Eleanor Florence Lecocq #9 Santa BeBe slip a jewel tone car under the tree for me

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Took a look at some condo listings in Honolulu. Adjusting for inflation for when Ginette first leased her Kahala home plus the added HOA fees over the years, she could've owned her own property in Hawaii. This was probably not an option for Mama G as it wouldn't have been an oceanside place with a "tropical" ground floor walkway. Owning would've been a better option since she could've made a decent chunk of change if she had the ability to put a Hawaii condo on the market. I found that even in times of recession, Hawaii properties will still increase in value overall. While I understand that home ownership is not for everyone, people like the Elle and Ginette should invest in real estate if they want to maintain and increase their wealth.
Both Lecocq sisters need therapy and some basic intro to finance / accounting 101 courses. A community college non-diploma course and even Finance / Accounting for Dummies will do. Instead these 2 read trashy romance novels on the beach in Hawaii.
 
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Also -- at risk of sounding like a witch -- it pisses me off seeing Elle totally waste her education and privilege. She went to private school and her mother paid for her to attend law school and graduate school and do all these expensive extras (gigs in Hong Kong, Brussels and London) and she worked at the same boring, mid-range, non-lawyer job for seven years. Meanwhile tons of kids without money work far harder and will never have the opportunity to get into the schools Elle got into or intern all over the globe. I'd be less pissed off if she actually did something or contributed to the world in some way... but nope, that's not her thing.

I went to grad school and had to take on over $20,000 of debt. And I did pretty well compared to lots of people! I bet Elle wouldn't relate at all to me or get how big of a deal that is. That's a few handbags and designer candles to her. She's so out of touch! And she only surrounds herself with other stupid women, like The Dolls.

This isn't new, but I guess seeing her behaviour in Seattle (sleeping until 11 a.m., not seeking employment, dating, seeing friends constantly, luxuriating in an Airbnb all day) has made her realize she has always been a lazy, entitled, boring, pretentious Karen. And Mama G is a total co-dependent dingbat. The pandemic has exposed so much stupidity both with folks on social media and in real life, I guess that's one silver lining.
 
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Also -- at risk of sounding like a witch -- it pisses me off seeing Elle totally waste her education and privilege. She went to private school and her mother paid for her to attend law school and graduate school and do all these expensive extras (gigs in Hong Kong, Brussels and London) and she worked at the same boring, mid-range, non-lawyer job for seven years. Meanwhile tons of kids without money work far harder and will never have the opportunity to get into the schools Elle got into or intern all over the globe. I'd be less pissed off if she actually did something or contributed to the world in some way... but nope, that's not her thing.
I'm going to have to defend Elle here on the law career part. Elle went to law school straight after high school. She has no family in law. She had no idea what the hell she was getting herself into. I have friends in law who hated it and who all work in non-law professions. I give her credit for getting good grades in law school, graduating, passing the bar on her first try etc... Obviously she has the book smarts. She just didn't really know what the practice of law entails in real life after graduating.

One of my friends who graduated from law school said that 1/3 of the class found jobs due to connections (aka uncle or dad was a partner in a law firm / district judge), 1/3 due to abilities and 1/3 struggled to find law-related work.

If she had a bachelor's degree in something else, such as accounting, finance, science, computer, etc... she would have been better off because at least she would have a niche in law to rely on. I know a lawyer who has a $200,000 gig as in-house counsel in a tech firm but he also had a PhD in a hard science subject. I know another girl who is an in-house counsel in a silicon-valley firm but she had a computer science bachelors (from MIT to boot). Another girl had a bachelors and law degree from Ivy League universities, and spoke and wrote fluent Chinese - she had a humanities degree but ended up as VP of a prestigious international bank. I'm not sure Elle really measures up.

It's just annoys me that Elle friviously threw away her Vancouver job that was well suited for her with no backup and didn't invest properly.
 
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I'm going to have to defend Elle here on the law career part. Elle went to law school straight after high school. She has no family in law. She had no idea what the hell she was getting herself into. I have friends in law who hated it and who all work in non-law professions. I give her credit for getting good grades in law school, graduating, passing the bar on her first try etc... Obviously she has the book smarts. She just didn't really know what the practice of law entails in real life after graduating.

One of my friends who graduated from law school said that 1/3 of the class found jobs due to connections (aka uncle or dad was a partner in a law firm / district judge), 1/3 due to abilities and 1/3 struggled to find law-related work.

