Discussion
  • Read More
    Morifarty's ringtoneJia Tolentino
    8/24/15 11:34am

    1) live-tweeted a miscarriage during a board meeting

    Okay like this lady sounds fucking terrible but this is the most badass shit I ever heard in my life and is honestly amazing and the Tweet she wrote was fucking hilarious.

    I’m torn.

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      Heidi HoleMorifarty's ringtone
      8/24/15 11:41am

      Dude, I think Jezebel might have helped me actually start to like Trunk. I just read, for the first time, that blog post you linked to- and I thought the tone of the Jez article was awful. The very first comment by Erin was so shitty, as were so many subsequent ones. I think Penelope Trunk is a crazy person with retrograde ideas about women in the workplace but now I feel like defending her. Ugh.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      Morifarty's ringtoneHeidi Hole
      8/24/15 11:42am

      THAT TWEET IS GENUINELY HILARIOUS I HAVE NO IDEA WHY THEY ARE HATING ON IT LIKE HOW CAN YOU HATE ON THIS

      ““I’m in a board meeting. Having a miscarriage. Thank goodness, because there’s a fucked-up 3-week hoop-jump to have an abortion in Wisconsin.”

      THAT IS FUCKING TWITTER GOLD.

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    Arctic16Jia Tolentino
    8/24/15 11:34am

    Fuck that. I just got promoted to manager, and I nevertheless plan on working 4o hours on the dot each week. A lot of older managers are in the habit of logging on in the evenings at my company, and I can tell you all that there is a 0% chance of me doing that. As soon as I do it, it will become the expectation. Nope.

    Similarly, I tell my team the following: I don’t care when you come in, and I don’t care when you leave, as long as all our shit is done and our clients are happy. If all of that is true, you can work 9 to 4 for all I care.

    Blind allegiance to one’s workplace is a disease.

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      Tequila MockingbirdArctic16
      8/24/15 11:43am

      Exactly. I don’t care how much you love your work. Your work doesn’t love you. If you can’t think of some things you’d rather be doing with your family and friends, you probably need therapy.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      crispyduckArctic16
      8/24/15 11:48am

      I’m already pushing hard at that, and I consider it very important precedent setting for whenever I make it to management. The other engineers here regularly work weekends and push over 50 hour weeks. Fuck that. Be the change you want to see.

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    YoyaJia Tolentino
    8/24/15 11:49am

    As if getting paid regularly by an employer is “better” than having your own business? Each has their own costs and benefits. My boyfriend recently started his own company and he does not have reliable income, but there are many benefits that offset that. Such as when he does get income it’s WAY WAY more than he would ever make as someone’s employee. For starts. If this lady thinks it’s so bad: get into a different career. Bloody moron.

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      BabyGotFrontYoya
      8/24/15 12:01pm

      It’s hard to pay rent, though, with a “hope” that you will get paid enough that month. Or health insurance. Or child care. Or student loans. Which is why a lot of people prefer the stability of a steady weekly paycheck to venturing off on their own and starting their own business and/or freelancing.

      I have MUCH respect for entrepreneurs and freelancers but for lots of people, yes, working for someone else in a position that is salaried or has consistent weekly hours is “better” than the alternatives which are inherently riskier, financially.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      FridayFridayBabyGotFront
      8/24/15 12:23pm

      I’ve done both so I get what Trunk was saying there. I have to work 9-5 now, which I hate because when I was working for myself, I made my own hours. So I could get up at 10, eat breakfast out, and then work until 10 or 11 pm with the tv on in my living room when I wanted to. But the hustle and the worrying was constant. So I’ve traded that freedom for the reliable paycheck and health insurance, and for now it’s worth it. Even when I wind up working 45-50 hours a week and I only get paid for 40 of those because I’m salaried. It’s still worth it to me.

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    jkredwineJia Tolentino
    8/24/15 11:46am

    She’s fucked up and crazy and this is mostly just dumb. But also, even though white upper and upper middle class folk are the people writing and reading most of this crap, can we just please stop it with the fucking whining about how terrible white collar jobs are and how people need to learn to take time for themselves and all this other bullshit?

    Y’all aren’t the only ones working 60 hours a week. You’re just the ones doing it and actually making a living wage. Your problems are still problems. Amazon is still terrible. But there are much worse stories about how Amazon treats low wage workers and manual laborers that got far less traction because they didn’t involve privileged folks upset that their work lives are stressful.

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      ReburnsABurningReturnsjkredwine
      8/24/15 12:02pm

      One other thing worth noting is that polls involving anecdotal self-reporting about hours worked are notorious for being inaccurate on the high side. Unless people are keeping a detailed log, or unless there are other things to validate them such as hourly wages and paystubs to show the number of hours worked, you should be leery of trusting it.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      BabyGotFrontjkredwine
      8/24/15 12:16pm

      But white collar workers telling their stories doesn’t negate anyone else telling their stories? I get uncomfortable with the notion that simply because you have a white collar job any issues you have regarding systemic exploitation shouldn’t be spoken about because their are “worse stories” out there.

      I 100% agree that lower wage workers should have equal access to media platforms to tell their stories. The recent coverage of fast food workers fight to make a living wage around the country and the incredible reporting on the nail salon industry in NYC recently makes me believe (perhaps naively?) that workers at all levels are able the get the word out about their plight and agitate for change...

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    GinAndTonic Got Stuck in the BarneyJia Tolentino
    8/24/15 11:33am

    She’s a fucking weirdo with bad social skills. Her advice is useless.

