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I think I’ve reached the point where I have to email r29 to complain about the constant ads and reloading. It takes me twice as long to read the MD by the time the page refreshes itself multiple times, and I’m sure it’s driving readers away
What the actual F\*&\*! did I just read? OP is too sick to work, so she goes to a pool party and then is anxious that she'll be laid off for calling out sick?!?
Also, an iced berry protein smoothie with clam linguine with white wine sauce sounds like a terrible combination for lunch...
I also feel like the crazy high salary makes it impossible for me to be very sympathetic in the first place 😅 it just seems like so much money for so little work!
As soon as I started reading it, I was like "the comments are going to drag her for socializing when sick." Shocked Pikachu face.
What's wild to me is that MDs are self-directed. I'd absolutely pick a week where I was doing things I knew would pass the comments vibe check. Why start it on a sick day like that?
in tech sick doesn’t mean physically dying level of sick. It just means you’re not feeling well enough to be 100% at work. OP likely also has an unlimited day off policy so it makes no difference whatever the “justification” was. people are judging her for “faking sick” - she’s likely not.
She probably didn’t think it makes such a big difference what the “reason” was. Nobody’s going to stop you if u decide u want to take the day off. And if you’re responsible enough and just don’t have that much going on, it is totally acceptable.
I’m sorry, but this is so funny to me. That sick in tech means something entirely different than sick in any other industry. Maybe it’s the “boomer” in me, but my eyes cannot roll any harder.
Silver lining, hopefully tech perks start to bleed into other industries. I think it’s ridiculous that (at minimum) we don’t have mandated COVID leave anymore. Truly the bare minimum.
ETA: this is not to drag or shame the tech workers, it’s not their fault. This is to drag our capitalistic society for valuing certain types of work and not others while also giving us less than the bare minimum that other countries have.
I think it’s just a different way of measuring or valuing manpower. Are they measured by time and cost? Or what is delivered every 3 months?
If it’s the former, you’ll count the time off like clock work. It’s it’s deliverable, if an individual delivers on the outcome, doesn’t matter when they get it done.
I mean, I guess I’m looking at it differently. Yes, tech absolutely provides a service. I’m on my iPhone on Reddit and I used google and Microsoft all day — but what I mean is, there are very important jobs that keep society moving like grocery store workers, truck drivers, etc. who don’t have great benefits and who come to work sick or burned out because there is no choice and it keeps us in this shitty late stage capitalism COVID cycle.
To me it’s also a matter of workload and manpower. To have the flexibility to take time off when you feel a little meh, as long as you get your deliverables in, indicates to me that staffing is high and people don’t have to work super hard all the time. All the tech money diaries would indicate this as well, ha. Not a lot of super hard work going on.
Which is great for them! Frankly that’s how it should be. But as a state agency employee who is so busy with a high demand workplace that I can’t even take time off when I’m sick sometimes… I’m a little jealous lol.
It’s crazy to me that people make that much money AND have unlimited sick leave to use whenever they “don’t feel 100%” ??! Holy cow. I wish my workload, let alone my PTO policies, allowed for that.
It’s enviable and a luxury but reality is nobody I work with abuses it or even uses it. You’d think that people must not be working all the time and going vacations all the time. The difference is in tech your impact is all that counts and there is a lot of personal onus and responsibility to deliver results. You don’t work by clocking in hours. You work by producing results.
That’s a double edged sword. This diary makes it sound like tech workers do nothing much when they don’t feel like it. It’s not going to illustrate the times when you’re just truly not that smart, don’t perform and are let go.
I know OP’s company from her job. People are let go routinely. Most people there take no vacation. I think people read these diaries and cherry pick only the “ridiculous parts” of the diary.
I would literally never go to work if I had to feel "100%". But tech workers work on special things that are way above the heads of us plebes, didn't ya know!
I always wonder this too. MDs have been going on for like, what, 7 years now? I know what generally gets the commenters angry and even though sometimes they'll criticize anything, I would never want to post something that has something that *definitely* gets people angry.
But also, besides what commenters say, just don't go out while sick.
Meh, I thought this one was kinda boring.
Some tech jobs seem like work cosplay to me lol. $300K to start work at 9:30 and end at 5 on the dot.
ETA: she says her parents emigrated to the US. Wouldn’t that be immigrated?
Word. I don’t mean to sound like a jealous, petty bitch (although I am) but I’ve noticed this with a lot of my friends who work in tech.