If she had a bachelor's degree in something else, such as accounting, finance, science, computer, etc... she would have been better off because at least she would have a niche in law to rely on. I know a lawyer who has a $200,000 gig as in-house counsel in a tech firm but he also had a PhD in a hard science subject. I know another girl who is an in-house counsel in a silicon-valley firm but she had a computer science bachelors (from MIT to boot). Another girl had a bachelors and law degree from Ivy League universities, and spoke and wrote fluent Chinese - she had a humanities degree but ended up as VP of a prestigious international bank. I'm not sure Elle really measures up.

It's just annoys me that Elle friviously threw away her Vancouver job that was well suited for her with no backup and didn't invest properly.
How do you know she got good grades and didn't barely skim by? Cs get degrees too. You can be good at memorizing things, but if you have low EQ and you're a lazy POS like Elle you're doomed. No amount of mommy's new money with zero connections will get you the life you wish you had. You're not a character from Gossip Girl with old family connections and you're definitely not Miranda who worked hard as a real lawyer. She's Carrie, a slew of men who will all eventually dump her.
 
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I'm going to have to defend Elle here on the law career part. Elle went to law school straight after high school. She has no family in law. She had no idea what the hell she was getting herself into.
I appreciate what you're saying, and totally get that law is a really crazy field -- tons of graduates, lots of nepotism, and not that many jobs. Elle got good grades and had a fantastic articling position with one of Canada's top law firms. She did the work and I won't take that away from her.

My issue is that she sold herself as a #girlboss lawyer but never actually worked as one and also never moved up in that job. She also took that law school spot from someone who probably did some research and knew what they were getting themselves into. It's not like she was a random psychology major at some random school -- she attended a top UK law school!

At a certain point I think we have to acknowledge that even teenagers can do some basic research on majors/jobs. If you asked a 17 year-old what the life of a lawyer or ER doctor was like, I think they'd know it's tons of school and working all the time. You'd have to be incredibly dim and immature to think that Legally Blonde, for example, was accurate. Most teenagers and college kids are well aware of the pitfalls of law, medicine, business, and other fields we've always been told are safe and good choices.
 
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While law school is no cake walk, I'm sometimes shocked at who is able to pass the bar. I've seen writing and critical thinking skills from licensed attorneys of all ages that is laughable. The average high schoolers who have more brain power than some of these folks. Some unskilled attorneys are able to move up over the years into supervisor or higher level roles at their firms, agencies, etc. due to connections and schmoozing with the right people. Titles mean nothing if you don't have the skills to back it up. Not surprised that Elle can have the memorization skills to pass the bar while having zero common sense or writing ability. The bistro blog description is all the proof you need for her writing skills. I bet Elle would blame it on French being her first language.

Elle not using her law degree or being complacent at an entry level job is fine, if that's the route she chooses. What irks me is that she inflates and lies about her credentials. She isn't appreciative of the fact that she has the luxury of living in complacency, yet wants to receive praise for being a hard working lawyer who can balance it all so perfectly. If she was humble and kind, I wouldn't fault her for choosing to work in a easy and low-stress environment. She isn't even appreciative of her doormat of a mother, which is frighteningly telling of her true character.
 
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Yeah, that's my main issue with her too. You want an easier, low stress job, ok whatever. But then don't call yourself a practicing lawyer when you're not. Don't call yourself "in house counsel" when you're not. What I hate is that she wants to call herself a lawyer without doing the work.

She got a great articling job at that biglaw firm, so lack of connections or lack of a niche in law didn't affect her negatively at all. She just didn't stay there because she didn't like the long hours. Which frankly, I don't really understand. If you have a family, of course work life balance will be a lot more important, but for young single people fresh out of college, it shouldn't be a problem to work some longer hours and get some great experience to start your career off. It's not a law exclusive thing either. Associates at accounting firms, medical residents, investment bankers, software engineers, etc. all work long hours.

My company works with a few Chinese companies/suppliers, and Chinese companies routinely work "996"...meaning 9am-9pm, 6 days a week. That's the norm for the corporate world in China. Sometimes the senior managers even work on Sundays.

I'm not saying that's healthy or good, I'm just saying it's ridiculous that Elle acts like she's some hardworking #girlboss for working a 9-4 job with an hour-long Nordstrom break and never having to bring her laptop home, when objectively speaking, she's worked less than most other people on the planet.
 
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Yeah, that's my main issue with her too. You want an easier, low stress job, ok whatever. But then don't call yourself a practicing lawyer when you're not. Don't call yourself "in house counsel" when you're not. What I hate is that she wants to call herself a lawyer without doing the work.

