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Which do you think are the best lounge jumpsuits, readers? Socialite has a number of cute, easy jumpsuits (like the highly-rated one above), and I can see them being great for relaxing on a Saturday. (This one and this one also look great!)
Looking around the web for other options, it seems clear that there are some different lounging personalities at play — the sexy-comfy lounger (22,000 good reviews!!!), the just-the-basics-ma'am lounger (also), and the one above, which has more of an overalls/beachcomber kind of vibe I guess. (This one is “Amazon's choice” and I'd put it in the third category.) Readers, which would be your pick, if any? (Are you for or against lounging jumpsuits and rompers? Do tell.)
The pictured one at top is $49 at Nordstrom.
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Sales of note for 9.16.24
- Nordstrom – Summer Sale, save up to 60%
- Ann Taylor – Extra 30% off sale
- Banana Republic Factory – 50% off everything + extra 20% off
- Boden – 15% off new styles
- Eloquii – Extra 50% off sale
- J.Crew – 30% off wear-now styles
- J.Crew Factory – (ends 9/16 PM): 40% off everything + extra 70% off sale with code
- Lo & Sons – Warehouse sale, up to 70% off
- M.M.LaFleur – Save 25% sitewide
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
- Talbots – Extra 25% off all tops + markdowns
- Target – Car-seat trade-in event through 9/28 — bring in an old car seat to get a 20% discount on other baby/toddler stuff.
- White House Black Market – 40% off select styles
Sales of note for 9.16.24
- Nordstrom – Summer Sale, save up to 60%
- Ann Taylor – Extra 30% off sale
- Banana Republic Factory – 50% off everything + extra 20% off
- Boden – 15% off new styles
- Eloquii – Extra 50% off sale
- J.Crew – 30% off wear-now styles
- J.Crew Factory – (ends 9/16 PM): 40% off everything + extra 70% off sale with code
- Lo & Sons – Warehouse sale, up to 70% off
- M.M.LaFleur – Save 25% sitewide
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
- Talbots – Extra 25% off all tops + markdowns
- Target – Car-seat trade-in event through 9/28 — bring in an old car seat to get a 20% discount on other baby/toddler stuff.
- White House Black Market – 40% off select styles
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Anonymous
Do you think really fit people have higher energy to exercise a lot or do they have higher energy BECAUSE they exercise a lot? I started following someone on Instagram and Strava who seems to do LONG workouts every day before work (like 2-3 hours ski touring or biking and then longer on weekends). I know she’s a former D1 swimmer as well and I’m just kind of surprised and impressed at how someone can exercise that much for that long with seemingly endless energy. I also remember a good friend from high school who was a great athlete and who seemed to just be exploding with energy – whereas I played sports too and was fit, but would get pretty tired after and need coffee throughout the day, etc., while this friend didn’t even drink coffee at all and was able to perform at a high level no matter what else was going on in her life. Of course some people do have genetic advantages, but in your experience, does fitness lead to energy or the other way around? Do you think some people are just lower energy no matter what or can it be changed? What works best for you in terms of improving your daily energy levels, cardio or strength or both (or maybe food)? I think for me, I clearly need to improve both in intensity and duration of workouts, but where have you seen the most “bang for your buck?”
Friday
I think it’s genetic? I’m pretty low energy. I eat fine: mostly vegetables with chicken, not a lot of carbs, not a lot of processed food, I do drink coffee and alcohol. Swam in HS; was always tired. Got mono my first year of college, was always tired. Ran 3 miles per day post-college, was always tired. Currently, I lift weights for about an hour every other day and try to get a 3 mile walk in on my off days. And I am always tired.
Anon
I am very similar to this. I do have some chronic illnesses that even if they are in remission could contribute to my tiredness. The thing that seems to help me the most is getting outside first think in the morning, even for a 15 min walk. If I have to go the caffeine route, I find I do better with less than more. So, a black tea will give me the pick me up but won’t have the crash coffee would.
I also was diagnosed w/ sleep apnea and use a CPAP that helped some with my tiredness. When I first started an antidepressant I didn’t feel tired any more. Sadly, my body quickly adapted and I’m tired again. All my labs are normal.
Anonymous
I took up functional fitness, which includes some cardio but leans heavily on strength training, about 18 months ago. I am tired all the time but most especially after a hard.morning workout. I feel better overall but I have not seen it improve my energy. Quite the opposite. I haven’t focused on cardio in a while so perhaps I’d feel better after a jog? Maybe I will try it on an off day..
Ribena
I think it’s a bit of both. I have had times in my life where I have exercised very little and times in my life where I have been exercising 5-8 hours a week consistently for months. It just gets sort of built into your energy rhythms – eg I exercise before work most mornings and it gives me more energy for the day. On mornings I skip it I always regret it.
Anon
Both, but there’s a lot to be said about having more energy from exercising more. And of course other lifestyle factors like sleep and stress.
Clementine
A little bit of both? So. I now acknowledge that I probably have some level of ADHD, but have learned really good coping mechanisms and drink a really significant amount of coffee.
I have 3 small kids and am somebody who people still say, ‘WOW. I don’t know where you find the energy.’ I work out 5+ days per week. Part of it is genetic – I’m very energetic and my whole family is like this. My sister runs and cycles and hikes. My mom does yoga for 6-10 hours a week and is very active and my father goes for daily hourlong light hikes – a big part of this is that they are healthy enough to do this, even as they get older. As kids, we were always dragged out hiking or canoeing or snowshoeing at the crack of dawn and honestly – I don’t know another way to exist. So…
I do believe that an object in motion remains in motion (something told to me by an 80 year old patron at my gym in the before times) and that exercise gives me energy. But I also acknowledge that my baseline is more energetic than most.
I will say: the best exercise is the one you do.