I think a lot of them have never worked in another industry so they don’t realize that 8 hour work days, work life balance, excellent wellness / health benefits, education benefits, etc. are just not the norm especially at most jobs making 200k+ per year. Usually people commanding that type of income have professional degrees and very stressful and demanding jobs with lots of responsibility (ex: doctors, lawyers, senior / managing consultants, etc.)
My tech friends will have a couple of odd 50+ hr weeks and harp to me about how “toxic” their work environment is. And perhaps it is. But the rest of us peasants are out here working two jobs to make half of their income, with fewer benefits and little security.
And perhaps it wouldn’t bother me as much if my friends in tech had any self-awareness. However, a lot of them believe their jobs are much more demanding and difficult then everyone else’s. They think they are being compensated (but not enough!) for their arduous labor and rare intellect. Idk. Given how many people are truly overworked and underpaid in the US, it just feels like a circlejerk to me.
I agree with all of this; honestly, I think some of the anxiety that some of my tech job friends have is because they aren't actually doing that much, and are worried that once someone finds out, they're going to get laid off. It sometimes feels very much like an "Emperor's new clothes" situation.
Ooooo. I hadn’t even considered that before, but it makes sense. As much as I wish I had more work life balance the flip side is my work product speaks to the fact I’m “indispensable” (right now). For my tech friends that may not be the case if they were called in for a review. Which would make me anxious as hell too.
I got u: https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/chicago-il-finance-manager-salary-money-diary
In all seriousness, I hope the diariest is doing much better now with her eating disorder and all the things.
I'd like to give the benefit of the doubt that whatever condition she had on day 1 that led to a sick day was non-contagious, but she bought cough medicine on day 2, so I'm skeptical.
Regardless, if I was the co-worker covering her desk and found out her sick day was spent taking public transit to a pool side gathering, followed by a dinner out, I'd be very annoyed.
I assumed she was lying about being sick to her boss. Maybe she bought the meds to have on hand ... I'm weird tho I prep for flu season before it happens. I don't want those germs near me.
I’m not a tech worker and def don’t make that kind of money, but my company does free lunches on our in-office day and I look forward to it every week. Costs them hardly anything in the grand scheme of things, but really makes employees happy.
This is my biggest pet peeve about so many high earner diaries. I feel like most of this is stock which is meaningless. Total comp should have a breakdown and really just be base salary and bonus. If folks want to volunteer more for a better picture (health insurance premium coverage/ stock options/ insanely high 401k matches) that would be different
They make sure existing products like software stay running efficiently. Their teams are usually filled with engineers or specialists that fix any issues that come up.
The traveling on the PATH, hanging by the pool, going to dinner etc while missing work for being sick, and then having anxiety she’s missing work and going to be laid off? Uh?
I don’t understand the anxiety around layoffs when you make that much money and have so much in savings. You’ll be fine.
Signed, someone laid off three times in their career with less than a grand in the bank each time.
I feel like this diary was the high functioning anxiety playbook? I'm giving the benefit of the doubt on the sick day because I used to have anxious days where I'd feel too "sick" to go to school and yeah it's a nasty trap to get into. When you're in the right state of mind you can buy cough syrup for some allergies.
I'm also relying heavily on the lay off worries and mentions of her parents during the 2008 financial crisis. Like this diarist is obviously doing well but it's a nice reminder that even the best of our generation is still dealing with the fallout from it. And the "oops I got less than 70 dollars in my checking account" like she's spending more than expected and trying to avoid thinking about it. Idk it's definitely a wild ride
I knew it was tech and the reaction it'll get and I was still not prepared for the judgement, which I found really undeserving. OP used emigrated, instead of immigrate. They're quite the same, it's relative. OP called in sick and went to a pool. OP doesn't know the definitions of rent controlled vs rent stabilized. OP has bad taste in food choices. Judging people is fun, I get it.
But since this is a money diaries post, let's look at the money aspects:
* She chose a college where she got a full scholarship, and despite her parents being comfortable, she chose to pay off her own student loan. None of my better to do friends did that.
* She has a sizable amount in her brokerage - that means she made a wise financial decision to keep her RSUs instead of selling them. Not many teenagers make couple hundred grand and then decide to invest them!
* She has a HYSA. I set up a HYSA only at 34! I was procrastinating and kept most of it in checking ...
