Annoying things people make their whole personality

[Anonymous]

^ same goes for military officer spouses

They are the worst.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Women who think being a doctor's wife makes THEM a doctor/expert on healthcare/how hospitals operate.

Similarly women who gave up biglaw as an associate bc they couldn't handle it and their biglaw boyfriend proposed and then when biglaw husband makes partner, THEY feel they made partner; uh sweetie congrats to your man, but YOU are not a partner at this firm, so we don't need YOUR opinion on how things should be done.

Wow that one sounds personal, Susan.

DP and actually I have encountered this as well, specifically the former biglaw associate who talks about her DH's career as if it's her own. It is especially annoying when you are at the same firm as the husband and the wife talks to you like a colleague when she doesn't actually know what you do and you've never worked together, and she actually has not worked as a lawyer (or potentially at all) in many years.

I think women like this feel guilty or insecure about the fact that from the outside, it really seems like they went to law school and then worked for a couple years at a big firm to find a highly paid spouse, and then quit as soon as she'd locked him down. I don't actually care even if this was their plan all along (law school, the bar, and working at a biglaw firm are not easy, so if you want to use them to nab the husband you want, more power to you) but their need to act like they themselves are firm partners or that they are intimately familiar with your work when they couldn't possibly be is really grating.

+100.

Former BigLaw junior associate here who has happily dissociated from the field and married someone in an unrelated one. Here’s the thing, for some of us it wasn’t just hard, it was impossible because of the nonstop sexual harassment. Imagine succeeding with male partners and senior associates making constant sexual innuendos and outright passes. Imagine being penalized for rejecting said behaviors and imagine having some of the women partners and senior associates penalizing you, too, for being young and pretty.

Having gone through all of that, I appreciate why some of these women left the field, but relish in their husbands’ careers. They feel like that’s the closest they could get. And it is, but not for reasons of merit.

You have this so backwards.

When a woman who is married to a BigLaw partner talks to me, her husbands peer, as though she and I are professionally the same, she is contributing to the culture of devaluing women in this industry. I worked very hard to get to where I am and dealt with all the same BS that these women like you who left as juniors did, and then some. But I stuck it out and now I am in a position that you only get to if you work very hard for a long time.

When the wives of some of my colleagues, who may have spent 2-3 years as a junior associate at our firm or another firm, speak to me as though we are professional peers or they have intimate knowledge of my firm or my career, they are just contributing to the culture you are complaining about. Because I EARNED my position. I wish for them happiness in whatever life they have chosen for themselves, but being married to a BigLaw partner does not entitle you to act like you are one. My husband would never, for instance. This is all about their insecurity and trying to use their DH's position and status to assert themselves. It's retrograde and toxic.

How did you EARN your position? I ask this because I got taken off any matters when I didn’t return sexual favors. What did you do? How did you manage to stay assigned on a matter after rejecting a partner? Teach me, seriously, I’d love to know.

DP here - OMG you do realize not EVERY firm has whatever your firm's sexual favors issue was, right? I was in biglaw for 8 years, moved on on my own because I wanted to leave NYC and this was before WFH was a thing. I didn't get taken off matters and sexual favors were never asked for nor even hinted about. I'm not suggesting that there couldn't have been some creepy partner in some department someplace that was like that, but in the big departments with hundreds of partners in close to a decade I would've known if there was a sexual favors policy in play. Besides if you wanted to be a biglaw partner could you not have lateraled to some other firm and worked your way up there? Did you assume every firm everywhere was only promoting women who'd go to bed with the executive committee?

[Anonymous]

A few years ago l worked with someone who said she didn't watch TV. She mentioned it often and acted almost like she was afraid of TV. Her husband traveled and she had no kids so she went to the movies several times a week. She would see anything, good or bad and talk about them, sometimes things I couldn't imagine wasting time or money on. One time in a group we got talking about good TV shows like the Sopranos and Mad Men and i said she would like them but she reminded me, oh, I don't watch TV. I remember thinking how stupid this distinction was because these shows were a lot better than a lot of movies. It also turned out that she did have a TV and watched DVD movies with her husband.

Another person I knew that made it her personality to not own a TV reads a lot books. Seeing her titles on Goodreads, she reads mostly junk. Why is it better to read the 100th version of a predictable romance than its counterpart on the Hallmark Channel?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Military wives.

