We've Moved!

We've been a little quiet lately. Did you think we fell off the face of the earth...again?

This time, we have a REALLY good reason. We've finally made the big move to our very own url and have a beautiful new design!

We hope you'll continue to read about our daily adventures in the working world at our new location: Working Girl. Check it out, we've got a fun giveaway for you today!

But I Am Le Tired

by Working Girl One

Has this summer gone by faster than any summer ever before, or is it just me?

I feel like I'm traveling every other weekend and the weekends I home are spent catching up on errands and life. All of this is making me one tired Working Girl.

Last week, I overslept three times and was late to work twice. I've been passing out on the train and drinking grande iced coffees like it's my job. Somehow, I'm still exhausted.

Every morning, I wake up with intentions of getting home from work, going to the gym, cooking dinner, paying bills, reading, blogging...the list goes on. And every night, when I get home, I usually throw my purse done, grab a spoonful of peanut butter and park on the couch until I realize I should probably make something reasonable for dinner.

I see people I work with, my friends and bloggers I'm obsessed with work full time, keep an active social life and have time to dedicate to a hobby on the side and all I do I wonder how they do it. How do you all do it?

I'm guessing you (and they) probably don't do it by staying up past midnight to watch the Real Housewives of New York reunion and Watch What Happens Live, like I am right now.

Working Girl Wears: Fashion Favorites

by Working Girl One

If you're anything like me, at least twice a week you stand in front of your closet, throw your arms up in defeat and declare "I hate all of my clothes!"

OK, fine, more like four times a week.

I love shopping and I love buying new clothes, but I'm terrible -- and always have been -- at putting outfits together. I blame this on the fact that most of my time growing up was spent in my Catholic school uniform. I pretended like I hated every moment of wearing that thing, but I loved wearing it. Love, love, loved it.

Unfortunately, my job does not come with a uniform. In fact, my company is known for it's fashion magazines. I thought I knew what it felt like to be self-conscious about your clothes, but it wasn't until I stepped into the elevators at my company and received the up-and-down from a group of girls, that I truly knew.

So, what's a Working Girl to do? Turn to the internet, of course. I have a few favorite fashion bloggers that I love and turn to often for outfit inspiration:

Jessica Quirk of What I Wore:
Jessica has been documenting her outfits for four years, and while her closet is probably 17 times the size of mine, her posts help me to find several uses for one piece and often inspire me to go digging in my closet for a piece I forgot I had.

Maegan Tintari of ...love Maegan:
Maegan's posts not only inspire me to have fun with my clothes and put together outfits for work and play, her DIY posts are fun and easy to follow. I recently followed her DIY to make a long skirt out of a too-short maxi dress.

Anh of 9to5Chic:
What I would give to look this put together 24/7. Anh is a 9 to 5 girl (just like us!) and posts her work outfits along with her more causal weekend outfits. I may just have to copy this look sometime this week:
Tall Girl Tales:
I wouldn't be a savvy Working Girl if I didn't try to catch a sale or two as I try to expand my wardrobe. For an almost daily list of online and in-store sales, I turn to Tall Girl Tales, who also shares her favorite fashion finds and daily outfits.

Those are my go-tos ladies. Anyone else I need to add to my list? I need all the help I can get.

Everybody Make Mistakes. Everybody Has Those Days.

by Working Girl One

(Name that song!)

Over the course of my short career I have found that in publishing when someone makes a mistake, it is the end of the world. Really. You're either thinking that I'm being super dramatic or you know exactly what I'm talking about.

With the way some people react to things, you'd think I was working in an operating room and was responsible for life and death.

A friend of mine recently told me about a friend of hers, a nurse, who misplaced a human organ at work. A human organ (!!!). It was needed for testing or something, she wasn't exactly sure. One would think this is pretty big deal but all this person had to do was sign some papers and that was that. No yelling, no snarky emails, no CC-ing of your boss and your boss's boss and your boss's boss's boss.

I turned to another friend who was listening to the story and also works in publishing.

"Seriously?" I said. "Someone actually loses a human organ and it's no big deal and when I have a typo in an email to a client, people act like I've killed someone?!"

Often, a huge deal is made of something that is not that huge. When mistakes are made or projects don't go as planned, it's absolutely necessary to review what happened and learn from it.

But wouldn't it be great, if everyone would take a moment to take a step back, think about the situation and remember that most of us aren't saving lives? A lot of time could be saved and stress avoided.

