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Sales of note for 8.30.24
- Nordstrom – Summer Sale, save up to 60%
- Ann Taylor – 30% off full-price purchase; $99 jackets, dresses & shoes; extra 50% off sale
- Banana Republic Factory – 50-70% off everything + extra 20% off
- Bergdorf Goodman – Final Days Designer Sale, up to 75% off; extra 20% off sale
- Boden – 20% off
- Brooks Brothers – Extra 25% off clearance
- Eloquii – Up to 60% off everything; extra 60% off all sale
- J.Crew – 40% off sitewide; extra 60% off sale styles
- J.Crew Factory – Extra 20% off orders $125+; extra 60% off clearance; 60%-70% off 100s of styles
- Lo & Sons – Summer sale, up to 50% off (ends 9/2)
- Madewell – Extra 40% off sale; extra 50% off select denim; 25% off fall essentials
- M.M.LaFleur – Save 25% sitewide
- Rothy's – End of season sale, up to 50% off
- Spanx – Lots of workwear in the big sale, some up to 70% off
- Talbots – 25% off regular-price purchase; 70% off clearance
- White House Black Market – Up to 70% off sale
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Creative Benefits
Hopefully a fun topic but looking to crowdsource recommendations for potential benefits to pitch to my boss’s boss in response to a request as to what would make life easier for employees. Request was mostly geared at new parents but he is open to general suggestions. If you could request any perks, what would you request? Alternatively, anyone aware of great perks companies currently provide? Work from home and subsidized daycare near the office are the two I’ve come up with so far
anonshmanon
Yes, and more time off in general, which delights parents and non-parents alike.
Anon
I’m a big fan of more PTO in general but especially separate sick leave and vacation buckets, so that when I’m home with a sick child (or sick myself) it doesn’t mean I can’t take a vacation that year. This also encourages employees to stay home when they’re sick and keeps everyone in the office healthier. Bonus points for personal days (which can be used on things like school snow days) and bereavement leave, so I don’t have to use vacation days for those either.
Work Perks
Oh I like this. I hate when people come in sick because they don’t want to use a vacation day
Anon
+1
Dogs
While I can understand why it wouldn’t work in many places, we are dog-welcoming here, and e/ees can bring their well-behaved dogs. Mine doesn’t fall into that category, but I love, love being able to go visit a dog for a pick me up. :)
Anon
I’m always wondering about this: what do people with dog allergies do in dog friendly workplaces?
Anon
They don’t work at them.
Anonymous
Where I work, you are supposed to bathe the dog the night before to help with the allergy issues. I am not sure it works, but we do have dogs in here all the time, and while people may grumble about it, I don’t believe there has ever been a serious issue.
Walnut
I’m in a dog friendly office and we’ve moved people with dog sensitivities to dog-free areas. I haven’t come across a situation with a severe allergy yet, but I know some spaces/floors are designated dog free for that reason.
Anon
A contract that give a group rate for back up care company. The company generally won’t pay much if anything at all, but the parents will have a reasonable cost and properly vetted alternative if they have to work late.
More time off and separate vacation and sick leave buckets. And DEFINITELY, not having a general “PTO” bucket that is also used forced to use for OFFICE CLOSURES (this grinds my gears)
Also little things like catered lunch once a month or once a quarter on a department wide level – not “forced to eat with coworkers”but more of a “hey there are tacos in the kitchen” sort of appreciation.
Full premium coverage of health benefits. If that is too costly, adding a set amount to employee HSAs to offset the costs of deductibles (I’ve seen matching an employee contribution up to a certain amount or providing each employee with HSA a set amount of $1,000 – $3,000 per year which is definitely cheaper than covering the employee portion of the premium. 50,000 employees, even if all were on HSA, would only cost $50,000 per year but be viewed as a significant health benefit perk.
