Suit of the Week: The Fold

101 Comments

1. Last fall we paid a pretty hefty amount of money for professional landscaping of our front porch area. I don’t think they did a great job with the landscaping, but that’s not what this post is about. While hauling away our old shrubbery, they had construction equipment on our front lawn that left huge gouges with very visible tire tracks in the grass. I mentioned it to them at the time and they said it would be gone by the time they were done. I mowed the lawn yesterday for the first time this spring and the gouges are more noticeable than ever. I reached out to them to ask them to fix it and their reaction was basically to deny it was their equipment, which I know is false (there are clear tire marks and we’ve never had any other kind of vehicle on our front lawn; also they admitted at the time that their vehicle made the marks). They said they can come repair it but there will be a not insignificant cost.

   Am I way off base to think they should fix it for free? Our lawn was not going to win any prizes for beauty even before this (we don’t do chemical weed control and we sometimes go a little too long between mowings) but at least it had grass everywhere and now it has these large dirt scars across the front that are extremely noticeable. Aside from the aesthetic concerns, it’s also hard to mow over these huge trenches.

   1. I mean whether they should or not, they aren’t going to fix it. Hey people in my area aren’t showing up to do jobs paying money, where there is no allegation of fault. Given how hot the economy is and how much cash is being thrown around now of actual paid jobs, you’re not going to get someone to come out to fix something they allegedly damaged LAST FALL. Of course they’ll deny it – your best recourse would have been to get them to do it last fall – same day or next day after the damage.

      1. Yep. The chance to get it fixed was the day it happened. Good thing is a bag or two of topsoil is pretty cheap and top it with some seed or sod.

      2. This. I fear that sadly, that ship has sailed.

   2. I think you are correct and you should pursue this, but I also think it will probably be very difficult to deal with them and you might reach a point where it’s no longer worth the hassle to try to get them to fix it. You might try posting on r/homeowners, there are a lot of questions there about how to follow up with contractors who mess up.

   3. They should have fixed it, but a moderate amount of fill and seed can be purchased and applied in a couple of hours. Would you rather be right, or would you rather it be over with?

   4. The time to have them fix it was when they were done with the work but the tracks remained, and then you say “I am happy to hand you the check once you’ve repaired the lawn damage.”

      I do not think you will successfully badger them into coming and fixing it unless you go Full Karen with like, a Twitter war. And that’s not a good look.

      I would go buy some topsoil and grass seed at my local big box and chalk it up as lesson learned for next time. (Like if you need tree trimming or removal, it’s a common issue there, too.)

   5. Do you know anyone with a rotary tiller? You need to till the gouged areas, smooth them with a rake, and throw some grass seed on top. That’s a few hours’ work if you have the tools. Otherwise you have to do it with a shovel (google turning the soil.) If you don’t want to DIY, hire the mow and blow guys to do it – not the expensive landscapers. The chances of the landscapers coming back to fix it are nil, so be mad if you have to, but move on. Your window to address this, as others have said, was before the final payment.

      1. Home depot rents tillers.

   6. I think you should leave an honest review on yelp or wherever people in your area go for reviews of service providers.

   7. Ugh. I’m so so so sorry. You’re in the right and they should fix it but I agree that the hassle it will put you through probably will take effort and yield nothing. I’d write an honest review and let them know you won’t be referring or using them again. But man. I’m so sorry. My family members have had such bad experiences with contractors this year and it’s incredibly frustrating.

2. Lawyers or people who regularly pay lawyers: what’s your opinion about showing a discount or written off amount on a bill?

   Example A: typical rate is $2/hr, we agree to represent client for $0.75/hr. One lawyer thinks the bill for five hours should say “$10, but special discounted rate of $3.75 for you” as a reminder that we’re cutting them a sweet deal. Other lawyer thinks it is bad to show you ever discount services.

   Example B: client hired for x project, estimate was fifty hours, ended up being seventy, firm decides to write off or down associate time. Should client see the written down time and/or dollar amount, or just the final amount and time that actually gets charged?

   1. Lawyerly answer – it depends. I think if you’re writing off excessive time, it should not show. If you’re giving a courtesy discount, I would show that. So in your examples, I would show A, I would not show B.

