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Sales of note for 9.30.24
- Nordstrom – Beauty deals through September
- Ann Taylor – Extra 30% off sale
- Banana Republic Factory – 50% off everything + extra 20% off
- Boden – 15% off new styles
- Eloquii – Extra 50% off sale
- J.Crew – 50% off select styles
- J.Crew Factory – Up to 60% off everything + 50% off sale with code
- Lo & Sons – Warehouse sale, up to 70% off
- M.M.LaFleur – Save 25% sitewide
- Neiman Marcus – Friends & Family 25% off
- Rag & Bone – Friends & Family 25% off sitewide
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
- Talbots – Fall Cyber Monday sale, 40% off sitewide and $5 shipping
- Target – Car-seat trade-in event through 9/28 — bring in an old car seat to get a 20% discount on other baby/toddler stuff.
- White House Black Market – 40% off select styles
And some of our latest threadjacks here at Corporette (reader questions and commentary) — see more here!
Some of our latest threadjacks include:
- What to say to friends and family who threaten to not vote?
- What boots do you expect to wear this fall and winter?
- What beauty treatments do you do on a regular basis to look polished?
- Can I skip the annual family event my workplace holds, even if I'm a manager?
- What small steps can I take today to get myself a little more “together” and not feel so frazzled all of the time?
- The oldest daughter is America's social safety net — change my mind…
- What have you lost your taste for as you've aged?
- Tell me about your favorite adventure travels…
Anon
I don’t understand why the CDC is suddenly changing all of the guidelines about quarantine, testing etc. do they actually have new knowledge about the virus? Caving to political pressure from the White House? I know that we are constantly gaining new information about the virus but i don’t really understand their new recommendations
Anonymous
Agree. But I’ve been disappointed with, and skeptical of, the CDC since the whole mask flip flop at the beginning of the pandemic. Is it too much to ask for some transparency about where their guidance comes from? It’s not helpful to feed people bad info and half truths.
Friday, please
+1
Anonymous
IDK
Re college breakouts, I wonder if this crowd would be going out had they stayed home with their parents and infecting more people / more older people, so having them going out in a college town is possibly no different and arguably better by keeping young people with more of a mix of younger people? My parents lived in a nowhere town where I couldn’t go out drinking in the summer (b/c it is so remote as to require driving, which means meals at Applebees 30 minutes away as a big night out), but in my city, in the areas of 20ish kids where college kids hang out, it is very much a “What Pandemic?” vibe.
Also, I am guessing maybe the abundance of college-aged sitters is possibly not a good source of sitters this year (vs high school kids not yet old enough to drive who are sadly pretty trapped at home).
anon
And aren’t the college breakouts actually kind of good in the sense that they’re contributing to herd immunity while being low-risk and just mixing among themselves?
Anonymous
That’s my thought (poorly articulated). I feel bad for their families when they come home on break.
Anon
Yes. Everyone is outraged that college is open but isn’t it safer to have these kids in dorms vs at home living with parents who are likely to be in their 40s or 50s? College age kids are going to socialize no matter where they are.
Anon
This seems like a no-brainer. People are just determined to be outraged, and colleges only care about avoiding liability. I find the extent to which they are trying to control adult students’ lives even more despicable than I do in normal times, which is really saying something.
Anonymous
What is outrageous is that the students who are more risk-averse are being pressured into returning to obviously unsafe campuses just so the schools can rake in the dollars for tuition and room and board.
Anon
Anonymous at 9:51, source? I work in higher ed, and have dozens of friends in higher ed at other schools and don’t know any school that is “pressuring” its students to return. It’s actually the opposite, the students (and their tuition-paying parents) are pressuring the schools to reopen. Every US college I know of has an online-only option for students who are higher risk or otherwise just don’t want to return. Many schools, including the university I work at, are expressly encouraging students who don’t need to take an in-person class this semester to stay home, because they want to reduce the population density in and around campus. There are plenty of issues with the reopening, but students being pressured to come to campus is not one of them.
anon
9:51, I also work on a college campus, and I can tell you that at my large R1 school, that is definitely not the case. I know Nate Silver has made this a popular viewpoint, but I have sat in on numerous COVID planning meetings and that is not the discussion at all. It honestly rankles and puts a damper on the neverending preparations that have been happening since March. We’re all exhausted.
Anon
Well, the communities in which my state’s colleges and universities are located are fighting tooth and nail to keep the colleges from going live. They don’t want the outbreak in their communities, and they have the ears of all the politicians.
Anonymous
I think at home college kids are definitely in contact with parents, skewing things older and with more personal proximity than in a door or separate apartment. In my city, parents with $$$ have gotten their at-home kids apartments together this summer and then insisted on off-campus apartments when the kids went back so they couldn’t be made to return home ever if dorms were emptied and classes went online.
IDK what foreign students do or those with far-away parents who don’t have $ for a plane ticket home.
Anonymous
Students were pressured to return when classes required for to graduate on time within their majors were only available on campus, for one example (including classes that weren’t labs or otherwise hands on).
Anonymous
Again, source? You’re just asserting something is happening with no factual support. If this is actually happening, it’s very rare and I think higher ed media like the Chronicle of Higher Ed would be interested because what you are describing is in no way, shape or form normal at American universities. We have classes available online in every major and degree program, and I don’t know of a single instance of an online-only student being unable to make progress towards their degree. I’m sure if that were happening we would hear from angry parents, and I can tell you that 99.9% of the parent complaints we’ve received this summer (and there have been a lot of them) are based on the fact that their children do not have enough in person classes. Furthermore, even if a class is “in person,” there is no minimum amount of time for which the student is required to physically attend the class. There will obviously be students who have to quarantine for weeks at a time, potentially multiple times throughout the semester, because of illness or potential exposure, so most universities are having all lectures live-streamed and available online and are banning faculty from tying attendance to grades in any way.
Again, if this is something you really have personal experience with, please share more details. Name the university and tell us what major, and what courses are needed that the person can’t get online. But I think you actually have no information about higher ed, and this just part of your long, exhausting crusade against all forms of in-person school because you’re scared to send your middle schooler back so you want all schools to stay shut forever.
anonshmanon
well there is the whole ordeal about DHS threatening to deport all international students whose courses went full online (this was averted through massive legal action) and denying entry to new international students whose classes are online. The immigration policy creates a giant incentive for universities to offer in-person activities.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2020/07/30/college-student-visa-no-new-international-students-us-universities/5543220002/
Anonymous
@anonshamon, yes I’m well aware of the immigration rule and the resulting lawsuit, I was involved in it at a pretty high level on behalf of my university. But that rule was never going to stop universities from offering an online only option for domestic students. And we were trying to find a solution for our international students like independent studies that could be done mostly online with a very limited in-person component. Thankfully, it didn’t come to that because of the success in court. The person I was responding to said universities are pressuring students to choose in-person over online for financial reasons, and the immigration rule about international students does not support that point. The govt was pressuring us and our students, and we were doing the best we could to help students who wanted to stay in the US but wanted to take classes online.
LaurenB
Just mixing among themselves? Are you insane? Even leaving aside the professors for now — What about the small business people (restaurant owners, book stores, campus gear stores) in their college towns? What about all the cleaning people hired to deep clean their dorms frequently? The health personnel who have to treat them, move the sick ones into isolation housing, deliver meals?
anon
Came here to say the exact same thing. Incredible that all the non-students are completely ignored or forgotten.
anon
Also all the staff at the colleges and universities! The majority of employees at most schools aren’t actually faculty, they’re support staff. Please don’t forget about us.
Anon
But they have all those same community contacts at home, except for maybe the cleaning people. College students living at home are still going to go to bars and restaurants and grocery stores and potentially infect employees there. They’re still going to need to see healthcare providers for testing and potentially for treatment. Here’s the thing. If you’re infected with Covid, the people you’re far and away the most likely to infect are your household members. I have an MPH, and I think there’s a strong public health argument to be made that putting college students in dorms with other students and away from parents who may be pushing 50 or even 60 is the right thing to do. I certainly understand why college faculty and staff and business owners in college towns would be wary, but if you’re looking at minimizing overall hospitalization and death I don’t think this is at all illogical. You’re vastly reducing the number of higher risk people each college student is likely to infect.
Anonymous
We don’t know if herd immunity is a Thing yet. Especially since reinfection is now being shown (yes, I know the infections are less infectious dangerous the second time around so far, but still. . . )
Thanks, it has pockets!
First off, we still don’t know how well herd immunity is achieved simply through exposure, because there’s still a lot we don’t know about antibodies, and whether getting the virus once makes you immune to future infections (and for how long that immunity might last). There’s a lot of evidence that this isn’t like the chicken pox, that you get it once and then you’re good to go. Not to mention, surely there are college-aged people who have underlying infections and just don’t know it yet.
But if what you described is happening, it’s only happening on very isolated, self-contained campuses. Universities in cities, and college towns with lots of off-campus activity, are just going to cause general upticks in infection rates.
Ellen
I think that the CDC could have been alot smarter. They told us not to wear masks for a long time, b/c they were worried we would get the N-95 masks that the hospitals needed. But how dumb was that? If they wore masks, it was b/c they were protected and therefore any mask would be better then no mask! But no, they said we did not need them, and then people got sick. Finally they changed their minds and said that it would be OK to wear masks. Now, they are saying we would be dumb NOT to wear a mask. Why do rely on people that simply can’t make up their minds? FOOEY on the CDC, tho I do like Fouchi, b/c I do not think he bows down to Trump like the others do.
Anonymous
Minimizing unnecessary crowds minimizes spread. And the campus isn’t in a bubble—it eats the same healthcare resources as the community, those students will still patronize and work at stores, etc. transmitting to others and no one has proven herd immunity—in fact, mounting evidence shows antibodies are limited over time and reinfection once anecdotal is now showing in scientific settings. I actually work with someone who was sick and tested positive in both March and end of June. And no one also knows long term effects. My dad died of idiopathic lung scarring (pre-Covid). Living with scarred lungs is about the most brutal existence there is. So, no, “just throw them together” is not effective health policy.
Anonymous
If you change the testing criteria to stop testing people who don’t have symptoms, then it looks like the number of infections is decreasing. DJT wants the numbers to look better before the election. There is absolute no reason to not test the close contacts of a person with covid even if they are asympomatic. That type of testing is standard around the world. In Canada, you get tested with two symptoms (eg fever and headache), even if you don’t have a known contact with someone with covid and even in provinces with no current community transmission.
The new policy will increase spread because pre-symptomatic people can spread it.
anon
While it might look like the number of infections is decreasing, the percent positive rate will increase. Isn’t that the key metric we’ve all been told to focus on? That will go way up with this new policy.
Anonymous
I’m not sure people are paying enough attention to the percent positive rate. Something like ‘not as many people have covid’ resonates more with voters who don’t follow the science closely.
Anonymous
One of the things our schools cited was positive % when they decided not to reopen. So on that front, I want testing to be very widespread. I do not want to be homebound with my zoom schooled kids any longer than truly necessary.
Anon
I don’t know that percent positive is going to change much re:schools. NY state is under 1% and there’s still a lot of push back to in person school. As long as teachers have unions, they can refuse to come to school with basically no consequences. Unfortunately I think virtual schooling is here to stay for quite a while. A very effective vaccine could change things, but approval for kids will happen way after approval for adults. They haven’t even done any testing in kids yet, and I don’t see us sending kids back to school until they can all get vaccinated.
Anonymous
OMG 9:59. I hope you are wrong. Otherwise, I may start weeping.
Anon
I hope I’m wrong too. I think it will really depend on the effectiveness of the vaccine. If it’s 95% effective, I think there will be more pressure to go back as soon as adults can be vaccinated, because any adult who gets the vaccine will be very well-protected and kids don’t typically get seriously ill from COVID. If it’s 50% effective, there’s going to be an outcry “the teachers still have a 50-50 chance of getting COVID from the germy kids, of course we can’t force them back!”
The fact that they’re not even doing phase 1 vaccine trials in kids worries me immensely. Kids are now 6 months and counting behind adults as far as a vaccine goes, which at this point isn’t a huge deal because there’s going to be a delay between when the vaccine is approved and when it’s widely available to low-risk people. But if we don’t start testing in kids ASAP, like in the next month or two, we may find ourselves in July 2021 with 50 million loaded syringes that we can’t give to kids because we don’t have enough safety and efficacy data, and that would be a nightmare scenario (in my admittedly biased view as a parent).
Anonymous
Oops wrong place, meant for the discussion above about colleges “pressuring” students to return.
Anon
So Canada requires symptoms for testing as well? I hadn’t realized that. Perhaps it is much more widespread in Canada than we know.
rices
Canada testing standards may vary by province but in my province if you have one symptom on the list (as benign as runny nose, even though that is not a clear COVID symptom) you can get tested. The test results returned in 12 hours in my personal experience. I doubt it is “much more widespread” than what is reported for this reason. Unfortunately I only have my anecdotal evidence on hand to counter your suspicion but I did want to point it out.
Anon
Not somewhat changes you mean, but the timing is awful suspicious. My vote is likely political pressure.
FormerlyPhilly
+1 my thoughts exactly
My gut/sense is that they are caving.
Anonymous
My sense is that we should all probably get tested every 2 weeks just as a tracking measure, especially those of us not just staying home + grocery outings. I worry that without more of us getting tested and only sick people getting tested positivity %s will never decline to where schools reopen (in which case, I’m f*cked and so are a lot of poorer people with kids).
Anon
There is no reason other than lack of government will that regular, ongoing testing is not set up at this point. The resources could have been mobilized. A lot of what’s holding back testing is for-profit company involvement.
Anon
The reason people don’t want to do that is it gives you a false sense of reassurance. You could literally become positive a minute after you were tested, but then you’re out there acting like you’re negative because you got a negative test. When fewer asymptomatic people are tested, more people assume they’re potentially infectious and stay home/take precautions.
Trump is definitely surpressing testing numbers for political reasons, but testing everyone every two weeks would probably do more harm than good. If we had accurate home tests like pregnancy tests and people could be tested every day or two it might be a different story.
Many states have % positive rates under 5%, so it will happen as the epidemic wanes. The issues with schools is complex because of teachers unions, but there are a number of states that currently meet the criteria for school reopening and there will be more as the southern states continue to improve.
Anonymous
But if you were an asymptomatic +, you could be proactive if you knew that. That is where I see the value (and knowing what the general + percentage in a population is — you need a population of randos to get tested, not just the symptomatic people and exposed people).
I say we should all test away. See where we really are.
Anon
The experts do not agree. Fauci and others have said widespread random testing is not necessary and may do more harm than good. The countries that stamped this out have done so with really good contact tracing and testing of anyone who may have potentially been exposed, not with random testing.
Anonymous
Our schools cared about positivity % when it was high. My guess is that now that it is going down they will find yet another reason not to reopen.
My kids go to large city schools and it is because they serve a largely poor demographic that there is a lot of pressure to reopen promptly. And yet last night the school board was considering how to reopen schools with community groups providing zoom school supervisors, but you’d have to pay for that (um, I’m already paying). I just give up. Let’s call it a gap year and move on.
Quail
“The experts do not agree. Fauci and others have said widespread random testing is not necessary and may do more harm than good. The countries that stamped this out have done so with really good contact tracing and testing of anyone who may have potentially been exposed, not with random testing.”
Yes, but we can’t take that approach now because we let the cat out of the bag. With so many asymptomatic cases, we should have testing available to asymptomatic people – at least until there is conclusive evidence that asymptomatic people do not spread. Otherwise, we will always be living with a low level of spread, which will result in unnecessary sickness and death. Widespread, regular, “surveillance” testing is necessary until we only have a handful of cases.
Anon
Shout out to the University of Illinois, testing all students faculty and staff twice weekly! They must have a negative test result that is less than 4 days old to access campus buildings. They developed their own saliva test, that is supposed to be much more accurate than the ones already in existence, and put testing sites all over campus. I am watching their data closely as an alum. They’ve done over 100,000 tests so far, and classes only started this Monday!