Not running FMLA concurrent with parental leave (if you even have parental leave)
401k match
Anon
The lack of love for PTO surprises me. I like being able to take a day here and a half-day there without having to explain what I am doing with said time. I wouldn’t want to have separate buckets. I guess I might feel differently if I didn’t have an adequate total amount of PPO
Anon
I think it is challenging for people who only have 2 weeks of PTO and no sick leave as it effectively reduces their PTO to 1 or 1.5 weeks assuming 3-7 sick days for whatever reason throughout the year and you end up not taking vacation for large chunks of the year in case you get sick. It takes away vacation days that should be wholly allocated to vacation.
Anon
This. I like the concept of one bucket but only if it’s actually enough PTO to not have one bout with the flu eliminate your vacation
Anon
If you take “vacation” you don’t have to explain what you’re doing anymore than with general PTO. At least at my job, people use a couple of hours of vacation time here and there for whatever they want (vacations, staycations, time with kids, running errands, self-care). It’s only the more specific kinds of leave like sick leave and bereavement leave that require an explanation about what you’re doing (so people know you’re not abusing it). Vacation leave doesn’t mean you’re going somewhere on an airplane, it means you’re taking time off and don’t want to justify it to anyone.
Anon
+1
Ellen
These are all great benefits, but they all cost money. If the firm is doing well and has good employees, fine, but if there are a lot of deadbeats, they will never leave and they are tough to fire b/c they file complaints with the HR agencies. Personally, I would like the following no-costs benefits; i.e. to to work at a place where:
1) I do not have to be the only true rain maker;
2) I get the respect of my co-workers, who do not grab me and squeeze my tuchus;
3) I can take out to lunch/dinner only the cleints who do NOT ooogle me, and respect me for my mind,
4) I do not have to work 5 nights a week to prepare for the next day,
5) I can get a secretary who does not daydream and leave a lot of admin tasks for me to do,
6) my firm would encourage me to take the PTO I need to meet a man,
7) my firm also would find an associate who actually wants to learn the law from me, and not just want to have $ex.
None of these benefits costs money, and would result in me being happy and more productive. I don’t think many of these things can realistically happen at my firm, but at my age, it is difficult to lateral over to another firm and get the pay I do, so I am kind of stuck until I find a guy to marry and move to Chapaqua.
Abby
I loved my old job’s flex time, so we could come in late, leave early, leave during the day if necessary as long as our work was done. Knowing that we didn’t have a strict 9-5 butt-in-seat policy was so helpful and the biggest perk I miss at my new job.
I also was able to bring in my dog once in a while, but that varies by office layout and office environment, since we didn’t have clients coming in. We also had an office bar cabinet for my department, and HR would come by pretty regularly in the summer with a beer cart and snacks.
Anon
The flex time policy is a really overlooked one. Especially because I think too many people see either butt in seat or employees can do whatever they want. The best compromise I’ve seen is an essential hours policy where you can flex up to two or three hours on each end of the day, but in the office, and must be in the office during certain “core business hours”for group interaction say from 10 to 3. This allows someone to come in a 7 and leave at 3 or come in at 10 and leave at 6 or 7.
Sadie
This, we have 4 hrs of flex time a week (Salaried employees). We are generally to be there during office hours, but this is great if you have like a pick up/drop off kid issue, or an appointment that can only be made mid day, etc. You just have to clear it with your direct supervisor, who can make their own rules (For example, ours only requires clearing it if the block of time is over a certain amount. If you need to leave 15 minutes early you just go).
Anonymous
One workplace did an alternate summer schedule where we worked 9-hour days M-T, and then had Friday afternoon off. Didn’t help salaried people much, but was great for hourly workers.
The onsite health fair was also nice — once a year for basic screenings, flu shots, etc.
Anonymous
+1 for onsite and free flu shots. So easy.
Anon
Yes to onsite free flu shots!
Suburban
My office offers work from home and flex schedules. It’s great-you can set up your schedule however you’d like. I have every other Friday off. But the biggest perk is a strict policy not to contact attorneys on days off.