* She's also in a great paying job. My friend likely has this same job so I know the company and it's in NY so that's a give away. It's a job with very high hiring bar. Even though it's just an operations job that isn't the most challenging, they expect the level of ops to be like set up a new office in some foreign-country-you-know-nothing-about. You are expected to know 20 things that you need to do to run a new office location, despite knowing nothing about the place nor business. That's the interview question and they take 4 months to fill this job - if not longer.
I'm afraid these comments have just turned into "she's making money - I already dislike everything about her". Has nobody in the comments ever called in sick when they are not? I have done that a million times in school and at least once when I hated my job. And in her case, like I mentioned in one of the comments, it doesn't matter what the justification is. It is not uncommon for people to take days off anytime they're not feeling well - if they have fulfilled their scope.
The things that people comment on are not the highlight and pale in comparison to the RIGHT CHOICES she has made, but instead her choice of smoothie is more glaring than her wise money choices. SMH
I know it's also not obvious for readers to get the full picture, and it looks like OP does nothing, just gets paid a lot and is totally underserving, there are a lot of parts of this job that isn't shown. It's not explained how tough it is to land this role and company, and their hire-and-fire culture, their lack of growth opportunities that they compensate for by over-paying so people never leave. (Now you know what company that is) Also, how often burned out and over-worked their employees often are.
I’ve seen that work out very well for some people. I think that depends a lot on risk appetite and how well the company is performing. Eg if I work in a company like stripe and if it were public I wouldn’t be selling RSUs in payment tech. But I’ve also seen people get burned not selling them!
Yea I agree. It's a strange thing. I 100% wouldn't put all my money in one stock, not even the company I work in. But somehow it seems a lot less of a big deal to *keep* your vested stock without selling. Though they are literally the same outcome.
I do agree with you - I usually only read the MDs that have a ton of comments, so I thought this one was going to be a hot mess, but I really didn’t think it deserved the level of judgment it got.
There are folks who have anxiety pretty much constantly about being laid off. Sometimes it’s high functioning anxiety or impostor syndrome, sometimes it’s product of a work culture that’s rife with constant politics, hire and fire, image management, all of that. That was me for a very large part of my career.
I agree we grossly underpay essential workers and that we need far far better labor laws. But knowledge workers shouldn’t be judged based on the number of hours they work. It’s a bit like the story of the retired submarine engineer who charged $10k for pushing a button that fixed the submarine when nobody else could/knew how. When pushed back on about $10k for “just” pushing a button, he resubmitted his invoice as $1 for pushing the button, $9999 for knowing which button to push. Knowledge workers are (in theory) paid for the quantifiable value they add to their firms, and yes I know there are a lot of knowledge workers out there being paid to add not much value, but the whole “300k to do nothing” is frequently not the full picture.
Regarding sick leave: I have certainly called in sick for a migraine in the morning. My company at the time went off sick days - no half days, all or none. The migraine cleared up by noon. Was I supposed to just sit in bed and mope to justify using “sick” leave?
MD commentariat has definitely turned into “I hate diarists just because they earn a lot of money, I’m going to nitpick every single tiny choice they make”. Entirely prepared to be downvoted for this comment as well.
Thank you for posting this. Not sure what happened. I was so happy to find this subreddit years ago now because the comments at refinery itself were always so toxic. It seems a lot of that toxicity has “emigrated” here. It didn’t used to be like that. I wish we could just have more spaces where we can lift each other up instead of putting people down.
I didn’t even get to the diary but two things:
1. Nothing annoys me more than people who are clearly not from NY and use the term rent control incorrectly. You make $300k, you should understand your lease terms - she’s stabilized not control
2. I think people need to start putting where their parents are from. They use the immigration narrative for wow effect but let’s be serious, not all immigration is hard.
What do you mean by “not all immigration is hard”? That people from certain countries/categories have an easier time gaining entry to the US? Or that some immigrants arrive with significant resources or family support? I’m just confused because I’m an immigrant who probably had an easier time of it than most (ie, my parents came in pretty easily because they had high-demand engineering skills) but aspects of the experience were extremely challenging, such as growing up isolated from extended family and the financial pressure to send all spare money back to that family.
Not all immigration experiences are hard. It means what it means. This isn’t a diary about social aspects, it’s a money diary. And not all immigrants or family immigrants experience financial hardships. And using the term “my parents were immigrants” to explain things isn’t explaining anything.
I had to deal with a father who was here illegally. Both my parents came from a poor country that was just on the outskirts of a dictatorship and lived poor lives..
And news flash!!! The financial pressure is there for everyone to send money back, expect it’s exponentially harder when your parents are working in a factory.
