out there, including racism and misogyny and climate change denial and nativism and everything else, is “folx” worth splitting the moderates and the left over?
Anon
I don’t even think it’s a moderate vs. left issue. My colleague is queer and the most progressive person I know (waaay to the left of me, and I a definitely a Democrat) and she didn’t know of “folx.” It’s a very, very small minority of people that believe in this word’s importance, and insisting that everyone who doesn’t use it is bigoted is insane. I mean, feel free to call 99.9% of the world bigots but the word loses all meaning when you do that. There are so many people in this country right now that actually are bigoted that I just hate to see the word diluted like that.
anon
I guess the thing that us normies can’t easily assess is whether a given discussion topic has “nothing to do with ethnic or sexual identity”. If you are the default, a situation may very well appear non-identity-related, but still be experienced differently by somebody else. That is just so difficult to predict.
We all know these hilarious design fails where you say ‘if only they had consulted a woman/a gay person/a Spanish speaker before making this branding decision’ but it clearly wasn’t obvious to decision-makers who were in the room. So it makes sense to me that when every one of us makes decisions, we would also have blind spots (not our fault! Nobody can have every experience! But we can entertain the idea that somebody else might have a different take), and they don’t always result in hilarity.
LaurenB
This construct assumes that someone’s opinion is more valid and / or valuable just because they are (LGBTQ, a person of color, whatever). Really, if I ask a bunch of folks – er, people – what they think of my new package design, who says that the LGBTQ person is going to have some greater insight? Maybe she’ll make a useless comment about not liking that shade of yellow because she’s a person, not a fetishized icon.
Anon
I agree with this, although I of course see and totally agree with the importance of incorporating feedback from SPECIFIC groups for certain business or research initiatives (i.e., black women living in New Orleans for a project assessing discrimination in environmental policy; indigenous students at Harvard for a new student mentorship program for underserved groups, etc). To me, that is very, very different from tokenizing any old black person to get the “black perspective” on a general issue.
anon
What I meant was more that it happens all the time that marketing teams sometimes will make an arbitrary choice (make up a new-to-them word for product name, or design a logo), not being aware that the word or symbol has certain meaning in a cultural context that isn’t theirs. If it has no specific meaning to me (because I thought I just created it) but it actually has meaning in LGBTQ contexts, shouldn’t their point of view matter?
Anon
I always thought it was one of those words you write out as Latinx or Latin@ but always pronounced in the gendered way out loud because it sounds weird when pronounced – like that’s not a native sound in Spanish and I mostly use the word in Spanish. Idk some words I just avoid all together in conversation as not to look stupid.
Anonymous
I don’t really get this one either. Didn’t we already have a non-gendered way to say this in english– Latin American? And if you’re not talking about someone from the US it’s much better to just use their country or region of origin– South American, Central American, Mexican, Dominican, etc. If you travel to Central/South America the people there IME do not think there is some unified “Latinx” culture or identity, so I’m not sure why we’re getting so hung up about it.
AnonInfinity
I can see the utility of Latinx rather than saying “Latin American” all the time. For example, if a person identifies in that way, it can get cumbersome to constantly say, “I am a Latin American person,” rather than just saying, “I’m Latinx.” It’s similar to having the word “transwoman,” rather than having to say, “a woman who was identified as male at birth”.
cbackson
Latin American refers to geography, not ethnic identity.
Anonymous
I recently lateraled to an office that gives out direct phone numbers. Website, business cards – direct numbers are everywhere! The other offices I’ve worked always screened calls; the attorneys chose whether to give them out and usually only did so for key clients or close contacts. Here, we have a receptionist, but even if someone does dial the main number, she transfers it directly to the attorney. We do not have caller ID on our phones, although I can see the number. I do know if it’s an internal caller vs. an external caller (for example, Sam Jones vs. random number), although some internal callers forward calls directly to me and then I pick up the phone expecting Sam Jones and it’s actually Potential Client or Current Client.
This isn’t going away, but I’m having a hard time adjusting. I hate to send all calls to voicemail, but I’m almost to that point. Any suggestions?
Al
Um just answer your phone and interact with whomever is calling? Don’t send everything to voicemail. Are you actually getting so many calls that this is an issue?
Senior Attorney
Yeah, I finally decided it was a lot easier to answer the calls than to deal with the horror that is voicemail.
anon
+1000
Anonymous
Yeah get over yourself and answer your phone like a normal person. What is hard about this?
Anonymous
You’re the equivalent of the people who used to try to post FIRST as the first response to posts in any given discussion thread. Except you apparently try to be first to be a jerk on every.single.post. I have to marvel at the time and mental energy you put into this endeavor. Is your life really that vacant?
Anonymous
I’m so confused by this.
Anon
Are these spam calls from salespeople or do phone calls in general disturb your workday? Because clients call, and at my firm, you need to answer them.
anon
This. I’ve always (I think?) worked at firms where direct numbers are published. I almost always answer if I’m at my desk, though do occasionally turn the ringer down/off and work undisturbed for a while (rarely, and a couple of hours, max, and would generally give my assistant a head’s up).
anon
This is pretty normal. Either send to voice mail and then respond immediately or just answer. What’s the concern? Distractions, not wanting to be caught in a call unprepared? It’s always okay to say “I need to confirm x, can I call you back once I have?” or “I’m about to run to a meeting (lie) but I’ll be free after 3p.”
The original Scarlett
I’ve had this set up for years, I send anything unexpected to voice mail because most actual calls are scheduled or someone IMs to see if I can talk right then. I don’t think that many people (besides my dad) just randomly call anymore so you could probably just take a similar approach. As a client I’d never expect you to just pick up the phone, I’d schedule a call.
Anon
I don’t work in law, but I call people a lot. Mostly because something is just easier to figure out over the phone than email. I don’t expect that every single person I call will be available whenever I want, but I’m sure not scheduling every single phone call.
Anon
I worked at a firm like this. Definitely don’t send everything to voicemail unless you’ve been told you can do that. At my firm, clients expected attorneys to answer the phone most of the time (everyone takes bathroom and lunch breaks, but most people are in their office most of the workday) and if you were never answering the phone, clients might complain.
Daisy
I used to have a huge aversion to the phone due to being forced to talk at length weekly with my non-custodial parent as a kid. A therapist told me something that has always helped me when I get a phone call: *you are in control*. Even if you answer the call, all you have to do is respond to the caller as best you can in the moment. If they start taking up too much of your time, you can politely tell them, “My apologies, I actually have to hop off now, but I’ll circle back with you later,” or “I actually have to get something out by this afternoon, so I’m going to have to call you back.”
If they still won’t stop, you can simply hang up. YOU CAN HANG UP. You may choose not to for whatever reason, but you have that power. You are in control. Just because someone calls you does not mean they control the next half hour of your life. You do, always.
Housecounsel
This is helpful, thank you.
Anon
as best you can in the moment
This is great, thanks. I still have to overcome my aversion to speaking on the phone with people I don’t work closely with.
Daisy
It’s really hard when you don’t have the answer in the moment and feel like you should. It took me a long time to get comfortable saying, “I’ll look into that and get back to you.” And so often, that’s all the person needs–they’re not even expecting you to have the answer immediately.
Anonymous
+1. If I pick up and it’s someone I don’t want to talk to (e.g. sales call), I say “I’m sorry, I was expecting a call at this time and I thought this was it, so I really have to go”.
Sometimes, if I don’t recognize the number, I let it go to voicemail and if they leave a message I listen immediately so I can immediately call the person back if it is someone I want to speak with. I don’t like letting calls go to voicemail, but when I do this the person who called is almost always right there and still has the time to talk. And more often than not the caller does not leave a voicemail so I know it was (most likely) not important.
AFT
I started self-screening and just not picking up calls that I didn’t recognize (and “recognize” being interpreted loosely – if it was a number I recognized as probably from my client’s offices, etc., I’d answer) – and call back if they leave a VM identifying themselves as someone I should talk to. Even if it’s a client calling, no firm should expect you to pick up immediately at all times – you are allowed to be on the other line, go to the bathroom, be in the middle of something, etc. I think you’ll find that generally anyone who doesn’t leave a message is not anyone you need to talk to (and you still will get some messages from folks you have no interested in talking to).
Anon
In the same as an in house counsel. I get an insane amount of sales calls, and they usually insist a follow up telephone call or meeting. (And yes, I can refuse, but sometimes it’s just really hard.) If I picked up the phone for every sales call, I would get nothing done. So, I have somewhat memorized area codes. If they fall into a few categories, it’s likely my clients, so I pick up the phone. Otherwise, it goes to vmx.
