Coffee Break: ThirdLove
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This is my second purchase I've made recently that was prompted by an Instagram ad. (The first was Billie.) I rarely have luck buying bras online (even with Amazon Prime Wardrobe, which I tried and reviewed in 2018), but right now I'm not thrilled with the idea of going to my local lingerie store, even with a mask, so I thought I'd give ThirdLove a try!
ThirdLove's website gives you detailed instructions for measuring your bra size, but of course when I shopped the site last month, I'd totally forgotten that I'd done so months before, and simply ordered my regular size. I got their 24/7 Classic T-Shirt Bra ($68) because I like T-shirt bras and they say it's their “#1 bra.” It has a ton of positive reviews! (Note that ThirdLove has underwear, too.)
The bra has thin memory foam cups and soft microjersey fabric and is available in cup sizes A–I. It's very comfortable, too. The only thing I don't love is that it gets a bit of a wrinkled look — but you can't see it under clothing.
Unfortunately, the first one I ordered didn't fit — but ThirdLove has a generous return policy. Exchanges and returns are free for 60 days if you don't “love” your purchase. It was easy to exchange the bra for a new size, and the new one (a half size, which is a great option) fit much better.
ThirdLove's website has a lot of resources, including info on bra styles, breast shapes, fit issues, lingerie care, and more. They offer discounts for teachers, first responders, medical workers, and the military, and they've donated more than $18 million worth of bras to women in need. Plus, they have a customer rewards program, Hooked Rewards. (Here's my referral code if you want $15 off!)
I highly recommend giving ThirdLove a try.
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Sales of note for 2/7/25:
- Nordstrom – Winter Sale, up to 60% off! 7850 new markdowns for women
- Ann Taylor – Extra 25% off your $175+ purchase — and $30 of full-price pants and denim
- Banana Republic Factory – Up to 50% off everything + extra 15% off
- Boden – 15% off new season styles
- Eloquii – 60% off 100s of styles
- J.Crew – Extra 50% off all sale styles
- J.Crew Factory – 40% off everything including new arrivals + extra 20% off $125+
- Rothy's – Final Few: Up to 40% off last-chance styles
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
- Talbots – 40% off one item + free shipping on $150+
Sales of note for 2/7/25:
- Nordstrom – Winter Sale, up to 60% off! 7850 new markdowns for women
- Ann Taylor – Extra 25% off your $175+ purchase — and $30 of full-price pants and denim
- Banana Republic Factory – Up to 50% off everything + extra 15% off
- Boden – 15% off new season styles
- Eloquii – 60% off 100s of styles
- J.Crew – Extra 50% off all sale styles
- J.Crew Factory – 40% off everything including new arrivals + extra 20% off $125+
- Rothy's – Final Few: Up to 40% off last-chance styles
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
- Talbots – 40% off one item + free shipping on $150+
And some of our latest threadjacks here at Corporette (reader questions and commentary) — see more here!
Some of our latest threadjacks include:
- My workload is vastly exceeding my capability — what should I do?
- Why is there generational resentment regarding housing? (See also)
- What colors should I wear with a deep green sweater dress?
- How do you celebrate milestone birthdays?
- How do you account for one-time expenses in your monthly budget?
- If I'm just starting to feel sick from the flu, do I want Tamilfu?
- when to toss old clothes of a different size
- a list of political actions to take right now
- ways to increase your intelligence
- what to wear when getting sworn in as a judge (congrats, reader!)
- how to break into teaching as a second career
I just got an organization wide “it’s officially been 6 months of WFH email” and I’m so sad.
I’m sorry that WFH hasn’t been a fit for you. I do feel bad for extroverts or people whose jobs are much easier to perform in the office. Personally, it’s been much, much better for me as a high-risk person and I’m not planning to go back until I believe that it’s safe enough, even though my boss is eager to make us because she is lonely and having some boundary issues.
I’m very much an introvert so from that perspective it’s been great! I just don’t have an office (and due to logistics will not for another 6 months) so I’ve basically been a squatter in my kitchen without a proper computer set up.
may I highly recommend setting up a monitor and keyboard even if that means you’re at a folding table in the corner of the living room? If I’d been on laptop-only since March I would be needing a new glasses prescription and a chiropractor.