Anonymous
I think some people just have a higher tolerance for endurance exercise than others. My husband has run several marathons, some with minimal training and some with intense training. He can avoid exercise for a year, then go out and run several miles. His body can also stand up to miles of daily training.
On the other hand, I have made dozens of attempts at endurance training using programs designed to ramp up gradually. Within weeks, it inevitably ends in crushing fatigue and a case of bronchitis. My body is just made for explosive movements and short bursts of effort like HIIT, which I can tolerate just fine.
I also think people have different overall energy levels. Interestingly, for me and my husband energy levels mirror our exercise tolerance. I can go very intensely for a short time and then I’m wiped out. He can plod along at a steady pace forever.
Anon
I think it’s a little of both. I’m not naturally very energetic, and a three-hour work out would likely exhaust me, but I do find that I have more energy when I’m working out regularly. But it isn’t like I only have more energy on the days I work out, like today I skipped, but I still feel more energetic because I worked out three days already this week, and am planning to workout tonight. I feel my best doing strength workouts or yoga (which is a strength workout, just distinguishing from like weight lifting).
Minnie Beebe
Former pro-level cyclist turned (nowhere near pro) marathoner here…
It’s relatively easy to routinely do 3 hour workouts if that’s what you’re used to. It takes time to build up to that, and I think personality contributes to whether or not one *wants* to build up to that. I look back on my training schedules from many years ago and cannot understand how I ever did that, and I would be unable to do that *today.* But I might be able to get back to that volume if I wanted to. Which I don’t. :)
But it’s just training– it’s not too difficult to maintain a certain higher-than-normal baseline once you work your way up to it.
Anonymous
How did you get to be a pro cyclist? Did you have a lot of energy and gravitate towards it as you improved? Curious how that progression works for most people.
Minnie Beebe
Yes, and it helped that I was in my 20’s with no husband or kids or house, and a job that allowed me to leave at 4pm every day. But I started riding with a group, eventually did a race, and then I was hooked. I move up in levels over a few years, and then was racing the “real” races (where I was generally pack-filler.)
My training ramped up along with that progression– I was only doing bike rides a few days/week at first, then got to the point where I was riding every day, and my recovery rides/easy days were 20 miles long – like I would do that *after* I got home from whatever race I’d done that day. Like I said, I don’t entirely know how I did it!
Anon
I was misdiagnosed with multiple mental illnesses before finally getting treatment for hypothyroidism, so for about 7-8 years I was prescribed multiple types of stimulants that I had no business taking.
Having artificial energy is an incredibly bizarre experience. I was chronically restless and compelled to be constantly moving, but my brain could tell that the entire experience was fake. I was running on someone else’s batteries. A tiny exhausted version of myself was beating her fists against the inside of my brain and sobbing for rest, while the version in charge of my body couldn’t stop fidgeting.
All that to say: yes, I think some people are just born lower energy. Healthy lifestyle only does so much, just like Olympic levels of sleep hygiene will not stop my being a night owl.
Of Counsel
Serious question: Do you think it has gotten harder to be a woman attorney? The first time a female associate (25-30 ish) said that I had no idea how hard it was I wanted to scream. I have been a litigation attorney for more than 25 years while also raising my daughter as a single mother (by choice). I just wanted to say “you think it was EASIER back then?” When I often walked into a room and was the only woman? When there was the default assumption that I could type so of course did not need the same level of secretarial support as male attorneys at my level? When a partner literally said out loud that he was going to assign a case to someone else because opposing counsel was “so aggressive”?
But I have now heard it from 3 people and I am wondering: was it? (And I am not talking about pandemic times – when yes it is clearly really hard to be the default caregiver parent with no childcare.)
Thoughts?
No Face
Did they say why they thought it was harder now than before?
No Face
I mean, I’ve worked for two separate law firms that were over 90 years old. These firms literally wouldn’t have even interviewed me, a black woman, for an attorney job during most of their histories.
Senior Attorney
My thoughs are “you’ve got to be effing kidding me.”
Anon
Did they not know that you’re also an attorney when they said that? It seems appropriate to ask what they meant.
Lilau
I think that barring the pandemic, as you mentioned, it’s gotten easier to be a woman in law generally over the years. That said, being a 20 something attorney was hard when I was one, even if I had it easier than the female attorneys who came before me did in their day. When we were in the office, I was often an informal mentor to younger women attorneys, and some of their problems/ concerns would just bring back such clear memories of how tough being a twenty something woman in law was.
All this to say, you definitely had it harder back then, but a lot of their challenges are still tough.
Anonymous
Not an attorney, but it seems to me that it is really hard for one generation to appreciate another’s struggles in so many ways. It’s also apples and oranges to compare what happens in a career as demands shift over time. It’s easy to look at someone senior to you in a job and think “how easy that all she has to do is set strategy, while I have to do the heavy lifting of making this work” or “must be nice to get much more control over your schedule” or what have you. But those benefits also come with a lot of trade-offs (taking on the risk more with strategy, weighing competing ideas and analyzing at a level that is so much more stressful). It’s also easy for the more senior role to look at juniors and think “ah, I remember when all I had to do was worry about X.” Meanwhile that junior person is often taking on less of the enjoyable work. Grass always looks greener.
Anon
I think they kind of have a point. From a se*ual harassment point of view, yes it is somewhat easier. From a practice point of view, it actually is more difficult because there is no *off, you can get in contact with attorneys much easier at all hours of the day and can work from home just as easily as in the office, and the base hours expectations are much higher than it was in the 90s, there aren’t really many more women than there were back then (in some practice areas), from a numbers perspective it is much more difficult to make partner, and you get pushed out from partnership track much earlier. I know your initial position is defensiveness, but draw back your feelings and actually consider that perspective for a sec.
