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!

Meeting Notes

Stories, news and other important tidbits Working Girls should know. Here are a few things to glean from this work week:

• Mean Girls in the office? I believe it. According to the American Management Association, 95% of women say that they have felt undermined at some point in their career by other women. [Daily Mail]

• Say so long to the days of just a basic criminal background & credit checks when looking for a new job. Some companies are now requiring candidates to pass a social media background check. The year old start-up company Social Intelligence scrounges the Internet for everything the candidate has done on the Internet in the past seven years. Time to start de-tagging. [NY Times]

• This video is almost a year old, but worth a watch. COO of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg, gives a speech at TED about why there is a smaller percentage of women at the top of their professions. She then gives 3 great pieces of advice for women in the work force. [You Tube]

Gettin' the Itch

I feel like I start to get itchy around this time every year. Usually the itch is to change something small - maybe my hair, my wardrobe, the furniture in my apt.

This year, I've started to get itchy about everything. Literally all of it. And I've been particularly itchy about my living situation. As in, do I want to continue living in Chicago.

To people who know me well this probably isn't a surprise. I moved to Chicago almost 3 years ago from New York to be closer to my family. And while I now am closer to my family, I'm also far away from my college friends - and to me these are the kind of friends that know me inside and out. I was back in New Jersey earlier this summer for a friend's wedding and my friends and I had one of the best weekends - no drama, lots of laughing, drinking and reminiscing.

After I got home all I wanted to do was be back out east. I immediately booked a trip to Boston in August to go visit everyone. And really started to consider if I wanted to move back east.

When I moved out here originally, the plan had always been to move back east eventually. Chicago was meant to be a re-centering of sorts - I wanted to get back on track financially, back on track with my family and friends from high school, and back to a good place of mind. And I feel as though I'm at that place now.

But does that warrant a move back to New England? I'm not sure.

But what I do know is that I'm ready to move on from my company. I've been at my current job now for almost 3 years. I love my co-workers to death. They are literally my best friends in Chicago. I love my boss. But I really think it's time I got my career moving forward instead of sideways and unfortunately I'm stuck sideways at this company right now.

So while I try and figure out if Boston is right for me, I've started the job search here in Chicago to help my job itches. Maybe all I need to help satisfy these urges is a new job and new challenges. Or maybe I'll find what I really need is a new city with old friends.

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:

• Service workers in Connecticut rejoice! CT just became the first state in the nation this month to mandate paid sick days for workers. Advocates say this is a big move and that other states are looking to take this into effect. Currently on cities San Francisco and Washington, D.C. guarantee paid sick days for workers. [Reuters]

• The head of New Zealand's Employers' and Manufacturers' Association, Alasdair Thompson, has recently been fired after he caused public outrage by linking why women get paid less with "menstruation". Thompson was quoted to saying that women are paid less than men because they take more sick leave and "have children they have to take time off to go home" to care for. [BBC News]

• Congrats to the US Women's soccer team who won against France 3-1 today to go to the finals of the World Cup. They will play either Sweden or Japan this upcoming Sunday so set your DVR's! [CNN]

The Subject of Getting Drizzunk

My company puts on a lot of events. And with these events usually comes a open bar. And with that open bar comes a lot of overservedness (word I just made up so go with it please).

Most work blogs I read talk about not drinking at company events. Or having the one drink and then switching to soda (or pop as we like to say out here in the Ole Midwest). But I will not say that because it would be hypocritical.

I personally don't think there is anything wrong with drinking in front of your coworkers. At our company events, I will drink more than one glass of wine and sometimes I even get drunk. The key to drinking with your coworkers or in front of your boss is to know yourself.

We all know this chat -the chat that your parents had with you before you left for college (or was that just mine?). The chat about knowing your limits and knowing your body and knowing your drunk. I know that after 4 glasses of wine I'm usually at my limit and that that 5th glass of wine will make me go overboard so if I'm with my bosses or people I want to impress then I'm not going to have the 5th glass. Or even the 4th probably.