I feel you. Fellow introvert here. I feel terrible for the people who are sick and have passed away and all the jobs lost but personally I have never been happier. I love not having to be in an office and go on business trips and socialize so much. I will never go back to my life before.
I’m sad too.
I love WFH but I’m sad that we’ve been in a pandemic this long, and that I don’t see an end anytime soon.
+1. I love WFH. I don’t love being home all the time in a pandemic with horrendous air quality.
Yes, agree. If I could work from home forever (or even half time WFH) and there be no pandemic, I would be so happy.
+1. There are parts of WFH that have made my life much easier. But omg, doing this allll the time during a pandemic is really crummy. I am an introvert, but I still need that interaction with coworkers to stay charged up and motivated. I also am concerned that under this setup, my direct reports aren’t getting as much of my attention as they would if we were face to face, having informal meetings on the daily.
Exactly this.
Hugs, I also hate work from home. I miss seeing my coworkers face to face and feel like I’m developmentally losing out on the informal interactions and learning that happens only when you can drop by someone’s office, chit chat while you’re on mute waiting for others to join a conference call, sticking around a few minute after a meeting to ask follow up questions, etc. Plus my WFH set up is terrible – my desk is shoved into a corner of my bedroom, it’s really not great for boundaries, etc. I’m also sad that we don’t seem to have an end in sight for this devastating virus.
All of this. I’m starting to appreciate the benefits of WFH a little bit more, but as a younger attorney who still needs guidance but also has a lot of responsibility to manage up and down, I really miss being able to easily access my colleagues and all of those informal interactions. The loss of guidance and mentorship and relationship building really stinks. An actual home office would go a long way, too.
Right? Like when I was looking at apartments, why would I want to pay for a 1BR+den when I was only home to sleep anyway? At least I live where there is good wifi. I read an article earlier that much WVA has spotty internet and most schools there are remote now.
This is me. My job is 70% talking to other people, understanding team dynamics, linking different ideas, and rallying a group of individuals. It is so much harder without the casual interactions to pick up on whats going on. Talking to a computer also makes it much harder for me to focus and I can’t read the room. Add in a small apartment that makes boundary setting challenging and I am ready to go back. (My office is remote until at least next spring)
I don’t miss the casual dynamics myself because my office is clique-y and hierarchical. Putting distance between myself and the gossip has helped a ton. To each their own.
I think this is highly job/industry dependent. When I say I feel like I’m developmentally losing out, I mean it. It’s not that I miss gossip (I don’t), it’s that I don’t have an organic avenue to ask a quick question or get additional color about why a senior attorney did x or y on a call or in a negotiation. I also just get invited to a lot fewer calls – I used to get IMs or a secretary calling me that the client had called the partner and to swing by if I was available, that doesn’t happen now. I’m also an attorney which is really an apprenticeship profession and understand this isn’t true for everyone.
Echoing this. Also an attorney and I’ve heard this sentiment echoed from many lawyers. I do miss the friendship aspects of work to some degree but not nearly as much as I thought I would. The true losses are the detriments to the functional aspects of practicing law and learning about it. Really has nothing to do with gossip at all. I think people like Anon at 4:47 are hearing phrases like “informal dynamics” and imagining interactions that are simply or mostly social, but this certainly isn’t what I mean. I’m talking interactions that promote career development but which are not structured, like reviews or organized meetings to strategize/review specific. IME, much of young lawyer mentoring is unstructured and informal. I’m also talking about the ability to literally go down the hall and grab the limited attention of a busy equity partner, put a document in front of him and make him review it/answer my questions so I can get work done in a timely manner. I can’t speak for all firms, but the attorneys I work for have not made any efforts to become more available to compensate for the issues with WFH or adapt to the challenges it presents. They’re just gritting their teeth and trying to learn how to rotate PDFs until this is all over. It was cute when they thought it was going to last for 2 months but not anymore.
I am an introvert with a bad commute and I still hate work from home during a pandemic. The only thing I would hate more is working from the office during a pandemic so I am trying hard to focus on how much I appreciate that my employer is making the safer choice to keep us home. I guess the bright side is that six months down brings us six months closer to being back in the office, whenever that may be.
I don’t mind working from home and would be happy to do it on a permanent basis. BUT I find it incredibly difficult to work from home while trying to manage virtual school for my elementary school children. It made me cry last night because I was dreading the upcoming week so much. It is so, so hard.