Data:
https://splunk-public.machinedata.illinois.edu:8000/en-US/app/uofi_shield_public_APP/home
Anon
To be fair, it’s not just the CDC. The WHO inexplicably announced the other day that children under 5 shouldn’t wear masks. Not just “don’t have to” but actively should NOT. My preschoolers have no problem wearing masks at daycare and I’m very glad they do – I think it keeps them and others safer to have all kids in masks since it’s clear children are capable of transmitting the virus. I’m really worried daycare is going to change their policies based on the new WHO guidance.
Anonymous
The WHO guidance is not just based wearing them but whether young children can wear them in a beneficial way – eg. not touching the outside of the mask, removing and storing correctly when eating etc.
Children can certainly transmit, but it’s clear that they produce less virus and are significantly less likely to transmit in part because of their smaller lung volumes.
Anon
Yeah, I agree they’re less likely to transmit, but I still think mask wearing makes sense. I’ve never seen my kids touch their masks when they’re not supposed to, and the daycare teachers say all the kids are doing really well with them and only taking them off by the ear loops the way you’re supposed to. I feel like a lot of non-parents say “well of course young kids can’t wear masks!” But all the parents and teachers I know are reporting that it’s easy and the kids are doing awesome with it and following the rules really well. Anecdotally, I see way more adults than kids wearing a mask wrong or touching their mask.
Also, given what we know about the virus being primarily airborne, I think a mask is beneficial even if you’re touching it too much. There’s been almost no documented transmission from surface to hand to mouth, and tons of evidence that masks reduce the amount of viral particles you’re emitting and receiving in your breath, which is the main source of infection. I just don’t believe the science supports this recommendation. The WHO is weirdly anti-mask in general and has been since the beginning.
Anonymous
Right.
Like with the positive women cutting hair in OK, all customers were masked (perhaps they were, too), but there was no transmission even with quite a bit of exposed people. I don’t see the harm in masks. Annoying, but not harmful. My kids not being in school is bad for them and extended WFH (plus homeschool supervising, being the lunch lady, and being their tech support is bad for re retaining my job and my work trainees are certainly not getting the training they need).
Anon
Where I live (Norway), masks are not recommended for children under 12-13 years old, and absolutely not for toddlers (under 2). ECDC and WHO are cited as sources for the recommendation.
Masks are not generally worn, though, only for some situations (rush hour public transport, basically), and the R-number is currently around 0.7, iirc. Mask advice depends on current levels.
Anon
I don’t think Norway and the US are comparable. When you have the limited number of cases that Norway and most other developed countries have, you can control them with contact tracing and testing. The US is well past that point. The virus is so widespread here (~1% of people are getting current positive results in random sample surveys) that we need to assume everyone is infected and have the whole population take mitigation measures. Fwiw, in US we have no masks for children under 2 also, for safety reasons. But kids older than that can and should be using them, in my view (at least generally – if your child has special needs and can’t use one effectively there can be an exception).
Anon
I don’t think Norway and the US are comparable. When you have the limited number of cases that Norway and most other developed countries have, you can control them with contact tracing and testing. The US is well past that point. The virus is so widespread here (~1% of people are getting current positive results in random sample surveys) that we need to assume everyone is infected and have the whole population take mitigation measures. Fwiw, in US we have no masks for children under 2 also, for safety reasons. But kids older than that can and should be using them, in my view (at least generally – if your child has special needs and can’t use one effectively there can be an exception).
Anon
For sure, kids are lower risk and I don’t think life can be zero risk (and if I did, I wouldn’t send my kids to daycare because even with masks there’s definitely still a risk of catching it). But I think there’s persuasive and growing evidence that masks are effective at both preventing transmission and reducing the severity of illness if you do get infected (by reducing the viral load absorbed). I just think there’s essentially no downside to having kids wear masks, so even if they’re less likely to spread it than adults, why would you tell them they have to stop wearing masks? Anything that can help keep schools open (even if it’s a marginal benefit) is an excellent thing for kids, in my view. If the masks were traumatic for the kids then of course I would feel differently, but they aren’t at all. Kids adapt to these kinds of changes so much faster than adults do.
The WHO has always been strangely against masks. They fought hard against masks for adults for a long time. So I don’t really trust their recommendations on anything to do with masks. The science is clear that masks help, and while I understand there’s a hypothetical risk of people engaging in riskier behavior while wearing a mask because they think the mask will protect them, at this point I think the data is overwhelmingly clear that mask-wearing has slowed the spread.
Anon
I don’t necessarily disagree with you, but I would note to your argument that data is overwhelmingly clear that mask-wearing slows the spread (agreed!), I don’t think the data overwhelmingly shows that masks on really little kids slows the spread (since the data I have read suggests they don’t spread it anyway). This all changes a little bit as kids get even marginally older, like elementary school or especially high school, but I’m talking specifically preschool age.
S in Chicago
Totally no sense when so much spread is asymptomatic. How do you contact trace? This literally flies in the face of what the rest of the world is doing. I don’t want to sound like a crazy conspiracist, but I worry it’s just a political move because we still don’t have enough tests.
Anon
What guidelines did they change?
Anon
It’s political. You’ll have to read the evidence yourself and make your own decisions, which sucks and is wrong because it means we can’t rely on our agencies to serve us.
Anonymous
It could also be because trends are going down. We can argue all day if this is due to the testing and reporting processes, but actually we won’t know for sure until years from now. So, you make the best decision you can with the information you have.
I don’t believe there will ever be a great announcement or a note from the President saying it’s safe now. The NYT had an article in May about how past pandemics ended which is basically medical (infections plummet) plus social (people decide it’s over).
Although the CDC and WHO have lost a lot of integrity, I do believe that whistle blowers and other knowledgeable medical experts (emphasis on experts) will jump in if the CDC is making very poor decisions that will put people at huge risk. So, I’ll wait and see, but I take it as a positive indicator.
Anon
Your second paragraph is so important and so underappreciated. I’ve seen a lot of people saying things like “When do you think we will be allowed to do X again?” and often X is something that’s allowed currently (like flying). No one is ever going to give you permission to fly, or do any other pre-pandemic activity. There will just come a point when we collectively decide it’s ok again. Some people are at that point now. Others will get to that point when infections drop a lot or we have a vaccine. Others may never get to that point. COVID will “end” when infections are low enough that the vast majority of people feel comfortable resuming daily life. It will not have an official endpoint, and it’s likely that every winter for the rest of our lives some of us will get COVID-19. So many people don’t understand this and seem to think we can just wait this out until it disappears.
Anonymous
You take it as a positive indicator that the developed country with the worst Covid situation is reducing testing??
Anonymous
Yes, I do. We aren’t going to test everyone, forever. Also, calling any country the “worst COVID situation” is unsupportable. There aren’t common definitions for COVID deaths across states, much less different countries. The US ranks 9th per capita for infection rates, 8th per capita for death. Data is from factcheck dot org.
I prefer to not join in the “isn’t it awful” no one came to save me but to focus on how we move forward.
Bah humbug
It is crazy. This is the type of behavior that causes people to be skeptical of the CDC ( and WHO). When you change your mind without explaining why, don’t be surprised when people stop trusting you. That’s one reason we have so many anti mask people. (It would be different if we learned more about the desease and then changed our recommendations. But this doesn’t seem to be the case.)
Anonymous
I have no firsthand knowledge, of course, but a doctor friend told me months ago that her department chair (a former CDC employee) had, with a very heavy heart, instructed her department to take guidance from JHU and consider CDC guidance but treat it with suspicion.
AnonMPH
I don’t think there is any possible explanation besides political pressure to decrease case numbers by testing less. Trump said that’s what he was asking for, it’s not a secret.
Absolute and total BS. It makes me so so sad that the CDC’s credibility may never be restored after this. It was THE leader globally, the example on which other countries based their equivalent agencies. How will our public or the global public ever trust them again?
Anon
It’s almost like under the scientific method, we learn and evolve, and recommendations change. But how dare they!
anon
And precisely what new knowledge did we learn via the scientific method that justifies changing the recommendations?
AnonMPH
Can you point to what new information we have learned that should lead us to stop testing asymptomatic people who have had close contact with a COVID positive individual? This is literally the bedrock of public health surveillance. The goal of all contact tracing programs is to find the individuals who have come in contact with a positive case and get them quarantined and tested before they have the chance to expose anyone else. Super important to do this before they show symptoms. So what is the new evidence that has come out that shows this is not important? And does it counteract the news reports coming out saying this is confirmed by an inside source to be responding to pressure from the top? https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/26/politics/cdc-coronavirus-testing-guidance/index.html
More isn't always better
No no, it’s only science if it shows that COVID is more dangerous than we thought and that we need find more cases and take more precautions for longer. Any other conclusion is obviously political.
I will allow myself to speculate: How long after the contact does it take for person A to find out that their close contact was confirmed positive? If it’s longer than 5 days (the median incubation time), and A still doesn’t have symptoms, then the highest probability situation is that they will never develop them, and that probability is increasing all the time. People who were presymptomatic are playing a part in transmission (though apparently people often judge their onset of symptoms a day or two later than reality, so those people might have been symptomatic already when they went on to infect others), but people who remain asymptomatic through their entire infection have not been linked to much further spread. There is a large study out of Guangzhou that shows this, just for example. So what’s the point in testing them and increasing the turnaround time for everyone’s results? Now, if they have daily contact with a confirmed positive person, that’s when it would make sense to test them no matter what the delay. That might be the caveat in the guideline.
Anonymous
Our testing guidelines have always been about rationing the tests we have, not about what would be best to protect the public. My county has directed the medical centers to test the asymptomatic with work related high likelihood of exposure, like store clerks, taxi drivers, etc. Most medical centers are not complying because they say they cannot get the materials to test or analyze the test results.
theguvnah
CNN reporting the CDC made these changes while Dr Fauci was under anesthesia. It’s of course all political from our nation;’s most corrupt president ever.
Rose Garden drama
Friends are posting all over media pictures of the Rose Garden at the White House. Like they are upset with the changes. The before picture they use features . . . tulips (spring perenial, from bulbs). The after picture features actual rose bushes. You can have tulips and rose bushes in the same place but the tulips would not be showing now and you would plant new bulbs, if needed, some time later in the fall. I wouldn’t plant bulbs now where I live (south of DC) because it is so warm and rainy now that they might or just become mushroom fuel.
I feel like if there is some “there, there” I am missing it. But don’t want to ask for risk of being flamed. It’s not a political question.
Pep
I had the same thought – the before and after pictures weren’t apples to apples as far as time of year goes. The before picture was obviously springtime due to the riot of color from the tulip bulbs. The after picture is right now – and there’s not much blooming in hot and humid DC at this time of year. I can’t speak to the rationale for removing the crabapple trees, though.
Anonymous
The spring flowers are bright and showy and what is when the WH has done garden tours (really, everyone in the northern hemisphere). Less so in other seasons. The captions make no sense “this is what happens when a stripper redesigns a garden.” Wouldn’t the stripper stereotype be to make things more colorful and not more sedate (nevermind the accuracy of “stripper” and why it is ok to malign an industry responsible for a lot of first amendment litigation (and some interesting cases locally re whether they can get PPP loans (noted also for people interested in accounting, many strippers are 1099 workers and not K-1 employees, so I think it will be intersting to see if they are reclassified to get loan forgiveness)).
Senior Attorney
If you look at the footage from last night, you will see that they removed the crabapple trees so they could do a long tracking shot of the First Lady’s entrance in her Eva Braun getup last night. SMDH.
Anon
I think people are complaining about the trees being cut down, not the lack of tulips. That said, I think each First Lady gets to do what she wants with it, so I’m not outraged about the changes.
Z
Yeah, its more about the trees. They were originally put there by Jackie Kennedy, which makes it a soft spot for a lot of people.
anon
That is what I understood the complaints to be about. Otherwise, I’m with OP. The before and after pictures aren’t comparing the same space in the same season. As a related side note: I am a huge fan of Michelle Obama and not so much of Melania Trump.
Anonymous
I had read that the smaller trees had their light blocked by a larger tree and weren’t thriving and that they were moved and not cut down. I get that — I have a crepe myrtle in my backyard that was in a good spot until a tree on my neighbor’s side grew high enough to block its light. I’d like to move it vs cut it down, but right now it is just where it is, in partial shade.
Anonymous
Yea, most of the criticism i’ve seen has been about cutting down Jackie’s trees (I saw one article that said they were actually dug up and will be moved somewhere else), but just from a pure gardening perspective, there’s a lot of reasons you might cut down a tree (it’s sick/old, it’s crowding the light for other flowers, etc. etc.). There’s plenty of things to be upset about with this administration, but the redesign of the rose garden isn’t one I’m wasting my time on.
Anon
I’m a Trump hater but if those are crabapple trees, they only have a lifetime of 40-60 years. My house was built in the 60s and had several crabapple trees. We had to have them removed a few years ago because they were dead. Makes perfect sense that crabapples planted by Jackie in the 60s would be past their lifetime and need to be removed.
Anonymous
Yeah I think it’s fine. First Ladies get to change gardens if they want. Plenty of real news to focus on.
Vicky Austin
+1
Anonymous
Right? Like we are all out of real news and actual bad stuff happening.
CountC
+1 This is the first I have heard about this “drama” because I am focused on other issues. I coudn’t care less about Rose Garden stuff right now.
LaurenB
This is rather like the Obama tan suit and Dijon mustard controversies. Who cares.
anon
But isn’t this part of what people are upset about? How out of touch with *everything* do you have to be to take on a (probably very expensive) gardening project right now? I don’t care either way but this particular criticism makes sense to me.
Anonymous
I get that, but I have zero expectations that Melania will do anything to effect actual change in her position, so I don’t really care what she is up to as long as it’s not actually damaging to people’s lives.
Anonymous
OTOH, those workers were working outside and getting paid. Outside work seems to be the safest project. I’m not sorry that workers are getting paid work and nurseries are getting to sell plants. That $ went into the economy, not got burned in a fire.
Our city went all in on outdoor construction projects the minute lockdown started (roads vs inside things). We’re a very D-prominent city. I think it is OK.
Anon
It was funded entirely by donations and created jobs for people. What’s the problem?
Anon
Melania moving some trees around on the WH grounds is very different from your city going all-in on public works.
Anon
She also redesigned it to be handicapped accessible. It’s rather sad that the Rose Garden had accessibility issues well into the 21st century, and I’m glad that was fixed.
Anonymous
That is good then. I wonder why that did get brought up. Maybe dwarfed by the summer absence of tulips outrage?
anonshmanon
I find this accessibility important. I think there is also lingering outrage because they initially tried to pay for this with federal funds (proposed during the discussion of one of the rescue packages, which is pretty tone deaf). For this reveal, they stressed that it was all paid for by donations. Also I think the trees were moved, not cut down.
anon
They’re upset solely because it’s a Trump move. I don’t like Trump either but the outrage over the garden is just silly. It was restored to the 1962 vision. The now-deleted tweet by Kurt Eichenwold was disgusting. There are plenty of things to actually be angry about; restoring a garden is not one of them.
Anne
Agreed. It seems fine and I hate that our side leaps to knee jerk opposition to everything.
Anon
Melania is a bad person and people criticizing her garden does not make her a victim.
Anonymous
Criticizing the garden for lacking blooming tulips in the summer is not a good look.
Anon
Literally who cares though? Sure, some Melania haters don’t know diddly squat about gardening. Why give them airtime in your head if you find that wrong?
Anon
My thought was that if it really is a ROSE garden, roses need sun, and it’s hard for roses to have full sun if there’s mature crabapple trees leafed out above them.
Jo March
From what I saw online, the frustration came from the insensitivity of spending (tens of?) thousands of dollars on what is arguably a frivolity when millions are out of work and suffering financially.