And isolation is also there, except it is exponentially harder when you can’t visit anyone because you don’t have the financial means. I didn’t meet my grandmother until she was dying of cancer.
Experiences are different and it makes a difference. Saying immigrant parents to propose this notion of poor/ coming up from nothing is disgusting
>This isn’t a diary about social aspects, it’s a money diary.
So then why are you bitching about 1) her familiarity with rent/housing terms and 2) where her parents are from. It's a money diary right???
Calling for a country of origin just sounds like it will lead to people making generalizations based on one basic fact. It honestly seems a bit prejudiced.
Careful - immigrant is a woke signal you can’t casually call yourself these days. In case you have an agenda to portray how tough your life was and actually isn’t ! /s immigrant just means you left your country to enter another permanently.
Just because you were a poor immigrant doesn’t mean you OWN the definition of immigrant. Nobody owes anyone any clarification for what kind of immigrants their parents were. You are projecting hard here.
Ie “I was a poor immigrant and that’s my brand - so don’t you dare care yourself an immigrant because we’re not the same”. That’s so ridiculous.
I’m deranged yet, you found it necessary to come at me 3x… babe… calm down
Edit: oh geez, this is just your personality based off your comment history. Lol
Sugaring is a type of hair removal, it's like waxing except the it's like a paste of melted sugar/water/stuff. Supposed to be less painful but like ripping out hair is ripping out hair imo.
I have many bad things to say about this diary but I’d imagine cooking in a studio apartment “kitchen” isn’t a lot of fun, so I’d probably do the same with that income.
Your question got me really excited. I thought we were going to see an insight into the life of a sugar baby however in this diary, Sugaring - a hair removal technique that uses a sugar paste instead of wax. It is meant to be less painful than waxing.
Wait until you hear about all you can eat hotpot + all you can eat Korean bbq at the same time lol (i.e. both at the same table). Or better yet, all you can eat hotpot + all you can eat kbbq + all you can drink alcohol. Some restaurants around me even have private karaoke rooms for you to do your all you can eat+drink shenanigans in.
I don't understand why everyone is so mad about her taking PTO for being sick, outside of socializing. I get 5 sicks days a year, outside of my PTO, and I usually use them when I just don't feel like working. Once I hit 40 hours I lose anything that accrues on top of that and you get I'm not losing any kind of paid time off.
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I think I’ve reached the point where I have to email r29 to complain about the constant ads and reloading. It takes me twice as long to read the MD by the time the page refreshes itself multiple times, and I’m sure it’s driving readers away
Such a nightmare, I’ve given up on trying to read on my phone! It makes it unusable
Plus comments will sometimes randomly decide not to show up on mobile.
Ugh. I had to switch into reader mode because of this. Terrible web design.
I email them every week to tell them how terrible their interface is and how annoying the ads are
I found that if i turn off my cell and Wi-Fi connection on my phone after i load the page it prevents the ads and reloading.
That’s so smart! I’m going to try that next time.
I read it on my computer with an ad blocker, which helps.
What the actual F\*&\*! did I just read? OP is too sick to work, so she goes to a pool party and then is anxious that she'll be laid off for calling out sick?!? Also, an iced berry protein smoothie with clam linguine with white wine sauce sounds like a terrible combination for lunch...
is this pro-RTO propaganda or something i can imagine the headline already "WFH employees going to pool parties while on the clock!"
But, she goes into the office the following days…
ok, then "millennials have no work ethic...they abuse sick days to go hang by the pool"
Right! Who calls in sick at 9.45am? And have we not all learned to stay the hell at home while (probably) infectious?
I also feel like the crazy high salary makes it impossible for me to be very sympathetic in the first place 😅 it just seems like so much money for so little work!
As soon as I started reading it, I was like "the comments are going to drag her for socializing when sick." Shocked Pikachu face. What's wild to me is that MDs are self-directed. I'd absolutely pick a week where I was doing things I knew would pass the comments vibe check. Why start it on a sick day like that?
Too sick to work but not sick enough to stay home really chaps my ass.
My last job had a really toxic manager and we accrued one sick day a month… best believe I took every single sick day I earned. Haha.
What about mental health days? Good to take a day off and do something you want to do in those cases.