And honestly I've been at parties where I have had that 4th or 5th glass and then sent myself home. Case in point, the incentive trip in St. Thomas - we had a huge snafu in the form of a Carribbean storm take place on the island and had to cancel our sail over to St. John for cocktails and dinner and instead had a 3-hour cocktail hour at the bar and then my boss invited me and my guest (who just happened to be WG1) to dinner. The 2 of us could barely finish our meals we were so tipsy so after dinner we sent ourselves home instead of sticking around for a nightcap.

So if you have a company picnic coming up with an open bar (like I do in a few weeks) then just stick to my advice and know yourself. Don't overdo it and if you think you're getting to the point of no return, send yourself home.

It's all about knowing your drunk - thanks for the advice Mom & Dad!

Meeting Notes

Meeting Notes is a weekly feature. Here we will dish on tidbits, news, and important things we think Working Girls should know. So scroll down to hear what we think you should glean from this work week.

• A new study in the Journal of Management Studies suggests that politically savvy professionals who use "sucking up" as a career aid may also be able to avoid psychological distress. Aka if you are cunning and crafty, you will less likely be picked on. So basically I have to be a Mean Girl to climb the corporate ladder? Sounds 'bout right. [Science Daily]

• Need another reason to work from home? Research shows that couples in which one partner commutes more than 45 minutes to get to work are 40% more likely to divorce than couples who don't have to travel for their jobs. The study also suggests that commuting affects your overall well-being leading to obesity, stress and loneliness. Blech. [Self]

• Daily Candy is running their annual "Start Small, Go Big" Contest that aims to help small businesses get off the ground. A winner from each category (fashion, beauty, food & drink, and home) will win a trip to NYC, a Daily Candy write-up and a day at the Daily Candy Academy where they will learn from the likes of Isaac Mizrahi & Rebecca Minkoff. Entries need to be submitted by August 5th. So get cracking! [Daily Candy]

Meeting Notes

We are bringing back Meeting Notes as a weekly feature. Here we will dish on tidbits, news, and important things we thinking Working Girls should know. So scroll down to hear what we think you should glean from this work week.

• Crazy that it took this long, but here's a big congratulations to Jill Abramson who was named executive editor of The New York Times last week! This was long overdue as she is the paper's first woman to reign over the media empire in its 160-year tenure. Talk about girl power. [Marie Claire]

• The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology published a new study that suggests jobs have become gender-segregated by how they are advertised. The survey found that women and men reacted differently to the same job when it was written differently. Male workers responded to words like "competitive" and "dominant" while women veered more towards words like "compassionate" and "nurturing". [Jezebel]

• For all you self-employed Working Girls - here is an interesting article on how to find the right employees at the right time. It's all about timing! [Design Sponge]

• And now for a little inspiration - 33 ways to stay creative below! [Today & Tomorrow]

Heated...Over Mac & Cheese

Last week, my co-workers and I stalked The Southern's mac & cheese food truck because we had heard the their mac & cheese was all sorts of fantastic.

{via Passport Delicious}

this is the mac & cheese with hot dogs (which is also awesome!)

And let me tell you...that mac & cheese was all sorts of amazing. I got 2 types - the asparagus, ramps & gouda and then a buffalo chicken & blue cheese. Both were great, but I decided to save half of the buffalo chicken and almost all of the asparagus for dinner and then lunch for the next week (truth be told, I was also a little hungover and my eyes were more ambitious than my stomach - whoops!).

Fast forward a few hours, and I decide I have too many errands to do after work so I'm not going to take the mac & cheese home after all. But I see a sign on the fridge - it's fridge cleaning day! So you must label your foods with your name and the word SAVE in large letters. Easy enough. Done and done.

I come back on Tuesday and my mac & cheese - all $18 worth of it - is goneeeeeeeeee. No where to be found. I even looked in the front kitchen just in case. Nope. Gone.

