BookWoman56

I think it is extremely crappy that your work is forcing you to use a floating holiday so the office can be closed. If they want the office closed on December 24, then that should be a paid holiday just like other holidays, that doesn't cut into your personal floating holidays. I don't see that this is any different from a situation where, for example, the office is closed because of severe weather or something, and the employees should get paid for the day because it wasn't their choice to skip work. Where I work, we are open for December 24, as well as December 31, but we got the email yesterday that everyone can leave at 2 pm local time on those days, assuming there's nothing critical going on. We have regular PTO, paid holidays, and a couple of personal holidays. Floating holidays are reserved for times when an actual holiday would fall on a non-work day, such as if July 4 falls on a Saturday, then you can use those 8 hours on another day. The personal holidays are intended to be there for people who have non-Christian religious days they want off, but it's obviously not required that you be religious at all to use them. I do find it interesting that they are now tracking whether you use the day for religious reasons, though; when you go into the system to put the request in, if you select a personal holiday as your type of time off, there is now a pop-up that asks you if it is for religious purposes. It gives the option of "Prefer not to answer" as well. I'm just wondering if HR is trying to get a sense of exactly how many people are using a specific day as their personal religious holiday. I'm not religious at all, but am taking December 24th off as a regular PTO day so I can do various things to get ready for Christmas, which this year involves my 90-year-old mother who lives with me now, who is Christian, my son (agnostic), his wife (Buddhist), my daughter (half-Jewish), her boyfriend (family is Muslim but no longer religious), and my younger sister and her husband and son (fundamentalists). The thing I dislike about Christmas is that people get so damn obsessed with it; there's music, TV movies, decorations, massive pressure to buy gifts, etc. It's a weird hybrid of a religious holiday and a secular holiday, with the primary focus being OTT consumerism. In the workplace, though, I'm tired of the general assumption that everyone is going to observe it as a religious holiday, and that everyone wants to participate in a holiday gift exchange. Because I don't work in the same physical office as most of my colleagues, I'm exempt from the gift exchange, thank goodness.

@GHScorpiosRule, it's great that you're finally in a good environment and getting positive feedback. After the horrible work situation you were previously in, you're probably still in a state of ongoing surprise at the improvement. After a while you will internalize the new environment and get used to it, which is as it should be. It shouldn't be the case that employees are overwhelmed to be treated well and rewarded for their efforts. Yet all too often it is. I had the initial meeting with my new dotted-line manager, and it went very well. He brought up the idea that I will probably need a new job title/role once I've been formally moved to his team. No decisions yet, but I told him I would forward my resume and a couple of other items to him so he can get a better sense of what I bring to the table. He's definitely interested in changing my role to something more than a tech writer; he wants me to get immersed in the overall project so I can assess things and make decisions as needed. So far, this is sounding almost exactly what I wanted, to the point that I feel a little weird that this entire change has been so smooth thus far. On the down side, now that my current team is aware that my role is changing, they're hitting me up with a lot of documentation and so forth to finish. I will still do some work with them, but only for certain documents, and so they want to use me as much as possible before the start of the new year. Some of it is actual writing and editing, but some is just doing some things in documents that nobody else knows how to do. I refuse to feel guilty here, because I have told my manager and colleagues several times that I should not be the only person on the team who knows how to do functions A, B, and C in Word docs or Visio files, but my existing manager was always much more interested in hiring project managers than hiring someone else with solid writing skills. My former colleague/friend who is now my colleague again because I recommended her is running into some issues with the colleague who used to do her job. This is the colleague I've mentioned before who is lazy, can't write an email without multiple typos or grammar mistakes, but who is the golden child as far as my current manager is concerned. She is one of those people who thinks that if she makes everybody else look bad, she will look better in comparison. So I'm trying to provide support to my friend, while giving her any tips I can for how to deal with the other colleague. Overall, though, I feel very good about the changes and am hoping the positive changes continue.

