Coffee Break: Perry Tote

40 Comments

1. what would you ask for — telling my husband he should ask his boss for a flexible work arrangement for 3 weeks this summer. we always take this time to visit inlaws and he almost never takes more than a few days off. he has unlimited vacation time and we’re not going anywhere else this year. inlaws both have health emergencies kind of regularly at this point (78 & 80).

   i was suggesting maybe like 3 mornings a week 8-12? the thing is he will do work nights/evenings even if he’s on vacation because he’s just a great employee. very small office that works with a lot of overly self-important people (ritzy condo/coop boards).

   1. Can he take two weeks off or a week and then do a week with half days like you mentioned? It it’s truly unlimited and he never takes it, he should do what he can. This is why I hate unlimited PTO. It’s always like begging for benefits you technically own (and you get no compensation for unused when you leave). Instead of calling it a flex schedule, I think you need to actually say vacation. Flex implies just working remotely. And no one wins with that. They will feel like he’s vacationing instead of working and he will feel like he is working instead of vacationing (or actually will). Set the boundary now. It’s harder the closer you get and each day is going to likely bleed into time off a bit longer than planned. So half days are never actually half days. That’s why I think a week or two where he is “out” (even if he hops on at night) is gon to be respected more.

   2. If he has unlimited vacation time, shouldn’t he just take his time accordingly?

      1. This exactly. Take the PTO and if need be, the morning logins are a perk for the company.

   3. I would tell him he either needs to take actual vacation the whole time or reduce the length of the visit.

   4. Why can’t he take the full time off? I’d ask him to stop working during vacation.

      1. Especially since it sounds like the “vacation” is being taken to deal with his parents health issues.

         I wonder, however, if there’s a cultural aspect at play. A three week annual trip indicates some distance travelled, and perhaps the expectation where the in laws live is that the daughter in law will care for them.

         1. Yeah, no. If that’s the case I would let him take the trip alone.

            1. Tell me you’re not married without telling me.

            2. I am married and my husband is responsible for his parents’ elder care needs. It is not my job just because I am a woman.

            3. I respect your division of labor, but I have taken care of my husband’s parents and he has taken care of mine. It doesn’t have to be a gendered thing, it can be a “spouses support each other” thing. Besides, the different relationships and communication styles can be very helpful – there are things that my dad will not hear from me, but he’ll hear it if my husband says it. And I have a far more direct communication style, which is way better for the “how we are able and willing to support you” conversations.

      2. 3 weeks of consecutive vacation is a lot in most corporate American workplaces. I take 2 week vacations and get some side eye for that. I’ve never worked anywhere where 3 week vacations were acceptable. People with family abroad certainly travel home for 3 weeks (or longer) but the expectation is that they’re working remotely, save for a vacation week or two.

         That said, +1 that unlimited PTO sucks and that he needs to take *some* time off. At least one full week, ideally more.

   5. For three weeks, I would pick one week where he will be off the grid, taking full PTO for that week. This would be the week you do the vacation while there stuff. On the remaining weeks, I would use something like, I can be available between 9am to 11:30am as needed (or pick something that works time zone wise). This is the normal approach at my work where there are lots of home country trips over the summer.

   6. This is hard to crowd source without knowing what he does.

      Are there people who will only talk to him? Are their meetings (like those condo/coop boards) that he needs to be at? Does he have objective work metrics he has to hit aside the number of days worked? I was an attorney in a law firm for a lot of years and I could take as much time off as I wanted – as long as I still billed 2100 hours/years, but of course taking time off made those hours much more difficult to hit.

      Conversely, are you anticipating that the in-laws will need actual help during this visit or is your reference to their health an explanation of why you are not taking more time off this year?

      1. re their health – more just that tempus fugit and his time with his parents is limited

         he works from home most of the time (and in another state) but he’s often on calls for hours at a time. so i’m basically urging him to limit the time he’ll accept calls and meetings unless it’s really urgent.

         1. Is the blocker that your husband really thinks he’ll lose his job/tank his prospects/crash the company’s productivity if he takes real time off; or is he a workaholic?

            At *most* companies with unlimited PTO, taking 3 weeks total off over the year would be 100% fine. Taking 3 in a row would be more a know your office thing, although a “take 1/2 days for 3 weeks” or taking 3 consecutive Monday & Fridays off or something would likely be fine. Maybe your husband works somewhere for $$$$ where the tradeoff is no real PTO, but if that were the case I think you’d both know.