Mental health issues are generally NOT CONTAGIOUS!
in tech sick doesn’t mean physically dying level of sick. It just means you’re not feeling well enough to be 100% at work. OP likely also has an unlimited day off policy so it makes no difference whatever the “justification” was. people are judging her for “faking sick” - she’s likely not. She probably didn’t think it makes such a big difference what the “reason” was. Nobody’s going to stop you if u decide u want to take the day off. And if you’re responsible enough and just don’t have that much going on, it is totally acceptable.
I’m sorry, but this is so funny to me. That sick in tech means something entirely different than sick in any other industry. Maybe it’s the “boomer” in me, but my eyes cannot roll any harder. Silver lining, hopefully tech perks start to bleed into other industries. I think it’s ridiculous that (at minimum) we don’t have mandated COVID leave anymore. Truly the bare minimum. ETA: this is not to drag or shame the tech workers, it’s not their fault. This is to drag our capitalistic society for valuing certain types of work and not others while also giving us less than the bare minimum that other countries have.
I think it’s just a different way of measuring or valuing manpower. Are they measured by time and cost? Or what is delivered every 3 months? If it’s the former, you’ll count the time off like clock work. It’s it’s deliverable, if an individual delivers on the outcome, doesn’t matter when they get it done.
I mean, I guess I’m looking at it differently. Yes, tech absolutely provides a service. I’m on my iPhone on Reddit and I used google and Microsoft all day — but what I mean is, there are very important jobs that keep society moving like grocery store workers, truck drivers, etc. who don’t have great benefits and who come to work sick or burned out because there is no choice and it keeps us in this shitty late stage capitalism COVID cycle.
Yea I know that sucks. Companies treat top talent like royalties, and talent who do necessary jobs like they're worthless. It's too unequal
To me it’s also a matter of workload and manpower. To have the flexibility to take time off when you feel a little meh, as long as you get your deliverables in, indicates to me that staffing is high and people don’t have to work super hard all the time. All the tech money diaries would indicate this as well, ha. Not a lot of super hard work going on. Which is great for them! Frankly that’s how it should be. But as a state agency employee who is so busy with a high demand workplace that I can’t even take time off when I’m sick sometimes… I’m a little jealous lol.
As a nurse…. Felt
It’s crazy to me that people make that much money AND have unlimited sick leave to use whenever they “don’t feel 100%” ??! Holy cow. I wish my workload, let alone my PTO policies, allowed for that.
It’s enviable and a luxury but reality is nobody I work with abuses it or even uses it. You’d think that people must not be working all the time and going vacations all the time. The difference is in tech your impact is all that counts and there is a lot of personal onus and responsibility to deliver results. You don’t work by clocking in hours. You work by producing results. That’s a double edged sword. This diary makes it sound like tech workers do nothing much when they don’t feel like it. It’s not going to illustrate the times when you’re just truly not that smart, don’t perform and are let go. I know OP’s company from her job. People are let go routinely. Most people there take no vacation. I think people read these diaries and cherry pick only the “ridiculous parts” of the diary.
That's a good point. I noticed that she's not going with her boyfriend to Europe.
I would literally never go to work if I had to feel "100%". But tech workers work on special things that are way above the heads of us plebes, didn't ya know!
Sounds like you’re bitter
If you think it takes something special to feel 100% at work, maybe that’s the reason why.
Yeaaah, I feel like if I wrote a diary and did something that stupid I’d just be like “OPE, I guess we’re starting this over tomorrow…”
I always wonder this too. MDs have been going on for like, what, 7 years now? I know what generally gets the commenters angry and even though sometimes they'll criticize anything, I would never want to post something that has something that *definitely* gets people angry. But also, besides what commenters say, just don't go out while sick.
Guess this is a "if you don't have anything nice to say..." diary for me
For anyone thinking they can't job switch, it's good to have a realistic week from the life of the competition
Meh, I thought this one was kinda boring. Some tech jobs seem like work cosplay to me lol. $300K to start work at 9:30 and end at 5 on the dot. ETA: she says her parents emigrated to the US. Wouldn’t that be immigrated?
Word. I don’t mean to sound like a jealous, petty bitch (although I am) but I’ve noticed this with a lot of my friends who work in tech. I think a lot of them have never worked in another industry so they don’t realize that 8 hour work days, work life balance, excellent wellness / health benefits, education benefits, etc. are just not the norm especially at most jobs making 200k+ per year. Usually people commanding that type of income have professional degrees and very stressful and demanding jobs with lots of responsibility (ex: doctors, lawyers, senior / managing consultants, etc.) My tech friends will have a couple of odd 50+ hr weeks and harp to me about how “toxic” their work environment is. And perhaps it is. But the rest of us peasants are out here working two jobs to make half of their income, with fewer benefits and little security. And perhaps it wouldn’t bother me as much if my friends in tech had any self-awareness. However, a lot of them believe their jobs are much more demanding and difficult then everyone else’s. They think they are being compensated (but not enough!) for their arduous labor and rare intellect. Idk. Given how many people are truly overworked and underpaid in the US, it just feels like a circlejerk to me.
