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Suit of the Week: Halogen

striped topper suitFor busy working women, the suit is often the easiest outfit to throw on in the morning. In general, this feature is not about interview suits for women, which should be as classic and basic as you get — instead, this feature is about the slightly different suit that is fashionable, yet professional. “Toppers,” these long, Thatcher-type jackets, seem to be having a moment. I’m undecided on them for the office, to be honest, at least as far as young women go — maybe I associate them a little too strongly with the Iron Lady or Queen Elizabeth. Still, if ever there were a young, fun, professional but sophisticated topper/skirt, I think it’s this lovely stripey one from Halogen. It doesn’t hurt that both pieces are kind of hot on their own — the skirt is perfect by itself, and I can’t help but thinking the jacket would look really awesome with some denim flares. I like the neutral vibe to this white/light gray ensemble, but of course you can add color; I particularly like a bright yellow paired with gray. The jacket (Halogen® Placed Stripe Topper) is $168, and the skirt (Halogen® Stripe Pencil Skirt) is $78. Here's a gorgeous plus-size topper. (L-all)

Sales of note for 12.2.24 (Happy Cyber Monday!! See our full sale listing here!)

And some of our latest threadjacks here at Corporette (reader questions and commentary) — see more here!

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115 Comments

    1. Count how many times you plan on wearing the dress and how much it will cost you for each wear. If you plan to wear it a lot, go for it.

    2. I LOVE Ted Baker. I recently bought a full price shirt from Nordstrom after much soul searching, but I have never regretted it. I love it and wear it allllll the time. I know I’m not helping. But sometimes if you love something, it’s worth it!

    3. That dress is lovely. just lovely (I kinda want it myself). and its on sale! $195 is a pretty good deal

    4. Ted baker has the BEST dresses. Always worth the splurge. Great quality and you will never find another person wearing the same outfit.

    5. I’ve been trying to tell myself to buy only what I love, not what’s on sale. As long as it’s something that you’ll wear a lot – and it’s not going to hurt your budget overall – go for it!

    6. You’ll almost never wear a party dress enough times to justify a $500 price tag on a cost-per-wear basis.

      2. +1.

        I think that’s especially true for something like this dress – it’s pretty distinctive, I don’t know that I’d wear it more than once a year (and even then, I feel like it’d be memorable enough that it’d turn into “oh there’s KKH in her same party dress again”). Then again, the only call I have for something like this is the 2 or so weddings a year that I go to – I guess it would be different if my life involved more fancy parties.

  2. Random question for anyone in the health care field. Why is dental, vision and hearing separate from regular health care / insurance? I’ve recently started volunteering with a health organization and while we can get kids the medical care they need the state doesn’t cover hearing aids, glasses or dental work. When I expressed surprise they reminded me that my health insurance doesn’t cover these things either. Philosophically, I have a hard time breaking them apart. If my ears or eyes don’t work like they should, why isn’t that a medical issue? How is it different from needing leg braces? If a cavity goes untreated you will eventually have a systemic infection. Why is that infection medical but the cavity isn’t? If anyone does policy work, I’m really interested in the history behind this. I’m sure the answer boils down to “money” but I’m wondering if I’m missing something. All I can come up with is that these docs go to different schools and are accredited by different agencies and medical just covers MD. But it also covers chiropractic and PT so who knows.

    1. I’ve seen it referred to as health INSURANCE and dental/vision BENEFITS, intended to subsidize the cost but not cover it. Not sure if this helps. Interested to see other answers.

    2. I work in employee benefits policy and I have no idea haha. Medicare (which largely influenced health insurance as we know it today) came about in the ’60s…my gut says it has something to do with that. A quick google suggests dentists and optometrists may not have wanted to be involved in Medicare when it launched, so that might be it.

      1. actually dentists were the smart ones. medicare reimburses less than cost of care.
        It boils down to who was willing to accept payments by insurance and the negotiations related to reimbursement.
        Dentists frequently make more than many MDs b/c of the payment contracts they negotiated.
        The need for hearing aids, glasses, braces and cavities do not typically cause death and they are considered quality of life issues and therefore larger portion of the cost is paid for by the consumer.

        1. Because being essentially blind and unable to participate in day to day life (near-sighted needing corrective lenses) is a quality of life issue. How are corrective lenses not on par with a prosthetic limb?

          (I realize prosthetics coverage isn’t great – but it exists).