Anonymous
Are you at a company where people can truly take time off? Obviously, emergencies happen, but, provided you’re at a place where you can take a week of vacation and know that Jane or Joe can cover for you, and this is actually them covering, then more PTO. However, if that’s not the case, then I’d say it would be helpful for the company to invest resources in formally cross training people so that this can actually happen. As a new parent myself, it would be tremendously helpful during the busy times that if I had a vacation scheduled, I could actually take the vacation knowing that someone could cover for me and not just be working remotely from a hotel room.
Blueberries
Not as easy as announcing a new benefit, but I really would have liked a culture where it’s ok to disconnect after business hours and on vacation except for true emergencies/crunch times (which shouldn’t be often). Also, a culture where it’s ok to take a reasonable quantity of sick days and not work as needed for self and kiddo.
One employer had a contract with a high end nanny agency to provide backup care, which was a million times better than Bright Horizons (both quality and ability to book someone in the morning when your kid wakes up with a fever). Company subsidized a set number of hours per year, but paid for our membership so we could pay full freight if we needed it more.
I wouldn’t have like working longer, but having an extra day off as another reader mentioned. It was hard enough to fit in regular working hours and get to daycare in time.
A ramp-up period after leave would have been awesome, as would the ability to have somewhat reduced hours for an extended period of time (and corresponding drop in pay).
Inspired By Hermione
The large online retailer has a Ramp Back program that allows anyone who took parent leave to ramp back up to full time over a few months. They have something like 75% for 8 weeks or 50% for six weeks.
Bereavement leave- a reasonable amount, not just one or two days. More like a week.
Adoption leave that works the same as parent leave.
Comp time even for salaried employees.
Anonymous
1-2 days only works if the funeral is local to you.
OTOH, my husband and I have 3 aging parents. His mother is a widow, so it take a day to get there, so for a funeral, you need a minimum of 3 days. And he’ll need to clean out her refrigerator, minimum, before locking up only to return about 50 times to deal with emptying out the house and readying it for sale (based on my experience of my parents when my last grandparent died –> it’s a good thing they were already retired, b/c they’d have needed to take major leave to get all of that done; we are all descended from hoarders, sadly, who defer home maintenance).
Anon
Replied on previous thread, reposting:
Equal parental leave for men and women. If men can’t be there for their children, women by default are left to pick up the slack, which affects the working culture in general and your company culture specifically. There is a reason they have no problem retaining dads but a hard time retaining moms. Because those workloads are different, since they are rigged from the moment the baby’s born. My company has implemented parental leave for men (“secondary caretakers”, not equal to “primary caretakers” but it’s something). The men have been all taking it (we’ve had 5 babies in the last year!) and it resulted in a HUGE reduction in the amount of b*tching I hear about someone taking maternity leave. If one group of people is never out and another is out for 3-4 months every three years, workers will resent that second group. If they’re both out for considerable time, and for something they all consider important, there is no one to unfavorably compare women against and it generally becomes a more taboo subject to b*tch about. The interesting thing is that we’ve now built temp worker coverage into our budget. This was never the case when parental leave was just a women’s issue. I’ll say it’s a lot easier to convert parental leave into a projected coverage budget when I don’t have to estimate how many workers might be women of reproductive age. It’s much easier to say – we have sixty PEOPLE working here and 15% might take leave, so let’s extrapolate that into money.
anonshmanon
Oh, that’s such a big one! Glad your workplace figured out a system that works!
Anon
This is a great idea in theory but you have to make sure people actually use it. My employer gives 6 weeks parental leave to all new parents (birth mothers get sick leave as well for a total of 12-14 weeks). But no men use it.
Anonymous
+10000000
Anonymous
We have a small firm with good retention.
Bump health care and benefits plan. Employees like no pay. For example my employees have dental up to a high amount on most services with no deductible. To be honest I do not think my employees will ever leave for anywhere in town because the value to them is too high. We’ve also asked them for feedback as well as our plan manager and the plan will be better next year and more suited towards what was claimed.
