Pet Peeves

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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vandercamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah Hart Hunger. I'm a mother of three, a practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families. Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life. Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This is episode one hundred and ninety eight, which will be all about our pet peeves. We'll try to keep it light and happy, but you know, we all have those things that annoy us. But first we want to start with some not pet peeve things. This is airing in mid May, which is Sarah's birthday week. I think it's close to your birthday too, actually know that I think. No, I'm in December. Oh just kidding. Now everybody knows. I'm actually terror They're in my planner, but like I can never promote them when they're in your plan or they don't have to be in your head. That's the that's the key thing. I know this because I'm looking at the notes that say it's Sarah's birthday week right now, so it's also Jasper's birthday week. So that's one of the rest. That's fun. So what are you doing. We're not doing too much. We are. So May is this weird month in our family, and I always have to like temper my expectations because it contains Mother's Day, my birthday, and our anniversary and it's usually like one week, second week, third week, and like there's only so much you can do, and then usually I have to, you know, be on call at some point, and like, you know, so one of those is gonna get messed up anyway. So we're taking like a little mini trip together for our anniversary, so that will be fun. So maybe that'll be a double duty kind of a situation. But I also do plan on having like a very relaxing, chill day for my birthday. That might evolve a spa of some kind, and I'm thinking I will like take myself to a nice outdoor place like maybe the beach, depending on the weather, and I just want to try to make it very special. My kids will be in school because it's a week day. And then I think we'll have dinner all together as a family, maybe do some fancy takeout or I don't know, something fun. Yeah, are you doing it as a retreat? You put a note about we may do a retreat episode at some point. I am going to count. So one of my goals for twenty twenty one was to try to have like some sort of retreat day every quintile or five times a year. So I'm counting this as my retreat day because I do plan to spend it just kind of like thinking and writing and you know, relaxing, and that's kind of what I wanted a retreat day to be. And I am kind of retreat obsessed these days. I just think it's such a cool, I don't know concept, and life probably needs more retreats if we can fit them in. Yeah, I agree. I've only taken two sort of what I really think of as retreats, although when I put it that way, I mean I've been on kind of professional things that might have qualified as a retreat as well. Well. Sometimes when I have finished a manuscript of a book and I need sort of concentrated time to edit it, I'll go somewhere for a couple of days so I can really dig into it without being interrupted all the time. Like with the dog barking right now, that's a new thing for the our listeners who don't know my family got a dog, because why not add that to the mix. But yeah, so I've done that with the Courtland boya such as a novel of mine, and I did it with Off the Clock. Both times went places that were less than two hours away. So don't burn time traveling when you know you only get so much time away. But yeah, you know, consider tacking on an extra day or two to a work trip as well. That might be a way to get some time once people start traveling for work again. But anyway, if you want to leave, if you were thinking, hey, it's Sarah's birthday, I should give her a birthday gift, what could they do, Sarah? You could leave us a review. So if you would like to really make my day, then one thing you could do is to jump on Apple Podcasts or your podcast app of choice and leave us a review or maybe with a comment. That would be wonderful. Wonderful, it's not a birthday gift. If that's a bad review. That is true. Maybe a birthday gift is if you were gonna write a bad review, like, don't do it, just don't do it, all right, that's good, you can do that. So on to our pet peeves. So I looked up the definition of pet peeve because you know what is it exactly? And it's a minor annoyance that an individual finds particularly irritating to them to a greater deep degree than would be expected based on the experience of others. And I think that part is key because we all have our own things that set us off, and any of these things are probably whatever to somebody else, and in many cases, Sarah and I don't have the same ones. So yeah, that's not a big deal to me, but you know what, it's your thing when it just sort of gets you riled up. So Sarah, why don't you start off and we can We had sort of just try. You know, we'll comment on each other's but I want to hear yours first. This was such a fun episode to prepare for, I have to say, because it's not some that you just like analyze on a daily basis. So I encourage anyone inspired by this to think about what their own pet peeves might