Tuesday’s Workwear Report: The Jaycie Dress

327 Comments

1. Need food ideas, please.

   My tiny department does a small spread for birthdays (usually muffins, doughnuts, or some specialty pastry). A party tray goes on the department conference table, and people come by and snack all day.

   The next birthday (Thursday) is for someone newly diagnosed with diabetes. I am glad to whip up something she can eat, but my problem is that all the acceptable options I’m finding are very perishable. I need stable food that can tolerate sitting out in a warm room all day.

   Any ideas of something to either make or buy would be appreciated.

   1. Ideas:
      Bowl of almonds, mini bags of popcorn, clementines, kid size apples. And balloons:))

      1. I love the popcorn idea.

   2. You should ask the person with diabetes what she prefers. I honestly wish birthdays were celebrated with cards and balloons instead of food.

      1. Not balloons. The world is running out of helium

         1. You can have balloons without helium. Growing up, we always had the balloons you blow on to inflate.

      2. I totally see the case for healthy options, but cards and balloons are totally unnecessary, especially for adults. Total useless waste of environmentally unfriendly items. At least with food, we all need to eat. Balloons and useless pieces of paper are the bane of my existence as a mother of young children and the thought of them invading my office worker existence makes my skin crawl.

         1. I avoid balloons these days, since discovering a relative has a balloon phobia!

   3. I’d ask the Birthday girl what she would prefer and if she has any dietary restrictions. It’s kind of patronizing to be like, “almonds for you” assuming she has no ability to manage her own blood sugar.

      1. I’d ask as well. She also may prefer that folks not steer from the norm even if it means missing out or only partaking a small bit. I’m Celiac. I don’t want everyone questioning why we’re eating almonds and putting attention on me. I’d rather sit out. (I also question oranges–they’re actually very high in sugar. At least I know my dad had problems with them. And I seem to recall a sip of orange juice is often the go-to when blood sugar is dangerously too low.) Truly, better to just go to the source and celebrate how she prefers. It’s kind you’re thinking of this.

      2. This. Some bakeries to a more diabetic friendly cake made primarily with artifical sweetner instead of sugar. Ask her what she wants.

   4. Agree with asking. But for an actual idea, I’d search for no-sugar granola bar recipes. Or store-bought ones.

   5. Is a charcuterie board diabetic-friendly?

   6. Ask, absolutely! But if your colleague is new to diabetes they might not know what would be okay for them yet.

      A couple of more ideas if you want to be able to suggest something when you ask:
      “Keto” brownies, look for non- or less-sweetened recipes. For everybody not diabetic they’ll be “rich brownies” choc full of lovely fat.

      Profiterole dough is generally not sweet (but does have flour that will affect blood sugar). Savoury profiteroles (like gougeres with cheese), or very lightly sweetened profiteroles might work. A very light dusting of icing sugar or melted dark (less sweet) chocolate might be allright, ask your colleague. But don’t fill them with something sweet. Again, because of the fat, they feel rich and decadent.

      Lightly salted snacks – olives, hard cheeses, almond crisps, savoury herby biscuits (cookies?), roasted chickpeas, any “cocktail style” snacks might be fun even though not sugar-filled?

2. To the poster a few weeks ago who refused to give up Amazon because there was no “proof” of their carbon emissions, Amazon has released the figure for the first time ever and it’s equivalent to a small nation, higher than even Walmart.

   1. I feel like there should be a way to scale those kinds of figures to a volume, like a per capita, though. If we all just use smaller distributors because their raw emissions numbers are lower, the sum effect might be similar, right? Except there may be some economies of scale with the larger company. I’m not disputing the underlying premise: Amazon might be able to take steps to do better. But I don’t find the raw figures that helpful in evaluating them.

      1. Exactly. It’s sort of like saying that NYC and Los Angeles have higher emissions than Des Moines.

         1. It’s like being tall is correlated with weighing more. Who knew?

         2. That’s a fair point. But the latest figures I can find from 2017 are that Wal-Mart’s revenue from sales were over three times greater than Amazon. That would mean that Amazon’s business model creates more than three times as much carbon emission as Wal-Mart’s model for the same sales revenue.

            1. Are we factoring in the emissions of the customers who drive to Walmart vs. those who don’t drive to Amazon?

            2. “Are we factoring in the emissions of the customers who drive to Walmart vs. those who don’t drive to Amazon?” No. The stats Anon has on WalMart’s emissions very likely do not include customers’ driving. Those are scope 3 emissions if they’re counted at all.

      2. We should all stop buying so much crap online from anywhere. Really think about whether you need to be ordering from Amazon or if you could just pick up those paper towels or that dog food at your grocery store. And think about whether you really need another trinket or pair of earrings at all. I made a decision to stop buying on Amazon and it has decreased my consumption by so.much. They have figured out how to make you buy more than you would otherwise.

         1. That’s a rather big assumption about other people.

            I usually bundle my purchases from Amazon, and the last things I have bought from them are: cat food, a belly band (5 months pregnant), running sneakers, a water bottle for running (see, 5 months pregnant), and prenatal vitamins (see, 5 months pregnant). Absent giving up exercise, my cat, or my child’s health, I’m not clear what I should not be buying, or, since I live on the outskirts of a small city, whether it’s worthwhile to make literally four or five different trips for those items. (The running sneakers aren’t found at any store within a 100 mile radius. Maybe I should have burned up seven gallons of gasoline for them, driving to the nearest big city?)

            Maybe just focus on yourself.

            1. Maybe realize that your situation isn’t typical? The vast majority of ppl do not need drive 100miles to buy shoes.

               Order multiple items at once so it ships in one box. Ppl in big cities ordering one item at a time like multiple times a week for same day or two day delivery is a problem and it needs to stop.

            2. The anon above said that we “all” need to stop this. My point was to be cautious about projecting onto other people.

            3. We do need to “all” cut back. You cited 5 different items – did you order them all at the same time or in 3-5 separate packages? Those types of changes are what we all need to look at. And take a hard look at other choices you make. Next time you buy a vehicle get something that doesn’t have such awful mileage. 7 gallons for 100 miles is riduculous. I hope you’re at least carbon offsetting your car.

            4. Well you’re certainly focused on yourself! Did I really need to put all sorts of disclaimers in my post? Maybe you could just read it and realize it doesn’t apply to those few things that you bought.

            5. Seriously, my neighbors in Houston have boxes from Amazon on their front porch every day.

            6. Anonymous at 9:57, it’s 100 miles each way. Do better math, hon.

            7. Even if it’s 200 miles roundtrip, 14 miles to the gallon is an atrocious gas mileage rate. Do you drive a massive SUV/truck?

            8. y’all, 7 gallons for 200 miles is 28-29 mpg. Can we please chill.

            9. exactly 28-29 mpg for highway driving is too high

            10. So the ecojustice warriors are presecribing that Anon at 9:32 should scrap her modestly efficient car and buy a brand new vehicle?

         2. Don’t be so literal. We can ALL reduce our consumption even if some do it more than others.

            1. Yes! Buy less stuff. Own less stuff. Use your stuff till it wears out. Borrow books media from the library. Every single one of us, myself included, has room for improvement here.

         3. Naively,I would say that having one truck deliver all these items would produce less emissions than everyone getting in their car and driving to a central store. Has anyone looked into this? (I’m spitballing here.)

            1. No. Because the products are shipped in bulk to the store. The Amazon products are sent out individually to the driver from the warehouse. The cost is a lot more from an environmental perspective.

               Even if Amazon had a warehouse directly in your city/town, the environmental cost is still higher because of all the energy used to produce the packaging that they use to send you item in.

            2. +1

            3. Correct. This is a quantitative question.

            4. I think a big part of it is that Amazon makes you buy more stuff that you wouldn’t otherwise. And I think you can buy stuff at stores you are already going to more often than you think.

            5. Yeah, this has always been my question – is it really lower-carbon for me to drive my car to all of these different places rather than having a truck deliver many people’s packages in a single trip?

         4. My latest gripe w/ Amazon is how difficult it is to see how much and on what you are spending. My husband and I share a Prime account. We use it for things we like to buy in bulk or that would involve a drive to a specialty store. However, Amazon will ship in however many orders they want and charge your card as they ship so it is so hard to reconcile the credit card statement with the Amazon order. I think I spend $70 for example and then I get charged $25, $35, $10 and I have to go into the history and click on each item and see how much the individual item cost – but they don’t charge it per item they charge it how they ship it. There is no way (that I found) on their website to see what you were charged and a breakdown of those charges like you see on other sites like Jet. It is very complicated to make sure you are being charged the right amount for the right product.

            1. You can sign up for Amazon Business for free and run analytics reports very easily.

         5. I agree with this. I made a point to stop doing this and now only buy online what I cannot get at a local store or would be too inconvenient. I’m not going to spend half my weekend on errands so I still order some things online, but when I made “not buying online” the default and starting thinking when and where I can get the things I need in my regular routine, I’m suddenly getting 1-3 packages a month instead of 3ish a week. And my overall level of consumption is way, way down. My monthly credit card bill is as well, coincidentally, so I’m saving hundreds more per month.

            1. I completely agree with this as well, but the big difference is that I moved from the city to the burbs, where it is now much easier to get into my car and drive to CVS or the grocery store to get what I need. In the city, it wasn’t as practical to drive to pick up heavy, bulky things so I would get them delivered.

               I still buy from Amazon but it’s more like a few times a month and only when I can’t find it anywhere else (anyone know where to buy Biore watery essence sunscreen besides amazon?). My online consumption has gone way way down as well.

               The other thing I’m doing is that I used to buy a 3 pack of everything online, now I just go to the store and buy 1 or 2 at a time (things like hand soap, lotion, etc.).

         6. Online shopping is a vicious circle. Stores stop carrying what I need, so I need to shop online more, so more stores stop carrying more things.

            I can no longer find the specific allergy food my cat requires. I tried to work with the local family-owned pet store instead of a big-box chain, and they claimed they could special-order any food I wanted. They ordered the wrong item twice in a row, and I had to eat the cost and donate the food to a shelter. That’s eighty dollars of mistakes I had to absorb, just to try to “do the right thing” and shop local. While I waited for the Chewy shipment I should have ordered in the first place, I had to give her food that made her fur fall out and her skin itch until she was bloody.

            If stores want to compete, they need to actually carry what people want to buy, and not make it a stressful expensive hassle to get it.

            1. These are not the only options. You can try another pet store. You can order it in bulk from Amazon every couple months or seasonally. It’s not about being perfect. It’s about being better. Too many ppl come home to an Amazon box on their doorstep everyday or every second day. It’s unnecessary.

            2. Anonymous at 10:24, I literally said no place locally was carrying the food. That was the entire point of the post.

            3. Another pet store who can competently order it in for you instead of the store that incorrectly ordered it.

            4. Because of a medical condition, I cannot drive (or bus or walk above certain outdoor temperatures), and I need many specialized products that local stores do not carry. I realize this particular online retailer may be needlessly evil, but I honestly just feel grateful to everyone who sustains their business model because of how it’s improved my life.

            5. I think there needs to be a balance — I get my cat food delivered from chewy in bulk because my cat needs canned food and it’s heavy (no car) and significantly cheaper through that source. But the key is that it is an exception, and one based on a significant savings of time and convenience. The stuff to stop buying online is the whims and things you could easily pick up locally (shampoo). I don’t plan to drop my online shopping to 0, but I think being thoughtful about it makes a big difference.

            6. I totally agree. If stores actually carried watch batteries or shoes for 11yos that didn’t remind me of child beauty pageants, I’d buy more in stores.

               I live in the kind of Portlandia-esque place where you can get a tongue-lashing at your kid’s school for putting the wrong thing in the composting bin (and it was a food item, not a plastic bottle), usually from someone who drives around in an SUV all day with a big bag of things to recycle in the back that’s been there for 6 months. While I can try to be mindful of consumption, the most “green” things I do are live in a small house with no central air conditioning and vote for people who don’t believe in climate change.