And that's when I got heated about mac & cheese. And the money I spent on the mac & cheese. And how processes at work just don't work!!!! My name and the words "SAVE" were on that bag in very large letters!!! Cue freak out.

To which my one co-worker told me to take a chill pill (so '90's) and just buy McDonald's. Since it's Thursday and I'm still talking about it, I think you can tell I'm not over it.

Confessions of a Travel Junkie

Site of my next vacation - Costa Rica

{DCR News}

I want to confess to you all that I am a travel junkie...which is unfortunately an oxymoron in the US since we Americans get basically zero vacation time in comparison to other countries around the world - in my case, a measly 10 days (and 2 personal days woo!).

Let's look at the basic facts. In addition to a few national holidays, the average American gets two to three weeks off per year. But (and there is always a but), a recent poll from Reuters/Ipsos poll found that only 57% of workers use all of their vacation days, compared with a 89% of workers in France. [CNN]

This concept BOGGLES my mind. Here are my facts. I get 12 vacation days and a handful of long weekends off from work. I'm going to use all those days to get to as many places as I possibly can. In 2011 alone, I have traveled already to New Zealand and just purchased a ticket to Costa Rica. Why? Because I have vacation time and I plan to use it.

To me, it's all about time budgeting. I'm lucky enough to live near my family so I don't need to take time off to fly anywhere for Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc. But my family and I do sometimes go away for the holidays. In which case, we usually don't take time off to do so. Holiday weekends are perfect for traveling around the US, Canada or Mexico. Just this past Thanksgiving, my family and I went to Toronto for 4 days just to explore the city and do something different than sit at home and carve a turkey. Last Memorial Day weekend, my Dad and I took my sister to Nashville for her birthday.

We save the big vacations for taking time off work. My trip to New Zealand cost me 5 days of work, my trip to Costa Rica will be 4, and then I will take an odd day off here and there for weddings.

And at the end of the year, I will have zero (maybe even some negative) hours left to take off. But it will be worth it because I will have seen new parts of the world and taken days away from my desk. Because honestly it's not just about seeing the world and experiencing new things. It's about taking time away from the people, the office drama, the work piling up on your desk. It's about getting away for a while and not thinking about it. And everyone needs time to do that.

It is your right as an employee to take your time off. And even if it's just to sit at home and watch TV, I seriously get heated when I hear people say they have time rolling over to the next year because that means that they spent almost the entire year chained to their desk. And that's just not healthy.

WG1 actually sent me this article from CNN on why America is the "no-vacation nation". And it quoted John de Graaf, the national coordinator for Take Back Your Time, a group that researches the effects of overwork and he is quoted as saying, "There is simply no evidence that working people to death gives you a competitive advantage." Apparently the US came in 4th in the World Economic Forum's 2010-2011 rankings of the most competitive economies. 4th! We were outranked by Sweden - a country that offers workers 5 weeks of paid vacation!

This to me is proof enough that we need to take back control of our vacation by simply taking vacations where we don't need to answer the phone or check our email or be in touch with people at the office.

Either that, or move to Sweden.

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

Meeting Notes

Meeting Notes is a weekly feature. Here we will dish on tidbits, news, and important things we thinking Working Girls should know. So scroll down to hear what we think you should glean from this work week.

Quick sidenote: Sorry Working Girls that this was posted late! I went to see Ingrid Michaelson last night after work with a coworker (see kinda work related!) and the concert was *squeal* so good, but I also didn't get home until 10PM and then I had to watch Modern Family and make Texas Toast cause I was obvs starving and Meeting Notes took a backseat. So without further adieu, here are your notes:

• The Center for World-Life Policy revealed a study that 37% of office workers believe that sleeping with the boss can help you get ahead and 34% of women in executive positions say they know someone who has slept with their boss. [Jezebel]
• According to research presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, men who earn significantly less than their female partners are far more likely to cheat on their partners whose income is more or less equal. Even more disturbing is men who are completely dependent on their partner's income were 5 times more likely to cheat. [Today Health]
• The number of women making $100,000 or more per year is beginning to rise! The number of women pulling in six figures or more has risen 14% in the past 2 years, while the number of men has only grown 4%. [Jezebel]

Two Years? Really? Already?