I also saw posts expressing that people didn’t like the design, but they weren’t surprised after seeing how Melania Trump decorated the WH for Christmas. Which I think is fair – you can like/dislike someone’s aesthetic taste regardless whether you like/dislike them.
Anonymous
This was paid work for landscapers and hardscape/landscape companies. I am sure that keeping people working should be OK. I am grateful for any work that comes my way these days.
Anon
I think people love to hate stuff for the sake of it – it’s taking being partisan to an OTT degree. I’m no fan of the Trumps but the redesign of the rose garden is a complete non-issue. For all her faults Melania doesn’t have a bad design sense and she is generally pretty stylish. It looks nice.
Anon
As a gardener, that was also my first thought. Of course there are no tulips. It’s not April.
But removing the trees (and no, not because they were damaged or old, but because of how Melania wanted to look on TV – this is well established) pisses me off. Aesthetically, it looked better with the trees, and they were part of the original design.
All that said, in the scheme of things, let’s not let the rose garden and some trees get in the way of focusing on what her husband is doing, like trying to rig the election.
Amelia Bedelia
“cosplaying as a doctor”
I needed that chuckle today!
and lovely jacket.
Anon
I feel the same way when I wear my white blazer. That, or like I’m a cast member on Miami Vice.
Leatty
COVID vent ahead.
I’m so sick of this pandemic. I’m sick of people not taking it seriously. I’m sick of the impact it is having on my life and the lives of my loved ones.
My beloved aunt is nearing the end of a years’ long battle with cancer, and she hasn’t been able to leave her house or have visitors (other than immediate family) in nearly 6 months. She stopped treatment last year so she could enjoy the time she has left, and instead of being able to enjoy it, she’s basically a prisoner in her own home. It’s affecting her mental health, and she has recently said she doesn’t want to be in this world any more. I last saw her a month ago, but she has rapidly declined since then, and I can’t visit her now because I’m 9 months pregnant. I’m hoping she makes it for a couple more months, but even then, I don’t know that I will be comfortable visiting her because it will require me and my newborn to stay with my parents who aren’t strictly socially distancing or wearing masks 100% in public.
Speaking of my parents, my mom is an elementary school teacher in a rural area of a state that is not taking COVID seriously. Her school doesn’t require masks, so she is only wearing hers in the hallways. She isn’t wearing one in her classroom, and she isn’t distancing herself from her students. This makes me so mad because the community she teaches in is atrocious. As an example: One of her fellow teachers (who is pregnant) is currently hospitalized due to COVID; she contracted the virus after her SIL sent her son (who had just tested positive) to play with the teacher’s son and didn’t bother to tell them that he had COVID. This is not a unique example – parents routinely send their sick kids to school, and COVID isn’t going to change that, especially since the school isn’t checking temperatures.
And, since my mom clearly isn’t taking the virus seriously enough, I’ve told her I’m not comfortable with her meeting my newborn right away. She was so upset that my dad called me last night to guilt trip me about it.
Rant over.
Anon
Yeah in my state multiple people have sent kids with known positive results to school! Whyyy?! It’s a whole new level of Covidiot.
Anon
I still think this is what cofeve was about.
Anonymous
Sorry you are going through all this.
In my city, people routinely send their sick kids to school b/c they have to work. That was in Before Times. Schools being shut down will throw many people into Dickensian poverty or have very young kids fending for themselves at home (and hopefully being on Zoom school, but I doubt it — our city ran out of hotspots even though they seemed to have enough Chromebooks to give out).
My DINK neighbors think it is awesome — they moved to the beach for the summer and don’t have drycleaning bills. Meanwhile, it takes me 12 hours to work an 8-hour day and I can’t see my parents due to them being in a hotspot and having quarantine restrictions (and my parents not being willing to risk a visit with me). I am still involuntarily homeschooling. 5 months in and I’m sick of it and so are my kids and with idiots there is no end in sight for us even if we stay well (which we may not).
Anon
Look, the pandemic is hard for all of us. We are DINKs and this sucks for us too. We are forced to WFH together in the same room, without enough space, we can’t visit family (including many missed milestones: funeral, wedding, 90th birthday). Meanwhile, our home office prison is made miserable by the constant cacophony of feral children literally screaming outside morning, noon, and night because their parents are understandably exhausted and Zoom “school” isn’t back in session. Glad this is an extended vacation for your neighbors, but these DINKs are also sick of it. Please stop with the suffering Olympics.
anon
X one million. It sucks for everyone in different ways.
Anon
+1,000 from DINKS in the Bay Area dealing with wildfire smoke, recent heatwave, COVID, deaths of loved ones, and clueless employers.
Anon
LOL at “cacophony of feral children.”
I’m on of the few people really enjoying working from home with my husband (no kids) and having more time to explore my outdoor hobbies but I don’t rub that in anyone’s face, particularly parents. When I talk to parents I focus more on my concerns for my elderly parents not how much kayaking I’ve been doing now that I’m not going to networking events after work.
Anonymous
My college-aged stepkid has not had any life changes other than leaving college early this spring. And a curfew now he is back on campus. He want to come visit over fall break. Not sure that will be a good idea by then, but keeping my mouth shut for now.
Anon
I’m sorry you’re going through this. My best friend/cousin is nine months pregnant and going through the same thing with her father (my uncle). He asks when he can visit the baby and it’s like “um never?” He is traveling back-and-forth between two hotspots states for social visits, including birthday parties for his elderly mother with no social distancing or masks of any kind, and visiting with his brothers who think coronavirus is a conspiracy. Then there’s his girlfriend that he visits whose daughter literally works in the respiratory ER – not that you’d know it by all the maskless hugs and trips they plan together. People need to accept that if they do irresponsible things they like, no, they don’t get to visit newborns.
Anonymous
What is it with people? Earlier, non-masked people were accused of being granny-killers. But now it’s OK to put newborns with no immune system or shots in jeopardy? What in the world?!
Anon
I think certain covidiots struggle with delayed gratification. They are incapable of isolating now to do something important they want to do (e.g., visiting a newborn) in two weeks. It’s one thing to be an essential worker, but I don’t get why some people are going to the nail salon and other optional stuff and then complaining about having to miss predictable, planned family milestones.
Anonymous
Right. I have given up everything I possibly could have just so that I might some day get to send my kids back to school and some day go back to my office. Not s*xy things to ever want to do, but that is all I want for Christmas this year. My office and my kids’ schools back.
Anon
At Anon at noon: I think the issue is if people have to pick and choose what they can do (particularly if they don’t have kids) returning to the office is low on their priority list. They’d rather use their limited exposure to see friends or family or get a haircut.
Anonymous
I think for many of us it is that we can’t get our work done if we are also even semi-homeschooling our kids or having to watch them all summer b/c there are no camps. So if I lose my job, I would have time to travel and see loved ones. But no $. I need my job. I need my kids to go back to school so I wouldn’t worry about losing it.
Anon
I didn’t want my newborn around anyone even in normal times, but statistically newborns with COVID are fine. This isn’t a normal virus where very young kids are more susceptible. Flu and whooping cough are much greater risk to an infant than COVID is.
Anon
A couple of babies have died of COVID. Is the risk stratospherically high? No, it doesn’t appear to be, but it’s also not an enormous sacrifice to socially distance for two weeks before meeting your family’s newborn.
Anon
I think the statement that a couple babies have died of it does not contradict the statement that flu and whooping cough are greater risks. I’m also not sure it’s even true that they’ve determined that babies died OF it. Babies who tested positive have died, but unfortunately babies die of SIDS and other unidentifiable causes fairly regularly and it’s likely that 10-20% of the population has had COVID by this point, so you would expect to see a fair number of the people dying of other causes who also happen to be COVID positive.
Anon
Flu and whooping cough are almost certainly greater risks, but COVID is an unnecessary risk. I’m not putting my kid at risk because Auntie Sue wants to visit, but doesn’t want to stop going to backyard BBQs and the hair salon.
cbackson
The biggest thing I was worried about on this front before giving birth was that due to COVID, my parents were having trouble finding a place to get a TDaP shot. I worry a great deal about increased mortality/morbidity from flu and whooping cough due to delayed or skipped vaccinations as we get into the fall…
Anon
@cbackson, there are going to be major flu vaccination drives this fall, so I actually think more people than normal will get the shot. And the COVID mitigation efforts are likely to be effective against flu too, which has a lower R0 than COVID so it’s (theoretically at least) easier to get the R0 below 1 and stamp it out. Apparently the Southern hemisphere didn’t really have a flu season during their winter/our summer. But that’s scary your parents couldn’t find a place to get TDaP. I think the biggest secondary risks from this are the missed doses of TDaP and MMR in kids. There are very alarming stats out there about something like 40% of pediatric patients missing a scheduled vaccine due to COVID. That’s going to be a disaster if/when we finally get schools open again. The R0 of measles is so high that even slipping from something like 95% vaccinated to 90% vaccinated could lead to unprecedented outbreaks.
Anonymous
I wouldn’t want to take care of a newborn while having COVID. Newborn on its own is rough. And I wouldn’t want my partner to get it either b/c that is who may have to drive me around for 2 weeks after a C-section. So no idiot visitors.
anon
I am so sorry. Between pregnancy and your aunt, you are dealing with a lot. For what this stranger’s POV is worth, I think you are 100% doing the right thing to keep Grandma away from your newborn. If she really wants to see the baby, she can change her behavior for two weeks ahead of visiting. I, too, am so sick of covidiots.
Anonymous
+1,000
Anon
what state are these people in? this is insane
Anonymous
I’ve dealt with this in two long distance relationships now, so I need a gut check – is this a me problem or a them problem and how do I resolve it? Communication is obviously important in a LDR. In my current relationship, we’re in the same time zone so it’s a lot easier to sync our schedules. Sometimes it’s not possible to chat briefly on the phone/video every day, which is of course fine, but so far we’ve carved out at least 5 minutes almost every evening. My problem is the “I fell asleep” excuse: I text him before 10 pm to talk, and I get no response until the following morning – “sorry I fell asleep.” If you are going to bed early then it’s on you to reach out to me. Maybe I won’t be available, or maybe you’re too beat to get on the phone, but I would appreciate a “going to bed, love you” text. It’s not an awesome feeling to look forward to talking to him all day only to be met with silence. It’s really disappointing and makes me feel like I’m not a priority.
BF and I have only been long distance for a couple of weeks and it’s happened twice – which seems like a pattern not a one off. We talked about it the first time and he said it wouldn’t happen again, but it did last night. To make matters worse, during the day yesterday, he told me over text that he got important news that we’ve been waiting on for months. This morning, BF was already defensive over text – “you act like it was intentional, I didn’t mean to” – which sounds just like my ex. (Also – if you lie down in bed and close your eyes then you intended to go to sleep). I’m not going to text more today, but I’m going to have to talk to him about this tonight. What is the most constructive way to approach this?
Anon
I frequently fall asleep on the couch; having a lot of problems with insomnia, I **have to** go to bed the moment I wake up. No brushing teeth, no checking phone, no turning on lights. Otherwise, my body interprets the sleep on the couch as a nap and then I can’t fall back asleep until literally 4 am.
From my perspective, this is normal.
Anonymous
Same. I also regularly wake up in the morning with no memory of going to bed the night before, or even of things (or conversations!) that happened shortly before falling asleep. And I’ve had a sleep study, but they don’t really do anything for this.
Anon
As someone who regularly falls asleep while reading or watching TV, I don’t think you can assume he made an intentional choice to fall asleep. I think you’re overreacting, especially if this isn’t a regular occurrence.
OP
He said he laid down in bed and closed his eyes, so this wasn’t a “whoops it was late and I fell asleep on the couch” moment, fwiw.
Anonymous
How much did you interrogate him about this? I would be really annoyed at this!
OP
I didn’t. That was the first thing he texted me this morning – sorry I laid down on the bed and closed my eyes and then it was morning.
Cat
Actually going to bed? Intentional.
Getting in bed to read or watch TV while waiting for the appointed time, and dozing off? Not as bad. But now that he knows that it happens, he needs to proactively communicate better. It’s like the old saying ‘every dog gets one free bite.’
OP
Yeah I agree with this, which is why I’m upset and disappointed that it keeps happening. Before he left, we talked about how our relationship would work long distance and I raised this issue. He falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow. Sometimes we’ll be talking in bed and he falls asleep in the middle of a conversation. I don’t really care, it’s who he is, I’m just jealous I don’t fall asleep as easily! But this is why I talked to him about this before he even left – it’s going to take effort from both of us to make this work, you’re going to need to manage your time to be sure to chat with me before you get in bed/chill out on the couch because we both know how easily you fall asleep. It’s not an “accident” when you know to expect it. When it happened the first time, I reminded him of that conversation and asked him to be more proactive about finding time to reach out. Now that it’s happened again – this is the third time we’ll be talking about this and I feel really frustrated.
Anonymous
1. You are trying to manage him. That’s not going to work. That’s a way to end things. What do you want?
2. Maybe this is all too late and too much. I was dating a guy who’d want to talk for an hour each evening, in literally the only free time I had all day (in before times). That was what he was comfortable with and he was lonely. I was exhausted. We discussed it and found that we could each be happy with less/earlier as long we felt other things were going well. When things aren’t going well, not communicating is a symptom (maybe this is what you are worried about) vs the disease.
3. We want SOs to take the initiative. So maybe a bit of this is going on also?
Anonymous
I think it’s not intentional but I would be looking for a more solution focused response that demonstrates wanting to make sure it doesn’t happen regularly.
10pm is not a great time to talk as the only time of the day. DH and I were transatlantic long distance for two years and we talked every morning as I got ready for work (speakerphone) while he had lunch and in the evening when I got home which was right before he went to bed. I was responsible for calling him in the evening and he was responsible for calling me in the morning. Splitting responsibility for who initiates the call is important plus with a twice a day schedule you can let the other person know if you have to miss a time slot. We prioritized talking over texting as the connection from talking was key.
OP
I really like the idea of splitting. I think one of the things that bothers me is I tend to reach out more. He says he doesn’t want to wake me up in the morning, but I’ve told him I always put my phone on do not disturb when I’m asleep. I would like him to take the initiative more often, and splitting sounds like a good way to do it.
Also not sure if this matters, but 10 pm is when I go to bed so I never try to start a call that late, I just said “before 10 pm” to make it clear that I’m not getting mad at him for being asleep at 2 am or something ridiculous.
Anonymous
You both need to set a specific time that the call will happen every day as a default and both need to make it a priority. ‘before 10pm’ is vague. Just like when you live with someone the adult thing to do is have a specific conversation about what chores get done by who and when (I change the sheets and do laundry because DH would only change them every three weeks, he does all the dishes because he’s picky about how they are done), in the same way for a long distance relationship you have to be intentional and specific about how you connect and spend time together. The upside is that it gets you used to having conversations about scheduling which is helpful when you throw kids into the mix.
anonshmanon
+1. If there is any time slot to talk more during the day, that’s what I would try to maximize.
Anon
Ugh, I totally get why this bothers you. Tbh, when I avoid phone calls like this it’s because I would rather (sleep, read) than talk to the other person, so it would sting to be on the receiving end of this from an SO.
In terms of how to approach talking about it, I would focus on what you want him to do in the future, not what he did wrong in the past. What concrete action do you hope to get out of this? A standing phone date at 9:30, even if it’s just 5 min? A commitment to check in at 9:30, if only to say I love you and good night? Tell him exactly what you’d like him to do, then give him the chance to do it.
“I was really looking forward to talking to you yesterday. Can we agree that we’ll touch base by phone at 9:30 every night unless one of us is out, just to say I love you and good night? It helps me feel close to you to hear your voice every day, even if it’s only for a couple of minutes.”
