Suit of the Week: Ralph Lauren

87 Comments

1. Jim Carrey in the Mask. That is all.

   1. I was thinking some kind of horrid Miami Vice meets Pride Month but yours is better.

   2. And also: tooo much jacket.

      If I had the torso of a corgi in proportion to my legs, I might could pull this off.

      1. Am a human corgi, can confirm this would look proportional on me. 5’4″ and 25″ inseam.

   3. Is it terrible that I kinda like it?!

      1. I like it too.

         1. I love the suit and would totally wear it a simple white top/blouse! I love color and luckily work in marketing, so am allowed to wear whatever crazy thing I want.

2. Re feedback on remote working. I feel that with distance and also lag time b/w exchanges, I am typing out lengthy comments to everything I review. When I used to do this in-office, this was quick and easy. Tone wasn’t an issue. But I feel that writing out everything takes so much time. And scheduling what I think of as a 1/2 hour meeting to review items (vs sending in written comments) is often takes a long time of back-and-forth to work out. I am not sure how to do this better, but I want to be better (or at least faster). This is for new / newish remote hires.

   1. Isn’t this what the phone is for?

      1. +1000 why don’t people call anymore.

         1. IDK but if you need to plan a meeting, you need to plan a call. No one picks up otherwise and half of my work doesn’t fwd phones to their cells even though we’ve been WFH for over a year now.

   2. Teams meetings, I do lots of them. Also preferred in my company, since discussions of R&D are discouraged from being put in writing.

   3. For scheduling meetings, don’t you have a calendaring system? I just schedule meetings in outlook. Takes 5 seconds. No back and forth.

      1. +1 my team shares calendars so I can see what my colleagues work schedules are like so I just pick an available and appropriate time then schedule something.

      2. Somehow people do not use calendars or they go unavailable during the day (at yoga, walking the dog, reading quietly offline). It is much more of a task tracking open time than IMO it should be. Just block off time if you won’t take a meeting during it!

3. Is it possible to be burnt out over a LONG period of time (5+ years) and/or just never recover from it? On the flip side, can you give me tips on how to recover?

   Long story – like many of you did the NYC biglaw thing. All kinds of exhaustion and burn out there esp in years 6-8 as I worked non stop. I left there exhausted. Landed in government. It wasn’t the right job for me but it’s the job that was hiring and the salary and benefits are really good so I’ve been here 5+ years (also told myself to stay 5 years because of vesting). But I’m tired and unmotivated here too though it’s not because of long hours, it’s more work that I just don’t like nor find important (to me). Obviously the pandemic has contributed, as I have a high risk condition and spent last year just not going anywhere at all and even now I haven’t traveled yet. I don’t travel much but I always like to get away in the winter for 1-2 weeks of sun and every year or two I like to get to a big European city; obviously winter has passed and I’m likely not getting to Europe anytime soon.

   I know I need to move on job wise, yet when I even look at things or apply, my first thought is OMG what if I get it, back to impressing people, guess I won’t get a vacation for another 2 years or get the time off I need to go to the dentist or whatever. Which I know is insane, people do take new jobs and go to the dentist still and take days off (and the jobs I’m looking at are not biglaw). So part of me thinks it’s the burn out talking. Anyone experienced this? Do I just continue to cool my jets at this job for years longer just sacrificing my resume? Or somehow trust when the right situation comes along, it’ll work? Thoughts?

   1. Back when I switched jobs, the obvious to me answer was to do all of my doctor/dentist visits during the waning days of Job 1 prior to switching to Job 2 so I could hit the ground running. And a week or so b/w jobs, even local ones, is a good time to travel.

   2. Two thoughts-

      Go take a vacation now! You can! You need it!

      Talk to a therapist- why make major life changes without getting some pro insight into your mental state?

   3. While I think your situation probably has started pre-pandemic, the last year has probably not improved the feeling of constant burn out.
      If I were you, I would start taking a step back and allow yourself room to breathe. Maybe schedule an appointment with a coach or therapist if you have access to that, to have some more focused conversations about what motivates you, what annoys you, how you deal with negative emotions towards your job etc.

      Something like this has helped me lot to let go of some inherent thought spirals and the feeling of being stressed all the time, especially with soooooo many freaking decisions I had to make during the pandemic (and it’s not over, as a lot again needs decided as we “re-enter” society).