            7. Sorry, I meant vote for people who DO believe in climate change.

         7. Dad says that Amazon is taking over our life, from buying stuff like their clotheing (they have their own brand) to watching their movies for free with Amazon Prime, to shopping at Whole Foods and getting special discounts with Amazon prime, and then having us use their “cloud” to store our very private information. That is why Jeff Bezos has become the richest guy in the universe. Even tho he is small and bald, many women now think of him as a $ex symbol! I do not think I ever would have looked at him in college, and I do not think I am alone, but now, all of a sudden, so many dorky guys like him now have their choice of women, b/c we respect and look up to vert successful men, even if they are dorky looking. Mark Zuckerberg is another example. The Tesla guy also is a good example, tho I think he is NOT dorky looking.

         8. There’s a lot of preachiness and telling other people what to do in this post. That never, ever gets people on your side. Quit critiquing other people’s habits and trying to shame them into submission to your One and Only Way of Doing Things. It’s rude, it’s conceited, and it absolutely does not work.

            1. Preach

            2. ok, what would work in your opinion?

            3. Literally zero posts are annoucing that there is one only way to do something. Lots of ideas about how to order less online or ordering more at one time vs. multiple individual orders which generate a lot of packaging.

            4. +1

            5. Read the posts. There are posts telling someone she should drive to stores 100 miles away, that her gas mileage is not ok, that someone’s neighbors have amazon packages on their porch too often, etc. This is not “literally zero” dude.

               There is SO much preachiness. My point is that it turns people off and makes them move in the other direction. Share things you personally do that have made a difference (realistic things, like I’d stop listening to you once you told me you’ve not bought anything at all is two years or whatever) and how it wasn’t that hard to make the switch. That kind of thing inspires people.

               Absolutism overwhelms people and they instead do nothing. No one is ever going to win a purity contest (though some of you seem to be trying.) We all need to make small changes as a starting point.

            6. That poster made a post about her specific circumstances and used it as a reason that not technically ‘everyone’ can use Amazon less. No one said anyone had to buy a new car but chosing something other than a gas guzzling suv is an important step many people can take when they do buy a new car.

               This post is filled with examples of things people did to reduce their use of Amazon. Calling ‘absolutism’ and ‘preachiness’ is a weak excuse to not do better or to dismiss what others have done. You want tips on how to reduce your energy consumption, or how not to rely on Amazon, then make a post asking about that.

               There are also many ways to continue using Amazon but doing so in a more efficient matter like ordering multiple items at once that all ship from Amazon vs. individual sellers and not selecting same day or two day shipping. A longer shipping window allows delivery companies to plan routes which consume less fuel. Packing multiple items in one box is more fuel efficient as less ‘air’ is being flown across the country. Re-examining ordering frequency such as having autoship items once a month instead of every week. These specific examples of things people have done were all posted in this thread.

            7. “That poster made a post about her specific circumstances and used it as a reason that not technically ‘everyone’ can use Amazon less. No one said anyone had to buy a new car but chosing something other than a gas guzzling suv is an important step many people can take when they do buy a new car.”

               I am that poster. A store that is 100 miles away is a 200 mile round trip, which is between 6 and 7 gallons of gas in my (environmentally friendly because it’s old – there’s actual data on the fact that the largest environmental problem with cars is the creation and destruction) station wagon that gets 29 mpg on the highway.

               So someone telling me to buy a new car because it guzzles gas is (1) environmentally wrong, and (2) mathematically wrong.

      3. Also, what does Amazon replace? It replaces many people’s trips to multiple stores, all the real estate associated with those stores, overpurchasing because you’re in the checkout line – it’s not fair to compare “Amazon versus no Amazon”, because Amazon trips are likely replacing something else, and doing so more efficiently (they optimize their warehouses, delivery routes, etc.) than you and I would otherwise.

         1. It’s much more environmentally efficient for goods to be shipped in bulk to the store, and then ppl pick up in their car from the store. Overpurchasing is neutral because ppl overpurchase online as well.

            There are also environmental costs associated with the excessive packaging generated by amazon purchases.

            1. Yeah what about this is so hard to understand? 1) it’s being delivered by to you via airplanes flying overnight – how else would you get it within 2-3 days? 2) the trucking part is only used in transit or last leg / mile. 3) it’s mainly large, bulky, or lightweight packages which kills container utilization. A lot of what is air shipped contains mainly…air! Of course having it sent in bulk by manufacturer or distributor to nearest store is better for the environment (even with customer driving last leg), how is this so hard to get?

         2. Further question: does the shipping method change the math? USPS goes to almost every single person’s house six days a week. If the shipment is handled by them, what is the incremental cost of adding a package onto your bills and junk mail delivery? Is this different from UPS or FedEx?

            1. It’s not just the shipping, it is also the excessive packaging. Each box requires energy to produce and it also requires energy when it is recycled. It doesn’t matter if the delivery vehicle vs. the personal car are the same emissions, the overall emissions for online ordering will always be higher.

         3. Amazon is almost entirely responsible for the fact that we now need special recycling plants to process millions and millions of cardboard boxes (to say nothing of all the bubble wrap and other plastic they always use so liberally). That is a new and unwelcome feature of online shopping specifically.

         4. Am I the only person who doesn’t like shopping at Amazon for other reasons? I think the website layout is cluttered and outdated, and there are loads of counterfeit products and fake reviews. I don’t understand the mass appeal of Amazon over other online retailers like Walmart, Target, or Bed Bath and Beyond.

            1. This. I have no energy to wade through all the counterfeit crap on a 1990s looking website. Vastly prefer costco

            2. No, I HATE the Amazon layout too. It’s cluttered with crappy descriptions and searching for exactly what you want is a nightmare. My biggest pet peeve is how items are labeled – I want to see “Ralph Lauren Merino Sweater, Women’s” not “ralph lauren ladies sweater, merino, size s, sold by gr3atDEALZ, not eligible for Prime, multiple colors, fast shipping!”

            3. This is where I’m at right now. I’ll still buy from Amazon, but I try not to default to it. I spent years just assuming that Amazon would automatically be cheaper for everything and it’s definitely not. Searching is a pain, and I got sick of the same product being sold by 4 different sellers, and having to look on fakespot for the reviews every time. I’m really surprised that people buy food/vitamins from Amazon. I feel like you don’t know what you’re going to get. Maybe I’d buy the Amazon Basics for stuff like that? But I’d rather go to Target – I realize I’m lucky with my options.

            4. YES! I can spend hours trawling through Amazon to try to figure out if the household good is exactly what I want and at a price I want it, when it would have been quicker to run to the grocery store or another mass retailer on my way home and just bought the thing.

      4. Are there studies showing that, for a given basket of goods that come from various places that someone is going to buy anyway, it’s better for the environment to drive to buy them locally than get them online?

         1. I’ve wondered this too. I feel guilty about all the boxes (and the bubble wrap that comes in them!) but not sure if those are better or worse than the extra gas of us all driving around. (I take a train to work, so any driving around to do errands for me is incremental). I think subconsciously I feel better when I cut down on ordering so I have been trying, but maybe that’s just because the box effect is more visible than the gas effect.

            To people’s suggestions to consolidate orders to only get one box, it seems like some websites are trying to do better about this but as a consumer when ordering there is no guarantee that’s what is going to happen. I always feel so guilty when I get multiple boxes for the same order, but I understand why logistically on their end this has to happen sometimes.

         2. I imagine that it’s highly dependent upon the person’s own situation.

            My husband and I have long commutes (rural area, in the opposite direction), so we bundle all of our shopping trips with trips we are already making (work, church, sports). We simply lack the time to make all these little separate trips, and it gets expensive to spend all that money on gas and wear on tear on a vehicle.

            But there are plenty of things that are simply unavailable locally, so we get them shipped in. I’m not sure that it’s worse for USPS or UPS to truck things from a warehouse (relatively nearby – we live close to an Amazon fulfillment location) than for us to make a really long drive just for a few items.

   2. Also Amazon doesn’t pay taxes and Jeff Bezos just cut health benefits for part-time employees at Whole Foods, even though he personally makes more money in ONE HOUR than that cost the company. I’m edging closer to a boycott.

      1. I’m still annoyed that Amazon bought Whole Foods. Whole Foods was a company/store I happily supported, gladly giving my “whole paycheck” to support their wide variety of products by different brands at different price point, their bulk food section, and the abundance of produce that doesn’t come pre packaged. Please, Trader Joe’s, get better! I’m trying to be more conscious of what I buy on Amazon. I work in midtown Manhattan by the Target here and often find myself fighting the lines in order to save the packaging/shipping.

         1. I know, I’m annoyed too. I can’t fully quit shopping at Whole Foods because Trader Joe’s does not have the same selection of organic meat and dairy and the produce has been worse quality, but if that changes, I will say goodbye to WF in a heartbeat.

            1. Or you don’t need meat or dairy at all…

            2. Oh are you offering to come prepare healthy, delicious, protein filled nearly-vegan meals for me? Thx!

            3. I actually do reduce my intake of animal products for environmental and moral reasons, but a vegan diet cannot meet all of humans’ nutritional needs.

            4. “but a vegan diet cannot meet all of humans’ nutritional needs.” Get informed before you say things like that. So wrong. How do you think vegans stay alive and healthy? You may be mislead by one person’s experience. There are many top athletes who eat strictly vegan. And it’s not hard to prepare vegan meals.

            5. Making vegan meals is no more difficult than making other meals and every dietetics association (including the American one) have policies stating that a vegan diet is appropriate for all stages of life. The literal experts in nutrition say veganism is suitable for humans.

            6. So I just gotta say I am LMAO at the environmental justice warrior who apparently got up this morning and decided today was the day she was going to SCHOOL ALL OF US on environmentalism and veganism! Today is the day, you guys! In a series of poorly-punctuated posts on one or two threads she is going to singlehandedly change all of our minds about ordering from Amazon, driving vehicles with inappropriate MPG ratings and going vegan. I am so glad this person is here today to aggressively and confrontatively challenge all of my life choices that I had never, ever thought about or considered before today! What would I have done without this person and her hysterical posts? Thanks so much for the reminder that we can all take small individual actions to help the environment. I would have totally forgotten about that concept if it weren’t for you, Anonymous Poster!

            7. If your diet requires B12 supplementation, then it doesn’t meet your needs. I prefer not to rely on supplements, especially when I don’t think humans evolved to be vegan. To each their own.

            8. Making vegan meals/adhering to a vegan diet is more difficult for me and who are you to say it isn’t? Even if we accepted your premise there would still be a learning curve and to be quite frank I don’t have time or the skill set for that. Like I said, I await your vegan meal-prep services.

            9. Anon at 12:19

               YES thank you

            10. I am very nearly vegan. Have been for years. The self righteous poster makes me want to go get a steak and eat it in front of her. Preaching at people in a self righteous, condescending manner never changed anyone’s mind about anything. Perhaps quite the opposite. Take your attitude and shove it where the sun don’t shine sister. It’s not effective and it’s not promoting veganism, which quite frankly I think should be promoted, in an intelligent and kind way of course.

         2. Good for you! That’s a tangible difference. We have to inconvenience ourselves a bit.

            1. YES! I think we’ve all gotten too into the idea that our lives should be completely seamless, and that any inconvenience is too much inconvenience.

            2. I posted above about living with disability. “Inconvenient” for you means “inaccessible” for more people than you may realize!