Gut check, please. A peer (a woman) will frequently address emails sent only to women with the salutation “hi, ladies!” This seriously grates on me and makes me cringe. Annoying, or no?
Well, it beats “Dear Sirs”
Slightly annoying but not worth too much energy.
If it’s for something that is women-only then I get it (like a women’s networking event).
If it’s a regular old work email that happens to have only women as recipients, I agree, annoying. But only annoying enough to vent here about, not to actually say anything about…
+1. This is worth a quick vent, but not actually saying anything about.
+1 exactly this.
I agree with exactly this – I don’t like it (unless it’s explicitly a women’s group/event), though not enough to say anything about. It doesn’t bother me too much because I think the speaker is just being friendly and leaning into similarities and build goodwill (“girls” definitely bothers me), but I still don’t like it.
I was trying to think through why, and I think it’s because it brings a physical attribute (gender) into the workplace in a way that feels unnecessary and weird to me. It would be like if someone addressed an email as “hi, brown-haired people!” or “hi, short people!” or “hi, millennials!” or “hi, straight people!”. When at work, I don’t love having my identify as “woman” at the forefront.
I’m fine with this. Prefer it to “ girls” or “ gals.”
+1. Not really worth the outrage.
+1. I frequently get “Hi, gals” and it’s cringeworthy (note from a woman, to a group of women).
This comment is making me realize that I am bad about this! I deal with a lot of female-heavy teams in my line of work (communications) and I probably use that expression at least a couple times of a month in text, email, or conversation. Where I previously worked, it irked me when male and female senior colleagues addressed my exclusively-female communications team as “Hi, girls.” I’ve never seen “Hi, ladies” as equally problematic. Still, I don’t want to encourage that type of language…I’ll work on eliminating”Hi, ladies” from my work vocabulary. Thanks for posting.
IMO, it’s better than “folks.” That one irritates me. I usually use “hi all” or “hi [project lead] and team.”
What’s wrong with “folks”? Too informal?
I hate the faux-country vibe, the patronizing tone it can often have (“ok folks, settle down,”), and when some of my far-left friends try to force it nonstop in every context, including formal reports. So basically I hate it on three levels :)
My guess is that it feels too “folksy”? Ha. I have VERY occasionally used it in work settings, but have not made it a habit.
I also dislike “folks” and am having trouble pinning down exactly why, but I think it’s too “faux friendly” – the email equivalent of a teambuilding event.
Everything Anon at 3:14 said.
I’m going to say it – I don’t mind folks, but hate folx.
Same. I don’t like either but it’s 100x worse with an x.
I am also fine with folks but will get stabby at folx. Folks is already gender neutral no need to make up a word.
Yes. When someone uses “folx” I already know we’re going to spend half the meeting bowed in silence about Kenosha and that their sig line is going to include something about how [the organization] is housed on lands stolen from [insert Native American tribe]. That is not to say that Kenosha (etc) isn’t an important topic or that we shouldn’t be cognizant of what we as a country did to Native Americans, but sometimes I just want to get stuff done.
I think this is a nothing. If I address a group of men, I may address it as “Gentlemen”.
Highly recommend you revisit the series “Hey Ladies!” on The Toast… Or the book! (This salutation always reminds me of that)
You never know anyone’s gender for sure. I feel like this is a basic concept of diversity and inclusion. There’s nothing wrong with addressing it using gender neutral terms like “Hello Colleagues” or simply “All-“
I love and support trans people. But come on, in 99.99% of cases, you do know gender.
My point is that workplace communications should be gender neutral. This is not a difficult concept.
I don’t like using girls, ladies, gals or folks.
What’s wrong with “All” or “Everyone” if you really need a salutation?
Hate it. Hate it even more when male lawyers send emails to “gents.” I know that this happens because sometimes these emails get forwarded to me.
I hate when a man addresses an email to Gentlemen. It automatically makes me feel excluded and as an “other” who isn’t included in the group (even if I’m only copied, or I see the email forwarded later).
Completely agree! You’ve perfectly articulated how I feel when I see gents even in forwarded emails.
I use ladies and gentlemen when emailing one-gender crowds and I’m not going to stop. It’s something I use in my everyday speech and would say it if I were speaking to them. This could also be a regional thing – I’m southern.
I think speech / verbal communication is fine because you’re addressing them in that moment. Email is eternal. It gets forwarded and you have no control who is reading it later.