            But if he doesn’t want to take time off/doesn’t know how to fill time that’s not work, no amount of knowing how much PTO is normal to ask for is really going to change that.

   7. Great employee, crap husband. Tomayto, tomahto.

      1. This reads like a comment made with minimal thought.

      2. Yeah, OP? Being a workaholic isn’t the same as being a great employee. It’s toxic and in some situations raises questions about whether the employee is trying to hide unsavory behavior (like embezzlement). Not saying that’s what your husband is doing, but you really should examine your ideas of what constitutes a good employee.

   8. I would butt out of your husband’s work. He knows what he can and cannot do.

      But it’s fine to ask him to give it some thought, without dictating that he do something. We all need to make a living.

      1. Nope. If he is asking his wife to take a three-week trip to see his parents, then working for part or all of that time, she has a right to insist that he either take the time off or shorten the trip. No way am I going to my in-laws’ house on “vacation” just to entertain them while my husband works.

         1. This. My husband has scheduled meetings over times when he would have guests before… never again.

            1. My husband scheduled a virtual meeting on Thanksgiving Day once (we were hosting family). He works with a lot of non-Americans and has calendar blindness. I made him cancel it. I do think this is different and a request that the OP’s husband take PTO for the whole trip may not be reasonable, but I definitely don’t just “butt out” of my husband’s work scheduling.

      2. Agreed. 100%. A good marriage depends on respect, which means you don’t just tell him what to do.

2. Most of my bags have handles for going over the shoulder or x-body. One leather one has those coated-leather handles, so I’m not worried about hand lotion darkening the leather. But for nylon or leather handles that you hold that aren’t coated or shiny, do you do anything for the nylon or leather so it doesn’t darken or get any stains? I feel that I put lotion on after I wash my hands so that they don’t dry out and in the summer, I’m slicked up with sunscreen a lot (and slicker than I’d like). Maybe I’m not meant to have nice things?

   1. You actually hold the handle in your hand? I thought people held those bags by doing the awkward blogger/celebrity thing where you stick your lower arm through the handle and angle it up so the bag hangs from your lower arm or elbow.

      I don’t have time for a bag that I can’t carry crossbody or on my shoulder.

   2. Interesting. Not a problem for me. I think because we only use reef safe mineral sunscreen and it doesn’t stain. But you could resolve only to buy bags with detachable straps so you can swap out anything that gets damaged.

   3. Use less product? Wipe the excess off your hands?

      1. +1

   4. OP, you’re not alone! I stopped buying nice handbags when I got more vigilant about sun protection in my late 20s, for this reason. I never found a way to apply enough sunscreen + not tr-nsfer the sunscreen to the bag.

   5. I think this is why some folks wrap the handles in a scarf. But this is one of the many reasons my daily bag has to be crossbody.

   6. No, love the look of lived in leather

3. I’m at a conference and I can’t even count how many women are beginning their presentations with some form of “haha I’m going to be a disappointment after the previous speaker!” or “bear with me, this isn’t my area of expertise” or “my coworkers are the ones who actually know what they’re talking about.” So annoying to see and it’s definitely not helping them appear “relatable” – just lacking in confidence.

   1. Bummer.

   2. I do think a lot of women mistakenly think being relatable means disparaging themselves.

   3. Ha. I did that once as a lawyer explaining adolescent brain development in the legal context following an actual psychiatrist.

   4. I have beaten this into my kids’ brains, both the boy and the girls. It is one of my pet peeves and a horrible way to start a presentation. It’s not just women, though. I was recently at a meeting of a billion-dollar+ pension plan, and one of their money managers had been called in to defend his lackluster performance. He started by telling us what an awful speaker he is, how boring his presentation would be and how he did not know how to get started. All of that was correct, and he got fired.

      1. To be fair I’m not sure how much bravado would have helped in that scenario!

   5. This is a really good reminder. I’m accomplished and an expert in my field, and I still feel pressure (and have now made it almost habitual) to be self-deprecating. It disappoints me, too, for what it’s worth.

      1. Practice, practice, practice! Have a friend call you out and make you start over.

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