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How to keep a family together - Penelope Trunk Careers
I’m meditating now because it slows down time and I only have 14 more weeks until both my kids are at college. When Z is reading on the couch, and Nino is reading next to him, I pull up a chair and meditate with my eyes open because I don’t want to miss this moment. […]
Questionnaire for everyone who stopped talking to me - Penelope Trunk Careers
I’ve developed a survey to give to people who slipped me into their not-friend category. Since I’m a person with no ability to cope with nuance, answers to all questions are yes/no. 1. Were you ever my real friend? I want to know if you needed me like I needed you, but I don’t want […]
My Jewish college kid is protesting the war in Gaza. And I'm proud. - Penelope Trunk Careers
In the last 48 hours many of Y’s friends have been arrested for being part of an anti-war encampment at their college. I am shocked by the large number of college encampments across the US, but I knew this was coming because Y (who goes by they) has been discussing it for months. We are […]
What explains the outsized success of autistic applicants to college - Penelope Trunk Careers
Z went to a Duke recruiting weekend where accepted kids can get a feel for the university. He hung out with some kids who decided to go to Harvard and Stanford, and a bunch of kids who decided on Duke. What was similar about all of them? They talked openly about having autism. At lunch […]
How to get funding from deluded, self-congratulating investors - Penelope Trunk Careers
From 1997 to 2012 just 1% of VC funded companies had female founders. Three of those companies were mine. People tell me it’s much better for women now, but statistically, this is BS. I raised money for a startup recently, and here’s what I found works best for female founders: Get a male cofounder. Women raising money without […]
WNBA is totally annoying, here's how to fix it for Caitlin Clark's arrival - Penelope Trunk Careers
Professional women’s basketball is a cesspool of mediocrity full of women gatekeeping so the sport can’t change. Fortunately, incoming rookie Caitlin Clark is worth more than the entire WNBA due to her sponsorships. This means that unlike other players, Clark doesn’t work for the WNBA she works for her sponsors and her fans. Also, Clark […]
Why am I subscribed to Penelope's Substack? - Penelope Trunk Careers
I had email FOMO. I could be making a million dollars a year from my subscriber list! I read email marketing advice like it was porn — people say it can happen but I don’t think it really does happen. Finally I capitulated and started collecting data. The best insight from that data set is […]
How my son got into Duke - Penelope Trunk Careers
The worst criticism I’ve ever received from an editor is “it sounds like ChatGPT wrote this.” But as soon as Melissa told me that I thought: she’s right. Unfortunately, she said this about the post I wrote about my son getting into Duke. So I’m trying again because I need to tell you that he […]
How my son got into Duke - Penelope Trunk Careers
The worst criticism I’ve ever received from an editor is “it sounds like ChatGPT wrote this.” But as soon as Melissa told me that I thought: she’s right. Unfortunately, she said this about the post I wrote about my son getting into Duke. So I’m trying again because I need to tell you that he […]
How to be a better listener: Lessons from the Interruption Queen - Penelope Trunk Careers
My son met a Ukrainian girl over the summer, and after telling me it was a summer fling because she barely speaks English, he started learning Russian and seeing her all the time. The relationship became a race – could she learn English before he learned Russian. Her school is in an enclave of all […]
The British royal family has ended - Penelope Trunk Careers
William is done being heir to the throne. Not completely surprising since ruling the royal roost destroyed the lives of everyone before him. Maybe the throne would have been manageable for William if women he dated wanted to be royal. But only Kate would put up with it. Maybe the throne would have been manageable […]
How to get control of your life (and respect to Kate Middleton) - Penelope Trunk Careers
Last month I spent tons of time going to the hospital for cancer tests. Which means I got clarity about what was really important: getting dressed for doctor visits. I felt way too tired to stick to my regular routine of promising to post on my blog and then not doing it, but I didn’t […]
Playbook for stage xx cancer - Penelope Trunk Careers
It might be cancer. I have two more doctor appointments on Tuesday and maybe even more after that. My mom is coming to Boston to go with me so I am not going alone. My brother comes three days later. I’m so tired. I think back to how I used try to write blog posts […]