          1. Yes, and after working in education, I’ve seen the outcomes for children whose parents were not able to afford hearing aids, glasses, and dental care that were greatly needed, or put it off until it caused a bigger issue. Those problems can easily interfere with learning and overall health, NOT just “quality of life”.
            My migraine medication could be considered to be for “quality of life” (and my birth control, and my depression Rx, and pretty much any other medication that does anything less than keeping people alive), so what does “quality of life issues” even mean?

    4. Yup, from what I understand, its money at the root of it.

      My son needed a hearing aid at age 5 and I was floored to find out that no insurance would cover his $1000-2000 hearing aid, but if he’d been a candidate for a cochlear implant that would have been covered, even though it costs in the 10s to 100s of thousands – basically 10x-100x more than the aid.

      From what I was reading a big part of that is because almost every adult will reach the point where hearing aids technically would help, and insurance companies don’t want to pay for hearing aids for everyone over the age of 45. But I don’t understand why they aren’t at least covered for kids under 18, at a minimum.

      In my state early intervention will help cover the cost of hearing aids for kids under age 3, and a 504 plan will make the school pay for things like an FM system to feed into the hearing aid – but the cost of the aid is on the family unless they can get help from a non-profit. The only thing that has saved us is having an HSA that rolls over from year to year, so we have the cost of the next aid set aside (with pre-tax money) for when this one dies – but we are lucky to have the means to be able to do so.

      From what I understand, some states have required insurance companies to cover certain conditions by law, so maybe you could lobby to your elected state officials? But yes, I think it’s crazy that so many things that would be consider basic care in other first world countries are not in the US – for instance, lack of Dental care can lead to major medical problems, but we aren’t willing to treat it preventatively yet. The ACA requirement of pediatric dental being included in medical insurance seemed like a good idea – but it has been a major headache for my company to implement.

      1. And I think the flip side of the money issue is that insurance companies are such a pain to actually get money out of that I think many specialists would wind up having to hire more staff to deal with the billing issues than they would get out of insurance. As it is now, there is more than one (regular) doctor in my area that offers a significant discount if you pay by cash or card on the day of the appointment, without going through insurance. Same with my optometrist. And although I technically have dental insurance, it covers so little that basically all I’m doing is pre-paying for my 2 cleanings a year a little at a time from each paycheck pre-tax.

      2. Thanks. Lobbying is a great idea but my state is still debating whether to even maintain medicaid expansion. Baby steps here.

  3. Need some advice on prepping for upcoming in house counsel interviews. From 2013 till last December, oi worked as an outside contractor for the in house legal department of a Fortune 500 company. My boss tried her best to get me on board as a full time employee, however company decided to sell the business unit with the goods/services that I supported, so I became unemployed at the end of 2015. I was asked to present myself to company’s customers as “Company X Corporate Counsel”, worked on numerous multiple million dollar deals, and have 2 former bosses at Company X who are willing to give me an excellent recommendation. My question is whether potential employers will see me as second rate due the fact that I was a contractor and not an actual employee at Company X? Any advice on how to portray my former position?

  4. How much do you think your upbringing and way you were raised played a role in how your life is turning out (career goals/education, class/income, relationships, etc.)?

    1. Surprisingly little, for me. Or maybe it had a huge effect because I decide I didn’t want to be like my parents. Both are well-educated and lawyers, and my dad is on his FOURTH wife and my mom on her third husband. I actually do enjoy my mom and stepdad as people but am on very rocky terms with my dad (per cliche, his fourth wife is only 5 years older than me). I would say that I am very grateful that they covered a private university (though I fully paid for 1/4 years with scholarship money) and very grateful that they championed education. I was not so grateful for the constant emotional manipulation and generally super poor role models for relationships and friendships – they had a bitter divorce and would try to hurt each other through my siblings and I and that was pretty damaging. Unfortunately my siblings were more hurt by all of this and my 2 younger brothers both have drug and alcohol problems and struggling to sort of have their s%#@ together. Personally, I blame my parents a bit for this and just feel lucky that I happen to be built in a way that it didn’t affect me too much. I’m a product manager at a big company, in a stable LTR and generally pretty happy.

