Wedding dress YES, NYC with mom, dorm rooms that cost $20k

Parents are spending $20k to renovate their kids’ dorm rooms. Also: fixing AI’s mistakes is surprisingly lucrative, and I have a thrilling new book rec for the corporate girls - especially those of you in male-dominated fields!

Let’s get into it.

Dorm room makeovers that cost up to $20,000?!!

I don’t know about you, but my dorm room decor was a tapestry nailed to the wall and a thousand little black tops scattered all over the floor because I was VERY. MESSY. If you’ve seen dorm-room-transformation-tok, then you’re aware of this crazy new trend, in which parents are dropping up to $20,000 to redo their kids’ dorm rooms. I’m shook! I’m all for college students feeling comfortable and expressing their personal style - but these lavish dorm rooms are maybe a little much? Isn’t part of the college experience roughing it a bit??

New job alert: AI babysitting

You’ve probably seen the countless ways AI can mess up: rendering hands in pictures that look totally scary; wigging out at drive-thrus; the list goes on. Enter a new category of gig work: human-izing AI-generated content to make it better. One illustrator, who originally worried she’d be out of a job, is now busy with editing work: clients send her wonky AI-generated images and ask her to fix them. While it’s certainly true that many jobs are getting replaced by artificial intelligence, we’re also seeing plenty of writers, artists, and software developers getting hired to fix AI writing, images, and code.

Unemployment is up, especially for the youngest subset of workers

On September 5, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported an increase in unemployment: we’re up to 4.3.%, which is the highest unemployment rate we’ve seen since 2021. Workers between 16 and 24 are facing the highest unemployment rates, at a whopping 10.5%; some experts are saying AI is replacing lots of the internship-type-jobs that used to go to high school and college kids.

Apologies to those of you who had to brave my 100-slide Instagram story recap of my shopping trip this past weekend. But it was a big weekend! First of all, I said yes to the dress (major shoutout to my mom for joining me in NYC and making the experience so special!)! Also enjoyed a private shopping experience in which this lovely gentleman brought us Hugo spritzes (current drink of choice) while we tried on clothes. What more could I ask for?

The one day I don’t wear all white, I wear all black. Perfect for mourning if you’ve been mandated to return to the office! Currently 30% off at Ann Taylor!

As a woman who went from male-dominated IT consulting to managing an all-female team, I can confirm: my workplace personality has done a full 180. Even in 2025, navigating work as a woman can still feel unnecessarily… complicated.

Enter this week’s “lazy girl” rec for anyone looking for guidance but not wanting to break the bank with expensive 1:1 coaching: POWERFULLY LIKEABLE by Kate Mason (yes, I do read sometimes: humble brag).

I used to think success meant acting like the men in the room: firm and unbothered. Kate calls out this exact trap, offering tips, scripts, and the confidence boost to ditch “Imposing Syndrome” and lead with authenticity and warmth. She doesn’t just tell you what to do - she shows you. Corporate gals, this one’s for you. Here’s the link!

Thanks for reading!