I think it’s good to do the “what if this email gets read aloud in court” test when composing an email. Learned that trick (and the “type a * in the To: field so you can’t accidentally send the email” trick) from here in the early 2010’s lol.
“Hi, ladies” Is sort of the standard as to what we 40+-ers grew up saying when we wanted to address a group of women. It’s far preferable to “hi, gals” which makes me think of Western attire and pistol-packing and hoop skirts.
So much better than receiving an email with the salutation “Gentlemen,” when not all the recipients are men. Ugh. Sadly this has happened to me more than once. Let’s claim our power.
I still get PLEADINGS that say “gentlemen” where it should say “counsel.” I’ll take “ladies” on an email any day.
Relatedly, I’ve been forwarded work emails where the original email started with “Good Morning Gents” or something along the lines of like “Letting you gents know.” More than once and from different people—all work related.
Has anyone renewed their Global Entry in These Times? Mine is due to expire in a few months and we’re going to renew (it’s only $15 more than just Precheck so even if we’re not traveling internationally for another year, NBD). But it looks like the only open places for doing the renewal interviews are JFK, ORD, and MIA – presumably designed to tie in to the limited airports currently accepting international arrivals.
Anyone heard word on other airports starting back up?
I renewed a couple years ago and didn’t have to re-interview. I think only some people do, although I’m not sure if it’s random or based on travel history. You may not need an interview though.
We completed Step 1 (filling out the online renewal application) and got our notification to schedule an interview. We haven’t been anywhere in the last 5 years that I can imagine the government would worry about (western Europe and the Caribbean)… who knows.
Yes, and they didn’t make me come in for an interview. They just asked me a few questions online and renewed it. It was glorious.
PS know which countries you have traveled to in the period since your last application. If you get this wrong, they’ll make you come in.
Thanks- unfortunately we were not so lucky. We went through our travel history carefully and are sure we didn’t miss one (we’ve been to Canada, but that’s not a country they have you list).
From clicking around it looks like Pittsburgh is taking appointments… why there but not PHL??
Keep checking!! Appointments open up and close all the time. I reapplied last June, got told I needed an interview in January, had to schedule for June…that got canceled, scheduled for July…canceled…now scheduled for the end of this month? Hoping I at least get a new photo out of it, mine is currently the WORST because the guy didn’t tell me he was taking my pic!
I’m not sure if it’s the same but when I did my initial interview in PHL it seemed like there were a million walk ins. It took months to get an appointment.
Thanks- guess we’ll just check each morning. When we did our initial application 5 years ago we were able to get a PHL appointment about 2 weeks out. Maybe they’re slammed with a backlog.
Yes they were already backlogged last summer because of the government shutdown and now with Covid even more so (most of the interview locations were closed for a long time!)
Can’t you look this up on the I-94 website? No need to guess.
I’m having a hard time finding a good quality mostly cotton white collared work shirt, size 10 or 12. Even Brooks Brothers shirt fabric is see-through these days! Talbots shirts turned out to be tissue-thin. I’m basically looking for the women’s equivalent of the collared button-down that a senior guy would wear in a business formal setting. Do you have any suggestions, please?
FWIW, I find the non iron shirts at brooks brothers to be thicker than the other ones. Have you tried llbean or lands end? I also find wearing a nude (not white) bra helps a lot.
LL Bean
I’m disappointed that after 6 months of WFH, I don’t know the answers to these coronavirus questions. Too late for the morning thread.
— Are there superspreaders (people)? If so, how do we know this? Is there a way to measure the viral loads of people? Or are there just “superspreader events”? (this I believe, even if there aren’t superspreading ill people).
— What about the “asymtomatic spreaders”? Are there really + people who can spread the disease but aren’t sick (or, possibly more likely, aren’t sick YET)?
— Is there some sort of viral load needed to transmit coronavirus (can we measure that? is that what a + result means?)?
— When will this dumpster fire end (PLEASE someone tell me what the Vegas bookies are saying on this — someone must have an inking? Please? PLEASE?!).
I am half ready to go to minor league hockey games because it’s not a popular sport in my city and we were pretty distanced to begin with with (40 foot ceilings). I can forgo drinking and just wear a mask the whole time. And maybe a helmet. Kidding. Sort of. I have no idea if minor league hockey will happen but since I am WFH anyway I will just quarantine after if I go.