    2. What’s the quote about being born on 3rd base and deciding you’ve hit a home run?

      Raised in stable, upper-middle-class family with supportive parents who have now been married almost 40 years. I’m sure they occasionally fought but were careful to present a united front to kids. Education was the priority, whether performance at school, reading for pleasure, or family cultural outings such as museums, concerts, historical s!tes, etc. I’ve always enjoyed educational/career “success” both because I was proud of myself but also because I knew my parents would be pleased as well. I never considered “whether” I’d go to college (or whether I’d be able to afford it), worry about needing to drop out of school or forego extracurriculars or studying to earn money, or felt insecure about my family’s finances.

      So, if I’d been raised in a less privileged environment, would I be a well-educated, career-driven, happily-married 30 something? That is really, really hard to say.

      4. +3

        I feel like my parents made an extra effort to develop and support our interests. And we had the means and time to do so.

      7. +6, except my parents are divorced (but still present a united front to the kids. And peacefully coexist for holidays and important events)

    3. I am a biglaw partner and have a parent who had an outhouse growing up (and the other parent was born at home on a farm). We are hard workers (as we’re my grandparents). I worry that my children will grow up so comfortable that they will not be as hard pressed to work hard. Maybe they will get from third base to home plate, but I’ve seen much more failure to reach the green even though the kids of co+workers are starting on the ladies’ tees.

      1. Although education was constantly valued and emphasized in my growing-up home, I put myself through college and graduate school. So … even if one is not “born on third base,” you certainly can hit a home run! Or perhaps a grand slam! :)

      2. That’s something that I’m struggling with, too, regarding my kids. No outhouses, but neither of my parents went to college, they had kids young, and we were financially struggling throughout my childhood (though they’re quite comfortable now, largely because my dad is a hard worker and *extremely* intelligent). I’m happy that my kids will grow up with more opportunities, but, on the other hand, I’m not sure that the fact that I had to go out and make my own opportunities was a bad thing. I don’t know, but it’s a concern.

        On the flip side, though, I’ll add that, while we were struggling, we weren’t destitute. There was never any question of whether we’d have food or shelter or anything we needed, or that our parents would be there when we got home and loved us, so I see those things as a massive, massive privilege which I’m sure positively impacted my current role, even if I didn’t take after them in education/career ways.

        I also find it interesting that both my husband and I had mostly stay at home mothers, which people seem to expect would encourage us to have strict gender roles, but really did not in our case – we embraced the advantages of having a parent at home, but have been really happy to have it be him rather than me.

    4. Kind of sort of. I come from a wealthy family, but they gave me no support. I had to work to pay my tuition, and throughout university I was consistantly below the poverty line. My family could have easily afforded to help me, but they opted not to. I am successful, but not nearly as much so as my peers who didn’t have to pay their own way and who were given internships/jobs from their family. I am a bit bitter and my parents are well aware their decision not to help me means that in their old age I will not be their caretaker and they will end up in a home.

    5. I came from a solidly middle class family (mom a teacher, dad a union carpenter) that valued education even though most of the people on both sides (including my dad) were not college educated. Parents paid for undergrad with the help of merit scholarships. We were definitely part of the privileged if not wealthy class and I certainly appreciate it.

      The not so great part was that my parents’ marriage was pretty awful and my mom (and my dad, but he was mostly emotionally absent) had all kinds of insecurities/hangups that really adversely impacted my self-confidence in all areas and led me to one ill-advised marriage and one flat-out disastrous marriage. It took many years and a bucketload of therapy to unlearn all the craziness I learned in my family of origin and figure out what relationships are supposed to be like.

      1. +1 here.

        Pretty much the same deal here: just starting to really come to grips with some of the family of origin stuff.
        Seconding the time and therapy.
        So…positive and negative from family, and heck if I can untangle enough of it to give a clear response to the OP!

    6. Well, my dad was an alcoholic and my mom is crazy. Life was poor, disruptive, I’ve been having hungry and sometimes no one had time to give a damn. But, I think their own childhoods were worse, and they did what they could.

      How did it affect me? I am fiercely independent independent, successful in my career, happily married, and very, very generous.

    7. I think both the good things and the bad things impacted me positively. My family struggled financially- we never had the power turned off, but I did qualify for free lunches at school. Things got really rough when Mom went back to school and Dad left and ‘frequently forgot’ to pay the (fairly small amount) of child support required.

      Things they did right: Really emphasized education and raised us to have strong morals and deep levels of commitment. If I say I’m going to do something, I will do it. I think they also did a good job of raising my siblings and I with what they’re now calling ‘grit’. We don’t get frustrated easily and are extremely persistent, hard working humans.