But as a client, I do get annoyed if I go to vmx every single time.
Anonymous
This depends on your level of seniority. For my clients or matters that I control, I teach the client to schedule calls with me. So, unexpected external calls go to voicemail, but I will immediately follow up with an email to set up a call that day. “Hi Client, I saw that you just called but I am in a meeting right now. Are you available to chat at 4?” If it is truly urgent then they will say that, or they’ve already called the associate on the case and the associate is calling me. To that end, I almost always pick up internal calls. I also know the court’s number/s; I always pick up those calls, and my assistant knows to pick it up if I haven’t grabbed it by the second ring.
I try to group calls at natural break times – 10 am, 1 pm, and 4 pm. That way I have a good couple of hours to actually get work done during the day. I try to do the same with email, but with less success.
Anon
Omg that would drive me nuts. I always try to schedule calls when I can, but sometimes I just need outside counsel to pick up the phone.
Anonymous
Yeah my clients can call me anytime. I can’t always answer, sometimes I’m on the phone or away from my desk, but I try to pick up!
Daisy
Right, but at those urgent times, wouldn’t you reply to the email saying, “Actually four won’t work, I really need an answer now if I could just get five minutes,” or by putting your issue into the email?
Anon
I’m a GC with a large budget. There are odd times when I really just need to talk to the outside lawyer and quickly. Any time I cold call someone and they pick up, I ask…is this an ok time to talk?
Of course I understand that outside counsel can’t pick up the phone every time. And I always schedule a call in advance when I can. But there are times, when no, I don’t want to write an email. I want to call and have somebody to pick up the phone. It sounds some clients are fine with that, and that’s great. But I wouldn’t use an outside counsel who won’t pick up the phone unless its scheduled in advance. It’s just too much work. And it’s not something I would do to my own clients.
The original Scarlett
I think we’re actually all talking about basically the same thing. Yes, there are times I need to talk right away, but rather than have the phone ring/potentially go to VM, I’ll send a note in the fastest mode of communication I have with the person I want to reach (internally, that’s IM, externally it’s probably email) and ask for their soonest time to discuss X. I realize that my OC isn’t just waiting for me to have an emergency & they’re all responsive to whatever is going on, so it’s just not a problem. I personally think a ringing phone is the least effective way to reach someone b/c you’re likely to just go to voicemail whereas if I send a “hey, urgent, need to talk” note, that conversation is more likely to happen when I need it to.
Anonymous
That’s not remotely the way my industry works
cbackson
I never answer client calls that I’m not expecting unless it’s a client that I 100% know is reasonable/easy to deal with or I know why they’re calling. I find that people either leave a voicemail or send an email, and that enables me to be better-prepared when I speak with them. I frequently work on multiple matters for clients and I may not have a file in front of me or know the answer to their question off the top of my head – and my experience is that my clients who make an unsolicited call are also often my clients who don’t respond well to, “let me check and get back to you.”
It’s also the case that I’m in calls or meetings for at least half the day, and so I need to manage my own time during the remainder of the day, which means answering calls when works with what else I need to accomplish.
OP
Thanks for feedback! I am on a transactional team and am used to mostly screened/scheduled calls, and I’m getting cold calls, sales people, and occasionally, clients…Sometimes 10-15 calls a day, and those interruptions really add up. Most are within the same area code, so it’s been hard for me to screen them, and I do hate the idea of sending everyone to voicemail.
ElisaR
any chance you have a CRM tool that connects to your phone? It’s a long shot, but I used to have this at my old firm so names came up on my screen when people called. I don’t have it now, but I do have the ability to put my top clients into my phone so that their name comes up – it’s nice to know I can jump on that call immediately.
OP
Nope :) wish I did. Prior firm had that, too – I knew if they were calling from their desk, mobile, frequently used conference room… :)
Coach Laura
I never answer external calls unless I recognize the number. We have caller ID with only the number but I memorize lots of numbers (even in the age of cell phones I have all friends/family memorized both cell and home if they still have one) and I memorize client numbers. So I answer numbers I recognize or if I’m expecting a call I memorize the number. All other calls go to voicemail.
Anon
Has anyone used Tried Equestrian or any other consignment websites for breeches/riding clothes? I started riding again this year, but am hoping to save some money on the gear. I’m not really an experienced consignment shopper – anyone know if these sites are any good?
CountC
I haven’t used that one, but have had good success with eBay. If you’re in a horsey area, Craigslist might be worth a scan also.
Gail the Goldfish
Also see if you can find an equestrian Facebook group for your town/area. My area has one and it’s about 90% people selling used stuff. We also have a huge tack consignment sale someone runs at the fairgrounds every spring and fall. I’d ask around at your barn and see if anyone knows of any local options like that.
Midsommar
Anyone seen Midsommar? What did you think of it? I have only found reviews written by men, and it seemed like a movie women would respond too differently.
Speaking of difficult material as we did yesterday, I should probably add that this thread could need trigger warnings as well as spoiler alerts. It is a horror movie, but definitely no pedo.
Anon
I don’t do horror, but a friend who does loved it.
Anon
(Female friend, I should add, since you asked specifically about women)
Vicky Austin
The women on my social media are loving it, apparently.
Lana Del Raygun
I was struck by how little suspense there was! I wouldn’t even call it “scary” exactly, just horrifying and dread-ful, but it worked really well.
My husband and I disagreed about the religiosity of the Harga, though, and I’d be curious to see what others thought. I personally didn’t get a sense that they were invested in these rituals as a genuinely spiritual practice, so much as “these are our customs; ritual provides group cohesion; religion serves certain social purposes.” It reduced the contrast between them and the sociology bros, whereas if there was the really thick vibe of pagan religiosity you get in, say, Mary Renault it would have been starker. I mostly think they believed in their gods, but it didn’t feel like a vibrantly religious society, you know? But I can’t quite put my finger on why, and I’d be very interested to hear other people’s takes. In Renault’s work the pagan gods are real, which doesn’t seem to be the case here, and on some level that makes it more horrifying — you’re actually killing these people just because it makes your society work nicely, without propitiating any gods. Or at least, it makes it this specific kind of staid, nihilistic horror, rather than the uncontrolled scariness of “the old gods are really real.” And that ties back to the dreadful-but-not-scary-ness of the movie, I guess — there’s no chaotic/unpredictable element. It just unfolds.
Worry about yourself
I’m seeing it tonight and pretty psyched!
Anonan
I loved it so much. I am a woman that went to see it with my boyfriend who is a fan of the director. I was unsure of how’d I react or enjoy it, and was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. It is beautifully shot, and so tonally different than most horror films now a days, being all in the daylight instead of night. I found it a very satisfying and semi cathartic experience that left me wanting more. There are no jump scares, the scariness come more from the situation, or realization of what has/will happen. I totally recommend seeing it.
first time homebuyers
DH and I are planning to buy our first house in the next six months to a year. We’re saving as much as we can between now and then, but what else should we be doing? We’re in agreement on our budget, know roughly the locations we’d like to target, and have a recommendation from trusted friends for a real estate agent. At what point do we start actually doing things like getting pre-qualified for a mortgage? Setting up a meeting with the agent?
And of course because I’m Type A, you know this rumbling from the markets is making me nervous. A big chunk of our down payment fund has been sitting in a very conservative bond fund for the last four years–do I dump it in savings now? I’m worried that we’re buying at the top of a bubble–housing prices have gotten crazy in our MCOL market over the last couple of years. This is just such a big investment and I don’t want to screw it up!
Anonymous
Check your FICO score and credit report. If there is anything squirelly on there, fix it now before you get turned down for a loan.
Anemone
This, and tie up any loose ends with any revolving credit you have currently running.
My BF had last-minute trouble with her mortgage because the bank officer didn’t like that she had a “pay nothing for two years” credit card offer on a washer/dryer from Lowes. She had to run to the store and pay it off in cash immediately to stop it from delaying her house purchase.
That shouldn’t have been a problem, IMO, but it was too late to argue, and she said that the headache wasn’t worth it.
Anonymous
This. I impulse bought my house and applied for the loan right after I had transferred a credit card balance from one card to another for a zero interest rate. At the moment they ran my credit, the balance was sitting on both cards, which brought my credit score down enough to make a rate difference. I had to beg them to run it again once the transaction fully cleared (which my awesome loan officer did do).
emeralds
Thanks! I’ll remind my husband to check his credit report. (I know mine’s fine; I checked it last month and then froze it.) No revolving credit or balance transfers in our future.