Scary but true: about 3 years ago I had been told I would need to have cataract surgery in both eyes, but that it would probably be a year before it was necessary. I had to renew my license in person (here in TX they alternate between letting you renew online and having to go in person), and a vision test was required. I barely passed the vision test; I had to squint like crazy and I'm really not sure if I saw all the letters I thought I did or if I had just subconsciously memorized the string of letters from the various people who were tested while I was in line. Within 2-3 weeks of renewing my license, I went to my optometrist again and my vision had drastically deteriorated since my prior visit 6 months earlier. Optometrist: You're now legally blind; you wouldn't be able to pass the vision test for your drivers license. Me: Holy crap, I just passed it a few weeks ago. Optometrist: That's crazy, but even though you passed it, you're still legally blind and should not be driving. I did request and receive ADA accommodations to work from home; this was prior to my job switch where I now telecommute full-time. Also, my daughter ended up being my chauffeur for the next few months until I could get the cataract surgery done, so at least once I knew I was a hazard behind the wheel, I quit driving until I could actually see well again. I don't know that I would list 80 as an age where nobody should have a drivers license any more; my parents were still driving normally until their mid-80s. But I do think everybody, regardless of age, should have to pass the driving test and vision test at specified intervals, such as every 10 years through age 70, and every 5 years past age 70. I've known too many people who drove carefully when they were still living at home and had to pass their driving test to get their license originally, who then became very careless drivers after a few years but never had to have their driving skills formally assessed again.

I have mixed feelings about mid-century modern. I like the architectural designs for public places and so forth, but the furniture that is intended for personal use always looks uncomfortable to me, and my general reaction to it is to think that this is stuff someone designed with the idea that it would look like people a hundred years into the future would use. It's like when a movie or TV show tries to depict how people in a future era will dress, and the clothing is mostly familiar but with some very different style choices. I see some of the chairs, in particular, and think yeah, someone was trying to imagine what chairs would look like 100 years from now. I have a fairly eclectic design style for my own stuff. I like some fairly plain designs in couches and so forth, but have pretty ornate dining room and bedroom furniture. I like a Victorian color palette but without the overly fussy and crowded rooms that tend to go with Victorian styles. My house was built within the last two years, and it's fairly straightforward modern design. I would love a Victorian style house, but it would look ridiculous in my neighborhood. I generally don't like an open floor plan, but after being super crowded for 6 months or so prior to buying this house, I was happy to have something where the kitchen and main living area are open. For my next house, I want a dedicated library; I may convert my currently unused upstairs game room into a reading area of sorts, but I want a library where I can go in and shut the door, settle down on a chaise or reclining chair of some sort, with a tea table next to me so I can park my cup of tea while I read. Generally, I know better what I don't like in terms of interior design than what I do like. I loathe rustic and shabby chic. I'm not fond of mission style furniture but can see its appeal. For upholstery fabric, drapes, etc., I prefer fairly quiet patterns and don't like having too many patterns in the same room. My biggest mystery when it comes to design choices, though, has to do with bedrooms. What the fuck is up with having 14 "decorative" pillows on a bed, that you're going to have to remove every time you want to sleep, and then replace when you get up? One or two I can understand, but not the mountain of pillows that so many people seem to have.

Progress on at least part of this: my manager's boss sent an official email this weekend announcing that I now have dotted line reporting to the manager who is responsible for putting together all project components, effective today. It will have to be after the first of the year before he can formally move me over to the other team, and I guess my current manager has to sort of sign off on it (when she returns from medical leave, and no word yet on when that will be). I knew this was coming because last week I was suddenly inundated with requests from my new dotted-line manager, and my current manager's boss emailed me and copied the other manager plus the colleague who is temporarily in charge of our team, to say that he saw value in my suggestion and would get back to me by the end of the week, after he had a few required conversations. The new dotted-line manager and I have a brief meeting tomorrow to discuss what I'm interested in doing on the overall project, etc. He announced to his team today that I will be transitioning over to work directly with his team. No discussion yet on a new job title/possible raise, but that would normally take place in early spring when annual performance appraisals are released. I'm not giving up on that idea, but for now I will be focusing on transitioning over from my current workload to the new workload. Overall, I'm very pleased and somewhat surprised that things have gone so smoothly and on a fairly fast timeline for the corporate world.

I have friends who will occasionally post on FB regarding a charity they are involved with; one friend in particular is a horse person and often posts links to orgs that are involved in rescuing horses, etc. Those are not connected to her birthday or any other holiday, but just following more or less the method that @Bastet listed, of talking up a charity and letting that encourage people to donate or ask for more info. But while I think publicly asking for a gift is tacky, at least IMO there are different levels of tackiness. Posting on FB, "For my upcoming birthday/wedding/ whatever, I want A, B, and C," is extremely tacky in a way that "Hey, if you are thinking about a gift for me, please donate to XYZ charity instead" is not, although I still think that request is better left as a response to someone who asks you what you want as a gift. I personally like gift registries because if I have to get a gift for someone for a wedding, where I may not know the couple that well but know a parent better, I at least am assured if I get something off a gift registry that they won't absolutely hate it. The one public announcement that gets a complete pass from me on being tacky is for obituaries where it states that in lieu of flowers, the family asks that a donation be made to a charity. Technically, the statement implies that a gift is expected and also directs the person reading it to choose a specific gift. But it's not actually the deceased person himself/herself who will benefit from the request, and it makes sense to take the family's wishes into consideration rather than assuming they want yet another floral arrangement. Ultimately, for me there's a balance between appearing to ask for a gift and being practical enough to recognize that because some people will undoubtedly want to give a gift, it makes sense to give some direction (via a gift registry or whatever) what kind of gift would be welcome. One caveat, though, is that if people use a gift registry, it needs to include a range of prices so that if someone wants to give a gift but has a very small gift budget, there's still something listed that falls within that budget. IOW, don't have a gift registry that consists only of big ticket items.