You can find very quick answers on Google for every single one of your questions except for the last. You need to go type things in Google now.
You’ve been posting questions like this about COVID, school, etc. nearly every day.
I don’t usually make comments like this, but have you considered therapy? It sounds like you’re having a really hard time.
I’m not sure science knows the answers to all these questions. I know asymptomatic spread in particular is somewhat controversial. It’s almost certainly possible, but whether it’s as likely as symptomatic spread is not clear.
I have a lot of friends that are basically living life as normal (including weddings which kind of horrifies me), although of course things like large sporting events, concerts and theater are still shut. We sent our child back to daycare and doing pretty much anything we can do outdoors, so we’re about 80% back to normal. The main thing we’re abstaining from at this point is airplane travel and we won’t abstain forever – we will likely travel by plane next summer (including internationally, if it’s possible) unless things get dramatically worse. Concerts and theater will be among the last things to come back, because they bring together thousands of people in indoor environments. I would not be surprised if it’s 2022 before those happen again, but it won’t be forever. I think by next summer most people will be living life pretty much normally (other than large indoor gatherings) unless they’re high-risk. “Pandemic fatigue” is real, and part of when the pandemic “ends” is when society decides we’ve had enough quarantining and goes back to our pre-pandemic behavior. Reading about historical pandemics and how they ended can help shed light into this.
I agree, I found it very interesting to read that in the past, pandemics have ended when people decided that the risk was at an acceptable level. My life is also close to 80% normal. I get to work at home a few days, there are fewer trains, my personal trainer isn’t back at work, and we haven’t traveled. Otherwise, I do everything that I normally do. (We go to concerts at Madison Square Garden only for special acts, so it’s not unusual to not attend a concern for a year or so.) We will travel by plane this year for sure.
Literally this exact question was posted with dozens of responses this morning
I think some of these details are still being worked out, but they actually don’t matter when you are trying to conclude what personal actions to take.
-Superspreaders (people who somehow emit much more virus) vs. superspreader events (circumstances lead to many people getting exposed)? From the Scientific American: “Current evidence suggests that it is mostly circumstances such as these, rather than the biology of specific individuals, that sets the stage for extreme spreading of the novel coronavirus.” What does this mean for you? Avoid indoor crowds.
Asymptomatic spread vs presymptomatic spread. This is partly semantics. If I don’t have symptoms but give you covid, it’s asymptomatic up until the day that I develop symptoms and then we relabel the spread from me to you as having been presymptomatic after all. But that doesn’t change the fact that I gave you covid without knowing it. Some asymptomatic people are in fact presymptomatic, but scientists don’t have crystal balls. There have been studies that found completely asymptomatic people testing positive, and continue to do so over an extended time (similar to infected people with symptoms) and at some point not having detectable levels of virus anymore (declared as recovered). So that implies that there is an asymptomatic way of this infection evolving for some. But whether they are a- or pre-symptomatic, doesn’t actually change the advice of wearing masks and ramping up testing.
I think the consensus on viral load isn’t very strong yet, and how much it takes to infect YOU depends so strongly on your individual immune system that an overall answer probably doesn’t exist. However, it’s pretty clear that decreasing the viral load in any way possible (washing hands, sanitizing surfaces, mask wearing, not congregating indoors) has worked well so far to limit the spread, which is in line with pretty much any other virus that we know. So, again, we know enough to know what we should be doing right now.
You’ve got to be kidding. Where have you been that you aren’t aware that asymptomatic people can spread the disease and never develop symptoms? And there’s plenty of discussion about the specific viral load needed to transmit (which is why masks are so important / effective). And do you really think that there is one definitive answer (“June 22, 2021”) on when this is going to end – do you not get that the length of this is directly related to the efforts we all make?
Does anyone have a great leave-in conditioner for curly hair? I’ve got 3A curls; not sure of porosity but it gets wet quickly?
The new Aveda Nutri-Plenish leave in is great for my wavy, shoulder length, high porosity hair. Is equally good as a curl refresher. I also use the Bumble and Bumble Curl Primer spray and they are equal for curl refreshing but the Aveda is better as a leave in after washing.
Following!
Infusium 23 original formula
I love Knot Today by Kinky Curly. I have fine hair with 3b curls, and it does not weigh my hair down.