She got a great articling job at that biglaw firm, so lack of connections or lack of a niche in law didn't affect her negatively at all. She just didn't stay there because she didn't like the long hours. Which frankly, I don't really understand. If you have a family, of course work life balance will be a lot more important, but for young single people fresh out of college, it shouldn't be a problem to work some longer hours and get some great experience to start your career off. It's not a law exclusive thing either. Associates at accounting firms, medical residents, investment bankers, software engineers, etc. all work long hours.

My company works with a few Chinese companies/suppliers, and Chinese companies routinely work "996"...meaning 9am-9pm, 6 days a week. That's the norm for the corporate world in China. Sometimes the senior managers even work on Sundays.

I'm not saying that's healthy or good, I'm just saying it's ridiculous that Elle acts like she's some hardworking #girlboss for working a 9-4 job with an hour-long Nordstrom break and never having to bring her laptop home, when objectively speaking, she's worked less than most other people on the planet.
I wish we could step away from the culture of being always at work. There's hardly any virtue in busting your ass for a profit-driven massive corporation. If you work for yourself, sure, do your best, but if you're just a cog in a giant corporate behemoth, why care? Just do what you have to do to get average performance rating and do a bit more if you want to have good performance rating. If you consistently overachieve, this becomes the benchmark and your boss will always want more from you.

There is significant research showing that employees working 4-day weeks are actually as productive as those working 5-day weeks because they know they have one day less to get the work done. There is a push in some European countries to switch to 4-day working weeks and I wholeheartedly support it. What needs to be recognized is that working efficiently doesn't equal working long hours. Japan is famous for its gruelling work culture where employees are scared to leave the office before their boss is done for the day, yet the country's workforce is shockingly unproductive. I work with Japanese clients on a daily basis and the level of bureaucracy is unreal. Some tasks they complete are pointless and invented merely to fill their time in the office to the max.

I don't think Smelle left that big law firm voluntarily. If she did, she would not have a 4-month long gap before starting at MFDA. I think she just didn't perform as well as she was expected to, so after her articling period was over, they said bye to her. I agree her endless shopping at lunchtime and being home by 5 pm gave an impression of Smelle doing the bare minimum and being lazy, but anyone else should not feel bad for working 9-5 and taking an allocated lunch break.

And while I agree that single employees don't have kids to rush home to etc., why deny them the right to have a healthy work-life balance? Not having kids doesn't mean you don't have things to do outside your professional life.

In reference to Chinese workers being 996, sorry, but that's sick and I wouldnt wish that on anyone. There's so much more to life than being always at work. Most European countries labour laws guarantee full-time workers 20+ days of paid holiday allowance plus bank holidays and I think it's fantastic.
 
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I wish we could step away from the culture of being always at work. There's hardly any virtue in busting your ass for a profit-driven massive corporation. If you work for yourself, sure, do your best, but if you're just a cog in a giant corporate behemoth, why care? Just do what you have to do to get average performance rating and do a bit more if you want to have good performance rating. If you consistently overachieve, this becomes the benchmark and your boss will always want more from you.

There is significant research showing that employees working 4-day weeks are actually as productive as those working 5-day weeks because they know they have one day less to get the work done. There is a push in some European countries to switch to 4-day working weeks and I wholeheartedly support it. What needs to be recognized is that working efficiently doesn't equal working long hours. Japan is famous for its gruelling work culture where employees are scared to leave the office before their boss is done for the day, yet the country's workforce is shockingly unproductive. I work with Japanese clients on a daily basis and the level of bureaucracy is unreal. Some tasks they complete are pointless and invented merely to fill their time in the office to the max.

I don't think Smelle left that big law firm voluntarily. If she did, she would not have a 4-month long gap before starting at MFDA. I think she just didn't perform as well as she was expected to, so after her articling period was over, they said bye to her. I agree her endless shopping at lunchtime and being home by 5 pm gave an impression of Smelle doing the bare minimum and being lazy, but anyone else should not feel bad for working 9-5 and taking an allocated lunch break.

And while I agree that single employees don't have kids to rush home to etc., why deny them the right to have a healthy work-life balance? Not having kids doesn't mean you don't have things to do outside your professional life.

