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Updated: May 25, 2021 169 Comments · by

Coffee Break: Twill Lay Flat Travel Duffle Bag

Coffee Break |

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Vera Bradley has never been my style, per se, but I can see a lot to like here in this duffle bag (with travel sleeve, huzzah!), which is currently one of the most-bought items for May among readers. I'm always a fan of lightweight “extra” bags like this, and I also like colorful, printed ones — they're easy to distinguish at the bag check or inside of an overhead cabin. LeSportsac Weekender bags have been my go-to for years for this purpose, but I've always hated that they don't have a travel sleeve to fit on the top of a rolling bag like this. (I was always a fan of the XL size, but it looks like that the L size is much more common nowadays.)

So I'm DELIGHTED to see that more and more companies are coming out with travel sleeves — it's just such an intelligent feature. The Vera Bradley bags look nice and roomy, as well as lightweight, and they come in a nice variety of prints and colors. There's also something about a fun print that says “GETAWAY!” instead of “work travel,” which is always nice.

The pictured bag is on sale for $74, but there are a ton of other colors available for $82–$165. Nice.

Hunting for lightweight carry-ons with a trolley sleeve for your rolling bag? As of 2023, Tumi, Lo & Sons, Cole Haan, Vera Bradley, and Baggalini are your best bets if you're looking for quality — but here are some other options (including super affordable Amazon ones) below. (Kat has this one and likes it!)

Sales of note for 9.10.24

Sales of note for 9.10.24

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About Kat

Kat Griffin is the founder, publisher, and editor-in-chief of Corporette. You can read more about her here.

Comments

  1. Anon

    My boss is letting me try my hand at project management. There is an existing tracker with a few dozen initiatives to sort out and complete, with about 10 people who will be involved. It will take a few months. I’m a very organized person and I have watched project managers over the last few years in my department, so I have an idea for how I think I will approach this, but my boss seems to have full confidence in me and has encouraged me to “be me” and “manage this how I feel is appropriate.” Any tips from project managers or those who have been involved in group projects like this? Any do’s or don’ts? I’m very excited about this and view it as an opportunity to shine and show I’m capable of the next promotion level.

    • anon

      My answer will be biased. If you are grasping around about filling the agenda of a meeting, just skip the meeting please. If this happens for a standing meeting, it’s a sign to move it to every three weeks, or just make it 20 minutes long or whatever.

      • Anonymous

        Build in clear progress check points for the project anytime you have a dependency and makes plans to pad or adjust in advance-so if you’re, say, two weeks behind on interviewing, then you’re not stuck with being two weeks behind on writing. Otherwise, delays will snowball, accountability will begin to loosen and folks at the end of the project will be unfairly slammed, possibly beyond what’s possible.

        I also find working with Smartsheet helps since I can set auto email reminders. I don’t have to even think about reminding someone two weeks out or 1 week out from a due date–I can set up the software to email them a reminder. (And they don’t have to feel like I’m nagging.)

    • accidental pm

      Good luck! This is how I got into project management too. Some random things I learned (and enforced) around the way:

      – Every meeting needs an agenda. Have meetings end at the “fast meetings” setting on Google Calendar.
      – Ask stakeholders who are not speaking up for their thoughts or if they have any concerns. I very quickly developed a reputation as someone who would not freak out or react badly no matter how dire the issue was (and this happens in my field) which helped a lot
      – At the end of each meeting make sure you have planned next steps and know who is going to do them.
      – Relating to the whole “not reacting badly” thing have people give you time estimates, but if there is a legitimate reason why they can’t make it, be flexible about it. Don’t promise upper management unrealistic deadlines – I usually add a few days or whatever is appropriate to upper management.
      – Figure out a way to publicly but in a low-pressure way track what is going on – whether its the tracker youve been given or JIRA tickets or somewhere else. I felt like the biggest compliment was when someone told me it was much easier to onboard on to my projects than to other ones because the data was all there.

    • Anon

      Be very clear about when people need to respond / do something, including when appropriate saying “if I hear no concerns by X, I will do Y”. A lot of projects get stuck bc people don’t want to deal with something or don’t care, but it’s your job to keep it moving.

  2. Anonymous

    A kid question that doesn’t really need to be kid specific:

    Ideas for lunch that do not involve sandwich meat or sun butter, are nut free and do not need to be microwaved?

    My elem schooler buys hot lunch during the year but we are heading into summer camp season where she has to bring lunch.

      • Anonymous

        She can’t just eat hummus for lunch :-). What do you do with it?

        She’s not at all a picky eater. In fact, she usually has leftover Thai or Indian curry for lunch. Just doesn’t like deli meat or boring sandwiches.

        • Anon

          Can you get a thermos and put leftovers in there? I send my kid with soup or mac and cheese in hers. Sadly she’s not into curry :(

        • Anon

          I’m not the person you’re responding to, but why the snark? Hummus is a fine lunch. Obviously some crackers with it (rice crackers are good for lunch boxes) and maybe some blueberries. That is a complete lunch.

          • Anon

            This. Throw in some dipping veggies and crackers, some fruit and you are set. Same for other bean dips.

          • Anon

            I am a grownup and the would say that for my older elementary school kids, this would be a snack. And enough hummus to fuel up would be a staggering amount of hummus, even if you throw in naan for calories.

          • Anonymous

            You’d have to eat an entire cup of hummus to break the 400 calorie mark. That’s…a lot of hummus to plow through to get enough energy.

          • Anon

            A lot of this is what I’d eat to lose weight as diet food, so I’m pretty sure it would not be adequate for my large and growing children who are doing a lot of camp walking-around, water sports, climbing walls, etc.

            If my kids ate nuts, I’d need to add in a Snickers bar to make sure they didn’t run out of steam.

        • Anonymous

          My daughter takes curry in a Thermos Funtainer. Preheat the thermos by filling it with boiling water while you heat the curry very hot. Pour out the water and fill the thermos to the brim with curry. It will stay hot and safe for several hours.

      • Anon

        Didn’t realize I was going to have to break this down, but here we all are. Hummus, pita/naan, favorite veggies of choice. All of it is filling.

        • Anonymous

          OP here. Thanks! That’s more in the snack category for her, which is I think the problem. She eats like a 15 year old boy ;). She’s a 9 y/o sporty kid.

          • No Face

            I ate like a 15 year old foot ball player from age 7 to the present, so I can relate. Hummus and veggies is not a meal for me.

          • Anon

            Same, girl, same. We are a family of lanky girls who eat like we are linebackers. And wash that down with packages of cheezits. They need a lot of calorie-dense foods. Bacon wraps with cheese would be ideal.

          • Anon

            Yeah this was my thought. When I went to camps, my metabolism and appetite were unreal.

