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Category Archives: Office

Business Formal

06 Saturday Mar 2010

Posted by Barneys Girl in Fashion, Office

≈ 2 Comments

I have always believed that the white dress shirt is the magical one for all item in a business wardrobe. If you don’t know what to wear, always fall back on the white dress shirt and a dark suit. Indeed, that was my trusty companion for job interviews for quite a while.

Now I know why I never felt comfortable or confident in it! It makes me look like a waitress or a sales associate. Not exactly the confident young business professional I was trying to channel. After exhaustively mixing and matching my suit with different tops inside, I finally realized that my downfall was my trusty white dress shirt. I instantly looked better after I changed into a dark blue silk dress shirt or a cream silk top with ruffles. I once heard that dressing in something a little different, like a colorful top or a pair of eye catching earrings, even in a business formal occasion, will make you standout from the herd in a positive way. Indeed, I don’t recall anyone in Lipstick Jungle wearing a white dress shirt with a black suit. Maybe a smart white shirt with a pencil skirt and heels, but a white shirt with a full dark suit just marks you as a nervous newbie. So next time you go for business formal, you might want to reconsider your trusty white dress shirt.

Image Source: Bloomingdales

Practical Procrastination

18 Wednesday Nov 2009

Posted by Barneys Girl in Office, Random Musings

≈ 3 Comments

  1. Examine your hair for split ends and cut them off. The next time you go get your hair done, your hairstylist will be amazed by your lack of split ends!
  2. Read random Wikipedia articles. Even if you’re doing nothing, at least you’re learning something. Kind of
  3. Read random new articles and blogs. Same as (2), knowledge is power and all that
  4. Write up your grocery list or list of chores. This way, you’ll at least be productive outside of work
  5. Reply emails to friends and gchat. Socializing is a very important part of life after all and in doing so, you can save other friends from boredom. Oh and on a side note, Google Wave is overrated. Give it a few more months to work out the bugs
  6. Play online reversi. Occasionally exercising your brain with something challenging will prevent it from rotting too quickly- even though I’m sure sometimes (esp on Tuesdays) you feel like your brain has already rotted
  7. Blog/Research for blogging. After all that other bloggers have done for you to occupy your time, you should reciprocate the gesture
  8. Learn something. Maybe today I’ll learn how to create/use pivot tables

What do you do when you procrastinate?

Currently Stalking…

08 Thursday Oct 2009

Posted by Barneys Girl in Fashion, Office

≈ 4 Comments

… this dress from BCBG (left). HG and I have been admiring it. It is simple, but interesting with the tiered skirt. I’m convinced that it will be office appropriate and super easy to wear, with a cute cardigan/blazer/by itself!

BCBG

Being forever practical though, HG pointed out that I’d get much more mileage out of it if I just got a separate tiered skirt (right) and paired it with tanks/tees/dress shirts. Plus, the poof sleeves wouldn’t look too good scrunched up under a thin cardigan. I think she may be right. I’ll just have to see which one is better value (or is left) when sale season finally comes!

Image Source: BCBG

A Prenatal Massage?

28 Monday Sep 2009

Posted by Barneys Girl in Office, Random Musings

≈ 6 Comments

Thanks for everyone’s suggestions! We settled on the prenatal massage after getting reassurance that a massage table with a belly cradle is a luxury. Though I do wish I’d gotten Sasha’s comment earlier. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a diaper cake, but it sounds kind of cool (and very useful). Could’ve gotten a diaper cake and a real cake for fun. But I’m sure she’ll love the massage too~

*****

We’re currently brainstorming ideas for a gift for our boss, who is going to go on maternity leave soon. The men on our team have left it to us womenfolks to figure it out. Unfortunately most of us are under 30 and have no previous experience whatsoever with pregnancy. We thought of a 529 for the child (an inside joke), but found out we can’t set one up for an unborn, unnamed, unregistered child. We then came up with prenatal massage, which sounds like a good idea. It’s tailor made for pregnant women and it’s supposed to be relaxing. But then one of my colleague saw the prenatal massage video and wasn’t so sure how comfortable it would be for a pregnant woman to be lying on her stomach on a massage table with a belly cradle in it. Anyone tried it and have any idea how popular they are with pregnant women?

Or any other ideas for gifts to your pregnant boss?

