Don't Turn Your Passions Into Work

Don’t Turn Your Passions Into Work

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 34 Comments

Turning your passions into work is really popular advice. At my day job, I’m mentoring a fresh crop of school-aged interns. One of them learned that I had a blog and was super excited to ask me about it.

“I run an Instagram account where I talk about beauty and self-acceptance,” she told me, “and I LOVE it.”

And I could tell that she meant it! Her whole face lit up. She was practically wiggling in her seat with excitement. She described the positive, loving feedback she received from doing it, and how it gave her a true sense of purpose. “I want to eventually figure out how to monetize it and potentially turn it into a career. Any advice on how to do that?”

“Yeah,” I said with a sigh. “Don’t.”

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Should You Trust Your Human Resources Department?

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 18 Comments

Ah, the human resources department: the Dolores Umbridge of work departments!

From Catbert the Evil Director of Human Resources to Office Space‘s The Bobs, HR as an institution has a less than stellar reputation. Some consider it downright evil.

But why? Why does HR get such a bad rap? Especially when they’re supposedly set up to provide employees with recourse against shitty coworkers and a direct pipeline to the EEOC?

Is HR really all that evil? And more importantly… should you trust them?

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Booms, Busts, Bubbles, and Beanie Babies: How Economic Cycles Work

Booms, Busts, Bubbles, and Beanie Babies: How Economic Cycles Work

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 6 Comments

Today we’re talking booms vs. busts vs. bubbles. This is a bit more theoretical than our advice tends to be. But I promise it’s important! You need to understand the difference between the two if you want to make flexible, resilient, realistic medium- to long-term plans for yourself.

And yes, this topic is dry. So I’ll do my best to blast some cool ranch flavor dust on it whenever possible. In fact, let’s start now!

Q: How is the free market under capitalism like a cock?

A: It expands and contracts, screwing everybody it can in the process!

Me, thinking of this joke in the shower: “I am amazing. I have the glowing-est brain. Our blog deserves every award it has ever won and more. Unless I read that joke somewhere, semi-forgot it, then accidentally stole it???”

If this joke belongs to you, I apologize. Tell it to the FBI agent wire-tapping your home’s smart devices, he’ll put a note in my permanent record.

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Beware These 5 (Perfectly Legal) Discriminatory Hiring Practices

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 13 Comments

Admit it, Bitch Nation: you missed us and our relentless griping about labor rights during our two-week summer hiatus. Well cheer up, people, because the Bitches are BACK (and still griping about labor rights)!

Today’s topic: discriminatory hiring practices.

One of our most popular articles to date is our list of illegal job interview questions. In that post, we explained how how there are laws in place to mitigate discriminatory hiring practices. An employer can’t ask a job candidate’s age, for example, to avoid ageism when hiring.

If you’re on the job hunt, you should familiarize yourself with the questions a potential employer can’t ask you. Know your rights lest you unwittingly allow an employer to use your personal demographics (rather than your job qualifications) to exclude you from a job opportunity.

Yet despite all the things an employer can’t legally ask in a job interview… some weaselly fuckers still find ways to introduce bias into their hiring practices. In fact, a lot that can happen during job applications and interviews probably should be illegal… but isn’t.

Let’s go over some discriminatory hiring practices that are somehow still legal. Y’know, before we get to the inevitable pro-labor call to action. ¡Viva la revolución, comrades!

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My Cure for Aimless Wardrobe Syndrome: Manage Your Clothes the Same Way You Manage Your Money

My Cure for Aimless Wardrobe Syndrome: Manage Your Clothes the Same Way You Manage Your Money

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 36 Comments

Until very recently, I suffered from a pretty bad case of Aimless Wardrobe Syndrome.

I felt lost when it came to clothing. I assembled outfits at random. If I ever looked good, it was at the cost of 35 minutes of standing in my closet, hemming and hawing like an asthmatic donkey.

It seemed like a pretty insignificant problem. But eventually, I realized it was quietly harming me every dang day. I was wasting way too much time, money, and spoons deciding what to wear. And it somehow left me feeling worse about myself, not better!

This led me to develop a cure for my Aimless Wardrobe Syndrome. And in retrospect, it was so obvious that I’m sorta kicking myself for not figuring it out sooner.

It requires a bit of time to set up. But it transformed my daily life for the better. Since I developed this system, I’ve been shopping less, buying less, and spending way less time considering my options. And y’all know how I value my money and my time! Yet I also love everything I wear, and wear everything I love. It kicks ass.

Here’s my system. Steal it!

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How to Get Married: Bureaucracy, Finances, and Legal Paperwork to do before “I do"

How To Get Married: Bureaucracy, Finances, and Legal Paperwork To Do Before “I Do”

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 17 Comments

Every once in a while we Bitches are asked marriage or relationship questions. And it amuses me to no end that we are seen as ADULTS with STABLE MARRIAGES and HEALTHY LIFESTYLES. Because we live in keen awareness that we’re floating slowly down a river of Parmesan cheese straight into the yawning mouth of the Ninth Gate of Death, just like everybody else.

Not that’s it’s necessarily wrong! My marriage with Bear just feels like such a humble, natural thing. How could it possibly be instructional to others? He’s currently listening to a podcast in the shower while I do blog stuff from the couch and I love him so stupidly much. 

Yet our loving relationship has much more to do with why we got married than how. Being in love and wanting to spend your life with someone is, sadly, not the only requirement for getting married (common law marriages notwithstanding).

So today I want to talk about the logistics of marriage: the paperwork, the bureaucracy, and the legal gauntlet you must run to get hitched.