Gym reimbursement amount (basically anything physical including stuff like tents and shoes is reimbursed)
No questions asked sick days (if someone calls in sick they are paid and we don’t ask for notes)
We will compensate for emergency child care (if someone has no childcare for some reason we will pay the drop in cost for the kid to go somewhere or to an extent the kid can come to the office [no sick kids at office])
We do big bonuses for Christmas and assistants day
We will pay for anyone who wants it to take first aid and they get paid for their time doing it.
We just upgraded all the assistant computers and they all have two screens, it’s actually all better than what the lawyers have
Anonymous
All great policies
Anon
Not parent-specific and possibly specific to people like me who really care about retirement savings, but my employer contributes 10% of my not-small salary to my 401(k) (which is on top of the $19k I can contribute) and that is keeping me in a job I don’t love because i feel like it’s too good to walk away from.
Anemone
General support for dependent care–I’m specifically wording that differently than maternity or paternity leave. I’m on my second round of elder care for a dementia patient, and even jobs that are very understanding with new moms just do not GAF about your need to take care of your own parents.
Mineallmine
+100000
Anonymous
Does anyone have a moisturizing lipliner they love? They all seem to dry my lips out…
Anonymous
I didn’t realize people still lined their lips…
Anon
I primarily use liner to adjust the color of a lipstick that didn’t quite work out but can’t return. It works really well. Also there is a trend of an ombre lip with younger people. I’ll add sample link.
Anon
Ombre lip:
https://kamdora.com/2015/03/17/ombre-lip-colour/
https://www.stylecraze.com/articles/ombre-lips/#gref
Anonymous
Some of us olds need lipliner to keep lipstick in place.
I like the Thrive Causmetics one…
Anon
I use liner for really highly saturated colors, like bright red, which tend to bleed outside of the lip without liner.
Cat
When I wear real lipstick, I line them with a color that matches my natural lip. It helps the lipstick stay within the lines. I use the Clinique Quickliner and am happy with it. It doesn’t feel drying although I’m not sure if it’s actively moisturizing.
Worry about yourself
I don’t line my lips and never have, but my sister suggested I should try it as a means to keep my liquid lipstick from smudging. I could also see it being used to ensure precise application of lip color, I don’t know.
anon
Any advice on getting a construction loan, and a loan to buy land? Considering doing so, but the mortgage broker we’ve been working with doesn’t handle them, and I don’t even know where to start on the numbers…
Comm'l Mortgage Broker
Is this for residential?
anon
Yes.
Coach Laura
Go to a lender that specializes in homebuilding. (Google search might help although “homebuilders” is a lending term for bank lending to contractors/developers so it’s tricky.) What you want is a residential construction-to-perm loan.
Washington Federal is one bank that does a lot of this. In general, you’re looking for a community bank, not Chase or BoA although mega-banks might have programs in some areas. It’s more of a custom product than a mass-market product. If you know any home mortgage people, ask them for names. Some builders might know of lenders who have these types of programs in your area so ask any builders that you talk to, even if you aren’t going to use them.
I did find one useful article and I’ll reply with a link in a new message.
Coach Laura
Here’s the link that might be useful: https://www.newhomesource.com/guide/articles/how-to-finance-your-new-home
Construction
I have done both. I did a construction loan for building a residential home, and bought land using a HELOC. I got the construction loan from my regular mortgage bank. What other questions do you have?
Anon
I really really love these shoes.
Maudie Atkinson
I do too. And without even the faintest amount of shade, I’m pretty sure I owned a pair in 2000.
Personal quesions!
What’s your favorite deodorant? I’m kind of over mine, ready to try something new.
Anon
Tom’s of Maine. I don’t like deodorants with antiperspirants; they actually make me sweat more.