So I am super hungover and I had every intention of writing about my hangover on here (a day late might I add since I was drunk as a skunk yesterday watching the Bears game with coworkers), but then I looked on WG and realized that WG1 and I have kinda exhausted that topic. So instead I'm going to talk about my work anniversary.

Yea it's almost my two year anniversary at my current job. My how time flies! And I mean that. I still tell people that I just recently moved to Chicago from New York. Um, false. It's been almost two years and I literally can't believe it.

Moving here was a big deal for me. After college, I had my eyes set on New York City. WG1 and I had lived there during our summer before senior year and I was enamored. In my eyes, New York was where I belonged and nothing was gonna stop me from living there. Oh wait, yes there was. That little thing called money. So I ended up living in Hoboken (which I loved) with WG1 and working in NYC.

In theory, I should have been really happy. But I wasn't.

I didn't love my job or my company (loved my coworkers tho!). Our apartment was a cess pool of gross (windows fell in, the ceiling fell in, and it was just ew). And while I loved having my college friends around, I think at the time we were all very stuck in the college rut of working during the week, watching TV, and then partying so hard on the weekends that doing anything else seemed like a lot to ask.

I was in a rut. And I did the only thing that seemed like it might make me happy. Moved back to Chicago. And now I've been here two years.

Moving back to Chicago was a big risk. Sure, I had my family nearby and my high school friends. But coming back was like starting over. And I can honestly say now at my (almost) two-year anniversary that I'm really happy I did make the move.

For the most part, I really do like my job and I love that I've come to learn that events is where I belong...at least for now. I love being near my family and my HS friends, but I also love that I've met all sorts of new people including my coworkers (who I hang out with a lot!) and my new blogger friends. I love that I have more balance in my life and that I've joined clubs and read more books and see more movies. I love my new life.

I'm really happy I took the risk. And that it paid off in the end.

Table for One

I like to think I'm a pretty independent woman - a woman that can do a lot of stuff on her own. I live alone. I go to movies alone a lot. I show up at parties alone. But, I do have one hang up and that is eating alone.

Last week I was in Napa Valley doing some site visits for an upcoming incentive trip my company is putting together for their top sales employees (I know, hard life I lead). In addition to the four hotels we were scouting, I also had a list of wineries to go view and some restaurants as well since we do a lot of off-site parties during this trip. Since the events department at my company is a lonely group of one (aka just me), I was doing this trip solo.

Looking at hotels and wineries was easy peasy because it's a totally professional part of my job and doing it alone is actually preferable. I can ask the questions I want and schmooze with the sales managers. The restaurants were a whole different story. I only had two to look at that could accommodate a party of our size so I figured I would just go to dinner at the two restaurants and consider that my site visit.

Easier said than done. When I got to Yountville, I was all set to eat dinner at Bistro Jeanty. After my last site visit, I wandered over to the restaurant and walked right past it and went into a local deli and bought a sandwich to bring back to my room to eat in front of the TV.

I have no idea why eating alone has struck such a big nerve with me. Like I said, I do a lot of things on my own and none of those present an issue. But when it comes to sitting down at a nice restaurant and eating dinner by myself, I just can't do it.

The next day I was going to drive into downtown Napa and check out another restaurant but wimped out at the last minute when I saw an In 'N Out and decided to eat there instead. Because for some odd reason I can eat by myself at fast food restaurants but diners or really any restaurant with a waiter presents a problem.

I guess it just boils down to me being embarrassed by the fact that I'm eating alone or fearing that people around me are judging me for the fact that I'm by myself at a restaurant. But with my corporate travel increasing a lot this past year, I really need to get over this fear. And fast.