Now all of these things affect attorneys at all levels, but yeah, in some ways, it is more difficult. And in other ways it is much easier.
Anon
I would agree that the practice of law overall is more difficult in some respects, and it is much harder to maintain a healthy work-life balance in most industries than it was in the 90s. But do these things make it harder to practice law specifically as a woman? Most of what you mentioned, like the expectation of constant availability, apply equally to male and female associates.
Anon
Yes, but just because the expectations apply equally doesn’t mean the impact is equal. Let’s be honest, after hours availability is probably harder on women who are doing more of the work in the home/with kids.
Anonymous
This. Increased hours expectations disproportionately negatively impact women because of household/childcare/elder care responsibilities which are disproportionately borne by women.
Anonymous
Okay but that shift should be inside the household not inside the firm. I would be appalled if a firm said there will be less stringent enforcement of billing requirements on women because “we know they have to do a lot more housework.”
Anon
Anonymous at 3:40 – What are you even talking about? No one is saying women should get less stringent billing requirements. The answer is for all law firms to have more reasonable hours expectations for all attorneys, not for people to shuffle around their personal lives to meet completely unreasonable expectations (and in many cases, they are unreasonable). The answer is to set and respect work-life boundaries and not expect attorneys to be on call at all hours.
The comment at 3:03 wasn’t saying women should get it easier. It was in direct response to the comment at 2:57 saying that constant availability affects all attorneys. And it does, but it affects women more.
Deirdre
I’m a finance professional. The expectations of perfection is definitely more pervasive. The awful thing is I don’t think it’s easier for women’s it’s harder because the lip service makes it sound like the playing field is level when it isn’t.
Anonymous
Sure but that is true for “attorneys” not just for women. Also, most partners I know still actively engage in the work and thus are also attached to phones/email, etc., so that is not unknown or irrelevant to them. The old guys on the golf course lawyer model has been dead for a while except perhaps in.some niche areas.
Anonymous
This. My Dad started practicing in the 70s and when he retired he said he would not advise anyone to go into private practice. The hours expectations continually rose, and the expectations of 24 availability because of technology didn’t exist in the same way years ago.
Ellen
It is much easier to be an attorney now if you’re a woman. Years ago they never hired women for attorneys, just to be secretaries. That is what happened to Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsberg, but they over came things and became judges of the USSC. They paved the way for us to be both lawyers and partners and we now are nearly equal.
I also think S-xual harassment used to be alot worse. Men will always be dirt bags, but in the old days, it was like in Mad Men, with the men having s-x with the secretaries in the office. I know that is what Mason did with Lynn on our conference room table, but it was consensual and she wanted him to be her boyfreind, and he was until we fired him, but not b/c of the s-x on the table, but b/c he never passed the bar. Nowadays, we can (and often do) speak up if a male is gross to us. I do put up with Frank’s BS and stareing at my boobies, but he has stopped with the pencil routine to see down my blouse. FOOEY on him, b/c he is married and I would never consider letting him do that again.
So all in all, I vote that I am glad I live in 2021 land for lawyers. As a partner, I feel vindicated and validated for being a woman, not marginalized as much as I used to be when I was not in the law. I encourage all women to be lawyers so that we can be equal in numbers in the profession because we are smarter then men. YAY!!!!
Anon
I wonder if they have seen 9-5. Yes, it’s fiction. No, it’s not about lawyers. But that is how it was for my mom and many of her peers. I can remember Cosmo having articles almost along the lines of how to cleavage your way to more attention at work. Not quite, but there was acknowledgement that if creepers are going to creep, you might as well use your assets to your advantage (ick).
Also: having to wear pantyhose all summer and pants weren’t an option in the office.
anon
We were given advice as law students (2010ish) to use our “feminine wiles” and more specifically, to act dumb and like ditzy-curious when taking depositions in order to get male witnesses to let down their guard and trigger their instinct to mansplain (thereby hopefully getting them to say more than they should). This advice was dispensed by male partners at a national law firm. Things may be less explicit–though it was pretty explicit in my example!–but I’m skeptical that a lot of the underlying issues have actually been resolved.
Anon
This was part of my deposition training as a junior associate in 2011ish too! Not said quite as directly, but strongly implied.
Anon
No. I do not think it has gotten harder to practice law as a woman. I would be very interested to hear why anyone thinks it has.
Anonymous
What was she referencing? My mom worked full time in a busy career but she says she thinks the pinterest parenting pressure is a lot more now (complicated birthday parties, fancy lunches – no more PB sandwich and an apple). We opt out of a lot of that but it’s hard when your kid is complaining that everyone else has fancier birthday parties or more interesting lunches. If she isn’t a parent, what’s her student loan situation. I graduated with a chunk of debt 15 years ago but current debt levels are crazy. Huge debt means more limited choices in career because you literally can’t afford to take certain jobs.
And during the pandemic I have been totally burnt out with providing tech support to 3 ipads and 1 laptop to facilitate online learning with 3 kids whose teachers use a combined 9 different apps. We didn’t even have a computer until I was ten.
I don’t doubt for a second though that things 25 years ago were way harder than they are now. Even ten years ago, there were many fewer women at the upper levels in my workplace.
Emma
I’m 31 and very aware that it’s hard to be a woman attorney right now, but it was even harder 20-30 years ago! My mother is not an attorney but she’s a professional and had plenty of stories.
Anonymous
Please ask this associate to.share her perspective on this and report back. I am dying to know what revisionist history or fake new struggle this generation is passing around.
Anon
This! I’ve been practicing law for almost thirty years. I just sat here and tried to imagine what would make it harder for woman now than in the past, and I am coming up blank. It’s not especially pertinent to the actual practice of law, but when I started in my locale there was an actual local rule requiring women (Lady Attorneys. Gah.) to wear skirt suits or dresses, with stockings.