            Cheese is really filling and calorie-dense.

          • Metallica

            I don’t like deli meat either, due to a super gross incident in med school that I won’t share in mixed company. Here’s some of what we do:
            Cold pizza–one of my daughter’s faves. Cascadia frozen pizzas are nut-free.
            chicken salad sandwich
            egg salad sandwich
            spaghetti w meatballs

      • Anon

        Second pasta salad. If she likes curries, you can do lots of Asian flavored noodle salads with either regular pasta or rice noodles or soba.

        You could also go along with the hummus idea and other Mediterranean stuff- pita, olives, falafel, etc. Trader Joe’s makes a packaged Middle East Feast with an interesting bulgur salad, some lentils, and stuffed grape leaves that would all be good too and could probably be replicated at home.

    • Anonymous

      I wrap a tortilla filled with cheese and pesto or spinach and hummus and cut into pinwheels. That goes over pretty well. (I also sometimes fill with sun butter and jelly, though I personally loathe sun butter.)

    • Anon

      You could try your hand at those bento box type lunches. Lots of videos on YouTube or tiktok. You have to buy the stacking container but that’s all. My kids packed their own lunches because yes, I’m that mean mom, and they loved doing this. Here are some ideas

      https://www.eatthis.com/bento-box-lunch-ideas/

      • Anonymous

        Thanks! She actually loves to pack for herself but we are both stuck on ideas. She packs herself snack every day and buys lunch at school and makes her own lunch at home.

        I, too, am a mean mom ;).

        • Anon

          I bought a gadget that boils eggs based on a rec here – years ago. I am usually not in favor of one trick ponies gadget-wise but this thing is small, inexpensive, and has paid for itself many times over because my kids both liked to take a hard boiled egg or two as part of their lunch. And they like them done do different degrees (daughter likes literally hard boiled, son likes slightly jammy yolk) so they each experimented with how much water to put in to get the eggs their way. This was a fun part of doing their own lunches.

          Hard boiled eggs, cherry tomatoes, sugar snap peas, grapes, blueberries. These are all things that come in their own “packaging” and keep well for hours.

          I will post a link to the egg boiler separately.

        • Aunt Jamesina

          “Mean” moms are the best! I remember rolling my eyes when friends in high school would complain about the lunches their parents had packed. I’d been packing my own since first grade!

    • Anon

      find something kid likes and send same thing every day until your kid gets sick of it

      my kids will eat a lot of things cold/lukewarm – quesadillas, pasta salad, snack lunch (cheese, crackers, hard boiled eggs, etc.),

    • Anon

      My kids get a thermos of spaghetti and a small container of shredded parm. They would take a lunchbox full of shredded parm and skip the pasta, but the parm makes the noodles special We are very extra sometimes.

    • Anon

      Find 5 items she likes and assign each to a day. Here are the ones my kids will eat:

      Bagels with cream cheese and berries
      Cold grilled cheese with tomato soup in a thermos
      Cold quesadillas with beans and rice on the side
      Ham and cheese muffins with honey butter (butter in a mini bento cup, search bento accessories to find some good options)
      Assemble your own pizza on a tortilla “crust” (cut into a smaller size with cookie cutters, sauce in a mini bento cup)

      Sometimes we mix it up if we have leftovers from dinner the night before or if I’m super lazy – sometimes they get an actual Lunchable as a “treat”.

      • Anon

        Have you tried a cold grilled cheese sandwich? We tried this a week ago while hiking and . . . yuck.

        • Anonymous

          My kid ate cold grilled cheese for like half of kindergarten haha. He liked it!

      • Anonymous

        Totally fair and this works with my other kid. This one puts “cold grilled cheese” in the category of a deli sandwich.

        She’s great with noodle / bean salads and stuff like that, I just need ideas. Bento boxes seem geared for young elem / PK kids…or we are thinking about them wrong bc they don’t have enough calories for her.

        Again, this is really for summer camp and not school since they have hot lunch which she happily eats regardless of what it is!

        • Anon

          My kids are bento box lunches through high school. They sell larger sizes. Adults use them too.

        • MagicUnicorn

          Budget Bytes has a bunch of great meal prep ideas that taste great and for all these parameters.

    • Anonymous

      We’ve bought granola butter if you feel like throwing $$$ at the problem — nut-free and tasty but pricey.

      Yogurt and yogurt+ items — you could add healthier cereal or berries

      cheese & crackers

      hardboiled eggs

      maybe roasted chickpeas?

      you can do hummus rollups with tortilla and some matchstick carrots or other veg — cut like sushi

      or look into things like protein muffins or “breakfast cookies” with protein powder to make sweet treats with protein and fiber that taste like desserts.

    • Anonymous

      My kids like yogurt, string cheese, hard-boiled eggs, edamame, grilled chicken, or hummus as protein and then I usually add a vegetable, a fruit, and a carb of some kind (usually crackers or something like a granola bar). Pasta salad with either whatever protein your kid likes is also good. My kids also like tortellini or ravioli with pesto and it is good cold. Could also do tuna but my kids won’t eat tuna lol.

    • Anonymous

      I love fish free sushi bowls. Travels very well, lots of veggies, and filling.

    • Anon

      Egg/tuna/chickpea salad with crackers, or a sandwich or wrap. A frozen bottle or water in a thermal lunch box keeps cold food safe, but you can sub some combo of mashed avocado, pesto, and/or sriracha for the mayo.

      An assortment of charcuterie type things might work. Raw or roasted veggies, hummus or babaganoush, pita chips or baguette slices, cheddar or haloumi, dried fruit, pickles or olives, popcorn popped with coconut oil instead if butter. You can include something like summer sausage, salami, or jerky if that’s not too close to lunch meat.

      Grain bowls without meat or dairy keep well and are fine at room temp, or kept cool with a frozen water bottle. Maybe pasta with a vegetarian marina or pesto. They make serving size, shelf stable containers of cow/flax/rice milk you could send with cereal.

      • Anonymous

        OP here- this is perfect. I’m basically long for stuff I like that is OK for summer camp.

    • Anonymous

      My very picky son mostly eats turkey meatballs and bread with cream cheese or pasta with butter and cheese for lunch, all unrefrigerated and at room temp. I used to put in an ice pack but no longer bother; his lunch is early. The meatballs I make in quantity and then freeze spread out on a cookie sheet (so they don’t stick together) before storing in a large ziplock in the freezer. You could put them in frozen in the morning and they would probably thaw by lunch; I pack lunch the night before and leave it in the fridge overnight so ours are mostly thawed by morning. He doesn’t care about variety so I don’t worry about it. A half frozen water bottle is also an effective cooler.