Meeting Notes

Meeting Notes is a weekly feature. Here we will dish on tidbits, news, and important things we thinking Working Girls should know. So scroll down to hear what we think you should glean from this work week.

• If colored paper clips and desk sets are your crack, use this 30% off Daily Candy deal from the awesome work accessories store See Jane Work. Enter code DAILY30 at checkout. [Daily Candy Deals]
• A 25-year study from the Journal of Family Issues reveals that career women who are the breadwinners in their families are nearly 40% more likely to get a divorce than those who are more strapped for cash. [NY Post]
• Grace Coddington, creative director at Vogue, is said to be working on a memoir. After watching her in The September Issue, I am very excited about this project from a high-flying career woman who can stand up to Anna Wintour! [NY Mag]

Meeting Notes

Meeting Notes is a weekly feature. Here we will dish on tidbits, news, and important things we thinking Working Girls should know. So scroll down to hear what we think you should glean from this work week.

• A former Vogue intern swiped a rare issue of the magazine and is now trying to sell it on Ebay. Why so rare? It boasts a masthead with famous author Lauren Weisberger's name listed as "assistant" to Anna Wintour. Yes, she wrote The Devil Wears Prada. It seems that interns at Vogue are pretty ballsy - stealing and writing tell-all memoirs wowza! [Fashionista]
• A recent survey from Mumpoll.com revealed that 8 out of 10 women are waiting to have children when they are older because they lack the money. 9 out of 10 women polled said they would struggle financially if they had children and two thirds feared their careers wouldn't be the same if they had a child. [Daily Mail]
• A female employee announced she will be filing a discrimination complaint against her employer Disneyland because she was sent home by her boss for wearing her hijab to work during Ramadan. [Jezebel]

Meeting Notes

Meeting Notes is a weekly feature. Here we will dish on tidbits, news, and important things we thinking Working Girls should know. So scroll down to hear what we think you should glean from this work week.

• A former Prada Japan employee, Rina Bovrisee, recently sued the company for firing her after an executive of the company called her "ugly" and told her she didn't have "the Prada look". Turns out Prada is now countersuing Bovrisse for $390,000 for harming their image. [NY Mag]
• According to studies conducted by instituions UCLA and Univ. of Wisconsin, women are more likely to get married when they are well-educated, and couples in which each party achieved at their jobs have more satisifying sex. So it seems that data proves that smart ladies with great careers aren't doomed to be lonely cat ladies. Yay! [Tango]
• In the September issue of Glamour, a poll revealed that a majority of their readers who prefer to have Liz Lemon of 30 Rock as their boss over Dr. Miranda Bailey from Grey's Anatomy. Pam from The Office was chosen as the TV character most people would want to share their cubicle with. [Save the Assistants]

Meeting Notes

Meeting Notes is a weekly feature. Here we will dish on tidbits, news, and important things we thinking Working Girls should know. So scroll down to hear what we think you should glean from this work week.

• Don't know what to do with your life now that you've hit your quarter-life crisis? Enter a website apporpriately called "What the Fuck Should I Do With My Life?" is a site that randomly picks a profession and then gives you the opportunity to learn more about the job/industry. Warning: the jobs are all pretty unconventional. [Doobybrain.com]



• A recent study revealed that it's easier to find out when your CEO is lying to you than you think. The study was conducted at Stanford by going through old company transcripts, found that CEO's who didn't refer to themselves in the first person and replaced thes terms with words like "team" and "company" were more deceitful. Executives who used gushing adjectives were also more likely to be lying. Accuracy rate of finding lies this way is about 50% but it's still an interesting tibit. [An MBA is Forever]
  
• Jessica Franqui, a clerk from Staten Island, is suing her boss for stepping on her boob. Her boss, Marcus Bolton, is the CEO of the Wall Street division of British company Tullett Prebon. Franqui is accusing Bolton of drunkenly coming up to her and inviting her to drinks. When she refused, he attempted to dance with her at which point he dropped her on her back on the floor. He then stepped on her breast and when she complained, he allegedly said, "Oh, come on now, it's alright. They are big and you probably didn't even feel it." [Jezebel]
  

Meeting Notes

Meeting Notes is a weekly feature. Here we will dish on tidbits, news, and important things we thinking Working Girls should know. So scroll down to hear what we think you should glean from this work week.

