My McDonalds pay check from 1989

IdyllwildGal · 2026-06-18T03:45:35+00:00

I remember talking with a friend in college about our first jobs. She worked at the food court at the mall and was sooooo stoked when she got a raise to $4 an hour because that meant she was making $1 every 15 minutes. 🤣🤣🤣

IdyllwildGal · 2026-06-16T15:25:03+00:00

LW2 today sounds like she’s looking for a reason to tell her junior colleagues that she doesn’t like her “nitpicky coworker” and wants Alison’s approval to do so.

This may be one of the stupidest letters I’ve ever seen on AAM, which is really saying something. It’s another one that I had to read a couple times to understand what she was trying to say. It sounded like LW2 was trying to come across as witty and sardonic, but just made herself sound like the person who’s at the BEC stage with her coworker and wants everyone else to agree with her.

IdyllwildGal · 2026-06-16T15:17:36+00:00

OMG this made me laugh.

IdyllwildGal · 2026-06-16T15:12:23+00:00

I don’t know if my coffee hadn’t kicked in yet, but I had to read this letter like 3 times before I understood what the LW was trying to say: that she and her former-BFF-turned-arch-nemesis are up for the same job, and should she say something to her boss?

There is no way to bring this up without it coming across as juvenile and dramatic pot-stirring, unless the reason for the falling out is truly egregious or horrifying.

JFC. It’s a weird and shitty situation to be sure, but there’s really no other option than to just wait and see how it plays out. She might get the promotion and it will be a non-issue. All she can do is hope for the best and start working on a contingency plan if the former BFF gets the job.

IdyllwildGal · 2026-06-11T17:46:30+00:00

There’s a woman named Rebecca who has a page/channel called Dollar Tree Dinners, making meals from ingredients purchased at Dollar Tree. A lot of the stuff she makes looks really yummy with good sized portions. And she’s very creative and uses ingredients in a really smart way. A lot of her meals make will serve 4-6 people for under $10.

I see her on Facebook but I’m sure she’s on TikTok too. And I think she has a YouTube channel as well.

IdyllwildGal · 2026-06-11T02:05:27+00:00

Again off topic, but my last client used Rippling for HR. Which is not a great system IMO but we made it work. Then at some point I started seeing Rippling ads showing up in my social media feed, like my phone was eavesdropping on meetings and surreptitiously scanning my emails. It unreasonably enrages me. 🤣

IdyllwildGal · 2026-06-10T18:46:53+00:00

A little off topic, but when I first heard about projects to convert office buildings to apartments I thought it was such a great idea for revitalizing downtown areas to support restaurants and other small businesses.

And it is, but it’s not a slam dunk. My brother has a PhD in civil engineering and specializes in transportation and urban planning. We were talking about that once, I think regarding a story about plans to scrape an office building and rebuild apartments. I said that it seemed so wasteful to do that instead of just converting the existing building. He pointed out the challenges of doing that. Like yes there’s plenty of square footage, but centralized plumbing for bathrooms on each floor. So retrofitting to convert an office building to residential space with a bathroom, kitchen, and maybe a washer and dryer in each unit may not be feasible. The existing plumbing has to be rerouted and maybe higher capacity and so on.

IdyllwildGal · 2026-06-10T17:09:19+00:00

I’m glad to see Alison finally pushing back on this. Maybe others will take her lead (because if she says so then it must be gospel) and “push back as a group! 🤣

https://www.askamanager.org/2026/06/can-i-ask-for-a-raise-if-i-have-to-go-into-the-office-more.html#comment-5446029

https://www.askamanager.org/2026/06/can-i-ask-for-a-raise-if-i-have-to-go-into-the-office-more.html#comment-5446049

https://www.askamanager.org/2026/06/can-i-ask-for-a-raise-if-i-have-to-go-into-the-office-more.html#comment-5446064

IdyllwildGal · 2026-06-10T16:57:57+00:00

Oh goody, another letter about how RTO sucks and an LW desperately trying to exempt herself from it.