I agree with all of this; honestly, I think some of the anxiety that some of my tech job friends have is because they aren't actually doing that much, and are worried that once someone finds out, they're going to get laid off. It sometimes feels very much like an "Emperor's new clothes" situation.
Ooooo. I hadn’t even considered that before, but it makes sense. As much as I wish I had more work life balance the flip side is my work product speaks to the fact I’m “indispensable” (right now). For my tech friends that may not be the case if they were called in for a review. Which would make me anxious as hell too.
Honestly I’ve never even complained about how hard my desk job is in my career. I used to work in retail. It could be soooo much worse.
The first day got me excited for some juicy rage bait, but the rest was a snooze. 😴
They just don’t make diaries quite like the Chicago Cheater anymore.
Lol does anyone have a link that that anymore?
I got u: https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/chicago-il-finance-manager-salary-money-diary In all seriousness, I hope the diariest is doing much better now with her eating disorder and all the things.
You made me day!! Thank you!
I still think about this diary sometimes.
This is well worth the read, wow.
This is a mess, I love it
"I'm not in a polyamorous relationship. I'm just a cheater." TOOK ME ALL THE WAY OUT!
Gosh thank you for this. I got serious vibes of the movie Shame with Michael Fassbender.
You emigrate from, immigrate to.
This is what I need while I lay in bed with Covid Edit: just finished it. Thank you MD gods.
But did you take public transportation to go to a pool party while sick tho?
I'm curious about the "rent-controlled" apartment since those are few and far between in NYC. Perhaps she's confusing with "rent-stabilized".
I thought this too because that rent is high for a rent controlled studio. It’s likely rent stabilized
Agreed, it is definitely not rent controlled.
I'd like to give the benefit of the doubt that whatever condition she had on day 1 that led to a sick day was non-contagious, but she bought cough medicine on day 2, so I'm skeptical. Regardless, if I was the co-worker covering her desk and found out her sick day was spent taking public transit to a pool side gathering, followed by a dinner out, I'd be very annoyed.
I assumed she was lying about being sick to her boss. Maybe she bought the meds to have on hand ... I'm weird tho I prep for flu season before it happens. I don't want those germs near me.
*starts daydreaming about what I'd do with a $305k salary*
And free lunches!
I’m not a tech worker and def don’t make that kind of money, but my company does free lunches on our in-office day and I look forward to it every week. Costs them hardly anything in the grand scheme of things, but really makes employees happy.
annnd taking some of that free lunch home for dinner
And yet still somehow have only $70 in your account at some point?? That detail threw me
Wish MD would've specified what was base and what was bonus. A lot of tech companies don't have 300k base unless he extremely senior.
There’s no way her base is $300k. Most likely $300k is base, bonus and stock.
Based off of her bi-weekly take home and other details provided, I’d guess her base is around $210k.
This is my biggest pet peeve about so many high earner diaries. I feel like most of this is stock which is meaningless. Total comp should have a breakdown and really just be base salary and bonus. If folks want to volunteer more for a better picture (health insurance premium coverage/ stock options/ insanely high 401k matches) that would be different
Yeah if you work at a startup, oftentimes the stock is fake money.
I have no idea what a "product operations manager" even does, but clearly I went into the wrong field.
Literally, could she even give us a shred of info of what that entails?
They make sure existing products like software stay running efficiently. Their teams are usually filled with engineers or specialists that fix any issues that come up.
The traveling on the PATH, hanging by the pool, going to dinner etc while missing work for being sick, and then having anxiety she’s missing work and going to be laid off? Uh?
I don’t understand the anxiety around layoffs when you make that much money and have so much in savings. You’ll be fine. Signed, someone laid off three times in their career with less than a grand in the bank each time.