Not sure if you’ll see since it’s late, but I love As I Am leave in conditioner.
Quick question – I have a Roth account from a previous employer (it used to be an employee stock ownership plan there) and I want to roll it over to my 401K at my current job. That won’t count towards my annual contribution limit to the 401k, will it? I’m having trouble finding the answer on Google – most people seem to be asking for 401K to Roth and not the other way around. TIA!
Rollovers don’t count toward your annual limit.
Consider rolling it to an individual IRA at a bank instead of your current employer. It’s good to have some of your assets held in your own accounts.
PS I’m assuming you’ve already done the IRA conversion.
It’s currently an IRA account at my brokerage (Vanguard). I want to roll it over to the 401k at my current job. Thanks for responding!
I don’t think you *can* do this … your Roth contributions have already been taxed. You should speak with whomever administers your current job’s 401(k) to discuss your options.
It’s not a Roth IRA and the amount is from a pre-tax employee stock ownership plan. What makes you think they’ve already been taxed? This stuff is complicated but I thought I had that part down at least…
This. You could roll it in to the same manager/company (ie: Fidelity) so your accounts are all at the same place, but you don’t roll it IN to your current 401k.
This is tecnically correct but some employers will help you do this so that it appears to be part of your employee 401K. Just today I’m helping my husband with his and this is the case. When he looks at his balance, signing on to his employee account, it shows one number that is the combined balance of his employee plan plus a rollover he made from a prior employer.
I get why people do this, because many employers have plans that have lower fees on various funds than you can get with an individual account, but it’s so much easier to just have your own IRA that you can roll prior employer 401Ks/403Bs into. For instance, my prior employer that holds my largest 401K keeps changing management of the 401K so that I suddenly don’t know how to log in. No, they don’t notify me. Fortunately, I still know a lot of current employees there so I can text or email one of them for the new login site. But it’s frustrating.
I have a couple of old pension buyouts and a different 401K in a regular IRA at Wells Fargo, and I can pull up my balance on their app on my iphone in about two seconds. That’s a huge difference.
I’m going to repost this tomorrow for more responses…these are a bit confusing. I was under the impression that you CAN roll over a separate traditional Roth account INTO your current company 401K. I want to do this so I can avoid having a traditional Roth balance when I set up my backdoor Roth this year.
Respectfully, this makes little sense. Even if you _could_ do it, I can understand _why_ you would do it.
You do not want to take Roth funds and commingle them with non-Roth funds. Your plan will dictate whether roll-ins are permitted at all (some plans do not permit this). But nearly all administrators will require separation of Roth and non-Roth funds.
Separately, if you look at any company’s 401(k) offerings, they will, by definition, be far less diverse in terms of investment choices from a fully unrestricted account. So you are actually giving yourself fewer investment choices by doing this, even if you are trying to do some sort of backdoor IRA. Finally, a company 401(k) will also almost always have higher fees (in perpetuity) as an overlay to being a company plan, than you’d be able to get outside of a plan. So you are signing yourself up for less investment choice and higher fees.
I am someone who charges her time to projects and I don’t pad my records.
I am probably about 50% under where I should be. Half of that is economic — just fewer projects to bill on. Not a surprise. The other half is probably the constant interruptions from having kids on zoom calls for school over the past 6 months (or home with cancelled summer camps). Again, not a surprise. I get that management may be understanding about each of these. I am just wondering, for those who set policy, do I prepare to get fired if we’re still doing this in January? Or just a 50% pay cut (which I hope would be temporary — if my kids went back to school at some point, I could at least gain back some ground).
I just feel my career slipping away. Hoping that maybe they give us a haircut instead of a pink slip. Or is this the year all of the mommies get fired b/c we’ve shown ourselves to be unrelieable workers (even though we are also valiantly swimming against the current).
WFH Zoom Q – I think this is a pretty nuanced question – depends on your seniority, reputation before covid, number of women/parents who have been impacted in the company, amount of money the company is losing and what the business needs and in some part on how managers in senior leadership feel about WFH and life-work balance etc. Maybe they are giving employees a break until 12/31 so that they can gauge how the homeschooling is working.
Obviously, firing all WFH moms (or dads for that matter) would be a bad move on the company’s part. Whether or not they’ll take that route is too hard to predict. Hiring and training new employees is a huge cost and most employers know that there is a cost-savings in keeping good existing employees.