      I also have tried to adopt a mindset of “It’s good to have options”. So I’d say if you can spend ‘some’ time with job searching, do it. Does it fell like an exhausting task to survey the job market and take time to apply, do interviews etc? Sure. Do I learn something every time, even if I don’t get/want the job? Yes. Will it prepare me better if a suitable next role comes along? For sure!

   4. 1. Take a vacation – go anywhere even if not a ‘dream’/preferred vacation
      2. Not caring about your work is a symptom of burnout. I would stay in the current job, work on the burnout and then move to something more suitable. Don’t take the burnout with you to another job.

      1. This. You do sound like you desperately need/want a vacation and break from regular life. Just take one. I know you say you prefer winter vacations and/or Europe and neither of those are options, but honestly who knows when they will be options? This winter could see some growth in covid to where people (esp since you say you’re high risk) may decide not to travel. Plus Europe depends completely on their reopening etc. Just go SOMEWHERE. Even if it’s a few days in the heat of summer to someplace you’d never go. Not that it’ll cure your burnout fully, but you may come back thinking more clearly regarding – stay in this job or apply to other jobs or maybe don’t apply to other jobs all the time but if a job comes along that really matches your skills/interests, apply to that one.

   5. Agree that you definitely should take a vacation. Don’t let perfect (sun in winter, Euro city) get in the way of good enough (sun right now, American city you’ve never been to before).

      You don’t like this job, so no, you are not obligated to keep working there for years. You are gainfully employed, so you can be choosy about the jobs you want to apply for. Start scrolling through job searches until you see something interesting. If you can afford it, commit to taking a significant amount of time off between jobs. (A month or so.)

   6. I’m confused why you think people don’t go to the dentist with other jobs? What???

      1. I get it. When I started my job I didn’t have access to time off right away and the vacation accrual was slow (and I wanted to use it for fun things not dentists) and on top of that there’s the whole “you’re new and learning” thing, so you feel like you need to be paying attention to all things until you can sort out what really needs you and that people are judging you. But that shouldn’t stop you. If anything, being new is a great time to set up your new “normal” which is better work/life balance and boundaries.

      2. Some jobs require you to use sick time or pto for dr appointments and make you accrue it. And with a new job you might be back to 2 weeks of vacation (my otherwise fabulous benefited Fortune 500 company is like 15 vacation days for a new hire plus only 6 paid holidays; luckily we don’t need to use sick time for appointments but our sick time is 5 days per year and accrues like an hour per pay period).

      3. I’m sure she knows that people can go to the dentist working at any job. But come on you know new jobs have a long stretch of – always be on, impress everyone, don’t take time off if you can help it – while you cement your reputation as hard working, reliable etc. FWIW though outside of certain jobs like biglaw and investment banking, I think this is changing. Employees come in a lot more like look I’ll work hard but I’m not putting my life on hold for 2 years to impress you – I still need to go to the dr/dentist, I still need some kind of vacation/long weekends and I won’t put myself into unhealthy places for an employer. And employers are acceding to this as more people are quietly demanding it – I think it only grows post pandemic.

      4. When I was working in consulting, I didn’t go to the dentist or doctor for over a year. not because we didn’t have PTO or sick days – we did – but while on a project you were pretty much expected to be available 24/7, Monday-Friday at least, and it felt like such a huge thing to tell my manager I needed to take a few hours off for a doctors appointment. (I’m sure I could have made it work, but this was my first job out of college and getting everything lined up seemed so overwhelming.
         Just to say that I understand. but also this is NOT NORMAL. I have worked multiple jobs since this that have been interesting, intense, high-paying, and also totally normal and accepted to take time off to go to the dentist.

   7. Last night I listened to an episode of the podcast called 10 percent happier. The guest’s name was Leah Weiss and the topic was burnout. Listen to the podcast as she talks about the symptoms/criteria and what she did about it. She also wrote a book about burnout — I haven’t read out.

      If you have burnout, I would not change jobs right now. Deal with the burnout first.