      • Sunshine71

        Turkey meatballs are a great idea. I make turkey meatballs with stuffing instead of breadcrumbs and they’re fantastic. Use about 1c of stuffing mix per 1lb of ground turkey and add an egg. Poultry seasoning, minced onion, and minced garlic are great if you have them but not critical. 1lb will make about 20 meatballs. This gets in a really good amount of protein plus some carbs and it’s easy to pair with pretty much anything.

    • Anonymous

      Sandwiches or pitas:
      Egg salad
      Tuna salad
      Mashed avocado with lemon juice to prevent browning, provolone cheese, lettuce, tomato
      Hummus, sliced cheese, quick-pickled veg, lettuce tomato (see the Cookie and Kate “green goddess” sandwich)

      Wraps or pinwheels in a tortilla:
      Leftover cooked chicken, lettuce, shredded cheese, tomato, salad dressing
      Hummus, cheese, roasted veg
      Garlic herb cream cheese, tomatoes, spinach

      Non-lettuce salads:
      Pasta salads–the Gimme Some Oven salmon orzo salad, the Barefoot Contessa pasta with sun-dried tomatoes, and the How Sweet Eats orzo with roasted veg and feta are amazing
      Cold sesame or peanut noodles
      Chicken salad, especially the Gimme Some Oven curry chicken salad or the Cooking Light chicken salad with cherries and almonds

      Calories on the side:
      Chips and guac
      Cheese and crackers
      Hard-boiled egg

    • Anonymous

      Since you said your kid eats curries, what about onigiri (japanese rice triangles with fillings)? Can put them in an insulated lunch bag to keep the meat fillings from going bad during summer. Fillings can range from the traditional canned salmon to… anything you can think of! Plus kid can help make them too, see if she has any preferences.

    • NY CPA

      Is it all meat or just sandwich meat? If they just don’t like sandwich meat/cold cuts, I agree with the other poster who recommended meatballs–I loved a good lukewarm meatball parm hero as a kid. Other suggestions:
      – Wrap loaded with lots of roasted marinated veggies and either pesto or hummus to keep it all together. They always have these at our corporate lunches and I love them.
      – Wrap with cut-up black bean burger, lettuce, tomato, onion, and a chipotle mayo
      – Chicken salad, egg salad, tuna salad. Either in a sandwich or by itself.
      – Veggie raviolis are good room temp (I like the vegan veggie ones from Whole Foods or butternut squash ones), cheese ones are less good for room temp.
      – If you can keep the lunchbox relatively cool with an ice pack and insulated bag, salads are great. You can buy a small container to keep the dressing on the side. I like grilled chicken on mine but you could also add hard-boiled eggs or grilled marinated tofu or something. You could change these up and do greek salad, italian with cheese and olives, Cobb salad, or I recently had a salad with melon and proscuitto on top that was yummy.

    • Anonymous

      Cold curried chicken rice salad: cubed chicken and rice combined with curry powder and mayo plus any combination of: plump raisins; coconut; pineapple; celery; carrots; peas; butternut squash; etc.

    • Anonymous

      Wraps or pitas with:
      chicken and crunchy vegetables (cucumbers or apple cubes, etc.) in a yogurt or ranch style dressing with fresh herbs
      hummus, feta cheese and roasted peppers
      crushed avocado and fried or boiled egg, tomato and cilantro
      black bean hummus and roasted carrots or carrot and beet slaw
      caprese filling with mozerella, tomato and basil

      Sides and extra snacks:
      grated carrot and beets in lemon/orange vinaigrette with raisins
      boiled eggs
      hummus and carrots/cucumbers
      summer rolls with chili dip
      olives and feta cheese

      Salads:
      Cold buckwheat/soba noodles with cabbage, tofu/chicken, sugar snap peas, cilantro and thai chili dressing
      Russian style salads with peas, boiled carrot/potato/beets, eggs and majo
      Classic salads like Nicoiçe with boiled potatoes and tuna fish, or Caesar salad

      Beware of food safety with rice dishes (room temperature rice (and pasta) will get dangerous to eat) and lukewarm food.

    • SSJD

      Some lunches my kids like:
      1) kidney beans (from a can), corn (from the freezer; will defrost by lunch), tortilla chips
      2) cheese and triscuits
      3) chickpeas and cut up veggies
      4) tofu that has been roasted (spray with some pam or olive oil spray or drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, roast @ 350); can add a sauce for dipping such as tehini, yum!
      5) hard boiled eggs
      6) smoked salmon, cucumber slices, on bread or not
      7) make french toast of a whole loaf of bread, then freeze and pull 1-2 slices out of the freezer when packing lunch
      8) edamame in shell
      9) pasta salad (in Italian salad dressing with veggies or olives depending on kids’ preferences) or sesame noodles

  3. Anonymous

    I like the Vera Bradley insulated cooler bags for car trips and pool outings.

    • AnonATL

      I like the Vera Bradley insulated cooler bags for car trips and pool outings.

  4. No Face

    Low, low stakes question. People have discussed vacuums, but does anyone have broom and mop recommendations? All of mine are old and cheap, and it shows.

    For an unrelated, low stakes recommendation, I bought Hookless brand shower curtains and I’m never going back.

    • Anon

      My husband bought a swiffer style mop thing that uses washable pads and it can be used to sweep like a swiffer or mop if you get the pads wet. It’s much sturdier than the actual swiffer. . He found it on Amazon after lots of research.

    • Vicky Austin

      Ooh! If you have pets, get a rubber bristle broom. I think I saw that tip here. It can get hair off of ANYTHING.

      • anon

        This is the one I have. Love love love. Used to have the original design in blue by a different brand, and loved it too. But this O Cedar one is an improvement over that other one, in the way you spin the mop with a step pedal, easier to maneuver, and the spin basket prevents splashing better. I hate mopping but this makes it very tolerable.

    • LaurenB

      I just bought 2 Bona mops – one that has a built in dispenser for hardwood floor cleaner, and a plain mop that I use for marble flooring. I really like them.

  5. anonshmanon

    Super naive question inspired by the earlier discussion around health decisions and hospital visits regarding to married/unmarried couples. I have had the luck not to spend a lot of time in hospitals, so I’ve always wondered – if you go in and say I am here to see my parent/spouse – how do they check!? I don’t have the same name as my H, lots of people don’t share a last name with their parents. Will they need to see my birth certificate/marriage license before they let me see my person? That seems ridiculous tbh.

    • anon

      Honestly this is a huge reason I changed my name when I got married. Mostly because we knew we wanted kids and having a different last name than your kids is super annoying but also for this type of stuff. We have the same last name so when they check all I have to do is show ID. I honestly have no idea what they’d do if we didn’t have the same last name.