Anonymous
What are people doing these days that would have their only availability be so late? I am not chatty at that hour. My guess is that people are dining solo — wouldn’t dinner or dinner prep be a more natural time to chat with an SO?
anon
Maybe OP isn’t a priority and BF is less committed? Honestly if someone got this mad at me for falling asleep at a reasonable hour a couple of times then I’d be reconsidering if I could live with that kind of negativity long-term.
Anonymous
Yep.
Anonymous
I agree its super easy to fall asleep unintentionally. A few of the folks in my family can fall asleep sitting up — no lying down required. Why don’t you set a time to chat — 9pm, whatever works, and if one of you can’t make it for a day, that person can suggest a different time for that day.
Vicky Austin
This was kind of a problem for us when DH moved out of state to take a new job and I couldn’t follow him for another couple months. He moved east from me so the time zones were not in our favor, and he already goes to bed at 7:30 (not kidding). I think your reaction is natural and asking him for something like “going to bed, love you” is perfectly reasonable. In your shoes, I would probably initiate a conversation about other times of the day to talk (lunch break? random WFH walks at the same time?).
Anonymous
Oh. My. Goodness. It’s been two weeks? He’s going to bed by ten? Get a grip.
Anonymous
Honestly you sound unhinged to me. I’d just break up with you if I were him. Call earlier if it’s such a crisis for you.
Anonie
OP, I commented below but just wanted to write here that the “unhinged” statements are a massive leap! Don’t let keyboard warriors get to you :)
Anon
I think “unhinged” is rude and unfair, but I do think she’s wildly overreacting to this and I would not take it well if I were her partner. I’ve done long distance for multiple years in multiple different relationships, and long distance relationships don’t survive if you get worked up about things like this. Part of being long distance is accepting that “missed connections” like this will happen when someone falls asleep or is out at a loud bar and doesn’t answer their phone (in pre-COVID times) or whatever.
Anonie
Different things work for different t relationships but, in my opinion, it is highly reasonable to expect your significant other to carve out 5 minutes per day to speak to you. I would be concerned my fiancé were in a car crash or otherwise seriously hurt if he went 24 hours without speaking to me.
Anon
I don’t think it was 24 hours with no communication. She said they texted during the day yesterday, and then again as soon as he woke up this morning. Even if they went a full 24 hours without speaking, it’s not like he was giving her the silent treatment, it was one missed text. It’s extremely weird to me to assume someone was in a car crash because they didn’t respond when you texted around 10 pm.
Anonie
Agree to respectfully disagree, I guess. To me, a key part of an exclusive romantic relationship is talking to each other every day barring extremely unusual circumstances.
Anonymous
this
Anonie
I’m probably biased because it takes me lots of effort to finally asleep (I’m jealous of those who can just “doze off”) but this behavior would bother me. I would communicate to him that it is a respect issue and that you want to feel prioritized each day for at least 5 minutes. Maybe he could start calling to say goodnight earlier during his commute home from work? Or could you shift your short calls to every morning instead of at nighttime?
For what it’s worth, my now-fiance and I were long-distance for more than a year before he relocated to my city and I think he fell asleep before texting me goodnight exactly twice over that year-plus period of time. Both times, he had just driven over 2 hours in the wee hours of morning back to his city after visiting me. In both instances, I went ahead and just called him to make sure he had gotten home safely and he explained that he had fallen asleep mid-text. He IS someone who sleeps easily and “dozes off” accidentally, but he didn’t get defensive when I called and apologized profusely both times for worrying me. I don’t think the behavior itself is necessarily problematic, but I do understand why it hurts your feelings and I do think he could much respond better.
The easiest shift, though, in my opinion…find a new time of day for the calls if at all possible and, short of that, call him at night if he isn’t responding to your texts. If he reacts poorly or ignores your calls, that would be a separate and more serious series of conversations.
I’ve noticed in general that my fiance and most of my friend’s husbands/boyfriends get defensive when they FIRST hear a piece of constructive criticism. Then, when they’ve had time to think things through, it seems (anecdotally) that most quality men can swallow their pride, apologize, and come around. Hopefully your boyfriends “gets it” soon!
Anon
I don’t think the LDR has a chance of working if you can’t both be more flexible. It sounds unreasonable to be so upset that you missed a five minute call with him. Mistakes happen, people fall asleep or get tied up. I would not be jumping down his throat over this – if it were me and we were not fully committed, I would think you were too high maintenance and it would not be worth the effort/grief to maintain the relationship. I think it is fine to say that you want to have a quick chat everyday but if you miss one every now and then, no big deal.
Anonymous
Yeah, after just two weeks, this reeks of “you didn’t send me the right shade and number of yellow tulips for my birthday”.
Anonymous
Do you really have a relationship though if you just have a 5 min chat some days of the week? LDR means you need to actively and frequently communicate and share your life. That’s how they last. I can’t see an LDR lasting where the other person can’t even find 5 mins a day to connect. It’s not a like a business trip where you see the person again after a week.
Anonymous
Um, yes? Lots of marriages look like this during certain periods of people’s lives. Not ideal, but it can work if both are committed. She doesn’t say all she has are 5 minute chats, she has at least 5 minute chats almost every night.
Anonie
Truly not trying to be snarky here and I’m glad this has worked in your marriage, but I cannot imagine any career outside of the military that precludes two people living in the same time zone from talking for 5 minutes a day.
Anon
Well, I cannot imagine being in a relationship with someone who insisted on speaking on the phone with me every single day no matter what else was going on in our lives. That’s so incredibly burdensome. I’m not deployed in Iraq but I have friends and a job and a life and I don’t want to have to be ducking out of a work meeting or leaving friends waiting at a restaurant to have a call with my partner. I would feel so smothered.
Anon for this
Raises hand.
Spouse isn’t in the military, we just went 2 months with one text-only email a week, limited to 300 words.
FWIW, just call him? Or have him call you? And laugh when one of you falls asleep.
Anonymous
But this isn’t a period where the contact must be reduced. It’s one thing if someone is deployed or working on a oil rig or in a vastly different time zone or whatever but if you can’t make time for 5 mins a day in normal circumstances like same time zone, 9-5 job then how do you make time for an in person relationship?
Anon
I don’t think the fact that he accidentally fell asleep early one time means he “can’t even find 5 mins a day to connect.” I was long distance with my now husband for three years, and while we certainly spent much more than 5 minutes per day talking on average, there were plenty of days where we didn’t connect on the phone due to work or social obligations or an accident like this. It wasn’t a big deal and if either of us had reacted the way OP is reacting I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t be married now.
Anonymous
I wasn’t responding to OP. I was responding to the Anon who said wanting to talk for 5 mins every day was high maintenance.
Anonymous
I was long distance for two years with my now husband. We were engaged after 4 months and then apart for the year before we were married and the first year of our marriage. He was super busy with residency. I was a busy lawyer. We emailed each day (pre-texting ancient times) and talked about once per week for an hour or so on the phone. We saw each other a few times per year during those two years. 23 years after the end of the LD part of our relationship we are still together. It worked for us. We were pretty focused on the end game, though, not so much the day-to-day.
This is “your” relationship though, and you need to find a groove that works for both of you. I hope you do – it’s hard work but for me was totally worth it in the end. Good luck!!
Another anon
I’m not at my best at 10 pm regardless of the person on the other end of the phone or text, and I would rather not interact with people at that time. Is there another time of day for your daily check ins that would make this work better?
Anon
Different strokes for different folks, but I would find this expectation smothering.
Anon
I understand communication is important in a LDR, but do you really need to talk every single night? What about a text or having standing Friday night dinner FaceTimes? Maybe focusing more on quality versus quantity. If I was required to talk to someone, anyone, every single day that would feel like a chore and there really isn’t that much to talk about every single day, especially now.
OP
It’s definitely not a requirement to talk every day. Life happens. I was expecting to talk last night because he got important news that we’ve been waiting on for months, and I needed to know what he found out – he texted me that he got the news but not what it was. In general, though, if you can’t chat that’s fine but just let me know, don’t leave me hanging, yknow?
AnonMPH
Totally agree! It’s about being considerate. I think you’re right to be frustrated, but need to be clear that it’s about feeling prioritized and not about the specific phone call that does or doesn’t happen.
Anonymous
If you don’t want to talk to someone everyday or most days, why would you be in an LDR with them? Like living with someone or getting married involves talking every day. And usually for more than 5 mins. Most people aren’t doing LDR casually. Usually it’s a temporary situation within a more committed relationship.
Anon
Texting counts as talking, IMO. Text every day for sure, with longer phone calls some nights. And why not just call instead of texting to ask to talk?
Anon
Yeah, I’m with you. I am the one who goes to bed earlier and when my relationship was long distance I always texted good night before I went to bed. On the occasions where I was the one who stayed up later, I did get a little annoyed when he didn’t do that. For me it was minor in the grand scheme of things, but I certainly don’t think you’re wrong for wanting that.
AnonMPH
Oh, and this reminds me! I’m not long distance right now with my husband, but we were for about a year and now (well, in the before times) I often travel for work in a time zone 8-10 hrs ahead of where we live. I am always careful to text my husband before I go to bed, and am always a bit sad if he doesn’t text me to say goodnight before he goes to bed (usually shortly before I wake up). It’s about feeling like the other person is thinking about you. And particularly when he’s told you that he has important news to share, I’d be frustrated to be left hanging.
That said, since you ARE on the same time zone I think you can generally be a little more flexible on the contact, since it’s so easy to just text in the middle of the day, call while you’re commuting (if anyone is commuting) etc.
Anon
I think if it is a regular occurrence it is a problem. I dealt with a similar issue with my long distance ex, however it wasn’t just falling asleep it was also “oh decided to meet friends at bar”, like dude can you anticipate and communicate? Also that I was always the one to initiate 99% of all communication. Once I just didnt call back when I got his VM and waited to see how long it took for him to reach out to me- 1 week. I agree falling asleep is intentional when you lie down in bed and close your eyes. I think I would just frame it as “its not a problem yet but I am weary of it becoming a problem so I am flagging it so you’re aware”.
anon
Yeah that guy definitely wasn’t interested in dating you.
Politics on Instagram?
Posted this last night but want more input: I know it’s late but posting anyway and will repost tomorrow. My boss told me tonight over drinks that she feels that my posting political/progressive things on my (private, have to be approved to follow) Instagram could be “offensive” to some of our coworkers. I’m a Republican-turned-Democrat, BLM-supporting millennial and my feelings are that if I post things on my personal Instagram, i can say or post whatever I want with zero reflection on my employer. I have nothing relating to my employer in my profile and people would have to seek me out to follow me. I also feel like I am moderate in what I post—only a handful of things that are anti-Trump or overtly political. I posted about being excited about Kamala and Joe a couple of times. Nothing that would be outrageous on this board, for example.
Am I in the wrong? Should I be moderating my beliefs to “not be offensive” (my gut says no)? Also…where is the line between private social media and public? I’m really concerned about this and it’s really frustrating me to feel like I’m doing something “wrong” by expressing myself in MY social media.
FWIW, I work in finance, in a non-client or public-facing role.
Anon
Sounds like your posts are not as benign as you think they are or you need better separation between your work and your Instagram.
Anon
Yep, this. I personally think people are very bad judges of what is/isn’t offensive to people. I saw a friend post something along the lines of “the way to stop this violence is social justice” and I cringed – she obviously thought it was a nice message saying that if you give the protestors what they want, the violence will stop, but I’d disagree with that, and that’s kind of a terrible offensive message to anyone who has had their property damaged.
Anon
Except she’s not obligated to placate your skewed sense of what justice is. Do this person a favor and disconnect from her.
Meara
If you have a private Insta why on earth do you allow your boss to follow you? Stop that! Do not friend your boss on social media! (Bosses, do not friend your underlings!)
anon
+1 no work people on personal social media.
anon
Yep, this. Plus 9:26. If you want to continue posting what you’ve been posting and keep the peace at work, kick off your co-workers and tell them you need to keep a stricter line because you were told in confidence that it could be problematic. You don’t like it but you like your job and don’t want to cut back what you post.
AIMS
This is my question. It all sounds reasonable but why I shout boss in a position to know about your instagram in the first place?
Anon
I do not allow any current coworkers to friend me on Facebook or connect with me on Instagram. It’s LinkedIn or nothing. Once they become former coworkers – because I move on, or they do – then they can friend me. I had a coworker leave our employer earlier this year and she asked if she could connect to me on Instagram and I said “sure.” I think she was taken aback at what I posted as we never talked about politics at work. We’re good friends (actually got closer after she left) but I could tell she had no idea I am a rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth liberal Democrat before she saw my Instagram. And that’s just how I like it. It is just too problematic and stressful to constantly worry how someone I work with is going to feel about something I post and how that might affect my job/career.
Anonymous
Your boss was telling you this because someone said something to her. Possibly, one of your coworkers said something actually offensive on social media, got reprimanded, and pointed fingers at anyone else who posts anything “political.” It’s very frustrating, but employers don’t want to play referee about what is and isn’t appropriate speech outside the workplace, so sometimes they throw out the baby with the bath water. Just remove your boss and coworkers from your Instagram.
Anon
I think you got good advice last night: change your privacy settings and/or stop posting about politics. Who cares if people here would think your posts are benign? Your boss doesn’t, and that’s what matters.
Anon
Not sure if this is helpful but I had a similar conversation with a guy who works for me who was volunteering for a campaign for one of the non-Biden candidates. The local paper was doing an article and wanted to interview and quote him. He figured out all of our requirements re: media and them not saying where he worked, but he was asking more about what it might mean for his career. We’re in Finance, he’s not in a client facing role, I think a lot of our executives and clients are Rs even if they don’t love the current president. I told him, truthfully, that regardless of my personal feeling it could affect how people saw him (not formally but they could judge him). But that it was up to him what he wanted to do with that information and I’d support him whatever he decided. He ended up not doing it and actually left to go to a company that was a little less conservative.
JTM
You should stop allowing people you work with to follow you in Instagram, or any other social media.
Equestrian Attorney
Yeah, my Insta is private but I have few work people on there (mostly colleagues who are also friends, but then a few partners started adding me) and as a result I share absolutely nothing political and very few actual details of my private life. If you want to be more vocal (which is fine!) I would unfriend pretty much anyone from work and make sure your profile is private.
Anonymous
Here’s the thing: your boss told you this is a problem. So kick everyone you work with off your account.
Anon
+1
Anon
+1
Politics on Insta
So I’m not allowed to ever post anything political or do anything political on any form of social media because it “may offend someone” but I have coworkers who can say and post FAR more inflammatory things? That is, to be succinct, a bunch of bullshit.
Anonymous
Ok. Do you want a cookie for being right or a job? You can post whatever you want on your private insta just take your coworkers off.
Anon
Yep, this.
Anonymous
Sure it is, but you should still kick everyone you work with off your following list.
buffybot
I can understand this as an emotional response, but if this is the route you’re taking, it seems like you’re not asking your question in good faith. Also, what is to say that these others have not been given the same advice?
You may decide that you want to keep your social media connections with your coworkers AND voice your opinions. You can do that, but your boss is giving you fair warning that there may be professional blowback.
Generally speaking, the advice to keep your social media presence separate from your work is a good one. You can post to close friends only, or create various overlapping circles to target your outreach. It’s completely absurd to think that what you post on a private account can’t reflect on an employer. It’s fair to question whether its right to classify concern with human rights as a “political” position, but some people view it that way — so you just have to suck it up and decide whether its worth the professional fallout.
fad s
If this is important to you, kick all your coworkers and bosses and anyone remotely connected to work off of social media and post it. It would be important enough for me to post (and to implement related issues in my day to day work when appropriate). Yes, there is definitely the chance it’ll bother someone IF they find out, but I figure that if people are offended by posts that are essentially “lets not murder people please” or other basic human rights, that’s just a problem I”m going to be able to solve right now. I don’t think you’ll lose your job over it LOL – other posters are exaggerating. You may not be able to take a public volunteer title, or do an interview in a newspaper, depending on your workplace rules, but keep your work and life separate and be very professional at work, while living your life as well.