   2. For Example A, I most often see a note at the bottom of the bill like “standard billing total = $10, discount applied so your total = $5”

      For Example B I wouldn’t expect or want that visibility.

      1. +1. Clients tend to think of write offs as a law firm management problem, not a benefit they receive.

   3. In my experience, it has been typical to reflect the discount a client receives on a bill – this is helpful for their record keeping and as a reminder. So I would include something similar to Example A. In Example B, I would not inform the client of the write-off; as the client, I wouldn’t think of it as a benefit to me. Instead, I would think you were bad at estimating. If there were extenuating circumstances that we didn’t discuss and that led to more hours worked, we should discuss, but if an associate just took longer than anticipated, keep that info internal.

   4. I am not an attorney but a consultant, and I show a write off to the contract max.

      So

      20 hours x $400/hour = 8000
      Contract max -500
      Total bill 7500

      Generally I show this level of detail because the 20 hours shown above would be broken into finer detail showing what was worked on and when. Rather than pretending I didn’t work for that last 1.25 hour, because I do want to include all the details, and because I’m honest, I just show the discount to the max.

   5. I’m a lawyer in a boutique litigation firm. We don’t do these things exactly, but when we write off time completely (that is not a waste of time), we change the billable rate to $0 so the client can see that we did the work and are not billing them for it. This is typically for small amounts (.3 hrs or less), or a big issue that was largely administrative (re-negotiating an expensive vendor fee).

   6. Your failure to accurately predict hours doesn’t matter to me. I’d expect to see A but not B.

3. Book recs for an upcoming beach vacation? I don’t normally like romance or romcom books, and generally gravitate towards literary fiction and more serious non-fiction which can make finding light, beachy books kind of difficult.

   1. The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier; Piranesi by Susanna Clark; Circe by Madeline Miller; The Grammarians by Cathleen Schine; Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple; anything by Ann Patchett; anything by Elena Ferrante

      1. All these, plus anything by Emily St. John Mandel, most notably Station Eleven (of course) and also The Glass Hotel and the newest Sea of Tranquility.

         Also I’m reading End of the World House by Adrienne Celt right now and it’s kind of blowing my mind.

         1. Reply with suggestions in mod so check back!

         2. Senior Attorney,

            How in the world do you seem to manage having a lawyer job, husband to manage, Rotary club, be reading all the books, watching all the shows, traveling to all the places, baking all the bread with nails that shine like justice and STILL be chatting all over this site?

            Do you sleep… like…. 2 hours a night?

         3. Heh you’re not all that far off. I do my reading under the covers at night while Himself is snoring away! And my job isn’t all that demanding at this point, praise be.

            Plus you are sadly misinformed about the state of my nails! ;)

   2. Erik Larson books – Dead Wake was super compelling
      Adventure books – Into Thin Air, Shadow Divers, etc
      A Gentleman in Moscow
      Bill Bryson’s “Short History of Nearly Everything” or “At Home” are fun in an interesting history/trivia way; some of his earlier writing (travel stories) is a mixed bag of whether it’s still funny or not.

      1. +1 to A Gentleman in Moscow and there is a new one by the same author called The Lincoln Highway.
         I also loved The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman – very good escapist fun but not totally fluffy.

      2. Echoing A Gentleman in Moscow and Erik Larson (if you like WW2 history, the Splendid and the Vile is great)!

         For non-fiction I’d bring to the beach:
         Four Lost Cities – Annalee Newitz
         A Woman of No Importance – Sonia Purnell
         The Address Book – Deirdre Mask
         The Third Pole – Mark Synnott

      3. LOVE erik Larson. I’ve read all his books.
         I also loved frozen in time, Astoria,savage harvest, and bitter brew. Brian killmeade writes some great nonfiction if you can get past the politics.
         Frozen in time and Astoria are most like Erik Larson.

   3. Emma Donoghue has some books that aren’t light and fluffy but are very readable.

      1. She is one of my favourite authors publishing today.

      2. I actually read Emma Donoghue’s “Hood” at the beach last year. I would not recommend “Room,” if you haven’t already read it, as light material for the beach.