Abby
I’d get preapproved for a mortgage sooner rather than later. It doesn’t hurt to be ready, and it’s not like the pre approval will go away.
Anon
They expire. A typical pre-approval is only good for 90 days. It doesn’t make sense for her to do this now, if the soonest they’d buy is 6 months from now.
CarlyC
and it will hurt your credit to have them run it now because it will be an inquiry.
Anon
Piggybacking on this, does anyone have any resources to recommend for first-time homebuyers who just don’t know much about the process? Are there any great step-by-step books or websites?
Pompom
Nerdwallet does a pretty good job of this!
Anonymous
Conventional wisdom on down payments is that you should not invest them and should hold them in a high interest savings account or money market. Given your short time horizon, it would be safest to move the money now regardless of market rumblings — though you’d want to take into account the timing of taxes if you have big market gains.
Anonymous
+1. We lost about $4K because we didn’t move money from a conservative investment account soon enough, and the market dipped in October just before we needed the money. It was a dumb financial mistake–we knew we needed to cash out but hadn’t gotten around to it.
emeralds
Thanks for the kick in the pants. I’ll try to do this today.
Anon
+1 For our mortgage application, we had to prove the source of all assets that would pay for the purchase, and we had to provide monthly statements for all our accounts for several months prior. Money that had been sitting in our savings account for months was much easier than providing proof for liquidated assets or gifts. If you’re depending on any gifts from family, get those into your bank account sooner than later. We had to get letters from the gift-givers explaining the source of funds, which in our case was a pain because the grandma had died in the interim.
Also, start tracking rates now. In our experience, credit unions were lower than conventional big banks.
T
+1, if moving large sums of money it’s helpful to document the date and why, your lender will likely require this. If anyone is giving you money, get an understanding of gift tax rules (pretty simple) so they can maximize non-taxed gifts.
Anonymous
After your offer is accepted but before your close date do not run out and charge a bunch of new furniture or, change jobs. These two things will most likely cause your mortgage to be denied. I have seen both happen.
Anon
+1 Or get new loans or anything like that
emeralds
Yikes, my husband will be job-searching in this time frame so that’s really good to be aware of. Any thoughts on how to mitigate that issue with a lender?
Anon
I think you mitigate that issue with your husband, not the lender.
busybee
I started a new job the same month we put our offer in. Our loan officer called my new job and confirmed my position and salary. It wasn’t a hassle because I work for a small company and I warned my boss ahead of time to expect a loan officer call. I can see it being more difficult at a larger company though.
Anonymous
I’d start working with your agent now. There’s no reason to hold off on the initial conversation. I also highly recommend getting a recommendation for a really great home inspector or a general contractor and working with that person. You will inevitably walk into a house and think “This would be so great if we could take down this wall/add a third bedroom/repair this damage in the basement,” and those things can range from easy and cheap to unbelievably hard and expensive to impossible because of permitting or structural issues. It’s important to know that when you walk in to a house.
Senior Attorney
Don’t spend every penny on the down payment. You will need cash on hand after closing for expected and unexpected expenses ranging from shower curtains to all new plumbing.
cbackson
My parents still talk about buying their first house and how they couldn’t mow the lawn for a month because they’d spent every penny in their checking account and couldn’t buy a lawn mower until payday.
anon
start going to open houses to get a feel for the housing stock in your desired neighbourhoods- for my suburban area it’s hot between fed-aug bc ppl want to close and settle in before the school year.
know what kinds of house/condo issues are prevalent for the area- leaky roofs, water table issues, etc
interview a few and find a good real estate agent
Daisy
I’d talk to your potential mortgage lender about what types of documents they will need in order to approve the loan. This can include things you can start gathering now, like past tax returns and W-2s, copies of your drivers license, letters explaining any unusual deposits or issues on your credit reports, letters of explanation for any employment gaps, etc. Some items will need to be current at the time of the loan, such as bank statements and current pay stubs, but if there are items from the past that may be time consuming or hard to track down, give yourself a head start on gathering them now.
Anon
I’d start looking at houses online in detail now. I’m in Canada, so I’m sure the sites are different, but being able to do detailed searches of active and sold listings really helped me decide on a budget and location. Nowadays (in Toronto), listing pictures are so good, google maps is so detailed, etc. etc. that you can get a really good feel for houses without physically going.
FWIW, the best sites in my experience are HouseSigma and Zoocasa because they have better search functionality (and show sold prices.)
Anon
Yesterday our offer on a house was rejected in favor of someone who offered the appraisal value (mortgaged) + x amount (cash). Because everyone involved knew the banks would not appraise anywhere near the prices on the table.
I’ve never heard of such a thing, and it sounds relatively high risk. Is it common? Common where values are rapidly rising? Or just a one-off slightly sketchy deal?
Anonymous
It sounds like 2006 all over again. Be glad you lost out.
Anonymous
It feels like it too. UGHHHH.
Anonymous
Yep. This is the kind of nonsense that went on right before the bubble burst in 2007 and then the recession hit in 2008. The beat may change but the song remains the same…we knew a lot of people who ended up going into foreclosure because they had made stupid deals on houses. When the bottom line is, there’s always another house out there. Anyone who thinks that the current state of the economy is going to persist much longer is fooling themselves. Be glad you lost out. Now is definitely not the time for anyone to be overextending themselves financially. The downturn is just around the corner.
Anon
Fwiw, I’m the Anon below who waived appraisal in a hot market in an overall LCOL area. This was in 2013 and our home value has increased significantly since then…definitely not a bubble about to burst when we did it. Some markets are just hot for whatever reason (in our case because school district lines are drawn very tightly and most homes in that district are ‘forever homes’ that never go on sale). I have a lot of friends in the Bay Area and all-cash offers have been standard there since recovery from the ’08 recession, maybe 2010-11 or so. I understand the feeling that the market is at a peak right now and about to crash, but waiving appraisal and offering all cash is nothing new.
Anonymous
Right, if you have the cash. The appraisal is important b/c if you are gambling with someone else’s $ (which people usually are), they want to get repaid. Especially in CA, which is a jingle-mail state.
Anonymous
“all-cash offers have been standard there since recovery from the ’08 recession, maybe 2010-11 or so.”
I’m going to assume from this you are too young to have been working and buying property between 2005 and 2008. Ask older people at work what they remember about that time period – what happened in the lead-up to October 2008 in the Bay Area. We had a friend who lived in Palo Alto in a rented room in a 3 BR house from 2006-2009. Before the crash, every time a house would go up for sale in the neighborhood there would be a feeding frenzy. Post-crash the neighborhood was a ghost town. He said people would very suddenly just disappear – pack up and leave in the middle of the night, because they’d sunk all their cash into their home and then the startup they were working for would close with no warning, leaving their options/equity worthless. Lots of people moved back to Iowa or Idaho or wherever their parents were because they were left flat busted, with no other options. The Bay Area recovered pretty fast, but there were still a number of people who lost everything.
Waiving appraisal and paying all cash may not be new, but particularly at this moment in economic history, it is patently stupid, in my opinion. Many many many people who are very proud of their overpaid tech jobs are about to lose their jobs and have to leave California to find new employment and an affordable place to live. It has happened before, more than once. My state is still full of California refugees who got booted out in the 2008 recession and by the time the economic recovery happened they were “too old” to get hired at the new tech giants (by which I mean they were 35-40). I love that every new generation thinks this kind of thing can never happen to them – my generation felt that way too. Then we lived through 2008-2009. It’s painful in many ways to watch younger people make the same stupid mistakes we all made back then as though no lessons are available from the previous crash.
Anon
Why do you assume I was too young to remember 2005-08? What a bizarre comment. The average age of posters here is 35ish, I think? Fwiw, I graduated from law school (in the Bay Area) in ’08 so I’m painfully aware of the recession. I’m not saying this is something I would do – I’m personally way too risk-averse. I was responding to “This is the kind of nonsense that went on right before the bubble burst in 2007.” My point was this is not new or unique to the year or two immediately proceeding a recession, it is pretty much the only way to buy in the Bay Area except during active recessions.
CarlyC
Unfortunately so. We bought our home last summer and we were in a bidding war for a place we visited before it went on the market (Wednesday) and made the offer Thursday morning (multiple offers) and they accepted the above asking offer by Friday. it wound up being fine because we like our new home much more, but I think we’re in an overvalued situation and if you aren’t going to stay in your home 5 years or more, I’d wait until things start to dip to buy.
Anon
We offered over the appraisal, but we bought entirely in cash so there was no issue with the mortgage. (My house is in a hot market with very limited inventory, so houses sell fast and for over asking, but we’re in a LCOL area overall, definitely not the Bay Area or anything similar.)