Anon
You can definitely post about those things, but you shouldn’t have your boss and coworkers follow your personal, private Instagram or really any social media because it’s not professional or a mature way to do things.
anon
It definitely is a bunch of bullshit. I would keep posting whatever makes me happy but delete those stupid tattletale coworkers first.
Anonymous
Agree with everyone above about getting her off your social media but also what kind of boss is this? Is this like she’s a principal at a firm and you’re a first year and she signs your paychecks? Or is this like, she’s technically your supervisor right now, but you are likely to be at the same level in less than a year? Because I’ve had both types of bosses and I’d take advice from the former very seriously and would take advice from the latter with a grain of salt.
Anon
You’ve gotten good advice here (I am friends with exactly zero coworkers on social media) but your statement: “my feelings are that if I post things on my personal Instagram, i can say or post whatever I want with zero reflection on my employer.” Is ABSOLUTELY not true. People definitely get fired over things they post on social media. I think we even have a clause in our employee handbook saying as such. There are totally IRL examples of this happening. Usually it’s someone saying something racist which I’m sure you aren’t doing, but that’s not a guarantee that’s the only thing that could cause it, and you definitely need to change your attitude on this stance and post accordingly.
Anon
+1 yeah I don’t think this OP understand that unless your employer is a government entity, they can regulate your private speech however they like. Sounds like your employer is ok with employees expressing conservative viewpoints but not liberal ones. Unfair, but perfectly legal and unfortunately fairly common. If you don’t like it, find a different employer.
Anon
But to be sure, the federal government also governs what their employees do/say while on government property or on government time. Current administration notwithstanding, those of us lowly peons are often taking scary threatening training on the Hatch Act.
Anon
Yes. But if you work for the government, you have free speech rights and if you work for state or local government there’s no Hatch Act. I’m a state government employee and I cannot be fired for expressing support for Biden on a private Instagram account that has no association with my employer. But most people can be fired for that, and that was my point.
Anon
(or a public Insta account for that matter, as long as it’s clearly me speaking and not my employer)
anon
I don’t think we’re at odds here. I got your point and was reinforcing it by stating that even some government employees have speech restrictions–so it’s even more clear cut that she needs to make her private speech private or find a different employer. The Hatch act seems fair and benign until you realize you can’t call your Congresswoman’s office to use your freedom of speech to express your point of view because she only accepts calls during working hours when…. I’m on the clock for the Feds. My private speech IS absolutely restricted for political purposes while I’m on Federal property or on-the-clock. I can be fired for expressing support of Biden on a private Instagram account that has no association with my employer.
Anon
Yeah, you cannot post whatever you want and not have it reflect on your employment. I personally do have work people on social media, so I purposefully make my content boring and uninteresting – lots of dog pictures and the occasional travel photo from the before times.
You get to chose – have your instagram with political content OR have work people on there. Or forfeit this job/suffer the professional hit. Whether it’s “fair” isn’t relevant.
Anon
Not the hill to die on. Has anyone ever actually changed their position on an issue because of a social media post?
Anon
I can’t think of one specifically, but I am very politically engaged, a news junkie, and active on my (private) social media, including instagram and reddit, less so on facebook. I often don’t have fully formed opinions on issues and I am just absorbing information and different viewpoints on issues for a very long time, so seeing a variety of viewpoints on social media is beneficial to me. I am very conscious of my “news diet” and try to actively balance the media I am consuming. That is also why I am political on social media. To some of my friends and family I may be the only differing viewpoint they encounter, they don’t have to change their minds, but hopefully it leads to more critical thinking.
theguvnah
considering how many tens. of millions of dollars campaigns and far-right causes pour into facebook ads, yes, social media posts clearly impact people’s opinions.
Anon
OP, if you don’t wanna cause issues by removing your coworkers from your followers (which is a thing you can do, if you did not know), you can hide your stories from specific people. I’m assuming your instagram posts are stories and not actual stand alone posts. FWIW, I post similar things on my instagram and would 100% hide these stories from coworkers (unless I am actual friends with them and know their political leanings).
Anon
+1
anon
Lol
Anon
Excuse me???
Anon
You all were so helpful in figuring out how to set up a backdoor Roth IRA and I have one more question to ask (that I will also take to a CPA if needed, but you guys have been so helpful before!). The backdoor Roth looks simple to set up, but it looks like the “pro-rata rule” might be coming into effect for me because I have an old 401K from a previous employer that I rolled over to a traditional IRA at Vanguard, which is where I keep my investments. The value is small ($8K) and the full value is from the employer-sponsored plan I had at the time (I did not make any additional contributions after leaving). How do I open a new backdoor Roth at Vanguard without triggering this rule and being liable for higher taxes?? Do I just convert the amount in the existing rollover IRA to Roth instead of making a new contribution? If I were to do that, what do I do with the remaining $2000 since the limit is $6000?
anonchicago
You have to roll it over or convert the funds to Roth to avoid triggering the pro rata rule. A Roth conversion does not count towards your $6k limit for the year and since it’s a small dollar value, I’d honestly just convert the funds. I would convert the full $8k and be prepared to pay the taxes at the end of the year ($2k ish)
I had a larger rollover traditional IRA which I rolled into my current employer’s 401k. My 401k options are solid and cheap, so I’d recommend looking into that if you don’t want to pay the taxes on a conversion.
Anon
The funds are already in a traditional Roth. Just to confirm, you mean I can convert that account to a Roth IRA (the full amount) and just take the tax hit?
I don’t love the investment options in my current job’s 401k, but I’ll look into that as well. Thanks for the quick response!
anonchicago
Correct, you’d have to convert and take the tax hit OR roll it into your existing 401k. The pro-rata rule is triggered if you have a balance in your traditional IRA as of 12/31, so technically you don’t have to do the conversion now but there’s no reason to delay it either.
Anon
Thank you so much!!
Anon
Not OP, but do you have a good source or any more info to understand more about your sentence “a Roth conversion does not count towards your $6K limit for the year”? I’m also looking into backdoor Roths and it’s been confusing to say the least.
Marketer
Marketing question. I offer monthly, free, one-hour training webinars to clients (they log in anonymously). I’m live and field Q&A at the end. The webinars get good attendance and rave reviews, but I get a number of emails asking if I’ll record it. The months we do record it, no one watches it – we’ve tried 10 minute excerpts and posting the whole thing. 20 people ask and then we maybe two views other than my firm’s tests. (We can tell how much people watch, they watch 80-100%).
Are some views better than none? Is it worth recording and posting? I’m tired of telling clients “yes” and then no one following through. I’d rather just say no, hope you can make next month’s session. Thoughts?
anonshmanon
Is it worth recording and posting even if hardly anyone watches? Depends on how much extra effort it is for you. I just know zoom, where it’s two clicks to live stream and then post to YouTube. So it’s no additional effort. It makes you look good to be providing this material to the community. If you don’t already, make sure to advertise the recording via your communication channels.
The only downsides I see are that recording is a significant effort for you, or if you get the sense that you loose viewers in the live webinar, who intend to watch the recording, but never do.
RW
I deal with this type of thing for internal company trainings all the time and it drives me crazy. What has seemed to work well is posting the presentation slides (if relatively short) or a one pager summary of some kind, with a few of the top questions asked during the session. It’s easy to put together, and even people who attend generally find it a helpful reference.
I just tell people who ask for recordings that we don’t record because we get better dialogue when we don’t record the session (which is true for my topics, but honestly the primary reason is doing the recording, editing, and storing is just more trouble than it’s worth for the few amount of views).
slidedocs
+1 to posting the slides vs. a recording, people won’t sit through it later. Zoom also offers a transcript when you record, so you could clean up the transcript a bit and turn it into a public blog post vs. posting the recording. If you go with posting the slides, check out Nancy Duarte’s tips for turning them into slidedocs. One easy way to do this is just saving them out with the notes visible, so that people can read the deck like a short book. I agree that it depends on the amount of effort, but cleaning up a transcript or posting the slides + notes should be a pretty light lift. If you’re spending hours editing and uploading and sending and tracking, it’s probably not worth it. Unless the two people who view the content are your exact audience and it’s likely to make them spend more money with your firm, then I’d say default to using time required to record and share as your guideline.
MJ
Why don’t you do it live and post the recording after? It seems like when you record, people don’t tune in because there’s no urgency! Am I missing something? This is how most law firm CLE’s go.
Navy Skirt Suit
For when we dress up again, what are your favorite shoes to wear with a classic navy skirt suit? Links appreciated.
Anonymous
I cannot even remember what shoes I own anymore.
Anon
Animal patterns work well – snake print and tortoise shell
Senior Attorney
And even leopard, depending on where you’re going.
Anonymous
Snakeskin pointy toed flats. Mine are Rothys but I don’t think they have the exact style anymore.
anon
Nude for me. I also have a pair of gorgeous navy pumps that I bought on sale and literally never wore because my ankle was broken when I bought them, and then I left my stuffy law firm to start my own. I still think they’re gorgeous but haven’t been willing to take the plastic off the sole.
Joan Holloway
I love Ally shoes. I’d probably go w/ black if I were only buying one pair, but I really like the idea of this shade of brown with navy, too: https://www.ally.nyc/products/5-shades-of-nude-moxie-mocha/?variant=16792228888689
Anon
Thanks for sharing – never heard of that brand!
Anonyz
I love gray with navy, but it’s not easy to get the right shade. A lot of gray shoes have too much yellow undertone, when you need a blue undertone. In the winter I like a gray suede bootie.
Anonymous
Snake print or a textured beige shoe. Sidenote, I stopped wearing heels in my late 20s as a precaution – never had foot pain but didn’t want to hobble later in life. I have no regrets. I never got on the “black pump, navy suit” bandwagon and I hate having one pair of pumps for one suit (I have one navy suit). I like the CC Cormo (?) flats in snake print. I think it’s called the Julia. I have narrow heels and wide front like duck feet and these fit me well, not too pointy.
Formerly Lilly
Depends on your overall look. If you are fashion forward, I’d go with an animal print or
a high contrast color. For a classic look, oddly enough the answer is black. (See, the Duchess of Cambridge and other royals). Middle of the road: burgundy or a light tan. If you look at Brooks Brothers and filter for women’s navy suiting, you can see a variety of shoes with navy.
NY CPA
I like the look of cognac colored shoes with blue. And snakeskin sounds good. But I own neither so I struggle literally every single time I wear navy. I just end up wearing black shoes and feeling awkward. Occasionally, I wear burgundy suede pumps but they’re uncomfortable.
Anonymous
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UVCK4AS/ref=asc_df_B00UVCK4AS1597489200000?tag=stylight2017-20&ascsubtag=3f8a9a26-4bb5-4e79-a33a-090446ff9f3e&creative=395261&creativeASIN=B00UVCK4AS&linkCode=asn
But in a mauve color, which is much better. I also did not pay nearly this price. I wish I had gotten multiples.
Anon
Am I weird that I think black and navy look good together? Black shoes with navy suit, navy top with black pants, etc. I would go with M.Gemi black stelatto flats.
anon
Navy pumps with 3 inch heel. Jon Josef. All leather upper and sole, made in Spain.
Sasha
Hello hive–looking for advice on how to set boundaries around housecleaning during temporary cohabitation with my boyfriend.
My BF has temporarily moved to another city for work and I’ll be living there with him for all of October. For context, I will be WFH, he will be going into a work site 30 minutes away from the apartment. His company is covering almost all expenses including rent, so not a situation where I’m living on his dime. We are both 25.
He’s a pretty self-sufficient guy–clean, organized, knows how to cook basic stuff–so I was surprised to hear him make some comments that indicated he anticipates that I’d cook multiple times per week during the weekday and doing household cleaning while I’m living with him. I ignored it at first and it came up again a second time–so I basically told him that yes, I’d be happy to cook during the week when I feel like it, but that I don’t want the expectation to be that I’ll be cooking dinner from scratch for him multiple nights per week. I love to cook, and I cook for us a lot usually, but I really didn’t like that he assumed I’d be doing it. Likewise with cleaning up–I’ll spot clean and tidy up after myself but I am not coming all the way out here to be your live in maid!
The flip side is that yes, I am working from home, and have a relaxed enough job that it would be easy for me to prepare dinner each night so it feels like a bit of a silly hill to die on. I told him that I’m happy to pitch in my fair share with housekeeping, but I’m concerned about falling into gendered expectations of housework so early on during a trial run of living together. I saw this happen with my parents–my mom and dad both work equally demanding jobs but my mom does 80% of the housework, which I always saw as something I would want to do differently in my own relationships. He dropped the subject, but we left it at a “we’ll talk about this later”.
He’s not like this is in any other aspect of our relationship so this was super jarring. We’re planning to live together in the next year or two and I want to establish housework boundaries early–anyone have any advice?
Anonymous
This will be a great trial period. It’s certainly reasonable to expect that you trade off cooking duties. Or one person cooks and the other cleans up. And with a month there, you should find out if he has a cleaning service or if you will trade off cleaning duties. Having a conversation about how to split up household chores is a normal part of any living arrangement whether it’s colleges roommates or a romantic relationship.
Anonymous
So the only thing my husband and I ever agreed to is that everything can be renegotiated. We’re a team. There were periods in my life when I did a really large percent of household chores and cooked most nights (we generally both like the cooks don’t clean rule though). Now he does the bulk of childcare and laundry because I told him it was all too much. When he has to go back to commuting and I go back to court (and those sweet, sweet afternoons where cases settle quickly and no one is looking for me) we’ll probably change it up again.
All that is to say: make it clear that you don’t want to cook every night. It’s really easy to set these expectations when making a grocery list (“I was thinking leftovers on Monday, pasta on Tuesday and maybe takeout for Wednesday. What do you think?”)
anon
Since it’s been mentioned twice, I’ll throw out that my SO and I agreed that “he who cooks, cleans.” It came about after several rounds of him using every pan in the kitchen to prepare something that took way too long and then I end up cleaning up after a very late dinner. My cooking, on the other hand, tended to be quick and easy, tasty enough, healthy enough, and typically left a pot or maybe two when dinner was ready. This method does require adjusting other responsibilities, though, and I do think the “cook never cleans” works well for most people.
Anonymous
We do the whoever cooks also cleans system as well. DH makes a mess in the kitchen so I always found cleaning up after him to be unfair so we switched to alternating cooking nights with the cook also cleaning before bed (no overnight dishes)
Anon
Same here. I’m much better at cleaning as I go than my bf and I was starting to resent having to do way more dishes.
No Face
Let’s reframe this. While you two are living together, housework will need to be performed (including cooking). You should both be doing it. How you divide that up is just a matter of personal preference between the two of you, that should be discussed openly and amicably. Some people take turns, some people do things together, some people have entirely different responsibilities. If you can afford it, you can outsource the most laborious or disliked tasks. As long as its equitable, it’s good! If it turns out the division of labor was imbalanced in a way that one of you didn’t expect, divide it up a different way.
I personally like having completely different duties. I do all the thinking about food (meal planning, takeout vs cooking, etc) because I like it, for example, but I do not think about other things AT ALL. I have not done laundry in years. I did the “Third Shift” quiz and the result said we are 51%/49% in terms of splitting household responsibilities.
I would not assume that your guy is sexist or wants you to do all the work. It sounds like you do a lot of cooking, so he was excited for you to do a lot of cooking. Honestly, one of the best things about sharing a home is not having to do all the work yourself.