In reference to Chinese workers being 996, sorry, but that's sick and I wouldnt wish that on anyone. There's so much more to life than being always at work. Most European countries labour laws guarantee full-time workers 20+ days of paid holiday allowance plus bank holidays and I think it's fantastic.
This is the best comment on work here, full stop. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Spending most of your waking hours at work is completely miserable for the vast majority of people, and it’s not productive or even humane. Elle’s issue isn’t that she works a 9-to-5, which she did at the mutual fund dealers, but that she lied about the nature and intensity of her work. It’s the lying that bothers people, and not because she didn’t work 12-hour+ days. I’ve lived in cities such as NYC, London, and Tokyo and I don’t understand why people have such a fetish for long work hours. It’s not a badge of honor to be stuck at work constantly and corporations should stop forcing their employees to have zero personal lives.

I also agree that Smelle didn’t leave the articling gig voluntarily, due to the unemployment gap on her resume that followed it. It’s much more likely that she wasn’t extended an offer to stay. Not everyone that gets an articling job is given the full-time, permanent offer.
 
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I also agree that Smelle didn’t leave the articling gig voluntarily, due to the unemployment gap on her resume that followed it. It’s much more likely that she wasn’t extended an offer to stay. Not everyone that gets an articling job is given the full-time, permanent offer.
And really is this something we should fault Elle for? I’m not asking this to you specifically but everyone in general. I am definitely no fan of Elle’s and I think she is a greedy, lying moron, but I think the expectations of her career are a bit harsh. There are many people who are pushed into careers they think they should and can do, only to realize that they’re not up for the task and fail miserably at it when it’s too late to pull out. I am sure she deluded herself into thinking she was going to be a great lawyer someday, but she didn’t know how wrong for her it was until she interned at that firm...and they didn’t think she was very good either. And that’s ok!!! I’ll echo what others have said, I have a major problem with her lying about how hard she works and her job title (while she was at the MFDA in Vancouver), when really it is obvious to me she is an aspiring Stepford housewife. She isn’t a girlboss of any sort and it always triggered me when she used that title to describe herself and her channel. 🙄 And people bought into it, despite her obvious laziness and taking advantage of Joe multiple times.

Maybe this isn’t the same but I was in a prestigious graduate program myself and was told by the program to “resign” because I wasn’t doing well. It’s very dehumanizing to be told you’re just not good enough and that you should leave when most of your life you’ve believed that your good grades and hard work should get you somewhere. Sorry if my acceptance was given to me by mistake, but at the time I genuinely thought I was doing what I was meant to do.

I do work a regular job but I take pride in what I do. Maybe it isn’t as intellectual or as prestigious as my peers in my grad program but I’m a lot happier and like that I’m not stressed out all the time. Sure, I could find a better paying job but at least I don’t lie and play up my position.
 
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I wish we could step away from the culture of being always at work. There's hardly any virtue in busting your ass for a profit-driven massive corporation. If you work for yourself, sure, do your best, but if you're just a cog in a giant corporate behemoth, why care? Just do what you have to do to get average performance rating and do a bit more if you want to have good performance rating. If you consistently overachieve, this becomes the benchmark and your boss will always want more from you.

There is significant research showing that employees working 4-day weeks are actually as productive as those working 5-day weeks because they know they have one day less to get the work done. There is a push in some European countries to switch to 4-day working weeks and I wholeheartedly support it. What needs to be recognized is that working efficiently doesn't equal working long hours. Japan is famous for its gruelling work culture where employees are scared to leave the office before their boss is done for the day, yet the country's workforce is shockingly unproductive. I work with Japanese clients on a daily basis and the level of bureaucracy is unreal. Some tasks they complete are pointless and invented merely to fill their time in the office to the max.

I don't think Smelle left that big law firm voluntarily. If she did, she would not have a 4-month long gap before starting at MFDA. I think she just didn't perform as well as she was expected to, so after her articling period was over, they said bye to her. I agree her endless shopping at lunchtime and being home by 5 pm gave an impression of Smelle doing the bare minimum and being lazy, but anyone else should not feel bad for working 9-5 and taking an allocated lunch break.

And while I agree that single employees don't have kids to rush home to etc., why deny them the right to have a healthy work-life balance? Not having kids doesn't mean you don't have things to do outside your professional life.

In reference to Chinese workers being 996, sorry, but that's sick and I wouldnt wish that on anyone. There's so much more to life than being always at work. Most European countries labour laws guarantee full-time workers 20+ days of paid holiday allowance plus bank holidays and I think it's fantastic.
No one is denying anyone a healthy work life balance, everyone is free to make their own choices and those choices are all completely valid. If people want to work a low stress job like Elle's last job, or even part time, or even not at all, more power to them. But in Elle's case, she shouldn't call herself a practicing lawyer when she doesn't want to do the work required for that job, and or act like she's some sort of hard-driving #girlboss when she actually works less than most other people.