   8. I had the same concerns as well, and it really was the burnout/depressing talking. It felt like everything was going to be SO HARD so might has well stick with the devil I know. Well, it turns out that being in a good place and with good colleagues and interesting work actually re-energized me so that I can do more and be more productive and also be more engaged when I’m not working, too. So, my only advice to you is that maybe it really is the job that’s sucking the energy out of you, and once you land somewhere good, you’ll feel more motivated and have more time to do all of the things you want to do? Perhaps you are talking yourself out of good opportunities because of fear that the new place will be just as soul-sucking as your previous workplaces and it does not have to be that way. I am older than you, and am in my 6th different job as a lawyer and I’m here to tell you that it does get better and my only regret actually is staying way too long at certain places. The place I’m at now (smaller firm) is awesome in every way and I get paid biglaw dollars but I don’t work biglaw hours. Keep talking to people, apply for anything and everything you find interesting, and see where that takes you.

4. Looking for ideas for a no-kid travel weekend for mid-November, within a 3-ish hour drive or flight from Detroit, traveling either domestically or to Canada (if they let us in, ha!). Tell me what you love!

   1. Is that a 3-hour flight from Phoenix? If so, Phoenix! Spas! Warm weather!

      1. We have done Phoenix/Scottsdale several times! I think it’s 3-ish hours and it’s our fallback. We love it but I’m thinking I’d like to do something a bit different this time around.

   2. I’d rent a luxury cabin close to State Park somewhere within driving distance and have a really quiet weekend in nature. It may be cold, but that only means more time in the hot tub or reading in front of a fireplace. I hate flying for a weekend, FWIW.

      1. Oh that sounds nice! Traverse City is normally our driving-distance vacation but it’s a smidge too late in the year for good stuff up there. I’m wondering if there’s something south into Ohio that would be good for us – thanks for the idea.

   3. What do you want to do? City? Beach? Nature?

      1. We’re more city people for sure – I was thinking maybe Nashville? A warm-enough beach is probably too far for us for the weekend. Basically anything that has decent food and a nice resort/cabin is great!

         1. Nashville weather is middling in November. It may be beautiful (like crisp fall gorgeousness) or it may be gross (wet, cold, uninspiring). And personally I don’t find Nashville relaxing (I mean, I live here, so maybe that’s part of it, but it’s more an eat/drink/go-out kind of place, especially that time of year).

            1. I would not consider Nashville a “relaxing” place. It’s definitely an experience town, but consider something like Bloomsbury Farm or somewhere in Franklin–relaxing, close to the city-ish, but not in the thick of things.

               I adore Nashville, but if you are in downtown, you have bachelorettes and tractors hauling hot tubs–no joke.

         2. South Florida is 100% warm enough in November for beach or pool time, FWIW, and should be just under the 3-hour flight mark.

            What about Charleston or Savannah?

            1. Good point about south Florida. And I’ve never been to either Charleston or Savannah! I’ll float these ideas, thanks!

            2. I would go to Aly’s Beach or Rosemary. Relaxed, not in season, perfect time to visit–that’s when we go. Some things will be closed, but the quiet is divine.

         3. Apologies to Nashvillians, but Nashville is one of my least favorite cities I have visited. If you are not into music and live performances, I wouldn’t go. The food was excellent, for sure, but there’s not much to the city besides music.

            I loved New Orleans, and enjoyed Charleston as well. I am also a fan of Philadelphia, although I don’t know how they are faring, COVID-wise. Pittsburgh would be fun for a long weekend. And, hear me out, Chicago can actually be pretty decent in November. I grew up in Chicago and went to school in Ann Arbor, and while AA was so gloomy in November, Chicago isn’t nearly as gloomy (maybe because of the way the wins blow over the lake?).

            Or, come to Washington DC! Lots to see, much of it free, excellent food and beverages, sanity about COVID, and the weather in November is usually pretty good! Plus I think Rock Creek Park, which runs through the city, just won an award for best nature in a city, so there’s easily accessible nature, too, if that’s what you like.

            1. Philly is doing just fine. We were a compliant group throughout.

               Mid November wouldn’t be the *best* time to visit – could get lucky with mild 50’s weather for walking around, could be a drizzly mess.

      2. I love Nashville normally but if you’re looking for a trip for Nov., not now, IDK Nashville gives me a bit of cause because the people going there have been fairly anti covid/anti mask and I assume somewhat anti vax too. Now hopefully things are all good in Nov, but if we see resurgence, just be warned that people in Nashville are going to be like whatever as they still fail to wear a mask even if it’s recommended again then.

