The U.S. is so family unfriendly. I never really thought that much of this… outside of the fact that American employers are obligated to provide a total of zero weeks of paid leave to their employees after the birth or adoption of a child, that new mothers are constantly discriminated against when they return to work, that visibly pregnant women cannot feasibly look for new employment, that new fathers are discouraged from taking their full paternity leave (if their employers even provide it). So you know, not too many things, but enough to get my blood boiling. Then, I started noticing it even more when I began traveling more internationally. I noticed things like… completely separate bathrooms for families and actual baby changing rooms that were separated from the main restrooms. I noticed a baby carrying seat in the women’s room stalls so that a mother can properly pee without needing to hold her infant or toddler down. I saw women openly breastfeeding without any cover-up, without people staring at them like they were offensive to God. I heard announcements at airport gates for pre-boarding for families with children. These things never happen here. The latest thing I’ve noticed here in the U.S. is breastfeeding rooms popping up in airports; I was truly amazed by this. Truly.

So I got even more infuriated when I accompanied my five-months pregnant colleague to Old Navy today just a few blocks from our office to find out that they had no maternity section period. We asked a worker when we walked in, and she embarrassingly told us that there was no maternity section at any Old Navy in all of Manhattan, and if we wanted to find a maternity section, we either need to go to Queens or Brooklyn locations for Old Navy, or order online and do in-store pickup. The other option was that on the second floor, they had all their maternity returns for the pieces that didn’t work out.

Ummm, what?

“So basically, pregnant women aren’t allowed in Manhattan?” I asked the worker. She laughed and said she had brought up this issue multiple times to the manager of the store, and he would respond, saying they didn’t have enough space “for that.” The store worker eventually agreed with me. “We’re really just not friendly towards expectant mothers. It’s sad.”

When we went upstairs to view the returned maternity pieces, it was very clear to us that a lot of women were shopping online for maternity wear and doing in-store pickup; the store manager was just completely short-sighted and literally being a dick towards pregnant women. This is just another form of discrimination, another form of being anti-family and ultimately, anti-woman.

“So, I basically have two options,” my colleague said to me, sighing. “I can go to the really expensive maternity wear stores and pay $100-200 for a dress, or I can shop at Old Navy for reasonable prices, but only online!”

Why do we live in such an anti-family, anti-woman society?

The office was like a ghost town today. I was one of a total of six people who decided to show up at the office today, one of whom left shortly after lunch time. Here, people tend to come and go as they wish. We’re generally flexible with working remotely, and everyone seems to mind their own business. Summer time is also a popular time to take vacations, so there’s that to consider, too. But as I waltzed into the office at around 9:45 this morning, I started thinking about the office days of my mom and how this would never, ever fly.

Usually, I call her as I am leaving work, so sometime between 5:30 to 6pm. If I ever call earlier than that, she just assumes that something catastrophic has happened… like I got fired/laid off/something like death has happened. The concept of coming in “late,” or “leaving early” are kind of a big deal to her — “is your boss okay with that? Did you ask your boss’s permission?” She doesn’t realize that here, no one really wants or cares to keep tabs on anyone like that. That’s not how this office works, and selfishly, I hope I never, ever work at a place like that. I’ve told her all of these things probably over a hundred times by now, but she still worries and is concerned… because she’s my mom, and to her, that’s what moms do — worry about their kids even when the kids have reassured the parents a million times.

It’s a privilege, though. I recognize that. So when I complain and get angry about anything at work, whether it’s some isolated moronic incident or general politics that seem to happen every single day, I remind myself that of all the office crap I have to deal with, it’s not even a tenth of what my mom had to endure in her working days.

I would not want to be a delivery person… ever. They are probably one of the least appreciated professions in this entire city, yet they likely work the hardest. As someone who is lucky enough to work at a company that offers free lunch every day to its employees, I get the option of ordering on my corporate Seamless account every day and choosing either delivery or pick-up. Sometimes, if the weather is good and the restaurant isn’t too far away, I’ll opt for pickup, getting a quick break and walk in while also saving a delivery person some work. But other times, I’ll just have the food delivered to me. And I always, always tip the delivery people.

Unfortunately in New York City, what this often means is an underpaid, perhaps even undocumented delivery person taking a bike with his helmet, juggling multiple food orders on his back or over his arms, getting from point A to B to C to D. I’ve seen these guys on my walks along fifth avenue in the Flatiron during lunch time, and honestly, I kind of feel sorry for them. So I get a little annoyed and really have to walk away when I find out that some of my colleagues do not add a tip for their delivery people (ugh), or they whine endlessly when their delivered food is even just 15 minutes late.

While I realize that eating later than you’d originally planned isn’t ideal, especially when you are in back-to-back meetings and feel really swamped at your fancy tech company, realize how lucky and privileged you are to a) get a free lunch paid for by your employer and b) get it delivered to you, every single work day. I bet that delivery guy who had to juggle a dozen orders and is on a tight time delivery schedule doesn’t have that luxury. And frankly, it’s probably not his fault that your food is late; it could be the kitchen’s fault. It could be bad traffic. So don’t take it out on him. He probably needs his tips more than you need your on-time lunch, or your free lunch, or, in this case, both.

There are rich people, and then, there are the super rich of the rich — you know, these are the kind of people who just randomly decide that they want to drop $10,000 for a Birkin handbag or $117 million for a Monet or Renoir painting, and it’s really no big deal for them. We got a taste of what that looks like yesterday afternoon, when we attended a divorce auction for an extremely wealthy couple who is in the midst of divorce proceedings. Chris found a flier in our mailbox advertising that the divorce auction would be held at the JW Marriott yesterday afternoon, and in addition to an endless collection of diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds, we’d also be getting the ability to bid on authentic fine art, from artists ranging from Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, and Van Gogh, to Miro and Peter Max. This was completely insane to me.

The flier stated that all of these items were simply in storage for the longest time, so not even a private family was actively enjoying them in their own home. This completely infuriated me. In my opinion, paintings by artists as famous and talented as Monet or Van Gogh truly need to be made public; why should only one person or a small circle of people be able to enjoy them? It just seems so selfish.

Oddly enough, the auction was not that large, and it was likely because we were in the middle of the summer period, when many of these “units” who would be bidding would likely be out sunning in the Hamptons or traveling to Europe for their summer vacations. Those leading the auction kept making statements making it very obvious that they were insulted at the prices being proposed for bidding. I couldn’t even believe it; an authentic Van Gogh went for only a few hundred dollars; a Camille Pissarro went for $7,500. It seemed almost like robbery. But hey, what a deal for the people who bid and won the auction on these!

We didn’t last very long; we left probably about an hour and a half into the auction. It wasn’t as exciting as I thought it would be, and I was hoping to see a bigger variety of works. Not to say that the collection was something to sneeze at; it just always shocks me, even though it shouldn’t, how much wealth some families have, and exactly how selfish they are with it.