   4. People We Meet on Vacation – kind of a literary beach read?

      1. Noooo that’s romance and terribly written romance at that.

         OP, I would suggest Liane Moriarty or Sally Hepworth. They’re pretty fluffy but decently written.

   5. I like Sarah Vowell’s conversational-style non-fiction/history books – Wordy Shipmates, Assassination Vacation, etc.

   6. I feel like Emma Straub fits the bill? Especially The Vacationers, which is set in Mallorca (I’m planning to re-read before I go there this summer). Or Taylor Jenkins Reid’s books?

   7. Th Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

      Daisy Jones and the Six

      The “Thursday Next” series (starts with The Eyre Affair)

      The Anomaly

      The Midnight Library

      The House in the Cerulean Sea

      City of Girls (by Elizabeth Gilbert)

      Anything by Ann Patchett

   8. I just finished the Forward series, which is sci-fi, something I normally don’t like but I enjoyed these. Late to the post but thanks for all the recs because I needed something new to read as well!

4. I have an appointment with my doc tomorrow to talk about perimenopause and would like some advice. I have been pretty hot (sort of flashes because I’m not hot ALL the time but I don’t know exactly how a flash is defined), sleeping terribly (the worst of my life), pretty grumpy, zero libido and dry, and I spotted for a long time last time I had my cycle, though I am on an IUD.

   I have been told by a couple of doctors that testing hormone levels once isn’t helpful because you don’t have a baseline, so I expect she will just want to talk it out. I really need something to change so I am wondering if you have any advice on how to approach this with her, beyond the obvious telling her my symptoms, etc.

   I am 40, btw.

   1. For the hot thing – I should say I am hot when nobody else is to the point when I feel like I have a slick of sweat on my face, but not like dripping sweat. I also feel light headed sometimes when I get hot and am doing even the slightest bit of exercise.

      1. Hi hon, that’s a hot flash.

         I call it creating my own weather.

         Welcome!!

   2. Just tell her your symptoms. And be ready to articulate what you’d like to have change — which symptoms are the ones that you are most concerned with not experiencing anymore?

      FWIW, my experience with hot flashes were of a quick heating up that would start out of nowhere. It started from inside my torso and would escalate into a general body heat. Sometimes the heat was intense enough that I would sweat, but not often. The heat would last a few minutes and then abate. This might happen multiple times a day. This was different from “running hot” or the kind of feeling hot you’d get on a very hot summer day.

   3. I’m about your age, but haven’t dealt with any of this yet. However, I have lots of experience dealing with doctors about complex chronic health issues and I find two things helpful:
      1. Clearly identify what’s bothering you most- if you just give a long list of symptoms they either tend to tune it all out or focus on something that isn’t actually that important to me
      2. Go in with some idea of what medications or other treatments you’re willing to try, or else you can end up surprised by being prescribed something you might not really want to take. I’m not suggesting you go in telling the doctor you want HRT or antidepressants or whatever, but if you know you’re not willing to try that, it’s helpful to be able to tell them and to have some idea about side effects and efficacy for other possible treatments (my understanding is that HRT and antidepressants are the most likely things they’d prescribe, but could be wrong on this?).

      1. One more tip- doctors pay a lot more attention when you can explain how certain symptoms are affecting you. So rather than just saying you’re tired and can’t sleep (true for pretty much everyone, so easy to write off), make clear that this is affecting your ability to work or exercise or whatever else (just don’t be too over the top or they’ll write you off as being hysterical- it’s a fine line!).

   4. I know it’s recommended here a lot, but the Menopause Manifesto is really helpful in terms of how to frame the conversation with your doctor and get the help you need with your symptoms. The Manifesto says that women over 40 who are having peri symptoms deserve and should be entitled to menopause relief therapies with no blood testing required. That includes HRT, if deemed appropriate. I will put in my $.02 that I was told by my gyn that she always wants to rule out lymphoma when she hears about hot flashes/night sweats, but that can be done by examining lymph nodes and with bloodwork. If you don’t, in fact, have lymphoma, you need something to help you sleep and with the hot flashes, whether that is the Pill, gabapentin, HRT, etc. I would just be very clear, this is significantly interfering with my ability to live my life and I need relief from these symptoms, what do you recommend? If she doesn’t take you seriously, find a new gynecologist. Good luck!