      • Anon

        IDK but my spouse’s ex and my MIL and one SIL all share the same last name. Mine is different. I figured, if Elizabeth Taylor could figure this out, I probably have a chance :)

        • anon

          Oh people can totally figure it out, I just had seen enough headaches given to friends/family with different last names that I noped that one real quick. I always hated my middle name so I also took the opportunity to make my birth last name my middle name so it felt like a double win. Definitely get that people make different last names work but it was a hassle I didn’t want to deal with for something I didn’t really care about (keeping my original last name).

          • Anon

            I didn’t change my name. My kids have my husband’s last name. I keep hearing about these headaches and hassles but they’ve never happened yet. My kids are 18 and 20. We’ve traveled internationally. They’ve been through several schools. Never a problem. Never even a question.

          • Anon

            That’s great! I hope the world has changed. I remember my cousin not being able to board a flight once because my aunt has a different last name and there being some issue. I also had a friend more recently have issues getting a room key at a hotel (she was meeting her husband there) because the person didn’t believe she was his wife (the reservation was auto filled to list his last name). It was fine and got sorted out but still a headache. Obviously could have been avoided by her husband noticing the name was wrong on the reservation as well. Given the number of times I get phone calls from daycare/school despite the fact that we list my husband first on literally every form and he does 90% of drop offs and pick ups, I think social assumptions run deep and mix ups and hassles are common but glad that hasn’t been your experience

          • Anon

            You realize there are a ton of divorced parents who go on to remarry and take a new name, right ? School systems, hospitals, hotels, etc are all set up to handle this.

            And the hotel was right not to let your friend in. They check ID at check in and only let the person on the reservation have keys. If that person wants to give a key to a family member, they can, but the hotel is going to do it. A last name being the same doesn’t cut it – think of estranged spouses, or why did you let my crazy sister with the same last name into my room?

            My husband and I travel separately often and I always call to make sure both of our names are on the reservation. This has nothing to do with our last names.

          • Anon

            My kid has my last name, her dad’s last name is different (we are no longer together). It has never been a problem for either of us — no one questions that he’s her dad despite the different last names. It’s 2021, not 1921.

          • Anon

            Born in 1988 to married parents with different last names and it has literally never been a problem. I have always thought that was a very flimsy excuse for a woman to change her name when getting married.

          • Anon

            I have only been married for two years, but am unaware of the headaches in question. “I didn’t change my last name” does the trick. My husband’s entire department is filled with women who kept their maiden names, so no one in his circle batted an eye. My grandboss kept her last name in her second marriage, so there wasn’t much judging at work.

            I fully support the decisions that people make, because they are often for deeply personal reasons; however, none of the reasons offered to me were compelling enough to give up my personal and professional identity in my late 30s. Frankly, I didn’t find them compelling at all. This might also be due to the fact that my parents divorced when I was a baby and my mother, for almost my entire life, has had a different last name.

          • Anon

            Actually, the hassle is changing your last name. I looked into it when I thought I had to do it, and I didn’t want to do all the work.. then it dawned on me that I didn’t have to, and I never looked back.

      • Anon

        Backwards from this, I was asked about treatment options when my father-in-law was in the hospital, and I had to back them off and tell them to wait for my husband to get there. Same last name =/= decision maker!

      • anon

        My husband and I don’t have the same last name and it was absolutely NBD when I went to the hospital to have our kid. He was listed as my next of kin in their records and that was all that mattered in terms of letting him in.

      • Anonymous

        Do people recognize that as a legal document? (Sounds more like novelty or gag gift.)

        • Anon

          If it is really ever a question, often you need a certified copy. I think it just dispels the “our names are different but we are married” thing. I think it is done so you have a copy with you (even if your names are the same, you could have gotten divorced). OTOH, my kid’s birth certificate could be any baby that isn’t obviously non-white.

    • Anon

      My dad was in the hospital after a serious heart attack and I wasn’t asked to show ID to see him. My mom, who has a different last name, was not asked to show ID to see him.

    • Anonymous

      Pre-covid most hospitals I’ve been to did not limit visitors, except maybe number in the room at a particular time. The bigger issue is who gets to make decisions and how to quickly prove that, especially if there is disagreement in the family.

      • Anon

        This is one reason I am glad my husband and I are legally married, to piggyback on the question from this morning. My husband’s mother is deeply Catholic and would want my husband to be administered treatments to prolong his life even if he was terminally ill or in a vegetative state, etc. He is no longer Catholic (vehemently so) and has been very clear with me about what kind of treatment he would be willing to undergo or not. He is very much on the side of, if I am terminal or recovery is hopeless, err on the side of palliative treatment and let me go. I know if it comes to that, my MIL will fight me tooth and nail but in my state, as the legal spouse (and the holder of the healthcare power of attorney) she would not have an easy time challenging my decisions.

        My BFF went through a terrible situation with her aunt and grandmother when her dad was terminally ill with lung cancer a few years ago – they tried to make the hospice people put a feeding tube into her dad when he was within days of dying from stage 4B small-cell carcinoma of the lung, which was incurable as it had spread to his bones and brain. Her dad wasn’t married and hadn’t signed a healthcare POA or living will, and the hospice was reluctant to disregard the mom and sister’s wishes. My friend had to fight them (and it got really, really ugly) to get them to leave her dad alone, and he died peacefully, but her relationship with her relatives never recovered, and now they barely speak. More clarity is always better.

        • Anon

          “My husband’s mother is deeply Catholic and would want my husband to be administered treatments to prolong his life even if he was terminally ill or in a vegetative state, etc. ”

          There is a lot of misinformation surrounding Catholic moral directives on end of life care, and your MIL sounds like she might suffer from some misunderstandings. Catholics are entitled to palliative care, even if such care has the secondary effect of potentially shortening the life (law of double effect). Catholics are not required to try to use every medical intervention to preserve life; the standard is that they cannot withdraw “ordinary” care, i.e. that which is expected to provide a reasonable benefit and does not produce an excessive burden on the patient. Food and water should be provided except when it would not prolong life. We don’t let people starve to death or die of thirst, but we wouldn’t have a moral obligation to, say, intubate a cancer patient in his final hours.

          That said, your MIL would be making decisions that you and your husband do not agree with, which is the real issue relevant to you.

          • Aunt Jamesina

            I think it’s the “let me go” part of the equation that is the sticking point here, not the palliative care.

          • Aunt Jamesina

            Yes, I did. I actually grew up Catholic and fully understand what you meant by “ordinary measures”, but OP and her husband could be referring to treatments that actually *are* against the teachings of the Church. And OP’s MIL might be Catholic, but it’s also very possible she misunderstands Catholic teachings. I know many Catholics who seem to have misconceptions about certain teachings, and some bishops and other leaders have even spoken against removing life support in cases that are in line with Church teachings. I don’t think the practice is nearly as cut and dried as it appears to be.