            3. Yes! I want to shout this at every single person I talk to who complains that our local co-op doesn’t carry the EXACT brand/size package of whatever it is they wanted, so they’re going to go to the local big box or order it online. For the folks who want to extend an argument to its absurd ends, I’m not talking about the prescription pet food that’s only available from a specialty distributor. I’m talking about, “I buy the 10 ounce sauce, but the co-op carries a brand in an 8 oz size, welp, guess I have to go to the big box even though I want to shop local.” I’m also talking about, “I’d love to buy local produce but it costs more, so I’m going to the big box.”
               “I would shop local, butttttttt…” translates into your local options disappearing. I’m seeing it in my community firsthand right now.

            4. @Anon @11:27 – I think it’s great that these options are helpful for you, and I don’t think they are going to go away if those of us who are not dealing with disabilities and are environmentally conscious cut back. I don’t think anyone is arguing that we stop all online shopping entirely, since it’s helpful to everyone, just that we’ve all gone completely overboard with it.

            5. Anon at 12:33 – who is contained in the “all” you are referring to? Are you in the habit of making sweeping, blanket statements you have no evidence to support? How is that working out for you in your professional life? I would imagine the answer is – not great.

            6. Any solution to collective problems that relies on the willingness of human beings to voluntarily inconvenience themselves will fail.

               Put differently, meaningful change will come from voting for carbon taxes, not arguing on an internet message board about whether or not you deem someone’s reason for shopping at Amazon to be valid.

            7. Anon at 1:19 – yes. It doesn’t matter how many of us, individually, give up plastic straws or shop less at Amazon when corporations (many of whom aren’t in the United States) continue to belch out emissions and politicians continue to roll back clean air protections and other environmental regulations that will cut emissions on the scale that’s needed. People cut back on Amazon orders and carry metal straws and meticulously sort their recycling because it gives them a sense of control over something that actually is uncontrollable – not just by any one person but by entire nations. (And don’t get me wrong, I do all that stuff too, but I do it knowing it’s because it makes me feel better – not because I have any illusions it is making a difference on climate change).
               I personally believe it is too late to stop climate change but I think whatever action needs to be taken will have to be taken on a global scale…and very honestly, in the worldwide political climate I don’t see that happening. I think our last, best hope is to pour as many resources as possible into science and tech and keep our fingers crossed that the scientists out there working on carbon capture/conversion, large-scale green energy, ocean health, and food production have breakthroughs that will end up saving us all. I legitimately don’t see any other way out at this point – even space colonization, because we don’t have anywhere to go.

         3. Same. Produce is one of the biggest reasons I shopped there, but it’s declined in quality since Amazon took over IMO. There is simply no reason that actual moldy produce should be on the shelves.

      2. I am both a tree hugger and I hate most corporations due to their lack of shared values with me.

         However, I find it hard to quit amazon.

         I live in a major city without a car. Even though I walk / take the subway everywhere there’s still a ton of things I need I can only get online. Packages get stolen off of front stoops, but I have a whole Amazon center (Amazon building with lockers, staff, return supplies, return drop off, packaging recycling) in my neighborhood.

         My most recent purchases include a tourniquet, hiking socks, a water bladder, and a totally clear purse (for NFL stadiums). I truly cannot think of where I could get these items (except for the socks) in my city. All 3 local
         Targets didn’t carry them. Neither did Walmart (I even had to Uber there). I feel slightly less guilty given that they’re delivered to the center, which helps streamline shipping. But still, their employment practices. Yuck.

         1. So you took 2 car trips and got a special Amazon delivery so you could have a plastic purse solely to take to a giant stadium that diverted tax dollars from useful services to the disadvantaged communities in your city so you can support an organization that causes untold numbers of brain injuries and discriminates against Colin Kaepernick and doesn’t actively support BLM?! And you suggest you have morals? Try again. (This is sarcasm.)

            1. You are the problem. Not the person you’re responding to.

            2. Dude. For real, your outraged posts are not.helping.anything. Other than maybe helping you vent your frustrations, which should not be taken out on some random person on the Internet. Grow up.

            3. So I should have posted that seriously?

   3. I’m sure I’ll get flamed for this, but I have to laugh at the righteous indignation I’m hearing from folks who have no qualms about ordering all sorts of clothing items/accessories online. Folks regularly talk about how they don’t shop in clothing stores anymore but buy everything online instead, and that adds up the same way shopping at Amazon does. When we talk about how your $500+ boots are “so last season” or how your skinny jeans look dated a few years out, be aware that that also has an environmental impact.

      I use Amazon about a once a week to diapers (yes, I should use cloth instead!) or items that would require a separate trip to various stores to gather each item. Why? Because as a full time working mom of two kids, I don’t have the time to go shopping for this stuff and I try to cut corners and costs wherever I can.

      None of which is to say that we shouldn’t all try better, but let’s just remember that most of us are usually good in some areas and bad in others.

      1. I agree that being mindful about shopping online doesn’t stop at Amazon and I think I am not the only reader here mainly ignoring the fashion discussion because I just don’t buy new pieces unless something old breaks. I am also lucky to live in a densely populated area with enough spare time to find what I need second hand usually. On the other hand, I can’t stop flying for work or to see my family once a year.
         But, have you tried ordering your diapers every two or three weeks maybe?

      2. You are assuming that the people ordering lots of clothing online are the one’s attacking Amazon. I would bet it’s the opposite – I assume that the people ordering lots of clothing online are the one’s defending Amazon.

         I buy maybe 3 things from Amazon a year, and they are all items I can not purchase locally. I think their business model is horrible for the environment and helps encourage people to over-consume. But I also rarely order clothing online and have only purchased about 6 new clothing items this year.

      3. Well, I buy diapers about once every 4-6 weeks, the rest is usually clothing items for kids or things that are just cheaper on amazon (i.e. kids’ books that cost $10 on amazon or $18 at target). And yes, I realize it’s not all the same people, but the conversations on this s1te always make me think about all things I should buy buy buy and everyone is so dang wealthy, I find the gap to be interesting.

      4. Yeah, I get all the issues with Amazon. I do. But what I buy at Amazon is stuff that I don’t have time to drive around shopping for myself. I drive less than 4,000 miles a year – I walk to work and don’t drive for days at a time; I eat meat 2x/week at most; and I live in a highly energy-efficient high rise. I use a composting service, and I recycle. I am even that person who carries around a metal straw. But what I don’t have a lot of is time, and that’s why virtually all of my shopping is online (except for groceries, because there’s a Whole Foods on my walk home), and much of it is from Amazon.

      5. I can proudly say I haven’t purchased a new consumer good in a few years, clothes included. I’m the master of consignment, thrift, and sewing.

         1. ok, this is a bit obnoxious, even for me. Yay for you winning the virtual virtue fest?

            1. Well anonymous was trying to bait some sort of a “gotcha” which didn’t work because I live in accordance with my values.

            2. Right? This is a complete humblebrag (if that word is still a thing). I understand why insecure people want attention but I wish they wouldn’t do things like this; it’s so tacky (and also boring).

         2. It’s not tacky, it’s actually nice to hear from someone that it’s possible. I’m close on that front, but not quite there. I get that changing habits isn’t easy. Every single one of us has room to improve, including Amazon is Evil. Including me. What are you doing to leave the world no worse and maybe even a little better for others?

            1. Well, for one thing, I don’t post preachy self-righteous posts about myself on the Internet.

         3. Yay, that’s awesome and inspiring! I really need to get better at not purchasing new when it comes to clothes. I already do well on the “reduce” side (I rarely buy clothes and wear what I have into the ground), but I need to buy high-quality used most of the time and I just don’t.

   4. It’s been shown clearly that Amazon prime makes you shop more and the expectation of two day shipping means that delivery companies are not able to plan their routes as efficiently as they would for, say, a four day window. That means definitely more emissions and it due to a weird quirk of capitalism, it doesn’t make shipping more expensive, it just means more exploitation of the staff.

   5. Did anyone happen to read the recent article in the NYT on the side effects of everyone ordering from ama*on – specifically, the pressure on drivers to make deliveries on time, which in some cases has resulted in deaths, and then relatedly, ama*on’s attempt to completely wash its hands of the whole affair by claiming the drivers are subcontractors? It actually gave me much more pause than a lot of the environmental arguments.

      1. This. I don’t shop at Amazon because of their horrible labor practices. The fact that avoiding them is also better for the environment is just a side benefit.

   6. I am still going to buy things from Amazon on whatever schedule suits. And I will still order 18 fast fashion items from Ann Taylor, which will be delivered in many separate packages, and keep 6, return the rest via a special trip to the mall, and wear about 3 before dumping them all on Goodwill via car trip. But I get to because I didn’t have any children.

      1. Okay then….

      2. Yeah. So you’re clearly a troll. If you didn’t have kids for environmental reasons, then you wouldn’t be doing all that other environmentally wasteful stuff. Seems more likely that you didn’t have kids because you couldn’t find another troll to procreate with. Congrats on knowing zero people in the next generation whom you care about leaving a livable planet behind for.

3. As an adult in my late 30s, I have had what I guess is hormonal acne flare up on my cheeks (typically not an oily or problem area of my skin, which is otherwise REALLY oily). They have left red scars from the apple of each cheek going over towards each ear. I have pale skin, so this is pretty noticeable, even over powder and foundation.

   1. Any recs for a full-coverage foundation to try? There is a Sephora and an Ulta in my city. Concealer doesn’t seem to cut it, either. I wouldn’t use the foundation anywhere but over the scars, so oil-based would be OK there I think despite my oily skin.

   2. Are there any cosmetic procedures / Retin A / stuff that a medspa might offer that might help reduce the redness of the scars over time? I feel like a teen with how self-conscious I am over this. Part of it is that adults my age don’t tend to have fresh acne scars to deal with (now late 40s (!!!)).

4. I will be moving from contract manager position into a commercial counsel position. For background, I did two years in a 600+ lawyer firm and two years in state government in traditional attorney roles, and have been in my contracts role for 5 years. I am going from managing people to not managing people (not mad about that). I will continue to work on contracts, with expansion into other (TBD) projects.

   I am trying to develop goals both short-term and long-term and while I will, of course, have input from my manager, I am curious about what those of you who are in-house viewed as important development goals when you started in that role. I will have the opportunity to attend the ACC Mini MBA course for in-house counsel next year, and I have started getting some experience in claims management. I also have assisted with policy development and implementation and training development and implementation. What are some other areas I should be focused on as a new in-house commercial counsel?

   Thanks!!

   1. Are you a member of ACC? Considering attending the annual meeting? I found the in-house focused CLE helpful in shifting my thinking (though it sounds like I required a bigger shift — I was litigating before moving in house, and I’m 1/2 of the legal department now so I’m fully a generalist).

      1. I will be once it’s live, yes! I will look into that/those CLEs – thank you!

5. I find that I really work best in chunks. Super focused 7-9am, go in a little later, work for another long chunk, take a break – any recs for adapting that to the office? I don’t mind coming early or staying late to make it work. In grad school of course it was ideal because I could do actual things like errands or the gym during these gaps. My office isn’t overly focused on butts-in-chair, but my seat/computer are visible to all and i shouldn’t look like I”m not pulling my weight. I could definitely be better about going for walks or getting coffee rather than sitting in my chair and just getting more unfocused.

   1. Depending on how many meetings you have and the ownership you have in scheduling them, you could schedule meetings during your low periods and reserve your productive times for focused work. Alternatively, use that less focused time for small process things: replying to emails, phone calls, scheduling future meetings (basically more process oriented stuff).

   2. Unfortunately, if you’re going to shift your work early, it’s better to go in at 7 am and be seen as coming in early rather than working 7-9 at home and coming in at 9:45 or 10:00. People working with you that day will know that you’ve been working since early, but others will just see you coming in 1 to 2 hrs later than everyone else. If you’re known to come in early, no one bats an eye at you leaving earlier and polishing up work from home.