Meeting Notes

Meeting Notes is our weekly feature where we dish on tidbits, news and other important things Working Girls should know. Here are a few things to glean from this work week:

• Remember wanting to do everything your friends did when you were young? The Huffington Post analyzes how women do this as adults. Do you let your friends or coworker's choices affect how you feel about the choices you make? [Huffington Post]

• Facebook's COO, Sheryl Sandberg, is stirring up a bit of controversy with her views on successful women vs. successful men. Jezebel sums it up for us here: [Jezebel]

• Think only powerful men are cheaters? Think again. According to the Huffington Post, a new study shows that powerful women cheat just a much as powerful men. [Huffington Post]

• This is a must read: It's not going to turn out the way you thought. [katemoller.com]

Meeting Notes

Meeting Notes is our weekly feature where we dish on tidbits, news and other important things Working Girls should know. Here are a few things to glean from this work week:

• Don't deny it, you need your daily Diet Coke to get through the day too! But it's an innocent addiction, right? Maybe not. It may have zero calories but it could harm you according to recent studies. [Jezebel]

• How do you sign your emails? If you are like me, "Best" is probably your go-to sign-off. I've always liked it but some Working Girls (and Boys) think it's rude. [Thought Catalog]
  

• Bad day at the office? Just be thankful you aren't the rectal thermometer tester at Johnson & Johnson. [via]

• Holy hangover. We sure can't drink we like we used. OK, we can drink like we used to but we sure can't recover like we used to. Thankfully the ladies at Jezebel have some tips for sleeping it off at the office. [Jezebel]

Leaving Early Guilt

by Working Girl One

And by early, I mean I reasonable hour like 6pm.

I hate working late. Hate it. Some people don't mind it, some even like it. I totally get it, at the end of the day, when everyone else has packed up and gone home, you can finally have some peace and quiet to get your work done.

I am not one of those people. I never was. I prefer getting in early or working through lunch. And with an hour or so long commute these days, I am so not one of those people.

Over the last few weeks, I've gotten pretty good at getting my work done at a reasonable hour. Could I stay later and get even more work done? Sure, there is always work to be done. But it's summer and I just want to get to the train and get home.

So, I leave. And I feel guilty about it. I am usually one of the first people to leave and while I know others are only 15 or 20 minutes behind me, I hate being the first. I hate the idea of my boss calling my name from her office and realizing I'm not there. Would she really care if I wasn't? Probably not. She's one of those people who doesn't mind staying late and she knows I have a commute.

I was raised Catholic so I blame it on my Catholic Guilt. But it's something I have to get over. If I complete all my work, I deserve to leave at a reasonable hour, no?

Foodie Girls

I consider myself a wannabe-foodie. Cooking and eating are two of my favorite things to do. I wish my job could be to watch Food Network all day and I could spend hours in a Whole Foods or at a Farmer's Market. I subscribe to several cooking magazines and own way too many cookbooks.

So I was very excited to see Gourmet Live's list of 5o Women Game Changers on one of my favorite food blogs, The Kitchn. This is where the wannabe part comes in. The only names I knew, apart from Julia Child, were the women with cooking shows on Food Network and Ree Drummond, a.k.a. The Pioneer Women, who I love (love, love, love!) and will soon have her own show on Food Network.

I've watched enough cooking competition reality shows (which obviously makes me an expert) to know that the culinary industry has been a predominately male for a long time. It's exciting to see a strong list of women in the culinary world. They aren't the top women, they are the game changers, which is important to point out.

Julia Child brought French cooking to the American home and Ree Drummond became one of the faces of well-executed food blogging. Did you know that food-critic Gael Greene (you've probably seen her on Top Chef) founded CityMeals on Wheels? They aren't just part of the industry -- they're changing it.

Wicked Smaht

Amy Poehler is a smart, funny lady and she gave a fantastic speech at Harvard Class Day a couple of weeks ago.

The video, posted on Harvard Magazine's YouTube page, has been making the rounds on the internet but if you haven't watched it yet, I recommend you do.

In addition to her usual humor, she gives the Harvard Class of 2011 some useful, simple advice that definitely comes in handy, even after a handful of years in the working world.

Cruel Summer

by Working Girl One

Remember summer vacations?

I don't think I've had a proper summer vacation since the summer between my junior and senior years of high school. But even when I was working my Working Girl tush off to earn money for college, I at least had a full week off to spend at the Jersey Shore with my family.

(And no, where we go is NOT AT ALL like Jersey Shore you see on MTV.)