• This is an unfortunate story, but is worth reading. A Massachusetts court just recently ruled that women who take more than eight weeks of maternity leave can be fired by their employers if they wish to do so. [Jezebel]


• Yesterday, The Chive posted photos that they had received from an employee who sent photos of herself quitting her job via dry erase board to all her employees. It has since been confirmed it was a hoax. But click through anyway - the photos are hilarious (and I wish they were true haha). [The Chive]



• UKJobs.net has just released a survey where they asked men and women which gender they prefer in a boss. 63% of women and 75% of men prefer male bosses saying women are "loose cannons" and their hormones are all over the place. [Daily Mail]

Meeting Notes

Meeting Notes is a weekly feature. Here we will dish on tidbits, news, and important things we thinking Working Girls should know. So scroll down to hear what we think you should glean from this work week.

• We all know that men still make more than their female counterparts in most fields, but according to stats from the Bureau of Labor Statistics June 2010 report there are 4 careers where women make more than men and those include: teacher assistants, bakers, cafeteria workers, and life, physical, and social technicians. [San Francisco Chronicle]
• A prop worker who was dismissed from his job on the set of the medical drama "House" has sued his former employer with claims that he was fired because he wouldn't participate in unsuitable conduct with his bosses. This conduct includes going to strip clubs, getting drunk and high, as well as engaged in sexual conduct in trailers. [Female First]
• International non-profit, Dress for Success Worldwide, plans to open a central headquarters in Chicago in November. Dress for Success is an organization that outfits unemployed women with clothes and career skills to help them land jobs. Wal-Mart has donated $100,000 to get the office up and running. [Chicago Tribune]

Sex and the City & My Career

This post is a little behind in the times since the Sex and the City 2 movie came out...what 3 months ago? But I think I was still reeling from the horror that I witnessed in the movie theaters and up until now have been too scarred to speak about it. I think you can guess that I hated the sequel, and while I would love to tell you all the reasons I think that movie should be banned from ever being released on DVD, that isn't what my post is intended to be about.


So let's pretend that SATC 2 was never made and go back to the good old days of SATC where everyone sat around with their girlfriends playing the game of, "Are you a Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, or a Charlotte?"

I recently came upon this blog post on Forbes Woman that analyzed each character and their working personalities and then gave some key takeaways that all business women can learn from their different business personalities.

Let me break down the blog post real quick for you:

Carrie is neurotic and self-involved (read: crazy into herself). She stresses out frequently, but uses her humor and her girlfriends to keep her grounded.

Samantha, while promiscious, has an open mind and a take-the-bull-by-the-horns outlook on life which lends itself well to her ballsy PR job. Samantha shows us to have fun while still having a go-getter attitude about our professional lives.

Miranda is the workaholic. She is smart and ambitious, but feels that to be successful in her career as a lawyer she has to act more masculine.

Charlotte has a tendency to be more traditional and conservative in her mind-set (fun sidenote: after Samantha, she had the most sexual partners on the show!). And while she quits her job to take on motherhood, we have to remember that Charlotte is someone who goes above and beyond for anything - a good takeaway for our professional lives.

To get the full gist, I suggest reading the blog post. The author makes some good points and some that I don't fully agree with.

So here comes the million dollar question: am I a Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte or Miranda? Based on the above, I would hope that I was Samantha with a twinge of Miranda. But my friends might say I have a few splashes of Carrie's self-involvement in me (don't judge!).

Are you a Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte or Miranda in your professional life?