      1. I think it’s a know your office and how senior you are situation. In my world (commercial real estate in the Bay Area) ALL the senior managers show up at 10-11 because they’ve been on the phone with East Coast since early morning and don’t want to spend 2 hrs in morning traffic for optics sake. The only people who grumble about this are the admins and interns simply because they don’t understand what (and when) the senior managers do. I overhear them since I’m a middle manager with a part time cubicle in the admin section. The difference is that the VPs are pretty much never in the office unless it’s for an all hands meeting so the directors only need to be in the office to manage their teams which doesn’t take 8 hours of butt in seat time. They have meetings with their direct reports and are either gone by 3 or stay until the office shuts down around 7.

6. My 17 month old is in week 4 of what seems to be a sleep regression, b/c there’s no other explanation unless he has suddenly developed some sort of medical issue. During the past several weeks, there are some nights where he has slept completely through the night. Then there are nights like last night, when he was up 1-4am and nothing helped. We give him medicine for teething, have always had a consistent bedtime routine, dress him for the temp, etc. Any thoughts, recs, commiseration? Four weeks seems especially long but perhaps my recollection of past regressions is foggy.

   1. Teething, especially molars, would often last around a month for us, especially if they don’t come in all at once. You might also need to re-sleep train.

   2. Teething can easily last a month. Are you using Advil or Tylenol? Tylenol only lasts 4-6 hours so if you put him to bed at 8pm, by 1am the pain medication has worn off. We had better luck with Advil.

   3. Agree to give motrin instead of tylenol assuming no specific contraindication for your kid.

      Is his diaper wet when he wakes? If so, that may be bothering him. Try adding a sposie pad, getting an overnight diaper, or sizing up at night.

      Hitting major developmental milestones (maybe a vocabulary explosion or something)? Although 4w does seem long for that.

      Where are you on sleep training? We started around 4/5 months with the Sleepeasy Solution book. The book is pretty easy-to-read, and it covers sleep issues throughout toddlerhood so we pick it back up whenever we’re having sleep issues with our now 2.5-yo and it’s helpful as we try to figure out what’s going on and how to handle it.

      1. Already give motrin. No, diaper isn’t wet. Not sure about milestones, though he’s been more chatty lately. We could try and sleep train, but the point was he was a great sleeper before (due to our habits and training, not naturally, that’s for sure).

         1. You didn’t say what happens when he wakes up — inconsolable? ok if held? asking for milk or something? wanting to play? If you used a particular method for sleep training, I would go back and see how they recommend to handle this (and if you don’t have something in mind, again, highly recommend Sleepeasy Solution — easy to read when you’re sleep deprived…).

   4. Could you keep this to the Mom site?

      1. No, she can’t. People are allowed to talk about children here. Get over it, or find another s!te to read.

         1. +1. Why should issues related to children be segregated from this s1te? I’m more interested in this than I am intermittent fasting or MM LaFleur.

      2. Wow.

      3. Not in support of the comment above in the slightest since I enjoy reading about children despite having none of my own, but what is the point of the Mom’s site? Is it all-kids-all-the-time?

         1. Yes. It’s a separate page Kat launched a few years ago for the moms who read here. It’s almost exclusively pregnancy and parenting questions although once in a while some asks something slightly off those topics. The tone is a lot more civil than here.

   5. The Kid’s sleep regressions got longer over time. The worst one was around 20 months; it lasted five months and we ultimately had to sleep train again. Now, YMMV; we did not sleep train again earlier because The Hubs was in heavy prep for a long federal trial and we simply could not face the whole sleep training process again any sooner, but the second time around it only took three days once we started sleep training the night after the trial settled in progress.

      If your child is napping more than once during the day, it definitely is time to cut down to only one nap; if you already are down to one nap, then maybe try shifting the nap earlier or later with a corresponding jog in bedtime or even shortening nap time. Also (and eek!), some kids do start to give up naps as early as 2 and you could be going down that path.

      Last suggestion: have you considered a carb-heavy snack shortly before bed? If you are in the eating stage of a growth spurt, your child might be hungier than usual.

      AAALLLLLL the commiseration.

      1. Thank you for all the commiseration and the comments (including those saying we don’t relegate kid-related stuff to the moms’ site). I was surprised at the comment suggesting I do so, and thought maybe it was an autocorrect fail. I guess folks are just oddly rude sometimes. In any case, that was a random one off. So, thank you all again all for the support :).

7. I have a new manager who’s fairly indiscreet – talking about jobs other people in the team have applied for, alluding to reasons people are off sick, etc. How can I thread the needle of sharing enough information to help them help me with my development goals, while also not having that shared across the team?

   1. You have to assume that anything you share with this manager will be widely available information and shared across the team. Nothing you do can’t stop that. Calling him out on his habit is likely to ruin your relationship, but unlikely to change his behavior. The only choice you have is whether to share information with the manager (and the rest of the team) or not.

   2. I have a boss like this and I use it to my advantage. Only share things that you want to be spread around or that makes you look good.

8. Unfortunately, a dear friend in West Hartford, CT, realizes she needs to leave an abusive (emotionally, not physically) relationship. She needs to consult with a divorce attorney. Any recommendations? Thanks, hive.

   1. Pullman and Comley’s family group. David McGrath. Debra Ruel.

   2. James Wing. He’s moved his office to Avon and Simsbury (so about 20-25 minutes from West Hartford), but previously was in Hartford and knows the people that are members of that bar. He has his own practice and zealously represents his clients. While he can definitely take the other side down and can come in with guns blazing if you want him to, he will be more a mediator type lawyer.

      1. OP here, thank you both SO MUCH. I live in the Midwest and am trying to support my friend the best I can from here. Helping her find an attorney is one tangible way I can help, and I appreciate your support a lot.

9. I know there have been some people here claiming Bernie only wants to tax the wealthiest one percent or less (billionaires, hundred millionaires, etc.). He just unveiled a plan today and you will pay more taxes if you make over $29,000….so he’s increasing taxes on a lot of lower-middle, middle and upper-middle class people too.
   https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/24/politics/bernie-sanders-wealth-tax-proposal-medicare-for-all/index.html
   (I will vote for whoever the Democratic nominee is. But I hate Bernie.)

   1. I agree with your parenthetical whole-heartedly. I don’t believe a self declared socialist can beat Trump in the swing states.

      1. I believe wholeheartedly that a Warren or Sanders nomination is a guaranty that the Orange Child is our president for 4 more years.

         1. But Biden isn’t woke. That’s a huge problem for a lot of Dems.

            1. That’s a huge problem for a lot of millennial dems, who may or may not vote anyway.

            2. Is Biden more or less woke than Trump? Would you rather have Biden or four more years of Trump? How much damage do you think Trump is going to do to the environment, to reproductive rights, to workers’ rights, to the economy if he stays in office four more years?
               Those, dear friend, are the questions you need to be asking. If you don’t want to get behind Biden, then I’m going to ask that you please just stay home and don’t vote. Don’t vote for Bernie or Warren as third-party candidates. We need to get Trump out of office…anyone who is more interested in maintaining purity of their high-minded ideals than they are about defeating pure evil can’t help us. So please just stay home on voting day.

            3. yeah cause staying home because Hillary wasn’t the dream candidate worked out so well last time. And cause the Russian troll farms advocated exactly that in their election-meddling.

            4. Who cares how woke Biden is, whoever he would nominate to the SC would be 1000x better than another f-ing Kavanaugh.

            5. Surveys show that wokeness is a very marginal phenomenon (albeit prevalent on this board) that most (liberal) people don’t identify with.

               https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/large-majorities-dislike-political-correctness/572581/

         2. Whole heartedly disagree

   2. This is why we can’t have nice things. Any time that a politician even approaches taxing wealthier people, we clutch our pearls about the cost. Guess what? The current system is not working. Income inequality is sky rocketing. My sister is a critical care physician and constantly watches people leave her care in financial ruin. I make $200k a year. Go ahead, increase my taxes (and eliminate the loopholes for the very wealthy). If it means that my fellow Americans don’t have to depend on Go Fund Me for cancer care, it’s a trade off I’m willing to make.

      1. This. Wealthy Americans need to pay more and govt needs to stop wasing $$ on stupid crap like the border fence.

         1. Ugh, did you miss the point that people who make $29,000 will also pay more in taxes? Also, taking all of the top 1%’s money entirely would not even save Social Security.

            1. Thanks for the condescension, but I read the article thanks. It didn’t even say how much the taxes would increase. So I’m not sure how you’re concluding it’s even a bad thing without knowing how much more we would pay.

            2. I didn’t see in the article that said how much taxes would increase on lower-middle and middle-class people (I did a brief skim). My understanding is that the intent is for the increase in taxes to be offset by a much greater decrease in funds spent on health care, but I haven’t done enough reading to get into it.

               As far as electability, I see it cut both ways – Sanders and Warren definitely won’t appeal to moderates, but Joe Biden (probably the safest centrist option) can’t stop saying and doing dumb shit.

            3. No, I didn’t miss that. Hence replying to the post about taxing ppl who make over 200K more. There’s a lot of room between the 29K and the 1%.

            4. I looked for it, but besides that quote that noone making below $29k will pay more, the only actual numbers were regarding a wealth tax starting at $16M individual net worth. The article teased but didn’t deliver information on income tax reform.
               But let’s assume, someone making $29k is currently paying $100 a month in premiums, is paying $1200 a year or 4% of their income on healthcare. So if you gave them free insurance, you could hike their taxes by 4% and they would come out even, without the anxiety that persists when insurance is tied to the employer.

      2. I agree that income inequality is skyrocketing, but I think the way to change that is by taxing extremely wealthy people who are paying a way lower tax rate than the average working Joe or Jane because capital gains are taxed so much less than income. A person worth hundreds of millions of dollars like Mitt Romney should be paying a higher tax rate than a white collar worker who earns $200k a year, and they’re currently not (in most cases). And I certainly think the cutoff for raising taxes needs to be a lot higher than $29k. A person earning $30k is probably struggling to keep their own head above water, especially if they live in a higher cost of living area.

      3. There aren’t that many wealthy people, so unless it is a confiscatory tax, you have to tax the people who make 30K a year. They already pay payroll taxes, Medicare taxes, etc, that are high relative to their incomes. You have to lie: tax the rich = tax everyone.

         1. Just no. There are not ‘that many’ wealth people but that have a lot of wealth.

            I can’t believe rich Americans are not more embarrassed about how little they contribute to running their country. The levels of income inequality in this country are a symptom of the moral corruption indemic to the wealthiest ppl.

            1. Maybe, but if you levy taxes on capital gains, they are largely deferrable. The tax rate on deferral = 0. And if you tax other things, like income, their incomes are often not taxable (tax exempt interest). It’s professional and middle class people who get 99% of their income from W-2 earnings who get squeezed with this stuff in the end.

               Rich people aren’t a W-2 crowd, unless you’re dealing with NFL and NBA players. Rich people get 1099s and K-1s and have family offices.

            2. 100% Anon @ 12:40pm You are not “wealthy” if you are W2-ed (generally). Why dont we start with taxing hedge fund guys at the income tax rate instead of the cap gain rate? No politician will touch that issue (Not Obama, not Clinton) because they get so much money from their hedge fund friends. Which raises the other elephant in the room–campaign finance reform.

      4. Totally agree with this. It would also be great if what we currently pay in taxes could go toward actually useful stuff (like healthcare, education, infrastructure, etc.) rather than defense/military nonsense.

      5. This: If it means that my fellow Americans don’t have to depend on Go Fund Me for cancer care, it’s a trade off I’m willing to make.
         I *hate* that people have to beg and plead on Go Fund Me to cover medical expenses. I hate that social media regularly features posts from friends of friends (of friends, of friends) asking for money so that someone can get the care they need. Surely we can do better than than crowdsourcing to pay medical bills.
         This: Guess what? The current system is not working. Income inequality is sky rocketing. [And cost of living keeps rising]
         This: I will vote for whoever the Democratic nominee is. [I personally am not a Biden or Bernie fan]
         I am already fatigued about 2020 where the election is concerned. I will do my part and vote and register people and all the rest. I truly hope that we can do better as a country.