This summer, no such vacation will be happening for this girl. At my new company, I have two weeks vacation that earn over the course of the year. And I haven't earned much of it yet. At my last company, I had earned three weeks. I tried to negotiate for another week but being unemployed and all didn't really give me the upper hand. To top that off, at my new job we have two busy seasons and one happens to be during the summer.

So instead of enjoying a full week off, I'll spend the two weekends that cover my family's trip with them and the boyfriend and I have a wedding to attend and a short weekend trip planned. A few mini-vacations in better than nothing, right?

Working Girl Travel Tip: Express Lane

Now, I don't know how true this is or if the airlines have caught on but I spotted the below travel tip on Tumblr yesterday and had to share. It's worth trying, right?

From Simply Jess on Tumblr:

How To Cheat The ‘Boarding By Zone’ System

A friend of mine recently taught me this genius trick and it’s worked every single time I’ve flown. Ya’ll have to try it.

Let’s suppose you have a carry-on size bag that you don’t want to check. Baggage fees are ridiculous, waiting 30 minutes at baggage claim is annoying, and you risk the possibility of the airline losing your bag. Problem is, if you carry the bag on and you’re in boarding zone 4, all the overhead bin space will undoubtedly be full by the time you actually get on the plane, and you’ll be forced to check your bag. Not cool. Here’s where the trick comes in.

When you check-in online, be sure to have the boarding pass sent to your mobile device via text or email. It will look like the picture above. Then, when they start to call boarding zones, just board with the rest of the zone 1 people (even if you’re boarding pass says zone 4 below the QR code). Put your phone under the scanner and walk on confidently. The QR code cell phone images are not integrated with the airline zoning systems. The gate agent will NOT stop you and tell you to board with your own zone and you will NOT have to check your bag. It’s fool-proof.

Let’s just hope the airlines don’t start to catch on.

I'm Sorry I'm Sorry

by Working Girl One

Do you ever feel like you're being a huge annoyance to the people you work with? Like you're stalking people via email? It's the story of my life recently and I always feel bad about it.

At work, this never used to be a problem. Maybe because I was at my last job for so long that I was very comfortable. I knew my role and the roles of the people I worked with. Sure, every now and then an email started with "apologies for..." but everyone does that. Right?!

Lately, I feel like I'm always apologizing. I've been working on a big project in an area that is new to me. There have been a lot of growing pains. A lot. I've been apologizing to the vendor who is executing the day-to-day of the project, the internal people in my company of whom I've asked dozens of questions, my co-workers, my boss.

There is no reason for me to be apologizing. Especially to the vendor working on the project. The vendor is working for me and I might be a PIA but isn't that pretty much a pre-req for being the client?

This was something that came up at my last job. Working on events, you sometimes have to be a bit stern and harsh with the vendors you're working with. It's something I've always had a problem with. Maybe it's because I like being liked or don't want to be a bitch or that I let sympathy take over.

Too often I put myself in the vendors' shoes and think "they are working really hard, if it were me I'd want the client to be nice to me." But I should be thinking "if I were in their shoes, I'd be doing x, y and z to make this perfect for my client." Over time, I think, I hope, I've gotten a bit better (and I definitely still have some room for improvement).

For last week or so I've stopped myself every time I've typed "I'm sorry" or "apologies for" because really, I'm not sorry. I'm not sorry I didn't get to your email yesterday, I was swamped and it wasn't a priority. I'm not sorry I'm following up for the third time on something that should have been completed by now.

I still have to make a conscious effort not to apologize, but hopefully, I'm on the right track.

So I Moved

by Working Girl One

In college Working Girl Two and I were of the first of our friends to intern and live in the big city. We thought were so cool because, well, we were. OK, we probably weren't.

Spending the summer living and working in Manhattan immediately established us as city girls. We were going to graduate, get awesome jobs at magazines, live in awesome apartments and soak up each other's awesomeness (name that movie).

Instead, we moved to a not-so-awesome apartment in Hoboken and were working as assistants in Manhattan. Not exactly the city and not exactly glamorous jobs. Still, we were honorary city girls.

A year later I moved to the city and thought I was there to stay. Another year later, the boyfriend and I moved in together to a lovely fifth floor walk-up on the Upper East Side. We were on the track to stay in Manhattan forever. And by forever, I mean, until my first kid had to go to preschool. I had no intentions of dealing with the shenanigans of getting a 3-year-old into glorified day care on the Upper East Side.

