I’d be impressed by anyone who could “Hello, world” in MIPS

Whoo boy.

I used to work in the financial industry, specifically in a program geared toward women (trying to make financial services more approachable and inclusive). Much of their published “educational” material is about the harsh financial realities of being a woman, and the writers keep repeating this falsehood … as if the phrase “controlled pay gap” is profanity.

Don’t get me wrong, we should still be mindful of bias. We should acknowledge the pressure on women to take career breaks as caretakers (and, on the flip side, the pressure on men to be primary wage earners). And it’s perfectly valid to question whether pink collar work is undervalued and underpaid because these are traditionally female occupations.

But the women I worked with (most of them VPs in finance) simply preferred to believe that they were underpaid because of their gender. No matter what dollar figure you offered, no matter the industry/company/job role/etc., they would firmly believe that having a penis = 20% pay bump.

Like … that’s not how averages work ??

I’m still friendly with my in-laws, but I will never respect or trust them in quite the same way.

They’re very liberal and proud to “believe the science!”, always making fun of conservative anti-vaxxers.

And yet, during a major COVID wave, they went bar hopping without telling us (we were all going to a family member’s wedding, so my partner and I were trying to be VERY cautious and avoid bringing any germs to this wedding). Then they coughed all night without bothering to test. And once they tested positive, they started googling different countries’ COVID policies looking for any guidance that would “let” them go to the wedding. With the bride’s 90-year-old grandpa in attendance.

On the plane ride back, I emphasized the importance of wearing N-95s in case we were still contagious … but as soon as I got up to pee, I realized they were both napping UNMASKED.

But somehow they’re not the problem. If only those stupid Trumpies would wear masks, then we wouldn’t have a pandemic.

We had an awkward semi-falling out over this at the time. And yet, the next time we visited his family, people were coughing all over the place AGAIN, and no one had tested AGAIN. (This was over the holidays, so I would have been “stuck” there and unable to see my own family if anyone actually had COVID, which thankfully they didn’t this time.)

At this point, I’ve just come to understand and accept it. His parents were always the fun ones - they have people over all the time, they’ll cook for you, they can hold their liquor, they’ll light up a joint while blasting Grateful Dead. They’re also politically vocal and super woke for their age.

But don’t expect them to be honest if it might interrupt their fun. Don’t rely on them. Because really, they only care about other people when it’s either fashionable or convenient.