I loathe office gift exchanges anyway, so good riddance to a bad idea. I do drink wine occasionally, but if I wanted to give a colleague a bottle of wine, then it would be on an individual basis rather than a party where you're likely to end up with something you don't like anyway. I've been to plenty of corporate functions offsite where alcohol was served, so I don't see anything inherently wrong with having wine at an office party being held at a restaurant. Setting up the party as a wine exchange, though, is a completely different issue. Although I don't work in a business office location any more, I much prefer the practice of a team opting to do gifts for a needy family rather than exchange white elephants with colleagues. I understand the desire to have an office holiday party, but the gift exchange has always seemed to me to be stupid. Hell, my siblings and I quit exchanging gifts between us and our adult kids a decade ago, and it was a huge relief. We recognized that it made no sense for us to do gifts, other than for kids under age 18, and that we'd rather concentrate on gifts for our own spouses and/or kids. If I see something that I think would be a great gift for one of my siblings, I'll get it but not as part of a holiday ritual. As for gifts for colleagues, I see no point in setting up a gift exchange; also, although there's usually the option to not participate, invariably the non-participant is made to feel bad.

College students hate them as well, at least based on my experience. However, in recognition of this issue, in some of the courses that I previously taught, any team projects required a team charter, in which the students laid out who was responsible for what. When the project was submitted, a team participation worksheet had to be submitted with it. The worksheet required team members to document whether each student had contributed to the project, and if one or more had only partially fulfilled responsibilities, the percentage of their work that they actually did. If an individual student had a dissenting opinion, he/she could submit a worksheet as well. Based on the worksheet(s), the instructor could then grade the project itself and assign a grade to each individual based on the extent to which the student participated. So, a student who did nothing while the work was going on and then showed up on the due date with a token paragraph would not get the same grade as the students who did the actual work. It’s too bad companies don’t use something similar. I was just commenting to a colleague yesterday, that when Colleague A says she will partner with Colleague B on a given project, what that means is that Colleague B will do 95% of the work, and Colleague A will claim 95% of the credit.

@PRgal, your father is probably just expressing his discomfort at the modern way of celebrating the baby's milestone. My guess is that guests who are fairly comfortable with technology and wish to give a gift will use the link from the invitation, and those who are less comfortable will simply show up with the traditional envelopes or other baby presents. Since you're a new parent (right?), just deal with the fact that when it comes to your child and the rest of your family, there's no way to please everybody, so do what is most comfortable for you but understand that other family members will periodically freak out over your choices. I got a text from my brother today saying that he and his wife will not be coming to my area for Christmas after all, and will instead try to come in a few months. I'm long past the point where I would feel guilty about being let off the hook here. When they do come, I'll feel perfectly comfortable with a low-key meal or light refreshments, depending on what time of day they're coming.

My only quibble with what's on the mug has to do with the affect/effect split. "Affect" can be used correctly as a noun: Person A has a flat affect. And "effect" can be used correctly as a verb: The legislature effected the change in licensing requirements for massage therapists. I agree, however, that it's annoying as fuck when people consistently use those words incorrectly. At one point, I made up a sign and posted it in a room where some of my colleagues worked; I no longer remember exactly what was on my sign, but it used Star Trek references to illustrate the correct uses of both words. ETA: This was not my original example, but it's close enough: Leonard Nimoy originally played the character of Mr. Spock as an alien, but with fairly human sensibilities. Very early in the series, though, he effected a change in the character. Nimoy began portraying Mr. Spock with a very flat affect. The effect of this change was to make the character more intriguing. The shift in character, though, affected Nimoy in his interactions with other cast members, as he tried to stay in character on set and so seemed less friendly than previously.