      Things they did really terribly and I learned from: They were terrible with money. Well, first they didn’t have any money and then they sucked at managing it. This has resulted in myself and my siblings all being (varying degrees ranging from decent to probably too good) financially disciplined. We have had retirement accounts and plans set up since we were in high school and partially chose careers based on their ability to ensure we had a decent living (mom was an artist, dad was a poet. Sounds lovely, but doesn’t pay the bills).

      I’ve also learned to make sure I could always support myself because of my parents’ divorce. I have an amazing marriage, but part of why I think we are both happy in it is that we are both financially participating members of the relationship. We also share overall financial philosophies and goals, which my parents didn’t.

      Sometimes, especially a few years ago, I would get angry/resentful that I didn’t have more supportive parents. See, I didn’t have anyone who helped me pay my college application fees or had a financial safety net for me. I had to turn down my dream Ivy League school for the state school that gave me a big scholarship. I’m happy with where I am now and tell myself that that’s what’s important, but sometimes I wonder just how far I would have gone if I’d had parents who were more capable of helping/supporting me through my college process…

    8. In my case it had everything to with it. I grew up poor. Food stamps, welfare, government subsidized housing etc. I sometimes taken by family services and bounced around in foster care but in the end I was always returned to my mother. She didn’t know who my father was and had other children by all different fathers. She did drugs and was often incarcerated. I attended one of the worst rated schools in the country.

      I always knew I wanted to get out and not end up like my mom. I stayed in school and worked my butt off. I had no friends because none of them were interested in studying and I spent ever spare second studying. I was offered a college scholarship that was both needs and merit based. It was by no means Ivy League but I took it. I took every class that I was allowed to take with my scholarship, including summer school. I was serious and probably seemed weird and uptight to my classmates. My housing, books, meal plan and tuition were covered but when I got there I only had 3 shirts, 3 pairs of pants, one pair of shoes and one coat. I made up a story about the bus company losing my luggage so my roommate lent me some some shampoo and a stick of deodorant. I got a job working in student services working just enough for me to afford toiletries and the odd item of clothing.

      I graduated college 6 years ago. To this day I live modestly and save as much as I can for emergencies. I still struggle with the fact that a single paycheck is more than my mom had for months. I have a hard time buying myself anything new, even if it is something I need. I was so anxious and freaked out when I spent a hundred dollars on a suit for job interviews.

      I appreciate all the opportunities I have had and I take any chance I can to further my education or learn anything new. I also do whatever I can to help others who are where I was once was, so I mentor kids from low income backgrounds to help them succeed academically. I sometimes feel like I’m an imposter or don’t deserve to be successful but I have worked on pushing those feelings away and I give myself much more credit now.

      2. I am so glad you are mentoring kids now. You are totally wonderful and deserve all good things in life. You will positively impact so. many.people. I know. Keep mentoring.

        And try to breathe a little… finally…

      3. You deserve to be successful way more than anyone born on 3rd base . You truly hit a homerun and your story is completely inspiring including to those of us born on 3rd base.

      4. Yes, this – I had the toiletries, but no winter coat when I went away to college… in Minnesota. (I saved up and bought a winter coat before it got truly frigid that first year.)

        My dad sent me $70/mo (which is what he had been paying to my mother for child support until I moved out). I got an off-campus job and worked a ton to pay for the things my cost-of-living scholarship didn’t cover, because that was all the financial support they could give me. My relationship with my mother was not good, and she refused to even co-sign loans for me (she didn’t really make enough money to help out in other ways, anyway). I graduated in 3 years so I could start working full-time sooner.

        It sounds like I’m a lot older than you are (nearly 40), but I still have huge (like, CRUSHING) guilt that I receive bonuses that are bigger than my dad ever made in a year. My parents don’t actually need my help yet (they’re still pretty young), but it will be a hard thing to figure out how much I want to set aside my family’s needs in order to help them (my mom especially).

        My husband’s background is similar (parents divorced before he was born, free-lunch poor growing up, no help with college), and as a result we’re both very frugal. We also lived together for a long(ish) time before we got married, because we wanted to be very very sure that marriage was the right choice for us. We’ve now been married for 17 years :-)

        I also do a lot of mentoring and tutoring – I work in technology, and have focused on getting lower-income girls into STEM careers and on working with women in a local two-year college’s technology program. I feel incredibly lucky that things worked out so well for me, and definitely want to make opportunities for other folks in similar (and often worse) circumstances than my own.