Cutting pay would be hard to swallow but it doesn’t mean your career is less valuable. Eventually covid will go away and you should be able to rebound.
A key part of this is to find out what your manager(s) think now. You may need to talk to coworkers, peers, mentors if any, perhaps former coworkers who might be good sources of info. (A good reason to keep up with virtual networking.) If you haven’t had any conversations with your manager(s) about WFH, then perhaps they don’t have concerns. How are your peers and subordinates doing? Are they all performing perfectly or have others’ work been impacted? Are you or your coworkers missing deadlines or has it been seamless with respect to internal and/or external clients? Do your managers micromanage your time or are they willing to let you do the work and respond only if you have problems? Do they ever contact you where you are caught flat-footed or unavailable? These are not mentioned as negatives, but questions intended for you to gauge how many issues there are and how important these issues are to your management.
Do you have special skills? Are you a subject matter expert? Are you dependable?
Are you able to do extra work early in the morning or after the kids go to bed or your partner/spouse comes home? Catch up on weekends? If they wanted higher productivity and had the business need, could you ramp up?
I would suggest doing some thinking on these issues, talk to people, research. And then start tentatively talking to your managers, not asking what is going to happen but feeling your way around the issues. If you have a monthly recap or any review process, think about what the metrics are and how to make sure that your contribution is meaningful and recognized, even if in your project time-sheets show that you’re low on hours.
It’s had to make suggestions without knowing your management structure and type of work, but those are my thoughts. Not an easy situation.
I don’t have any answers but just want to say you are not alone. Even when I am working, I just feel… foggier… than I used to. I’ve used up all of my reserves juggling everything and I just need a break, but I have no idea when I’m going to get one. I have to have a prioritization meeting with my boss later this week because I cannot keep up with my workload, and I’m dreading it. The company gives a lot of lip service to supporting families but I still don’t expect the meeting to go well. We’ve run the numbers and one of us cannot quit without a serious hit to QOL – I guess this is the two-income trap.
Just curious, do you have a partner sharing some of the burden? I was so excited (even as a non-parent) where a male colleague apologized for being late on something the other day and otherwise unavailable for calls/meetings because he is doing remote schooling for his kids while his wife works in-person.
Sadly, I think employers will more sympathetic if the dads are having the same issues. If it is just the moms I think you are going to fare worse.
I dunno about employers being more sympathetic to the men. My DH shares the childcare duties pretty equally with me. I think his boss is less empathetic bc boss feels like DH should have a wife who takes care of all that. Granted, I’ve lost out by being mommy tracked over the years (given fewer responsibilities etc), but DH is suffering the consequences to his career advancement now too.
Anyone else musing about what could happen to Bay Area’s VHCOL given recent events? My view was always that it had that cost because 1) lots of high-paying tech jobs and 2) amazing weather. And now the tech jobs are going remote and the weather is well…you can’t even go outside or open a window. I don’t think it’ll be an immediate mass exodus, but curious about long term.
there already is/has been an immediate exodus… 2brs that were renting for 4500 now going for 2900, its a big drop ( my friend just got one in pac heights)
Oh, I absolutely think there will be climate refugees leaving California because I don’t think people will want to pay that much money to live in a place that is so inhospitable during parts of the year. And I’m sure there will be some enterprising people out there who find a way to monetize this affect of climate change, unfortunately.
I live in Nashville. I think they are already coming here and I expect more.
I know quite a few Bay Area refugees in Indy too. At least it’s good for Democrats’ future in the electoral college? I joke that moving myself and my blue vote to Indiana was a sacrifice for the greater good (not really why I moved here, but certainly a silver lining).
Yeah, I think Nevada is turning blue from CA refugees.
I thought this after the 2017 fires and the 2019 fires. But nothing changed. Maybe the pandemic will change it but given the history, I kind of doubt it. Earthquakes haven’t scared anyone away either. There are risks everywhere – at least we don’t get hurricanes or tornadoes or polar vortex events.At least, not so far!!
+1 People said in this when the tech bubble burst in the early ’00s too. I think if the pandemic lasts five years or more, then yeah you might see some permanent change. But a year or two? Nah. Everything will snap back to normal as soon as it’s done. Also keep in mind the low rents will attract new people who’ve always wanted to leave there, but never could have afforded it. So mass exodus doesn’t necessarily spell a huge decrease in population, if it’s accompanied by a mass influx.