Yes, she is the youngest child, and that status probably plays into my mother's mindset, but this is to such an extreme that it's hard to believe that's the only thing going on. My younger sister was always my mother's favorite, because of similarities in appearance and personality, although my mother didn't engage in an unending string of bad decisions and never take responsibility for them. I do have to say, though, that despite my mother being unwilling to accept that my younger sister's situation is the result of her own actions, she's not delusional enough to think my younger sister is suitable to take care of her (my mother). She knows full well and has stated a couple of times that if she had ended up living with my younger sister, that my brother-in-law would take all of her monthly income and use it on drugs, etc. @PRgal, I don't think it's inevitable that you see your son as a baby and never quite grown up, even when he is. My two kids are 15 years apart, and it's been relatively easy for me to accept that they are adults now, and for the most part, capable of making their own decisions. With my daughter, the situation is slightly different, because she's in college and is still living with me, and is bipolar. She discusses major decisions with me, but my role is more of a sounding board. I don't always agree with her decisions but I recognize that she has the right to make them, whether they turn out to be good or bad. If I felt she was about to do something that would be catastrophic, I would feel compelled to sit down with her and give her my reasons for opposing whatever it was, but ultimately, it's her life and she has to navigate it as best she can and how she wishes. She at least has learned from her mistakes. As an example, last year she got involved with a guy who was in her physics class; they had not known each other previously and got involved a few weeks into the semester. I did comment to her that doing so might be a problem if the relationship ended badly, but she didn't think it would. The guy was a few years older than she was, and got way too serious way too fast; about a month before the class ended, she broke up with him. He just didn't want to accept that for a while. Tons of texts, awkward conversations before and after class. It didn't quite turn into a stalking situation, but it was very uncomfortable, to the point that she didn't go to class at all except for tests the last few weeks of the class, and changed her major from physics to math so as not to have to have future classes with this guy. She started dating someone else fairly soon afterward, but he is a guy that she'd known for a couple of semesters and he's not someone who was looking for an instant serious relationship. But she did comment to me that in retrospect, it was a bad move to get involved with the other guy after such a short time and having a class with him (lab partners, too), because it was incredibly uncomfortable once they broke up.

I don't really understand why there is this concept of a "true fan" anyway, whether books or movies. If you are a fan, then that means that overall you like and enjoy the books/movies, but there may be certain components that you don't like or think could have been done better. If by "true fan," these people mean someone who loves the books/movies without question, will not look at them critically in the slightest to identify even a small problem, and will not hear the slightest dissenting opinion without getting BSC, that's not a fan; that's a cult member.

I hate how the definition of “breaking news” has apparently changed to mean perfectly predictable and expected non-critical events. I get that the death of a former POTUS is a big deal. However, the fact that his casket has moved from point A to point B, as scheduled, is not really “breaking” news, and certainly not something that needs to be sent as a breaking news alert on a phone app. (Note: this is not a political statement about this specific former POTUS; I feel the same way about this sort of thing regardless of political party affiliation, and it extends to regular celebrities as well.) You know what would actually be breaking news? If the presumed dead former POTUS sat up in his coffin and yelled, “Surprise! I just wanted to see how much of a big deal will be made when I really die.” So, all of you news channels and agencies, please stop telling me that the completion of task 425 in the logistics of a public memorial service is breaking news. It’s not.

@DeLurker, thanks for the advice. A few of the events you mentioned were from last year; this coming day after Christmas marks the one-year anniversary of my son and DIL closing on their house and so being in their own space. They are in the same neighborhood, so we all have more privacy but close enough to help out easily. However, I've decided to do the decorations in my living room like I normally would, which is essentially just putting up a tree, with the only addition being a couple of extra folding tables to put my mother's Christmas village crap on. It won't fit in her bedroom without some major shifting around of stuff, so it's easier to do it in the living room where there's plenty of space. My son has already helped move a couple of pieces of furniture to make room for the tree, and the tables that will arrive tomorrow. As for the impending visit by my brother and SIL, I may just opt to go get a bucket of chicken and some sides. I may end up going to pick up my sister a day or two early anyway, but will see how that goes. If she stays for a few days, she can help out with various things; if not, it won't really matter. I had forgotten I still had a day of personal holiday PTO, so I'm using that for the day before Christmas, which gives me the weekend and then Monday to do the bulk of the normal housecleaning, food prep, and so forth. I will probably repeat my strategy from Thanksgiving, by mixing up a few things (dressing, sweet potato casserole, etc.) a few days early and sticking them in the freezer, to be cooked on Christmas day. And since I will have a fresh batch of PTO effective New Year's, I have gone ahead and scheduled PTO for the rest of that week. That will give me several consecutive days off to relax and catch up on some things. I do absolutely nothing for New Year's so there's no big meal or party to plan for. And I am sticking with a resolution I made earlier this year; when my bonus arrives in March/April, I'm going to do a solo vacation for a week and just enjoy being on my own for a while. If it coincides with my daughter's spring break, then she can handle taking care of my mother for a week; that worked fine when I had to travel for business earlier this year. If my vacation doesn't coincide with spring break, then I will either get someone through a home health care agency to come in during the days for that week or see if another family member can come help out. I know I need some solitude for a while and to do a few enjoyable activities strictly for my own benefit. @bilgistic, if your sister and niece couldn't be bothered to notify you about the wedding, then you're not obligated to acknowledge it, offer congratulations, etc. I do sympathize with your mother being supportive of one sibling while failing to be supportive of you. My mother has always given my younger sister a pass on all her bad decisions and frequently dismisses her situation as "bad luck" rather than the inevitable result of an entire chain of bad decisions, or else she blames the entire situation on my younger sister's husband. For the rest of us, she was reasonably supportive when we hit an occasional bump in the road, but with my younger sister, it has always been as if she is completely blind to reality.