You Are What You Wear

04 Saturday Apr 2009

Posted by Barneys Girl in Fashion, Office, Random Musings

≈ 7 Comments

Browsing through the Definitive Book of Body Language, I came across an interesting section: The Power of Glasses and Makeup. They conducted an experiment with 4 sales lady, where one wore make-up, one wore glasses, one wore both and one wore none, and observed customer impression of them. They concluded that make-up gives woman a more intelligent, confident and sexier image and the combination of glasses and makeup in business has the most positive and memorable impact on observers.

Obviously I know (and whole heartedly agree) with the part about make-up/looking good gives a women confidence, but I hadn’t really thought about it in terms of being taken more seriously in a work environment. I would’ve thought that the girl with the glasses and no make-up would be taken more seriously, because she’d be percieved as nerdy and too serious to care about the way she looks. But now that I think of it, my image of a business power woman does involve a YSL suit, stilettos, a Birkin bag and the perfect make-up. Nikko from Lipstick Jungle (oh how I mourn that show!) also comes to mind. This idea was further confirmed today, when I came across the Dress Code for Hedge-Fund Women article in the WSJ, where they mused that looking the part may actually give them an edge in the work place.

I must admit though that I have not been looking the part and putting on make-up everyday to work. I used to at the beginning, but then the casual and laidback company culture and lack of dress code kicked in and I stopped trying so hard (I need to get in as much zz’s as I can in the morning!). It’s kind of nice to be able to cling onto remnants of the good ol’ college days. Maybe it is time I started again though. Even though I’m not up to the business power woman level yet, I should at least start looking the part. You got to fake it until you make it after all, right?

Bonus Season

26 Thursday Feb 2009

Posted by Barneys Girl in Office, Random Musings

≈ 2 Comments

One of the good things about my company is that, through good and lean times, they maintain a certain level of compensation. In the good times, we’re underpaid and they rely on a friendly, laid back company culture, great hours, excellent benefits, educational stipends and paying out bonuses in increments over time to retain employees. In the lean times, they try their best to maintain this minimum level of pay and so far has only stopped matching our 401Ks and cut our annual educational stipend in response to the current economic environment. We’re on a hiring freeze, but we did not rescind any of the thirty something offers we extended back in fall and have not had any pay cuts or layoffs (not any major ones anyway). In fact, this year, they’re even giving out bonuses to reflect profits from the better half of 2008 (though they made sure we knew that next year will probably not be as jolly). It’s not a bad place to be during the lean times.

Even in a friendly and laid back company culture however, office politics exists. There will always be those sneaky few that one should always be careful of – especially during bonus season. Bonus season is like high school when your grades come out. Everyone clamors to know what everyone else got, because their “happiness” with their own grades depend on how they did relative to everyone else. Most people grow out of this and realize that how one feels about their own achievements should not be measured relative to how other people did.  Or rather most people know that this is how they should feel now as mature adults and desist with the whole competing thing (or go about it much more discretely).

But I guess some people never grow out of high school. The day after we got our bonus, I got instant messages from two of my colleagues. Colleague #1 was fairly harmless. He asked me if I got within such and such range, and left me alone after that. Colleague #2 was much more persistent. He asked me outright, “I got XX%, do you mind sharing what you got?” I told him I was uncomfortable sharing my number with him but that I was happy with what I got. Unfortunately he didn’t get my not-so-subtle hint and persisted with, “Oh, does that mean you got more than the average of XX?” I told him that it was open to interpretation and that it could mean that I got less, the same or more than the average, and logged off at that. I guess no one taught him the art of social finesse and that talking about money- especially with someone who so obviously does not want to talk about it- is taboo.

It is not that I’m deliberately being mean and secretive for no reason. It is just that I’ve talked to enough people to know that “thou should not give away your bonus number,” because it is a lose lose situation whatever bonus you got. If you got less, than the other person will feel unnecessarily smug and superior about themselves and we all know that a number does not signify all. If you got the same, this will not affect you immediately, but be ensured that this number will go beyond the person you tell and not all bonuses are given out equally. If you got more than the other person, than you don’t want to make them feel bad about themselves and thus jealous of you. This can cause a lot of trouble later on. Usually people who know that they got more than everyone else tend to play it down and avoid the topic, because one should always avoid an outright lie if possible, since they will come back to haunt you. Later I found out through the rumor mill (the much more discrete way of competing) i.e. from someone who accidentally saw the breakdowns earlier in a meeting with my manager, that colleague #2 actually got a lot more than the XX% he mentioned. Now we all know that he is a sneaky liar. See what I mean about lies coming back to haunt you?

Tea with BG

A twenty something who loves having tea with scones and devonshire cream, while chatting with friends about fashion, love, life, finance and everything in between. And no, this is not a food blog.

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