be. So my first one is when technology fails, and I think that's fairly universal. But I do feel like my emotions when a printer like doesn't work are probably even worse than like average, especially if I'm at work and I'm trying to like print labs and it just doesn't print, and it doesn't print anywhere, I like will run around screaming like I I just feel like in this day and age, like you know, we can do heart transplants, and we can make a COVID vaccine and like a matter of months, but we can't get the printer to print. Like really, okay, you hear it in my voice? I I yeah, printing especially is like where my I have no tolerance and it's so bad. Why it's still so bad? I don't know. It's my first one, I mean, and mine's like my home printer. I was still it's bad. I mean I have to switch to a different network to use the printer, and I just like why, like why does it not send over my existing Wi Fi to the printer. I have to switch to the printer's network in order to do it. I'm sure there is a solution which I haven't read the manual, which is what the they tell you to do. But the manual seems big and boring, and I wouldn't really want to do that. Yeah, I have this weird I don't know if it rises to a pet peeve because I'm living with it. Like I haven't brought my car to the mean I need to soon for something else. But new cars. Not new cars, but like anyone that was made after let's say, you know, two thousand has very computer focused innards, right, so before that, it's like it just you know, is mechanical. Like these things happen because something's in a certain place. So mine is after that, of course, but it's still old and so it's falling apart in ways with the computer glitching and so. Particular thing is that every time I turn on the car, the mirrors go to the wrong place, and I can't get them to stay where I want them for me so I can see, and so I have to reset it every time when I'm I'm going. Now, this is something that wouldn't happen, was like a nineteen ninety car, because the mirror would obviously stay where you put them because there's nothing telling them to go anywhere else, but because it's an old new car, the glitch is such that it just goes in the wrong place. And I'm you know, I hate when technology feels like that, all right, Next one, Well, I thought about my you know, going for the pet and pet peeves when it's like, okay, most people really wouldn't care. I hate when my pens much And listeners of vest Laid Plans are like, yes, we know you talk about it all the time, and I'm sorry, but not everybody listens to that podcast too, although maybe you should try it. You should, but yeah, I'm very picky about that. And so I'm picky about different types of paper, going with different types of pens. And this is in part a left handed thing. But nothing makes me like disproportionately unhappy or like unreasonably unhappy. Then when I'm taking notes on something and I realize I have like a bunch of pen all over my hand and the page looks disgusting. So yeah, because if you're left hand and you're writing in English, going you know, left to right, your hand is trailing over the ink, so that will will smudge it if it's But what would make it not smudge I'm very curious, Like it's just that it instant dries or it's a certain thing. Yeah, I mean different paper types and different pen types are much better than others. So if you have a very wet gel pen and a very smooth page, it's going to be a giant smear, but certain if paper has a little bit more tooth and a dryer feel, or maybe you like choose your gel pen carefully, like I really love the pen tel energel Clena, as we've discussed before on an episode. It's one of my loves of the week previously. So different pens definitely have different smudge tendencies based on the paper, And if you want to learn more about that, you can listen to my other podcast, because I'm sure I talk about it more than necessary there. Anyway, I just hate crappy pens, but you know that's that's probably more universal, all right, Next one, Sarah, So this one is huge, and my husband says, I'm maybe like over sensitive to this one, but I don't know how to fix it. And that's just when things when people make things more urgent than they need to be, And I'm especially sensitive to when somebody chooses a method of communication that causes an interruption when there was no need for an interruption. So for example, obviously I have to keep things anonymous, but somebody sent me like a what's up message about something that I think was like sort of like distressing them. But it also was kind of clear from that what's up message that they didn't really want to talk about it until Monday. But it was on Saturday afternoon, and I'm like, Uh, if you're going to send me a what's up message airing your feelings on Saturday afternoon, then I guess we have to chat on Saturday afternoon because I don't need to ruin my weekend like thinking about your thing. So I call them and they didn't answer, and we did finally have a discussion on Monday. But there was literally no reason in the world why it couldn't have been an email that I saw on Monday, other than maybe that person in this case being purposely aggressive. Now in other cases, I think it's more inadvertent. I have had a resident text me at