    For actual, valuable career advice, I recommend:

    http://www.askamanager.org/

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      SuchBullshitGinAndTonic Got Stuck in the Barney
      8/24/15 11:36am

      Thank you. Can we NOT pretend like she has anything relevant to say? She is seriously off her rocker and has been for years.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      Saudi GaudyGinAndTonic Got Stuck in the Barney
      8/24/15 11:37am

      Yes! Thank you. I used that website to redo my cover letter and resume. Still haven’t found work though...

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    imtiredthatisall IS just like Gywneth PaltrowJia Tolentino
    8/24/15 11:46am

    Every company who wants to get more out of it’s employees forces them to integrate into the culture of the company and drink from the kool aid. Does it make you stronger, perhaps a little more attractive to other employers? Sure potentially But you trade your soul to drink from the fountain of the company. You lose your sense of self worth and learn to only perceive your value based on what the company and the people you work with have to say about you.

    It is merely a massive bubble. Few people who enter it have any concept of what they are actually doing to themselves to be there. Money is what motivates them but it comes at a price - it’s living to work instead of working to live.

    But people are motivated by money and cost, I mean look at this quote from the article about Jeff Bezos and how he tried to convince his grandmother to quit smoking.

    He wanted his grandmother to stop smoking, he recalled in a 2010 graduation speech at Princeton. He didn’t beg or appeal to sentiment. He just did the math, calculating that every puff cost her a few minutes. “You’ve taken nine years off your life!” he told her. She burst into tears.

    Using data to manipulate emotions which are not things you can measure with data.

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      BabyGotFrontimtiredthatisall IS just like Gywneth Paltrow
      8/24/15 11:57am

      Why is it bad what he told his grandmother re: smoking? There IS a strong correlation between smoking and life expectancy, is there not?

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      imtiredthatisall IS just like Gywneth PaltrowBabyGotFront
      8/24/15 12:02pm

      I’m not really talking about him using data to convince his grandmother to quite smoking. It’s not a bad thing that he did that. Hell I used to use the same argument with my grandma.

      But what I’m trying to prove is that people are motivated by data information now. It can be good. But it can also be bad. And data can be manipulated to get what you want out of a situation. You can’t just blindly follow it. But my example is not a great one.

      Bezos is good at what he does obviously, if he could do that at the age of 10 and he has had years to hone his skills and win more people over.

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    Saposcat12Jia Tolentino
    8/24/15 11:37am

    “When I drive, I have arguments with people in my head. I think of someone who does not realize how smart I am about what I am smart about, and I go on tirades to show them how misguided they are.” Anyone who writes this sentence without a trace of irony, and she is serious about that sentence, is just a bitter asshole who is disappointed they haven’t been appointed dictator of the world.

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      YoyaSaposcat12
      8/24/15 11:53am

      Lolol I thought that you wrote that, like to mock her. She wrote that? About herself?

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      Cestrumnocturn1Saposcat12
      8/24/15 10:12pm

      The narcissism is strong in this one, yes.

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    crispyduckJia Tolentino
    8/24/15 11:45am

    “But when life gives you lemons, is your only option really to take those lemons up the ass and blog about it?”

    I am, at this very moment, staring at the quote taped to the wall next to my computer monitor that reads "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don't want your damn lemons, what the hell am I supposed to do with these? Demand to see life's manager!" It goes on. I'll take Cave Johnson over this Trunk person any day of the week.

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      gilgrissomsglasssescrispyduck
      8/24/15 12:04pm

      “When life gives you lemons, squeeze them into the eyes of your enemies.” -Insanity Wolf Meme

      Another gem of wisdom from Insanity Wolf: “What doesn’t kill you...will come to wish it had finished the job.”

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    HowlingMadHuddersJia Tolentino
    8/24/15 12:22pm

    This is fucking toxic. It gives me flashbacks to my last job, where I was forced to work upwards of 70 hours a week, live and bleed for the job, and got nothing but threats to my position if we didn’t perform above standards every single day. 30-40 days at a time without a day off, and no PTO time - just a week of vacation that needed to be taken all at once, and only at the regional manager’s approval.

    I actually received something called the Century Award - given to store managers who work more than 100 hours in a week. They gave me a fucking trophy for that.

    Americans work too much and are generally paid far too little. For the privilege of working for these nasty bastards, I got less than $40k. I have a college degree, and was overseeing an entire market area. No excuse for taking advantage of people in a terrible job market, but until there are rules governing how people can be treated, this shit will continue to happen.

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      goddessoftransitoryHowlingMadHudders
      8/24/15 2:10pm
      GIF

      Please tell me this is how you quit.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      HowlingMadHuddersgoddessoftransitory
      8/24/15 4:14pm

      If only! I actually quit very professionally, since there were several awesome people that I hired and trained who still depended on that job for, like, rent and stuff. I wanted to make sure there was no retaliation. Turns out there was no point - they terminated everyone I had hired and denied them unemployment.

      I decided to just call the Department of Labor to report that they were having minors work until 1-2 AM on school nights. That’s kept them busy for a bit. ;-)

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    oldenough2byourmamaJia Tolentino
    8/24/15 11:55am

    Are we sure she doesn’t have Asperger’s?

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      saltyladyoldenough2byourmama
      8/24/15 12:18pm

      I may be misremembering, but I’m pretty sure she has said that she does.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      BlondeGoddesssaltylady
      8/24/15 1:57pm

      I think she self-diagnosed? Not sure, I don’t want to click on her blog anymore to find out. Whether she has Asperger’s or not, it’s inexcusable what she did to Sheryl Sandberg and her family.

      Reply
      <