Send questions about the office, money, careers and work-life balance to workfriend@nytimes.com. Include your name and location, or a request to remain anonymous. Letters may be edited. Dreaming of an Office Door I’m a communications professional interviewing for new jobs. My greatest hope for my next position is that it will not be remote and…
Sliding into a stranger’s DMs wasn’t something James Miles had ever considered … until he spotted Meron Haile on a friend’s Instagram in December 2016. He then asked the mutual friend, Leah Ojesina, to vouch for him, which she did, telling Ms. Haile she thought they would be great together, or at least good friends,…
James Wilt, razor-sharp in a jet-black suit, stood between his two daughters: Melinda Stone on his left, beaming in a white, floor-length gown, and Mary Wilt to his right, in a sparkly knee-length dress. Ms. Stone, 56, and Ms. Wilt, 51, each held their 79-year-old father’s hands, and all three began moving forward as Mendelssohn’s…
As a child, Kevin Brousard loved the surf vibe of his hometown San Clemente, Calif., where his family lived for several generations. Born with a genetic disability that left him partially sighted but legally blind, he spent many idyllic days bodysurfing, though that didn’t cancel out the relentless bullying and teasing he received from schoolmates.…
A friendship lasting a decade, a first kiss in the ocean, and a post-wedding photo shoot attended by a pod of seals. Chelsea Bruck and Cyril Bennouna’s love story reads much like a fairy-tale romance, with a modern twist. The couple first met as teenagers at New Rochelle High School in New Rochelle, N.Y., when…
RALEIGH, N.C. — Sometimes inspiration flies up and smacks you in the face. That’s what happened to the jewelry maker Susan Reynolds. “One day I was walking my dog and this cicada flew around and hit me in the head, then it fell to my feet,” Ms. Reynolds said. Once they emerge, cicadas have only…
“I joined the League and hit a home run,” Jillian Mariutti recently told a friend. Ms. Mariutti, 36, a senior director on the debt and equity financing team at JLL Capital Markets in New York, was not bragging about hitting a ball over a distant wall, but rather, about the good fortune she had in…
During their first date, at a gallery in Manhattan in November 2019, Caitlin Wynne Fitzmaurice and Richard Lathen Thompson broached the topic of grief. They had matched on the dating app Hinge a week earlier and at the gallery, Ms. Fitzmaurice mentioned that she was from California. When Mr. Thompson asked if she went back…
Troy Alim II didn’t mean to be rude when he interrupted a conversation Whitney Jean was having during a Chicago voter-registration drive in 2016. But when he overheard her asking why they weren’t reaching people in certain communities and how they might be able to fix it, he couldn’t resist. “You could tell she wanted…
A heart made of seashells or perhaps the candlelit path leading down to the beach might have suggested the kind of night Dr. Kerry Morrison was about to have on Christmas Eve 2018. But she thought it was going to be simply another evening at her family’s house on the beach in Fairfield, Conn., where…