Working Girl's Guide #29: An ancient kitten, robot workers, and getting lost at sea

We’re talking Thanksgiving fits, staying sane when traveling home for the holidays, and my new love of baseball.

Let’s get into it.

A very old lost cat has been found

37,000 years ago (that makes my brain hurt), a cat cub died and was preserved in permafrost. And in 2020, that kitten was found by scientists—with its fur and flesh completely intact. A study just came out about in the the journal Scientific Report, which describes the cub as “covered with short, thick, soft, dark brown fur” and I’m not trying to be weird but in the pictures the baby sabre-toothed cat looks kind of weirdly cute?

Unfortunately everyone with an MBA is onto something

An article just came out about the most lucrative master’s degree options—so before you get that MFA in painting or whatever your quarter-life crisis may be urging you toward, consider these options! An MBA (unsurprisingly) ranks #1, and a Master of Science in Nursing comes in second—above a Master of Science in Computer Science, which actually very much surprised me. Read the whole list here.

Robots aren’t keeping up

For all that we talk about robots taking our jobs, there are still a bunch of jobs they’re failing at compared to human workers—some as simple as picking items at a warehouse. They’re bad at choosing an object from a container of many objects, and some warehouse robots stack boxes a lot more slowly than humans. Experts say they’ll get there, but for now, it seems like they’re not going to be taking over all our jobs right away.

My roommates and I decided to set sail this weekend along with 100 of our closest friends. Do I remember 100% of the night? I do not. But you’re only 27 in the middle of the San Francisco Bay once, right? Wrong! Will be doing this again next week! No, I’m kidding, there’s no way I could drink this much twice in one month. Will leave that for the youths among us. Here I am at sea with bae, consuming something questionably fluorescent.

So yes my shelf is decorated for Christmas even though it’s hardly Thanksgiving and also yes this is the perfect dress for eating as much as you want and not worrying about the effect of a tight waistband next Thursday. You know I love a matching set as much as anyone, but for eating-centric holidays (my favorite) I’m going for something loose, flowy, and comfortable so I can stuff myself with stuffing because life doesn’t have that many great pleasures. Aritzia describes it as Great Gatsby-core, which is genius.

So next week is Thanksgiving, which means many of us are probably traveling home over the coming days. I’m very lucky to be heading a short drive away to the South Bay, but even without getting on a plane etc., it’s still always chaos getting out of my routine and staying at my parents’ for a few days. Wouldn’t trade it for anything! But I love my routine, what can I say! If you’re traveling for the holidays, here are my recs for staying sane, the lazy way:

• Travel with resistance bands. I am always a better person if I get a little workout in. If you’re away for a few days or even the whole week, you might not have your gym/running route available to you, and packing some bands makes it super easy to get in even 10 minutes of movement in the morning. I promise your siblings will annoy you less after you’ve broken a sweat. These are very worth the $12.

• Pick your fits ahead of time! Your trip will be better if you’re not lugging around a million cute dresses that you haven’t worn in 3 years but just might pop out for Thanksgiving dinner. Spoiler alert: you will not.

• This one’s controversial but honestly I’m a big proponent of telling almost no one you’re home. I prefer to focus on family when I’m home for the holidays and would rather not feel pulled in a million directions to see everyone I grew up with.

Do you know what a right fielder is? I didn’t! Two-time World Series champion, four-time MLB All-Star, and three-time email sender Hunter Pence definitely does! Ross and I welcome our first-ever guest on the pod this week, and he’s not only a San Francisco Giants legend, but also an MLB commentator and multi-business owner. A lot of this convo is Ross and Hunter geeking out about baseball, video games, and board games while I politely keep the conversation on track, but even if you’re not a baseball fan, there’s a lot in this for you, including how to laugh without smiling (important and underrated skill). Listen here.

Thanks for reading!