Anon
I think the expectations of working mothers is higher now on the mother side of things. You are supposed to give 100% at work and home. Canned/frozen dinner is no longer acceptable. You have to send your kids to school with a perfectly curated organic bento box.
Anon
We lost interest in one otherwise-good-looking charter school that “strongly encouraged” lunch nonsense like this.
Anonymous
Right? If a kid forgets their lunch our school requires the parents to pick them up and take them out for lunch. No dropping off a take out lunch and running back to the office, and definitely no loaf of bread and jar of PB in the office for kids who forgot their lunch.
Anonymous
What on earth? Lunch at our school is 25 minutes long. No parent could get there and take the kid out for lunch in 25 minutes. If a kid forgets to bring lunch they have to buy it, with payment to be collected later. If there weren’t a cafeteria, I suppose the parent would have to bring the kid a lunch. Why can’t you drop off a lunch?
Anonymous
Can’t drop off a packed lunch because I can’t get from work to home and back to school to get one in time. Take kid out rule is allegedly because kids get upset when others have take out but really who cares that much if a kid has a ham sandwich from home or from subway. Our school is smaller and doesn’t have a cafeteria.
Seventh Sister
This was one of the many reasons I didn’t choose the language immersion school for my kids. Lunch doesn’t need to be fancy! Also it was super classist – there are plenty of kids who do free lunch. My kids get hot lunch because they like it fine and I’m lazy. Also, the lunch line could use some little UMC faces so it’s not so clear who is a have and who is a have not.
Anonymous
I am a law firm partner who is very supportive of colleagues and very much interested in work/life balance for myself and all of the attorneys in my office, but I could not care less about the external.pressures mothers face to zhuzh up their kids’ lunches.
LaurenB
+1. That’s a choice, to care about whether the other mommeeeeeeees will approve or disapprove of your child’s lunch box. They were trees in a forest as far as I was concerned — if they wanted to gossip about my lack-of-bento-boxing, I sure as heck didn’t hear about it. That’s a big WHATEVER.
Anonymous
IDGAF what the other moms think but it is rough when your kid comes home complaining that all her friends have packed lunches with cute notes or veggies cut into shapes. I care that my kid doesn’t feel excluded or not cared for because she has a lunch/birthday party/bake
Sale items that are different and make her feel excluded.
kitten
YES please… like I just have funny little antedotes about being a female attorney…my old mentor was the only female partner at my old firm back in the 80s. She literally wasn’t allowed to use the front door or main elevator at the private club they held firm events at. All the partners hooked up with their secretaries, did blow together, and drank all day. I will say that profit margins were yuuuge back then.
kitten
*anecdotes lol
Anon
I joked once to an older woman that I was getting “spanked” at work on a particularly difficult week and she was horrified that sort of thing was still happening. I saw how shocked she looked and reassured her that it was not literal spanking. Yikes for what she must have dealt with.
Anonymous
I don’t think it’s gotten harder to be a woman attorney; I do think it’s gotten harder to be an attorney in general and think older partners don’t realize just how hard. I started practicing just as smartphones were becoming a thing (which, I remind you, was just a decade or so ago). I did not have email on my phone at my first job. Large e-discovery was a thing in large complex cases, but not what I did (med mal). We did not accept service of documents by email. It was just easier when there wasn’t the instantaneous communication of today. I was in small law, so maybe biglaw was different, but god I miss being able to ignore work on the evenings and weekends because you didn’t have it in your pocket. Even small cases are way more complex now with electronic documents, etc. Also, every time an older partner tells me how much they paid for law school and why they just don’t understand why young associates have no loyalty to a firm (because they move somewhere for more money), I want to scream. Loyalty doesn’t pay bills and law school is way more expensive than it once was.
AIMS
This is what I was thinking too. But I would ask the people OP is hearing this from why they think that.
Anon
OTOH, I remember having to be in the office, waiting for the FedEx truck to arrive. Driving to the FedEx at the airport when we missed the last pickup. And having to be the office all night/weekend because WFH was not yet a thing except to print out giant things that you needed to read and lugging papers back and forth.
anne-on
This. I remember dragging myself into work for calls with Europe at like 6am because our blackberries (if you got them – the secretaries were MAD that they did not rate them) did not have international dialing capabilities and we were not issued laptops (yet). Working at home in pjs with my husband on the couch is way better than working in the office till 8/9pm because I didn’t have reliable WiFi at home yet.
Anonymous
But once you left at 8pm/9pm that was it for the night or if you had to work, it was on something you chose to bring home vs. having new matters coming in at 10pm. I’d take leaving the office at 8pm every night over leaving at 6-7pm and being expected to answer emails immediately right up until midnight.
Anon
I got called at home on maternity leave. Back when I had a home phone. If I could have punched someone through a phone line, I would have.
Anon
Yes and either getting an appellate brief in the mail days before the deadline, or else getting in a car and driving to the big city over an hour away to file it in person.
And I think there was a lot less accommodation for personal, family, or health issues.
Anonymous
My state *STILL* doesn’t have universal efiling (just a pilot program for a few counties), so there’s still the occasional “get in a car and drive an hour a way” to file something. Typically it’s a non-billing staff member, but every once and a while you can’t find someone and whoever the youngest associate available is gets to go do it. Efiling can’t come soon enough.
Senior Attorney
OMG do you remember “going to the printer?” If you were doing a deal you would go to the actual third-party printer and supervise the printing. The legal printers’ facilities were all tricked out with snacks and soft drinks and pool tables and comfy furniture and so on. I was a litigator and I was jealous.
And yes, I would leave work at 6:00 p.m., drive home and cook dinner and put the baby to bed, and then drive back to the office and work until the week hours.