      6. Agree. Increase my taxes. Increase the taxes of the middle class too if necessary. Medicare for all, canceled student debt, free public college tuition, etc will increase the wealth of the middle class SUBSTANTIALLY. The pearl-clutching over increased taxes is so shortsighted and frankly narrowminded.

      7. Does that really have to do with taxes more than the bloated healthcare system? This proposal simply requires everyone regardless of income to keep chipping into the bottomless piggybank of Health Care without any action to look at that system.

   3. I’m not wealthy by any means, but I’m okay with paying higher taxes if it means we have a single-payer healthcare system. The money I pay for health insurance only helps some people, if I take that amount and pay it in taxes instead of premiums, copays, my deductible, etc. then it’s going towards a system that everyone can benefit from.

      1. You don’t have to wait — you can voluntaily pay more now or pay to a hospital fund to pay medical bills of others. Why wait?

         1. Lol okay Anon

            1. She’s right. You can pay more in taxes if you want to, and you can donate money if you want to.

         2. Probably because she’d rather her money go to an effective system for delivering health care, not simply donate money to cover the cost of a $78 bandaid. It’s almost like her money does more good when it is pooled with other people’s money and used for the collective benefit. But I think you know that already.

            1. +1 I don’t want to pay for someone’s $80 bill for Advil. I want to pay $80 into a system that makes it so Advil can be provided for 8 cents in hospitals

            2. Yes, that, that’s what I want.

            3. That “effective system” is known as “the free market,” and our health care market is distorted beyond belief by government requirements.

   4. Anyone else in favor of 100% taxation above a certain threshold? I’m thinking that you can have progressive taxes for the first 50 million and then everything after that is taxed at 100%.

      1. I’m with you in theory, but I worry that this will just create incentives for higher earners to hide that money somehow rather than pay the taxes.

      2. What about taxes on wealth? Really rich people may have small incomes or incomes that are tax exempt. But they own houses outright and have funds to live off of and pay college and private school tuition.

         High taxes on incomes hit people like nurses and accountants significantly harder than they hit the truly rich.

         1. I think anon at 10:12 is referring to taxing 100% after the first $50 million of annual income. At least that’s how I read the post.

         2. In general I like the idea of a wealth tax but pragmatically it makes no sense to me. How would you tax wealth that is not held as M1 or M2 or publicly listed stocks? How would you value a piece of art (boat, horse, house, jewelry, etc) that hasn’t been sold in years? How about if the tastes of the relevant market for that good fluctuate so that something that was previously worth a lot if suddenly worth very little, or vice versa? If someone holds most of their wealth in physical objects for which there is a limited market to sell, how would taxes be collected if the objects can’t be monetized for the same amount they’re valued at? And, is it really a good use of IRS resources to manage this valuation? It seems simple if you just think about massive bank & brokerage accounts, but as soon as I try to picture a holistic approach, I can’t figure out how this would be done.

            1. One soluttion is to have the holder of the boat, painting, jewelry, etc value it herself and give the government the option to buy the item at that price at any time.

            2. This reminds me of my favorite tax example. England once levied a tax based on the number of windows a residence had. So everyone boarded up their windows. Taxing wealth is great in theory but there’s a lot of thought that needs to go into it to make sure it actually does what we want instead of just destroying the window industry (metaphorically)

            3. “One soluttion is to have the holder of the boat, painting, jewelry, etc value it herself and give the government the option to buy the item at that price at any time.”

               So if I paid a wealth tax on, say, the lovely necklace that my grandmother gave me when I was 18, I would have the choice to (a) value it at such a high price that the government would never buy it, and therefore, pay far too many taxes on it, or (b) risk the government stealing – sorry, “buying” – a precious heirloom from me that has been in the family for 120 years?

               Are you OUT OF YOUR MIND?

      3. Ha. No. And this will never remotely affect my life personally. But on principle, I don’t want to keep the next Bill Gates or Bezos or Musk from developing something because they feel they won’t get their money’s worth. Since when have we been that kind of country that caps how rich you can be? We should do it now because millennials are jealous and want hand outs? No way. Incentivize people to create, if they want to then turn around and give half of it away like Bill Gates, great; if not, it’s their money and they can do what they please with it.

         1. Security encourages creation. Right now, people who can raise lots of money are able to cultivate creators by giving them security. But people who are in it for the money are not the most innovative. It’s a trope that the actual innovators (the engineers, designers, etc.) often butt heads with the “suits.”

   5. A few of us have been saying this all along and then everyone here screams at us. In order to provide ALL the free stuff that socialists and millennials want — healthcare, college — taxes HAVE to go up and not just on the people making $2 million but also on those making $200k or $150k. No thanks. If it’s a socialist nominee like Bernie or Warren, I’m voting DJT — to look out for my own family first before worrying about all of society’s ills. Lots of us in finance who voted Hillary last time feel this way and frankly are fine with a non woke moderate Dem like Joe. But I have a feeling the woke millennials will make sure the nominee isn’t Joe, so I hope you all are ok with 4 more years.

      1. Wow. How do you sleep at night knowing that you’d rather pay less tax then preventing people from dying from a lack of health care or have to resort to go-fund me for health care?

         So embarrassed for you. I hope you grow to be a good person in the future.

         1. Lack of healthcare? Obama care still exists. It really isn’t the case now as it was in the 90s where people ended up in medical bankruptcy. Sure it happens but far less frequent than it used to be. Get a non woke Dem in there who beefs up O care more, undoes Trumps changes to it and we’re in an even better position. But no you all want the government running your healthcare. No thanks — have you seen how they manage the VA?

         2. If you are really concerned about people dying from a lack of health care, why don’t you work to repeal the laws that make it illegal for hospitals to offer charitable care beyond a certain point?

            1. Aren’t the costs of charitable care generally passed on to tax payers, insured patients, or patients who
               can be billed anyway?

            2. So you think it’s okay that it’s illegal for hospitals to offer charitable care, or make it so onerous to do so that it impedes their ability to help poor people?

               How do YOU sleep at night?

            3. Healthcare lawyer here. It’s not illegal to provide generous charity care. What law are you talking about? Nonprofit hospitals are, in fact, required to provide charity care.

            4. The hospitals can only provide it to a certain percentage of the population and have to do so under strict circumstances. To do otherwise would violate the MFN pricing they give to the government, because they would be charging some customers less than the Medicare/Medicaid rates.

               But you know this.

         3. Debates like this one depress me. I think we get another 4 years of the Orange thing because we on the left can’t coalesce around a candidate. I don’t think we have a viable option this time and even if we did, we would destroy ourselves with infighting.

            What happened to pragmatism?

         4. I hate the way the poster above phrases things, and there’s no way I’m voting Trump, but I will say this: I absolutely trust that if we raise taxes, the government will take more of my money. I don’t trust AT ALL that the government will do something with that money that I find acceptable. My formative presidency was Bush II, when I watched the government use my tax money to brutalize prisoners of war. I’ll never forget those pictures. And I lean libertarian as a result. I’ve lost hope that we’ll ever have the kind of national government that we believe in; I’d rather keep more of my money and donate it to organizations that at least have some greater degree of accountability and that I know are actually helping people (and btw, my household donates 10% of HHI – over $70,000 – to direct human service and environmental charities annually, so this isn’t just theoretical for me).

            1. +1

            2. I agree completely. My family income is $150k, so wealthier than many but certainly not as wealthy as some, including many (most?) here. I’d be happy to pay higher taxes for education, better healthcare or the environment, but most tax dollars are misused by the government and I am skeptical of politicians who want to raise taxes generally, although I always vote for local property tax increases because those fund public schools pretty directly. We also donate 10% HHI to charity.

      2. Yes yes all us millennial wanting all the free health care. So selfish, esp when the Boomers have all collectively gone on record stating that they will forego Medicare for the good of the federal budget, amirte?

   6. Paying more in taxes does not mean that our overall costs will increase. Elizabeth Warren has been making this point all summer.

      1. Most people who make $29k either don’t have insurance or have it for very cheap through an employer. I make $50k and my insurance is $20/month through my employer (it’s high-deductible but I rarely have major expenses, so most years I spend a couple hundred bucks on healthcare). So yes, my costs would go up a lot even if I got “free” healthcare.

         1. You are one of the very lucky ones. Your individual healthcare costs are not static and they may change very quickly. Do you want to be left bankrupt when your luck runs out?

            1. Thanks for your condescension, but I’m not going to be bankrupt even if I have major medical expenses. I have savings and an annual out of pocket maximum on my insurance of $5k. Would it be fun to pay that kind of bill? No and it might mean I have to skip a vacation that year, but it’s not going to ruin me financially, nor should a $5k bill ruin any responsible person who earns $50k. Obamacare went a long way to reduce the risks of a catastrophic healthcare emergency for responsible working individuals, by banning lifetime policy limits and requiring insurers to cover a lot more preventative stuff.

            2. I’m not being condescending. I’m being frank. Your analysis rests on two fairly critical assumptions: (1) you remain in your same job throughout your lifetime and (2) your healthcare costs are static. It’s just a matter of time before something changes and your assumptions are no longer accurate.

      2. Honestly, I don’t believe that law professors are good at math. And I’d be less likely to trust any financial data offered up by a former law professor who is now in politics and running hard to the left to win her primary.

         At least the socialists are honest: they want everyone’s $. The faux-centrist trying to assuage you that it won’t cost that much: run.

10. I love this dress but it looks like it would be too short on me.

    I have four MM Lafleur dresses now that are my go-tos for meetings and presentations and conferences. I find their “tall-friendly” label to be accurate for me (5’11” and disproportionately long-legged). I used to wear suit type things but now I’m all about a dress with presence plus a structured cardigan or a blazer.

11. My husband had Lasik about 6 weeks ago and it seems to have failed – he was essentially overcorrected and is now looking at either going back into contacts or an enhancement surgery. Has this happened to anyone else? Any suggestions for getting through the next few months? I’ve read a lot online and it seems like significant depression can occur. Thanks.

    1. DH had to go for a “touch up”. It’s been great since. I don’t recall the reason for the touch up but it was about 12 months after #1.

    2. I’m guessing the “significant depression” is for people whose vision was destroyed by lasik not slightly overcorrected. If your husband gets depressed at having to wear glasses or contacts again for a few months, there are probably other things at play. It’s a rare complication but it can occur and can be corrected once the eye heals. For now focus on symptom management, especially dry eyes which is a common complication. Carry the protein free eyedrops everywhere.

12. I have a male colleague who constantly tests my reinforcement of boundaries. He doesn’t get subtlety so I’ve had to be direct. I get direct (but polite) about my needs and work style, he backs off for a few days, and then we’re right back to bad habits of him patronizing me/mansplaining things I already know, giving me unsolicited advice, calling me several times a day (for things that could be emails or really go unsaid), calling and texting me on weekends when I’ve said I prefer work email, etc. He’s senior to me but not my boss (we’re both mid-level in our careers) and I work with him on several projects. He’s our boss’s pet so to get on good projects, I have to work with him. I love where I work other than this one annoying guy so I’m not going to switch jobs over this. I’d love others’ advice, even if it’s just facing up to the reality that I have to deal with this crap as a slightly more junior person.

    1. For the personal calls/texts on the weekend, just ignore/don’t answer the non-work email communications. Or respond via work email “Hi, further to the voicemail you left on my personal cell, here is the information you needed on that contract”.

    2. “calling and texting me on weekends when I’ve said I prefer work email, etc.”

       Do you have access to work email on weekends? Is he calling your personal phone?

       If he’s calling your personal phone instead of sending an email on weekends, you need to bring that up with your boss. I am assuming that your industry is not one that demands this type of constant work.