Equestrian Attorney
So my SO doesn’t cook at all. He basically lived off PB&J or takeout before living with me. It’s not my favorite thing about him, and I’m working on teaching him a few basics (and cursing his parents for not thinking that some ability to make a meal was a basic life skill). I’ve been cooking a lot during pandemic (time to kill and I like to cook) but when I’m busy with a file, he has to come up with something (usually take out, honestly, but sometimes it’s grilled cheese and a salad). When I cook, he cleans. He handles other things about the house, so it’s not the hill I want to die on because I really enjoy cooking, but there has to be a balance somewhere. I think communication is important here – when he moved in we had a conversation about how I enjoy cooking and he clearly doesn’t, but (1) he has to step up in other areas (dishes, laundry, groceries, etc) and (2) this can’t be an expectation – sometimes I’m busy with work or tired and I don’t cook and he needs to deal with it. He has held up his end of the deal so far but I can see how we might need to revisit this when work gets busier for me.
anon8
The expectation part is a bit of a flag for me. I’ve been WFH since March but due to the nature of my husband’s job he has to go into the office. Since I’m at home, it’s easy for me to get dinner started between 5-6 when my day ends. I don’t really enjoy cooking but I try to do it during the weekday. However, my husband never expects me to cook. Sometimes I’ll tell him before I leave for work that I have dinner covered. Or he’ll check in at the end of the day to see if he needs to pick up any carry out.
I think you need to hold firm that you’re happy to cook but there may be days it’s not going to happen.
A for the cleaning, I really don’t have advice because I don’t mind cleaning. I clean as I go when I cook and clean up after myself when I’m at home. Once a week, I’ll run the sweeper and clean the kitchen floors.
anonshmanon
there are a lot of un-addressed details here. ‘We’ll talk about it later’ is exactly how you fall into patterns that create resentment. What division do you both view as fair? Does it make a difference that your job is more flexible and has no commute? Can you find common ground on what the division should be? (Does he maybe think you owe him, for sharing ‘his’ perk of expense-free living with you?)
Did he expect you to cook purely because you’ve been cooking for the two of you with regularity? I understand that it’s nicer to cook when you feel like it and not have it be a chore, but it’s also reasonable to agree on a plan of some sort, rather than negotiating who is responsible for dinner at 6:30 when both sides are hangry (maybe I’m projecting!).
Likewise with cleaning. Everyone cleans up after themselves is a good start, but actual cleaning may be needed to fulfill your or his standard of cleanliness. How much and what exactly, is worth explicitly discussing. My dude was very apprehensive going into this discussion, thinking I would hold him to his mom’s standards of weekly dusting and car-washing. Luckily, we both have compatible low standards.
And I totally agree with the other poster that these things are not set in stone. Agree on something, live with it for a while and then ask each other ‘is this arrangement working ok for you?’. Change as your life changes.
Walnut
On the cooking side of the house, you guys might spend some time meal planning for the upcoming week and also decide who is going to cook the meal you’re planning.
Definitely use this opportunity to communicate early and often. Work on addressing items when you notice them, not holding back until you’re resenting the clutter on the coffee table. It takes time to build systems that work for both of you.
As an example, I abhor papers and piles of things on the kitchen counter. My now husband wasn’t super happy that I was constantly pushing everything into drawers he wasn’t expecting, so our compromise was a basket for his things.
Coach Laura
I would say that it is a red flag if “he anticipates that I’d cook multiple times per week during the weekday and doing household cleaning while I’m living with him.” I think a lot of couples start out thinking they’ll be equal and then, for some reason, the women gets “assigned” more of the housework. It could be because of being unemployed for a period, or having a baby and being on maternity leave, or even working at home. Just because you don’t have a commute and he does, does not mean you should take on 30-60 minutes more a day of housework. Sure, if you had kids together and one person commutes 1-2 hours a day and the other didn’t, you could take that into account in your “household contribution calculus.” But you two are not there yet and setting unrealistic expectations up front may come back to bite you.
anon
I need a gut check. DH’s cousin is getting married in 5 weeks and we are debating not going. The wedding will be a large Catholic ceremony 1.5 hours from our house. This is relevant because of a) the size of event; b) the amount of time that will be spent together indoors.) DH is closer to this cousin than his others, and I know the cousin really looks up to DH, so it would be a gut punch to not go. Unfortunately, the rest of DH’s family is not taking social distancing seriously AT ALL. One of them has already picked up COVID at a bridal shower. The other cousins are bar hopping, going to bachelorette parties, and traveling to hot spots in Georgia without a care in the world. They are of the mindset that they can’t stop their lives for a pandemic. Their parents are equally bad in different ways — they live in a small town and think it can’t happen to them … even though it has?!
The cousin getting married is irate that the rest of the family isn’t taking it seriously. I already skipped his fiance’s bridal shower because I didn’t feel like it was safe, which ticked off DH’s aunts. I didn’t fully trust them before the pandemic, and I sure as he!! don’t now! If we skip the wedding, it will make waves with the extended family (not sure how much *I* care, but DH does to an extent).
What would you do? My FIL doesn’t want to go, and my MIL is waffling. One of the reasons we’ve been conservative is to protect them. They are high-risk individuals and rely on DH’s help for a number of household tasks. As I’m typing this out, I’m thinking no way; it’s not worth it. But I fully realize that a family wedding is a big freaking deal to miss.
Anonymous
No way. Not in a million years. A large wedding inside? Perfect place to get 50 cases of Covid. I wouldn’t be apologetic either.
NYCer
+1. Zero chance I would go. I’m shocked a large wedding is even happening.
Anonymous
I would not go. I would send the couple a nice flower arrangement and heartfelt note about how you wish them the best in their new lives together, how much they mean to you etc. I would do that in addition to whatever gift you were going to get them.
Another option is for DH only to go and for him to go only to the ceremony. Avoiding the reception reduces risk. He can mask for the ceremony and that lowers his risk.
Anon
Hell to the no. You plan a big irresponsible wedding right now, you need to deal with the consequences – that people WILL NOT GO. What on earth is going through people’s heads…
Anon
Can just DH go and make it brief (and masked)?
Anon
Have you ever sat through a Catholic ceremony? “Brief” is not the word that comes to mind.
anon
Exactly this.
Anon
There are 2 ceremonies – one is short! I think people tend to choose the full mass because they want to get their money’s worth though – no one enjoys it so that can’t be why. :)
anon
I thought about this option. We are a family of four and I am trying like he!! to keep our kids in school, you know? I don’t know what his family is thinking. The groom’s sister is pregnant and has barely changed her lifestyle at all. She’s been going to big weddings all summer long. I know she’s 26 and still thinks she’s invincible but COME ON. It’s idiotic.
Anon
No brainer– don’t go. Who cares if they get mad? Selfish to go on with the wedding. That 50 person reception in Maine is known to have fatally sickened someone who didn’t even go but caught it from someone Who did. Who all will die as a result of this wedding???
Monday
There were 65 attendees at that event, where the state limit is 50–hence the hotel being cited. But yes, it is now linked to 2 other outbreaks and is responsible for a death as you mentioned. I just can’t imagine knowing that my wedding caused someone’s death, in a predictable and preventable way, whom I didn’t even know. Why would anyone even consider this?
Anon
And it’s not even just the wedding attendees and their families who are impacted. It’s now led to a massive outbreak in a nursing home AND a jail on the other side of the state! Hundreds of people are probably eventually going to get sick, and dozens may die as a result of this one wedding. I actually know someone who was infected as a direct result, and they had no connection to the wedding or any of the guests. It’s absolute MADNESS to have a wedding right now.
Anon
I would go to the ceremony, as there is probably enough space at the church to socially distance, then skip the reception.
Anonymous
Church is just about the most dangerous place you can be right now.
Anon
Citation, please.
anon
cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6920e2.htm
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/us/coronavirus-churches-outbreaks.html
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/05/health/ohio-church-coronavirus-spread/index.html
I could keep going if you want…
Anonymous
Literally just google it
Anon
Yeah, you can literally just google it, but also if you’re going to make a blanket statement like that show your work.
Anon
That does not prove that “church is just about the most dangerous place;” it shows that there were outbreaks at three churches. There are almost 50,000 Christian churches in America, not to mention any number of mosques, temples, or other religious institutions.
You want to prove relative danger compared to, say, office buildings, restaurants, gyms, or other activities people engage in. You also want to demonstrate that a church with social distancing is more dangerous than, say, a restaurant with social distancing.
Again: citation, please.
Anon
Do your own research. It’s incredibly, incredibly obnoxious to deal with covidiots who insist “but can you PROVE beyond a SHADOW OF A DOUBT that it’s the MOST dangerous????!”
Anon
Churches being risky is a widely known at this point. If you’ve somehow missed that information, you can do the googling yourself & come back when you’re caught up.
Anonymous
Absolutely no way. And this line is confusing me: “ The cousin getting married is irate that the rest of the family isn’t taking it seriously.” so the cousin wants everyone to quarantine so they can safely have a wedding? Because hosting an event like this right now falls pretty squarely into “not taking it seriously.”
anon
Well, that’s a fair point. They are moving ahead with plans for the wedding, but one can definitely argue that it’s not wise.
LaurenB
No way would I go. Anyone with any common sense who insists on a wedding right now is doing a brief outdoor thing with parents/siblings only, social distancing/masks, no reception beyond maybe a celebratory glass of champagne, over and done. Who cares about offending a bunch of ignorant hicks?
Anonymous
Do you think OP appreciates you calling her family ignorant hicks?
anon
OP here. I really didn’t appreciate that remark, by the way. I see plenty of people in cities making the same dumb decisions so please don’t blame it on them being “hicks,” which is just rude and gross.
Anon
God, LaurenB – I’d liked you so much more lately, but here we go back again with the “ignorant hicks” language. Newsflash: these people might be making poor decisions, but you don’t get to call them hicks, or characterize all southerners as ignorant.
anon
This exactly. Hosting a big wedding isn’t taking it seriously, he’s just prioritizing what he wants and the risks he wants everyone else to take. Not cool. That kind of hypocrisy alone would make me not want to attend, or at least, feel less bad about declining.
anon
100% percent no way, no how. We are actually having to make this exact same decision, and we will be skipping DH’s cousin’s Atlanta wedding in September. It’s the first family wedding since FIL (one of the brothers/uncles) died and it’s a huge event. We would LOVE to be there. Btu the utter disregard for safety is absolutely, totally mindboggling. It’s a giant wedding and the entire wedding party and extended families think that, while the virus is real, “you can’t live your life in fear.” Selfishness knows no limits, it would seem.
Equestrian Attorney
Don’t go. No need to make a big deal or apologize, just say you are not comfortable attending this type of event and that’s it.
It’s driving me insane that people are still having these kids of parties. My 80+ grandparents were going to travel for the weekend and attend a 250+ giant catholic mass in a church plus a ceremony (outdoors, but potentially in a tent if it rains) and would have to stay overnight in a hotel. We firmly told them not to go, but they were devastated because it’s their dear friends and they’ve know the bride since she was a baby. I just don’t understand why people insist on holding these right now. I know weddings are important and expensive to plan, but do you really want everyone you know and love getting sick because of your life event?
Anon
That’s why I am more pissed at the brides and grooms who keep holding these events. I totally, 100% understand why people want to attend weddings for their dear friends – of course they do! It should be on the bride and groom to say “we’ll celebrate in 2022 and can’t wait to see you then.”
Anonymous
I follow my wedding photographer (from two years ago) on Instagram, not to mention pictures from friends on Facebook, and the number of pictures of large weddings with no one wearing a mask in Georgia blows my mind. Yes, they’re mostly outdoors (or under a tent), but there are some indoor ones and ugh.
Anon
It’s all of our faults – I mean, as a society – because we have tolerated and fostered the idea that “me, me, me” self-centeredness is acceptable for wedding couples and that no event in life is more important than a wedding. Both of my grandmothers got married during WWII; they got married in their parents’ parlors wearing suits they already owned. Guess why? Because there was a major national crisis going on and resources had to be diverted away from frivolous activities like weddings; there were bigger priorities. Both marriages lasted over 50 years. I am disgusted by people continuing to have weddings – even after several have been identified as “super-spreader” events; even when some gotten shut down by public authorities – but I’m not surprised by it. The families and subcultures that condone massive months-long wedding-focused event parades – engagement parties, multiple showers for the bride AND the groom; destination bachelor and bachelorette parties; weekends of wedding activities starting the Thursday before the wedding and continuing into the Sunday afterward, etc. have created these ego-monsters. There’s no way they’re going to let something like a global pandemic stop them from having Their Special Day.
anonchicago
I would go – masked – and sit in the back. My experience with church weddings (I’m Catholic) is that the guests rarely take up more than 4-5 pews on each side. It’s possible to social distance in a normal size church though some people may not like that. I would not take communion, not shake hands, and plan to sanitize after the service, but assuming I was in good health, I would absolutely go. I would be hurt to miss a family member’s wedding if I were able to attend and take precautions.
Mrs. Jones
No I would not go. Having a big indoor wedding is insane right now.
Anon
You could ask if you can FaceTime in or other way to digitally connect, as a show of good faith. I would not go, for sure. Weddings are important but more important is not dying, or spreading something that could hurt others.
Aunt Jamesina
I just passed over my cousin’s (100 person, which is illegal in my state) wedding last weekend with an indoor ceremony and partially outdoor (95 degree!) reception. I’m close to her and was sad to miss out, but NO. EFFING. WAY. A number of extended family members who went have been the type to post anti-mask rhetoric and that COVID is like the flu.
It’s not worth it. It sucked, but I tried to remember that it was my cousin’s fault for putting everyone in this position. My mother (who has been very cautious) ended up going and doing a strict quarantine for two weeks after because of family pressure and said she would feel bad if she didn’t go. She says she wishes she hadn’t, because despite her wearing a mask and distancing, others weren’t at all taking those precautions.
I’m sorry. This sucks.
Anon
you should’ve tipped off authorities to have them shutdown the wedding. all of these people deserve to get bad cases of covid
Aunt Jamesina
Someone else in my extended family actually did, but the wedding was held in a very conservative and rural county (in a blue state). Nothing happened to stop the wedding, so I’m not sure if the authorities will ever do anything about the church or venue. I can see online that the church has been holding in-person services since June. It sucks.
No Face
I would not even consider going.
Anon
Same. This would be the easiest decision I’ve had to make all pandemic.
anon
+1. I refuse to be around people who are behaving like the cousins OP described, no exceptions.
Anon
+1
I think a litmus test for me for stuff like this would be, if me or anyone there got COVID, is it possible it would be a news story? Would people even feel bad for me that I got it, or think some form of serves them right?
If the answer to those two things is yes and no respectively, that’s my sign that it is not worth doing or the right thing to do.
Anonymous
Your cousin and his fiance and their families are selfish jerks. You should not risk your own family’s safety just to please selfish jerks.
anon8
No way. Yeah it sucks to miss a wedding, but that’s the state of things these days. A lot of people are postponing weddings until next year. I can’t believe cousin is even going forward with a large wedding like this.
Anon
honestly, i hope all attendees deserve to get very very sick/die from covid. i generally don’t wish bad on anyone, but i am tired of all of these people ignoring guidelines and rules. and it does have the potential to effect me, because what if we go to the same dentist etc.
Anon
I reach that point often as well (for better or worse – I just can’t muster up any sympathy to care about the rightwing crazies who think COVID was made in a lab to hurt Trump). More often, though, I get pissed at people who don’t do jack sh*t to distance, be safe, etc. and then have the gall to ask for thoughts and prayers when they get sick. It would be like sticking your hand into a fire even though everyone begged you not to and then setting up a GoFundMe for your burn injury medical care. Just eff off.
Anonymous
Did you see about the wedding in Maine that led to dozens of cases and at least one death so far? No thanks.
Senior Attorney
This. No way would I even consider going.
hi hi hi
Not sure you need any more support in your decision not to attend, but I’m firmly on the No side. I moved my wedding to fall of next year (we’d be about a month away now if we hadn’t).
Anonymous
I say don’t go, and if anyone gives you pushback you can always make a super sad face and say that, when it’s so hard to know if you’re contagious and asymptomatic, the possibility you could endanger the health of so many people you care about is just too great. When they push further, just look sadder and sadder and say that you just love them too much to put them at any kind of risk. Any at all! You’re sure they understand!