Some people like their jobs, want to use their skills and education, want more responsibility at work, not just to earn money, but they like what they do and want to develop and grow professionally. And as much as we rag on "profit-driven massive corporations", at the end of the day, they still provide good or services that benefit society. There's a lot of valid criticism of large corporations and the power they wield, but I don't think the work that people do should be dismissed as being useless or meaningless just because they happen to do it for a large corporation. Society ultimately still benefits from their work.

Long hours don't always equal efficiency, but working less doesn't always equal efficiency either. A lot of the time it just equals working less. I know people who work low hours who completely phone in their jobs and aren't good at their jobs at all, so I don't think any kind of generalization can be made either way about efficiency just from anecdotal evidence. (And I think that's a pretty broad generalization about the Japanese workforce, I don't think that's true or accurate in many cases). For most jobs with long hours, people have to work long hours not because they are just doing busywork, but because they have to finish the work that the client hired them to do within the time frame required, or to treat the patients that need to be treated, or develop and put out a new product on time, etc. Unfortunately, in this globalized world, things are very competitive and keep getting more so. If a law firm doesn't do their best, they could lose a case for their client because the opposing law firm worked harder. If a company doesn't do their best, they could lose a key customer or contract (like Intel losing Apple), or they could be late on the market with a new product and get their market share eaten away by someone else. Most of the time, the pressure and work isn't just for the sake of busywork, but to stay competitive.
 
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And really is this something we should fault Elle for? I’m not asking this to you specifically but everyone in general. I am definitely no fan of Elle’s and I think she is a greedy, lying moron, but I think the expectations of her career are a bit harsh. There are many people who are pushed into careers they think they should and can do, only to realize that they’re not up for the task and fail miserably at it when it’s too late to pull out. I am sure she deluded herself into thinking she was going to be a great lawyer someday, but she didn’t know how wrong for her it was until she interned at that firm...and they didn’t think she was very good either. And that’s ok!!! I’ll echo what others have said, I have a major problem with her lying about how hard she works and her job title (while she was at the MFDA in Vancouver), when really it is obvious to me she is an aspiring Stepford housewife. She isn’t a girlboss of any sort and it always triggered me when she used that title to describe herself and her channel. 🙄 And people bought into it, despite her obvious laziness and taking advantage of Joe multiple times.

Maybe this isn’t the same but I was in a prestigious graduate program myself and was told by the program to “resign” because I wasn’t doing well. It’s very dehumanizing to be told you’re just not good enough and that you should leave when most of your life you’ve believed that your good grades and hard work should get you somewhere. Sorry if my acceptance was given to me by mistake, but at the time I genuinely thought I was doing what I was meant to do.

I do work a regular job but I take pride in what I do. Maybe it isn’t as intellectual or as prestigious as my peers in my grad program but I’m a lot happier and like that I’m not stressed out all the time. Sure, I could find a better paying job but at least I don’t lie and play up my position.
I think it’s fine to work any job, attend college or opt for a trade, work 80 hour weeks or 25 hour weeks. The issue with Elle is in the old days of her channel, she always talked about her “busy, tiring days as a lawyer” when that wasn’t her job or life. Not to mention, she “inspired” a lot of subscribers who paid for her shoddy wares, supported her channel, and clicked on her affiliate links precisely because they thought she was this inspirational, female corporate lawyer who worked long hours and managed to cook, ran a “jewelry business,” and was interested in fashion. Her entire shtick was built around the life of a busy, female lawyer when it wasn’t true. She shopped during lunch time, wore heavy makeup and big hair, dressed like she was going to the country club all to be a “girlboss lawyer” when she basically worked a role that anyone could get with any undergraduate degree and pretended that dressing and acting in such an unprofessional way was par for the course for female law professionals. The equivalent would be someone that got a foreign engineering degree, tried practicing as an engineer but failed, but built an entire YouTube channel called “the lifestyle channel of a busy, girlboss in STEM in an uniform of low cut tops and high heels,” which is exactly what she did. That kind of image still intrigues and inspires a lot of young women and even older ladies because to this day, us ladies still struggle with “having it all.” Most women do end up sacrificing either their relationships and personal lives for certain career paths or take a massive step back in their careers to focus on family time, dating, and personal interests. To take advantage of that lack of clarity to make some extra cash shows just how low Eleonore F Lecocq is. If she just presented her channel as the lifestyle channel of a 20-something woman in an urban city, people wouldn’t have an issue with that. It’s pretty clear that she benefited massively subscriber-wise and financially speaking from pretending to be a successful, female lawyer.