    3. He’s going to keep doing it as long as you keep picking up your phone or responding to texts.

    4. This is what having boundaries looks like. People don’t behave to “just short” of your boundaries; they behave to the point you enforce them.

13. For people who have to bill their time in half an hour chunks, how do you handle it when you have been working on a task for 32 or 39 minutes? I don’t always feel that it’s appropriate to bill a full hour for that time, but I can’t also always write off every little extra set of minutes like that. It adds up.

    1. I felt guilty about that at first (though I bill my time in quarter-hour chunks), but I’ve started to move past that. If the agreement with the client says half hour chunks, then they’ve agreed to that possibility. Especially for 39 minutes (32 I would feel more okay rounding down).

       1. But I would assume as a client that unless specified, normal rounding applies versus always rounding up. That means if you work 16 minutes, you bill .5, if you bill 39 minutes, you bill .5.

    2. I’d assume it averages out. Like for every time you bill a full .5 for 20-25 minutes of work, you’re “gaining” 5-10 minutes that you’ll give back in this type of situation, right?

       1. I’d assume the same. On a large scale, this rounding is done for example in New Zealand, where they got rid of penny coins. At the supermarket, your bill is rounded up or down to the nearest five penny amount and it works for everyone.

    3. I split the baby, if it’s 5 minutes over I round down, if it’s over five minutes over, I round up. You bargained with the client to bill in half hours so get the benefit of billing up over thirty minutes, but are being fair if it bills a tiny bit over. Unless you are constantly doing 32 minutes of work for a client, which an add up, it evens out over time, generally in favor of the biller.

    4. 32 = 0.5 and 39 = 1.0
       My old workplace used to bill in 0.25 increments so 39 = 0.75 but it’s 1.0 at my new place. I don’t fuss too much about it. What we do have an overall “not to exceed” budget so as long as my billed hours stay within reason it’s nbd.

    5. Since no one has said it yet, I’ll offer the perspective that I never rounded down in my billable job, always up. Sorry, I’m not working, even two minutes, for free. We billed by the quarter hour, so spending 3 minutes sending an email = .25 hours. 32 minutes = .75 hours. I don’t see why the principle should be different if the client agreed to a larger billing chunk. They should ask for more granular billing if they’re worried about it.

14. I’m six years out of law school. Worked at Firm1 for three, went in house for two, and got heavily recruited to Firm2 and started here last year. I’ve liked every job and have open offers to return to my last two jobs. Firm2 is mid-size (40 lawyers), regional, and pays associates below market but lauds it’s “eat what you kill” partner comp. In the past, partners retire and leave their books (inherited work, with overrides) to younger partners. I was hired to work directly under PartnerA who said he wants to retire in 3-5 years and has an extremely busy practice in a specialty I enjoy. Since joining Firm2, I’ve watched half the associates turnover and three young partners leave because the inherited work promise didn’t materialize – senior partners are delaying their retirement plans. I’m starting to become skeptical whether PartnerA is really going to retire in 3-5 years, or transition business.
    1) How do I talk about this with PartnerA? My advising partner has no advice, but grapevine says he’s looking for other work.
    2) If go back in house, is there a right time to leave? I never thought I’d have three jobs in six years, let alone four.

    1. I have no advice, but I am really interested in this. I am a “senior” associate in 40 attorney eat what you kill firm, also. I use quotes because we’re not big enough for official titles like that, but I am the associate who has been there the longest. I like my job and clients and have tons of flexibility with a small child. But rainmaking isn’t my passion, so I’ve chosen to delay partnership because it really offers me no benefit at this point. We, too, lose a ton of associates for this reason. I’m happy so I’m not looking to leave necessarily, but someday I’ll care more about my future, and that day is getting closer and closer. Most of our retiring partners leave their book to whoever is their best friend or a family member in the firm to farm out to a very dwindling supply of associates and new partners. Our firm excels at attracting laterals who will make more money with an eat what you kill model, but really has a hard time retaining folks in the 3-15 years out range.

    2. Never rely on someone’s retirement for a book of business. They may never retire, or their clients may not want a brand new partner handling their work and will leave. If you want this to work, start establishing your own book of business and ingratiate yourself in trusting relationships with his existing clients.
       If you don’t think you’d be able to build a good book, go back to your last inhouse position. It won’t look as bad if you go back to the same company – easy story of the firm not working out and missing inhouse practice.

    3. This is a common problem. I don’t have a ton of advice for you, but I would not assume you will be inheriting PartnerA’s business. Inheriting a book goes both ways– the client also has to want to go with you. You currently don’t have enough of a relationship with these clients to know if they will stay with you or go to another firm. I say this because my firm has a lot of clients that we inherited from other firms when a senior partner at the other firm died/retired. Instead of staying with the old firm, the client moved to a senior partner at my firm.

       Do you like the current firm? If so, I don’t think you’ve outstayed your welcome there, and you may very well develop business in time. I just do not think you should assume you will inherit PartnerA’s business. Also, again, PartnerA may tell you that is his intention if you ask him right now, but that has nothing to to do with what the client wants.

15. My firm offers associate bonuses this year (first time ever). My numbers came in after a really busy August. My firm’s year end is December so I have three months. I only need 375 hours to meet the ‘minimum’ and 525 to hit the ‘bonus’ target. My firm’s bonus structure is measly, I might get about $2,500 (money I could use, but doesn’t seem worth an extra 150 billable hours). I’m tempted to keep at my normal pace, which is probably about 400 hours of work, putting me above the minimum but still far enough from bonus land I don’t wish I’d done one more project. Thoughts?

    1. Work at your normal pace because you might get dinged in review at slacking off towards the end of the year. Since you don’t think the extra money is worth the extra 150 hrs in billables, why does it matter how much above the minimum you bill, so long as you hit the minimum? I’d say don’t take on more work than necessary if you are well on track to hit the minimum, but don’t take it easy either.

16. i keep getting drawn to it but have yet to actually purchase it. if you have it, any thoughts? pros/cons?

    TIA

    1. YMMV. There are a lot on Poshmark to try for cheap.

    2. I tried it on and hated the material. You might want to try it if you haven’t.

    3. My advice is try it on and if you like it try and order from Poshmark or ebay. I have about 6? Possibly more? It’s a staple in my wardrobe

    4. I tried it on when it first arrived and just thought “eh”. But now I find myself wearing it once a week. I think it’s a nice upgrade from a regular cardigan and I tend to not wear jackets all that much anymore. I love it….

17. Does anyone have thoughts or advice about carbon offsets? I don’t fly much (and don’t have a car) but I have a few flights coming up and have been wondering about this.

    1. I have heard that there are a lot of problems (i.e., fraud) in the carbon offset industry. I’d like to learn more but so far I haven’t heard anything very positive.

       1. +1

       2. Yes, this is what I’ve heard too… sadly.

    2. The most intuitive way of carbon offsetting, which is to plant trees somewhere, is difficult to monitor and sustain sufficiently long-term for the trees to mature.
       I use atmosfair, which invests in low-emission heating and cooking stoves for poor countries. As far as I know, they are legit.

    3. Purchase verified offsets from a reputable company.

    4. I used to work in the carbon offset industry and I don’t buy them. At best, you’re relying on something that has limited (if any) real verification, no guarantee that it will actually be maintained long enough to offset your emissions (trees cut down, technology stops working, etc.), and might be outright fraud. What I recommend to people is to take the money you would have spent on offsets for all your flights during the year and donate it to an environmental group that does solid work to protect existing forests and support reforestation through the use of legally binding protections (like conservation easements). I generally recommend The Nature Conservancy.

       1. Not the OP but I love this idea, thanks.

    5. You can do a bit of carbon offset yourself. You can calculate how much carbon your flight will use (search carbon footprint calculator) and then calculate how many trees will be needed to sequester that amount of carbon. There are many reputable organizations that plant trees in different parts of the world. A good rule of thumb is 20 trees for each trip to Europe from the east coast if it is business class (I just did this calculation for my husband).

    6. There’s a local group where I live that is selling carbon offsets and uses the money to help low-income families switch from heating oil or inefficient electric baseboard heat to more efficient electric heat (our electricity is 100% renewable). Not quite the same concept, but still one I feel pretty good about.

18. Talk to me re your parents’ (aunts/uncles/grandparents) retirement esp if it is ordinary and boring — i.e. not traveling around all the time or golfing all day while sitting on the board of 5 organizations. Talk to me esp if they are bored and don’t seem happy. How much of their complaining do you listen to and does it get to you? I feel bad so I listen but now it’s causing my own anxiety.

    Seems like they had no planning for this (financial planning – yes; planning their time – no). I honestly think they thought it’d be like it is in the old country — by the time you retire your 5-8 kids are all married (because arranged marriage), lots of grandkids, you live with them etc. But they’re here in America — only 2 kids, in 2 different regions, working a ton, no grandkids etc. Moving back to the old country is not an option — they’ve been here 40+ years, couldn’t assimilate to the developing world again. But they’re also not interested in doing what Americans do in retirement — travel (one wants to, other doesn’t — and it’s against their cultural views that one would travel solo or with one of the kids as the other sits home), volunteer, part time job just to have something to do etc, a cultural org (because their area doesn’t have one for our EXACT culture and nationality — which no area will because we are a religious minority even in the nation they came from). I feel bad that days consist of TV, newspaper and cooking/cleaning and they aren’t happy. Yet when I go home they tell me SO much of the unhappiness that here I am at work on Tuesday (having returned to my home Sunday) STILL worried. What are your families’ experiences? Anything you can do to help or did you step back?

    1. Is there a reason they retired so early? None of the first gen immigrants I know fully retired until they had grandchildren to busy themselves with (and in most cases their children accepted a lot of help with the grandkids). They might have transitioned to part-time time work or something more flexible, but they didn’t leave the workforce completely. It sounds like they’re kind of just set on being miserable and honestly that’s not your problem.

       1. One got laid off in the last recession and was 65 so decided that was it, the other got a good early retirement package so it was worth it. Plus they come from a place where people retire in their 50s so to them working until 65 is a lot and they legit think that people we know who are working into their 70s are crazy or poor (pretty sure my cardiologist is neither crazy nor poor). As for grandkids, there may not be any — neither of us wants kids at a time that’s not good for us just to provide a project.

    2. I don’t think this is a culturally unique thing, there are lots of people with boring retirements, many due to financial constraints – you can only travel if you have the money. I think it all comes down to individual personalities and drive. If your parents weren’t super active, driven and ambitious in their work life, there is no reason to think they’d be different during retirement – it’s just now no one is telling them how to fill their time. It’s fine for you to be worried, but you can’t actually do anything about it. Maybe suggest local clubs that fit their interests, but if they don’t want to do things, they won’t. Personally I wouldn’t take on the burden of something that 1) doesn’t really hurt you or them and 2) you can’t do anything about.

       1. Would they consider activities at a senior center/senior community group? I would maybe suggest one or two to them once, and then leave it alone.

          My mom is pretty similar to your parents – since she retired over 15 years ago, she has been watching tv, sleeping a lot, and reading the newspaper. I’m pretty sure her average day is wake up at 10am, read the newspaper and watch tv for a few hours, take a nap in the afternoon, watch more tv, and then go to sleep around 10am. She probably only leaves her house 2-3 times a week, if that. It sounds like hell to me, but she seems to be enjoying it and it is her choice how to spend her time.

    3. Oof. I am in this situation with my in-laws. They are not Amercian but have lived here for 40+ years and are struggling in retirement for those reasons, and the added wrinkle of having no family here in the US which meant they never developed hobbies / etc. because they were so used to working and devoting every minute of the day to their kids, and not developing as adults with their own priorities. It’s miserable to watch them basically deteriorate doing nothing all day (and somehow my MIL is continually stressed and says she has no free time… what?). We have tried everything to make them travel / enjoy life, but at some point, they are adults and have to take control of their own happiness. We did manage to sign them up for the local gym and their daily activity is getting out to exercise. Maybe encourage that? It’s a relief to know they are leaving the house at least once a day.