   5. I am in medically induced menopause (ugh) and just talked to my doc re: what isn’t working. A good nights sleep helps everything else, so the conversation focused on how to improve sleep (night sweats and night bathroom trips are problems for me and standard for my meds). She recommended magnesium supplements (no hormones for me ever). The hot flashes cycle through every few months, but the sleeping is the worst. I focused on that.
      As to the hot flashes, there are definite triggers that I’m working on sorting out. Work stress, sugar, red wine, etc. Ask your doc what can help.

   6. One thing you could ask for is a scrip for acupuncture. The highly-regarded integrative medicine team at my cancer clinic have told me that acupuncture has been proven to help with hot flashes. (We discussed this because I’m temporarily in menopause due to chemo.)

   7. I am a few years older than you and have all the same symptoms, and am also on an IUD. At my last gyn appointment she prescribed estrogen cream and while it hasn’t solved all of them, I have seen noticeable improvement in some.

      Also, can I just call BS on perimenopause/menopause being a long drawn-out thing that can last a DECADE or more?

      1. Do you mean it’s BS as in a “that’s not how it works” way, or do you mean BS in a “that’s exactly how it works but it’s total BS that it’s true” way?

         I’m with you on the latter!

         1. Yes, the latter, ha. My entire life menopause was described as a thing that happens, an event, a single stage, a bright line. Now it’s like, wait, I’ll be in it for HOW LONG? And your body never actually gives you an affirmative sign, you just diagnose by the absence of periods.

            1. It’s a year without periods. Let me tell you the time I went 10 months without periods two years before I actually hit the one year mark. Total BS

   8. You should ask for blood work to figure out whether HRT is appropriate. You’ll need to be tested on roughly day 3 of your next cycle – they should test your AMH, estrogen and FSH. If your FSH comes back out of range, they’ll likely run another test. If your estrogen is very low and FSH is very high it would be appropriate to get on HRT. I am 35 and went through menopause due to an unrelated health issue and will be on HRT until I’m 55 or 60. It solved all of the issues you describe for me and it also provides important health benefits.

   9. For the dryness, I just got an Estring hormonal ring and so far it’s helping to a more noticeable degree than anything else has. I used estradiol cream before and it worked similarly but ugh — messy and I hated it. This is much better.

5. How do you avoid feeling anxious about something you want to be excited about? I have a major milestone coming up and everyone is asking how I feel and I want to be excited for it, but I’ve had bad experiences in the past that make me either think this will be too or fear getting my hopes up only to be dashed. I fear that, after the event is over (assuming it goes well), I’ll be sad that I didn’t enjoy the lead up but I’m struggling with how to enjoy it. Advice and commiseration and whatever else is welcome!

   1. no advice but commiseration, this is how I have felt throughout the pandemic about planned family time, vacations, etc. It’s like I feel like I’ll jinx it if I allow myself to get excited.

      1. +1 I used to get excited about vacations months in advance. Now I don’t get let myself feel any excitement until we get our negative pre-departure tests. My life is pretty normal now in terms of what I’m actually doing, but I really miss anticipating things. I think it’s a bigger loss than people realize.

         1. yes! plus even as we’re planning, we are only booking with airlines that have flexible policies for cancellation, only choosing hotels or Airbnbs that are 100% free cancellation until the day before arrival (since anything further out could mean we’re out $$$ at the last minute if testing positive, etc). The planning was previously at least half the fun of any of this so I’m really struggling with that lack of positive energy for the future :/

   2. I can’t tell if this is a career event or a personal event, so I’m not sure how relevant this’ll be.
      Naomi Osaka posted on instagram a while back about how she regrets that she didn’t enjoy being Japan’s flag bearer during the olympics in Tokyo that much, since thats a once in a lifetime opportunity probably. She was understandably stressed out but it was interesting to see her express this regret publicly.