Anonymous
It’s common in a competitive market
The original Scarlett
Depends where you are. Where I am, it’s usually just all cash offers so appraisals aren’t a thing.
Anonymous
Holy cow. So basically you can only buy a house if you have rich parents who can lend or give you a million or more in cash, or if you have dual biglaw incomes and no student loans and live like students for several years to save up?
The American dream is increasingly a mirage.
Anon
In the Bay Area, it’s very difficult to buy with a mortgage contingency. I know people who have done it, but they put (above asking) offers on 50 houses before they got one accepted. However, in 99% of the country, you can easily buy with a mortgage, so I think saying “the American dream is increasingly a mirage” is melodramatic.
Anonymous
“The American Dream is a mirage in the Bay Area.” Fixed.
It’s a great area — maybe I will let my college-aged kids spend a summer there (could work out of my company’s SF office, visit West Coast family, and show them how we could live on 3x our current housing payment for <1/3 of the space and probably just one bathroom).
It's good to expose them to more of the world (and that the math of personal finance is no joke). It may make them appreciate the other 99% of the country a bit more (no street pooping, for starters).
The original Scarlett
Well, it’s tech money here not law
Anon
And a LOT of people get loans/gifts from parents. Most people I know who bought houses in the Bay Area before age 35 had $400k+ HHIs and still got money from parents to buy all cash.
Boston Legal Eagle
This might be the case in very HCOL areas like the Bay Area, but even in my HCOL area, we got a regular mortgage with 20% down, and didn’t have to bid over asking. So you definitely don’t need all cash in most areas of the country to buy a house.
DCR
Outside of the bay area, I think this is very uncommon. I know a lot of people who have purchased in DC, and most have done it will less than a 20% down payment.
Anonymous
At least sometimes, a “cash offer” means that there isn’t a mortgage contingency that can sink/delay the deal. The buyer can still be getting outside financing and the property can still be collateral for that financing.
The original Scarlett
This
Anon
Basically, yes! Most people who could afford a down payment on a house in my area (very HCOL) got it from their parents who also covered their entire education. Those who didn’t or did it all on their own, good for you, but you’re in the minority.
Anon
In the Bay Area, cash offers are common, as they tend to follow IPOs.
Anon
It’s a thing. And ultimately, it’s only risky for that buyer, who has decided to shell out more for a property than it will appraise for. (Because a bank will loan for an appraised amount to protect their collateral, so the only reason for doing that is because the house won’t appraise.)
Anonymous
It’s their risk. I’ve offered to do it (if house didn’t appraise) because I really wanted that house.
Anon
I’m in suburban Boston, 10 miles from downtown on transit – very competitive market.
This is a tactic we used when negotiating the 8 offers that came in on our house when selling our house this spring. Offers were so high so we asked they waived what my broker dubbed the “appraisal contingency.” They could still get one as part of the financing process because a lender requires it of course, but they agreed to cover any “overage” between any possible shortfall between the loan and the purchase price. Two of our eight went there (we only asked top three to consider it). These two also waived inspection, so I’ve concluded that some people just have an insane risk tolerance. Good for them, not for me.
Anon
Waiving inspection is very different than waiving appraisal, imo. An inspection could uncover hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage and you could find yourself totally underwater. If you waive appraisal you’re basically agreeing to pay an overage charge for buying in a hot market, but it’s not like the house could turn out to be worthless.
Anon
I’m not saying they’re the same, but each carries a substantial risk/monetary exposure in their own right. You don’t know how low that appraisal is going to be. Appraisals are SUCH a variable. If you are one of the first to close in the spring market, your appraiser’s comps will be stale because the other hot sales hat support your purchase price haven’t traded yet, thereby risking a lower appraisal. The appraiser himself could just suck. For such a formulaic and quantitative thin that the appraisal is supposed to be, it’s incredibly subjective with endless room for error.
In the case of my house, we were selling a raised ranch. 50% of the living space was below grade, but with oversized windows so it wasn’t a dark basement dungeon by any means. Some appraisers will count that in the overall square footage and some won’t. When we bought the house 5 years ago, our appraiser had bad comps and also wouldn’t count the below grade square footage. Still, we argued “appraisal problems!” and got a price reduction right before closing (we could have covered the difference but… negotiation!). When we went to sell we went in eyes wide open to the potential problem so knew to ask to have people waive it when the bidding war got hot. Ultimately, the buyer’s appraiser did count the below grade space so the gap ended up being much smaller, but they “waived appraisal” so we as sellers were covered.
It was a wonky house so that’s why it came up but I will always use that strategy now when selling. One less risk on the table as a seller. I’ll hate it as a buyer, but that’s the market I choose to live in. And, FWIW, I would never in my wildest dreams waive an inspection absent having the opportunity to bring my own inspector in before submitting an offer, which time just doesn’t allow in this market.
BB
Glad to hear this is still happening in Boston as someone who is going to be selling soon (Boston city) :) I’ve been kind of concerned with all the market shakes that it’s going to be hard to sell.
Anonymous
It’s common now in the part of the U.K. where I live and it can be really off putting, you need to be prepared to risk losing the cash. If’s often done through blind bidding so you don’t know if the nearest offer was £1k less or £10k less than what you end up paying.
Anon
Was that really what the offer said, appraisal value + x amount? That seems incredibly risky to me, not because you are paying more than the appraisal (which is risky) but because you don’t even know what you are agreeing to pay. In my market, appraisals just seem like a joke. I’ve never know anyone who didn’t get one that came back at just slightly over what they had offered, and most every one I know has brought in gentrifying areas with rapidly raising prices. What if the appraisal actually came back at the amount that the buyer was discussing and thought would be their total?
SC
I bought in 2012, when admittedly it was harder to get a mortgage than it is today. We didn’t waive the appraisal, but our appraisal came back $6K under the amount we’d offered. We paid the difference.
anon
No, it was on offer with a bid price (not far from ours), but then, since appraisal was likely to come in at 50-75% of that price, the appraisal +x was the most relevant amount.
Anon
Wow, I’ve never heard of a market when the sales are so out of line with the appraisal. Do most houses only appraise for 50-75% of the sales price? Given that so much of the appraisal is based on comps, I just didn’t realize that could happen.
Anon
Comps are lagging indicators – backwards looking. If you are the first ‘hot sale’ of the spring market, which is stronger than last year’s market, your appraisal is likely going to come in low because it’s looking at last year’s sale prices. Under contract homes and asking-prices are obviously not comps as they’re not closed sales. It’s a nuance, but in a hot market can become a big issue.
anon
Yeah, the market I’m in (not a major metro area) is doing crazy things. I think the boom is genuine, not just a bubble, but it’s still absurd how fast prices are rising. Also, it’s extraordinarily difficult to find comps here.
anon
Yes, this just happened to my friend who lives in LA – she lost out on a house because the winning buyer did exactly what you described.
Co-Interviewer
What would you do if you are stuck doing interviews with someone you dislike very much? It’s OCI season and I have been stuck with this guy as co-interviewers. During interviews, he constantly put me down. For instance, when the interviewee asked me hey I saw you have multilingual skills. Do you get to use it often? He went, language skills are overrated. Also, he went on a charade during the interview about politics in my home country (not USA) even though I told him his impression is not accurate based on my experience living there. And he kept saying barista/waitress/journalist are not real jobs after reviewing the resume and said K-JD would never be able to keep up…
He is senior than me albeit not in the same group. I bit my tongue during the interviews but should I say something?
Anon
So the interviewee asked you a question, and this guy started talking? I would say “Excuse me, Brad, I’m answering Jennifer’s question now.”
I’d probably ignore the rest of his comments, assuming they were made only to you and not to the interviewee, but if he says anything that verges into discriminatory I wouldn’t hesitate to let the people who manage summer associate hiring know.
Anon
I would let them know anyways. It reflects poorly on the firm, especially at a time where a lot of firms are (at least) trying to play lip service to the idea of diversity.
AIMS
+1. Speak up! You don’t have to be rude but you don’t need to accept this.
Co-Interviewer
Thanks both!! I will think about it. This guy is up for partnership this year and has been bragging about how he has a client following… That makes me hesitant because it sounds like he has some political power and if I go talk to HR, I might be the one getting in trouble.