       1. OP, I relate so much to your post. I’m Indian and my MIL lives with us for half the year and does nothing except cook, watch Indian TV, and talk on the phone. She didn’t even want to walk outside of the house (!!) until a few weeks ago. I finally forced her to do that, telling her that the sunshine was good for her. I have tried several times to talk to her about taking community college classes, or taking an Uber to the local temple or doing something. I even befriended an Indian aunty in the neighborhood and asked her to take my MIL on a walk. They did it once, and then my MIL said that she didn’t like that woman. So…here I am. I feel such a burden and responsibility to give her a social life.

    4. Can they move closer to one or both of their kids? Are grandkids in the picture yet?

    5. My parents and their siblings are all happily and (for the most part) healthily retired. They all do some sort of daily exercise. My dad is a total gym rat, spends about 2 hours exercising/stretching every day. One less intense couple goes mall walking. My mom goes to church every day. They go to various lectures and events at the local library. When one was first retired, he audited some classes at the local community college. Basically, they do a bunch of things within a 10-minute radius of their house. Is there a public garden or park near your parents where they can take daily walks, or a coffee shop where they can read the paper instead of staying home?

       1. This sounds a lot like my parents and MIL, all of whom are in relatively good health and retired in their early 60s. Honestly, their schedules are sometimes more complicated than mine, as they have exercise classes/volunteering/neighborhood association/etc. obligations that they have created for themselves.
          I know that OP said that there isn’t much interest in any of those options, but I think that’s the typical way folks fill their time in retirement if they need to be doing something.

       2. Yeah, gym/exercise was going to be my suggestion. They need to just get out of the house, get fresh air and sunshine.

          But honestly, I think what people do in their free time while they work is a pretty good indication of how people will spend their retirement years. If you spend the limited time off you have watching TV and cleaning the bathroom, that’s what you’ll do as a retiree. If you travel, go to interesting events, read books, and move your body, that’s likely what you’ll fill your additional free time with in retirement.

    6. I’m really not sure how you can solve this. If they aren’t willing to participate in their own happiness, then maybe it is what it is. My parents are also a religious minority from the ‘old country’, so they didn’t have a group to join. Instead, they found a community of other immigrants from the Middle East and South Asian and have common ground with them. You have to be a little flexible. I would love them, but I would not take on this project.

    7. My in laws have been retired for a decade now, and they love it. Although they do like to travel and golf, that is not all of their time. They have card nights with friends; they’re in a pickball league at the local rec center. MIL goes to yoga and tennis and spends a lot of time with her flowers; she has weekly coffee/tea with other retired teachers. FIL reads a lot, does a lot of “Great Courses” dvds (he loved the astronomy one; he “does not get” cooking, however), and started lifting weights. They both love to go on bike rides, and, honestly, they spend most of their days apart and then are together in the evenings. They’ve each got their own hobbies and routines.

    8. Just me and a sibling. He has a bunch of kids that they rarely see. I’m married but don’t plan to have any. My folks were good for a bit until my dad became terminally ill. She took on care taking. Once he passed and she didn’t have the company of him or the care-taking to keep her busy, she just seems…lost. She’s in multiple book clubs, goes to the gym every day, has a couple of friends she talks with by phone every now and then (their poor health and her living in a remote area makes face to face difficult and even when it’s possible she often declines or complains about them annoying her). She doesn’t seem like she’s having very much fun. But I don’t know how much of that is due to her either. Honestly, I struggle a lot. I feel like I need to keep her company more. But she’s a narcissist, so conversations are very hard and always only about what interests her. Growing up, my dad worked nights and they went away almost every weekend together. So I was left alone a lot (older sibling was never around). Sometimes I get really angry and feel like why do I have to spend my time trying (often unsuccessfully) to keep her entertained now when she didn’t do the same for me . Everyone I know who seems like they are doing well in retirement are the same folks who were doing well when they were younger–they’re involved in their communities and families and passions. I think if you stop interacting with folks much and learning new things, life starts to get blah.

       1. I feel you. My parents worked a ton when my brother and I were younger and then when I hit age 12, something seemed to happen…not sure if it was a midlife crisis or they just got burned out on parenting, but from 7th grade on my brother and I basically raised ourselves. Now they are retired and a lot of the OP’s post resonates with me. My parents won’t volunteer or get part-time jobs because they “don’t want to be on a schedule” but they also complain about boredom and their lives seem pretty empty. They moved away from us (and their only grandchild) last year to be closer to my brother and his wife, but then they complain they never see him? My mom has filled the void by drinking a lot and she gets verbally abusive when she drinks, so my contact with her has dwindled. I also feel angry that they seem to want me to give their life meaning and structure now, whereas when I really needed them in my younger years, they acted like they couldn’t be bothered.
          OP – ultimately, this is not your problem to solve. Everyone makes choices in life and everyone has to live with the choices they make. I also believe people make their own happiness if they’re fortunate enough to be in a situation where their health is good and they are financially comfortable. If they won’t take your suggestions, I think you do set time limits or boundaries around how much complaining you’re willing to listen to, and maybe limit contact with them to what you feel is manageable.

    9. My grandparents both started doing art. My grandmother took a bunch of courses, started making paper, and had her art featured in several shows. She also was a docent at the art museum. My grandfather started taking pottery classes in order to spend more time with my grandmother (didn’t really have hobbies pre-retirement due to nature of his job) and loved it. They also spent a lot of time gardening. They were not very social, so most of their time was spent on these hobbies. They also traveled.

       My other set of grandparents were divorced. Grandfather started writing books. Grandmother played bridge and golf and stereotypical retired lady things.

    10. My dad is retired and does nothing besides go to the doctor and twice/week the gym and a lunch w/ a friend and is absolutely loving it. He is more than happy to watch tv, read a book, stare at the birds and do “nothing.” He is not miserable.

    11. My dad is having a very leisurely retirement. He gardens almost every day (in the winter, tends to potted plants and garden planning). He watches a lot of YouTube, usually to learn about alternative fuels or home repair. He volunteers at the local bike coop and fixes bikes for everyone in the neighborhood. Comes to visit a few times a year but never more than a few days at a time.

        Your parents are making a choice to be bored. I grew up hearing “only boring people get bored.” Surely there is something that would interest them?!

    12. My mom just passed away last weekend after being retired for 30 years. I saw her and my dad have two distinct phases of retirement. For 20-plus years they were active and traveled a lot, both to visit family and as tourists abroad. They were in a weekly poetry club that they loved, and my dad played pool at the neighborhood clubhouse every day.

        About five years ago their health began to fail and I had to move them to assisted living, where they mostly sat in their apartment and watched MSNBC all day long (at least it wasn’t Fox!). They did go to meals in the dining room but other than that they just sat around and were pretty unhappy.

        I spent a lot of time talking about this with my own therapist and the takeaway was that I couldn’t make them happy and it wasn’t my job anyway.

        1. I am sorry to hear of your loss, SA. You have spoken of your issues with your parents before but I am sure it is not easy.

           1. Thank you, I appreciate it. Believe it or not I feel like we came to terms there at the end and my anger at her has just melted away. Go figure…

              1. I’m sorry for your loss, and am so glad that you were able to come to terms in the end. I know you have had a very difficult relationship with your parents. Hugs.

        2. I’m sorry for your loss, SA.

        3. I’m so sorry, SA. Even though it’s expected that we will all eventually lose our parents, it’s still really hard when it happens. I’ve been there. Hugs to you.

        4. Oh, Senior Attorney, please know that this internet stranger is thinking of you with sincere sympathy.

        5. I’m very sorry for your loss. That’s so hard.

        6. Very sorry for your loss, SA.

        7. I am so sorry for your loss, SA, you’re in my thoughts.

        8. I am sorry for your loss SA.

        9. SA – I’m sorry for your loss but glad that you had clarity before she died.

        10. So sorry for your loss.

    13. I’m also worried about the same things with my parents’ upcoming retirement picture. Dad is a hermit, mom is a social butterfly, but we live in a state with zero relatives and only a few friends that dad approves of (he’s a bit nuts on who he thinks is appropriate to hang out with). I think my mom suffers from loneliness as it is and will only gets worse if she doesn’t work/interact with coworkers. My brother is enticing them to move to his HCOL state where they have relatives and old friends. Mom might bite, dad might not. And they have very little savings due to being late immigrants and working low wage jobs. Just looking a Medicare costs and add-ons is dizzying. I’ll probably have more to tell in a year or two when they actually retire but for now I’m low-key nervous.

    14. Are you my younger sister? I swear this is my parents to a tee. My father just watches Indian politics on YouTube all day long when he’s at home and does nothing else. It’s driving my mother batty.

        I have no useful advice since my father controls the money so my mother has to go along with it.

    15. My mother was kind of like this. She was a widow and did not want to join a senior center or anything like that. She played a lot of solitaire on her computer.

        Then one of her grandson’s friends got kicked out of his parents’ home at age 19 and she offered to let him live in my old room. Then he had other friends who wanted places to live and she let them move in too.

        She charged them rent but not a lot. She did their laundry. She cooked for them. They looked out for her, took the trash out, etc, but mostly just kept her company and gave her something to do.

        It was like an old fashioned boarding house. Did they take advantage of her? Absolutely. But it was somehow mutually beneficial because it gave her something to do. Even complaining about how messy they were was something to do. It also seemed to keep her young.

        Even though they took advantage of her, they also loved her and she was a big part of their lives. Even though my siblings and I were somewhat horrified at how they were mooching off of her, we all agree that she loved it and it made her happy.

        1. That sounds like something that could have gone wrong in so many ways but somehow went right instead! What a great story!

        2. This sounds like it could be the plot of a sitcom.

           1. I would watch the heck out of that sitcom.

              1. It wasn’t always fun or funny, but it made her happy. :)

        3. It’s like Friends meets the Golden Girls!

    16. My retired parents stayed as busy as working people. My 87 year old father still does more in a couple of days than a lot of people do in a week. On the other hand, my MIL and FIL rarely leave the house, watch television constantly and don’t seem to have outside interests. It’s not clear to me that they ever did have many interests outside the home but for work. Honestly I have to try not to have a-hole thoughts about that because I would be bored to tears to sit at home after I retired. My parents lived a full and involved life outside of work, home and family, some things together some thing separately. Unsurprisingly, my father is healthier and happier than the in laws. Everyone is comfortable middle class, financially. I think it comes down to who they are and what they value, and there’s not much you can do about it whether they overdo or don’t do hardly anything. I know you want to help, but you can’t change who they are and what they choose to value. You may need to set some boundaries, if at all possible, to protect yourself. I’m not going to act like I know how to do that or how it would work best in your culture, but I do have good wishes for you and hope that you find a way to manage their unhappiness’s impact on you.

19. Anon for this — if you’re in law and not white, do you ever look around and feel like the majority of white people who want to make partner DO make it? I’m not saying it’s easy. I know many from law school and my first biglaw firm who had to go to 2-4 firms, took up to 12-14 years to make it instead of 8 etc but they ALL got there. And yet they aren’t much better and often less hard working than all the Asian and black lawyers I know who were pushed out, have never made it past counsel roles etc. I’ve always been that (not white) person whose leaned towards — there’s not AS much discrimination as people say, so we work a bit harder so what etc. Yet being 15 years out of law school it’s stunning to me how SO many mediocre white people are partners and so many others — who also want to be partner and are really good — aren’t and won’t be. I’m in the NYC and DC markets if it matters.

    1. I know eons of white people who never made partner, despite wanting to and being excellent lawyers. I definitely think it is harder for minorities, but it is by no means a guaranteed thing for white people, especially white women.

