Tag: pandemic

My 25 Secrets to Successfully Working from Home with ADHD

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 10 Comments

I’ve been working from home with ADHD for the last five years.

I mean, I didn’t know I had ADHD until recently. I went to a neuropathologist at age thirty-two after years of procrastination, convinced I was a depressed, lazy, narcissistic underachiever with early onset dementia. Turns out I just had a norepinephrine deficiency in my locus coeruleus, lmao.

Living with a lifelong undiagnosed mental illness sucks shit. But you know what’s a pretty okay consolation prize? The naive tenacity you develop when nobody tells you it’s okay to expect less of yourself!

To be clear: I can’t recommend spending three decades white-knuckling your way through adult life… but you will have the thick, powerful knuckles of a silverback gorilla when all’s said and done!

Working from home pre-diagnosis required a lot of experimentation. Learning to keep myself focused and motivated (with crystal clear work/life boundaries) was tough. I’m going to summarize my very best tips for y’all today, sponsored by our Patreon donors.

Since 42% of Americans abruptly joined Team Work From Home in the last six months, hopefully these tips will help everyone who’s struggling—whether you’re riding the Royal Struggle Bus of Clinical Executive Function Disorders, or just riding dirrrty in your own messy minivan.

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Ask the Bitches Pandemic Lightning Round: “Will the Government Really Give Me a $1,200 Stimulus?”

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 20 Comments

Welcome to the Ask the Bitches Pandemic Lightning Round! We’re working around the clock to answer your questions about coronavirus, the impact of quarantine, and the recession of 2020.

Pardon our idealism, but we Bitches tend to think that one of the things a government should be responsible for is the economic welfare of its citizens in times of financial crisis.

You know: like right now.

Because make no mistake, along with being a public health crisis, the global outbreak of coronavirus is also an economic crisis. Many Americans have already lost their jobs due to the pandemic, resulting in a record 3.3 million unemployment claims; others are seeing their hours or pay severely cut; and the stock market is free-falling like Tom Petty at the Super Bowl, dropping the most in a single day since 2008.

But there are little glimmering lights of hope in this, our hour of darkness. The Federal Reserve just made $1.5 trillion available to keep banks solvent and steady. And now Congress has followed suit by passing a stimulus passage that will put money directly into the hands of people financially affected by the pandemic. Which happens to be all of us!

Unsurprisingly, you’ve got questions about this stimulus. We read all about it and distilled it down into easily digested morsels so that you don’t have to.

We’ll be coming at you fast this week, answering as many urgent questions as we can. If you appreciate the extra effort, we would love a small donation on our Patreon. Thank you!

Join the Bitches on Patreon
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Ask the Bitches Pandemic Lightning Round: “Did Congress Really Give $1.5 Trillion to Wall Street?”

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 12 Comments

Welcome to the Ask the Bitches Pandemic Lightning Round! We’re working around the clock to answer your questions about coronavirus, the impact of quarantine, and the recession of 2020.

Have you heard about this thing? This something, something, $1.5 trillion dollars thing? Today, we have a request to explain what’s going on there.

So… is it worth it?

Let us work it.

We’ll put our thing down, flip it, and (time allowing) reverse it.

We’ll be coming at you fast this week, answering as many urgent questions as we can. If you appreciate the extra effort, we would love a small donation on our Patreon. Thank you!

Join the Bitches on Patreon

The question

Here’s a question we got from an anonymous asker on our Tumblr:

Any chance you can explain why the $1.5 trillion congress put into stocks/small businesses/whatever meant and how it worked? I do not understand economics well enough to figure it out on my own, so I can’t figure out if it was actually a waste of money. I’m leaning towards “yes it was” but for my edification I want to make sure I’m not way off base thinking that.

We absolutely can explain this!

I’m gonna explain it like y’all are five. Because that’s the explanation I would want. Because right now, I have the emotional fortitude of a toddler desperately in need of nap time.

If you’re already pretty savvy with federal economic policy, you can read a higher level explanation like this one. Today’s breakdown will be for other babies like myself!

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Ask the Bitches Pandemic Lightning Round: “Is It Safe To Keep My Money in the Bank?”

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 7 Comments

Welcome to the Ask the Bitches Pandemic Lightning Round! We’re working around the clock to answer your questions about coronavirus, the impact of quarantine, and the recession of 2020.

Today, we meditate upon the subject of social trust. How safe is it to keep relying on our usual systems and financial institutions?

Of course by “meditate” I mean watch YouTube clips of It’s a Wonderful Life.

We’ll be coming at you fast this week, answering as many urgent questions as we can. If you appreciate the extra effort, we would love a small donation on our Patreon. Thank you!

Join the Bitches on Patreon

The question

“I’m worried the coronavirus will cause enough economic fuckery that it will trigger a massive recession and banks will close due to not having workers. Is it worth it to remove the money in my account? It’s only $400, but it’s all the money I have.”