This will be the first Christmas since my oldest sister died and my mother moved in with me. Not looking forward to this event at all. Last year's Christmas was fairly good, low key with just immediate family and one friend; I got the tree up a couple of weeks before Christmas but there was no rush about it. I had some PTO to use so I could take a day or two off and get the house ready, food prepped, and so forth. This year is pretty much a clusterfuck. My mother has always been obsessive about Christmas, so she wants the big tree in the living room up and decorated now; I got my son to assemble it yesterday and will start decorating it tomorrow. She also wanted a tree for her bedroom, so bought one that still needs to be assembled. The fact that she is at my house means other relatives will come visit, so my brother and SIL will be here the day before Christmas, because they will spend Christmas day itself at her son's house (in the same city where I live). That means having to have everything ready plus some sort of special meal for them that day, and at this point I have maybe half a day of PTO left because of the time I took off when my sister was in ICU and then when I moved my mother over here, etc. There's also the fact that my SIL is a religious fanatic whose mother died within the last couple of weeks, and she's constantly on FB right now telling everyone how her mother is running around in heaven with Jesus now; the SIL alternates between those posts and spouting right-wing conspiracy theories. My younger sister and her husband and son were not able to come at Thanksgiving because of illness, but presumably they will have recovered by Christmas. And at this point I'm about ready to tell my younger sister that I need to draft her a couple of days early, so she can help prep for the visit from our brother and help prep for Christmas day itself, given that I have so little time off left for 2018 and have to save what I do have for an upcoming procedure my mother has scheduled in a couple of weeks. If that happens, it will entail me driving a couple of hours each way to pick her up, because she can no longer drive because of vision problems. Normally I could rely on my daughter to help, but her BF's family is going through some serious stuff right now and she's spending a good bit of time at his house to help them. The BF's mother had hand surgery for carpal tunnel about 3-4 weeks ago, and so has limited use of her hands right now. Then a couple of days before Thanksgiving, the BF's father was in a major accident at work, resulting in being mildly electrocuted and falling 15-20 feet from a ladder, and breaking multiple bones. He's out of the hospital now but has to do physical therapy for a while, so things at their house are seriously fucked up. Essentially, I am ready for 2018 to be over with. If the procedures my mother is scheduled for work as they should, it will greatly relieve some of her physical/medical problems. And at that point I need to do something about getting some social activities for her, because she's tired of being stuck at home most of the time. OTOH, going out tends to tire her out a lot, and she has zero interest in going to a senior center. So I'm seriously contemplating finding a church she can attend once a week; it's a lot easier for me to take her to a church service on Sunday than to a senior center during the week anyway. I don't want to get dragged into the church myself, because I'm not sure how long I could listen to the religious discussions without stating my actual opinion of religion in general, but I can deal with taking her to one, getting her situated in a Sunday school class where she can socialize with other people, and then picking her up afterward.

Exactly. There's a difference between acknowledging that an ill-advised marriage has occurred and hoping that things work out well in spite of the situation, and making it sound as if you are expressing your approval of it. It would be different if she were directly addressing the couple who just got married, and the best she could come up with was to say it was "sweet," but describing it that way to you makes it sound as if she thought it was wonderful.