Anon
Yes! I may have been one of the last people to go to the printer (Murphy beds!). And in my city, when I had a late turn, I used to put my flip phone under my head and nap on my couch when I wanted for the delivery person to call en route to drop off proofs at 3am (it helps to live close to center city for a variety of reasons, or did back then). It beat having to stay at work to wait for that call.
On my deals now, we have a 10pm sharp deadline for printing after decades of this nonsense.
Anon
I appreciate these stories – so much sucks about the day to day of legal practice now but that’s certainly not new!
Anonymous
I think this might be part of the illusive Xennial generation thin. People who understand and have lived through (early) both absolutely analogue, and then the developement towards 100 percent ON, but don’t have a single preference.
MissK
Not an attorney but have a perspective from the business side. My observation is the younger generation defines as hard a lot of things we took for granted/ part of the deal and did not question. Overall, I welcome this change.
As a side note – I’ve been going over some old (7-8 years ago) pieces of work as I am preparing for job interviews. I had one particular situation where I was asked to take over a project from a colleague who was laid off.. The details don’t matter – but looking at the exchange from today’s perspective, I would have had grounds to complain about harassment/ bullying. At the time, even though I was extremely upset, it it did not even cross my mind as an option.
Anon
Maybe this is true. Like how residents used to work 80+ hours and that is eased up (a bit? I think? not a doctor). I think that’s good, but I don’t want anything important done to me on someone’s 87th hour of work and on little sleep.
OTOH, law isn’t ever going to be a a job where they just give you $. And the youngs have shockingly high levels of debt (for me, 60K covered everything for all 3 years).
MissK
For sure – but let’s not forget the gender aspect. I know for me, the shift has happened during round table conversations on bullying and mentoring younger colleagues. I can’t think of a huge “wow” moment during those, it’s more of a slow shift in perspective over time.
Anon
I guess she hasn’t seen the RBG movie, where RBG got offered typing jobs.
Also, I know that even parent-friendly jobs like teaching required or expected pregnant teachers to resign (you could easily come back once your kid was in K) and I don’t doubt it was much worse in law firms. Heck, you couldn’t get maternity clothes that were office-appropriate and pretty much had to sew if you didn’t want to wear a sack in your third trimester.
My dad is pretty much an old-school knuckle-dragger and it was shocking for him to see what I dealt with as a working mom. Of course, my mom was a working mom, but she worked fewer hours than he did, had a 5 minute commute, didn’t travel like he did for work, and had summers off, so he was never around to see any of what she was dealing with. We obviously didn’t walk to our orthodontist or to swimming lessons or ballet, dinner didn’t make itself, and somehow the sheets got changed. As if by magic.
Anon
I’m mid 50s and an actuary, which is a profession with high qualification requirements. At my first two jobs in this field, women in the actuarial department were expected to cover for any secretaries who were out that day. I could tell many, many more stories like this, including one where men at a meeting I attended discussed my looks with each other as if I were not in the room.
Work has always been hard for women. It’s still hard. But it is not harder for us now.
Anonymous
Nope. I am a biglaw transactional attorney with little kids and while I often think single people or male colleagues don’t quite get how hard it is, I view the very few women a generation — especially those who had kids — ahead of me as essentially literal superwomen. That said, the other commenter’s point about being constantly on and available rings true, and it’s gotten way worse since WFH. I do not like this version of me as a mother who can’t seem to be away from my phone for more than a few minutes.
Anon
+1 to all of this.
Anon
+2 (and I am an Xennial, so middle aged basically).
Anon
I have been practicing law for 40 years and would not be able to control my laughter if someone suggested that it is harder to be a woman attorney now.
Of Counsel
I wanted to thank everyone for their nuanced replies! I will confess the first time my reaction was basically “you have GOT to be frigging kidding me!” But I was (as someone suggested) trying to get over being defensive and give it some serious consideration rather than just thing “young people these days.”
The first person who said it is no longer at my firm but the most recent is and we get along pretty well. I will ask her the next time I get a chance and report back.
And to be honest they might be conflating harder to be a woman lawyer with harder to be a lawyer in general – which I certainly think is true given the dramatic rise in student loan debt, generally not accompanied by an equal rise in salaries, the increase in the billable requirements, and the expectation of 24/7 availability.
Monday
It seems to me that actually just about every profession is more competitive and more challenging -overall- than it was for past generations. (This is separate from issues specific to women.) Overall, more credentials are expected, school has become more expensive, pay has stagnated, jobs are less secure, productivity is much more closely tracked, and expected work hours have gotten longer and longer. I’m sure there must be exceptions to this, but this is what I experience in health care and what I hear from friends in various fields.
Anonymous
I was going to say I think it’s much harder to be an attorney now. And harder to be a woman attorney. So overall, I do think it’s harder to be a woman attorney now but it’s not because it’s gotten worse for women. It’s gotten better, but worse overall. The student loan burden can really not be overestimated. I have been paying 24k a year for years and still have 200k left. It severely limits the type of work and jobs I can take, and means if I am harassed I have to wait until I find another job to be able to leave
Anonymous
I echo the more “harder to be an attorney” and less “harder to be a female attorney arguments. One thing I’ll note, which may or may not be different now than it was in earlier years, is that it seems the male associates are much more likely to be partnered than the female attorneys. I think that makes life easier than being single.
Anon
It is not different than 40 years ago. Probably 9 out of 10 married women attorneys were married to other attorneys. A much higher percentage of the men at the firm were married, many to stay-at-home wives, providing a support system that seriously disadvantaged the women attrneys.