I’m sorry to hear about what happened to you at the graduate program, and I hope you’re very happy with what you’re doing now. I’ve never been a huge advocate of graduate school and a lot of the most successful people I know didn’t go for years of extra schooling, so I hope you realize that graduating from that program (or not doing it) isn’t indicative of your intelligence or future success.
 
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No one is denying anyone a healthy work life balance, everyone is free to make their own choices and those choices are all completely valid. If people want to work a low stress job like Elle's last job, or even part time, or even not at all, more power to them. But in Elle's case, she shouldn't call herself a practicing lawyer when she doesn't want to do the work required for that job, and or act like she's some sort of hard-driving #girlboss when she actually works less than most other people.

Some people like their jobs, want to use their skills and education, want more responsibility at work, not just to earn money, but they like what they do and want to develop and grow professionally. And as much as we rag on "profit-driven massive corporations", at the end of the day, they still provide good or services that benefit society. There's a lot of valid criticism of large corporations and the power they wield, but I don't think the work that people do should be dismissed as being useless or meaningless just because they happen to do it for a large corporation. Society ultimately still benefits from their work.

Long hours don't always equal efficiency, but working less doesn't always equal efficiency either. A lot of the time it just equals working less. I know people who work low hours who completely phone in their jobs and aren't good at their jobs at all, so I don't think any kind of generalization can be made either way about efficiency just from anecdotal evidence. (And I think that's a pretty broad generalization about the Japanese workforce, I don't think that's true or accurate in many cases). For most jobs with long hours, people have to work long hours not because they are just doing busywork, but because they have to finish the work that the client hired them to do within the time frame required, or to treat the patients that need to be treated, or develop and put out a new product on time, etc. Unfortunately, in this globalized world, things are very competitive and keep getting more so. If a law firm doesn't do their best, they could lose a case for their client because the opposing law firm worked harder. If a company doesn't do their best, they could lose a key customer or contract (like Intel losing Apple), or they could be late on the market with a new product and get their market share eaten away by someone else. Most of the time, the pressure and work isn't just for the sake of busywork, but to stay competitive.

I believe that corporates operate to benefit primarily their shareholders. Sure, some of the shareholders will be pension funds comprised of money contributed by thousands of average Joes, but a lot of shareholders are just filthy rich 0.01% who hoard money and from time to time plug $10m spare change to a charity or two.

I understand that customers benefit from goods and services delivered by corporations but if companies wanted to be fair, they'd stop engaging in 'tax efficiency' (which effectively deprives society of money that can go towards education, health care, development, innovation) or accepting dirty money (multiple major banks were fined over the years for accepting huge deposits that were proceeds of criminal activity) etc.

Sure, working 20-hour weeks doesn't guarantee amazing output and there will always be chancers who twiddle their thumbs all day instead of doing stuff, but majority of people are honest and don't try to skive.

And just to clarify, i find Smelle presenting herself as a girlboss appalling. She is tricking her naive viewers into thinking she is a busy lawyer juggling career, side hustles, and bustling personal life. She never owned up to her lies and has a terrible passive aggressive behavior.
 
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I think it’s fine to work any job, attend college or opt for a trade, work 80 hour weeks or 25 hour weeks. The issue with Elle is in the old days of her channel, she always talked about her “busy, tiring days as a lawyer” when that wasn’t her job or life. Not to mention, she “inspired” a lot of subscribers who paid for her shoddy wares, supported her channel, and clicked on her affiliate links precisely because they thought she was this inspirational, female corporate lawyer who worked long hours and managed to cook, ran a “jewelry business,” and was interested in fashion. Her entire shtick was built around the life of a busy, female lawyer when it wasn’t true. She shopped during lunch time, wore heavy makeup and big hair, dressed like she was going to the country club all to be a “girlboss lawyer” when she basically worked a role that anyone could get with any undergraduate degree and pretended that dressing and acting in such an unprofessional way was par for the course for female law professionals. The equivalent would be someone that got a foreign engineering degree, tried practicing as an engineer but failed, but built an entire YouTube channel called “the lifestyle channel of a busy, girlboss in STEM in an uniform of low cut tops and high heels,” which is exactly what she did. That kind of image still intrigues and inspires a lot of young women and even older ladies because to this day, us ladies still struggle with “having it all.” Most women do end up sacrificing either their relationships and personal lives for certain career paths or take a massive step back in their careers to focus on family time, dating, and personal interests. To take advantage of that lack of clarity to make some extra cash shows just how low Eleonore F Lecocq is. If she just presented her channel as the lifestyle channel of a 20-something woman in an urban city, people wouldn’t have an issue with that. It’s pretty clear that she benefited massively subscriber-wise and financially speaking from pretending to be a successful, female lawyer.