I'm also tired of seeing all the clutter, most of which seems obviously staged as well. There's almost always a huge amount of clutter, but things such as kitchen counters and so forth are not dirty. Generally speaking, if you've let huge amounts of clutter pile up, then there's going to be a huge amount of dust there as well, and a real potential to have floors unmopped or unvacuumed. Yet there's never any evidence of actual dirt, just inability to keep things organized and put up. I'm 99% sure the clutter is staged so there will be a bigger contrast between the before and after pictures once Hilary has done her design stuff, but IMO it's not necessary. I'd rather just see the floor plan, shots of the relevant rooms, and hear the owners describe why they need a renovation or new house. Surely if you show the floor plan that has the standard 3BR/2BA layout, and then the clients explain they now have extra kids or extended family in the house, and one or both parents work from home and need an office, you don't have to have the stock images of clutter. In those cases, clutter isn't the real culprit; there's simply a need for a different floor plan that meets the needs of the clients. I'd rather see more before and after floor plans for more than 5 seconds on screen, so I can get a sense of what the problem was and how the new configuration is supposed to be better. And @Broderbits, you're right; if the people are slobs of that magnitude, you could give them a 5,000 square-foot house and it still wouldn't be enough. Not to mention I have no idea how someone can live in a house for several years and have zero idea that their electrical wiring and/or plumbing is defective. There are hidden problems that someone may not find until a formal inspection is done when selling the house again; I could see, for example, that between the time the clients bought the house and the time they are ready to renovate/move, a crack might have appeared in the foundation and not be visible, or termites could have done serious damage in places that are hidden. But things such as the basement having flooded numerous times and the homeowners having "fixed" it with duct tape (okay, slight exaggeration here), it's just not believable that they had no idea things were that bad. I don't watch a lot of HGTV shows, but stumbled across this one, and almost always have to then watch an episode or two of My Lottery Dream Home, in which at least the clients are almost always much more pleasant and grateful for being given good choices. I saw one episode not too long ago where the couple who won the lottery had rented an apartment their entire adult lives, including having children and grandchildren, and when they were shown the first house, the wife was thrilled that it had a dishwasher and commented that she'd never had a dishwasher. I couldn't help thinking that they were such a major contrast from the clients on this show, where the client who wants to stay in the existing house will bitch and moan about the most ridiculous things when shown a possible new house.

It used to be a standing joke in my family that any major holiday was a signal to major appliances and so forth to quit working. If the central air, dishwasher or disposal was going to quit working on any day of the year, it would be Thanksgiving or Christmas. Fortunately, my father was in the construction industry and so was very handy, and one of his BFFs was a plumber who lived a few houses down the street from us, and they helped each other out when there was that kind of malfunction at the most inconvenient time possible; for that matter, they helped each other out when it wasn't an emergency or there was just some DIY project going on.

@shapeshifter, I'm not an attorney (maybe someone who is can weigh in on this), but the waiver you signed and the fact that you and some others your age were targeted for "early retirement" have nothing to do with each other, unless I'm completely missing something here. Regardless, that was some shoddy behavior on the part of your company. It's entirely too common for employers to cherry pick older employees and/or those with the longest tenure at the company to lay off, because those are the very people whose salaries will typically be higher. The fact that those older employees will typically have the hardest time finding other jobs? The employer doesn't care.

Some of the desire to provide separate bedrooms and bathrooms may just be a function of personality traits. I come from a long line of people who need huge amounts of solitude and silence. As a kid, I shared a bedroom with a younger sibling and hated every single minute of it. It was a huge relief when one of my older siblings left home and I then had my own bedroom. I wanted as little interaction with my younger sibling as possible, for various reasons, and to this day we have minimal contact. My father built what would now be termed a "man cave" but was essentially a music room for him, so he would have his own more or less private retreat. It was also a place where he and my mother could socialize with friends on weekend nights, but we all understood that on weekday evenings, he wanted to be alone. Almost always with this show, I think the people should just move to a new house, unless it's clear that their problem isn't really lack of space or lack of properly configured space, but just inability to keep things organized. The only episode I've seen where I 100% wanted the couple of stay in the house was the one where the home and acreage had been in the guy's family for 150 years or something, because I can see that it would be emotionally wrenching to sell a house that had been in your family that long. But the show is so formulaic at this point that a week or so ago, I was in a teleconference that was dragging on forever, with stuff that didn't pertain to me, and I randomly opened a blank Word doc, and before I knew it had written a parody of the typical Love It or List It episode. Most of the time Hilary does a good job of making the current house work better, but a few things bug me. She seems to have new kitchen cabinets installed in every single house, even when the existing ones seem in good shape and it would be easy to just add new matching cabinets. I've also seen one too many episodes where she removes every trace of personal taste the owners have (bold colors, interesting patterns, etc.) and replaces it with some of the blandest furniture, color schemes and so forth possible. Finally, when the clients are primarily asking for new bedrooms, renovating the kitchen and master bath doesn't do a damn thing to accomplish that, and I hate the idea of chopping up a decent-sized room, such as a dining room, to split it into a small bedroom or two. I think someone upthread was questioning why someone would want a separate office if there are empty bedrooms. I can't explain that completely, but I will say that one major selling point for me when I bought a new house last year was that it had a dedicated office downstairs, at the front of the house. It was configured with a lot of outlets, windows looking out onto the front yard, and no closet, so all the wall space can be used for my two desks and various bookcases, etc. I've dealt with using my bedroom as a half bedroom, half office, and that was difficult to work with. Because I telecommute 100%, I need the dedicated office space. I do have a token unused bedroom upstairs, but I prefer to keep that as a dedicated guest bedroom.