          • Anon

            You said: “I actually grew up Catholic ”

            Which means you are NOT Catholic and have a child’s understanding of the faith. I am a practicing Catholic and really don’t appreciate people whose parents dragged them to church telling me that they know more about my faith than I do.

            You said: “And OP’s MIL might be Catholic, but it’s also very possible she misunderstands Catholic teachings.”

            In my comment at 5:23 pm, I said, “There is a lot of misinformation surrounding Catholic moral directives on end of life care, and your MIL sounds like she might suffer from some misunderstandings.” Yet you contradict me. Question needs to be asked: is your issue anti-Catholic bigotry or lack of reading comprehension?

    • Anon

      This is a good question- husband and I have the same address on our driver’s licenses and lots of other things linking us (joint credit cards, etc.) , but my mom and I don’t. None of us have the same last name but should all clearly be allowed to see each other in an emergency.

    • Anonymous

      I have had a LOT of ER visits and hospital stays with my spouse and our last names are different. At our local (suburban / UMC) hospital, when I say I’m the spouse, they believe me. I can answer all of their questions, which may help.

      • Senior Attorney

        Same here. When my husband had a bad bike accident I rode in the ambulance with him and they accepted me as his spouse no questions asked even though we had different names and I don’t think he even had any ID. (Believe me he carries ID while riding now!)

    • anonnnn

      I’ve only ever visited friends not relatives in hospitals and I have never had an issue getting to them. I think the concern was more about making decisions and having to prove you are the spouse in that scenario. Yes, it’s easy for me to visit my friends, but there is no way they would let me make medical care decisions for an incapacitated friend!

    • Anon

      I’ve always just represented who I am and have never had to prove it. Relatedly, many companies will let significant others onto health plans so that marriage reason may not apply depending on where you are.

    • Anonymous

      To get any medical information, even if you are the spouse, the patient needs to have listed you on the HIPAA release.

      • Anon

        This has not been my experience when I accompanied my very unconscious father to the hospital after a heart attack. The doctors gave me all sorts of updates on his condition during the ~4 days he was unconscious.

    • NY CPA

      My mom was in the ER a few weeks ago. I just showed up and said I’m here to see my mom, and they asked for my ID. We have different last names but they didn’t say a word about it. I think the ID thing was more for contract tracing purposes?

    • Bonnie Kate

      I do have the same name as my husband, but I have never been asked for my ID to prove who I am. He just has a medical emergency last month that involved a slew of urgent care, MRI, doctor visits and a surgery and I went with to every single one and was never asked for my ID.

      I can’t recall ever having to prove how I was related… In fact, when we were dating, my husband was in a car accident and in the ICU, only allowed family visitors, and they let me in no problem at all times, no limitations. My inlaws were there though, so perhaps that helped.

    • Anon

      I’ve visited my mom many times in the hospital, and never had problems getting in despite the fact that we have last names. I did have to show my ID, but that was normal procedure and not to make sure I could get in.

      However, I’ve never done it in covid. In normal times, at least in my mom’s units, anyone could visit so it didn’t matter if I was family or a friend. I can’t speak to health decisions technically, but I can say that my brother and I get a lot of deference in being told about her status and in making decisions (more than should be permitted legally).

    • HW

      I’ve been to visit people in hospitals and just given the room number. In my experience, as long as you know who you’re going to see/where you’re headed they let you in.

    • No

      My mom was in and out of the hospital a million times over the years and I never showed ID. Major metro hospitals too so I can’t say they ever recognized me. My name had to be in her file to get info over the phone but when the doctors did rounds they rarely asked who the visitors in the room were.

    • anon

      I don’t share a name with my husband or one of my parents, and no one has ever checked or cared.

    • Anonymous

      I had a serious illness and this was just not a problem when I was in the hospital. Like, my husband, my parents, my siblings, my mentor and my two best friends came and went from the hospital regularly. They showed ID downstairs and just came to my room. This was pre COVID obviously. My husband and I don’t share a last name and this was also a nonissue. I list him as my spouse on all my medical forms so it’s just in my file. But no one has ever been asked to prove their relationship to me and I’ve never been asked to prove I’m related to my parents when they were in the hospital.

    • Aunt Jamesina

      It’s funny, but in all our years of being married with different last names, the only issue we ever seem to have is people trying to come up with hypothetical situations where having different last names could be an issue, or people assuming that I’ve taken his name. And lots and lots of misaddressed wedding invitations. It’s never been an *actual* problem for administrative or legal stuff.

    • NYCer

      I have stated at the Bar Harbor Inn and the West Street Hotel. Had good experiences at both. They are well located in town.

  7. Anon

    I needed new casual pants in a larger size and found nothing but high-rise ones. They are really tight on the tummy (but other sizes slid off), especially after lunch. Envying men and pants that are higher in back and in front dip down below the gut.

    • Anonymous

      I’m short-waisted and the current high-rise trend is driving me insane. I just can’t buy pants right now, apparently.

      • Anon

        Short-waisted with a pot belly. I should be a cute little piggie b/c they don’t have to find pants to fit.

  8. Horse Crazy

    I’ve realized lately I don’t have a lot of friends, and it’s making me sad. I’m planning a bachelorette party for my friend, and she’s inviting 9 people, including me. I’m engaged and thinking about who I would invite to my bachelorette, and it’s maybe 4 people, and 2 are my cousins. Also, my fiance has like 8 or 9 people he wants to be groomsmen in our wedding, and I have again, maybe those 4 ladies. I’m only friends with one person from high school and one person from college (they are included in that 4). I don’t have siblings. I guess it’s a combo of a good friend moving away and the pandemic, but I haven’t really made any new friends in a long time. How do you even make friends these days? Thinking about this is making me depressed, and I want some more friends. Help.

    • Anonymous

      Research says you only can have 5 really good friends. If that 4 people are really good friends I am sure you will have a great time with them.
      In other hand your feelings are quite normal at this time. A lot of us have lost touch with our no so close circle due pandemic and the loneliness is hitting hard.
      If you are in a place where you can take again social activities the normal advise will be join to a club or a charity.

    • Anon

      You’re not alone. This is one reason why I want to elope. Not having friends was really impacting my self esteem just before the pandemic started, and the pandemic allowed me to sort of brush it off and try to forget about it. I have no friends from high school, no friends from college, and no friends from my last job/city. If I were getting married, it would just be my sister (who I’m not even that close to, but I like her and she would fill a spot by default) and one friend from work.