      I guess when I was in a somewhat similar situation I just tried to feel lucky that I was in that position. Not everyone gets the chance to do that what I was doing or the opportunity to make such an impact. It could go awful, but I always thought of the citizenship in a republic speech, and often repeated to myself the idea of “daring greatly” and not being “one of those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat”.
      I also knew that nervousness and excitement often feel very similar, and that excitement always has a little bit of nervousness in it.

      This is a bit rambling, but hoping something resonates.

      1. Naomi Osaka is a complainer who just is not cut out for a career that is based on competition.

         1. Her 4 Grand Slams beg to differ.

   3. It depends on the nature of the milestone. If it’s something you’ve worked toward, I try to take some time to reflect on the process leading up to the big event. For example, in the few weeks before I graduated from law school, I took some time to visit my favorite spots on campus and reflect on the overall experience. Graduating was exciting, but I wanted to honor the journey too.

   4. I felt this way about my wedding. It was during Covid and I had a lot of conflict with the venue (which was also the caterer, overnight accommodations, and basically everything important). It was extremely stressful.

      When acquaintances and colleagues asked how it was going of course I said everything’s great. But when friends of family asked – “I just want to be married, I’ll be happy when the wedding is over.” It’s ok to be human. Don’t feel pressured to give into toxic positivity. Some stuff sucks even if it’s not “supposed to.” Grieve the experience you wish you had and accept the experience you’re actually having.

   5. It helps me to journal up to and through the event. I can get my fears on paper and then move on to what I am looking forward to. That also allows me to write about the exciting part without jinxing it. And I like being able to look back on it with a full view of everything that went into it emotionally – the good and the bad.

   6. I don’t know exactly why I do this, but until right before something big is scheduled, I assume it’s not going to happen. I make all the plans and do all the steps, but inside my brain is telling me “come on, you’re not really going to Paris” until I actually land in Paris. I think maybe I’m instinctively avoiding disappointment.

6. Hey person from this morning going through the 7 month relationship breakup- if you post a burner e mail, I’ll email, we can be accountability and venting and healing friends as I’m healing from something very similar (so much so that advice for you helped me too).

   1. Hi, I am said person, and that sounds great. Thanks for the offer, I’m glad that you also found some of the advice helpful to your situation! I made a burner email for this so feel free to email me at FP544TL@outlook.com

7. I know no one is doing this anymore but is there a way to identify places in your area that have an outdoor patio – specifically coffee places? I’m interested specifically in the Tysons/Vienna/McLean area and also in downtown DC – think walkable from 18th and K. I’d like to do a few coffee/networking meetings this spring and while I know it’s considered weird to now say outdoor only, I feel like with the people I want to meet if I simply suggest the place and it has a nice outdoor section esp. as the weather gets nicer here, they won’t say no. The DC metro area has been in a surge for weeks and while numbers don’t look THAT bad, I think they’re way under reported and anecdotally it seems widespread.

   1. Hi downtown neighbor – I regularly do coffees at Peet’s at 17 and Penn. Potbelly and GCDC right there also have patio seating.

   2. Yelp is pretty good for determining whether a business has a patio.

   3. Yelp will filter by outdoor seating options.

      1. The search filter isn’t always accurate. I recommend looking at photos. You can filter photos by “outside” and normally determine quickly by looking at photos of the exterior of the building.

   4. You’re not at all alone in wanting to go to places with good outdoor options! Sometimes I’ll look for pics on instagram in addition to Yelp.

   5. Maybe a little far, but Bluestone Lane and Tatte by New Hampshire and M both have good patio options.

   6. I think it’s fine to want to sit outside but you should give the other person a heads up. I’m pale and freckled and wouldn’t want to sit outside without sunscreen and, ideally, a hat and sunglasses.

      1. +1. Also will impact my outerwear and shoe decisions.

         1. +2

   7. Very late coming to this but in McLean Greenberry’s, Star Nut and Sweet Bites all have outdoor seating, and The Union is nice for MJ ch or a drink and has outdoor seating

      1. *lunch* not MJ ch!

8. Ideas for how to use pita bread specifically if you don’t eat hummus? I like hummus but find it hard on the stomach. Did an online grocery order and as a “sorry we don’t have the bread you wanted,” they sent me a different brand of bread and pita also. IDK why but pita with cream cheese sounds like it’d be good though I have no idea where I’m getting that from and figure there are better uses for it.