Anon
I would not in a million years consider going to this. I live in a northern state that is a prior hot spot and am only interacting indoors/without masks with my husband, parents, and sibling (what do you call your former nuclear family before you got married?). I’m 30 and healthy but this virus could hospitalize or kill me or someone I love.
anon
Thank you for the reality test, everyone. I didn’t feel good about it to start with, but it’s nice to have confirmation that I’m not crazy for thinking this is a terrible idea. I’ll admit it — I am really steamed about DH’s family’s lack of care and concern. They live in a more rural county, the wedding is in a (different) rural county, and there is a strong streak of “it can’t happen to me.” Meanwhile, DH and I live less than an hour away from them but are dealing with vastly different issues and making tons of personal and professional sacrifices. My grandpa died in June. Guess what? He did not get the big church funeral he deserved because of covid. It was a small graveside ceremony with immediate family only, socially distanced, no gatherings afterward to grieve and cry together. I will never get over the unfairness of it.
Anon
I’m so sorry for your loss. You are making the right choice not to go, and standing strong will make it easier for your MIL and FIL to also stay away – a decision that could very well save their lives,
If your cousin looks up to your husband I’d encourage your husband to call and say your family can’t attend and that he’s concerned that people are going to get sick or die as a result of this wedding and he supports the couple postponing or changing the plan and will help them do so and stand up to any family that bashes them.
(another) testing question
Separate from the discussion above, I am wondering if DC-area folks know of places that can do rapid testing in the absence of known exposure or symptoms? I have to go somewhere soon for work where I won’t be able to return for some unknown period of time (think deployment, but non-military) and am trying to see a high-risk relative before leaving. I’d be driving to them directly, would be visiting outdoors, but still don’t want to go unless I have a test and negative results first out of an abundance of caution.
VA Anon
McLean Pharmacy in Virginia will do rapid testing for travel for either $250 or $500, depending on how quickly you need results. You do need an appt.
anon
Not sure how quickly you need the results but I’m hearing that DC’s walk-up testing locations are getting results around in about 1-2 days currently. If you create an online account with LabCorp you can see your results on there before DC sends the notice.
AnonMPH
We got tested through allcare in early August. Was not rapid testing. You have to make a telemedicine appointment first, then on the appointment they will give you a time slot to come in for a drive through test. We weren’t really in a rush (we’re doing a strict two week quarantine before seeing my high risk parents) so we made a monday telemedicine appointment, then requested an after work time slot on Wednesday for the testing 6pm). Got our results on Saturday (me), Sunday (husband). That was while the end of the big testing backlog was still happening so imagine it would be a bit quicker now. And I think we could have gotten tested the same day as our telemedicine appointment if we’d been more flexible on timing. Also, I’m not 100% sure but believe the only cost was a $25 copay. Did not have to pretend to have symptoms, just said we were traveling. I have several other friends who have used AllCare.
AnonMPH
We were doing a strict quarantine*
BabyAssociate
I’ve been tested at One Medical a few times. I had the results from my most recent test back in less than 48 hours and it was covered by insurance.
Anon
Not the rapid testing, but I used DC’s free walk-up testing and got my result in 48 hours. You have to fill out some information about what if any symptoms you have, but you don’t need to have any symptoms to get the test. They’ll tell you it takes 5-7 days to get the results though, so no guarantee you’ll get them quickly.
Test
Very late reply, but the public Facebook group Arlington Neighbors Helping Each Other Through COVID-19 has a bunch of threads for places where you can get rapid testing in Northern Virginia.
confused anon
I consider myself quite liberal on most issues, but I’d say that most of my friends who are vocal on social media are further to the left than I am.
I’ve been seeing a lot of posts on social media about the immorality of landlords. Not specific landlords who don’t keep their buildings up to code and treat their tenants poorly, but landlords as a concept, and that “it’s immoral to profit off of the basic need of shelter.” I’m really confused – who is going to rent apartments to tenants other than landlords? I completely understand frustration with landlords who engage in fraudulent and unethical behavior and think those landlords should face the consequences. I also understand the concern around what will happen to people being evicted during this pandemic. But I’m not seeing how landlords can be painted as unequivocally bad. I saw one video of protesters outside a LA courthouse blocking a landlord from entering to file eviction papers and this was being lauded as heroic.
This also hits close to home because my family owns one property that we rent out. The tenant has paid rent regularly up until now, and given the pandemic, we don’t want to evict her. We feel it would be callous to evict her without trying to work out something else. We’re in the process of working out an alternate agreement so that she can stay and either pay rent later or some other option. However, we also can’t allow her to stay indefinitely if she stops paying rent. I think that seems reasonable. With a previous tenant who ran into hard times, we offered a grace period to pay the owed rent after he found another job. Doing business like this, to us, seems like a good balance between realizing our investment in buying the property and being reasonable people with some compassion.
What am I missing here? Do people really think that tenants are entitled to stay in apartments they’re not paying rent for? I want to people to be able afford safe housing, and I support a livable wage so that even workers making minimum wage can afford to house their family. But am I really supposed to let tenants stay in my property for months on end rent-free? Given the pandemic, I’d say there should be some rent relief fund – it’s not fair to expect landlords, especially small landlord with just one or two properties, to eat the cost of housing tenants without receiving rent.
TLDR: What’s with this take that being a landlord is inherently immoral?
Anon
I agree with you. I really feel for the tenants who are struggling (I’m a renter myself and I get how it’s stressful in a way that owning isn’t), but painting landlords as these awful slumlords sitting on mounds of cash is just inaccurate and wrong. I’m not sure how small-time landlords are supposed to make their mortgage payments.
I’ve found that sometimes progressives (of which I am one) just parrot certain popular tropes, though. The one that’s bothered me lately is the whole narrative around how looters are disadvantaged and we should feel sorry for them and see looting as a symptom of the disease of poverty. Yes, to a point, but when looters are tearing through my grandparents’ neighborhood in the wake of a historic wildfire looking for the valuables people left behind when they had to flee for their lives, I just don’t feel that sympathetic, you know? There’s such a thing as agency.
Anonymous
I like the small-time landlords I’ve had and appreciate the opportunity to rent. But aren’t most landlords “big time”? Giant national corporations who develop with no regard for local communities or the comfort of their tenants?
anon
I agree with you, and I don’t have a horse in this race (meaning, I am not a landlord myself). There are indeed unethical landlords out there, but let’s not paint them all with a broad brush. I am a progressive-leaning moderate, btw.
Anonymous
I just don’t know what the alternative would be? Everyone lives in government housing unless you own a home? That seems impossible under the current system or any extension of it.
No Face
I have thought this many times when I see my liberal/progressive friends post this kind of stuff. Is the alternative that the government is the only landlord? That sounds far worse to me.
Go for it
Flame ready:
If you own a home (I do) and have a mortgage in the United States it IS a government subsidy precisely because of mortgage interest being a tax deductible item. It is unpopular to call it a “subsidy” despite it being so.
Anon
Tax deductions are not subsidies. Tax credits are.
Anonymous
Plus the new standard deduction means that most homeowners no longer take it.
Anonymous
A tax deduction is a form of tax subsidy.
anonshmanon
Wikipedia lists all tax breaks (exemptions, deductions, credits) as indirect subsidies, citing a dictionary of economics.
JB
I was complaining about a similar concern on social media posts seeming so extreme. Had a really smart friend remind me that 1) this is a minority of people that post frequently, 2) comments on social media aren’t necessarily “true” and very rarely reflect nuance, and 3) you can just ignore them
confused anon
These are good points. Social media is definitely not the place for multiple sentences/paragraphs of nuance per post.
Anonymous
I’m with you but in a similar boat. My dad owns a few small commercial buildings that have small apartments and part of one larger luxury building. It’s been really rough for him financially. We live in ny where rent laws are really protective of tenants, and I genuinely think that’s an ethical thing with regard to residential tenants. With regard to commercial tennats, I think it stinks that it takes months and months to evict a commercial tenant whose business is closed. Its a loss for the entire community and I really don’t get it.
But no, I don’t think renting residential property is morally problematic as a rule. After, most of his luxury tenants can more than afford to own a home, but choose to rent. And the others are usually young people thrilled to be in a downtown setting for a few years.
Anonymous
A lot of small landlords in my city are mom and pop landlords who may lose their rental properties if the tenant doesn’t pay, so the tenants can’t stop paying indefinitely without consequences. I read a lot of “sticking it to wall street” but it’s often not wall street who is your landlord. And these small landlords may eventually lose their own houses since they are personally liable for the loan (unlike corporate landlords, who borrow with recourse only to the assets), adding to the number of tenants seeking shelter.
confused anon
Yes, precisely. Also, I feel like this is becoming increasingly common among retirees to keep some income coming in in old age. So more often than you think, the landlord is someone’s grandparent renting out one smaller building than a huge mean corporation out to rip off people.
anon
I don’t love the radical left rhetoric of demonizing people who operate within the current system, but I find it easy to imagine a world where basic needs (food and water, healthcare and shelter) are provided for free to everyone. It’s not realistic due to many factors, but ‘the world/the country can literally not afford it’ is not one of these factors.
Anonymous
I lean to the right, and I kind of see the whole thing as ridiculous, but I guess I could kind of see an argument that landlords buying up properties to rent out to people means that the market is artificially propped up by a few rich people, and therefore keeping people from being able to own houses at prices that could be afforded if they weren’t forced into renting due to out-of-reach prices?
confused anon
I see what you’re saying.
But then who would spend to build apartment building/complexes if not landlords? The same amount of space could be used to house 20 families rather a 3 SFH lots.
Anon
Housing developers?
anonshmanon
housing coops are another option. You can run them as non-profits, there are many versions of this concept around the world.
anon
On the other hand, I own a rental property with 3 units that rent from $900 to $1400/mo, in a near suburb of a MCOL city (10 minutes to downtown). If I couldn’t pay the mortgage, the bank would take the house and sell it in foreclosure, likely to a developer who would turn it into luxury town homes. A new 2200-2700 square foot town home in that neighborhood would sell for $500K-600K. By keeping the rental property, I’m preserving a 90-year-old home, preserving the green space on the lot (town homes are always built to the four corners of the property), and keeping housing that’s decently affordable for people making $40-60K per year.
AnonMPH
I think it’s more that people are up in arms that people are being evicted during a pandemic when millions of people have lost jobs through no fault of their own. They shouldn’t be evicted, but landlords (especially small ones) shouldn’t be expected to go under…this is what we should actually be spending relief money on. But of course, congress isn’t getting it together so people will become homeless.
anon
+1
HW
I am not one of those people posting on social media, but I do think there is a wealth gap issue here. Landlords are able to earn income and build equity (thereby increasing their wealth) by virtue of owning property. People who can’t buy their own homes don’t get to build that equity, which is an important source of wealth. Instead, that money goes to their landlords. Especially over generations and with the backdrop of unequal access to home ownership in the US, these differences add up. I can see how there may be a systemic problem with this model.
Anonymous
How do you propose this gets remedied? All private property gets taken away? Everyone gets a free apartment? They would have to be “equal”, but how would that work?
HW
I don’t know how to fix it, I’m just saying that I can see how it’s a problem.
Anonymous
Is that the landlord’s fault though? In my family, we had to move around a lot. My parents would have lost a ton of $ if they had to buy a house and then move again in 2-3 years (not military) repeatedly. Renting saved them $. Yes, they didn’t build up equity then, but they also just paid for the housing they needed (vs my friends who bought their “forever home” of 3-4 bedrooms when they were just an engaged couple and a cat and then struggled to heat and furnish it and then wanted to sell at a loss when a better job opened up elsewhere or had to have it sitting on the market affecting their credit score). IDK that one is better. Certainly if your life is stable and you aren’t moving cities or changing family size, you build up equity by owning, but many of us spend decades of our lives waiting for that stability. The last recession was not better for many homeowners.
Anon
I hear ya. I’m one of those accidental landlords leftover from the great recession. My old house is in an area which never really recovered economically. I would prefer to not have the headache, but since I do, I make sure to do things right – the house is well maintained (in some ways it’s nicer than my current house), I charge rent that’s the low end of what the market will bear so as to attract a good pool of qualified tenants, I am pet friendly, anything that breaks is fixed promptly and I’m not in my tenants’ business.
Unless you own your house free and clear, we’re all renters. I am renting the money I used to buy my houses. That’s what a mortgage is.
Aunt Jamesina
I think it’s misdirected frustration at rising rents when wages haven’t kept up, especially in high COL areas. For most people, it’s their biggest bill by a wide margin, and it’s easier to blame the authorities closer to your situation than recognize that it’s a more nebulous systemic issue.
I’m very liberal, but I think people tend to forget that if they have a non-corporate landlord, said landlord is likely just breaking even on the property, and is really only looking at their rentals as a long-term investment for gains in real estate value, not for monthly profit. I think those who might be younger and/or haven’t been able to experience purchasing real estate might not fully understand what being a landlord and the ongoing maintenance owning a property entails.
Aunt Jamesina
… and I also agree with other posters that some of the frustration stems from people who feel shut out of wealth building through property. Even though my dad’s two small rental properties are a lot of work for him to keep up with and he isn’t wealthy, he has access to credit and disposable income to support multiple properties.
Seventh Sister
In my area, a lot of the mom-and-pop landlords are people who are renting out their parents or grandparents’ house and thanks to Prop 13, the property tax rate hasn’t changed. This house in Malibu is an extreme example, but it’s pretty common that Kiddo in Encino rents out Dad’s house in Westwood.
https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-california-property-taxes-elites-201808-htmlstory.html
cbackson
I may not get all of this right because it’s been a long time since I studied it, but the idea that landlords/rent are inherently immoral comes from the labor theory of value, which is a concept in Marxist economics that only economic activity that requires labor is societally useful. Because landlords generally make their money off of an asset that they own, that is deemed not to require labor and not to be societally useful. The leap to “and immoral” is what generally makes LTV an ethical theory, not just an economic one (although most economic theories in my view are heavily based on or bundled up with ethical judgments).
If anybody knows more about this or remembers it better, I would love to hear more; this is just my recollection from a long-ago econ class.
I eyeroll the LTV ranters on Twitter fairly heavily; we’re never going to abolish rent in this country (or at least not in my lifetime or, I’d say, my children’s lifetimes, unless we go in a very different direction with our economic system) and I get annoyed by how they tend to state the LTV as a fact rather than an ethical position.
Whether the basic means of survival and participation in society (food, shelter, medical care, education) should be allocated through free market capitalism is another question, and that’s a very worthwhile discussion, but most of the current “rent is immoral” stuff I see on social really does seem rooted in LTV (based on the rhetoric and arguments used) and not in that question.
Anonymous
+ 1, this is Marxism 101. We have public housing and it’s not that great.
I am also seeing a lot of Marxism 101 posts about how it’s wrong to make money off the labor of others. The alternative to that is the state owning and managing all commercial activities. That mostly works here for utilities and other shared services but that would put economic development in the hands of politicians.
Anon
Yeah I have friends who post this stuff too and I just…can’t. It’s so obnoxious and entitled, people are bending over backwards to victimize themselves and this is just another example. A neighbouring house is actually occupied by squatters (aka people who won’t pay their rent), and there are a lot of problems at that property which have really soured me on tenant rights.
Anon
I have lived in an apartment complex where the ratio of professional landlords were too high, causing the buildings upkeep and value to deteriorate, decreasing the value of other owners’ property. One of the reasons for this was that the professional landlords (not mom and pop style landlords) refused to spend money on basic upkeep of common areas, proper locks, cleaning, safety issues. Other owners (both own home and landlords) were vetoed and couldn’t get support for investing in proper long term maintenance of the building.
In addion these landlords often rented to government assisted renters who had lots of trauma and low community compentence or experience in terms of keeping their apartment or the building or outdoors safe or clean. (These renters absolutely should get access to good housing in safe buildings, but the volume in a single building on top of the the landlords vetoing all useful maintenance expences, did change the living experience a lot.)
