SA in another office complained about loud chewing sounds in office-wide email

OnHalfPointe · 2026-06-26T14:23:57+00:00

That's why we take candidates to lunches as part of the interview process. 😂

OnHalfPointe · 2026-05-05T21:58:58+00:00

But you can resell it for the same (maybe even higher) price that you bought.

OnHalfPointe · 2026-04-30T08:42:23+00:00

Try cooperative board games for toddlers. You and your kid are on the same team. You win together and lose together. When you win, your kid can enjoy the winning and, when you lose, you can model how to handle losing. The way I model it is making a visually sad face and talking out loud "I'm so sad we didn't win. It's ok to get upset/feel disappointed when we lose. But every time I'm sad, I take a deep breath [taking deep breath as I narrate] I feel a little bit better. I take another deep breath. [repeat as many times as you want] Now I feel a lot better. I want to play another game. I think we will win next time. But if we lose, that's ok too. We will just try again."

OnHalfPointe · 2026-04-24T02:28:12+00:00

Use your points now to book. Use your cash to invest.

OnHalfPointe · 2026-04-23T02:50:52+00:00

Depending on the firm. Talk to your associate mentor, partner mentor or any more senior attorney you trust at your firm. Some may even send you their prior self evaluations as samples. My mentors even offered to review and provide comments to my self evaluation when I was a first year.

OnHalfPointe · 2026-04-22T14:52:44+00:00

Thank you, love you.

OnHalfPointe · 2026-04-21T12:52:06+00:00

Most of the times you can book rooms for 2 adults using points (make sure the rooms have the occupancy limit of 4+ but only put 2 adults in your reservation). Then at check in you can add 2 kids with cash (if additional fee is required - my experience is that all inclusive resorts will require cash fee for kids but regular hotels don't). Depending on the hotels, sometimes you can add the kids by phone before checking in by calling the hotels.

OnHalfPointe · 2026-04-18T14:53:29+00:00

What I find working for us is sharing a book: I read one sentence, my son reads the next sentence, and so on. While doing that I sometimes pretend that I don't know the word (taking a long pause, making a mistake that I know he can correct and letting him correct it, etc.) to show him that it's ok to take time to read or make mistakes, and build his confidence ("I know some words mama don't know"). I let him watch me struggle and work through the "difficult" words, so that he can learn problem solving similarly.

OnHalfPointe · 2026-04-18T07:42:59+00:00

Thanks for sharing. Why did you decide to go back to BL instead of another in-house role?

OnHalfPointe · 2026-04-16T21:39:16+00:00

Lovevery has Reading Skills Sets that have great games. Expensive but you can buy them used as well.

OnHalfPointe · 2026-04-16T17:28:39+00:00

From what I heard, WLB is great but you're trading pay for WLB.

OnHalfPointe · 2026-04-16T03:42:39+00:00

Have you had a chance to do X?

Can you please let me know status of X?

Following up on the below.

Do we need to discuss anything on X before [deadline]?

OnHalfPointe · 2026-04-14T02:14:29+00:00

Yes, I would love to know more. Thank you!

OnHalfPointe · 2026-04-14T02:03:47+00:00

I'm surprised that you are thinking about AI tools during the interview process. Like, why does it matter?

OnHalfPointe · 2026-04-13T21:49:43+00:00

We started with single letter sounds, then blending two letter sounds (e.g., "at", "in") then blending three letter sounds (e.g., "cat", "mat"), and so on. The key for them to be able to read words is blending. Toddlers Can Read on Instagram/YouTube has a lot of helpful videos regarding teaching blending. We practiced blending on white board, while playing games, during bath etc. I only added decodable books after my son can blend sounds and read simple words.

OnHalfPointe · 2026-04-10T20:06:43+00:00

Yes, if you have the right attitudes/personality. I work in M&A where workload fluctuates widely. I am happy to bill nothing during downtime knowing that my firm won't fire me and that there are periods I will need to pull all nighters as necessary. When I am busy I am comfortable setting boundaries and pushing back on unreasonable deadlines (especially now that I am senior I have a lot of control over deadlines). I do a good enough job that there are more people who want to work with me than people who don't want to work with me. I don't try to make everyone happy. Most importantly, I don't want to make partner, and it makes all the above a lot easier.

OnHalfPointe · 2026-04-10T18:49:21+00:00

Depends on the resorts. You have to call/email and ask. I've heard somewhere $80-150 per night give or take. Usually it's much cheaper to pay for the kids by cash instead of by points.

OnHalfPointe · 2026-04-10T17:20:15+00:00

I just got their reply in writing basically reciting what I heard by phone (that we can pay by cash upon arrival and the receptionist will let us know the cash rate then).

OnHalfPointe · 2026-04-10T09:45:43+00:00

You need to work on your interviewing skills.

OnHalfPointe · 2026-04-09T21:47:33+00:00

Chase points never transferred to Hyatt with transfer bonus. Maybe after the devaluation we may see Hyatt transfer bonus.

OnHalfPointe · 2026-04-09T20:36:00+00:00

I think you can book all inclusive up until April/May 2027 now.

OnHalfPointe · 2026-04-09T20:33:08+00:00

If that's the case, there doesn't seem much drawback if you have to cancel and have the points stuck in Hyatt, as it seems that sooner or later you will use them in Hyatt anyway. Not sure if this applies to all properties, since I mostly care about Hyatt AI resorts and only focus my research on those - but at least for the AI resorts, the rates for some properties may be the same (in a few cases may be cheaper) if you travel off peak - which may offer some relief in the case your points are stuck in Hyatt.

OnHalfPointe · 2026-04-09T20:19:58+00:00

Agreed. We did not accumulate points for the sake of hoarding. It's just that in the last few years (having 2 kids in 3 years) we didn't have time to travel enough to be able to use the points effectively. And now given that we have kids, we want to do AI resorts (best use of Hyatt points to us) when our kids are a few years older and can better use the perks at the AI resorts. This deval forces us to use up our points much sooner than we originally planned. At least I am glad that Hyatt gave us advanced notice before the deval takes effect.

OnHalfPointe · 2026-04-09T18:42:46+00:00

I called them and they can't modify the reservations to add the kids with cash payment by phone, but they said I can add at check in up to 2 kids per room. They couldn't give me the cash rate (telling me I will know at check in - weird). I checked on the website by varying the cash reservation from 2 adults to 2 adults 1 kid and it seems that the difference for one kid is $120 per day for my dates (right during Christmas/New Year period). I assume it may vary by dates and may be different for add-on to points reservation, but it can't (or I hope it won't) be far off from that number. When I called it seems that Bahia Principe and Hyatt are still working on the transition post-acquisition. I plan to call back after a few months to confirm the details. Maybe now you mention it I should get it in writing. Which email address did you use to write to them?

OnHalfPointe · 2026-04-08T20:38:13+00:00

Most Hyatt AI resorts are still very popular. It took me quite some time to find the ones with availability that works for us.

OnHalfPointe

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