Thursday's Most Active Threads

The first two most active threads yesterday were Vice President Kamala Harris-related threads that I've already discussed and, therefore, will skip today. The third most active thread was titled, "Horrible dorm assignment!" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster says that her child is going to college in southern California and, despite requesting a roommate, was assigned a single room in the basement of a building without air conditioning. The original poster is quite unhappy, believing that the school can easily afford to install central air conditioning in the building, and says that the experience has soured them on the university before school even started. A large number of the responses are from posters who also lived in college dorms that did not have air conditioning. Because they survived it, they don't have much sympathy for the original poster's child. Moreover, several posters point out, most students would love to have a single room. Therefore, they suggest the student should be able to trade rooms with someone else fairly easily. Other advice is to open a window and use a fan and that the warm weather will only last a couple of months. A number of those responding are either from California or have spent time there and they explain that temperatures cool off at night and it is not as humid as DC. Therefore, the nights are comfortable and the lack of air conditioning won't be a problem. The attitude of a lot of the posters is that freshmen year dorm experiences are almost always bad and something about which it is normal to have concerns. But, the original poster's child will survive it and she shouldn't worry. Other posters argue that if comfortable dorms were a priority, the original poster should have researched that ahead of time and chosen a college that has nicer dorms. In contrast to the "suck it up" crowd, a number of posters have advice about how to facilitate a room change. Some of these strategies are fairly elaborate with one poster even suggesting that the student grow mold in the room and then justify a room change because of the presence of mold. Much later in the thread, the original poster insisted that the lack of air conditioning was not the most important issue. Rather, her child is going cross-country to school and would now be living in a single room in a corner of the basement and somewhat isolated from other students. The original poster thinks that all of this combined is not conducive to an enjoyable college experience. She was hoping that her child would have a great experience at the university and this has tarnished things. It's possible that the concerns about the room are more on the part of the original poster and perhaps not shared by the student.

The next most active thread yesterday was posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum and titled, "How do you do it all?!". The original poster says that her husband is in the foreign service and they have been living abroad. Now, however, they will be living in D.C. for the foreseeable future. She will be looking for a full time job and has two young children. She is wondering how others are able to work fulltime and also take care of a family. For instance, who cooks dinner? Who shuffles the kids back and forth to activities? Are the kids in aftercare which leads to a very long day for them? The original poster also says that her husband's job is very demanding and not flexible. Therefore, all of the visits to doctors and sick days and so on will be left to her. She is starting to panic. This is really the perennial challenge of DC Urban Moms, as well as mothers elsewhere. It is far too common for mothers, even those working fulltime, to end up as the default parent. The most common way posters report dealing with this situation is by hiring nannies and cleaning help. Nanies are responsible for getting the children to and from activities and care for the children when they are out of school. The original poster worried about the expense of this sort of outsourcing and posters agreed that it does cost a lot. In some cases, posters reported that nannies and cleaners take up half or more of their own salary. They still consider working to be worth it in order to maintain their earning capacity and professional advancement. Another key that those responding stress is flexibility. If one or both parents can work at home, even if it is just a couple of days a week, it makes things much easier. Other practices are to stagger schedules with one parent leaving for work early in the morning and then returning early while the other starts late and works later. This allows one parent to have responsibility for morning tasks and the other for afternoon and evening duties. Some posters say that they cannot afford much in the way of help around the house. Consequently, their kids are in extended daycare and extracurricular activities are kept to a minimum. Quite a few posters stressed that they intentionally chose to either downsize or selected low cost of living arrangements initially. When less money is spent on housing or private schools, there is more available for household help. A few posters reported that that they tried doing it all but eventually threw in the towel and became stay at home moms. Others scaled back their jobs to part time. In a few cases, posters simply convinced their husbands that they either needed to work fewer hours or earn more because the situation wasn't working. This thread stayed surprisingly on topic with most resposes being helpful. Keep this up and DCUM will lose its reputation for rancor.