Seventh Sister
I don’t think it’s inherently immoral, but I also think that being a small-time landlord is not the great investment people imagine that it will be when they buy rental property.
While I’ve had friends and family who have made modest amounts of income on rentals, but the only ones that seem to do well are the ones who inherited and/or bought cheaply decades ago in an area that is now very $$$$. In my neighborhood, the real estate costs are so high that even with a hot rental market, you just aren’t going to make a huge amount of money. It’s also a lot of work – stuff breaks.
Ghosted by Friend
I need some advice. i have a former co-worker turned close friend (and actually close, we only worked together for a short time but have been friends for longer and have talked about a lot of personal things) who all of a sudden stopped responding to my text messages about probably 6 weeks ago. I have messaged her a couple times to check in and say hello or in one instance, talk about a new development in the area we work in and I’m getting no response. My last message was 3 weeks ago and I realized life is too short to be petty so I messaged her again just saying hi on Monday and there was no response. I am not flooding her with messages – it’s been like 3 or 4 texts over the course of 6 weeks. I know she’s around and working because I’m the chair of a committee and she’s been at some zoom meetings and responding to emails.
So clearly it’s personal. My feelings are really hurt because I thought we were close friends and if she was upset by something I did (which I can’t figure out), I don’t know why she wouldn’t just mention it to me. We’re in our early 30s so it’s not like we can’t just have a conversation in person. I don’t know what to do – do I just leave it alone? Or ask her if there’s something going on?
Anonymous
Ask! Use your words! (and by the way, who knows what’s going on for her? I respond to work/volunteer emails and forget to respond to friends. Doesn’t mean I don’t love them; just means my depression is acting up).
Anon
+1 This.
Samantha
+1000 This. Times are tough and you don’t know how people are coping with everything right now, and many don’t want to share or feel like they’re “bringing others down.” One of my best friends – who I’ve only seen once since the pandemic started – said it best: I’m trying to give others grace during these times, and I hope they’re giving me the same grace. Let your friend know that you’re there for her, but understand if she can’t be there for you right now. No matter what, it’s best to ask.
Anonymous
I would move on. If she is ghosting you, I doubt you will get much of an answer. Life is too short and if she is the type of person to just stop responding, is this someone you want in your life?
Senior Attorney
I would ask what’s up and if she doesn’t respond, then there’s really no option but to let it go.
Ribena
Yep – this was me about a year ago. I’m terrified that it’s something I did and I’ll never know and then I’ll keep doing it and lose more friends – but there’s really no way to know. I did reach out once more at the start of the pandemic to say I hoped they and family were okay.
Anon
Just some anecdotal thoughts, but I have noticed over the last few months a few really close friends ghost my texts more than Before Times. I’m not terribly worried about it – they are like decades long really really good friends, and bc of the pandemic we definitely haven’t seen each other enough over the last few months for me to have done anything wrong. I think everyone just has a LOT going on (either physically or emotionally or both) and/or maybe mentally having a really hard time at this point in the pandemic, in which case cheerily replying to texts may just not be in their capacity.
I’m normally not one to push being friends with someone who is indicating they don’t want to be, and I don’t know what your case is, but I do think it is a phenomenon going on right now without bad intentions.
Anon
I have been experiencing this too. I have a decades long friend who is trans, queer, basically a professional activist (actually a women’s studies professor but spends a lot of time community organizing and protesting in a red state), she ghosts intermittently with no explanation lately. But I texted her today and she responded right away with “omg how are you!!” so must be having a good week.
Anon
I’ve been ignoring some texts because I don’t want to be put in a position of having to decline invitations and getting judged. A miss you text pretty soon becomes let’s go out to eat.
tesyaa
A close friend ghosted me about 15 years ago, and I just eventually gave up and realized she was never going to speak to me again. It’s not as if we had grown apart – she just stopped responding to me. (The weird thing is, she has occasionally seen my mother, who lives in her town, and been friendly, but my name never comes up). I was super hurt at the time. In retrospect, I don’t think I did anything to offend her, I think there was just something about her that didn’t want to maintain the friendship and there was nothing I could do to change that.
Anon
This happened to me too, my childhood BFF ghosted me without warning after HS graduation 15 years ago. About a year later she explained that she was mad at me at the time over something very petty. She had never even told me she was upset at the time, I didn’t know there was any issue. I would have 100% tried to make it right had I known, she was my closest, longest friend. But I was so shocked that she ended our friendship over something so small, it made me view her differently and realize I did not want her in my life even if she wanted to be. Ghosting (often) sucks.
KW
I posted on the moms’ site last week, but now I have a more general question. I’m having foot surgery next week and will be on crutches for a month afterwards. Any advice for navigating life on crutches? I drive to work (it’s my left foot, so I’ll still be able to drive), so will it be easiest to put all my stuff in a backpack to carry into the office? Any advice for showering or making life easier in general for that month? I have a prescription for a rolling knee scooter that I can use around the house.
Anonymous
Yes, everything needs to be in a backpack. Crutches are brutal. If you’re fully no weight bearing, your hands will never be free (and cross body bags slide around and are a pain). Can you work from home for a bit—everything is a pain, including getting rest room doors open, getting through entry and exit doors, getting printer output without hands, etc. It’s all exhausting. I had a boot, and could remove it for showering and Just made it work—I didn’t get a chair or anything. Once you can put a little weight on it—a lift for the other foot to make you even or just sneakers will help your back. I also borrowed my MILs cane once I could put a little weight on it so I had one hand free.
JB
You need a backpack to carry anything (even around the house) or scooter basket
Look into a scooter for the office as well (people might have extras)
Even standing to cook can be challenging, so plan on easy meals the first week and grocery delivery of prepared foods then see how you feel.
For showering, you likely will have a hard time stepping into the tub and balancing. Also your surgery spot likely isn’t allowed to be wet at first, so come up with a plan. I’d try either a stool in the shower or sitting all the way in the tub (need help getting up and down).
The hardest activities are when you need to use your hands while standing. The rest is straightforward
NY CPA
100% recommend the knee scooter. I had ankle surgery and was non-weight-bearing for 8 weeks, which was a nightmare. The knee scooter was a total game changer. It had a basket which was helpful for carrying small things, but a backpack is helpful for anything bigger. My ankle swelled like crazy inside my cast (not sure if this will be a problem for you), so it was nice to have the knee walker wherever I went so I could prop my foot up on it to prevent swelling. I was in grad school at the time and brought it with me to class or really anywhere. Crutches are exhausting!
Anonymous
Newbie kind of question but has anyone early voted before? My county (Arlington Va) just announced that it’ll set up 5 locations for early voting — 4 of them open in Oct and 1 opens in mid Sept. I’d like to get it done in Sept if I can because I’ve really been trying to avoid crowds etc. and right now I don’t trust that mail in ballots will get to me and get back to the election board in time to be counted (my second choice is get a mail in ballot but then drive it myself to the elections board — IDK if Arlington is allowing that; I know in NJ where my family lives, that’s totally an option).
Question — for early voting is it normally like every weekend for the month leading up to the election we’ll open the polls for one day 9-5? Or is it more like at the early locations, polls are open 9-5 5 days (or 7 days) per week so come when you can? I feel like in the past friends have early voted right before the election — like the weekend prior — and I always hear stories of — oh I arrived at 8 am and waited for 3 hours. Comparatively I have had LESS waiting timing ON election day.
This isn’t about waiting or not waiting. I don’t care if I have to wait 5 hours and my feet hurt, but given the pandemic and my health risk profile it’s more about minimizing time spent around people. FWIW masking in the area is really pretty good — so I think if lines queue up outside + people wear masks + and there’s even a few feet between people, it wouldn’t feel unsafe. I just think that if it’s an option, showing up to vote on a random Wed in Sept at 11 am when no one is thinking about it would be a “safe” option — IDK if that option exists though.
Anonymous
Totally depends on the state; just check with your local board of elections I’m in NC and our early voting runs for several weeks, i think 5 or 6 days a week, with multiple locations (though our Republican legislature has tried to cut back on it in recent years). I always vote early. There’s usually not a line during the week and is a line on weekends, but not a tremendously long one.
anon
+1 fellow NC early voter! I’ve occasionally had to wait in line on weekdays but it moves very quickly.
Anon
I’ve voted early in Florida before and it’s the best! Minimal lines, no crowds, I’m not rushing to get back to work. Here, the folks who staff the early voting locations are veteran pollworkers and they run it like a well-oiled machine.
Anonymous
Where I am (not VA), early voting is area-wide (so like 5 locations in the whole county, as opposed to a bazillion polling places where you are specifically assigned) and it it supposed to be “quieter” because it’s spread out over time. I agree that I have voted on election day with fewer lines and crowds than I have experienced early voting.
Anon
I always vote early, in my area (Midwest college town) they have it at the grocery store and there’s never any wait to vote early there. On campus the lines can be longer but still not as long as on Election Day.
Walnut
I’ve voted in nearly every way possible in various states. My favorite was when I could stop by the election commission at my convenience, fill out my ballot and drop it in the box. As far as mail in goes, if you request your ballot early and return it early, you should be fine. My state has a tracking mechanism associated with your ballot so you can check to see that yours has been counted appropriately.
Anon
I usually early vote during the week and always have to wait at least an hour. I live in a majority minority district in NC, though, the kind you usually see pictured on the news with obscenely long lines on election day. I’m not sure you can make any inferences from previous years, though. This year will clearly be very different due to the changes in poll workers and the number of people voting by mail so it will probably be worse, but could be better.
Carrots
Hi – fellow VA here (Alexandria!) If Arlington is set up similar to Alexandria, I just went over one day after work and walked into the elections division office and said I’d like to vote early. They had a whole room set up that looked like a polling place and I went through the same steps I would if I was voting on election day. They should have the hours they’re open up – I remember I stopped by sometime around 6-6:30, so it was open later into the evening.
BabyAssociate
You need to check with the Board of Elections for the exact hours. As an election worker, I would highly *highly* recommend voting early. It will be so much faster.
Horse Crazy
Looking for masks with soft ear loops. I see a lot of the ones recommended on here have elastic ear loops, which constantly irritate my skin. Thanks.
anon
If you can’t find soft ear loops, you may want to look for “ear savers” that cut down on the friction.
BB
Onzie masks. Made from yoga pants fabric and the ear loops are also the same fabric just made into “tubes.” So basically if folded up leggings material is soft enough for what you’re looking for, these should work!
Joan wilder
Nordstrom makes a store-brand version with soft, adjustable ear loops. These are my most comfortable masks I’ve gotten so far (but they do feel on the thin side so you may want to use with a filter. It has a filter pocket).
Anonymous
I purchased some of the Johnny was masks & cording so that I can swap out the ear loops. Pull out the elastic & replace with a 1yard long cord (up one side & down the other)…will create one loop that goes over the back of the head, and one set that ties behind the neck. More comfortable than anything that sits on the ears.
Anon
Why not get the kind with elastic around your head? I’ve found these to be much more comfortable than the kind with ear loops. Unfortunately, the ones I have like this are from LA Apparel. They’re far and away my favorite masks in terms of comfort and fit, but I can’t really recommend them, given the situation with their factory (and the previous issues with the company founder).
Aunt Jamesina
Dov Charney is massively problematic, but I find it interesting that people always bring up issues with LA Apparel’s factory (for those not in the know, it’s in the US and had two COVIDoutbreaks), but somehow are just fine recommending foreign-made masks that are likely produced under even worse conditions we’ll never find out about.
Anonymous
I think it’s okay to avoid retailers we know are terrible even though they are American.
Aunt Jamesina
I agree with you. I’m not saying anyone should feel compelled to purchase from LA Apparel after learning about their issues, I’m simply saying that factory conditions are likely even worse in most factories overseas and we’ll never, ever hear about it. Nobody ever brings up ethical issues with foreign-made masks even though I’d bet a lot of money that working conditions in most factories are significantly worse than LA Apparel’s.
Anon
I like the Etsy shop WestCoastClearance. The ear loops are made out of the same fabric as the mask which is a soft cotton/spandex-y blend, more like a t-shirt fabric than some of the other masks I’ve seen. A bonus is that the masks block light very well, which they’re now saying is a proxy for how well the masks work?
Anon
Atty in a hot spot here. It has been very stressful being expected to bill 2000+ hours this year despite the pandemic and court closures. However, this morning I had a telephonic status conference in a county 2 hours a way, that I normally would have to wake up VERY early and drive to (and bill travel time). I woke up at 8:50, dialed in, stayed in my PJs and sipped coffee. I was done at 9:20am and continued on with my day. It was so pleasant, efficient, stress-free. I think I would take a pay cut to do things like this forever and bill less. Driving to and attending court is “easy billing” but it is just so inefficient and stressful at times.
TheElms
You get to bill for driving to court? Don’t your clients push back?
Anon So Cal LItigation
Not OP but the majority of my clients allow billing for travel time unless it is something we could have handled remotely. There are a few exceptions (case is assigned to attorney in office #1 but venue is actually closer to office #2 so handling attorney has to bill as if traveling from office #2). In fact, my firm has started turning down clients who will not pay for travel time. I mean if I have to drive 2 hours to get to a deposition or court hearing then I am spending that time I cannot spend on something else. If it is a judgment call on whether to appear remotely I usually let my client know and let them make the choice.
We are not big law so billing more in the $300-$500 per hour range which might make it more palatable.
Anon
OP here, this seems fair. Good for your firm turning down clients who will not pay for travel time, that is how you retain good attorneys (espec. women)
Anon
Clients generally pay a certain rate for travel time, usually 50%. Firm credits attorneys for full hours though.
Anon
We bill for driving to court if it is outside of the county we live in or the county our office is in. We are up front about that when we are hired. If you want to hire me for a case 2 hours away, you are paying for that travel time!
Anon
Wow, I didn’t realize some people still got to bill for travel time.
Anon
OP, I miss travel for the hours too, but I don’t miss the stress of traffic, finding parking, and dealing with other unknowns ahead of an important hearing. I also echo your anxiety about billing 2000+ hours during this time of extreme stress and uncertainty, particularly when so many normal litigation-related events have been modified or postponed. It’s truly awful.
No Face
I really appreciate remote status conference. At my last one, the judge said she was going to use video for status conferences even after the pandemic is over. I approve wholeheartedly, especially when I switched to a firm with a lower billing minimum.
Anon
Not being able to bill for travel time is an insanely anti-worker concept and one of the main things that sounds crazy about biglaw.
Anonymous
You can record the time, it’s not like it just evaporates. It’s just not billable to the client.
Anon So Cal Litigation
While this can be true, this is not usually a law firm rule. It is imposed by institutional clients (mostly insurance companies). (They seem to have the bizarre notion that I can work efficiently on other cases while I am on the freeway.)
Some firms allow their associates full billable credit for those hours even though the hours are not being “billed” to the client. Some do not and yes, in those instances, it is insanely anti-worker. (And has resulted in the insanely high turn-over rate in the employment law department at a local firm that my offices poaches associates from all the time and is often cited as their reason for leaving. The partners there seem to think it is just great for them to get the business by waiving billing for travel and then make their associates eat hundreds of hours. We hired one woman who was routinely eating 20-30 hours a week because she was driving from San Diego to LA multiple times a week and could not bill for it and the train was not an option because her depositions were not downtown.)
Anon
Also a reason why biglaw has lower hours than insurance defense, where billing for travel time (outside of county office is located in) is generally allowed. At least that is my impression.As a 4th year my hours requirement is 2050, other 4th years have 2100. We literally do not have codes for non-billable stuff so that excludes any pro-bono, trainings, CLEs, or whatever else there is some firms allow as a portion of associate hours.
Of Counsel
And here I thought it was because Big Law associates get paid more than twice what my firm’s associates earn in exchange for our 1900 annual requirement.