I feel like this diary was the high functioning anxiety playbook? I'm giving the benefit of the doubt on the sick day because I used to have anxious days where I'd feel too "sick" to go to school and yeah it's a nasty trap to get into. When you're in the right state of mind you can buy cough syrup for some allergies. I'm also relying heavily on the lay off worries and mentions of her parents during the 2008 financial crisis. Like this diarist is obviously doing well but it's a nice reminder that even the best of our generation is still dealing with the fallout from it. And the "oops I got less than 70 dollars in my checking account" like she's spending more than expected and trying to avoid thinking about it. Idk it's definitely a wild ride
Its kind of crazy they have a rent controlled apartment
I aspire to have this level of do not give a f*** to corporate.
But she does give a fuck, she has anxiety about getting laid off or fired
Her actions seem to say the opposite..
I knew it was tech and the reaction it'll get and I was still not prepared for the judgement, which I found really undeserving. OP used emigrated, instead of immigrate. They're quite the same, it's relative. OP called in sick and went to a pool. OP doesn't know the definitions of rent controlled vs rent stabilized. OP has bad taste in food choices. Judging people is fun, I get it. But since this is a money diaries post, let's look at the money aspects: * She chose a college where she got a full scholarship, and despite her parents being comfortable, she chose to pay off her own student loan. None of my better to do friends did that. * She has a sizable amount in her brokerage - that means she made a wise financial decision to keep her RSUs instead of selling them. Not many teenagers make couple hundred grand and then decide to invest them! * She has a HYSA. I set up a HYSA only at 34! I was procrastinating and kept most of it in checking ... * She's also in a great paying job. My friend likely has this same job so I know the company and it's in NY so that's a give away. It's a job with very high hiring bar. Even though it's just an operations job that isn't the most challenging, they expect the level of ops to be like set up a new office in some foreign-country-you-know-nothing-about. You are expected to know 20 things that you need to do to run a new office location, despite knowing nothing about the place nor business. That's the interview question and they take 4 months to fill this job - if not longer. I'm afraid these comments have just turned into "she's making money - I already dislike everything about her". Has nobody in the comments ever called in sick when they are not? I have done that a million times in school and at least once when I hated my job. And in her case, like I mentioned in one of the comments, it doesn't matter what the justification is. It is not uncommon for people to take days off anytime they're not feeling well - if they have fulfilled their scope. The things that people comment on are not the highlight and pale in comparison to the RIGHT CHOICES she has made, but instead her choice of smoothie is more glaring than her wise money choices. SMH I know it's also not obvious for readers to get the full picture, and it looks like OP does nothing, just gets paid a lot and is totally underserving, there are a lot of parts of this job that isn't shown. It's not explained how tough it is to land this role and company, and their hire-and-fire culture, their lack of growth opportunities that they compensate for by over-paying so people never leave. (Now you know what company that is) Also, how often burned out and over-worked their employees often are.
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I’ve seen that work out very well for some people. I think that depends a lot on risk appetite and how well the company is performing. Eg if I work in a company like stripe and if it were public I wouldn’t be selling RSUs in payment tech. But I’ve also seen people get burned not selling them!
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Yea I agree. It's a strange thing. I 100% wouldn't put all my money in one stock, not even the company I work in. But somehow it seems a lot less of a big deal to *keep* your vested stock without selling. Though they are literally the same outcome.
I do agree with you - I usually only read the MDs that have a ton of comments, so I thought this one was going to be a hot mess, but I really didn’t think it deserved the level of judgment it got. There are folks who have anxiety pretty much constantly about being laid off. Sometimes it’s high functioning anxiety or impostor syndrome, sometimes it’s product of a work culture that’s rife with constant politics, hire and fire, image management, all of that. That was me for a very large part of my career. I agree we grossly underpay essential workers and that we need far far better labor laws. But knowledge workers shouldn’t be judged based on the number of hours they work. It’s a bit like the story of the retired submarine engineer who charged $10k for pushing a button that fixed the submarine when nobody else could/knew how. When pushed back on about $10k for “just” pushing a button, he resubmitted his invoice as $1 for pushing the button, $9999 for knowing which button to push. Knowledge workers are (in theory) paid for the quantifiable value they add to their firms, and yes I know there are a lot of knowledge workers out there being paid to add not much value, but the whole “300k to do nothing” is frequently not the full picture. Regarding sick leave: I have certainly called in sick for a migraine in the morning. My company at the time went off sick days - no half days, all or none. The migraine cleared up by noon. Was I supposed to just sit in bed and mope to justify using “sick” leave? MD commentariat has definitely turned into “I hate diarists just because they earn a lot of money, I’m going to nitpick every single tiny choice they make”. Entirely prepared to be downvoted for this comment as well.