    • Bachnonymous

      I’ll be honest about the 8 ladies at my bachelorette to give you some perspective: two were friends of friends whom I barely knew, one was more like an acquaintance of mine, and one was a cousin. Can a person really be super close to 9 friends? I sure am not. But we were more casual about it, and my friends were basically welcome to bring a friend or two who just wanted to tag along for a fun night because we don’t get many opportunities to dress up and go out. In case that’s an invitation you’re interested in extending to others for your event. As for making new friends, I’ve done it successfully through Meetup!

    • Cat

      Similar situation. I’ve always been the type to have a few good “situational” friends that come and go in friendship intensity (so-my study group in law school, now-there are 3 women at work that I know are always good for catching up, lunch, work gossip, etc) or maybe neighbors fill this role, etc. I have two really good lifelong friends but haven’t made a new one in … years.

      This doesn’t mean something is wrong with you. Honestly the people I knew who had huge wedding parties tended to be those marrying really young, such that they were still in the thick of big groups that hung out together regularly (sorority, fraternity, etc). The older the couple, the more likely each has just 1-2 people standing up with them, if anyone. (I can’t think of a nicer thing to do for a BFF than allow her to just… attend your wedding in a dress of her choosing, and perhaps do a reading.)

      • No Face

        This is very true. When my husband and I got married, we each just had one person stand with us. My friend got to wear a pretty dress in whatever color and style she wanted. Her only obligation was to get makeup and nails done with me.

        To the OP: 4 friends is a good number of friends, but it is okay if you want more. Do you have any acquaintances that you’d like to be friends with? If you do, I would just ask them to hang out with you. I have some now-former colleagues that I am now friends with, because I started inviting them to things. I also had an acquaintance from church say to me, “I want to be your friend” and now we are friends!

      • anon

        +1 to Cat’s comment – I didn’t know there was a term for it, but I am similar (make and develop close friends in certain situations, i.e. law school, new job, but then those friendships fade in intensity after the shared experience has ended). I also only have 2-3 close friends, and since I now live in a different city than each of them, I rarely see them more than a couple of times a year. We do catch up via phone, gchat, text, etc., but I’ve also been feeling lonely (I’m in my 40s with young kids) lately, and kind of sad in thinking that maybe I won’t be fortunate enough to make any more close friends in the near future. All of this is to say, you’re not alone. Like some of the other posters, I had a small courthouse wedding in part to account for this fact, and also because I really just don’t like the spotlight.

    • Anon

      I was in the same boat when I got married and my husband agreed to a smaller wedding party (just my brother and his best friend and my 2 sisters). We gave his other friends the usher role and they were all fine with it. It is hard to make friends! If you end up having kids, there is a chance to make mom friends through school but you do have to put yourself out there and work at it.

      • Pep

        I had my sister and my best friend as my attendants – and I pulled my brother into service as a “bridal attendant” who stood on my side.

    • Anonymous

      For the wedding, the number of attendants doesnt have to be equal on each side. Also, 8 or 9 people is a LOT, he realizes he’s going to have to wrangle all these people right? Make sure they get their suits on time? Make sure they know what time and where they’re supposed to be places and make sure they actually do what they should. I definitely wouldn’t want to have to coordinate with that many women, it’s even more time consuming than the men.

    • AnonATL

      This is part of the reason my husband and I did not have wedding attendants. We are both naturally introverted and have “work friends” but no one outside of siblings we’d want in our wedding and it’s all brothers.
      In retrospect, I loved that it was just the two of us up there with the officiant. It didn’t feel strange and I don’t feel I missed out on bachelorette festivities or huge bridal party photos. Having been in a couple family member’s weddings the bridesmaids are pretty useless anyway IMO.

      • Anon

        My wedding party was my husband and me. I can find my way from one end of church to the other. And this way it was more fun party with short (Episcopal) religious event prior. TBH, many of my friends were already married and had young kids, and being in a wedding is a PITA even if you are single/childless and costs you a ton of $ / lost vacation time. Why? Why are bridesmaids a thing? It is like the worst sorority / girl group ever.

    • Anon

      All of my adult friendships are either from work or from having a kid. When I was on maternity leave I made it my business to be involved in every mommy group that I could find (including ones 45 minutes away). I met tons and tons of people that I didn’t click with, but ended up with 2 really close friends and about 6-8 friends from this. But I’m introverted so really putting myself out there was a lot of work! I attended 3-5 coffee meet ups, park walks, etc a week for 3-4 months, started conversations with moms with strollers in coffee shops, and probably met and chatted with 100+ people. If not for these friends, I would only have my 1 friend from college, and 2 from HS that I’m close to. I also have 3-4 male friends from work with whom I talk regularly but they aren’t as close (all but one I no longer work with).

    • Anon

      I struggle making new friends as well sometimes, but just wanted to say that even though I have a lot of close friends (mainly from college), I only want to have a maid of honor and no bridesmaids so don’t feel badly about that. I find large wedding parties to be kind of ridiculous and performative (“oh I just have SO many amazing friends that I couldnt POSSIBLY get the list of bridesmaids any shorter” *eyeroll*) as well as expensive for the friends. While the feeling of being one of the “chosen ones” is nice, the expense of having to go everything–the engagement party + bridal shower + bachelorette + wedding (a multi-day affair bc of the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner)–plus all the extra work which means you can’t just sit back and enjoy the party, make it not that appealing of a job to me!

    • Anon

      As a result of moving a fair amount, I often had to start over and friends in new places. Thinking about it, I met my post-school friends at political groups, lawyers’ events, alumni events, running clubs, and sometimes work.

    • Anonymous

      I think it’s fine to have just a few good friends. I only have five close female friends and two of them I rarely talk to these days (childhood friends but we have each other backs when push comes to shove). It’s pretty common that as we get older, the massive 20+ people party groups in college/early adulthood start to thin out and separate.

      To make new friends, pre-pandemic – meet people at volunteer groups or fitness classes. Before the pandemic, I was starting to get friendly with a couple women who I met through the fitness class but we never got around to getting coffee because March 2020… I know one college classmate who met a good friend through Bumble BFF, but I haven’t tried it. Another friend of mine has been going to meetup groups for hiking/outdoor activities during the pandemic to meet new people and potentially friends.

      P.S. honestly I think having the “numbers” to even out wedding party groups to have something like 12 bridesmaids and 12 groomsmen is a bit nuts. I heard about one wedding where one bridesmaid was invited because the bride needed the numbers to even out the the bridesmaid was a friend of a friend of the bride or something barely connected.

      • Horse Crazy

        Thanks! I appreciate your reply. I said this below too, but I’m not really concerned about the wedding party looking lopsided – it’s more the overall thought that I just don’t have a lot of friends.

    • Vicky Austin

      I think a lot of us are feeling like this in recent years, and not just because of the pandemic (though of course that plays an immense role). Maybe as we go into the Vaccinated Roaring 20s, we’ll start to cultivate the kind of social lives people had in my grandparents’ generation. Dinner parties on REPEAT.