A blog is maybe more valuable than a credit score - Penelope Trunk Careers
You know how if you have to be somewhere early in the morning and it’s super important then you can’t sleep the night before? That was me. I finally went to sleep at 3am and then I was an hour late for my 9am appointment. The courtroom was full and on one side were white people […]
How scientists measure if you have good friends - Penelope Trunk Careers
I thought the good friend test was who do I tell that I got a job at Harvard. But I ended up telling everyone. Then I thought maybe the good friend test was who can I reach out to when I’m having a total breakdown? But again, the answer is everyone, because no one solo […]
How to choose an apartment - Penelope Trunk Careers
I don’t make Nino pay child support and I pay him back for almost all the money he spends when he’s with the kids. He just sent me an accounting for all the times I haven’t paid him back in 15 years. I owe him $8540. I told him he has to wait because I’m […]
A new course! Plus, the unveiling of my secret YouTube channel - Penelope Trunk Careers
When I announced I’m doing research about autism at Harvard, people said, Academia requires too much patience! You’ll lose your mind! Undaunted I came up with a new paper every week for the first year. The papers were awful, but as a writer I didn’t mind writing to learn. So it turned out that […]
That Gen-X time latchkey kids were encouraged to collect rodents - Penelope Trunk Careers
In the 70s my family’s knowledge of plastic exceeded our knowledge of gerbils, so we bought two girl gerbils and a plastic Habitrail cage because it didn’t look like a cage at all. The two girls made babies, and started eating them. We thought that meant the cage was too small, so we bought […]
Claudia Goldin won the Nobel Prize for the truth about women and work. Whooo hooo! - Penelope Trunk Careers
After 20 years of blogging, learning to do academic research was a steep learning curve. People told me to ask for help from professors at Harvard because they’d feel obligated to help me because I’m at Harvard as well. In fact most did not even feel obligated to reply to my email. But Claudia replied. […]
Lessons from the bottom rung of academia - Penelope Trunk Careers
I’m scared to talk about my job at Harvard because of imposter syndrome. But I know from experience that writing here and talking about myself incessantly is the way to beat it. If I post about things that make me nervous, then the people who are going to call me out will do it right […]
9/11: What's still the same - Penelope Trunk Careers
I still have not seen a video of the towers falling. But I started reading commentary about it this past year. I have never stopped thinking about the people jumping from the towers. Maybe because after the second plane hit, my brain couldn’t comprehend anything really, it was all abstract and unreal. But when my […]
This guy said I charge too much for coaching, then he showed up to my door - Penelope Trunk Careers
There are some people I’ve been coaching since they were in high school. Usually their parents pay for the first few sessions and then I get overinvested in the kid. So I have to stop and ask myself: “Does this family have $30,000 for me to coach the kid for a year?” Sometimes the answer […]
The Barbie movie crushes the Chief.com pyramid scheme - Penelope Trunk Careers
I was an early adopter of a bad attitude toward Chief — as soon as they announced they’re “a network of 2000 female executives on their way up.” I don’t think there are 2000 women in all of corporate America who want to climb up the ranks to be CEO. This year Chief raised $100 million from […]
Fangirl swoon: Agent 86 replies! - Penelope Trunk Careers
Below is a comment from my last post about the Wikipedia editor who kept trolls from deleting my page. I know you have no reason to believe this, but I’m Agent 86. I haven’t followed your blog or been on Wikipedia in years. In fact, not trying to be rude, I had forgotten about you […]
Love letter to Wikipedia Editor Agent 86 - Penelope Trunk Careers
Y is home from college for the rest of the summer and tells me he wants a job. So I tell him my server has 25 years of posts on it and I lost some, so I need him to go on the Wayback Machine and find them. “What did you lose?” “My hypertexts.” “What?” […]
Grappling with the death of Heather Armstrong: Where does Dooce leave us now? - Penelope Trunk Careers
John Gallagher wrote his dissertation about how people with a large following online relate to comments from their audience. Over many years he interviewed people who were top Redditors, top Amazon reviewers, and he interviewed Heather and me. Heather and I both started blogs in 2002, we both got in trouble for writing about our coworkers, we […]
