Weekly News Update
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- In These Times described “the grooming gap” — the additional costs for women to “look the part” in the workplace.
- BBC News offered seven major fashion looks for 2020.
- Prevention shared Alicia Keys' makeup-free beauty routine.
- Refinery 29 provided the money diary of a 33-year-old Washington, D.C., surgeon who spent $1,600 on lingerie in a week.
- NPR suggested how to make a habit of creating art to improve your health.
- NPR also interviewed Ada Calhoun, author of the new book, Why We Can't Sleep, about the pressures Gen X women face. (She also wrote the viral article, “The New Midlife Crisis,” published in the October 2017 issue of Oprah Magazine.)
- Fast Company suggested how to “future proof” your career path.
- The Washington Post shared what happened when a wife realized her husband was constantly receiving phone calls from mysterious women.
- The Zoe Report explored chicory root as an alternative to morning coffee.
- Jezebel reported that Elizabeth Wurtzel, author of Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America, has died at 52.
- NYT Parenting discussed when it's time to seek advice from a fertility specialist, and what to ask.
- Your RBG News of the Week: The Cut reported that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is starting 2020 cancer-free.
- Laugh of the Week: McSweeney's outlined what you should talk to your therapist about as opposed to what you actually talk to her about.
On CorporetteMoms Recently…
- We discussed how to set a family budget.
- We shared some favorite recent Amazon purchases for a 9-year-old boy.
- We offered some clothes for working moms, including some maternity basics and washable workwear.
Did we miss anything? Add 'em here, or send them to news@corporette.com. Thank you! Also: Are you a mom or mom-to-be? Don’t miss this week’s news update at CorporetteMoms.
The grooming gap piece had elements of ridiculousness. I accept the premise that there is a grooming gap but I can’t imagine organizing for compensation for it or how one could make it fair. I also accept that wearing makeup as a Target beauty department employee might be expected, but not that spending $400/month on products is necessary to do the job.
P.S. – there is a movement to make commuting time “fully and unconditionally” payable? There are so many problems with this . . .
I agree with your comment. I spend a lot on makeup and skincare, but I know that I spend a lot more than many of my female colleagues becuase I like it and am vain. I could easily complain about how women are forced to spend this much, but they’re really not.
I would rather seen an approach that removes penalties for women who do not use makeup/groom beyond what is expected of a mediocre white man and trains managers on grooming-related biases than one that attempts to compensate women for grooming but does nothing to fix the underlying disparity in expectations.
The idea of making commuting time payable is horrible to me, from a purely environmental standpoint (and is something I’ve never heard before). Many, many people I know live in less than ideal apartments or houses and pay a huge premium to live to close to work. If they got paid from the moment they left their place to the moment they returned, I strongly suspect that many people would move farther out and commute more.
On the other hand, it would incentivize companies to be more flexible with work from home. A few hundred dollars for a reasonable wfh setup is better than paying my employee all that extra time.
I see a lot of problems with compensating for commuting. It might help some companies improve their WFH options, but not all jobs can be fully done from home, so that’s a really limited benefit.
If the company is paying for commute time, does that give them say in how the employee uses that time? Can the company tell the employee to commute via car instead of public transport or bike to save time? How do things like errands and daycare/school drop off figure into the calculation?
If there’s a delay like traffic, does the employer pay for that? What if the employee just dawdles and takes the scenic route? What if the employee gets in a car accident or something that delays their arrival by hours?
Does this benefit only extend to full-time exempt workers, or can part timers and hourly folks get it as well? For poorly paid professions, this incentivizes people to commute for as long as possible in order to guarantee extra pay (especially if it’s extra pay without having to deal with angry customers or other minimum wage workplace hazards).
I talk to my therapist about all the things in the left-hand column. I pay $150 an hour to get better and move on in my life career, and marriage, not to dance around issues.
401k question – how long is reasonable to take for your deductions to appear in your 401k account after payday? My new job is currently taking 7 days to apply my deductions to my 401k account, and I am not a fan of my money being in some nebulous mystery world for an entire week instead of earning interest for me. But maybe this is normal? My prior job almost always posted the funds to my 401k on payday, rarely delayed until the next day, definitely didn’t sit on them for a full week.
IANAL, but I work on 401k admin. There is a reg that says employers must deposit the funds into the 401k trust as soon as the money can be segregated from general assets, but no later than the 15th of the following month. In practice, every employer I’ve worked for got the money into the trust within a business day or two after payday unless there was a huge admin snafu.
Thanks, this is helpful. Sounds like they are within the allowed time frame, but slow. Kind of part for the course for this HR group.
I enjoyed that Washington Post article!
Which one?
the one listed above
The Washington Post shared what happened when a wife realized her husband was constantly receiving phone calls from mysterious women.
The start sounded like – of course we all know how this ends, but then had a cute plot twist.
I wasn’t going to bother clicking through until you posted this. It’s worth the read, not what I expected. Thanks for the prompt!