midnight about like a like a research project about something completely like non urgent, and I was like, why, Like I think for some people, I don't think that person thought through it. I think it was just sort of like, dada, I'm working really hard. I have a question about who to ask about this statistical analysis. I'm just going to send a text right now, but like I can't do that. So did they just assume you have your phone off overnight or something. I guess I don't know what they assumed, and I don't want to complete. You know, this person was apologetic, and I was just sort of like, just make sure you think about Like we're happy to help you if something's urgent in the middle of the night, but if it's something that can wait, please email because I'm really good about responding, or even text me in the morning if it's like you're really really worried. But this was like a non non clinical, non urgent thing. So I don't know, but I guess those are extreme examples, but there are many kind of middling examples, and I just think I'm really careful about like somehows, I'll I want to text you, Laura, and then I'm like, no, just send an email like that's too annoying, and then sometimes text you anyway. See, it's not a pet pee for me. You can text me whenever you want me I turned my phone off overnight, so I'm not going to get a text that shows up between like ten thirty and six thirty anyway. So it's like, you know, you feel free. Well that's good. That's good. That's the nature of a pet peeve, right, Like that's some pet peeve. That's why I think it is which I'm concerned, like, oh god, it better not ever text, Sarah, No, I have never so and fun fact, if someone has woken me up via texting too many times, then I put them on hide alerts. So how that works. You are not on hide alerts, So that means you've been fine. I've been fine. I've behaved myself. That's good. I'm glad to know that I have behaved myself. Your next one is somewhat related, I think, I think, Sarah, well, it's my pet peeve too, when people waste your time, but yes, go for it. Oh well, see, yours is a little different. I feel like mine is more like I hate when I have a meeting. If I go to a meeting where the sole purpose is for somebody to like read a list of rules that they then like send out later, I just don't know why the meeting has to happen. If there's a meeting, the purpose should be to have some sort of back and forth discussion. Otherwise, why do we all need to gather at the synchronous time. Couldn't we all like read this stuff later? Or I don't know. And I also just I'm so sad when there is a meeting and productive things are discussed. But then like, sometimes it's not a meaning that I'm running, so I can't really like corral everybody and say, like, what are the action items here? But if nobody ever says it, then sometimes it's very unclear as to what next steps are. And then I just feel like a lot of that effort can be wasted. So I try really hard. I don't think I'm perfect, but to like, at the end of a meeting, if I'm running it, I summarize, we're gonna do this, We're gonna do this, I'm going to do this, You're gonna do this, and our next meeting is this. Then I feel like there was a reason to meet. Yeah, that's something changed in the world as a result of your meeting, right, as opposed to nothing changing in the world, in which case it was something of a waste of time. Yeah, I feel like there should be people should learn how to run a meeting if they are ever going to run a meeting. I mean, this just seems like a skill that is, I don't know, like putting gas in your car. You should learn how to do it. You're nobody ever does teach that, though that's a fascinating or at least I mean, I'm not in a traditional business. Maybe in like other fields, people do get some sort of instruction in how to run a meeting. I don't know that they do. I mean maybe some companies, like Listeners, if you work at a company where new managers get actual training on how to run an effective meeting, let us know, because we would love to do a shout out for places that are that are doing this well. But yeah, I think a lot of people are just sort of flying by the seat of their pants and they get everyone in the seat and they're like, let's discuss. I'm like, oh my god, this is the worst way to approach this. Ever, so I think a great future episode topic would be how to run an awesome meeting. So actually, I would even extend further that if that is something you are really good at and want to teach us. All then that would be wonderful. Let's take a quick break because we are at that time in our episode, and we will be right back with some more peeves. All right, well, we are back talking about our pet peeves. We're getting very excited. We actually had to stop the recording at one point because Sarah was so excited about something that she knocked her microphone off. That's what happens when you discuss things that are making you irritated. But yeah, so another technology fail there. So your next one, though, has more of a family element to it. Yeah, this one's probably maybe not pet this is universal, probably, but it makes me so livid when my kids get up significantly earlier on weekends than they knew during the week I just find it so disheartening and