  5. I’m heading to NYC this weekend and hoping to do some maternity shopping (the options in my city are limited and I am hoping to find more options in stores in NYC!). Are there any stores that people recommend I should check out?

    1. It’s not NYC-specific, but I really liked H&M’s maternity line. I swear I got more wear out of my H&M pieces than any expensive brands. I believe that they carry it in-store in one of the Herald Square branches (definitely check the website before dropping in). Also, H&M (or any of the Herald Square stores) are a zoo, so try to get there right when they open in the morning, while your energy is high and the crowds (and lines for the fitting room) are low.

      I also liked Clementine consignment shop in the West Village. Not a huge selection and not so cheap, but very high quality pieces.

  6. I’ll be travelling through southeast Asia this summer – 5 nights in Phuket, 3 each in Hong Kong and Hanoi – and I’d really like to get a custom suit made. Does anybody else have any experience with this? Online reviews seem hit or miss, especially when it comes to women.

    1. I looked into it when I went to Hong Kong but still found that the prices were expensive. I also asked my cousin who lives there for recommendations (she’s in banking) but she didn’t strongly recommend it. I think you may have better luck in one of your other two stops!

      1. +1. I’ve heard that custom suits in Hong Kong (and maybe other Asian countries) are great for men but not for women because the tailors aren’t great at working with women’s curves. That said. I had an amazing time in Hong Kong and it’s still my favorite place to visit. Enjoy!

    2. I think this might be tough. There are places in Thailand and Vietnam that can turn these clothes around in a day or two, but it probably wouldn’t be very high quality. For a good custom suit, you would need to find a tailor on the first day, give them a day or two to make the suit, then go back for a fitting so they can adjust if necessary, and then another day for them to finish. A minimum of 4-5 days, which is pretty quick for custom clothes but longer than it sounds like you’ll be in most places.

    3. I don’t recommend it. Cheap tailors use very low quality materials. The suit will fit but will look Macys-level.

      High-end tailors cost almost the same as a good suit plus tailoring in the US.

  7. What’s an appropriate response time from a real estate agent? I’m a long distance client and have a house hunting trip scheduled for next week. I emailed and called 48 hours ago; no response yet. We have had no communication other than the initial phone call.

    1. That would be way outside my range. I understand life but it’s the middle of the week. I have only interacted with a couple agents but they both got back to me within hours. My coworker is an agent on the side (previously full-time) and I know she gets back to people either at lunch or right after work. 1 day would definitely be my limit. Too many motivated agents out there.

    2. That’s way too long unless a true emergency came up, like a member of his or her family was hospitalized. I’d try to find someone else before the house hunting trip. An almost immediate response time is an essential quality in a real estate agent, especially if you’re looking in a competitive market.

    3. At least in the market where I am, that is way too long. There are so, so many realtors out there. And when you actually come down to making an offer, if you do, you want their response time to be instantaneous. I would definitely contact others.

    4. Agreeing with everyone else — if you are actually in the offer stage (or post-inspection, or near-closing, etc) you will want someone who is monitoring email constantly. Barring a really good explanation (“oh it was caught in my spam” is not a good explanation) I’d contact other agents.

    5. I am in Silicon Valley and my agent (and mortgage broker) returned my calls within an hour. I even got text messages within seconds if I called while they were on another call.

      The only excuse they ever gave was that they were with another client. When they were with me, they took short calls from other clients and/or responded to them with at least a text message.

      It is a competitive market here and that is what is needed to buy/sell houses.

  8. Need some advice on preparing for some upcoming in-house counsel job interviews. I am an attorney, who from 2013 to the end of last year, I worked as a contractor for a Fortune 500 company (Company X) in their in-house legal department. I negotiated customer-facing contracts, and was asked to represent myself to Company X’s outside clients as “Corporate Counsel, Company X”. My bosses tried mightily to get me hired on as a full-time employee, however, Company X is in the process of selling the business unit that I support, so I was out of a job at the end of 2015. I am in the process of interviewing for other (permanent) positions and am wondering if the fact that I was a contractor instead of an employee at Company X (a very well known and admired company) will cause me to be perceived as something second rate. Additionally, how should I frame my past job experience?