Anonymous
Do these people think that because Me Too is a recent thing, Me Too-worthy conduct is also a recent thing?
kitten
I’m relatively young but my educated guess is NO! One time when I was 25 an old guy (opposing counsel) thought I was the court reporter, but it was very possible it was because I was new to my firm and list-minute filling in at a depo in place of another old guy that he was used to seeing. A couple years ago a random attorney at the courthouse asked why I was there instead of just trying to be a trophy wife, but he did it in a hilarious way and I’ve wondered that too TBH. An old partner was going on about how his wife couldn’t make it to our firm Christmas Party because she was preparing the house for guests and it was a “busy time for wives”. I just said “For sure, I could use a wife right now.” We got along just fine over the years.
I could probably tell those stories and make it sound like I was offended. I honestly wasn’t and nothing has adversely affected my career to my knowledge. I think we all make judgments based on appearances but some people just don’t know how to keep their mouths shut or work on their internal biases (especially rich old guys). I experience way less sexism at work than in the rest of life.
Donnyandbuster
I actually sometimes wonder if there were some advantages in the past in terms of there being lower expectations for women due to sexism, but also tempered with a need for some promotion to higher levels due to women being minorities. These days everyone, man and woman, is so impressive, so it’s hard to stand out and be competitive.
Not sure if this is the case, just throwing my thoughts out there.
Senior Attorney
OMG, stop. That was not a thing. And women and especially racial minorities are really harmed by that kind of talk: “They wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for affirmative action!” “She only got promoted because she’s a woman!” “White men are the ones who are really discriminated against!”
Anon
I know this is probably a Millenial thinking she’s so special but come on, impressive people have always existed. You guys didn’t invent them/us.
Anon
I can sort of see where she’s coming from. It’s not harder, but trickier. Before, you knew men held the power and just had to accept it while doing everything in your power to make it work. Now, there is still a lot of sexism, but less overt and thus difficult to address. Also, there are a lot of older women who act like queen bees and are actually more judgmental about young women than young men, so you have to learn how to deal with those women, in addition to micro aggressions from men. I hate to say it, but as a WOC, my worst bosses have all been women in biglaw, not men.
Anon
This comment is about the administration of the vaccine roll out, not about how to individually get one, so resident vaccine troll, please don’t comment.
As I’m sure we can all agree, it has been an absolute cluster getting the vaccine rolled out across the country. I’m so sad and disappointed that it has basically become a free for all in many places whereas countries with universal health care (or at least access to all health care providers of people’s health records) have been able to roll things out much more smoothly because they have age, health, and contact data for its residents. The closest I’ve seen to that is my large city where most doctors, even small family doctors, are affiliated with one of three or four big health systems, so those health systems worked together and decided they were going to contact patients for vaccines based on age and health status. It has worked pretty well, although that hasn’t stopped many people from still figuring out other ways to get vaccinated, as will always be the case.
I’m mostly disappointed because if we had had even a little bit of competent leadership, all this would have been planned from federal level down. Of course states will muck up the administration here and there, but it would have been better than throwing dollars to the wind.
Anon
IDK — do we really want people making lists of people by BMI to see if you are at risk enough? Or having one spot with all your data? Data breaches are real and with health stuff, that is so, so, so private that I’m not sure I’d wanting anyone else knowing exactly how many times I’ve been pregnant, what I’ve been treated for, etc.
Anon
Not OP but I do. That would be the most equitable way to address large scale health issues like pandemics.
Don’t kid yourself that your health system doesn’t already have this data on you anyway.
Anonymous
This is such a strawman. Having centralized data improves care and reduces costs. It literally saves lives because there are less ‘lost’ files or unknown allergies/conditions etc.
Anon
This is objectively not correct. The US is ahead of most countries in the world, with the exceptions of Israel, the UAE, and the UK on getting their population vaccinated. We’re WELL ahead of the EU, which obviously has socialized medicine. While there are hiccups with the rollout, we need to have some awareness of how much better we’re doing that the rest of the world (albeit not perfect). I’d also note that countries like Israel very much adopted the “Hey Pizza Guy” approach, where it’s not perfectly “fair” but it is faster (good for the story – it’s funny).
Anon
This.
Anonymous
Came here to say this! Comparatively the U.S. is doing great, particularly given where we were at the start of the roll out and the lack of institutional support. I think a lot of our local leaders are working really hard to balance fast and fair, which is really hard. If you told me 6 months ago we’d be at over 100 million very very effective vaccine doses administered I’d have been over the moon.
anonshmanon
In this case, I am not so sure that the grass is really greener on the other side. The rollout and prioritization may very well be more orderly in the countries with centralized health care systems, but looking at where things are standing now, number of vaccines per capita is so much lower in the EU and Canada, that (for once), I don’t envy them for their health system.
anonshmanon
adding that this is more to do with the EU not having been able to secure enough vaccine supply (so slightly different topic than the rollout logistics), but the bottom line is that the US is achieving faster vaccination of their residents.
Anonymous
Questionable purchasing tactics of vaccines should not be seen as a positive thing.
Anon
Not the only issue. My ~35year-old German colleague and his wife were able to get vaccinated last weekend because so many have refused.
Anonymous
I do not agree at all that the vaccine roll out has been a disaster. The US has administered 98 million doses, 19% of the population is vaccinated and 10% are fully vaccinated. Considering that this time last year we were just beginning to grapple with the virus, this is phenomenal. We have a goal to have the vaccine available to all adults in the next seven weeks. I am so thankful and proud of the vaccine companies, our health care personnel, our National Guard, FEMA, and all the volunteers that are making this happen.
I’m sad and disappointed with how people are reacting. Why would anyone think a massive undertaking like this would be completely smooth? Why does everyone feel free to weigh in with their complaints about who should be prioritized to get vaccinated? The focus on the selfish ones that have jumped the line is apparently more fun than acknowledging the good that’s been done. It’s not perfect, but a lot of that has been driven by not having enough vaccine. As supply ramps up, it will become easier to reach more people where they are at, and the mass vaccination sites can focus on, well, the masses.
