Answers from the Corner Cubicle

Thank you everyone for your questions! I was really only expecting a few people to poke and prod at us and I was pleasantly surprised to get some great questions that a lot of us Working Girls ponder while twiddling our thumbs in our tiny working spaces. Without further adieu, here are my non-expert opinions and answers to your burning questions.

Ad Girl asked: Can you give me some tips on the best teeth whiteners? I can't survive without my coffee in the morning and multiple cups of green tea in the afternoon, but it's wrecking my teeth!

WG2 answered: I'm afraid I'm going to have to admit that I have actually had my teeth professionally whitened. I know, I know, I'm young. But I got them done at BriteSmile anyway before my debutante ball and it has actually lasted me past my college years. Only recently have I looked at my teeth and think I could do with a new set of pearly whites.

If I had to pick a teeth whitener though to wipe away the grime of caffeine, I would pick Crest Whitestrips Premium Plus. Of all the types of whitening systems on the market, this one gets the most praise and delivers the results you want to see. They are the most expensive of the Crest line at $35, but I think it would be worth it to have your pre-coffee binge smile back.

***

Anonymous asked: Do we have to take down all of our absurdly hilarious drunken photos on Facebook just because we're Working Girls? I refuse...

WG2 answered: I say, with great emphasis, absolutely not. Once you are employed, I don't think that your boss is going to take a lot of time out of his busy day to make sure you are being overly responsible on the weekends. It's your personal time and as long as you aren't logging into your Facebook/MySpace account everyday at work, I don't think doing damage control on your photos is a problem.

While yes, I think we should be careful (i.e. half/naked pics & drug paraphernalia = bad idea), I don't think that those of us who are employed need to be that worried. Those of you still in college though should be wary. When you start applying for jobs it's not a bad idea to de-tag those pics of you doing a beer bong or a keg stand. WG1 can attest this as she was once asked as an intern to look up future employees of her company on Facebook to make sure they would make a good fit with the company. My advice is to just be careful and use your best judgment in what pictures are appropriate for your future boss to see.

***

Anonymous asked: Personal photos on your desk....how do you feel about that?

WG2 answered: I am all for getting personal at work. A lot of people advise that portraits, mementos, etc. give off the air that you are easily distracted and therefore not a good worker. I personally, do not have any photos on my desk, but plenty of people in my office do and I definitely don't hold it against them. I mean, even my CEO has a huge portrait of his wife hung up on his corner office walls. I think it's all about what makes you comfortable. For example, I did have a photo of my cousin's newborn up in my cubicle for a hot sec until a few of my colleagues asked me how old my daughter was and how long I had been married. Yea, I squashed that rumor faster than you can say 'single white female'.

***

Anonymous asked: Let's hear about your lovely, talented, and sweet sister.

WG2 answered: If you didn't know before, you certainly could have guessed by now that I have a punk for a little sister. Even if she is a punk, I do agree that she is lovely, talented and a sweetie (and I miss her!). She lives back home in Chicago, loves to bake, is tall, blond, likes sports, cleaning & neat freak (a.k.a. she will make the perfect wife someday). Ironically, we are exact opposites. And I am very excited to be going back to the Windy City for a little visit this weekend where we will have many opportunities for some girl bonding.

***

The Blonde Blogshell asked: Where do you see yourself in 5 years? What do you look like? What is your most embarrassing moment? oh and...what am I thinking?

WG2 answered: Wow, all good questions. If you had asked me my senior year of college where I would see myself in the next five years, I know exactly what I would have said. I would be an editor (associate, assistant, maybe?) at a high-profile magazine, have a great Working Boy who loved to read, liked a Natty Light after a long day, and had a secret obsession for bad reality TV, and we would live in a great loft in NYC with a superb view. Now, with reality slowing hitting me I'm not quite sure how real that will all pan out (especially since I'm currently toiling away in marketing). But it's a dream that I someday want to make a reality. So (fingers crossed) I hope that is me five years from now!

You can sneak a peek of what WG1 looks like in this post she did on her desk at work. I, on the other hand, am trying to keep it highly anonymous. Without getting too much into detail, I'm short, have brown hair (that used to be long, but I just chopped it off a la Posh Spice), and have lots and lots of freckles.

My most embarrassing moments (yes, that's plural) both involve too much drinking and my senior year of college. My roommate and I both went to a school that lets its students live at the beach senior year. Once, after I left the bathroom during a day of afternoon drinking, I accidentally tucked my dress into my white bathing suit bottoms and then walked around The Point (which was heavily populated area at our school's beach area when it was nice out) and just about my entire class saw what looked like granny panties exposed for all the world to see. Not only that, but I then tripped on the deck of one of the beach houses. I was a beached whale wearing granny panties.

The second embarrassing moment involved a bathroom, one of our (not as close) guy friends, and an unlocked door. I still have not lived that one down.

And you're probably thinking I should stop going to the bathroom altogether since it is the root of all my embarrassment.

***

Maxie asked: Tell us your most embarrassing work story :-)

WG2 answered: I have been seriously racking my brain for something embarrassing I've done at work. And my only answer is I drank a little too much champagne at the office holiday party this past year and was tricked into singing "All I Want for Christmas" by Mariah Carey with my co-worker Vanessa. Turns out Vanessa was an excellent singer who sounded like Britney Spears before the drugs and I sounded like Alvin from Alvin and the Chipmunks. Slightly humiliating.

***

Anonymous asked: What's the best bit of office gossip you've ever heard? Or what about the best conversation you've overheard on a bus, street, train, etc? People say the craziest things...

WG2 answered: Next to this post when our facility coordinator got fired for watching porn at work, the best gossip I ever heard was actually when our magazine decided to only publish an online publication. Almost ten people got fired that day and I was center stage to watch it all go down. It was actually a very sad day because most of the people who left the company were friends. But that day was a crazy day for gossip -- I don't think I got any work done as I was too busy straining to hear conversations in the offices around me.

As for conversations I overhear, I think I need to put more thought into that. There is a whole site though devoted to conversations overheard in the office. I would check those out - and a plus is they update every hour!

***

Thanks for all your questions though! And don't worry WG1 will be back from South Africa soon and we can dispense of the boring posts about whitening my teeth and my embarrassing beached whale moments.