Hard disagree. Life circumstances made it so that I was exposed to military culture/life intimately without being in the military. Military wives have to pack up and move their entire families every 2-3 years, immediately adapt to the new location/culture (and help their kids assimilate), make new friends, find new resources, and generally make up the lifeblood of base activities and community, ALL with an embarrassingly small amount of support. The nature of their husband's career make it so that they themselves are effectually prevented from developing their own careers, but their husbands and kids would be lost without them as a governing force.

I have more respect for military spouses than nearly any other group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Women who think being a doctor's wife makes THEM a doctor/expert on healthcare/how hospitals operate.

Similarly women who gave up biglaw as an associate bc they couldn't handle it and their biglaw boyfriend proposed and then when biglaw husband makes partner, THEY feel they made partner; uh sweetie congrats to your man, but YOU are not a partner at this firm, so we don't need YOUR opinion on how things should be done.

Wow that one sounds personal, Susan.

DP and actually I have encountered this as well, specifically the former biglaw associate who talks about her DH's career as if it's her own. It is especially annoying when you are at the same firm as the husband and the wife talks to you like a colleague when she doesn't actually know what you do and you've never worked together, and she actually has not worked as a lawyer (or potentially at all) in many years.

I think women like this feel guilty or insecure about the fact that from the outside, it really seems like they went to law school and then worked for a couple years at a big firm to find a highly paid spouse, and then quit as soon as she'd locked him down. I don't actually care even if this was their plan all along (law school, the bar, and working at a biglaw firm are not easy, so if you want to use them to nab the husband you want, more power to you) but their need to act like they themselves are firm partners or that they are intimately familiar with your work when they couldn't possibly be is really grating.

+100.

Former BigLaw junior associate here who has happily dissociated from the field and married someone in an unrelated one. Here’s the thing, for some of us it wasn’t just hard, it was impossible because of the nonstop sexual harassment. Imagine succeeding with male partners and senior associates making constant sexual innuendos and outright passes. Imagine being penalized for rejecting said behaviors and imagine having some of the women partners and senior associates penalizing you, too, for being young and pretty.

Having gone through all of that, I appreciate why some of these women left the field, but relish in their husbands’ careers. They feel like that’s the closest they could get. And it is, but not for reasons of merit.

You have this so backwards.

When a woman who is married to a BigLaw partner talks to me, her husbands peer, as though she and I are professionally the same, she is contributing to the culture of devaluing women in this industry. I worked very hard to get to where I am and dealt with all the same BS that these women like you who left as juniors did, and then some. But I stuck it out and now I am in a position that you only get to if you work very hard for a long time.

When the wives of some of my colleagues, who may have spent 2-3 years as a junior associate at our firm or another firm, speak to me as though we are professional peers or they have intimate knowledge of my firm or my career, they are just contributing to the culture you are complaining about. Because I EARNED my position. I wish for them happiness in whatever life they have chosen for themselves, but being married to a BigLaw partner does not entitle you to act like you are one. My husband would never, for instance. This is all about their insecurity and trying to use their DH's position and status to assert themselves. It's retrograde and toxic.

How did you EARN your position? I ask this because I got taken off any matters when I didn’t return sexual favors. What did you do? How did you manage to stay assigned on a matter after rejecting a partner? Teach me, seriously, I’d love to know.

I earned it by doing my job diligently for 10 years, working on progressively more difficult matters, delivering good work product and having a good attitude, cultivating strong relationships in the firm and with the client.

Never once in my 14 year legal career have I been sexually propositioned by a superior, and certainly my ability to work on projects was never premised on "sexual favors." I am very sorry that happened to you but that doesn't reflect my experience at all.

I do think BigLaw can be really unfriendly to women, but I think that has more to do with how hard it is to be a mom in BigLaw, and the way you are penalized for taking any time off or for not working long hours 100% of the time. I was somewhat fortunate in that I had my babies as a counsel, which for me was a stop on the way to partner that actually afforded me a bit more flexility with my work and also allowed me to delegate some work during my maternity leaves without being taken off projects. But I was exceedingly fortunate in this timing and many women aren't. That's the biggest reason I know that many of my peers didn't stick it out for partner (well that and deciding that BigLaw just wasn't for them, which happens all the time).