In this era of modern romance, it’s pretty common for people to move in together before getting married, even to combine finances or buy property together. We did! That gradual combining of lives makes things pretty painless. But let’s say you’re doing it all at once around the time of the wedding! With that in mind, here’s a list of the steps you need to take to get married… punctuated with gifs from the wedding of John Legend’s dogs.

This is the slippery slope: dogs getting married.
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The Bitches Are Hiring Staff (Finally) and *It Could Be You!*

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 3 Comments

The time has come at last for us to do the thing every single mentor in our industry has told us to do for, like, four years: stop trying to do absolutely everything ourselves. The Bitches are hiring a few lil’ helpers!

Consider this proof of our emotional growth. Poverty mindset is like the smell of burnt popcorn: it lingers on and on, long after snacktime is over.

We started this blog as the kind of people who will stuff their faces with day-old bagels because they were left on a table outside the conference room. And damnit, we are still very much those people! We’re so not used to the idea that it might make sense to… pay? Someone else?? To do work we could very well do ourselves?!? LMAO OKAY.

The bitches are hiring?! LMAO OKAY.

But, our little blog ain’t so little anymore. Our style of writing requires heaping fistfuls of spoons. We’re finally ready to acknowledge that invisible, non-fun administrative work is snatching up far too many of said spoons.

It’s time to bravely don our competent businesswomen cosplay outfits, and strut around the hotel lobby like we know what we’re doing!

So… we’re hiring!? <breathes into a paper bag>

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Inclusive Finance and the Financial Feminist Summit: With Bravely Go’s Kara Perez

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") Leave a comment

Bitch Nation, it’s time we talk about inclusive finance. It’s a nebulous concept! What constitutes inclusive access to financial products and education? How can we make our economic processes more inclusive of diverse populations? And if inclusivity is the goal, exactly who is currently being excluded?

As you know, I am too pretty to work hard lazy and averse to doing my own research on such an important yet complex topic. So naturally, I invited an expert to do my homework for me.

Enter the indomitable Kara Perez! Owner and founder of Bravely Go, activist for inclusivity and representation in financial education and economic opportunities, and all-around bad-ass. You guys… we are so lucky she lets us hang out with her.

Kara joined me to explain how we can embrace inclusivity in financial media and education and to tell me all about her upcoming event, the Financial Feminist Summit. Our conversation inspired me. It motivated me to do better for my community and my world. And it increased my hair’s natural luster by 32%.

Read on for wisdom and realness from Kara Perez.

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How to Use Labor Shortages to Your Advantage

How to Use Labor Shortages to Your Advantage

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 12 Comments

Labor shortages? With a 6% unemployment rate? On the heels of a recession and global pandemic? Seriously?

Seriously. If you’re like me, you’ve seen the signs hanging in almost every restaurant, coffee shop, and gas station window you’ve walked past. “Now hiring! Check our website for details!” But there’s something off about them. Usually such signs have a cheerfully neutral tone. But these are radiating powerful desperation stink.

“We’re hiring! Like, SERIOUSLY hiring. Literally every role is open! Do you want my job? You can have it! We have signing bonuses. If you show up all five days your first week, I will give you my cat. Don’t get me wrong, I love my cat like a son—but if someone doesn’t help me bus these tables, the fabric of my reality will unravel all around me lol.”

When employers are desperate for employees, they’re weak. And when they’re weak, you are strong. You can use this moment as an opportunity to claw back lost ground.

But situations like these have been super rare in recent history. Honestly, unless you’re a Boomer or older, this really hasn’t happened in your lifetime! (Yes, to my eternal surprise, BGR does have enthusiastic Boomer and Silent Gen readers. We salute you—the few, the proud, the kickass—for enduring our 90s pop culture references and ageist hissy fits with grace and poise.) Younger readers will be forgiven for not knowing how to take advantage of it.

So that’s what we’ll teach you today! C’mon, finance, let’s get fin~nancial!

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10 Ways to Spot Financial Scams and How to Defend Yourself

10 Ways to Spot Financial Scams and How to Defend Yourself

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 12 Comments

Last year we collectively lost our minds stanning MacKenzie Scott. She’s the absolute QUEEN making all the other billionaires look bad by giving away half of her money to charity. No expensive foundations, no self-congratulatory PR machine. Just direct funding to worthy causes. Y’know: what people with more money than they could ever possibly use should do.

Her philanthropy is especially popular because it came as a graceful “fuck you” to her amoral cheat of an ex-husband, Jeff Bezos. (And you guys know how we feel about that guy.)

The $6 billion she’s donated so far is literally record-breaking. Which is why it’s so reprehensible that scammers have taken advantage of Scott’s reputation to steal from unsuspecting victims.

Recently, criminals masquerading as MacKenzie Scott have targeted the vulnerable for financial scams. These desperate individuals have lost thousands in fake transfer fees at the promise that they could be the lucky recipients of Scott’s philanthropy. Which is… so breathtakingly heartbreaking yet also predictable.

Financial scams are on the rise. Thanks in part to advances in digital currencies, global communications, and tech in general, it’s easier than ever to fall prey to these criminal schemes. There are even brand new scams using the COVID-19 pandemic to fleece the unwary.

So today we’re talking about financial scams: how they work, who they target, and how to avoid them. That last one most of all.

We want to arm you against the forces of darkness and set you loose upon the criminal element! Like a bunch of Google-wielding vigilantes, you shall dispense justice by defending yourselves and developing the perfect level of disdain with which to utter “How do you sleep at night?“

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