      And I’d also dare to say that if your current relationships, including your 4 friends and your fiance, are emotionally enough, don’t chase more friends for numbers alone. I have 2 good high school friends, 1 summer camp friend who stuck, my sister, my husband, and some casual work pals, and they make up a glorious patchwork quilt of friendship from which I can get everything I need. Don’t tear yourself up about it unless you really feel something is missing.

    • Anonymous

      I just want you to know that you’re not alone! I have 2 extremely close friends and maybe 4 other people I would call friends (plenty more acquaintances, but that’s not the same). I have made one new friend through work in 4 years. It’s hard and I think there’s a culture of not wanting to admit that many of us struggle with making new friends post-college.

    • Anon Bridesmaid

      Does not solve your friend problem but if you are stuck for bridesmaids to match his groomsmen, try looking at the women in his family. Does he have sisters? Cousins? Even close female friends? If that does not work you will either have uneven numbers (which honestly looks awkward but is certainly possible) or he can find other roles for those people.

      I am always a little surprised at how many women on this board hate being bridesmaids (or even wedding guests). I have been in four weddings (for other people) and had a great time in all of them and would have been disappointed to miss out on the experience. I was one of six at my sister’s wedding and we had a wonderful time despite me living on the other side of the country. I enjoyed the showers (went to one for all four), the bachelorette parties (only made it to two), and the rehearsal dinners. None of the brides paid for my dress. Only one had a dress I could possibly wear again. And yet I still felt incredibly happy to be part of their days. I only turned down one and that was because I was going to have a three month old and could not guarantee attendance. (Although I did make it in the end.) But maybe I have just been incredibly lucky in my family and friends because we did not have an unreasonable one in the bunch.

      • Anon

        I have nothing against being a bridesmaid, per se, but found some of the experiences to be rather miserable. What hurts is that the women that I spent so much time (and money) celebrating were just rude to me at my own wedding, and often, were rude to me at their own weddings, too. Think: was MOH for my sister; she refused to feed me at her rehearsal dinner, telling me to just get take-out beforehand; I just sat around and awkwardly answered questions about why I didn’t have a meal. When I got married, she complained about having to go, wore a white dress, and refused to congratulate me. (She has bipolar and BPD so maybe I should be more patient and compassionate but….)

        It doesn’t take many experiences like that to sour on the whole thing. My MOH said that I’m the only friend she’s been a bridesmaid for who works at the friendship after the wedding. Other women just drifted away. Most of the women I’ve been bridesmaids for told me they couldn’t bother going to my wedding… and didn’t even bother sending a card.

    • Bonnie Kate

      on making friends – I felt this way A LOT in my twenties and made a concerted effort to change and now would say I’m pretty good at making friends.
      things I did:

      biggest thing – I joined things and showed up consistently. I joined a community club and got active – became friends with other members! I started going to the same pilates and adult ballet classes all the time – . I went to yoga teacher training and started teaching yoga (this helps me form lots of friendship, honestly). Consistent regular actives are really key for me. I am absolutely convinced this is why adults have such a hard time with friends – we are used to school friends where we are forced to see each other on a regular basis, and when we no longer have something forcing us to see each other we don’t know how the heck to be friends any more.

      Also, I think I just generally lowered the bar on what I consider a friend, and also stopped having such a rigid idea of what a friend has to look like. I have my one super closer friend who I text daily, then I have a few weekly-texting friends, and then I have friends who I see at all of the above things and am happy to get coffee or lunch, and then I have old friends who I love and would show up for but rarely talk to at this point in our lives. I am friends with 70 and 80 year olds even though I’m in my 30s (who are sometimes more relatable since they don’t want to talk about their kids all the time and I don’t have kids unlike many of my 30s-friends). I consider all of these people friends because they’re walking through life with me and we share life experiences together.

      Another mindset thing that is SO KEY TO HAVE is to know that most adults feel like they have no friends. You’ll read it over and over and over again. weddings are so not the real story – what happens in the day to day is totally different.

      One more thing, I try to be really forgiving with my friendships and don’t take things personally. One of my high school friends who I am close to was HARD to be friends with in our 20s. She was constantly making plans and then breaking them because she had overbooked herself. I finally started making back up plans in my head with myself – like if Friend canceled, I would do X (fun thing) instead. It was as simple as get myself a Carmelo candy bar. This really helped me release the resentment behind it. It really, really wasn’t about me. Sometimes you just have to meet people where they’re at. And now we’re in our thirties and Friend is way more settled down, Friend shows up for me and is really supportive and doesn’t cancel plans. I absolutely could have written off that friendship – but I’m really glad I didn’t. That doesn’t mean that I let myself get walked all over – I absolutely believe that part of being kind is also having personal boundaries. But those are for me to keep, not others.

      okay, I’m not proof reading all of that, so sorry if it doesn’t make sense. :) but just wanted to throw it out there that it absolutely is possible to make friends as an adult, you’re not weird or alone – it’s a really normal feeling that you dont’ have to have forever.

      • Anon

        I agree with all of this. I would say I have a lot of friends (could easily name 20+ women I’m close to and could have in a bridal party) and the key is also taking people as they are and accepting that not everything is 50/50. With some friends I make most of the effort, others it’s the opposite. Also get rid of any arbitrary rules about where you can make friends. I have so many close friends I’ve made at work. Other close friends are people I’ve met networking and in a few cases from job interviews, spouses of my husband’s friends, my husband’s actual friends. Other barriers to break down are having to be in the same stage in life. I have friends in all different age ranges, kids at different points, childfree friends, etc. if you don’t lock into one lifestyle or idea of where to befriend people, there’s so many opportunities to meet people you’ll really like.

    • Anonymous

      Nine groomsmen is an awful lot to wrangle, but you don’t have to have the same number of attendants on each side. I had three bridesmaids and my husband had five groomsmen because he has a lot of brothers.

    • Equestrian Attorney

      I remember thinking about this during wedding dress shopping. I would show up with one close friend. I don’t live in the same city as my mom so she wasn’t there. One time my friend had a thing to do, so I went alone. I was totally fine with it until the people at the salon were all “why are you aloneeee? Where is your bridal party? awwww poor you”. It made me feel so alone, meanwhile other people all seemed to show up with fifteen hysterical girlfriends. Ugh. I am getting married for the second time and 100% buying off the rack and skipping the bridal party. Anyway, I don’t have 9 people in my party but I have about 2 close friends in my city and another 3 in my hometown. I have plenty of work friends and couple friends, but we are not that close. I feel fine about my life.