CarlyC
I think if you approach HR, you shouldn’t approach it as it bothered me, but as it would make interviewees uncomfortable and make them thing the environment is not cordial/professional
Anonymous
He sounds like a jerk and like someone who is not only alienating you, but your interviewees. I’d raise something gently to Legal Recruiting, like this: “Hey, I’ve been interviewing quite a bit with ____. He’s such a great lawyer, but I have noticed that sometimes gets a bit carried away in ways that might carry some risk for the firm. For example, he has been dismissing people’s language skills and the politics of other countries in a way that could leave the impression that there is some issue with people’s national origin. I’m sure he’s well-intentioned, but it might be helpful to provide some guidance to our interviewers on appropriate interview questions.” I am a partner, do hiring for my firm, and if I heard this I would yank this guy out of interviews so fast his head would spin.
Wow
Yes, the firm would certainly want to know about his antics, they reflect very poorly not only on him but on the firm. You would be doing the firm a big favor by telling them.
Anon
Tell your recruiting department ASAP! They need to know that he is not a good representative for the firm and not to let him participate in the interviews anymore.
I would also probably speak up during the interviews when he says those things, but that is more of a you do you thing. If you are junior, I can see not wanting to do that and I probably would not have before becoming a mid-level because I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing so.
Lily
It’s “tirade,” not “charade.” Just wanted to let you know in case you’ve been misusing it.
Totally agree with the other commenters that you should let the recruiting dept know. This guy sounds awful and should not be the face of the firm.
Co-Interviewer
Thanks! I did confuse the two! Good to know :)
Germaphobe infecting others?
My husband has some OCD and anxiety issues (self-diagnosed, but I agree with it; also, therefore: untreated) and presents around the house as a germaphobe. His family is like this, to varying degrees, and think it’s cute (wrong work) and like a family trait (like if you played in the NBA, your family trait might be being tall; other families are “musical” or “artistic”). It has gotten worse over time.
Other than inheriting DNA to be predisposed to this, is how he acts going to make our kids become germaphobes? [I am so sick of it that I will get frustrated and verbally protest, which I ought not do, but I do not want HIS issues to become THEIR issues b/c that is no way to life, really, when you get consumed by various anxieties and are perpetually commenting on various anxieties / doing OCD things / demanding that your kids do as you do. And perpetually talking about sanitization issues during a meal . . . THAT IS NOT TABLE TALK!]
[Also: husband has no real way to measure actual germ risk: he tries to wash his hands (often with antibacterial soap, which just promotes superbugs) and THEN uses purell and THEN touches money, which probably is a hot zone for germs. I get that he hates TV remotes in hotels, but don’t demand that your kids sanitize their hands if they handle before you go over them with a wipe. They can wash their hands before mealtime.]
Anon
He will constantly scold them, yell at them, and generally make them anxious to touch anything or mess up, i.e. being a child. You need to nip this in the bud. Honestly, at best they will also be germaphobes. At worst they’ll pick up the same anxiety issues with a healthy dose of only doing anything to not set Dad off. Those same kids are going to do a lot of bad things in the rebellious phase or go buck wild in college without the anxiety of always being perfect at home.
Ask me how I know.
Anonymous
It’s not just being a germaphobe; it’s that he has an untreated anxiety disorder. That’s likely to get worse, it will impact your kids and you, and it’s also reasonably hereditary so your kids may end up with it anyway on their own.
Anon
I think it can go either way. Kids will either pick up this tendency or they’ll rebel and go the opposite way. My parents are hoarders who every square inch of their walls covered in photos. I purge constantly and have super minimalist decor in my house.
But regardless of whether or not his tendencies will rub off on your kids, this doesn’t sound like a very pleasant way for you all to live. He needs therapy and/or medication.
anonymous
Sounds like he needs some therapy,
Anonymous
Being a germophobe isn’t genetic (though anxiety can be), but it IS a learned behavior. So yeah if they grow up in a home where you MUST sanitize your hands after washing them with AB soap, then likely they will do it too out of habit. However there are ways to counter this since YOU aren’t like that. Kids learn from both parents. You can be the permissive one on this issue — i.e. it’s fine to touch a hotel door knob and not run to the bathroom to wash hands; or to wash hands just once with regular soap rather than 3 times with AB soap; or [gasp] even eat that cookie without hand washing or whatever. So if they run off the playground and want a snack, just give it to them (esp in the summer when there are fewer things going around) rather than doing dad’s ritual of sanitizing. It’ll show them there’s both kinds of people in the world and they may end up in the middle.
I myself have become a geromphobe having NOT grown up in a house like that at all. Even then though I try to control it. In my own home or at work I will wash hands when I walk in the door and then the next time I wash is before eating — I control my impulse to keep sanitizing because I just go this binder from someone else and who knows how their hand washing is or I just had to touch the photocopier or whatever. Sadly I look like the normal one in my office as I am surrounded by people who wipe down their phones and laptops (that only they touch) EVERY day. I also don’t buy AB soap for my home at all. Soap is soap — people lived for generations before there was AB soap.
Anonymous
Of course your husband’s untreated anxiety will rub off on your kids. Tell him to get therapy. Tell him to stop when he starts talking like this.
Anonymous
OP here. I can’t make him go to therapy. I am not going to threaten to divorce him over this. Is there any way to be a backseat driver? In my experience, nagging never works.
[Dude wants a dog, kids want a dog, I am pro dog b/c dogs are germy and slobbery and this may help husband take baby steps.]
Anonymous
Ok just throw up your hands then!
Honestly, you must deal with this head on. If he refuses to go to therapy alone, demand couples counseling
anon
No, there’s no way you can sneaky backdoor change him. You can get therapy for your kids though, so you can break the cycle with them if this ends up being an issue for them. Your kids will probably also tell him to go eff himself over this at some point once they’re old enough to rebel and be angry at how ridiculous and painful living this way is.
pugsnbourbon
Both of my parents have anxiety issues and it’s had a significant impact on my life. I wish so much that they had had access to therapy, for their sake as well as for me and my siblings (all of us have anxiety to some degree; classic genes+environment scenario). Germophobia might seem cute to his family, but it wasn’t cute when I washed my hands so much they bled when I was a second grader.
I don’t want to scare you or scold you, but we know more about these issues now than we did 30 years ago and we know they are treatable. Please don’t give up on encouraging him to go to therapy. Also please don’t get a dog.
anon
+1 this, 100x over. OCD is not cute and it is not funny. Same with anxiety. People who don’t have OCD or don’t know much about it focus only on the “quirky” behavior that presents but not the thought patterns that underlie those behaviors or otherwise produced by OCD. They will come out. Kids pick up on so much. The best case scenario is that your children grow up walking on eggshells, trying to avoid triggering unpleasant behavior from dad and always waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s a terrible way to grow up.
AIMS
My dad was a germaphobe. My mom wasn’t. I am not. I think it was fine mostly because my mom was normal about it and handled a lot of the home stuff herself so that my exposure to my dad’s way of doing things was limited. It’s by no means easy but I don’t think it’s a doomed situation. Can you maybe appeal to him by pointing out how what he is doing is actually making things worse? If his goal is to not get sick, he should be responsive to science.
Anonymous
“When someone shows you how they are, believe them”. If he doesn’t want therapy, and you don’t want a divorce, this is what your marriage will continue to look like, at best. More likely, his anxiety will carry over into other areas than just germs (which are just symptoms of his anxiety, not the root cause) and things will worsen.
Anon
+1 to this and all the above. There isn’t some tricky life hack to make him magically be better.
Senior Attorney
Yep. This is where the Three Types of Undesirable Characteristics comes in:
1. Dealbreakers.
2. Things that you hate but are willing to accept as the price of admission to the relationship.
3. Things that you hate and can’t accept but that you can get the other person to change if you can just figure out the right approach.
4. There is no number three.
aFoolishFox
You can’t make him go to therapy no, but you can point out where he is hurting himself/ the kids and periodically (but infrequent enough to not be nagging) remind him that therapy is an option and you support the idea. This is my current method with my depression/ anxiety suffering boyfriend with a lifetime of therapy = crazy parental influence. I think its starting to make headway because he seems more thoughtful when I bring it up now compared to his previous dismissiveness.
anon
My husband has similar tendencies, though not as strong and he gets it from his mother. I had a dog before we got together and made it very clear we (dog and me) were a package deal. His aversion to dirt and germs has decreased dramatically, though it has taken time. Dog used to have to have every paw wiped off before coming in from the yard, now he really doesn’t care as long as dog isn’t completely covered in mud.
We don’t have kids yet, but I do worry about him being upset when the kids are dirty, messy, loud, etc. when that’s just kids being kids. What works best for me is just to ask him if it’s really that important/ discuss how unrealistic it is in a not super confrontational way. A lot of times it’s just an eye roll on my end and I just keep on keeping on. I understand the concern for your kids though. My parents were borderline hoarders and super cluttered, and I have gone the opposite as well as the poster above.