Anon
Secret Clinical, the clear gel. Nothing else works as well for me.
anon
Secret unscented. I think I’m forever done with scented deodorants. They only smell good in the container, not after being on my body for 8 hours.
Anonymous
I’ve been using the Dove invisible spray kind for years but during this heat wave it’s not enough to keep BO at bay, so I’ve been borrowing my husband’s Certain Dri Clinical
Bachelorette
Did I miss a conversation here about the crazy windmill thing on the Bachelorette?
Anon
If you missed it, so did I, but I’m down to discuss!
Top Gun
Since it seems that there is a sequel coming out, can anyone recall if there is nudity (IIRC, Kelly McGinnis?) in the original? I want to watch it b/c I just had a work trip with enough extra time to tour the Midway but may need to watch it sans kiddos.
Anon
I can’t recall if there’s nudity in the sense of seeing her breasts but there is a gardening scene
Anonymous
You can see some somewhat-obscured boobage in the gardening scene. We just showed it to our son who is 13. We had forgotten about that part until it showed up and he was like OMG GROSS WHAT IS THIS??? Fortunately that is like maybe 4 minutes of the movie so it’s an easy fast-forward through.
Anon
I guarantee he didn’t think it was gross, that’s just what he said to his parents.
Vicky Austin
Why was that necessary? I guarantee you none of the rest of us are here to think about the private thoughts of teenage boys.
Anon
Oh, get yourself, Vicky
Anonymous
Someone’s already had a little too much Friday-night wine! LOL
Anonymous
Thoughts on dress code for a major town in Wyoming? Going to be visiting a client office there for a week and not sure what to pack.
Anonymous
What industry are you in, what kind of office does your client have (mom and pop something? corporate headquarters?), and what’s your job role?
anon
Likely casual compared to most places. My experience in a neighboring state and a city of <15,000, so I don't know how it compare to a "major city" in WY. But– on non-court days local lawyers wear schlumpy worn out stuff–inkstains, polyester sheen, sometimes even outwear and shoes with holes. Of course, the men take this sloppiness much further than the women, but the women will wear athleisure pants and long floppy cardigans around the office.
For trials in the county courthouse, men typically have 1 or 2 full suits around the Men's Warehouse price point. The only female attorney I regularly see dressed for trial favors midi skirts and preppy sweatervests (she rocks it) or occasionally skirt suits. I assume she wears heels because I usually see her wearing incongruous sneakers :).
The few folks I know (some lawyers, some policy makers) who appear at major government hearings, etc. generally have at least one incredibly good looking three-piece suit, or western vest. Personally, I love seeing the mix of flair and subtly. That's irrelevant to how you should dress, just something you might like to keep an eye out for if you like fashion.
Worry about yourself
I was at CVS the other day and saw a display for this Korean cosmetics company called Peripera, and bought a couple of red lip stains to try them. GUYS, this stuff is great! I highly recommend the “airy ink velvet” stain in “sold out red.” The “gelato” stain is okay too, but a bit heavy and sticky. Both are around $11-12. If you see this stuff at the drugstore, check it out! I may take a look at some of their other stuff next time I see it.
Anon
Thank you! I am always looking for a good lip stain so will try this. If we are talking about Korean beauty, let me also throw in a rec for Belif True Cream Aqua Bomb. It is a moisturizer that doesn’t feel heavy but really works. Found it at Sephora.
Lady lawyer
I’m a lady lawyer in criminal law with a fairly successful practice. I started young and am at the ten year point now (but still young in my jurisdiction) and I have a number of life commitments right now that take up a lot of time.
I’ve found that man lawyers send a lot of pro bono work to me.
It’s always been an issue and they’ve always tried to pretend that they’re doing me a favour but I’ve made it very clear for a year now that I don’t want any of this stuff and they’ve just adjusted tactics.