    • cora

      I’ve moved around a bit so I’ve made new friends a few times. A lot of them did come from work and school, but some also came from friends-of-friends, and from reaching back out to people I had met briefly – at one event, at an exercise class, lost touch with – and became friends with again. People are more open to new friends than you would expect, but you have to initiate a bit so that they know that I’m interested

    • Horse Crazy

      Thanks for the replies, everyone. I’m not super concerned about the actual bridal party looking lopsided – my FH likely won’t have all of them be groomsmen, and even if he did, I don’t really care. It’s more the big picture – I just have a way smaller friend pool overall. I appreciate everyone’s thoughts.

    • Anonymous

      Is some of this geography? I have a large friendgroup locally that I met as an adult. I’m not really one of the core friends though, which can feel isolating. To give you an idea, only 3 people RSVPed for my local b-party and 15+ (!) actually showed up. It was great to have people there! We had a blast! But also it kinda felt like they were holding out for something better and that’s why they didn’t rsvp or responded with a maybe.

      If had I invited them all to a local wedding, they would probably come. And FH, who hasn’t lived here long, would feel sad that he only had 2 friends who could travel to our wedding while I would have like 30. But really we would have had about the same number of “real” friends at the wedding. So we kept it small, family and friends-who-are-family only, and had a great time with our nearest and dearest.

    • Serafina

      Just chiming in with another note of empathy/commiseration. I also wish I had more friends, and wedding planning / attending weddings dredged up a lot of these feelings for me, too. FWIW, at my wedding I had 1 childhood friend stand up with me, and DH had his sister, and it was lovely. (I am aware that both of these people have been in many many wedding parties; I have never been in anyone’s wedding party; if either of our party got married we would not be the only ones standing up for them).
      If it helps at all, I saw once that for most people, their friends have more friends than you do. I.e. if you feel like all of your friends have more friends than you… you’re not alone. (You can think through the math for why that’s true!) And we can also sign an online pact if you want – let’s put ourselves out there to make new friends! Great advice from the posters above on that!

    • Anon

      I just watched one of my closest, most cherished friendships evaporate over the last two years. My friend did something weirdly out of character for her that took advantage of my trust and generosity which was totally out of character for her. I got advice here and followed it, which was to gently bring it up for her, tried to listen and understand why she did it, communicated with her how hurt I felt about it, and then I forgave her. She was so apologetic, she felt terrible, and she took accountability 100%. I told her how important our friendship was to me and that I loved her and it was in the past now. I continued to be my same self, reach out to her as much as I always have. I never brought it up again.

      In turn, she returns about 1/3 of my texts now and I’ve only seen her in person a small handful of times since then.

      Someone on here commented that being forgiven is hard and I guess that is what is going on, but it sure hurts to lose your closest friendship as an adult.

      I have a few groups of friends mostly from various workplaces over the last few years, but I’m not at the center of any of the groups, and I don’t have that one close friend I can share anything with. I wonder if those friendships never last into middle age.

    • Evening

      This is such a great thread. Do you think you’re looking for more close friends, or is it really about finding more loosely connected people you like being around to do things with? I think the latter category is much easier to work on yet satisfying. I like in a big metro area where it’s very common to meet people at happy hours or conferences or the gym and get coffee another time. Sometimes it feels like people are constantly networking, but typically it just feels like a city where lots of interesting professional women like spending time and meeting other interesting professional woman. I’m originally from Boston, which I found to be more closed, but there were still people who moved from other areas that were open to doing casual meet ups.

  9. Anonymous

    Thanks for the pep talks on getting a bikini last week! I ordered three, tried them all on, determined one was best but not perfect, and am returning and trying again. But I totally didn’t hate myself and feel like I can rock this now!

  10. anon

    Can’t really say this at work, but I got to witness yesterday how a supermajority of union authorization cards was filed yesterday on behalf of the University of California grad student (a workforce of 17k people), who are about to get collective bargaining rights after literally two decades of fighting for it. My days as grad student are long over, but it felt like such an important moment.

    • Anonymous

      Oh, wow. There was a TA walkout at UCLA over unionization when I was an undergrad in 1994.

    • Anon

      I just heard about this! I was in the UC TA union as a grad student and voted for the union as a UC postdoc, so I’m glad to see GSRs finally get a union too. It was bizarre to switch between research and TA funding from quarter to quarter and get paid dramatically less and have fewer protections as a researcher than as a TA because one position was unionized and the other wasn’t.

    • Anon

      Yes. A sad day for higher education. I grew up in a very pro-union household, but my actual experiences dealing with several unions has convinced me that unions are all about the dues and what is good for the union, not for the members, and it is so hard to decertify (especially in the public sector).

      • anon

        I’ve had the opposite experience, so I was happy to see it. 11,000 signatures collected, in a pandemic no less.

      • Jules

        Union lawyer here, and I entirely disagree with this. And higher ed is becoming like a slighly cleaner sweatshop for anyone who is not a tenure-track faculty position; they need the protections and the back-up of a union.

      • Horse Crazy

        Hi, public sector union member here. I’ve started receiving a second check every month to help offset the cost of my health insurance, thanks to my union. My year-long pay cut is ending, thanks to my union negotiating with the Governor. So I disagree with you as well – this is not at all a sad day for higher education.

      • Anon

        And yet industries and companies with unions survive perfectly fine and union members have better wages, benefits, and pto.

    • Anon

      On the topic of unions – I support unions generally. Just think teachers’ unions did such a terrible job with PR this year. They need some professional advisement on this.

      Even pre-pandemic, when your message is always “we demand less time with students” when you go on strike, it doesn’t sit well with a lot of us.

      And I say this as a person from a family of teachers.

      • Anon

        I’m not sure I want employees who work with vulnerable populations (like police or teachers) to have strong unions looking out for the interests of the workers even when they conflict with the interests of the vulnerable population. I realize all workers need some protections (just look at understaffing of nurses). But I’m always shocked at what a bad teacher can get away with.

  11. Anon

    I managed and mentored a huge staff that was about 30% women in my last job. Things I noticed young women doing – sitting in chairs around the edge of the conference room and not at the table, ceding the floor when they got interrupted, being too deferential to people who knew less than them, jumping up to help serve or clean up when there was food at a meeting.

    When I saw these things, I would meet with them one on one and counsel them. You deserve a seat at the table. Take one. You do not have to clean up after everyone. Let the men do that. You know more about this topic than anyone in the room – don’t let them talk over you, don’t let them back you down, and present your own work. You are the expert. I have your back.

    I did have their back. “Thanks Mark, but I want to hear the rest of what Lin has to say about this – let’s hold off on the discussion for now.”

    We as women managers must make sure the women who work for us are succeeding. We’ve been through it, we know what it’s about, and the men certainly aren’t going to look out for them the way we can.

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