    1. I’ve seen contractors handle it both ways. At Company X’s request, you held yourself out as their Corporate Counsel. I see nothing wrong with continuing to do so unless the context makes sense for you to elaborate. That said, your job search story is likely that they loved you and you loved them but because of the divestiture, you are now looking… in which case it’s relevant. I wouldn’t get hung up on the particulars and I certainly wouldn’t let the fact that you were a contractor get you down. It’s not like you were just covering for someone’s FMLA leave and then kicked out the door the second that person returned. You put in 2 good years. Good luck.

    2. Whatever you say, do not present yourself solely as an employee of Company X. We recently revoked a candidate’s offer for an in-house position because we found out (from unimpeachable sources) that the candidate had lied about his/her experience at his/her prior position. Essentially, Candidate had been a short-term contractor, but represented that he/she was a current employee there.

      1. Same Anon. I’ll add that we didn’t care (at all) whether the Candidate had been a contractor. It was the affirmative misrepresentation that caused us to revoke.

        1. Yes, this, please don’t take my advise as a suggestion to lie by omission! But, honestly, if you put: Company X, Corporate Counsel (contract position), [month] 2013 – December 2015 on your resume and listed all of your responsibilities under it, I would not expect you to address it further. Of course, if you were asked about it directly, explain the situation truthfully. Or, if as I mentioned above, your job search story is that they didn’t renew your contract because of the divestiture, then it comes up again. But no need to dwell. For some reason I interpret your post as being down on yourself in part because you were a contractor (could be totally off base, hope I am) and there’s no need for that.

          1. Anom,

            OP here, and you are not off base. I am really angry, disappointed, and a little bitter that I was not able to convert the opportunity into permanent employment. I am beating myself up about it. I have only started my job hunt in earnest now because I realized at the end of last year that I was “interviewing angry”, and I needed to cool down and heal before I could make a good impression one hiring manager!!

    3. I say don’t mention it unless they ask. Where I live there is a *major employer* and anyone hired after about 2010 is technically a contractor even though they all work in the office ect (it’s done to avoid paying benefits). The only real employees of the company are those who were grandfathered in before the policy took effect. It’s totally common where I am to work for a company but technically be a contractor. It’s pretty much a non-distinction.

  9. Someone on the morning thread was asking for reccomendations for working out at home Try Fitness Blender. They have a ton of free workouts on their You Tube channe from low impact to HIIT. I’m trying to get into the habit of working out regularly and I actually look forward to using their videos.

    2. I love these videos!

      They’re also fabulous for fitting in a workout while baby naps. Gotta get that awkward baby weight-redistribution off.

  10. I need some shopping help. I recently took a job that requires _more_ suits and I am having a hard time finding any I like. I am a curvy size 10, with a significant bust, and I used to shop at Ann Taylor a lot, about 10 years ago, but since then I’ve struggled to find a line that offers interesting suits for people with curves. I either find that cuts are (1) too straight up and down or (2) matronly and boring. If it helps thinking about similar lines, Classiques Entier usually fits me well for their dresses, but they seem to insist that jackets much be box-shaped. If anyone can help, I would really appreciate it!

    1. Try The Fold. They are based out of the UK, but their suits seem very curve-friendly.

      1. +1 for Tahari. Macys has a great selection and TJM/Marshalls often has lucky finds.

    3. Most recently, I’ve been having good luck with the “Luxe” collection at The Limited. Their regular suiting is kind of on the cheaper-looking side, but the Luxe fabric is heavier, everything’s lined, and the fit is flattering on my (similar to your) shape.

  11. WARNING VENT!

    I am so burnt out and tired. I feel like I am constantly trying to meet my client’s need RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND. Meanwhile, my own attorney, accountant, family, friends, whomever, take their sweet time to get back to me. Some clients do this too but it’s so frustrating. I need a vacation but I cannot even take one because I need my lawyer, then accountant, to give me answers that take forever. I am becoming completely bitter and ignoring every request from anyone that isn’t a client. Stop asking me questions. It’s my own fault for knowing. But figure it out yourself! And this girl in the next office has been laughing at the top of her lungs all day during training.

    1. What? You can’t take vacation because you need your attorney and accountant to get back to you? Just go on vacation and get back to them when you get back.

      I hear you on the laughing though. I hate it when people laugh.

    2. I’m not following you. What answers do you need from your lawyer and accountant that prevent you from taking a vacation?

    3. Be careful not to let your client’s unreasonable expectations about response time affect your own perspective on what is a reasonable response time for your own lawyer and accountant, and especially for your family and friends (who are not on the payroll).