I thought I'd work my way up in the publishing world, make a decent living and gallivant around like a real New Yorker.

Then, I lost my job and the boyfriend got a new one in Connecticut. After I started working again, we decided the right thing to do was move out of the city and closer to his job. I couldn't believe myself when I said the words: "we should move to Connecticut." My friends couldn't either. "I can't picture you anywhere but New York!" was the reaction I received from most of them when I broke the news.

Cue mini quarter-life identity crisis. Thinking of myself as a "city girl" for a few years, I expected to feel different as a "Bridge and Tunneler," -- like I didn't belong in the city anymore or had lost my New York street cred. But apart from maybe being more tired, I feel the same and am not-so-secretly enjoying my suburban life.

Sure, my commute is longer but I have time to read again and I come home to a spacious apartment with a dishwasher AND a washer/dryer. I no longer have a bodega across the street to pick up milk (and Ben & Jerry's) but I have a huge supermarket and I can pack my groceries in a car. Despite having a longer commute, I feel like I have more of a life, an adult life here. It's hard to explain. Maybe it's the nice apartment or that we made a (relatively) big life decision together, but I really feel like a grown up.

I do missing living in Manhattan but I still get my daily fix of the city Monday through Friday and with occasional weekend trips. And yes, it is sometimes frustrating to leave happy hour early to catch the train but, I must say, I'm happy with our choice and my "Bridge and Tunneler" status.

Would You Rather...?

by Working Girl One

Good Work & Good People. What a world it would be if we could always have both! If you HAD to choose, would you rather do work that you love with people you dislike or do work you dislike with people you love?

{image via}

Get Your 'Tina Fey' Glasses

by Working Girl One

Most of my commute last week was spend reading Tina Fey's Bossypants. If you happened to be on Metro North (oh yeah, I moved...more on that later) last week and noticed a girl in stitches reading an iPad and nearly spitting her coffee on it, you probably saw me.

Rather than providing a full review of her memoir, I thought I'd just share just a few of my favorite quotes. Because, really, if you like Tina Fey (and who doesn't?), you'll love, love, love Bossypants...even if the cover grosses you out a bit.

There were so many gems of advice sprinkled throughout the hilarious stories of Tina Fey's life that I nearly highlighted the entire book. These are a few of many career-related nuggets that I just had to share.

"Some people say 'Never let them see you cry.' I say, if you're so mad you could just cry, then cry. It terrifies everyone."

"Contrary to what I believed as a little girl, being the boss almost never involves marching around, waving your arms, and chanting, "I am the boss! I am the boss!'"

"This is what I tell young women who ask me for career advice. People are going to try to trick you. To make you feel like you are in competition with one another...Don't be fooled. You're not in competition with other women. You're in competition with everyone."

"So my unsolicited advice to women in the workplace is this. When faced with sexism or ageism or lookism or even really aggressive Buddhism, ask yourself the following question: 'Is this person in between me and what I want to do?' If the answer is no, ignore it and move on. Your energy is better used doing your work and outpacing people that way."

And finally, this might be my favorite because we all know someone like this at work:

"There was the Program Director, who talked exclusively in nonsense business language 'We are attempting to pro-activate the community by utilizing a series of directives intended to maximate communicative agreeance.'"

Mid-Week Inspiration

For most of us, work is a job. Some days we like it, some days we love it and some days we wish we could be anywhere but there.

Whether it's your nine to five gig or what you do for fun on the side, sometimes we all need a little inspiration to keep us going.

A few weeks ago, I stumbled on Work Is Not A Job on Tumblr and their prints, which they post on Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook are a nice reminders to stay inspired by whatever it is you do. Here are a few of my favorites. Enjoy!

Being the Ex

by Working Girl One

Working at a company that rewards and promotes its employees is a great thing for Working Girls. It shows that your managers respect you and want you to succeed. Not to mention internal promotion keeps employees happy. When a job opens up and an internal candidate fits the bill, it makes the most sense to offer the position to the internal candidate.

On the flip side, interviewing at this type of company as an external candidate is not so great. That is of course, if you get in the door. Some companies don't even post job openings or reach out to external candidates. They go right to the internal candidate.

Others like to see what is out there. They bring you in, bring you back and maybe even bring you back again. Then they thank you for interviewing and tell you the position has been offered to an internal candidate.

This has happened to me once during my recent job search. It's happened to my boyfriend. It's happened to plenty of other Working Girls I know. And am I right that everyone's reaction is "C'mon, really?!"