If all you have is $400, that’s not much to lose. It likely means this question asker is riding very close to insolvency and truly can’t afford to lose that $400 buffer. So I don’t blame them for freaking out!

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Ask the Bitches Pandemic Lightning Round: “How Do I Push Back When My Workplace Isn’t Taking COVID-19 Seriously?”

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 6 Comments

Welcome to the Ask the Bitches Pandemic Lightning Round! We’re working around the clock to answer your questions about coronavirus, the impact of quarantine, and the recession of 2020.

Phew. Are y’all getting tired by all these articles yet? We’re not! We’re as tireless as a team of Amish-raised mules, and JUST AS ADORABLE!*

Today, we’re considering the health ramifications of a boss who just don’t give a damn about this global pandemic. In short, this workplace isn’t taking COVID-19 seriously. Fun stuff!

We’ll be coming at you fast this week, answering as many urgent questions as we can. If you appreciate the extra effort, we would love a small donation on our Patreon. Thank you!

Join the Bitches on Patreon

*The first part is a lie; the second is not.

The question

I’ve been working as an hourly temp at a business since August. My supervisor wanted to hire me. She was beginning this process when COVID-19 hit. Now all hands are on deck.

All company employees who can work from home are. But my supervisor can’t get me a company laptop to work from home, and encouraged me to come to work. I have asthma, so I’m very aware of how careful I must be. I’m wary of how well they clean the office and how seriously some employees are taking this crisis.

Should I continue going to work, even though my workplace isn’t taking COVID-19 seriously? I want to keep saving, but I also want to keep myself safe. I’ll take any tips you have.

There are still some workplaces that aren’t taking this pandemic seriously. Hopefully their numbers are shrinking as quickly as COVID-19 cases are rising.

If you’re unlucky enough to be stuck working at one, let’s talk about how to handle it. It shouldn’t be your job to handle it! But in Corporate America, managing other people’s idiocies is always half the job!

From a pure physical health perspective, you shouldn’t take the risk of going in to work. But financial instability wouldn’t benefit your stress, immune system, or mental health. So we have to try to balance those interests. That’s the repulsive calculus of our reprehensible system, where losing your job also means losing your health insurance at the worst possible time.

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Ask the Bitches Pandemic Lightning Round: “Is This the Right Time To Start Investing?”

Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 7 Comments

Welcome to the Ask the Bitches Pandemic Lightning Round! We’re working around the clock to answer your questions about coronavirus, the impact of quarantine, and the recession of 2020.

Today, we’re considering if now is a good time to start investing. Because your dad probably told you it’s a great time to invest. But is your dad right?!

Dad says START INVESTING!

We’ll be coming at you fast this week, answering as many urgent questions as we can. If you appreciate the extra effort, we would love a small donation to our Patreon. Thank you!

Join the Bitches on Patreon

The question

“Dearest bitches, I finally paid off my student loans in January and the money that had been going to them has just been hanging tight in a savings account until I move it to my Roth IRA (right now it’s up to about $2k). The question, then: with the market, to quote a friend, ‘going down worse than your eighth jagerbomb,’ when is the best time to make that shift? It’s going into a robo-managed fund, so it’s not like I’m actively playing the market, but I’m still nervous. Help!”

Ah. Lovely. A slightly more optimistic question than our last few!

We’re going to answer this question straight, with the assumption that you’ve already taken the stability of your job, healthcare insurance, and emergency fund into ample consideration.

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Ask the Bitches Pandemic Lightning Round: “Can I Get Fired for Skipping Work?”

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 6 Comments

Welcome to the Ask the Bitches Pandemic Lightning Round! We’re working around the clock to answer your questions about coronavirus, the impact of quarantine, and the recession of 2020.

Yeah, that’s kinda how life feels right now.

We know y’all are already drowning in a deluge of news stories and rumors about COVID-19, the global pandemic caused by the coronavirus. But there’s also a lot of misinformation circulating. Folks are getting real panicky in a time when we most need to be calm, rational, and trusting.

This is why Kitty and I have thrown all our other work aside to speed up our writing schedule. We want to soothe your consciences and help you keep your shit together. On Monday we focused on the practical steps you can take to help yourself and your community stay safe and healthy. If you haven’t read that article yet, go do so.

We wish that Bitch Nation was a real country. There, we could not only quarantine all our beloved readers, but offer them a living minimum wage, paid sick leave for all workers, and mandate at least one dog per household. Alas! Our empire is merely virtual.

So today we’re kicking off a special Lightning Round of Ask the Bitches. We’re publishing as many Q&A articles as we can in the coming days. We want to put your minds at ease, dispel some misconceptions, and give you some helpful resources for getting through COVID-19 fever (pun intended???) with your sanity and emergency funds intact.

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