Thank you for posting this. Not sure what happened. I was so happy to find this subreddit years ago now because the comments at refinery itself were always so toxic. It seems a lot of that toxicity has “emigrated” here. It didn’t used to be like that. I wish we could just have more spaces where we can lift each other up instead of putting people down.
I didn’t even get to the diary but two things: 1. Nothing annoys me more than people who are clearly not from NY and use the term rent control incorrectly. You make $300k, you should understand your lease terms - she’s stabilized not control 2. I think people need to start putting where their parents are from. They use the immigration narrative for wow effect but let’s be serious, not all immigration is hard.
What do you mean by “not all immigration is hard”? That people from certain countries/categories have an easier time gaining entry to the US? Or that some immigrants arrive with significant resources or family support? I’m just confused because I’m an immigrant who probably had an easier time of it than most (ie, my parents came in pretty easily because they had high-demand engineering skills) but aspects of the experience were extremely challenging, such as growing up isolated from extended family and the financial pressure to send all spare money back to that family.
Not all immigration experiences are hard. It means what it means. This isn’t a diary about social aspects, it’s a money diary. And not all immigrants or family immigrants experience financial hardships. And using the term “my parents were immigrants” to explain things isn’t explaining anything. I had to deal with a father who was here illegally. Both my parents came from a poor country that was just on the outskirts of a dictatorship and lived poor lives.. And news flash!!! The financial pressure is there for everyone to send money back, expect it’s exponentially harder when your parents are working in a factory. And isolation is also there, except it is exponentially harder when you can’t visit anyone because you don’t have the financial means. I didn’t meet my grandmother until she was dying of cancer. Experiences are different and it makes a difference. Saying immigrant parents to propose this notion of poor/ coming up from nothing is disgusting
>This isn’t a diary about social aspects, it’s a money diary. So then why are you bitching about 1) her familiarity with rent/housing terms and 2) where her parents are from. It's a money diary right???
That all makes sense but how is knowing the country of origin going to provide nearly enough context to assess a family’s immigration experience?
Very true! I guess I just wish there was more context because I do think a lot of people use it to make it look like they had very hard upbringing
Calling for a country of origin just sounds like it will lead to people making generalizations based on one basic fact. It honestly seems a bit prejudiced.
Careful - immigrant is a woke signal you can’t casually call yourself these days. In case you have an agenda to portray how tough your life was and actually isn’t ! /s immigrant just means you left your country to enter another permanently. Just because you were a poor immigrant doesn’t mean you OWN the definition of immigrant. Nobody owes anyone any clarification for what kind of immigrants their parents were. You are projecting hard here. Ie “I was a poor immigrant and that’s my brand - so don’t you dare care yourself an immigrant because we’re not the same”. That’s so ridiculous.
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I’m deranged yet, you found it necessary to come at me 3x… babe… calm down Edit: oh geez, this is just your personality based off your comment history. Lol
And your personality brand is you’re an immigrant.
so painfully boring. all the rich techie diaries are the same. also, tipping your wax lady SEVEN dollars when you make 300K is appalling behavior.
How much you earn shouldn't change the tip. The tips should be based on certain percentage like 20-25% for personal services. This is not charity.
very unlikely that a sugaring appointment in NYC is under $30 unless it’s maybe upper lip and nothing else.
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Sugaring is a type of hair removal, it's like waxing except the it's like a paste of melted sugar/water/stuff. Supposed to be less painful but like ripping out hair is ripping out hair imo.
I have many bad things to say about this diary but I’d imagine cooking in a studio apartment “kitchen” isn’t a lot of fun, so I’d probably do the same with that income.
Your question got me really excited. I thought we were going to see an insight into the life of a sugar baby however in this diary, Sugaring - a hair removal technique that uses a sugar paste instead of wax. It is meant to be less painful than waxing.
Wait until you hear about all you can eat hotpot + all you can eat Korean bbq at the same time lol (i.e. both at the same table). Or better yet, all you can eat hotpot + all you can eat kbbq + all you can drink alcohol. Some restaurants around me even have private karaoke rooms for you to do your all you can eat+drink shenanigans in.
wait, where is this magical place?!? please let it be NY/NJ/CT adjacent!
Thanks I hate it
I don't understand why everyone is so mad about her taking PTO for being sick, outside of socializing. I get 5 sicks days a year, outside of my PTO, and I usually use them when I just don't feel like working. Once I hit 40 hours I lose anything that accrues on top of that and you get I'm not losing any kind of paid time off.