    4. Yeah. I get it. I worked through the weekend to get 50 hours of work product to a partner within 5 days. I am exhausted by it and the client is wondering why we don’t have a draft yet.

      Deep breathes.

  12. Years ago, there was a group of women on this s!te who had some sort of informal subgroup for people suffering with Crohns, ulcerative colitis or other IBS issues. Does this still exist and how could I reach out for support? I know it’s late so will post again some morning when I have time if I don’t get any responses this afternoon.

    1. Hi! Yes. We do. It’s not super active but I’m hoping that’s because we are doing well right now. Post an anon email and I will loop you in!

      1. I was just about to post and say that I think Blonde Lawyer and TCFKAG are part of this group.

  13. No, what? No. Please no. This is not for the under 60 crowd.

    2. What’s the point of all these remarks about threadjacks this week? If you are anti-threadjack this is SO not the blog for you!

      2. I’m certainly not anti-threadjack; I actually love reading some of the discussions here. But I do feel like fashion discussion is becoming a smaller and smaller part of the comments here. Any ideas where I can find in-depth workwear fashion discussion besides here?

        1. Uh – were there ever in-depth workwear fashion discussions here? What level of discussion are you looking for that you aren’t finding?

        2. As a non-attorney (and admittedly older than the 20s and 30s aspects of some comments) I use the “collapse comments” feature to help me skip over the work related, law related, or other threads that I can’t be interested in reading … maybe that will help you find the fashion and workwear threads more easily.

          1. I am in the same boat and make good use of “collapse comments” too. It saves a lot of scrolling.

    4. I love this, but these toppers look terrible on me. I need jackets that have some shape to them to avoid just looking like a giant blob. I do better with nipped-in waists and shorter jackets.

  14. My firm is hosting a conference tomorrow and I’m attending to network (not a speaker or panelist). I tried on my “good” suit and it regretfully no longer fits due a recent weight loss. Am I best off wearing on my “okay” suit, or “good” separates (dress and blazer)?

    TIA!

  15. OMG I just realized that I double-booked a couples date (we have four tickets to an event) for tomorrow night. We’re all set to go with Couple A, then today at lunch I see the husband of Couple B and he says “we’re all excited about tomorrow — when and where do you want to meet?” Gah. I had a semi-reasonable explanation and got set up to see Couple B in two weeks instead, but OMG I am mortified.

    Please tell me I’m not the only one this happens to. Or tell me your latest social faux pas…

    1. Last night I basically yelled at a friend at dinner, in front of others, because she invited an (obnoxious and moochy) guy to a very-specifically-girl’s dinner that I had planned. Not someone she’s dating, but someone in the same school program as the rest of us, someone who is a player-type and sort of sexist, and definitely not the type of person you invite to a girl’s night out.

      Then, when I (and others) told my friend it would be best if she uninvited him, because we thought he hadn’t yet left to meet us, she texted him saying “[OP] doesn’t want you to come, sorry.” He then showed up 2 minutes later and dinner was spectacularly awkward. This was after a long string of similarly not-aware things she has done recently and it was sort of my last straw. Honestly I think it was more her social faux pas than mine, but I’m still mortified.

    2. I doubled-booked my kid for a birthday party and a family dinner with another family where it would have been awkward to gk without him. Very embarrassing that I can’t keep track of my little one’s social life.

    1. Congrats to your bff!! Being an auntie to a friend’s kid is the most fun thing ever. :D

  17. This suit is horrible. I had several with long, long jackets in the mid-90s and now I am wondering why. But I love fashion comments AND I love threadjacks!

      2. With fingernails that shine like justice? I hope you are enjoying the cup holders in your Chrysler LeBaron.

    2. My first suit was a grey Express skirt suit with a jacket halfway to my knees, purchased in 11th grade for college interviews. Man did I ever love that suit. I kept (and wore) the pencil skirt for 12 years, but I think I only wore the jacket twice.

    3. I love this suit. I would never wear it (I’m 30) but I think this type of suit is amazing on older women (like Secretary Clinton) and this version is stunning. But, I don’t really get it. It’s great for HRC to wear behind a podium, but what if you have a job where you sit sometimes? Do you put the jacket on a hanger? Sit on it?

  18. If you were asked to maintain your current role and position, but take on direct line management responsibility of two junior new starters into the business what % pay rise would you ask for?

    For context, I have no direct line management experience but have a ILM qualification and have had ‘indirect’ responsibilities and delivered formal coaching and training on management skills.

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