   4. San Antonio. Stay at La Cantera.

      1. PS don’t spend all your time at La Cantera but maybe spa treatments during the day and riverwalk /downtown at night. And remember the Alamo!

         1. Oooh, that resort looks nice! Thanks.

   5. Don’t come to Canada unless you want to deal with winter.

   6. Charleston or somewhere else in SC (e.g., Kiawah or Palmetto Bluff)?

      1. Charleston is a great 2-3 day trip. So much delicious food, history, shops, etc., and everything is walkable. DH and I went for a couple of days on either side of NYE and it is still one of our most talked about trips.

5. I have used Cutback Coach really successfully to track and cut way, way back on my drinking. I’d love a similar app for calorie tracking and exercise. I do MyFitnessPal and am familiar with Noom and WW. Basically I just want to get a text or prompt that asks “have you worked out?” at a predetermined time each day and asks for my day’s calorie count. Does this exist?

   1. I use the reminder app on my phone for this (I have an Android and use Google Keep). Set a reoccurring reminder every day to work out/log calories.

   2. Ooh tell me more about Cutback Coach.

6. Love the silk shirt in that suit, but sadly not my budget range.

7. Hi all,
   I just got lab results back from my annual physical.
   1) My LDL has been creeping up steadily over the past few years. It’s not at a level my doctor would treat right now, but curious about your suggestions for how to stop or slow the creep.
   2) My vitamin D 25-hydroxy level is quite low. I’ve been taking a Vitamin D supplement (2000 UI) with breakfast for about 6 months, but they suggested I try additional steps. How would you go about this?

   Thanks in advance!

   1. I think that for cholesterol, my remedy is guac and fish for upping good fats and beans / oatmeal for using fiber as a bad fat sponge. But you can only do so much; genes account for a lot of this.

   2. One thing to consider with vitamin D, is that some of the effects you want from D, you only get if you also get sufficient vitamin K because they work together.

      1. This. Magnesium is important too.

         I’ve had better luck taking 10k D3 daily than taking a big dose of prescription D2 weekly. I think that’s pretty typical.

   3. 1) Cardio plus eating fruits, veggies, fiber, whole grains.
      2) Are you getting enough sun?

      1. I have a healthy diet but probably not a great amount of exercise. And I’m a sunscreen fanatic so probably not enough sun :/ My dad and my husband have both had disfiguring experiences with skin cancer so I’d rather get the Vitamin D from diet than more skin cancer risk.

   4. The vitamin D issue is so common. You just need a higher dose of supplement. Then you recheck your value in a month or two. What did your doctor suggest?

      Agree that the LDL issue is so common and often partially genetic, and many of us will increase similarly with age. Agree you could try some dietary changes but often small changes wont do much for this unless your diet was pretty poor already. I have seen people make drastic switches to a plant based diet with good results but it is up to you and your life preferences whether such a drastic step would make sense for you. If you are an average healthy woman with a normal LDL and lifestyle, I wouldn’t switch to vegan unless that was what I really wanted to do.

      And be careful not to eat a pint of Haagen Das ice cream or other similarly fatty foods the night before your next fasting lipid tests. Ask me how I know.

      1. Oh shoot…. I did. Not a whole pint, but I did have enough ice cream the night before to give me a tummy ache (which is my indicator light for “too much”)

         My LDL is at the top of the normal range. Not top third or top fourth but the literal top.

   5. Doesn’t your doctor have advice for getting more vitamin D?

      1. This + a naturopath advised liquid format is more easily absorbed.

      2. I haven’t talked to her. I had my appointment and the labs on the same day. Someone from her office sent me the results and said “the doctor would like you to get more Vitamin D”

         I will definitely follow up with her because I couldn’t remember the date of my last tetanus at the appointment. I just looked it up and it was 11 years ago, so I suppose I will be heading in for a TdaP booster any day,.

8. Paging Elle. Saw your post from this morning too late to respond. I have a 1.00 ct round bezel set solitaire necklace and I think it’s the perfect size. Definitely not too big or too small, at least on me. I’m 5’6″ and plus size. If I was 5’0″ and a size 0, it might appear bigger but honestly, I still don’t think I’d be bothered by it.