That said I left in ’15 and don’t regret it, but for me it’s more about the fires than the pandemic. I have asthma and really can’t deal with bad air quality. I would be suffering a lot, even with all the windows closed.
My memory of those fires is that they weren’t close enough to the denser population areas. The 2017 ones I remember were down in Monterey/Carmel, right? So SJ/SF/Oakland etc. were reasonably okay, a few slightly hazy days, but not like now. 2019 was the wine country ones, right? Same thing where it was too “far away”?
I was visiting SF in 2017 during the fires and the air quality was bad. I bought and wore N95 masks, which helped (and I fortuitously found one leftover in my house at the beginning of COVID!) but the air quality was noticeably bad to me.
No, we had hazardous air quality in the Bay Area on several days during the 2017 fires…and again during the 2018 fires…and again during the 2019 fires…and again now. This year is the worst.
The air quality was worse in 2017. I’m not saying the fires were worse but the air quality was objectively worse.
It probably wasn’t even the same for the whole Bay. In Berkeley, I think this year is much worse than the years before, and 2019 we were mostly spared and only had smoke for a week or so, but we got power shutoffs in exchange.
2017 fires included the Atlas and Tubbs fires, which destroyed a lot of homes in Napa and Santa Rosa. Huge neighborhoods.
Subsequent nor cal fires have burned more acreage but the loss of homes that year was extraordinary.
You might think this is silly but when I found out Joe Rogan had actually moved I thought “There’s going to be a mass exodus from California [by people who can afford it].”
Yeah, and Austin (where he moved) is definitely a hotspot for people exiting California.
I left California more than 20 years ago because it is a difficult, expensive place to live with terrible weather.
My husband and I are planning to relocate, but we were going to anyway before the pandemic hit and wildfire season got as bad as it is. California has amazing parts, not the least of which is the natural beauty, but between the crowds in good times and the wildfire smoke in bad, we can’t enjoy them enough to make the VHCOL worth it.
I love it here, despite the smoke. I feel like you have to pick your natural disasters and I’d rather have wildfires and earthquakes than tornadoes, hurricanes, or (shudder) snow.
What are your opinions about “no charge” time entries or services on client bills? Interested in perspective from both the client and other lawyers/professionals. Example: Jane (associate) and Jack (partner) have a call with the client. Client only gets billed for one lawyer’s time. Do you prefer to have no entry from Jane, or a time entry that says “no charge” with a $0 from Jane? Or let’s say Jane does a custom training for client X – do you prefer to have “Training, 7 hours, $0” on the bill, or just not list it at all?
Partners at my firm have different approaches (not based on client wishes) and I’m curious which is better. The two camps seem to be “clients appreciate we don’t charge for everything, if it’s not listed they wonder”, vs. “never show you do work for free.”
I’m a client and appreciate it. Sometimes, I forget about a conversation. And then I see it as a line item with ‘no charge’, and I think — oh that’s nice. You have to do some work for free. I don’t like lawyers who charge for every single minute. I don’t nickel and dime outside counsel, and I don’t want them to do it to me either.
Same! I appreciate the $0. I feel like a VIP. And it is a good reminder of exactly what the firm is doing for me when I do write those big checks.
I’m a heavy user of law firms (in finance) and I like to see the time on the bill with a zero. We have in-house legal that examines bills for overages but the value-add is something I like and I’m the one who decides which firm to use on matters.
Cosign this. I am less likely to hammer fees or question poorly-written entries across a bill if there is more courtesy time. That said, fix your outside counsel guidelines/engagement letters such that there is not double-billing on calls (e.g. if we’re having a call and you want to bring on associates so they can learn, don’t learn on my dime).
I’m inside counsel that manages outside counsel and I appreciate it. Gives a good context to the other charges and easier to “sell” by board on the charges when there are freebies intermixed.
Ok PSA
Everyone who has a mortgage who hasn’t refinanced recently, pick up the phone and get some rates. I just locked in today, and I can’t believe what we are (hopefully!) getting.
Second. We got an amazing rate, and because of it are actually decreasing our term :-) closing today!
Yep we just got our approvals (finally! after weeks!) and I am quite pleased with the rates we are getting (residence plus a rental)!