I don't know anyone who was sexually harassed the way you describe and if I had, I would have joined them in reporting this up. At the moment, both my practice head and division chief are women, so I feel confident that behavior like that would be taken seriously at my firm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A few years ago l worked with someone who said she didn't watch TV. She mentioned it often and acted almost like she was afraid of TV. Her husband traveled and she had no kids so she went to the movies several times a week. She would see anything, good or bad and talk about them, sometimes things I couldn't imagine wasting time or money on. One time in a group we got talking about good TV shows like the Sopranos and Mad Men and i said she would like them but she reminded me, oh, I don't watch TV. I remember thinking how stupid this distinction was because these shows were a lot better than a lot of movies. It also turned out that she did have a TV and watched DVD movies with her husband.

Another person I knew that made it her personality to not own a TV reads a lot books. Seeing her titles on Goodreads, she reads mostly junk. Why is it better to read the 100th version of a predictable romance than its counterpart on the Hallmark Channel?

Yeah, that's a very 20th century attitude, that TV is always inferior to "film." Now there is so much "prestige" TV that doesn't even have to deal with stuff like commercial breaks, strict time limits or structural constraints, or standards & practices limitations on content and language, that it's hard to argue that TV is even the more regulated art form.

But there's also been a reassess on the TV that was produced under those tight constraints, and people are retroactively appreciating the artistic merit of television shows that managed to achieve high levels of quality even while dealing with all of those constraints.

Anyway, people who think something in a movie theater is automatically better than something released on TV or streaming just sound dumb now. I mean with streaming, the only difference between television and movies is often length or whether or not it's episodic. Well guess what, a lot of great literature was originally episodic (Dickens, anyone?). People who think this way just sound stupid now.

[Anonymous]

People who have "travel" as their only personality trait.

[Anonymous]

My MIL makes a HUGE deal about her cooking.

She is an okay cook; some things she makes I like, some not. She definitely has this whole grandma = food = love thing going on.

Some of her specific recipes she always goes to I do not like, and it is awkward when she wants to "help" and take over. Like making a simple baked ziti dish, but she seasons it with strong herbs I (and my family, including child picky eaters who balk at most herbs) don't like.

I feel like she's wrapped herself up in her grandma=amazing cook identity that it's hard to cook it my way when she visits.

[Anonymous]

Their victimhood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Women who think being a doctor's wife makes THEM a doctor/expert on healthcare/how hospitals operate.

Similarly women who gave up biglaw as an associate bc they couldn't handle it and their biglaw boyfriend proposed and then when biglaw husband makes partner, THEY feel they made partner; uh sweetie congrats to your man, but YOU are not a partner at this firm, so we don't need YOUR opinion on how things should be done.

Wow that one sounds personal, Susan.

DP and actually I have encountered this as well, specifically the former biglaw associate who talks about her DH's career as if it's her own. It is especially annoying when you are at the same firm as the husband and the wife talks to you like a colleague when she doesn't actually know what you do and you've never worked together, and she actually has not worked as a lawyer (or potentially at all) in many years.

I think women like this feel guilty or insecure about the fact that from the outside, it really seems like they went to law school and then worked for a couple years at a big firm to find a highly paid spouse, and then quit as soon as she'd locked him down. I don't actually care even if this was their plan all along (law school, the bar, and working at a biglaw firm are not easy, so if you want to use them to nab the husband you want, more power to you) but their need to act like they themselves are firm partners or that they are intimately familiar with your work when they couldn't possibly be is really grating.

+100.

Former BigLaw junior associate here who has happily dissociated from the field and married someone in an unrelated one. Here’s the thing, for some of us it wasn’t just hard, it was impossible because of the nonstop sexual harassment. Imagine succeeding with male partners and senior associates making constant sexual innuendos and outright passes. Imagine being penalized for rejecting said behaviors and imagine having some of the women partners and senior associates penalizing you, too, for being young and pretty.

Having gone through all of that, I appreciate why some of these women left the field, but relish in their husbands’ careers. They feel like that’s the closest they could get. And it is, but not for reasons of merit.

You have this so backwards.

When a woman who is married to a BigLaw partner talks to me, her husbands peer, as though she and I are professionally the same, she is contributing to the culture of devaluing women in this industry. I worked very hard to get to where I am and dealt with all the same BS that these women like you who left as juniors did, and then some. But I stuck it out and now I am in a position that you only get to if you work very hard for a long time.