depressing, Like I normally have to drag them out of bed at around six fifty for school. I mean today it was literally like I had to drag somebody out of her room. And on the weekends a lot of times at six twenty, literally all three are bounding out, And I guess it could be so much worse, like generally it's not in the five hour and I'm very thankful for that, because I know in some families it is, but I still don't get it, Like, clearly you're tired, Like if you are tired of the weekdays, you can catch up on weekends like adults do, right or not? Yeah, No, it's like, but the weekend is like, you know, well, the equivalent of Christmas morning. It's like, hey, it's exciting, I want to get up for this as whereas whereas school is just you know, not so much. So bed seems better on those mornings, I guess. I guess that's part of it. And it doesn't help that they're still all in the same room. So I'm sure once one is up, they're like it's Saturday, and then they wake up with the others up. Yeah, we can get up. Let's go see what our parents are up to. No, they don't want to see you. No later, maybe later, all right? I think are those mine? I think that's it for mine, except for our bonus, which will get our bonus. We'll get to it. I'll wait. Wait, I bet some of these maybe yours too, maybe not pet peeves. But okay, so this is my grammar nerd hat here, but where there are certain misused words, very commonly misused words. I'm sorry if anyone has cover commented this on my blog or Sarah's log, But when you agree with something, the phrase is not I resonated with that, It is that this resonated with me. Unfortunately, for people's use of luggage resonated, it has to be that version of the verb, the direction it goes. So that's great that something resonated with you, but you did not resonate with it. Also, lose and loose, so when you lose something, it has one o. If a dog is on the loose, it has two o's. It is not the same word. And that's another one that drives me absolutely nuts. Also, it is fine to give somebody something, you don't need to gift it to them. Give is a perfectly fine verb. We don't need to noun the verb or verb the noun. I guess, as the case maybe and turn things that are actually perfectly usable words into different words that are not the right word. So that's another one. Although jargon and acronyms in general, like even people throw around, you know, acronyms for something that other people might not know what it means. You know, I guess that's a hard judgment call sometimes, but there are babies born every day who don't know what that acronym is. So in general, we want to say what it is that in the first use in any general writing or conversation. Do you have any grammar ones that you or does that just not bug you? It doesn't, But I mean I just am like, aw like poor thing, Like I don't think I get the same visceral of uh. But again that's what a pet peeve is and that's okay. I I yeah, I'm more just some like, although I feel like it's very funny when it's in. My sister sent me like a sign and it said like, don't walk past my store past pass jeez, I don't walk past like okay, Well, I mean store signage definitely needs to be proof read like it. But I more think it's amusing than irritating, that's true, I mean versus irritating. Yes, okay, Well, that's the definition of a pet beave is when it's exactly and you are allowed to have it, allowed to have it. Another one for me is movies playing in the background anywhere, so even television, like okay, if you're in a sports bar and there's sports playing on the TV. Like that is totally understandable. That is the nature of the place. But if there's like you're in a doctor's office and there are children's movies with even like violent scenes, like a lot of these Disney movies have violent scenes in them, for instance, Right, I guess, so this is funny because this one, I'm like, I tend to be a kind of whatever. The opposite of ADHD is like I have that, like I will tune out anything except for what I feel like I want to be tuning in, especially in a public so I would never notice, like my family would vouch for that, Like you could there could be like a body being ripped apart. There could probably be like a like a gunman in the corner, and I probably wouldn't notice that either. Like, so this one is not a pet pavee for me because I just, you don't know, notice wouldn't So, I mean, I've on some long haul bus routes at various points in my life where they just show a movie and they think that's like a benefit to their riders. I'm like, actually, that made this like ten times less pleasant than it would have been for me. Like it if I'm in a waiting room that's got a TV going, It makes the weight so much less pleasant than if the TV were not going. And I feel like in this day and age, people can bring their own entertainment, Like why do you need the television up on the wall, Like, I just don't even understand. People can look at their own phones if they want to watch a video, they can, you know, put an earbed in their ear and have what open to listen to, you know, if they're being called like, this is not a problem you need to solve. I mean, the place where I got my ultrasounds done with my pregnancy is like they always had the TV going, and then they also had long waits, and