It’s a lot easier to complain and push agendas for national health care than to see that the US is actually doing really well vaccinating us.
Anon
Don’t overthink the comments here. Yeah, people are going to come to an anonymous fashion blog to complain sometimes. That makes sense because it’s quick and easy and can be validating, especially for frustrating things like not getting prioritized when you think you should. It doesn’t mean that people think the entire system is broken or that they’re spending hours upon hours obsessing about the roll-out. It also doesn’t mean that people aren’t doing really good work to help family, friends, or in their fields when they’re not posting here. It’s just 1-minute comments on a random blog.
Anonymous
The OP wrote three paragraphs including stating we can all agree the vaccine roll out is a cluster. That’s not a one minute comment, and deserved a substantive rebuttal.
LaurenB
The two aren’t mutually exclusive. I can easily acknowledge that the US has done better than many countries (including most of Europe and Canada — we’re behind only the UK and Israel) AND think that national health care would be a good thing. I believe Israel has health care such that there are 4 different companies and everyone needs to sign up with one of those 4.
Anon
I don’t agree that it’s been a cluster. From everything I’ve seen in my area, it’s been rather smooth. A few hiccups, but nothing major. I can’t for the life of me imagine how it could have been improved with some sort of top-down federal plan made by people who have no idea what my area is like.
And the US as a whole has done very well, compared to other nations, at this. Recognizing that it’s something radically different from anything that’s been done in the past, I’d say it’s downright amazing.
Anonymous
This is not even remotely true. You are miles ahead of Canada and every single European country with public health care. Some of it is supply reasons (no vaccine is made in Canada, UK preventing export of some Astra Z to EU etc) but the roll out in the US is the one thing you all have done relatively well. It’s is incredibly difficult to inoculate an entire huge country at the same time. There will be imperfections.
Anonymous
I think leaving it to the states has resulted in a wide range of experiences for the posters here. I would suggest identifying your State if you want to vent.
Anon
I mean, if you really care about protecting the most vulnerable the best way to do that is simply reverse age order. an obese 40 year old is far less likely to get seriously ill than a healthy 65 year old. 93% of the deaths in my state have been in people over 60. The rollout hasn’t been strictly age-based because people (federal government and blue states especially) are concerned with protecting essential workers and minority communities, but a national healthcare system wouldn’t solve this. The CDC guidance is being followed more closely in states like CA that have more confusing guidelines that have allowed a lot of younger, relatively health people to get the vaccine while old people are still waiting. My state has taken a strictly age based approach and our rollout has been efficient – every eligible person can get it easily and the data suggests very few young people are getting vaccinated now.
I agree with other commenters that national rollout has been really good, especially in comparison to other countries. We will have enough doses for every American 5 months after the vaccine was approved and 14 months after the pandemic began. That’s incredible! Hiccups were inevitable but it’s going so much better than it could have gone, and I think the Biden administration deserves a lot of credit. They inherited a huge mess and took major steps towards fixing it very quickly.
Anonymous
I am in California and it’s a nightmare with the rules changing at least once a week. I agree that if we had just rolled through by age group we would be ahead of where we are now.
Anonymous
I am in California and it’s a nightmare with the rules changing at least once a week. I agree that if we had just rolled through by age group we would be ahead of where we are now.
Sunshine
Housewarming gift help for a 40-year old man, dad with two teenage kids, divorced for three years. He is buying his post-divorce house and moving out of an apartment. I have no idea what he has or what he may need. He’s actually a very good friend, but always comes to our house because we have space. So just go with wine?
Vicky Austin
Home depot/the like gift card? Something always comes up when you own the place.
Curious
YES!
Anon
My default is nice dish towels from W-S. And/or wine.
AIMS
I’d go with whiskey & some nice glasses.
Clementine
A friend of mine gave us a good, sturdy bucket (you really do always need a good bucket) and put in it some dish towels, a bottle of wine, some house stuff (I remember Gorilla glue was in there along with other random things you need around the house like a fire extinguisher) and a Home Depot gift card.
I’ve done variations on that ever since.
Sunshine
Like this idea!
Anonymous
Oh, I like this. It sounds like that was a very generous gift, too.
Clementine
That’s the great thing – you can make it more generous (wine + gift card + nicer stuff) but I’ve also given a bucket filled with little things you need around the house – like Zip ties and WD-40 – and various home goods things like oven mitts.
It’s easy to make it a $25 gift or a $250 gift. The key item for me though is to put it in a good quality bucket because – my BFF was 100% right – you always need a good bucket.
anonshmanon
That sounds great! Duct tape, extra pair of scissors, sharpie, nice hand soap, and some fun snacks could also fit this theme.
Senior Attorney
Yes!
Anon
I don’t know why you’d get him anything you wouldn’t get a woman. Basic household needs aren’t gendered.
Senior Attorney
Oh, and I just now got a fire extinguisher for my kitchen. (I know, I know…) Anyway that would be a great housewarming gift. Wirecutter recommends this one: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-fire-extinguisher/
Senior Attorney
In mod because of link, but… kitchen fire extinguisher. He might not think to get one for himself.
Groan
So a few weeks ago I lamented on here about a peer acting totally unprofessionally towards my staffer who had made a minor error. I got some good advice on here for how to address – including a ‘come to Jesus’ comment that I was letting subpar work out of my department.
Honestly, I kept thinking about that particular comment which – at the time I thought was harsh because I was mostly complaining that somebody else was driving my staffer to quit – but… it wasn’t wrong!
Well. Here’s a little follow-up.