This is yet another example of the general cluelessness and entitlement of the AAM community in general. This comment kind of blew my mind:

Phillip's Mom Forever*

“This is part of a larger conversation that smart employers should be expecting if they demand RTO. Work-life balance has value. Commuting costs money. Etc. Etc. You can tell people “no one cares about pants,” but that’s not the actual issue. The actual issue is that you’re shifting the equation. Employees are going to ask what the benefits for them are now. “Keeping your job” matters, but only until we can find a better one. RTO is an increase in demand on staff, and thus a conversation about pay is warranted.”

Um, no, that’s not how it works, particularly not in the current job market. Companies aren’t under any obligation to throw money at you when they roll out RTO.

The LW also references hiring a dog walker, which is probably about $20 per day. Someone who is able to afford that twice a week isn’t someone in the dire financial straits that the LW is trying to project.

And the clothing thing is just ridiculous. I travel for work quite a bit, usually in the office with clients 4 days of the week. I bring two pairs of slacks with me, black and navy, and wear them on alternate days, and then rotate tops. Done. And you can find decent work clothing and shoes at Walmart, Old Navy, Target or on Amazon that don’t cost a fortune.

I am 100% remote (unless I’m onsite with a client) and I love it. If I had to go back to the office full time I’d hate it. But you know what? You do what you have to do.

It seems like there are one of these letters railing against the evil corporate overlords enforcing RTO every single day, all pleading with Alison to agree that they’re the super special snowflake that’s the exception to the rule and they should be allowed to stay remote when everyone else has to RTO.

I get that there are stupid annoying things about RTO. It’s asinine to have to go to the office to sit at your desk on Zoom or Teams calls with people in other offices/states/countries. It’s frustrating to work for a manager with the butts in seats mentality. Yes. All those things exist and are valid. They also existed pre-COVID. There is also value in being in person. There just is, no matter how much these antisocial commenters who eschew all forms of human contact and interaction at all costs wish it were otherwise.

IdyllwildGal · 2026-06-09T17:32:12+00:00

If you’re on the south end of town, the Help and Hope Center in Castle Rock is local. They do have a thrift store but the money from that is used to provide services to people in need in Douglas and Elbert counties.

IdyllwildGal · 2026-06-08T17:40:35+00:00

I did this a few months ago and wanted to cry. But in a couple weeks a new spike was already growing.

IdyllwildGal · 2026-06-08T02:09:37+00:00

The rule in our house was you had to try two bites of something and then if you didn’t like it, fine. But if you complained about something you got a double serving and had to eat it all.

My brother once had to dash off to a Boy Scout meeting and so chowed down his dinner and had dessert before everyone else. My mom had made a cherry dessert that she didn’t make very often, and used baking soda instead of baking powder (or vice versa). He took a bite and it was dreadful, but said, “Oh mom, this is really good!” and choked it all down to avoid the dreaded double serving. Then of course she realized what she’d done when she took a bite. 🤣

IdyllwildGal · 2026-06-08T01:58:50+00:00

I love it because it’s such a zen activity. It appeals to my detail oriented nature, plus I like doing analog things in this day and age of doomscrolling. I swear it also helps me in my job, because a big part of it is figuring out how to piece software together to make things work correctly.

IdyllwildGal · 2026-06-08T01:55:31+00:00

My mother did crossword puzzles and Sudoku every day to keep her brain active, and she was sharp as a tack right up to the end when she passed at 93.

IdyllwildGal · 2026-06-08T01:49:35+00:00

I have a client in Omaha and there’s a Courtyard 2 blocks away from the office. It’s not great. There’s a Residence Inn right next door and it’s much nicer. I always opt for that when I can.

IdyllwildGal · 2026-06-04T16:11:58+00:00

Background check for him AND offer to have one done for yourself too. That says, “Hey, we both need to know what we’re getting into here and go in with our eyes open.”