so I like by the time I got in, I was always just like, I'm surprised my baby isn't like kicking like crazy because I'm so mad right now going in. I feel like there's less waiting in waiting rooms now that's tr covids, So at least this one can be a little bit alleviated. You can just hang out in your cart the car. I think it's nicer anyway. Yeah, don't have rank my air conditioner exactly. Yeah, dogs off leash in places where they are supposed to be on leash. Now, I know that there are all sorts of pet lovers out there who you know, okay, like I maybe your dog is able to, you know, drop a high value treat on your command like a hundred times in a row, and that is how well trained they are and hence they don't have to be on leashes everywhere. But most dogs are not that. And I can say this as somebody who runs on trails around here, and I will encounter dogs that their owners have let them go like one hundred yards ahead of them, and I'm like, I feel like this is not safe for the dog as well as annoying for me because I'm getting like barked at and jumped on by you know, dogs like to chase things that run. That's just what they do. That's part of being a dog, right, and so it's just really really annoys me. And I am now a dog owner, like, and my dog will be I mean, we don't take him out much because he's still a puppy, but you know, we'll be on the leash everywhere he's supposed to be on leash. I think, I mean partly some people just state leash laws don't apply to them, and that's a whole different matter. Our township does have a few off leash trails, but it is off leash with very specific things like between the hours of six and nine am, you have to have a permit, you can only have two dogs, they have to be within a certain radius of you. But I think this sheer existence of an off leash trail has convinced some people that they are all off leash trails and there are no rules about it. I don't know. Oh, I'm so with you on this one. It makes me livid, and I I mean, I've actually had there's like a little teenager that was like walking her dog around my neighborhood without any leash. And this was like a mid sized dog and she's like, it's okay, she's nice. I love when that's there. I'm like, well, how, first of all, I don't know that. Second of all, like maybe she's nice most of the time, but maybe she doesn't like my scent or whatever, and she just starts to go hi through me. Who knows. Third of all, it's for her own safety too, because she could get hit by a car or like another not nice dog could come at her and then you wouldn't have any So I was like, no, there's rules, and also it's for your dog's own safety, and she like glared at me, a little fifteen year old. Anyway, Yes, I believe people should follow leash laws. That is, that shouldn't really be like controversial. It actually is a rule, like a law. I don't know, I mean, but there's all sorts of people who feel various rules don't apply to them. But anyway, another one is sort of particularly in my field, but articles on work life balance, essays on work life balance in general that start with some sort of horror story that is supposed to be indicative of why this person had to change something or another. And this is just the format of narratives in general, right, you know, somebody hits rock bottom and then they have to come up with a solution to come out of this rock bottom moment, this epiphany, this turning point. So I get it. I get that there is a narrative structure that demands that sort of thing, but oh my god, this is such a cliched kind of thing. Like I had to work, you know, I missed the softball game because my flight was delayed. It's like, well, okay, fine, but like maybe you missed a softball game, like I have all the time because I'm at another kid's baseball game right, Like it's there's no dark turning dark moment of the soul inherent in that. Or you know I was in three countries in twenty four hours. It's like, well, okay, I've seen my husband do four countries in forty eight hours, and you didn't quit his job coming out of that. Like you can tell yourself whatever you want right as a narrative thing, and usually it's just the person's trying to justify a certain action or create a story where the idea is, oh, it was inevitable that this choice must have been made as a result of this, But almost universally that is not the case, Like you know you had a crap day? Great like such as the human condition. I mean, I don't know if I'm guilty of this, Like if I write about how stars well, I wrote that essay six times, like just lev me go link to that on my blog. I mean, I did write recently about a very bad day. But then you're right, I didn't like say, and thus I put one of my children up for adoption, like there was exactly there wasn't like an end to the And you're right. I think sometimes people are so tempted to be like to put causal links together or yes, to tell some complete story, when it's not. It can just be you can talk about your hideous weekend without there being like a big punchline too. Yeah. Well, and this is the problem of writing a lot of personal essays, because I know there's sort of like you have to come up with some sort of epiphany because that is where the crux of an essay is. And so it's sort of funny to me that because