Revelation: Parenting is a social skill too - Penelope Trunk Careers
This is a picture of indomitable me: Look at the Cartier watch. I bought it with the stock sale from my first startup. It felt like money was falling from the sky, so ten grand for a watch was nothing. We walked through Central Park every day to get to the top nursery school for […]
How to stop having transactional friends - Penelope Trunk Careers
I’m going to stop being so transactional. This means that I’m not going to be as pissy as usual when your comments don’t come as frequently as they used to. Well. Hold on. Right now I spend half my time reading science journals and I can’t help pausing when I see a paper about social […]
Vaginal rejuvenation, feminism, dog whistle, dog whistle - Penelope Trunk Careers
The first time I heard about vaginal rejuvenation surgery was at a brunch when I was in my late 30s. I love brunch because it feels Jewish. After I typed this I googled it to make sure I wasn’t crazy. And it turns out that while there is no causation, there is correlation: the more […]
Autism research that fixes your life - Penelope Trunk Careers
My Autism Workshop start this Wednesday. You should join. People say to me, “Why does it matter if I have autism or not?” The answer is you can transform your life by using what we know about autism to your benefit. Experience the intellectual jolt of an autistic group. We have a love/hate relationship with […]
If autism means genius why do I stay in bed? - Penelope Trunk Careers
I kept this picture to remind myself that when I don’t want to get out of bed and I do anyway, I’m glad I did. The picture doesn’t inspire me, so I’m putting it here to remind us all that tricks for self-discipline that work for most people do not work for people with autism. […]
Open letter to Boston University's business school students - Penelope Trunk Careers
I was walking my dog in the Boston Common today, near the Embrace. A controversial sculpture is a great place to train an Australian Shepherd because people approach from all angles in the park with intention. Then people slow down and meander, directionless, trying to understand which way to look at the sculpture. Herding dogs do […]
I'm a guest on this podcast. Does that mean we're friends? - Penelope Trunk Careers
I’ve stopped saying yes to interviews because I piss people off. Or I scare them. I’m not sure I can tell the difference. If someone hangs up in the middle I know they hate me, but if someone doesn’t hang up in the middle but also doesn’t use the interview, I think, maybe they liked […]
Read this quick. I'm breaking news about Harry and Meghan! - Penelope Trunk Careers
Why is no one wondering why Netflix paid so much money? I’m surprised. It seems so obvious to me, so I haven’t said anything, but it’s one day before the show starts and I have to say it now so everyone knows I was right. Before I tell you what’s in the Netflix movie, I […]
Why autistic women have brains built for writing memoir - Penelope Trunk Careers
My earliest memory is when I learned to read. I was three. I sat in a tiny rocking chair in my grandma’s house with Dick and Jane. And it just clicked. I didn’t know how I read the words, but I did. In kindergarten a teacher asked, “Who knows what elamenopee means?” I could […]
Is medical school worth it for women? - Penelope Trunk Careers
Women who are really good at school think a great way to celebrate that is to go to medical school. People admire you! It’s great money! And there’s flexible hours for moms! But this is what really happens to women who go into medicine: The majority will not work full-time after having children. And once […]
Making space for something new - Penelope Trunk Careers
I tell Z I’m going to my garden next to our building. He doesn’t respond. So I sing to him. We have determined that he tunes me out most of the time, but he doesn’t if I sing to him. He tells me not to take it personally but regular talking is really uninteresting to […]
Your partner isn't a narcissist. He has autism. And so do you. - Penelope Trunk Careers
No one has devised a perfect questionnaire for determining a narcissist, which is why the New York Times makes the argument for cutting narcissism from the DSM. We know what narcissism looks like: pompous clowns who are sad on the inside, treat people like shit wherever they go, and perhaps most importantly, have no idea […]
Autism workshop/seminar/discussion magnum opus cursum - Penelope Trunk Careers
As you may know, I’m doing research at a lab at Harvard where I focus on autistic women. One thing I’ve learned is there are lots of easy, objective tests we can give ourselves to determine if we have biological markers for autism. I’m excited to share those with you so we don’t have to […]