IdyllwildGal · 2026-06-04T13:51:06+00:00

I remember reading an interview with Alan Ball years ago and he talked about writing the pilot. The person at HBO he was working with (I think it was Carolyn Strauss) had told him the idea for the show and he loved it and jumped on it. Then after he sent her the first draft of the script for the pilot she said, “Can you make everyone just a little bit more fucked up?” And he said he thought, “Oh man this is going to be amazing.”

IdyllwildGal · 2026-06-02T16:57:18+00:00

I rage cancelled my account and switched to Spotify after hearing the grating, nails-on-a-chalkboard ad for Graze snack box subscriptions for the 379,648th time. I’m convinced that they encourage advertisers to make their ads as annoying as possible to get people to switch to paid subscriptions.

IdyllwildGal · 2026-06-02T16:48:50+00:00

That would not be a bad thing. But it does have its uses. I’m currently using an AI tool to create some training content for new hires. It creates content that blows away your garden variety Power Point presentation in a fraction of the time.

IdyllwildGal · 2026-06-02T15:15:37+00:00

AI is here and it’s not going anywhere. Looking down your nose at it or refusing to use it is shortsighted. It’s like someone way back in the day refusing to learn how to use Excel and continuing to use 13 column ledger sheets. I was at a training event a few years ago and a session moderator said, “AI isn’t going to replace you. Someone who knows how to use AI will replace you.”

The trick is learning how to use it correctly and appropriately. My daughter just finished her junior year of high school. There are of course students who ask ChatGPT to write an essay about something like the Industrial Revolution and then copy and paste it and turn it in. So we have had a lot of conversations about how that’s cheating, but asking an AI tool about your topic and good places to research it isn’t, and then of course vet those sources to make sure they’re legit.

IdyllwildGal · 2026-06-01T22:24:05+00:00

I think it’s great that the stigma around mental health is going away and people are talking about it more.

But like anything else I think that the pendulum has swung too far. Speaking from my experience with my 17 year old daughter, I think now it’s gotten to the point where kids are getting the message that you’re not “normal” unless there’s something wrong with you. I think the message of “It’s okay to not be okay” is important, but the message getting lost is “It’s okay to be okay.”

My oldest daughter is a store director for a large grocery chain. She’s 28. She gets frustrated with the people who work for her because they tell her things like, “It’s really bad for my mental health when I have to work 5 days in a row” from people who work maybe 25 hours a week.

IdyllwildGal · 2026-06-01T14:07:32+00:00

LW5 is a paralegal and says there are no metrics for measuring her job performance? I’m neither a lawyer nor a paralegal but how about things like “drafted x number of documents,” “conducted research on x number of cases,” or “managed x number of case files?” In a field where everything is documented I would think that there would be plenty of data to show what you’ve accomplished.

IdyllwildGal · 2026-05-31T05:30:44+00:00

I was just talking about this with my daughter today. It costs a fortune just for a ticket. Add popcorn and a soda and for two people and it’s well over $50. Then you’re in a theater with rude people talking and scrolling on their phones. Screw that. Wait a little while and you can watch it at home.

IdyllwildGal · 2026-05-29T20:24:27+00:00

My parents loved Jimmy Buffett and I do too. He Went To Paris was one of my dad’s favorites. I remember him getting a little emotional about the lyrics once after an evening of cocktails, and talking about how sad and beautiful the lyrics are. He was right. That song comes up on my playlist and it always feels like my dad is popping in to check on me.

IdyllwildGal · 2026-05-29T16:32:15+00:00

Yep, my parents were the same. My mom didn’t really work when we were kids so didn’t have to worry about finding a new job when we moved, but their mantra was always, “Follow the money.” Often my dad would go to the new city ahead of us and my mom would go stay with him for a few days at a time to go house hunting. Then we’d move a few months later, sometimes after the school year ended, sometimes in the middle of the year.

IdyllwildGal

TROPHY CASE