-Unfortunately, my workload has increased dramatically BUT I was able to figure out the root cause which was partially poorly named reports that didn’t do what the name indicated, partially a staffer who doesn’t ask questions and is honestly C+ at best but shows up and works, and partially a peer who likes to hoard knowledge to feel important AND lacks interpersonal skills.
-I ended up retraining the staff, changing the reports and reporting names to be accurate, and putting in a whole quality control system. Did I have to work a few 18 hour days to make it happen? Yep. Is it fixed now? Also, yep.
– The peer issue (which was what I was initially upset about) had an interesting resolution. The peer’s boss came to ME and we developed a system which means that peer is not going to be bullying my staffer again. It also meant the peer’s boss was laying out lines of ‘this is yours, this is theirs’ which had been a challenge because of aforementioned knowledge hoarding.
– Still massively understaffed and likely to stay that way.
Honestly? It’s a lot more work right now but also like 90% less stressful. The feedback I got on here last time was incredibly valuable so just throwing this out there in case anybody has any further suggestions.
Anon
I didn’t chime in on your post because I didn’t have experience with your situation, but I’m so glad you got real advice here that helped you. Sometimes I get down on this place because of discussions like this mornings ridiculous Dr Seuss thread, but it’s comments like yours that keep me coming back!
Anon
+1
No Face
It sounds like you are putting in the hard work to make your whole department better. Good for you!
Anon
A happy ending, and a good reminder that taking the effort to retrain can really pay off
Anonymous
<3
Anon
Bit was acting unprofessionally towards your staff member accepted as “cost of admission”? If someone had a problem with my staff member i would want them to come to me with feedback rather than explode aggression on a low totem pole worker.
Groan
Not sure if you’ll see this, but no! It wasn’t accepted! Right away, I had the ‘that’s inappropriate, come to me’ conversation’ with my peer but I also listened to what they were saying once they calmed down.
Peer’s manager (who I worked with at a prior job and have a good relationship with) is the one who came to me with the real solution, which was basically to clearly lay out lines of work and make sure all questions/feedback goes to and comes through peer to me with manager cc’d (apparently this is a bigger issue, not just us, related to the ‘exploding on other staff’ thing).
What really is going to fix it though is that somebody FINALLY sat down and said, ‘Okay, that chart we both have to fill out? Your team does columns 1-10, I do 11-17. Here is the report (which only gets sent to peer and peer doesn’t share) you need to fill out columns 9 and 10.). I’d been working for more than a year to get that delineated, because at first peer was like, ‘Oh, I’ll do the rest of it.’ but then peer got mad/overwhelmed and stopped doing it without giving us a clear explanation of what we needed to do OR the report we needed to actually fill it out.
(Also, if there are any data nerds in there – after realizing what needed to be done, I dusted off my admittedly dusty Excel nerd skills and wrote a series of formulas that mean that at least 2 hours or so of work that had to be done to literally pull data off a very large report and into this chart is accomplished with a quick copy/paste and dragging a formula and now takes about 15 seconds. I’ve still got it.)
Anonymous
hi hive! help me fun shop for a while. My 30th birthday is coming up and I want to buy myself a nice piece of jewelry. Budget $1500-2k. Any recs? thinking of a Cartier love bracelet like the below, or maybe a Suzanne Kalan necklace. Idea is for a necklace or bracelet I can never take off. All other ideas?
https://www.cartier.com/en-us/collections/jewelry/bracelets/love-bracelets/b6027100-love-bracelet.html
https://www.net-a-porter.com/en-us/shop/product/suzanne-kalan/18-karat-rose-gold-diamond-necklace/1313039
Lilau
Oooof. Sorry, I’m useless as they both look
beautiful. Happy birthday and enjoy!
Ps: Your thirties are better than your twenties.
Anon
Both pretty but the necklace is gorgeous.
Anonymous
+ 1, love the necklace, it’s really unique. Is rose gold your forever metal?
Anon
The necklace is divine. The bracelet is just okay.
Anon
I like the necklace way more than the bracelet, but I’m not much of a bracelet person to begin with.
Anonymous
I vote for the necklace. I think it will have more staying power. The love bracelets have gotten rather trendy and I’d be worried they would stand out like a tiffany lock necklace in a few years. It also seems like a more ageless look. I could see a 20 something and 70 something in the necklace but not the bracelet as much. Necklaces also hold up better if you change in size, either with pregnancy or middle age creep or what have you. Necklaces also are really good in the era of Zoom (which I think will lessen as the pandemic gets more under control but still be a more common way of holding meetings than before).
LaurenB
Necklace, definitely. The bracelet doesn’t look its price – I see bracelets like that at much lower price points.
Gigi
VCA necklace
Anon
The necklace, for sure. It’s gorgeous. The bracelet is cute but I was shocked at the price tag, I think you could find something similar for much much less.
Anonymous
I agree with the others, the necklace is the one from those two! Very lovely! Congrats on you birthday! I love the idea of really going for a treat! Do the thing that has been on you mind, that’s what you’ll love. If you don’t love it fifteen years from now, who cares!
One thing – how literal are you with the “never take off” (since you’re techinically only in your twenties, you might actually not have thought about this, I know I never did). You do have to take it off. You wont be able to take proper care of it if you actually shower with it. You might be able to sleep with it. But yeah, never take off? Nope. :)
Cat
I’d pass on the love bracelet because (1) it’s become kind of a cliche and (2) I don’t like bangles. Necklace is beautiful!
Leather
How hard is it to keep vegetable tanned leather looking good? I’m thinking of purchasing a Mansur Gavriel tote in a brown vegetable tanned leather. I like the look with a bit of patina on leather but not something too weathered. Anyone have experience with how long before vegetable tanned leather becomes beat up looking?