So one or two of them know I won’t take calls of this sort and I charge for appointments so they’ll corner me in the hallway and introduce me to some unfortunate person who can’t pay. And it’s getting very hostile. Often they will be very dramatic about it in the hallway like “someone should help this man” and it’s just irritating. Often it’s a client they currently have who can’t pay them any more and they’re trying to unload the client onto me.
Not really in need of advice on the subject but I’m just super annoyed as it’s something that happens every Friday.
Today I went and bought a dress after which has made me feel better <3
anon
What happens when you turn it around to them? Man: Someone should help this defendant who can’t pay his bills. You: It’s wonderful that you’re helping this defendant. Good for you for taking on pro bono work. See you later!
Anonymous
Well today the man lawyer threw a fit which I walked away from. It was in front of the clients mother and the client was in jail (neither of them have anything to do with the lawyer being an ass) but it annoyed me more than it should have.
Anon
Ï’m sorry I don’t have the bandwidth or time to take on this case. I don’t want to commit malpractice by not giving it the attention it deserves. I encourage you to find someone else.
Don’t respond in any other manner and excuse yourself to meeting/bathroom/call/work on a deadline. No one can “trap” you into a case, you’re letting them. And I don’t have the time is always an acceptable and polite excuse for not taking a case, especially as an alternative to I don’t want to .
Ellen
Yes, who needs a non-paying client? I know that we had one supermarket client who did not pay us when we lost a case. Fortunateley, our retainer agreement that the manageing partner drafted years ago has a self executing confession of judgement clause built right into it for the amount of the bill plus council fees, so that when they did not pay, we filed a copy of the retainer agreement with the NY County Court and we got a default judgement against them, and had Frank call in his goons to collect so that we did not have to force a sale of their real estate located on on E. 125th Street! I never knew any of this stuff when I went to law school, but know it now! YAY!!!!
Anonymous
I am sorry, but I am already overcommitted. Please call the state bar referral line. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Anon
“As I have repeatedly told you…” works wonders in this situation. Put it back on him.
Help!
Seeking advice: I’m a mid-level associate at a mid-size firm in the midwestern. A BigLaw firm recently headhunted me, and implied that if I interview I’ll be offered a position. Comparable practice groups, I already know several people in the other firm including two supervising attorneys, it has a good reputation, etc. My billable hour requirement will increase by 50 hrs/year. However, I’m very happy at my current place and hadn’t even considered leaving (and had turned down other firms’ advances without hesitation). I really enjoy my co-workers, I get good work, the work-life balance is generally good. The ONLY reason I’m considering the other firm is a *50%* increase in salary (they’re scaling to their costal offices). Even as a young partner at my current firm I wouldn’t make what I’d make as an associate day 1 if I jumped ship. With six-figure law school loans, it’s hard to ignore the salary difference. (My gut initially said stay unquestionably without further discussion, but after LOTS of thought I’ve decided to interview quietly, and decide after the interview how I feel).
What questions should I be asking myself, and them, in making this decision?
I’m not trying to get my current firm to increase my pay, because they’d never be able to come close to matching. The couple thousand dollars they’d offer me wouldn’t change my calculation at all.
blueberries
How much do you need/value good work life balance? Do you think that will change in the next few years?
How secure is your current job? How can you leave on good terms? Can you return after a few years of biglaw if you want?
Help!
Great thoughts. Currently childless, so no better time to get used to a heavier workload. My husband owns his own business so we know that if we ever decide to have kids, no matter where I work, he’d be primary caretaker.
I’m very secure in my current job. I’d be leaving on good terms; but they’ve had several associates leave before me over the years for more money so there’s that history that could cut against me. I’ve only known a few people to leave & come back (but they all went in-house and back, so not a direct comparison of firm vs firm). I have to assume that no matter how much they like me, if I leave, I can’t come back.
Anon
Your instinct is right. Interview, see how you feel. No need to make a decision before you learn more. Make sure you give proper weight to what you value. Work life balance is worth a lot and getting a true sense of whether that billable hour requirement is a target as opposed to a floor is very important. But also realize that it is perfectly okay to only move for money if the work environment is relatively close in terms of culture. Don’t turn down substantial pay for misplaced loyalty (your current job would never keep you out of loyalty), especially if it won’t be a bad place to work culture wise.