Part of me understands why a hiring manager would like to see what is out there. Another part of me knows that much more often than not the company hires the internal person if it comes down to the internal candidate and external candidate. For the internal person it's great, but the flip side is so frustrating.

New Normal

by Working Girl One

A while back, I wrote about my boyfriend's crazy work schedule. Back then, I dreamed of him having a "normal" schedule - working nine to five(ish), Monday through Friday.

This week, he started a new job and some of my dreams came true. He now works Monday through Friday but there is a catch.

He was approached by contacts of his at another newspaper to be a morning news editor for a handful of local newspaper websites. It was an offer he couldn't refuse.

So in the time since I was laid off, he found and a started a new job and he wasn't even looking. That sure made this unemployed Working Girl feel awesome. But that isn't what this post is about and I'm honestly so thrilled for him. He has deserved this for a long time.

As an unemployed Working Girl, my schedule has changed drastically. Back in my working days, I was almost always in bed by 10:30pm and up at 7:30am. I really like to sleep. These days, I haven't even looked at the clock in the morning until 9:00am, let alone get out of bed, and I stay up until at least 1:00am. Before you get jealous, remember that I'm unemployed and it's really not as glamorous as it sounds to not have to work. I take that back, it is glamorous to not have to work but I do have to work.

Before his new job, my boyfriend would sometimes get home to our apartment in the city at 3:30am and sleep until 1:00pm. Now being the morning editor, he's up at 4:00am to be at work by 6:00am (he has to commute an hour outside of the city) and his shift is over at 2:00pm. This is much closer to a normal schedule because I get to see him everyday when he gets home from work now and also whenever I start working again.

I'm looking forward to this new "normal" schedule for us but I must admit it's going to take some getting used to. As I draft this post, it's almost 1:00am and I'd love nothing more than to snuggle myself in bed and read a book for half an hour. But he's asleep and has been since 9:00pm. Reading on the sofa just isn't the same.

Now instead of him coming home and waking me up in the middle of the night, I'm going to bed late and in the middle of his night waking him as I get into bed. I feel bad but I make up for it. I've set the coffee machine, poured a bowl of cheerios, ironed his shirt and made him a sandwich for his lunch. I'm fully aware that I've turned myself into a 1950's housewife. I'm really bored, okay!

Help Us Out!

Hey Working Girls!

Working Girl Two and I are working to make the blog better and we could use your help. We've put together a little survey to get your feedback. Tell us what you'd like to see more of (or less of), what you like and don't like, etc. Just click the link below to take the survey! It's only 10 short questions!

Working Girl Survey

Thanks!

- WG1 & WG2

Out of Network

I've always been uncomfortable with networking. This probably comes from my overall dislike for talking on the phone and the feeling that I'm usually bothering others. At this juncture, I really have no choice but to grow a pair and network.

Last week, In Transition Working Girl posted about her best kept secret - networking. She offered excellent advice for reaching out to the people in your network.

Like In Transition Working Girl, someone gave me the advice to start networking when I was in college - my dad. When I began looking for jobs in media and publishing at the end of my senior year of college, my dad sent me dozens and dozens of his contacts to reach out. First, he broke the ice for me and emailed these people, letting them know they would be hearing from me. Next, I had to follow-up. I emailed them all subject "Introduction to Working Girl One," a brief description of what I was looking for in terms of a job and asked if they had any advice, openings or time for an information interview. Several people got back to me and I learned a lot at the time. And that Working Girls, was the last time I really networked.

As I look for a new job, I'm finding I need to work on my networking. I have friends and old co-workers who are already looking out for me. They are checking in on my search, letting me know if anything is opening up at their companies, sending my resume to their HR contacts, etc. I didn't have to do much to enlist their help because they all offered it the moment they heard about my job loss.

While their help is great (I couldn't ask for better friends), I have to do more in this job market. I've got my list of contacts that In Transition Working Girl talked about but I'm stuck on the next step - reaching out to them. Here is why. If I call, am I bothering them, what should I say? If I email, how to do I explain my situation? Do they already know? I haven't spoken to them in months, should I feel bad about reaching out now that I need something? What exactly am I asking for - a job, advice, a recommendation?

I was often annoyed and didn't have the time when people reached out to me at my old job (definitely won't feel that way next time someone reaches out to me). So I guess I'll start with reaching out to the people I'm most comfortable with and figure out what I'm asking of them. Once I reach out, I'll definitely be using some of In Transition Working Girl's tips. Wish me luck!