I'll be honest and say that I was not sure if I should really discuss the next most active thread. But, ultimately, I just go where the data takes me. Therefore, the next most active thread was titled, "Guys, let's be clear: JD Vance didn't have sex with his couch!". Posted in the "Political Discussion" forum, the original poster wants to be clear that, regardless of what anyone may have heard, Republican Vice Presidential nominee J. D. Vance did not have sex with his couch. The suggestion that J. D. Vance did have sex with his couch originated with a tweet by an essentially unknown poster on X (formerly Twitter) who wrote that in his memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy", J. D. Vance described turning a rubber glove inside out and lodging it between couch cushions and then pleasuring himself. The poster even included page numbers. While none of this was true, some of those who read the tweet may have believed it, some may not have, and some might not have cared either way. But, almost universally, the reaction was that the rumor at least seemed like it could be true. Frankly, few were willing to rule out the plausibility of Vance having sex with his couch. In fact, as some posters pointed out, the original poster could only confirm that it was not true that Vance wrote about having sex with his couch in his book. Whether or not Vance has had carnal knowledge with his furniture is still an open question. And, just to be clear, whatever happens between Vance and his couch is nobody's business but his own. As they say, what happens in the living room, stays in the living room. The rumor about Vance and his couch was so widespread that the Associated Press actually wrote a fact check refuting it. The article was later withdrawn with the AP claiming that it had not gone through their normal editorial process. DCUM posters who generally lean liberal were thrilled to have a chance to laugh. These posters have been nearly despondent over the possibility that former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump might return to the White House. The replacement of President Joe Biden by Vice President Kamala Harris has changed their outlook completely. The Vance rumor gave them a chance to laugh and joke at the expense of someone who has rapidly made himself look like a terrible person. Right-wing posters, on the other hand, did not find this discussion to be funny. Not in the slightest. Throughout the thread there are complaints that the discussion was allowed to go on. A second thread was created in the "Website Feedback" forum to ask if this was the content that I really wanted on DCUM (yes, in fact, it is). That thread also immediately filled with jokes. The humor in these threads may struggle even to reach the level of sophomoric, but we haven't had a lot about which to laugh lately. So, this topic has been a welcome diversion.

The final thread that I will discuss today was posted in the "Jobs and Careers" forum and titled, "Need help getting Gen Z hires to dress better at work". The original poster says that she works in a design firm that is high end and that staff members often have to go to clients' offices to pitch design proposals. She has a new crop of interns that doesn't dress appropriately for the circumstances. She says that they often come to the office wearing flip-flops, Crocs, or other plastic shoes, dress in sweat pants and rumpled t-shirts, and have messy hair that looks like it wasn't combed after they got out of bed. She says that she can't take them to a client's office dressed in such a manner because it would hurt their brand and clients would not take them seriously. She wants to know how she can talk to this group without upsetting them. The most common response is to introduce a clearly-defined dress code, maybe even including pictures of what is and is not acceptable. The original poster gets some pushback because she mentioned a need for women to wear makeup and seemed overly-concerned about women's hair styles. The original poster later said that she didn't care about makeup and her concerns about hair extended to both men and women. Some posters mention that young people may not own professional clothing and are simply wearing what they have. Therefore, some posters suggest providing a clothing allowance or having a supply of clothing in various sizes on hand that can be donned in an emergency. A few posters don't understand the need to dress up in the first place. One poster argues that the product or service should sell itself rather than the clothing and hair styles of the employees. Several posters report that they have had the same experience and have had varying results addressing it. One poster who went through the process of drafting a dress code stressed that human resources should be involved in order to avoid inadvertently being discriminatory. Interestingly, this poster also reported that after implementing the dress code there was pushback from supervisors who argued that the dress code was creating too much expense for their direct reports. As such, this poster believes that attitudes towards dress may be changing. She also reported good results with providing company logo clothing free of charge to the employees. Another good suggestion was to cover clothing expectations during the orientation session. The biggest rebellion among posters in this thread is from those who have frizzy hair. While the original poster believes that frizzy hair should be tamed for the office, and gets agreement from at least one frizzy-haired poster, a large number of posters who apparently have frizzy hair strongly want her to understand that this is much easier said than done. One poster was so angry about it that she called the original poster a "garbage human." The original poster responded to say that she also has frizzy hair and that while it may not be possible to control it completely, people could at least comb their hair and show that they made an effort. Basically, this thread ends up in compete melee over the topic of frizzy hair.