Help!
Thank you – I think I’ve almost been waiting for someone to give me permission to feel okay about doing it for money (which sounds silly itself to say).
Ellen
If you don’t need the money, stay. While 50 extra hours a year is nothing, you could be misled and there is no assurance they will make you a partner in biglaw. I am at a boutique firm, but am sure I would never be a partner at Simpson Theacher or Cravath, as GW students generally are disfavored, and I never got an interview when I was young and much prettier, so forget it now! Besides, you are MARRIED, and your husband has his own business, so when you want to get pregnant, you won’t have to work at all! I say stay, and get pregnant when you want to leave the workforce and let your husband do the work! YAY!!
Anonymous
I went from small law to biglaw recently, and obviously this is all extremely firm dependent, but if there is one piece of insight I can offer is that in my experience, work life balance has been BETTER at the large firm because it’s so well resourced/I have proper admin support, making my work very efficient. I’m billing a lot more in a lot less time.
Help!
I can see this being true. I can’t delegate as much as I want because the two paralegals we have are crazy overworked and then I get stuck doing non-billable work. Thanks.
Anonymous
This is late, but I made a similar move and have never regretted it. I found that my workload only increased marginally (maybe 10% over what I was doing before) but I got paid 50% more. The financial benefit was enormous and has given me so much more flexibility for whatever I decide to do next because I can more comfortably take a lower salary. I also think my exit options are better – it’s easier to go from a bigger firm to a smaller firm or bigger firm to in house.
The only caveats I would have are two. First, it probably depends how senior you are and if you want to make partner. I left fairly junior, so I wasn’t thinking about this, and it’s definitely harder to make partner at the bigger firm. If you are well liked and on partnership track at your current firm, and are a more senior associate who definitely wants to make partner, that should weigh more heavily in your decision.
Second, firm hour requirements are minimums, not how much people actually work. So you should figure out exactly how much more you will be working. I’ve had friends make the jump from mid law to big le and be shocked at the hours expectations, even though both firms had the same hours requirements. Many of them left the big firm within two years after paying down their loans.
LittleBigLaw
Interested to hear how others manage the mental shift between work and not-work, especially those of you working 50+ hr/wk-type jobs. I love my job, which also happens to be stressful, demanding, and intellectually rigorous. When I’m really engaged at work, I often have little mental energy (& physical, too, honestly) left for non-work interests and activities. Work becomes all-consuming and I find it really hard to re-engage with the outside world, for lack of a better term. I also have 2 kids under 5 who are wonderful, demanding, and all-consuming in their own right. It’s jarring to jump into Moana right after a deposition and difficult to run client calls right after preschool carpool. (Kids are my example, but I don’t think this is a “mom-issue”) How do you find the bandwidth to be fully committed at work while staying connected to your off-duty self, especially when those things may be dissimilar?
Mineallmine
Honestly, this is why I don’t mind commuting. I listen to music and let my mind switch gears en route. And having a routine when you arrive that delays jumping right in helps as well. It can be that first cup of coffee at work while you mindlessly triage emails or check one (and only one) website (for me it’s WashPost). And when you get home, taking a few minutes to change clothes helps because as I put on comfy clothes, my brain relaxes, too. I know it’s hard to not respond to the kids jumping on you when you get home, but taking that 5 min to escape to your bedroom (alone while reassuring them you’ll be back) can really help the shock of transition.
Mineallmine
Ugh, moderation again.
Anon
Honestly, when I have to pep myself for a client meeting, I recite my points to my three-year-old during our commute. It’s a surprisingly good audience.
Anon
This is brilliant.
anon
If you could take a 6-month sabbatical at work, what would you do?
Anon
Move to another country and immerse myself in the language and culture.