When the wives of some of my colleagues, who may have spent 2-3 years as a junior associate at our firm or another firm, speak to me as though we are professional peers or they have intimate knowledge of my firm or my career, they are just contributing to the culture you are complaining about. Because I EARNED my position. I wish for them happiness in whatever life they have chosen for themselves, but being married to a BigLaw partner does not entitle you to act like you are one. My husband would never, for instance. This is all about their insecurity and trying to use their DH's position and status to assert themselves. It's retrograde and toxic.

How did you EARN your position? I ask this because I got taken off any matters when I didn’t return sexual favors. What did you do? How did you manage to stay assigned on a matter after rejecting a partner? Teach me, seriously, I’d love to know.

DP here - OMG you do realize not EVERY firm has whatever your firm's sexual favors issue was, right? I was in biglaw for 8 years, moved on on my own because I wanted to leave NYC and this was before WFH was a thing. I didn't get taken off matters and sexual favors were never asked for nor even hinted about. I'm not suggesting that there couldn't have been some creepy partner in some department someplace that was like that, but in the big departments with hundreds of partners in close to a decade I would've known if there was a sexual favors policy in play. Besides if you wanted to be a biglaw partner could you not have lateraled to some other firm and worked your way up there? Did you assume every firm everywhere was only promoting women who'd go to bed with the executive committee?

I never made that assumption. You did. Reread what I wrote. I said “some women” never had a chance of making partner because of sexual harassment. I didn’t say “all women.” It hardly happened to all of the women at my firm.

I assumed that the women who were able to make it to partner were the ones who were not targeted, usually because of their high social status. Abusers are selective about their victims. Being a poor, White first generation college student, I was a perfect victim. This didn’t happen to the daughters of important, relevant people.

I was just responding to the poster who said that she dealt with the sexual harassment and more and still “EARNED” her spot. I’m truly curious as to how she managed it. It was impossible for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Women who think being a doctor's wife makes THEM a doctor/expert on healthcare/how hospitals operate.

Similarly women who gave up biglaw as an associate bc they couldn't handle it and their biglaw boyfriend proposed and then when biglaw husband makes partner, THEY feel they made partner; uh sweetie congrats to your man, but YOU are not a partner at this firm, so we don't need YOUR opinion on how things should be done.

Wow that one sounds personal, Susan.

DP and actually I have encountered this as well, specifically the former biglaw associate who talks about her DH's career as if it's her own. It is especially annoying when you are at the same firm as the husband and the wife talks to you like a colleague when she doesn't actually know what you do and you've never worked together, and she actually has not worked as a lawyer (or potentially at all) in many years.

I think women like this feel guilty or insecure about the fact that from the outside, it really seems like they went to law school and then worked for a couple years at a big firm to find a highly paid spouse, and then quit as soon as she'd locked him down. I don't actually care even if this was their plan all along (law school, the bar, and working at a biglaw firm are not easy, so if you want to use them to nab the husband you want, more power to you) but their need to act like they themselves are firm partners or that they are intimately familiar with your work when they couldn't possibly be is really grating.

+100.

Former BigLaw junior associate here who has happily dissociated from the field and married someone in an unrelated one. Here’s the thing, for some of us it wasn’t just hard, it was impossible because of the nonstop sexual harassment. Imagine succeeding with male partners and senior associates making constant sexual innuendos and outright passes. Imagine being penalized for rejecting said behaviors and imagine having some of the women partners and senior associates penalizing you, too, for being young and pretty.

Having gone through all of that, I appreciate why some of these women left the field, but relish in their husbands’ careers. They feel like that’s the closest they could get. And it is, but not for reasons of merit.

You have this so backwards.

When a woman who is married to a BigLaw partner talks to me, her husbands peer, as though she and I are professionally the same, she is contributing to the culture of devaluing women in this industry. I worked very hard to get to where I am and dealt with all the same BS that these women like you who left as juniors did, and then some. But I stuck it out and now I am in a position that you only get to if you work very hard for a long time.

When the wives of some of my colleagues, who may have spent 2-3 years as a junior associate at our firm or another firm, speak to me as though we are professional peers or they have intimate knowledge of my firm or my career, they are just contributing to the culture you are complaining about. Because I EARNED my position. I wish for them happiness in whatever life they have chosen for themselves, but being married to a BigLaw partner does not entitle you to act like you are one. My husband would never, for instance. This is all about their insecurity and trying to use their DH's position and status to assert themselves. It's retrograde and toxic.