there are people whose careers I've followed for years, I mean, they've written hundreds of essays, and I'm like, how many life changing epiphanies can one person have? I just don't know. I mean, my life doesn't change every day. Maybe other peoples do, but like, I don't have a life changing epiphany on frequent enough schedule to maintain that level of personal essay writing. But if that's your job, I mean, oh my goodness, I guess you're just going to have to learn new things every day that are profound in some way or another. And to credit you none of your books follow that arc in any way, shape or form. So I was just thinking about how a lot of a lot of personal development books do like to start with some dramatic story that taught them, yeah, some deep truth. But well, and I know how she doesn't even tweak it. I make fun of it at the beginning, Like I talk about my two you know, two little like horror story things that could be like, if this were a certain sort of book, I would start with this tale, but it isn't because in both of these cases it was whatever. You know, it's just a thing like, Yes, I you know, I can see why that would be a pet peew for you. Yes, it doesn't bother me as much, but I get I get that, I totally get that. It's also sort of like it's like a it's a little bit of a cheap trick. Yeah, oh, welcome, imagine that. There are various cheap narrative tricks when you when you could look at how writing is constructed. Okay, this one is probably related to the movie thing. But people talking on cell phones loudly in public, I mean, this is less of a thing now that I'm not in any sort of public transportation but you know, when I would take Amtrak, for instance, to New York or wash I could not sit anywhere but the quiet car, And like, thank goodness that the quiet car exists for people like me, because although people talking in the quiet cars like an even higher level of pet peeve than the people talking in the regular cars, not in the quiet car, but yeah, because it's just like your noise, your stuff, and you're only hearing half of it. So it's even worse, right, because you can't just tune out that there's a back and forth. It's that there's half a conversation, so there's like this missing element. I lack that ability. You have to tune it out. I either tune it out or I like try to listen and hear both sides if you listen real close, because then it's kind of like juicy. But also I'm not they're not terribly bothered by it. My husband would be very bothered by it, though, So maybe this is like an introvert introvert extrovert thing might be. And there was a recent discussion of this very thing on No Stupid Questions, which you know I'm obsessed with. That's the podcast with Stephen Dubner and Angela Duckworth. Apparently there's this human nature thing where if you hear how of a conversation, your brain can't help, but like try to create like the other side. And apparently a lot of people find that very distracting because you're trying to like make up the other side. Yeah. I have not noticed that myself. Yeah. And so then the question is, well, what do I listen to to tune it out? Because I bring my headphones right like I can bring you know, try and listen to music, but it has to be instrumental music because I can't listen to music with words and read or work because of the same like over stimulated inputs into the same problem for like listening to the conversation that I can't focus on something else. So you know, it's, uh, it's hard, and I know, I guess that's just the way my brain works. I can't have all that that stimulus said, which is a problem when I'm living with six other people because they are talking over each other all the time. Have you tried noise canceling headphones? I have not. But what do you hear? Then you hear nothing? I mean, what do you hear? Hear what's in your you hear what's in your headphones, like the Apple AirPod Pro. They're not perfect. They don't like completely get rid of the background, but they really make the background a lot. But so I can that you're saying, I could listen to instrumental music, yeah, or like relaxing spots or something. Yeah. Interesting, Okay, Oh maybe I'll try that. Maybe that'll be on the on the list. All right, So now we're into our bonus round. Yeah, because I couldn't help myself with this one. So I really get irritated, probably disproportionately so, but maybe justifiably so. If I have a tall medical student, male or resident, usually med student though, because most of our residents happen to be female, because most people going into pediatrics are female. Fun fact. But anyway, so sometimes a med student will rotate through and it'll be like some six foot tall twenty four year old and we walk into the patient room and all eyes immediately could in good and I'm like hey, I'm like I'm the attending and then they're like oh, but it's like that initial moment, And my husband pointed out that some people have it obviously so much worse. I mean there are studies about like black doctors who like will walk into a room and people will assume, like their studies that they are service staff or something like how horrible, how frustrating. So you know, it's just like people need to let go of the old I mean, pediatricians that are graduating now are