If it's just an item or two, then yes, the cashier where I shop will offer to get the designated person bagging the groceries to go get the item. I don't usually do that if there's a line because I don't want to hold up the checkout process. But a couple of times when I've had a large amount of stuff and the employee can go retrieve whatever it is I need quickly, I've accepted the offer, so that the employee returned with the missing item before the cashier was finished ringing up my other stuff. If it's something they don't carry, they will call over a manager to consult (assuming the store isn't crazily busy), and amazingly enough, the manager notes whatever it is you're asking for, and apparently they do some kind of tracking of those types of requests. My local store had quit carrying a particular food item I really like, and after I and probably several other people kept asking for it, they began stocking it again.

The cashiers at the regional grocery chain I go to strike a good balance between being overly chatty and completely silent. They have been trained to ask if the customer was able to find everything needed, then make transactional comments such as asking if the customer has any coupons, and then asking if the customer needs help loading the items into their car. I have maybe once or twice gotten commentary on what was in my cart. Once was when I had the ingredients to make a caramel turtle cheesecake, and the cashier simply remarked that he didn’t know what I was going to be making but whatever it was should taste good. I can deal with that kind of comment, or the occasional question about how a specific item is cooked/used. My pet peeve today is people at work who don’t bother to keep their Outlook calendar updated, and then throw a hissy fit because you schedule a meeting that happens to fall at a time when their calendar says they are free, but they actually are not. Today one person (who was not even on my invitee list but was forwarded the meeting invite) first accepted the invitation, then declined it because of a medical appointment, then declined the modified invitation because of being out on PTO. Then called me to explain why the meeting times were problematic. I don’t give a flying fuck why you can’t attend the meeting. Just update your damn calendar, because any ESP I have isn’t magically telling me when you are out of office even though according to your calendar, you are available for a meeting.

My work situation is a bit weird right now, but I feel I've taken active steps to try to transition to a somewhat different role. I've been in my current position for a little over three years. When I was brought on initially, the project that I worked on primarily was a major component of what we have to submit to federal regulators annually. I was also consistently loaned out to some adjacent teams who worked on other components and one team that was responsible for pulling all components together. However, in the past year or so, the major component I was working on has become a very minor component, and I'm still being loaned out to help documentation efforts for the other teams. And I've been asking myself at what point upper management is going to start asking why this minor component needs 1.5 project managers and a tech writer. Roughly 6 months ago I had discussions with my manager's manager about transitioning me to a new role, reporting directly to him, and he was planning to discuss the idea with the area VP. However, there's been a ton of re-orgs since then, and both the area VP and my manager's manager have since left the company. On the plus side, my manager's new manager is someone I had worked with when I was loaned out to other teams, so he's familiar with my work. In the meantime, for the second time in the past year, my manager is out on medical leave. Because I was targeted for a salary adjustment because of changes in the salary range for my job, my manager's manager scheduled a 1:1 with me to go over the specifics of the increase, and I took the opportunity to initiate discussions with him about my idea that my skills could be put to better use working on other components of the overall large project. He agreed, at least in theory, but with my manager now being out, he didn't want to spring this on her as a done deal after she came back from being on leave. So I had to loop her into the discussion and explain what I was suggesting. She's not happy about it, but since her boss likes the idea, she's not going to raise a fuss. In the meantime, her boss asked me to meet with the manager of the team that is responsible for putting together all the project components; this manager also reports to my manager's boss. So we met and he's fully on board with my suggested change in role and in fact had previously requested that his boss move me over to his team. He will follow up with his boss and asked me to put in a formal request to that boss to move me to his team, which I submitted today. I'm hopeful in a low-key way that this will work out well. My biggest concern with any major change has been that while my current manager is often inept and thinks her job is to provide support for the person who used to be her manager, because she can't get out of that mindset, she was perfectly comfortable with me being 100% telecommute, and for the most part, she left me the hell alone to do my job. Given her ongoing health problems, I'm not entirely sure she will return from her medical leave this time around, and in the meantime, another person on our team is more or less in charge, and this person is a lazy, self-absorbed jerk who dumps all her work on other people and then takes credit for what they've done. I don't think my potential new manager would have any issues with me continuing to work remotely, and everyone I've talked to has had very positive things to say about him as a manager. I really hope this works out well, because if my lazy-ass colleague ends up becoming the actual manager of our team, I would feel compelled to start a serious job search, and have to find a similar position that would also allow telecommuting. That's doable, but if I can stay in the general area I am already familiar and comfortable with, I would much prefer to. In addition, I suggested to my manager's boss that if I move and change roles somewhat, that I would like to be in a different job title, which would pay more. Part of what's driving that request is that more income would come in very handy now that I'm not teaching on the side any more, but also I'm at the highest level of my current job title and there's nowhere to go in terms of professional development/career advancement if I stay in that same job title. My manager was slightly surprised that I've expressed the desire to change roles, but FFS, every time I've asked her about career advancement opportunities where I currently am, her response has always been that I can post out for other positions. This is the longest I've ever been in a regular FT position without getting a promotion; everywhere else, I've always been fast-tracked for career development, and the feedback I have gotten in this role has been consistently positive and there has been recognition of exceptional effort during some projects. With my manager, I have to resist the urge to ask, "When you make it clear to people on your team that only your favored employee is going to get the big bonuses and raises and development opportunities, and everybody else can fend for themselves, why on earth are you surprised that other team members opt to move on?"

