a mix of workout clothes & sweaters, anything comfy but still a step up from what i wear to truly lounge bc i like to feel put together and have that split between work/home. sometimes a dress if it’s a more high brow meeting day. i always do my hair and makeup because i’m on camera a lot.

I really liked this week’s Bad on Paper. This is what I was always envisioning when I wanted them to dive deep on a single topic for a whole episode in a way they can’t when they just breeze through stuff in a typical ep.

i need people in fashion subreddits to stop thinking that a shoot of an adult woman in a suggestive outfit is immediately giving Lolita vibes bc she has a bow in her hair. i also need people in general to stop thinking Lolita as a novel was endorsing the actions of its main character. i am so tired.

huh, i didn’t get a weird vibe from either shoot. obv some of the schaefer shots were suggestive and i didn’t think all of them were successful but this one especially seems pretty benign (and tbh boring lol)

i WFH now but i do try to step away from my desk for the full hour. when i worked in-office i would always leave my cubicle and go to a nearby restaurant or cafe or even just a different part of the building (i worked on a college campus so lots of spots around to lounge) so i was truly absent and didn’t risk anyone stopping by to talk about work.

my tiktok algorithm all day has been full of people in their 20s who have been diagnosed with cancer after such mundane symptoms like headaches or mild breast soreness or whatever. i do not interact with these videos, i do not search for them, but i DO have terrible health anxiety, and this may be the thing that finally gets me to leave the app??? my god

I’m in marketing & comms and have had two job hunts in the past 18 mos. I’d say on average across the two I got 5 interviews for every 70ish applications sent.

that totally makes sense — I'm glad we're starting to prep and think about stuff now just to manage expectations and save what we can now while our expenses aren't going elsewhere.

win: I am finally able to be excited about the idea of having kids in the next few years without an existential crisis overcoming me.

whine: I ... have no idea how people afford childcare. Jarring to be like "oh yeah you're gonna need to bring in like at least $20k more as a household before you can attempt to do this for a single child and still save money and have a semblance of a life." I guess that's the new goal!

it def depends on your location. i live in a large MCOL city in the midwest and usually pay $12-$15 or so on average for a pretty nice cocktail at a trendy spot. i’d def still raise a major eyebrow at anything that cost $20. but in NYC or other pricier cities I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the norm.

i’ve had two job hunts since mid-2023 (the first was where i wanted to leave a job i’d had for years and the second was after my new job laid me off 🤠)

The first took about 6 months and 90 applications, the second took 3 months and 60 applications. I think the jobs ebb and flow depending on your industry but I’d def recommend getting started earlier rather than later.

lol i’ve been there, no worries!

I didn’t say it was an adult thing to do, I said I have empathy for them and am able to see their problematic behavior in the context of the trauma they were raised in, a lot of which can be traced back to people who are much more sinister than Cate and Tyler will ever be, which feels relevant to say in this sub where people are so quick to roast them. I have empathy for a lot of people who do much more destructive things as adults that they can trace back to an adolescent trauma.

Same. It’s easy to roast her and Tyler and I do not agree with how they have handled themselves over the years when it comes to Carly but they made an unimaginable (and very responsible given their home lives) decision with such misleading information about what their relationship would look like. That will mess you up forever.

I agree, I definitely empathized w her. I also hope that she doesn't totally conflate personal criticism w general critique of the pod. I think there's a difference between comments like "ugh becca is so cringe" and comments like "i don't understand why this ep is structured this way, this episode felt weird, what was that, etc" — though I'm sure when the pod is your baby and you are a "face" of it you probably feel the same level of bad about all types of comments. at some point the pod is a product, they sell ads (and now merch) for it, and public convo about its merits/flaws is to be expected. at the same time, forums like this aren't always 100% fair and def get snarkier than anything she'd hear to her face. idk it's all very weird! but again, just hope that she's able to see the nuance there and doesn't feel bad about it for too long.

townes van zandt was also my immediate thought. or justin townes earle. townes is not an unheard of name even if it’s off the beaten path.

it really depends on the people.

I have had coworkers get too cozy to the point where they say I am their only friend, or I’m the only person they can talk to about some insanely sensitive topic. Meanwhile I’ve shared almost none of my personal life with them. While I empathize with them and listen where appropriate, I’m also there to collect a paycheck, not be a therapist for someone I only know because we are both paid to be in the same place at the same time. I have my own relationships to manage outside of work, so it becomes a lot when coworkers assume we are going to be BFFs.

If a friendship beyond work happens naturally, that’s awesome, but with a lot of people (including the ones i’m talking about) it often feels like they have no social life outside work and just assume coworkers are going to fill that spot regardless of if it’s appropriate and regardless actual earned history or affection or chemistry.

i’m in the minority apparently but i think it’s a fun little black dress!! and love the shoes

it does make me sad that this person has such little sense of community irl that she needs to go this hard for a facebook group. it truly just shows how the group (and probably the internet at large) has spiraled into something unhealthy for so many of those people.

but like… look inward and ask if it’s normal for you to care this much. or go on reddit! join an anonymous mental health forum or career advice board or even another facebook group that’s actually for that purpose. the influencer who started this group for an entirely different and less intense purpose is not responsible for facilitating “an important safe space.”

laughed out loud earlier this week when — after grace posted reiterating that the group was supposed to be for fashion and books, not “gross stuff” — an anonymous poster immediately asked for help dealing with anal fissures. how will all those people survive

i also WFH and if i feel a whisper of crappiness to the point that the thought of a sick day even crosses my mind then i take a sick day lol.

obv i am not as flippant if it’s the day of a presentation or if i have an important meeting, but unless something is super urgent i’m out of there. i have been lucky to have generous sick leave and it also helps that it’s separate from my normal vacation time, so. 🤷🏼‍♀️ it definitely feels weird when you’re already home, but it’s there to be used imo!

olivia muenter (of Bad on Paper)‘s substack essays are soooooooooo good. i feel like a worse writer would seem repetitive with how frequently she writes about body image, but i relate so hard to so much of it and i’m just so captivated by every one. and her audio versions of them are great.

agree, what a bananas comment lol. some ppls eagerness to put cheating or being messy on the same plane as literal sex crimes is why celeb gossip subs can be so unserious

exactly. and there’s something so maddening about how they ask for that kind of no-compromise situation so casually. i’ve been WFH since the pandemic started and it definitely offers me tons of perks and freedom that i’m grateful for, but i have tons of experience and references in my industry and I still struggled to find a remote role during my recent job hunt. but by all means this random person should be handed one just bc she thought about it for 20 seconds and thinks it would be easy 😭

i do wish a variety of remote work was much more openly accessible to people who want it (and i know a lot of the need comes from our country’s inability to support families adequately) but it’s like, don’t discount that it’s still real work and takes skill especially if you’re juggling other things at home.

it’s such a bummer that the WFH-related subreddits are basically unusable because they’re just constantly spammed with people asking where they can find a WFH job with zero skills and zero experience. bleak for many reasons, not all of which are in these peoples control, but my god. it even bleeds into the FB groups and other subs i’m in.

edit: ok to be fair maybe i just hit a bad section of the subreddits bc i am seeing more normal content now!!! don’t want to rag just to rag. point stands for some spots 😭