How did you EARN your position? I ask this because I got taken off any matters when I didn’t return sexual favors. What did you do? How did you manage to stay assigned on a matter after rejecting a partner? Teach me, seriously, I’d love to know.

I earned it by doing my job diligently for 10 years, working on progressively more difficult matters, delivering good work product and having a good attitude, cultivating strong relationships in the firm and with the client.

Never once in my 14 year legal career have I been sexually propositioned by a superior, and certainly my ability to work on projects was never premised on "sexual favors." I am very sorry that happened to you but that doesn't reflect my experience at all.

I do think BigLaw can be really unfriendly to women, but I think that has more to do with how hard it is to be a mom in BigLaw, and the way you are penalized for taking any time off or for not working long hours 100% of the time. I was somewhat fortunate in that I had my babies as a counsel, which for me was a stop on the way to partner that actually afforded me a bit more flexility with my work and also allowed me to delegate some work during my maternity leaves without being taken off projects. But I was exceedingly fortunate in this timing and many women aren't. That's the biggest reason I know that many of my peers didn't stick it out for partner (well that and deciding that BigLaw just wasn't for them, which happens all the time).

I don't know anyone who was sexually harassed the way you describe and if I had, I would have joined them in reporting this up. At the moment, both my practice head and division chief are women, so I feel confident that behavior like that would be taken seriously at my firm.

Lucky you, but that is exactly what happened to me. What do you think the whole #metoo movement is about?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So many of these personalities are people who are sympathy-seeking or attention-seeking. I think that's what it comes down to. People who demand more attention than anyone else, and/or want you to feel sorry for them or think they have it tougher than other people. It's so frustrating and the older I get, the less patience I have for this behavior.

Also, people like this often have little to no empathy for others. So it's all take and no give.

+1

Yes! This! Self created situations that people refuse to take responsibility for, and often use their kids as pawns. My kids go through the same exact thing, and no one bails us out, time to step up and parent, since you chose to bear children. GMAFB.

Yes. I know a single mom who is like this. Always telling, not asking, other moms that they need to transport or feed her kid (or take him on vacation!) #becausesinglemom. I get that it’s hard, but man, she chose this!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Their ethnicity, if they are a third+ generation American, usually White. Nobody cares about your 19th century Irish heritage or your Polish grandmother and your Swedish immigrant family in 1910 most certainly does NOT make you a Viking. Just stop. You’re American. People from your “ancestral homelands” roll their eyes at you.

I'd pay to see you go to Boston and say this out loud in an Irish bar. Then I'd drive you to the North End myself to see what you have to say about Italians.

Shotgun!

I’m Irish from Southie and you’re both idiots.

Oh, you're on DCUM too. How quaint.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Religious people. I can think of 2 particular religions - one in my family but won't say for fear of offending anyone.

But seriously what you do or don't do in terms of practice, praying, and observing holidays is between you and the higher power. You don't need to know what I do and then sit and criticize because you don't think it's enough or you don't think I'm doing it right and your way of practice and observance is more correct - because frankly you aren't the authority here.

Agree. My SIL took her bible to the beach, to sit and read and ignore everyone else. She does it at all family functions. Every wall in their house is covered with scripture verse. It's just too much. There is no other subject she wants to talk about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Military wives.

Hard disagree. Life circumstances made it so that I was exposed to military culture/life intimately without being in the military. Military wives have to pack up and move their entire families every 2-3 years, immediately adapt to the new location/culture (and help their kids assimilate), make new friends, find new resources, and generally make up the lifeblood of base activities and community, ALL with an embarrassingly small amount of support. The nature of their husband's career make it so that they themselves are effectually prevented from developing their own careers, but their husbands and kids would be lost without them as a governing force.

I have more respect for military spouses than nearly any other group.

Thank you. Military wives are the cornerstone of the force. Our nation’s unsung heroes. I remember seeing We Were Soldiers with DH at a base theater overseas years ago. The scene where Julia Moore takes it upon herself to deliver the regret to inform you telegrams to the new Gold Star Wives… As I teared up I looked around and all the wives were crying as well. Because we could relate at the deepest of levels. We knew it could be any of us either called to be as strong as her or receiving that ominous knock on the door.