       1. It is especially difficult for women, in part because a lot of the women initiative in biglaw completely ignore minority women’s interests and solely focus on white women’s interest. Also, studies show that minority women often experience greater queen bee syndrome from white women and are better off working for white men. Just want to point these out before you bemoan the prejudices against you as a white woman.

          1. I never said white women were worse off than minority women, I said white women were worse off than white men which has been proven by the data many times.

       2. Agreed. I was NOT ever getting a job in big law, let alone being a partner, and I had to start as a lawyer serving subpeenies, so it was NOT a foregon conclusion that I could ever become a partner. As luck would have it, I met the manageing partner serving a subpeenie in his building and he met me in the elevator, and the next thing I know, I was offered a job, at the bottom of his firm. I worked my tuchus off to learn WC law (I do not even remember if GW ever had that class–if they did I never knew it), and as I did, I followed the lead of the manageing partner, learning everything from him and doing everything he did, so that after about 5 years, I was abel to do stuff just like him and we now finish each other’s sentences. If he was only 40 year’s younger, Grandma Leyeh said I should marry him. But seriousley, THAT is my story, and THAT is my lesson for the HIVE on how anyone can become a partner. It takes hard work, dedication, and luck, not necesarily in that order. If I can do it, then so can anyone, if not in big law, then in boutique firms like mine. YAY!!!!!

       3. +1 I know many people who wanted to make partner and didn’t. That said far more of the mediocre white dudes make partner than the people of color and white women who want it and are better lawyers.

    2. I mean, all you’re seeing is statistics play out. Very few women, and even fewer people of color make partner in biglaw, separate and apart from the fact that it’s difficult to make partner in biglaw across the board and over time partners are getting stingier with their money and letting fewer people into the partnerships. I, a WOC, have seen this play out as well (although my peers are only just now up for consideration of partnership) and a lot of the time it is discrimination, but even more, it’s exhaustion at having to wade through the bull of biglaw + the added mess of discrimination. I and a lot of people I know opted out into regional less intense firms, government, and in house roles. Not to say that the practice of law is easier there, but doors are more open and there is less crap to wade through to get to top roles. We do it so that we can practice to our talent’s limits and for mental health reasons.

       1. I think this is spot on. A lot of POC (and white women but especially true of POC and especially WOC who deal with much more BS) “opt out” after being exhausted with years and years of the BS.

    3. Yes. I do.

    4. Truthfully — yes. Like you said, us white people may have to switch firms but we eventually get there at some firm. I went to a T14 which mostly produces law firm people, not judges or professors. Kid you not pretty much every white male in my graduating class and most females are partners. Many were quite mediocre and I have no reason to believe we worked so much harder or better than all of our Asian, Black or Hispanic classmates — where partners are a true rarity and many were pushed out of biglaw altogether and couldn’t get in any place else, had to go in house or government even if they didn’t want to.

       1. Still in the rat race but yes. I, as a WOC, am trying my best to stay in it as I love what I do, love my firm and love the things partners do (minus the being available 24/7 maybe, but my role model partner is great about boundaries with his clients), but also because so few of us make it and I think I have the thick skin/resilience (on top of the skills/personality) to do so.

       2. Wow. Then I must be doing it wrong.

       3. I think that a lot of this relates to billing. In order to be a partner, even in small law, you HAVE to have a lot of billing cleints. Unless you do, you will not be a partner, and if your not a partner, you have to do a lot of grunt work for the partners, and once people are out of law school more then 10 years, they kind of don’t want to do the grunt work. I am not like most, b/c I have done grunt work all my life, and know no different, even as a partner, b/c the associates I have had do not want to get their fingers dirty, which we must at my firm. So it’s a balance. We have to live with what we are given, and if we don’t want to do that, there is always some good government jobs in NYC where people can make a decent living, get great benefits and not have to work much over 35 hours a week.

    5. Interestingly, I am seeing this pattern actually start to shift toward POC and particularly WOC in my large city (LA). Many of my colleagues/classmates are being recruited for partnership specifically because they are women and/or POC – in fact I have one friend (POC) who is being recruited to a V25 firm (for counsel or partner) from gov’t and was explicitly told that they are looking to diversify their senior ranks, in part because clients are unhappy to see only white men at the top. So while I agree that the current situation is not good (most partners being white men), it does seem like there is a concerted effort to improve.

       1. I’m happy to hear this but this ignores the years and years of bias and privilege that happen before the partnership question.

          I hate when people say being a minority or a woman is an advantage when it’s time for the partnership consideration as if that is the only time in ones career where race or gender come up. Sure it’s great if firms do consider diversity in the partnership discussion (which I’m not sure all firms do and there are definitely still places where the opposite is true), but that only helps the few people who were able to fight through years of BS, weren’t pushed out earlier and were actually given opportunities that traditionally go to the white men and sometimes the white women.

          1. I don’t disagree with most of this, but since my friends have primarily been recruited from government into biglaw, they actually managed to escape most of the BS described here. We’ll see how it goes for them at the firm itself, of course.

    6. All but one of the minority attorneys I knew in biglaw have left. I’m in DC, so most have left for the government and a few have left to go in-house. Based on what they told me, they all left of their own choice and were just sick of the crap that is biglaw. Who knows, maybe they were lying to me, but I have no reason to doubt that they left on their own. But, this in no way discounts or minimizes the fact that the black and Latino associates I knew in biglaw were treated like crap, and I would have wanted to leave if I was treated like that too.

       Similarly, I know a lot of white associates who left big law. With all but a few, my understanding is that it was their choice. And frankly, I know very few people who made partner in biglaw, but even fewer who wanted to make partner. So, my impression was always that minorities left biglaw in a greater percentage as associates, that it was their choice to leave the firms and move on to government or in-house, but that they were not treated well when they were at the firms.

    7. I *am* white and a partner and I agree with this, with the caveat that at my firm, it’s nonequity to equity (not associate to partner). Our nonequity partner classes reflect the same ethnic and gender stats as our incoming associate classes, generally. Like, my partnership class was about 40% women and about 30% POC (men and women both), which is roughly consistent with our incoming associate class back in the day. My firm’s equity partnership? Only 10% of our equity partnership are women and we have single digit numbers (not percentages, numbers) of partners who are POC.

       Of our equity partners who are women/POC, they tend to be highly successful – 2 of our top 10 highest paid equity partners are women (one is a Black woman) and 3 of our top 10 (including her) are POC. But that success at the highest level hasn’t translated into better numbers in the equity ranks as a whole.

       We’re an AmLaw50 firm.

       1. That is exactly the situation at my firm. They are happy to make “partners” of women/POC (and if you can combine the two even better). They are even happier to trumpet those numbers. In reality, the number of equity partners in those categories is minuscule.

          And this is my annual reminder to associates everywhere: the title “partner” does not equal either money or power at many firms. Sometime it is just the reward in a cake eating contest where the prize is more cake.

    8. I absolutely agree and I’m 7 years out. I went to a law school where there was no grade (only H/P and in New Haven) and graduated during the recession. Even though it was supposed to be the best law school in the country, there were a few who struck out for biglaw firms. Even at that stage, the ones who struck out were either Asian or Black women who went to public schools for high school/undergrad and who came from immigrant families (one from Haiti and one from China). Because there were no grades, interviewing with biglaw came down to appearances and how one socialized. Ironically, if they had gone to top law schools with struck grades, they probably would have had at least one job offer from a firm. Meanwhile, some white (and one black) men who partied all the time and rarely attended classes ended up getting offers from the best biglaw firms in NY. It only gets worse from there. Cut to 7 years later, the Black woman is now in-house at a college but spent a few years as a volunteer attorney. The Asian woman has left biglaw and is now at a small firm. On the other hand, about half of the party crowd who secured biglaw jobs are now in nice corporate in-house jobs making six figures.

       I have noticed that socio-economic background and gender plays a huge role as well. The only minorities I know who made partner in biglaw are men, and they all went to private boarding schools for high school and Ivy League undergrads. Of everyone in my class year, already, the majority of WOC are no longer in biglaw. White women, on the other hand, still constitute about half of the white people I know who are still in biglaw. Hispanics also seem to have an easier time in biglaw than blacks and Asians for some reason.

       1. Just confirmation as someone who is on a Biglaw hiring committee that Yale’s (are we afraid to say Yale for some reason?) lack of letter grades does hurt candidates generally and any candidate who doesn’t come from an upper middle class background specifically, for exactly the reasons you mention. High grades are my strongest weapon when I’m arguing against the “cultural fit” crowd at hiring meetings (ie, the “would you fit in at my country club?” test) and I really wish Yale would drop the HP thing.

          That said, we rarely even interview at Yale anymore because we hire for longterm retention and we’ve found that Yale candidates tend to be short-timers.

          1. Maybe the reason why the Yale hired are such short term hires is because firms only hire from Yale the white male slackers who interview well but are actually not that hard working or interested in biglaw.

             I definitely recall interviewers using the you’re a Yale grad you must not stick around question. My comeback is usually the Yale grad who doesn’t stick around is usually a white man/woman who came from a well-off background, so it doesn’t really apply to minority women like me.

             Fundamentally, the issue is prejudices against minority women, though the lack of grades exacerbated the prejudice.

          2. I’m also a YLS grad and at least while I was doing FIP (pre recession), the H/P system still served as a screening mechanism because the tippy top firms (Wachtell, Cravath, etc) were looking for students with as many H’s as possible. Beyond that, yes, it certainly helped to have the interviewing skill set down, which doesn’t come naturally to a lot of minority students who may not have grown up around that kind of privilege (myself included in that group). Nonetheless, everyone I knew who wanted a biglaw associate job got one. I’m curious what firm doesn’t interview at YLS anymore – as far as I’ve heard, all the top firms still do and are very interested in YLS grads, grades or no grades.

20. I’m visiting/staying with a friend this weekend who has a 1 and a half year old daughter. Any suggestions for a small gift I could bring for the baby? I don’t have kids so have no idea!

    1. Board book with bright colors. Playdough (ask your friend first – some babies smash it and some try to eat it).For the sake of your friend, nothing with sound!

    2. Melissa & Doug toys are popular — there’s one set of stacking / nesting blocks (made of sturdy cardboard) that friends have reported their 18mo kid loves stacking, knocking over, etc. It’s available on A m a z o n but, um, do that at the peril of personally offending the comment section…

    3. A nice book. Probably still a board book at that age. One with flaps like Where’s Spot or Dear Zoo. Or a color book with jumbo crayons. Maybe a crayola Color Wonder market set (they only work on the special paper).

    4. Stuffed animal with dress up outfit. Play food sets.

    5. Definitely do a book over a toy. Most moms I know (me included) try to limit the amount of “stuff” they give their kids, but books are a big exception to that for most people because everybody wants to foster a love of reading and believes it’s hard to spoil kids with books. I also think having duplicate books is better than duplicate toys, because books (even the sturdy board books) do wear out when they get chewed on, in a way plastic toys don’t. My 1.5 year old loves the Good Night book series (http://goodnightbooks.com/) – if there is one about your city/state that might be a good idea since it’s something they almost certainly don’t have, and they will think of you when they read it.

    6. I always like getting clothes- especially with cooler weather coming, I found it nice to get cute hoodies, sweaters or sweatshirts. Definitely make sure they are machine washable, though.
       Bath toys were also fun to get.

    7. A hat. It’s starting to get chilly and babies that age love to put on and take off hats.

    8. Melissa and Doug Water Wow books. We used them at that age all. the. time. They’re inexpensive and great.

21. Love the dress, though on the expensive side for what it is. It’s nice to know that Dani from ANTM is still getting regular work. Catalogue modeling isn’t super glamorous but it does pay the bills fairly steadily.

    1. Omg, didn’t even recognize her! Good catch.

22. You ok?

    1. She posted yesterday afternoon that she was ok!

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