Anon
There’s a difference between general anxiety and OCD. My husband’s mother had debilitating OCD (as in, was hospitalized) which some people could have interpreted as being a germaphobe. (Example, you touched the kitchen counter, now I have to clean the entire house again.)
We had genetic counseling when we had kids. OCD was one of the factors they told us was hereditary. So we monitor our kids for signs of it, though the genetic counselor said it could manifest more mildly, like maybe a kid whose toys have to be lined up a certain way – which, indeed, we do have.
Snoop Dogg is my Neighbor?
I live in a large apt complex in an apt. on the 2nd floor of a 2 story bldg. in a midwestern state where w33d is illegal. My new downstairs neighbors as of 2 mos ago are p0t smokers. 1-2x a day during the week, 2-4x a day on weekends. My apartment reeks of it every time.
I first tried to meet and get to know them but they never answer a knock. I then left a note with my number saying I’d love to meet my new neighbors, they texted and said “maybe tomorrow” but never responded to my texts asking when or asking to meet in the courtyard any time I tried after. I am a woman living alone and do not want to create an unsafe situation for myself but thought I could try to make nice and let them know that the tenants in the second floor where there are many apartments can smell it. But that didn’t work.
I call the complex mgr almost daily to report now because I keep having to rewash clothes to get the smell out, he says he calls and he even put a notice to quit on their door but there’s nothing more he can do. Said to call non-emergency number. Non-emergency says to call and report it to the drug dept but first I don’t think it’s a good use of community resources and second, I don’t know if the tenants are people of color or LGBT people where it could be a safety issue to get police involved at that level, so I don’t want to do this.
I don’t want to move, I love my apartment and am in lease #3 with them (current lease expires May 2020). I also can’t live like this. The smoke gives me a headache and nausea every single time (this is how I have always reacted to the smell in other situations so I know it is their smoke causing this). I work from home so there is no avoiding this and the smell seems to originate sometimes in the living room and sometimes in the master bedroom where the walk-in closet is attached. My couch smells until I air it out, which now is a daily experience. My clothes reek unless I consistently rewash them (and machines are paid plus the time it takes, so it costs me time and money every time). I am sick of feeling ill or trying to medicate the headaches and nausea away. (My budget does not allow me to just move and I really like my apartment and my complex and I can’t afford to buy fancy air purifiers for every room.)
What options, if any, do I have?
Anon
You call the police. It’s not a “safety issue” to do so in the vast majority of all cases. You can also talk to the city’s housing bureau.
Anon
You’ve taken all reasonable measures. I would also call the police. They know what they are doing is illegal and they are also perfectly aware that neighbors and the building management know what they’re doing and don’t like it. They should assume police will show up at their door at some point. If it makes you feel better, I’m a POC and I’d do the same thing. Being worried about unnecessarily calling the police is a valid concern, but one I think that was already considered when you persistently tried to stop the smoking through other means. Calling the police in the first instance would have been a bad neighbor / Karen-y move. But you didn’t. You reasonably escalated and this is the next step. The non-emergency number won’t do anything.
Also, I wouldn’t bother alarming them that the police will be called as they’ll know it’s you that called whereas there is a reasonable assumption that the building called on them with no warning from you.
Anon
I’d explicitly ask one more time and then call the police. You aren’t obligated to be nice, and they’re not going to stop.
Anonymous
Call the police. You’ve tried talking to them and reporting it to your landlord. There’s no other option. They’re heavily using illegal drugs.
Anonymous
this is a really challenging situation. i previously dealt with something like this in a condo that i own. downstairs unit was being rented by someone who smoked every day, after work and all afternoon on sundays. nothing helped to resolve the situation until she moved. someone like this will not stop or alter their smoking habits, just because it bothers you. keep pressuring the property manager–may times fees can be charged for nuisance behavior. basically, you need to make this uncomfortable enough that either the property manager will ask her to move or she will on her own. (In my case…the renter was asked to move…I don’t think she would have left on her own. You are likely dealing with someone who does not care about being polite to neighbors).
Anon
I don’t disagree with the people suggesting you call the police, but I wouldn’t hold your breath that the problem will stop. Honestly, I’d think about moving. It might be the easiest way to get the smoke-free home that you want.
Anonymous
I would ask/demand that the complex reimburse you for whatever expenses you incur because of this. Also, are you leaving your windows open? If so, don’t. If you don’t have AC then get one of those floor units and demand reimbursement or rent setoff. If your windows are closed, it’s really surprising to me that the smell would be as strong as you describe. Is there some construction defect in the apartment? Do you share vents? You can fairly ask for that to be addressed.
I would not call the police over this, personally. It would be the same issue if they were smoking cigar e t t e s instead. Yes, it’s rude, but also, people will still do it and feel that it is their God-given right to do whatever they want on “their” property. Unfortunately, this is part of apartment living.
Anon
Illegal drug use is not the same issue as tobacco…just saying…
If her clothes smell like it at work, she could face serious issues, etc. This isn’t just an unpleasant part of apartment living, it’s a blatant violation of the law that is harming someone else’s health (and is super rude).
Anon
Agree it’s very different than tobacco. At plenty of jobs, people get fired for smelling like w33d.
CarlyC
The fact that your landlord says there’s nothing else he can do is bologna firstly. Secondly, they’ve been warned to stop their behavior and they haven’t. You’re allowing yourself to be disrupted in your own home, where you also work, that I’m sure you’re paying good money for. I wouldn’t feel bad about calling the police.
Anon
Hey guys, m0d needs to be a LOT faster.
Anon
It’s been really bad the last couple of days, I think kat must be on vacation.
Anonymous
Yeah clearly they don’t care
SnowBoots
Hate to be asking this in August, but I am in the market for some snow boots. What do you all recommend for shoes with really good traction, waterproof, and warm? I don’t really care about aesthetics to be honest, although cute (for snow boots) would be better than hideous. I have a $20 coupon to DSW so would like to use that but not required. I’m also going to be in my third trimester of pregnancy during peak snow season here so the traction thing is a big deal. I can’t be falling all over the place and my balance will already be off. Thanks!
Aunt Jamesina
I’ve worn a pair of Pajar Grip boots through four Chicago winters and I love them. Practical but cute (for a snow boot), and they leave maple leaf prints in the snow :-)
Anonymous
That’s where I will be this winter! Thanks
Never too many shoes...
Sorel – my last pair lasted 10 winters in Toronto. My current pair are now three winters old.
aBr
Ditto on Sorel. I was shocked how much cuter they’ve gotten when I bought a new pair last winter.
Berta
+1. I live in Western Canada and I swear by Sorels. I have a few cute pairs of Joan of Artic boots for commuting to work, as well as one real heavy duty snow-boot that I use to shovel snow, go snowmobiling in, etc. They last forever and are super durable.
Horse Crazy
+1 million to Sorel. They’re the best.
waffles
I got Columbia boots (link to follow) a couple years ago and I like them so much more than my Sorels. The hard plastic of the Sorels used to cut me at the ankles (like until I was bleeding) and the Columbia are soft until the sole, which is so much more comfortable.
Also in Toronto, and these boots keep my feet HOT!!
waffles
https://www.dsw.ca/en/ca/product/columbia-minx-mid-iii-winter-boot/169104468?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIyoKy67vx4wIVSrzACh3gMQIpEAQYASABEgJwzvD_BwE
KKB
I LOVE this skirt! Elizabeth has the best taste and is such a great addition to Corporette!!
Anon
Any advice on how to deal with a boss who is often terrible/rude? I know the first thing to do is to get out and I’m working on finding another job but it’s not overnight and in the meantime, I still have to deal with this man who is being rude and demanding and disrespectful. I am just trying to keep the interactions to a bare minimum and am doing the work I need to do but I am frustrated and his bad behavior is honestly making me not want to do any work, which I realize is not an appropriate reaction.
Anonymous
Find a way to laugh about it? That’s what worked for me. I recognize that it is soul crushing at times.
anon
Remember that the inside of his head must be a pretty ugly, nasty place.
Agurk
This is an electrolyte issue. I find salt really helps this. Take a quarter-half tsp of Himalayan salt with water when you wake up. Also try adding magnesium at night. It will get better are your body adapts.
Agurk
Ugh, this was for IF below
Original Moonstone
Man, I wish this was the cure for rude people, though.