I’m sorry to hear about what happened to you at the graduate program, and I hope you’re very happy with what you’re doing now. I’ve never been a huge advocate of graduate school and a lot of the most successful people I know didn’t go for years of extra schooling, so I hope you realize that graduating from that program (or not doing it) isn’t indicative of your intelligence or future success.
Thanks. 😊 I completely agree with everything you wrote. I believe the image she tried to portray was offensive, especially when I always thought she wasn’t who she thought she was. For the record, I wasn’t attracted to Elle’s channel because of her career/lifestyle. I was drawn due to one of her bag reviews. Otherwise, I was turned off by her obvious vanity and never fully believed anything she said about her job or what she did during the day. It really bewildered me reading how these women aspired for be like her and admired her when I thought she was a shill. 😂😂

I don’t know anyone in my office who dresses or acts like her...if I had to say it, she reminds me of an older receptionist I knew at my previous job. Big hair, heavy makeup, tall heels, and she had a richer, older partner that supported her lifestyle. Big difference between her and Smelle was that I loved that receptionist...she was a doll and fun to talk to and was open about her life.
 
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That's the thing Elle was selling the idea that you CAN have it all. You can work "busy lawyer hours" and "run a pearl business" and cook and have a "loving partner" when really it isn't realistic and she didn't have that all. That's what really bugged me about her, so many people give off the impression of having it all when really they may look like they have it on paper but they don't have it all and they aren't even happy on top of it.

My job compared, to my peers from professional school, is considered very cushy so I understand taking a pay cut to not have as much stress. But when you work for any corporation they care about numbers and money and not quality. Nothing wrong with just doing what is expected or a bit more because if you do push too hard and over work yourself not only will they expect that of you all the time you are setting yourself up for burn out.

Though I definitely think elle left earlier and spent a lot less time at her desk than she should have. I mean if everyone else there did that, then that's fine but she did spend a lot of her working day not at work.
 
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I think if we judge youtubers purely based on content creation, Elle is nowhere near the top LOL. She seems like she never bothers to edit her videos (those dreadful 3-2-1s) and a lot of her fashion content is outdated because she enjoys buying things after they've gone out of fashion for a heavy discount. Her bag collection is also fine for an average person (even though a lot of the stuff is genuinely ugly), but abysmal for a luxury youtuber (check out ladies like Mel in Melbourne, LVLoverCC, etc. and you'll see what I mean) but she's pivoted heavily to lifestyle and that's where all the lying started and to this day, she's still misrepresenting things on a regular basis. As far as lifestyle goes, we have women like Fleur De Force who despite not being relatable at all for the average person, is incredibly likable and puts out high quality content regularly. I won't even bother going into Beauty Gurus because there are so many that cover everything from drug store makeup to the high-end stuff to professional makeup artists, but Elle is honestly a bad youtuber regardless of what category you put her under. She relied so heavily on the fake lawyer image and having a man (remember how many views she attracted during Joe era?) and now both of these things are out of the picture.
 
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I appreciate what you're saying, and totally get that law is a really crazy field -- tons of graduates, lots of nepotism, and not that many jobs. Elle got good grades and had a fantastic articling position with one of Canada's top law firms. She did the work and I won't take that away from her.

My issue is that she sold herself as a #girlboss lawyer but never actually worked as one and also never moved up in that job. She also took that law school spot from someone who probably did some research and knew what they were getting themselves into. It's not like she was a random psychology major at some random school -- she attended a top UK law school!