   1. Second this. Get the largest you can afford. Alternatively consider a pearl pendant. Pearl paradise has stunning ones. I know many people who upgrade jewellery to larger size but none who downgraded to a smaller one.

9. Weirdly specific retirement question: If you’ve been maxing out your 401K since 2010, how much do you have? Trying to figure out how my husband’s portfolio is going. He’s got $297k.

   1. His statement should tell you the returns he’s getting on each investment. I would compare the performance against the S&P (or an S&P index fund) over the same period. If’s the performance is lower than the S&P, that’s not good. Personally I only invest retirement money in S&P index funds.

      1. +1. S&P is going to be hard to beat over the last decade. I invested mostly in that for six years and have 297 (yes, the same number!).

      2. Related question – can you move funds from a 401K into an IRA or something if he’s still employed/contributing? He doesn’t have an index fund option.

         1. No, he can’t move while he’s still employed. Go to brightscope and check the plan’s ratings, it would be an exceptionally bad one if there are no index fund options. Also check if they have “target date” funds, which are usually 90% stock for the latest retirement date, and then increasingly conservative as the retirement date gets closer.

            He can still contribute to an IRA, though, and put that in lower-cost investments like index funds.

   2. Has he received a match? I just did a quick calc and found that the 401K limit with no match accumulated each year from 1/1/2010 to 12/31/2020 with ~6.75% return gets you to $294K. So much goes into understanding if that’s a good return for you, though.

      1. He works for a very small employer and her 401K stuff is screwy. She does match him and now is good about it but at one point she owed us $30K. Money is withdrawn from every paycheck but only put in the 401K 3-4 times a year. It’s probably criminal but she’s like family to us.

         1. Yeah… I work mainly on defined benefit plans, so take this with a grain of salt, but from what I understand about DC plans this is highly problematic.

   3. Same time frame and mine has approx $360k (Fidelity target date fund, no match ever).

10. At what income does it become a reasonable goal to max out your 401(k)? With the limited being $19,500, I’m struggling to figure out whether I can afford that. I currently save $10-15,000 for the past few years and also live a good life in terms of travel, a decent apartment, and a good but used car. Maxing my 401(k) would require redirecting from other savings or significantly curtailing my fun budget. Am I just getting sucked into irresponsible choices here or is it fine to wait to max it out until after another raise or two at work?

    1. The way we got to max was to redirect all raises to retirement savings. After a few years we were maxing.

    2. Anecdata: I started maxing mine out in my first job after college when I made $65K (early 2010s) and have ever since. Lived in a HCOL city and decent but dated apartment with a roommate. My large expenses were taxes, retirement, rent. I had a car for commuting to work. I was fortunate to not have student loans which I imagine would have changed the feasibility of this.

       1. +1, making even less. Did have loans. You just have to prioritize it. It never gets easier to live frugally than at this stage.

    3. Depends on your area, local taxes and lifestyle/family arrangements, of course, but I think if you’re making 75K as a single person I would say you should have maxing as your goal.

       1. Oh, also, what “other savings” do you mean? once you have an emergency fund, I’d be putting every dollar in to my 401(k) before other savings.

          I’d say around 100K you should be maxing both your 401K/457 AND your 6K in to the IRA.

          If you’re on the fence about what to prioritize, check out the link I’m posting below and play around. It blew my mind when I was 25, and I’m very glad it did!

       2. https://networthify.com/calculator/earlyretirement?income=75000&initialBalance=0&expenses=55500&annualPct=5&withdrawalRate=4

    4. I didn’t have the funds to max out until I was making about 80k.

    5. I agree that depending on your COL and loan situation 70-80k is about right. DH maxed when he made 55k but lived like a college student and had no loans or car payments. Once we were married and had a HHI of $150 we maxed both, stuffed IRAs, the works. Once we had kids we cut back a little but still mostly maxed.

11. How old are you?
    What is your income?
    What have you saved?
    What are your retirement goals?

    1. 37 (married)
       $350 (combined)
       $1.4M in retirement combined, $400k in roth
       Retire ASAP after our 3 kids get through college (youngest will graduate when we are 56).

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