overwhelmingly female, and so like, people need to let go of the old tropes of what their leaders and doctors used to look like in the past. Yep, and again I'm saying it as somebody who probably doesn't bear the brun of how badly this could be. But man, people need to consciously think about that. I think more because it is an unconscious implicit bias thing. But then okay, we have to think about it to try to overcome it. Yeah, I heard one horror story of that with something similar with a black gentleman coming in at the same time as the Poland Springs water delivery guy, and basically the person assumed that the Poland Springs water delivery guy, the person they were meeting with not cool, yeah, like in his uniform like pretty clearly delivering the stuff that you know, it couldn't be the black guy in the suit. But anyway, that's a whole different cannaworms. And yes, you and I are not dealing with the worst aspects of that one, and I'm sure many of our listeners are, so please feel free to write in with your particular experiences of being treated less than serious because of what you look like. You know. Similarly, with books, a particular pet peeve is books that are for a general audience that feature almost all male examples. But if your book, and I know this personally features a majority female examples, then it will be deemed for women because women is specific. Male is general, you know. But there's all sorts of things along these lines, like when you know male writers, authors, podcasters, whatever talk about a relaxing vacation and I know that they have small children, I'm like, why is your vacation different from mine? Let's see what could the pop possible difference. B I don't know. Maybe your wife didn't have a relaxing vacation because she was on with the two year old and you weren't, and so it was relaxing for you. Anyway, I'm proud to say that vacations are relaxing for neither Josh nor me. When we take them with THEE. I always appreciate it when people note this. I mean, you know, I mentioned my that Axios Future newsletter I read, which is written by a college friend of mine, and he's he was off for a week and he came back, and the first note in the newsletter said, I'm back from vacation and now need a vacation from having taken a vacation with a toddler. Like yep, that's it. So I'm pretty sure he was. He was on with the toddler for much of the vacation as well. So, yes, things that always give us a little It's like that that man on man to his own defense joke we mentioned in a few episodes ago. Don't make that joke, pep peep, Yes, do not make that joke. All right, Well, we hope that we haven't been too overwhelmingly negative. We are well aware that our lives are very good, and we I guess I'm a little worried that people will think that we're complaining about life. No, we are. We are aware of our luck and all kinds of other things. But at that said, nothing is perfect, and we just thought it would be fun to go through what specifically triggers us because this might help you explore some of your own things, and hey, maybe it'll help us to come up with some solutions like noise canceling headphones or getting getting my mirrors fixed on my car. Right or they mentioned a man suit. That's true. It's gonna be hard to turn Sarah into a six foot tall man, but it could be a five. All right. So our love of the week, now that we've gone through all those pet paves mine is lobster rolls from the cousin. Cousin's main lobster food truck. So Sam and I experienced these at we went to this tulip farm the lobs your truck was parked there. We decided to get lobster rolls could have it had the longest line. Lines are kind of a pet peeve for mine, But if you're in a food truck situation and one has much longer lines than the other, that's often an indication that it's actually better, so you might want to check that one out. But they were really good, so we'll probably have lots of those this summer. That sounds amazing. Well, I'm going to use my other one from the prior episode that I didn't use, which is when my house is completely empty except for me, and that is like, so it's been pretty rare because our nanny was helping with drop off a lot, so she would be home, so I'm not complaining about her being home, and of course that's great and that's fine. But recently Josh and I have been doing more of the drop off ourselves, so she comes later. So there's several hours when it's just if I'm working from home, it's just me, and it's like so special. I love it is. That is pretty awesome and rare. So yes, enjoy it while you have it, all right, So our question, I'll go ahead and shorten this because it was We went back and forth with this listener a couple of times, which is great. We love when we have that when we get more details about a story. But this particular listener is going through a divorce, so her family's household expenses will basically double because there will be two households, which is one of those unfortunate aspects of divorce, many unfortunate aspects, but that is definitely a practical one that people wind up dealing with. So she makes good but not over the top money and is struggling to figure out if she should cut back on childcare or investing for retirement, or if she should try to boost her