   1. Think of it as a Mediterranean tortilla and use it to hold whatever fillings/toppings you’d like – meat/chicken salad/etc, veggies, etc.

      Or post it on your neighborhood Buy Nothing group.

   2. I was forced to use them with fajitas in a bit of a tortilla snafu and they were actually delicious like that!

   3. Oh, I make mini pizza’s with pita bread sometimes for lunch or dinner.

   4. They are fantastic for making tuna / chicken / egg salad sandwiches if you stuff the filling in the middle. Way less mess than spilling out the sides of a “regular” sandwich.

      1. What a great idea.

   5. Falafel, though maybe you can’t eat chickpeas at all? I love using flatbreads as a wrap for any kind of sandwich or salad. Yesterday I had one using up odds and ends of things from my fridge and it was great- cilantro pesto (to use up half a bunch of cilantro), cucumbers, the end of a bag of lettuce, and a couple frozen falafels- but really any veggies with a good sauce or dressing works.

   6. If you eat meat, you can smash some seasoned ground beef in a pita, heat in the oven until the ground beef is cooked, then open it up a bit to add lettuce, tomatoes. It’s like a delicious, flat hamburger. This has a name but it’s slipping my mind at the moment. You smash the ground beef pretty flat/thin so it bakes quickly.

      1. I have the recipe on my iphone so here it is:

         Arabic Meat Stuffed Pitas

         1 pitas
         1 lb ground beef
         1 t salt
         1/4 c minced onion
         1 t minced garlic
         1 small jalapeno, minced (optional)
         pinch cayenne

         1/3 sliced peeled cucumber
         1 c sliced or chopped tomato
         lettuce leaves
         sliced avocado (optional)

         Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Coat a half sheet pan with parchment or cooking spray.

         Mix meat with onion, garlic and spices.

         Carefully pry pitas 3/4 open. Press 1/4 of meat mixture onto the inside of each pita, covering the bottom. Bake 10 minutes with meat side on the bottom. Flip and bake an additional 10 minutes.

         Serve with sliced cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce and avocado.

         I used some homemade ranch on these, but then again I’m a Californian – I do that with everything.

         1. argh, that’s 4 pitas

   7. Fried egg and avocado
      Roasted peppers and feta cheese
      Greek salad with olives, tomato, red onion and feta cheese

      1. Fried egg on a pita, cover with a slice of cheese, and melt in the oven for ~6 minutes.

   8. Pita and cream cheese is good! My kids’ go to sandwich. I like to add some cucumber and/or other greens to mine: arugula, dill, avocado all work. I bet roasted red peppers would be good.
      +1 to making mini pizza (the Rao’s pizza sauce is delicious).
      You can also (in the spirit of cream cheese) try tzatziki or another Greek-type spread.
      I’ve also done scramble egg pita pockets, add whatever you like (my go to is diced tomatoes, scallions and cheese)

      1. Oh and forgot to add – one of my favorite lunch places does a really good fattoush salad with pita that would be delicious. This recipe looks similar but you can do whatever you have on hand. https://tasty.co/recipe/middle-eastern-pita-salad-fattoush-salad

   9. Microwave for 12-15 seconds and stuff in mouth.

      1. With peanut butter.

         1. No, with cheese.

   10. Mini pizza

   11. manakeesh zataar (lebanese spiced flatbread). Technically I think you’re supposed to add the spices before you bake it, but I don’t see why you couldn’t add them after.

   12. Make chips!
       Tear into rough shapes, spray with olive oil, sprinkle salt and cumin, bake for about 8 mins at 160*
       Cool on bench, keep in airtight container.

9. So for some reason the intro to this post jumped out at me (re: interview suits being as ‘classic and boring as you can get’ and I feel like that advice is out of date. I would 100% wear this suit as an interview suit.

   1. I think it definitely depends on how senior you are.

10. This jacket is gorgeous and the colour is perfect for me.

    I also fell in love with this jacket and need someone else to also love it with me since I can’t buy it and bask in the admiration I’d hope I’d get when wearing it.

    https://www.uniqlo.com/au/en/products/E445761-000?colorCode=COL17

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