I got married at 20 when I was a junior in college. The marriage occurred through a combination of bad circumstances, to the point that I am fairly sure I was in more or less a fugue state when it happened. It was as if I woke up 2 years later and discovered I had both a husband and infant, and not the slightest desire to be married. I was able to resume my education, finish my undergrad degree and go straight into grad school, while negotiating a divorce and custody agreement. @bilgistic, I will say that over the years I've taught college classes, I've encountered many students like your niece who got married more or less straight out of high school and were totally wrapped up in being with a man, who at some point later on developed independent personalities and realized they needed an education to achieve their personal goals. Many of them had kids before they were ready, and while doing so makes it much harder to regain some independence, I've seen enough of them succeed at it to know it's possible if the person is committed to school and/or career. Your niece sounds as if she is wrapped up in the romantic fantasy of being married, because it seems less difficult than having to study for classes, and I agree with everyone who has noted that living with someone 24/7 is a completely different experience than visiting for several days at a time. If it makes you feel any better, often my students who were older and in that situation were much better students than the ones right out of high school, because they were motivated to do well in their classes when 5 years earlier they wouldn't have been. With my own 2 kids, I had only one rule for them, that they were not allowed to get married or pregnant before age 30. @hoosier80, your mother is sucking the life force right out of you every time you visit her. She needs more assistance than you can provide, both physically and mentally. Reading your descriptions of your last visit with her makes me grateful that while my mother has days when she is completely BSC, she at least is appreciative of the fact that I moved her out of the assisted living facility she was in and into my home, and am taking care of her as best I can. Yes, she has days where she can be very demanding but it's a 2-3 on a scale of 1-10. Do not wreck your own physical and mental health taking care of someone who shows zero appreciation for your efforts, engages in the kind of favoritism she does, and treats you like your sole purpose in life is to jump every time she says jump.

Doing okay financially is often not a function of exactly how much income someone has, but rather of whether they are willing to live within their means. Sure, Carrie could have done a couple of books, although realistically she wouldn't have made any huge amount from them. But let's say her income increased by $25K a year. If she simply proceeds to spend that additional income on even more designer shoes and clothes instead of putting some away for savings (emergency fund and so forth), she'd be right back in the same situation she was previously where she spent essentially every dollar she made and so had nothing to use as a down payment, or now that she has the apartment, if she needed to do some big repairs or even was out of work for a while. I never saw any evidence during the series that even after she was indebted to Charlotte for the down payment, that she radically changed her spending habits. I remember her saying that she needed to make some changes in her financial habits, but she still seemed to buy expensive shoes on a regular basis. She wasn't someone in her early 20s just starting out and making some foolish choices before realizing she couldn't afford certain things and still pay her bills. She had established spending habits that would be hard to break without a lot of self-discipline.