Anon
Haha but I love the idea of dealing with a terrible boss by increasing your intake of electrolytes :)
Anon
I’m sad this is not a solution for my awful boss because it would be so much easier!
Anon
I know it’s controversial but I’m giving intermittent fasting a try (eating window from 12-8) and I’m so nauseated in the mornings. I wake up around 7:30/8 and can’t sleep in any later (have to get my kid to daycare and myself to work). I drink lots of water and black tea. Is this normal? Does it go away? (I’m only on day 3.)
Anonymous
Yup, if you starve yourself you might feel sick.
Anon
Eyeroll. I’m not “starving myself,” I’m eating exactly what I used to, just compressing it into a shorter timeframe.
Anonymous
You asked. Obviously your body doesn’t like this since you feel sick
Anon
I’m sorry but you can’t lose weight this way
Anon
Millions of people that have seen results and numerous studies about the benefits of fasting would disagree with you. But of course you think it’s right so it must be.
IF fan
I lost 10 pounds in about a month after doing IF and have kept it off, two years later. Not sure what you are talking about.
To the OP, make sure you are having protein rich dinners so you don’t feel hungry the next morning. I also agree on moving your eating time to 11 am or even 10:30 am to begin with. You can ramp up, no need to go full on from the get go. It took me about 3 days to adjust, but I’m probably an outlier — for most of my friends, it took me a week or two to feel like it was normal. Another option is that you can eat your breakfast at 9 am but then stop eating around 5 or 6 pm — that would be very hard for me, but I have a friend who does it.
Ellen
Agreed. If it were really that easy, I’d have fasted like you and poof! I’d be back where I was in 2008 @ 102 pounds! But reality check: It is NOT that easy.
I have learned over the years that you must eat LESS calories then you burn to loose weight. It makes no difference if you fast if you then start eating alot of calories afterward. Also, you do not want to get sick over your weight. Virtually no man will date or marry a skinny girl who looks like $hit b/c she is fasting and throwing up from being sick. Dad says a little bit of curves are good for us, and you must work to be svelte and radiate beauty, not just sit around looking skinny and sickly. FOOEY!
Anon
I think you do get used to it, but maybe try having a small handful of something fatty (nuts) in the morning if you’re feeling nauseous.
Or alternatively what about moving your eating window to 11-7, or 10-6?
Anon
I thought about that, but I go to bed fairly late (11ish) and have a really hard time falling asleep on an empty stomach.
Anon
Also, at least the last couple of days the worst of the nausea has been a couple of hours after waking up (around 9-9:30) and by 10 it has mostly passed, so I don’t think moving the eating window up an hour or two would fix it. I feel fine now, slightly hungry but not starving and not nauseous at all.
IFer
The exact same thing happened to me and I simply had to move up my eating window and expand it a little. And honestly, there is a lot of evidence that intermittent fasting for women is more harmful than good if your fasting window is too small. The suggestion is more like a 10 hr eating window than an 8 hour eating window. I moved my eating window to 9 – 7 so was able to fit my meals in around normal times and stopped feeling those cramps and I wasn’t hungry when going to bed. I also suggest drinking a flavorful caffeine free tea (peppermint, ginger) with stevia in the hours between the end of the fasting window and bed.
Aunt Jamesina
How long have you been doing it? I’ve been IF for over a year, and if memory serves me right, it took around two weeks to get used to it.
For the poster who thinks we’re starving, I’m eating a normal amount of calories (1800-2000), just in a shorter window. Certainly (like any sort of dietary restriction) it’s not the right path for someone with a history of disordered eating, but for me, who snacked way too much on empty calories before bedtime, it’s been a great way to reset my idea of when I “need” to eat, and I savor my food more.
Aunt Jamesina
IIRC, it took me about two weeks to get used to not eating in the morning and now I don’t even think about it. I’ve been IF for over a year.
Artemis
BTW, I read some articles that indicated that women should only fast 12-14 hours max because of different caloric/metabolic/hormonal needs. Maybe that’s no big deal to some people but I was routinely eating late and couldn’t kick the habit because of my schedule/night-owl tendencies. So now I make sure I fast 12-14 hours from when I last ate the night before but it’s usually just skipping breakfast and the rest of my eating window is longer so I’ve seen some of the benefits and am feeling much better without the more “severe” eating window. Give it a try?
Anemone
I eased into it, and concentrated on protein-heavy breakfasts. Going cold-turkey, so to speak, didn’t work for me.
(Also, since I did it to relieve GERD symptoms and not for weight loss, I prioritized a longer stretch of time between dinner and bed. Your motivation may vary.)
PolyD
Black tea with no food makes me ill. It has to do with the tannins or something, on an empty stomach. So before you assume it’s because of the fasting, try either eating something small with the tea, or switch to coffee. Or maybe some milk in the tea would help.
Anon
That is interesting, and may very well be the explanation. I feel like I feel the worst first thing in the morning when I drink my tea. I don’t like coffee or milk with tea but maybe I will just cut out the tea (I drink decaf so don’t need it) and see if I feel better.
I’m open to extending the eating window too – mostly doing this to cut down on mindless snacking not to lose weight.
NYCer
Coffee (and tea) on a truly empty stomach makes me nauseous, so OP, be careful with the coffee too!
Legally Brunette
Interesting point. I do IF and drink chai with milk in the morning (but no sugar), which technically isn’t allowed since it’s probably over 50 calories (that’s the limit for fasting). But I’ve been doing it for more than a year with great results, so I’m sticking with it.
Agurk
This is an electrolyte issue. I find salt really helps this. Take a quarter-half tsp of Himalayan salt with water when you wake up. Also try adding magnesium at night. It will get better are your body adapts.
Daisy
Have you also eliminated carbs? This could be keto flu, which does typically go away within a few weeks.
Anon
No, definitely not. I LOVE carbs, couldn’t live without them. I’m eating basically the same diet.
OP who posted about lack of hobbies/interests
Just wanted to thank you all for sharing your hobbies & interests and suggestions. Upon thinking further, I do have interests but they are not what you call exciting/instagram worthy interests. But for what it is worth, I am ok to owning them. But I realize I also need to be open to trying out new activities. Anyway, thank you. It was nice to hear so many helpful comments.
Anonymous
Different poster — how much of a germophobe are you (or not)? Do you feel like it’s become more common to be germophobic now than say 10-20years ago? I vividly remember being in high school, carrying a backpack, which sat on the floor under my desk in every class room right near your own shoes and where other kids had had their shoes in the prior class period, then class ends you’d throw that backpack on your back, walk to the cafeteria, eat your sandwich — no handwashing or sanitizing — and you wouldn’t even give it a thought. Sanitizer wasn’t really commercially available in tiny bottles back in 1998 when I graduated; in fact I only ever recall seeing it at drs. offices back then. Now though I feel like I CAN NOT eat if I haven’t washed hands or at least sanitized, nor do I want to put on my back a bag that’s been on the ground near my shoes.
And like the poster above I feel like the “normal” one (even though I hate my behavior and want to try to limit it – only hand washing before eating, when coming into the home; not using AB soap etc.). I work with a bunch of 28-35 year old women who are constantly wiping down their phones, computers (like daily – we don’t share computers); they don’t let luggage in their house without wiping it down; they wipe down their hotel rooms; they won’t let housekeeping into their hotel rooms because they’ll then have to re-sanitize; one person says she doesn’t allow people to come into her home because they’ll sit on her couch and she doesn’t know where they’ve sat earlier in the day — subway, cab etc.
Is this just a bigger deal now? I mean growing up we ALWAYS had people at the house, and they could sit anywhere they wanted and no one grilled them on where their pants had been??
Anon
I always wash my hands before eating and after getting off the subway and I definitely get sick less. I also don’t sit on the bed or couch in pants that have been on the subway. However, I don’t clean my house or desk as often as I should. and I don’t wipe down tray tables on the plane or anything like that. I also backpack and camp, including a multi-day river trip where there was DEFINITELY some questionable hygiene and cleanliness going on. It’s all about balance.
Anon
Hmm I’m more like you but I always washed my hands before eating. I wash my hands when I come home from work. I have hand sanitizer on my desk at work just in case I’ve been in contact with someone sick. That’s about it. It’s funny that people are more worried about germs than assault weapons, but maybe it’s a matter of what we can control.
Anonymous
I don’t think it’s a bigger deal in society now at all. I am just as germy as I was in 1998 when I also graduated. I think it’s a you thing (possibly also colored by the people you are hanging out with), not a society thing.