income, perhaps through a side hustle. She has one child, by the way, who is still is not school aged yet, so childcare still being an aspect that they have to deal with with that Before we could even answer, she actually wrote back with another idea she came up with, which was converting. She's staying in the house and she's going to convert their mortgage from a fifteen year mortgage to a thirty one, which these days is pretty good time for refinancing. Mortgage interest rates are very low, so particularly if you did buy your house, say ten years ago, and have a higher straight this could work out great and lower your monthly payments by quite a bit. So that is what she decided to do. In that freed up some cash right there, so that was great. But in general, Sarah, like, if you're facing this situation, I mean, what would you recommend thinking about for when you need to cut back and think about finances that way? Well, I think you would really need to take a very cut and dry look at what the ins and outs are of your budget. So I think that the fact that she did do that and then got back to us with a solution is very telling. So a lot of times you get in panic mode and you're not able to do that, you know, actual like calm analysis, and she figured out a great solution. I think thinking about in her case, the short term, since she's going through this immense, very difficult change, is probably a good idea. So, you know, while I'm all about saving for the future, I don't know that this would be like the time to be fixated on retirement. I think this might be like get through the next few years and then things are going to probably kind of fall into place. And I feel like I had one more things secifically about. Oh, the side hustle. I just would be very careful about that, because some side hustles are more lucrative than others, and some can take a disproportional amount of time to what you're going to get out of it, and you may be better off either trying to advance at work, leaning in at work, simply asking for a raise, you know, doing something else that might get you farther with less sweat. Yeah, totally agree, And I like that she looked beyond the usual, you know, like what can I cut back on? To think of something that was a more painless way to cut back, especially given the low interest rates right now, as you mentioned, you know, depending on the situation, moving can obviously be a possibility as well. The real estate market is really hot right now. Maybe they could sell their house for a tidy profit, which would free up money for both of them, I presume if they're splitting the proceeds from that, of course, then you've got to find somewhere else to live that hopefully isn't also quite that markup, But that could be an idea. Depending on their custody situation, you know, that might be you know, moving somewhere differently that she could triage that. But yeah, Also the side hustle is there's a great new episode out from How to Money, the How to Money guys on side. You know, passive income is it a myth? Is it possible? Whatever? Because that's always this goal people like oooh, I'd love to make passive income. And basically what they say is the best passive income is basically dividends, like invest your money in index funds or even dividend producing funds. Right, or stocks in particular have a high dividend, because that is truly passive income. You're also saving up for a retirement at the same time, you're not having to put in all this you know, time and effort into building a business or you know, buying real estate properties or something written them out, and so that is truly passive income in a great way that most of this other stuff is just not like, yeah, great, start a podcast, a blog, whatever. Those are all great ideas, but they take a lot of time and effort to build up, you know that. And particularly in our listener's case, she's going through a divorce, she has a full time job, she has a young kid. Like, no, now is not the time, and I agree with you that realizing that now is not necessarily going to be indicative of what her life is like five years from now. I mean, maybe you know, she will be on her own for then, and she will if she's kept her ability to keep working, you know, invested in the childcare and you know, focused at work, she could have grown her salary. At that point, she could be in a higher level, maybe at a different company that pays more in the same industry. Those are all great ideas. She may also wind up, you know, remarrying at some point with somebody else who is also earning an income, and then their financial situation will be very different as well too. I mean, these are all things we just don't know about the future. But there's a high probability that you're at this low moment right now and things will be better in the future. So yeah, make sure that now is doable, and so don't cut back on anything that will make now worse. What would say, all right, well, this has been our pet Peeve issue, our episode I guess issue. I'm in magazine mode. Have you ever seen a Pet Peeve magazine? I don't know, that would be I probably read it. Oh yeah, But we'll be back next week with more on making work and life fit together. Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together.