At a certain point I think we have to acknowledge that even teenagers can do some basic research on majors/jobs. If you asked a 17 year-old what the life of a lawyer or ER doctor was like, I think they'd know it's tons of school and working all the time. You'd have to be incredibly dim and immature to think that Legally Blonde, for example, was accurate. Most teenagers and college kids are well aware of the pitfalls of law, medicine, business, and other fields we've always been told are safe and good choices.
I don't think most teens know what they're getting themselves into when they take on huge student loans, believe the crap that higher education is the road to financial success, or the pitfalls of law, medicine or business, even with family members in the field because our current environment is hugely more competitive than our parents's baby boomer generation. I work in a hospital and talk to a lot of doctors - most young ones regret their career choices on a daily basis but they don't have millions of dollars in inheritance and have to tough it out. When you're working 76 hours without sleep and crying in the bathroom in between your shifts because of the stress, being berated by your bosses if you don't measure up to a very very high standard (being solely responsible for 80 very sick patients, dealing with their families, and supervising students and residents, not to mention doing research, writing papers, and other such things), suddenly a Jill job working 9-5 isn't that bad anymore even with the lower pay.

I'm OK with Elle's taking a job at MDFA and working minimal hours. That's what she wants and she doesn't really need to extra money and prefers a stress free life.

I never believed Elle's BS of having it all or her lie of being a practicing lawyer. The way she talks, walks, dresses doesn't scream #girlboss #bigshotlawyer. She sounds frivolous and shallow. Even from day one. I could see the breakup with Joe from a mile away, even before they moved in together. Chris was the most suited for her - but he isn't a nice person and doesn't seem to be the marrying type so Elle was barking up the wrong tree. I relied on her content to give me some advise about luxury goods and shopping - of course I take all her "advice" with a grain of salt but we do have a similar body shape, are about the same age, live in similar climates and I love pearls as well (mostly because it looks classic and isn't expensive. You can get nice pearls at Winners and Chinatown where I get mine for $100).
 
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From my perspective, I agree with the posters indicating that it’s just plain unfair that Elle portrays herself as a busy, hardworking lawyer, when she clearly shows up late; shops, gets blowouts, goes to dim sum with Ginette, and runs errands during her workday; then clocks out early to get to her low impact gym class. Not that either lifestyle is better than the other, but when the person living the low-effort one detracts the effort and sacrifices of the people living high-effort ones by lying and claiming she does what they do, of course it’s deplorable, and of course we’re going to be angry that we’re being lied to.

I’m someone who loves to work and be productive and I think it’s just as narrow-minded and judgmental to put down my interest and passion in my work (even if it’s for a large corporation) as it is to put down those who choose a less strenuous lifestyle or prefer to spend their time doing other things. Why can’t we all just accept that different people like doing different things? Not all of us HAVE TO love traveling, mountain biking, walking around museums, or working 12 hour days. It’s ok to love working hard, and it’s ok to not.

As for the 996 culture, I worked a year in China, and it’s typical to have a 2.5 hour lunch break during which students and employees will nap and eat a slow lunch. I never got used to this the entire year. Sitting down to eat a family dinner, talking about your day, and helping your kids with their homework is a very western concept. In China, kids are very independent from their parents starting in elementary school and rarely sit down for screen-free meals with their parents. Parents don’t feel the guilt of needing to pick up their kids from school (grandparents will do this or kids walk home / take public transport) and spending every waking moment with them. They actually really only spend weekends with their children, if that. It’s a different paradigm so I won’t judge them for it from my perspective. I just wouldn’t prefer it, and unlike Elle, I won’t pretend I live that kind of lifestyle. I do want to clarify though, that 9 AM - 9 PM is only a 12 hour workday for a handful of employees. For the majority, it’s very much a 9 hour work day with other breaks included on top of the siesta lunch break.
 
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As much as I dislike Eleanor, I don't demean her not settling into a highly stressful lawyer position if it wasn't right for her. It aggravates me that she tries to make her job seem more glamorous, that's not right. She's always really struggled with honesty 🤣 I can speak from personal experience of being in a very fast-paced, EXTREMELY stressful retail job that paid handsomely... And hating it. Then making the painful decision to move to a different branch of my career, but the only spot available was part-time. Even though I ended up in a much better spot for my sanity, I beat myself up bc at the time I wasn't a mother and thought there was no reason to be PT at that point in my life. Worried how it would look to others. Now I'm a SAHM and have the new mental hurdle of feeling like I'm not worth as much as a working mother (even though being a SAHM is really difficult).

I think we all have enough negative internal self-talk going on that for others to judge our career choices is pretty wrong.

Eleanor, as much as I can't stand the majority of your personality... If you want the easier route, take it. Just for pete's sake, stop LYING ABOUT IT.
 
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Eleanor, as much as I can't stand the majority of your personality... If you want the easier route, take it. Just for pete's sake, stop LYING ABOUT IT.
She can't. Part of the reason why she started her youtube, to me, was to show off to others. Saying she's in a non-lawyer job would defeat the purpose.
 
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