Anonia
I’ve been teaching small children for about 8 years, and every year there are more regulations about germs and sanitizing, to the point that it’s kind of a waste of time and ridiculous (wash everything everyday in soap and water, spray with bleach solution, air dry solution, wash with soap again, then dry with new paper towels and then ready to use x all blocks, etc). I’ve reacted by becoming much less of a germaphobe in my personal life. I wash hands before meals, after restroom, and when I get home if they feel dirty. Surfaces get a biweekly cleaning unless someone has a severe sickness like step or stomach flu. Exposure to some germs is good for the immune system and I wonder about all the kids who aren’t developing immunities because their schools, daycares, and parents never allow them to touch anything that is not sanitized. Isn’t this setting kids up for health problems in the future?
Anonymous
What does that mean you wash everything — like every toy at school is washed daily?? Or like desks?
I know you are washing with soap, bleach etc., but I read something recently that in addition to cutting out the over use of AB soap, there is also advice that people should cut their disinfectant use because it changes gut bacteria over time.
Anonia
Yup, that’s the guideline. Every toy, hard material, and surface is sanitized/washed daily. I can totally believe that it changes the gut bacteria. Frankly even the fumes from the bleach even when diluted are bad enough to make me wonder what damage I’m exposing myself to.
Anonia
Forgot my new favorite regulation this year- everyone must wash hands immediately after blowing noses or using Kleenex for any reason. Uhh, ok, sure. We’ll all waste tons of time on this one.
Anon
I think I’m a pretty big germaphobe but I don’t do any of the things you described except washing hands before eating.
I think having kids helps you become less of a germaphobe. Kids touch everything and constantly put their hands in their mouths. I try to stop the grossest things (eating dog food, licking the soles of her shoes) but a lot of stuff you have to just let slide – and it is actually healthy for kids to be exposed to lots of germs at a young age.
Minnie
I actually think having a baby made me much MORE of a germaphobe. When my son was in the newborn stage, it was the dead of winter in one of the worst flu seasons in recent history. The sanitizing ritual–wash your hands when you come in the house! Sanitize the shopping cart before touching it! Don’t touch the baby with unwashed hands!–became so ingrained in me that it became difficult to let go of. (And no, I didn’t have any underlying PPD/PPA issues.) It’s one of those things that served a very good function at the time, but became more and more dysfunctional as time went on.
Now, I’m WAY less of a germaphobe (I think I come down on the “Sure” side of the “Is it okay for my kid to lick his own shoes?” question), but some of the habits remain. So for me it has been a stage-of-life thing.
Anonymous
I’m not a germaphobe at all. But a few weeks ago, I totally freaked out when my 4-yr-old picked up a flattened piece of popcorn off the sidewalk outside the movie theater and put it in his mouth. Gross. But he didn’t get sick, so I’m not sure what to think.
Anonymous
OMG my coworkers are the same as yours — wiping down computers, phones, hotel rooms, luggage, airplanes etc. One of them wears gloves to pump gas (not just in the winter – she keeps disposable gloves in her car).
Me — wash hands when I get to work and when I get home from anywhere (doesn’t matter if it’s the metro or my own car — chances are when I was out, I touched money etc.); wash hands before eating which admittedly does get annoying every time I want a snack; wipe down my phone once in a while like after traveling where I know it’s touched a lot of the plane/TSA bins etc.; sanitize after pumping gas or using the ATM as I know those are touched A LOT. Apartment is ok — not dirty but not spotless either
Anon
I wash my hands before eating and after using the restroom – always have. That’s it. House and office are kept more or less broom clean. I get my flu shot. Absent a condition which leaves you immune-compromised, better to be exposed to a normal level of dirt/germs.
anonymous
Honestly I’m pretty lax about a lot of stuff that most people do routinely (except for washing my hands after using the bathroom, that’s a 100% of the time thing). I don’t wipe down stuff in hotel rooms or on planes or anything like that. I generally don’t wash my hands before I eat. I’m bad about touching my face. My kitchen and bathroom could be cleaner. I don’t wipe down cell phone, work phone, or mouse or keyboard very often. The bottom of my purse is pretty gross. My limit is door handles/elevator buttons in public parking lots that are obviously gross. I’ve always been like this. I spent a lot of time outside growing up and a lot of time camping and backpacking. I’ve ridden horses on and off and frequently had indoor/outdoor pets. I rarely get sick (I’m in my early 30s). Took my first sick day of my life earlier this year.
yup
I’m similar. I wash my hands after going to the bathroom and I religiously take a shower every day but that’s it. I don’t wash my hands after getting off the subway or before I eat (unless a dog is slobbering on me or something). I also pretty much never get sick. In general I think the United States is way way way too germaphobic, all of the sterilizing of everything is really to the detriment of our health.
Is it Friday yet?
Pretty much the same. I wash my hands after using the bathroom or if they feel gross (e.g. I rinse with hose at the barn after grooming a horse). I won’t use anti-bacterial soap because it creates superbugs. No allergies, also took my first ever sick days this year. Exposure to pathogens strengthens the human biome!
Anon
Does exposure to pathogens continue to strengthen the biome in adults? Curious whether there is ongoing benefit when our immune systems have fully developed. The research is definitely clear on the benefits for kids.
anon
We always say that barn dirt is clean dirt. I basically grew up in a barn and have a fairly robust biome, and I don’t worry at all about germs when I’m at the barn (and yeah I kiss my horse’s face too so clearly I have no qualms). :)
Now, public transport dirt and grocery store germs and anywhere else where there are a lot of people – then i turn into a big germaphobe and i wash my hands a lot.
Senior Attorney
Me, too, plus I always wash my hands before I prepare food.
And I wash my hands and change my clothes after the gym because yuck to other people’s sweat.
Anon
So, I’ll be the odd one out and admit that I’m like an anti-germaphobe. I wash my hands after I use the bathroom or when they are noticeable dirty, but not really otherwise. I only clean things when they are noticeable dirty, with the exception of dish which I wash after each use (with the occassional reuse). I don’t worry about putting my bag on the floor (except in the bathroom), or changing clothing after being on the metro. I don’t recall the last time I washed my cell phone. I would never not let someone come over because I was worried about the germs on them, unless they were sick. I also share drinks and food with friends, unless someone is sick.
Never too many shoes...
This is totally me. The coworkers in the OP would drive me crazy.
anon
Me too! Our bodies are constantly covered in microorganisms, inside and out! This is normal and in part, necessary for your health!
Nobody in my personal bubble is as much of a germaphobe as the comments above describe. But whenever I read stuff like that, I can’t help thinking of Brave New World, and how society has successfully removed itself from nature in any way possible.
Anon
I’m like this too and the only time I ever get sick is when my immune system is run down from not getting enough sleep.
ElisaR
Yup, me too.
Keek
I wash my hands after using the restroom, before preparing food, and generally after petting/playing with my dogs. I wash my hands if they get/feel dirty. I sneeze and cough into the crook of my arm, but wash my hands if I mistakenly forget. I keep my home reasonably clean but not sterile. I do not put cooked meat back on the uncooked meat tray. I don’t chop veggies on the same cutting board that raw meat has touched. When I commuted by train/subway daily, I would always wash my hands on either end. I never wipe down airplane seats/hotels/my desk/phone etc.
I don’t worry about it too much. I’m really weirded out by germaphobes and hate that we are an antibacterial soap and hand sanitizer laden culture. I’m more concerned with antibiotic resistant bacteria than I am with daily encounters with potentially dangerous bacteria.
Anonymous
These are pretty much the rules I live by, except I have an impaired immune system, so I also avoid pedicures and spas, and I’m very careful in health care waiting rooms. Many germs have a limited life span in a dry, clean environment. Others are in the air, and not even a face mask is adequate protection. I don’t want to spend a lot of effort on trivial to null benefits.
Anonymous
Like with the other poster, I think a lot of being a germaphobe is about either clinical or subclinical anxiety. Anxiety disorders seem to be increasing (and more visible as people come forward with them), so it makes sense that the symptoms/outcomes of that anxiety (i.e. phobias) are increasing too.
Anonymous
I graduated from college in 1998 and moved to NYC. I remember at the time having friends who never touched the poles or straps on the subway and who were quick to wash hand and change clothes when they came into their apartments after riding public transit or being in crowded public places, so I don’t think the behavior is totally new — but I do think the specific age band you mentioned is relevant. Women who are 28-35 now would have been 18-25 in 2009 when there was a huge H1N1 outbreak that was killing people. I remember hand sanitizer dispensers popping up everywhere almost over night. Most of these women would have been on or around university campuses at that time, so I bet they were bombarded with “helpful tips” that became normalized.