Energy

Munching During Meetings

by Kat on 02/01/2011 · 160 comments

Reader S has a business etiquette question about eating during business meetings…

I have an business etiquette question. I have low blood sugar and have to eat every couple of hours. Is it rude to eat something that can’t be shared, like a piece of fruit, during a meeting? In today’s example, we didn’t have a break, and the senior person passed around a tin of cookies, so I assumed it was OK to snack. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to pay attention….

Hmmn. I’m a big believer in the importance of keeping your blood sugar level steady for energy, brain power, and mood purposes, but I’m not sure about Reader S’s question. I guess the answer here depends on the kind of meeting. If everyone is eating (or it’s a BYO kind of lunch meeting), I think its fine to bring something of your own, whether it’s shareable or not. I would, however, pay mind to whether or not your snack might be disruptive — if it is loud (crunchy apple? crinkly wrapper?), smelly, or involved (such as if you need to set up a staging area to spread cheese or peanut butter on top of something), I would strongly suggest you reconsider bringing it to a meeting, even if people are eating. (Pictured: Food for the trail, originally uploaded to Flickr by trekkyandy.)

If, however, people are not generally eating, then you have fewer options. First, you could rely on liquid calories — take your sugar with coffee and cream, so to speak. (Or just fill your cup full of milk or soy milk when everyone else gets coffee.) The second best option would be to excuse yourself to the bathroom and eat a few quick bites of something filling, preferably in the “lounge” area of the bathroom that a lot of offices have (and not in, you know, the actual stall). My list of quick and stashable bites would include things like a handful of almonds or trail mix, a banana, or even an energy bar.

All this, of course, presumes that it is a Long Meeting (2-3 hours) — if it is less than that I would really suggest you bend your eating schedule around the meeting. If it’s a Very Long Meeting (3+ hours), of course, the planners will hopefully/probably build bathroom and snack breaks into the meeting. (If you are one of the planners for the meeting, implement one!) If you regularly have Long Meetings or Very Long Meetings with the same players, you might just take a moment to explain to them that you need to eat every few hours and see how they react. (If this were me, though, I would still probably excuse myself when I needed to eat, unless I was assured it was ok to eat anyway.)

Readers, what are your thoughts on munching during meetings?

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Beauty Wednesday: What’s Your Undereye Routine?

by Kat on 10/06/2010 · 99 comments

in Beauty, Energy, Sleep, Stress

Reader J would like a post on under-eye routines…

I would love to see a post about your (and your readers’) “undereye routine.” After working some long hours, I am more and more frequently starting to notice that I look pretty haggard under the eyes with puffiness and/or dark circles. I have an undereye concealer, but I don’t care for it and really want to find a new one that I like. I could also use recommendations on eye creams or any other products that people like to use to help them appear more “fresh.”

Great question! Personally, my under-eye area is one of those “beauty musts” for me, as I look slightly ill/dead without concealer. My personal routine generally consists of a special under-eye cream when I get out of the shower, before I put on my general facial moisturizer with SPF — and then before I put my makeup on, I swoop a general concealer on the skin beneath my eyes (and on my brow bones and around my nose if I think about it). If I have evening plans, I generally try to revisit the under-eye area with a highlighter before I leave the office — I prefer YSL’s Touche Eclat, but lost my last container and can’t remember *exactly* what color I had, which is preventing me from ordering it online. In short, I’m kind of on the lookout for new products for all of these steps — so I’m curious to hear what you guys say! (Currently I use Aveeno Active Naturals Positively Ageless Firming Eye Cream and Maybelline Dream Mousse Concealer Corrector, Fair Light 0-1 (both available at Drugstore.com for $19.99 and $8.99, respectively) — both are fine but I’m not agog over either one. (I think Elle just had a round-up of the best concealers, incidentally.) Readers, what are your preferred products for the undereye region?

(Pictured: Bags Under The Eyes, originally uploaded to Flickr by DerrickT.)

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Do You Shake Hands When You’re Sick?

by Kat on 09/28/2010 · 72 comments

in Business Etiquette, Energy, Lifestyle, Networking, Professionalism

Today’s poll is inspired by reader V’s question:

I work in Big Law and throughout the recruiting season, I shake a lot of hands. Now and then I encounter someone who says, I’m sorry, I don’t shake your hand I’m sick. While I respect that and appreciate that it’s considerate, frankly I find the little spiel about “not shaking your hand because I’m sick” a bit off putting and it sure as hell makes for awkward introductions.

Interesting… I’ve always thought it’s common courtesy to *not* shake someone’s hand if you know you’re sick. The only caveat I can think of is one outside the recruiting context — where, say, you’re sick and in a situation where you’re the most junior person in the room — and your boss barks out to the VIP some half-introduction and you’re expected to dive forward, shake VIP’s hand (with a firm, competent handshake!), and then recede back into the shadows to do all the work. In that situation, it would break the flow of the half-second transaction for the sickee to inform the VIP and boss that s/he is sick, and really, at that point they deserve whatever they catch from you.* (Pictured: Shaking Hands, originally uploaded to Flickr by Aidan Jones.)

But, like I said, that is usually not what happens in the recruiting context. I agree, being on the receiving end can be a little awkward — but I usually just say “oh, thank you! feel better” and move on with the conversation. If I really feel the need to make some sort of movement (because I’ve held my hand out too enthusiastically or whatever) I might do a slight bow, perhaps with both hands pressed together in front. But that’s just my $.02 — let’s hear from the readers. First, we’ll take a poll from the sickee side of things:

poll by twiigs.com

How have you guys handled the situation from the other side of things?

* Apologies in advance if this attempt at humor has gone awry: I’m having an off day.

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An Attitude Revamp (or, How to Get Your Groove Back)

by Kat on 07/29/2010 · 108 comments

in Career, Energy, Issues, Lifestyle, Success, Transitions

On Tuesday, we talked a bit about how there will be numerous times in a person’s life that you realize that you are, perhaps, a bit off track from where you would like to be. Maybe you wake up one day and realize you own nothing beyond dowdy suits, Mom jeans, and pajamas — a wardrobe revamp is in order. Other times you wake up and realize it’s your attitude that needs an adjustment. There are different varieties of this. The two big ones that I’ve seen involve a realization that perhaps you’ve been phoning it in for far too long, either because you were dealing with a personal issue (planning a wedding, having a baby, dealing with a sick parent, etc, etc) or because you just aren’t engaged in your job anymore. Other times, you realize that it’s your job that makes you unhappy; you may suddenly feel that you’ve been beaten down for so long that you don’t even remember the last time you felt calm, fulfilled, and at peace with the world. This is a type of burnout that can happen with any job, but I’ve seen it especially with those professions — BigLaw, I’m looking at you — that consume most or all of your waking hours for years at a time. Sometimes the right answer might be to just suck it up, deal with it, recognize the commitments you’ve made and the value of what you’ve got. Other times, a vacation can help — but you can’t solve every problem by a week or two in a tropical locale. (Pictured: fiji birthday drink, originally uploaded to Flickr by mjecker.)

For my $.02, the first situation is the better of the two — you still intrinsically like what you do and where you are, but you just need to reengage with the job. Some ideas for that:

Revamp your routine. If the first thing you do every day at the office is surf the web for two hours, stop that — don’t even turn on your computer if possible. I recently read about someone who “turned the mouse off” during work time to cut down on distracted browsing; you can also just put your mouse out of reach, turn it on its back, or unplug it.
Restyle your office (or move offices, if possible). It’ll make you feel like you’re at a new job again.
Reengage with your profession again. Attend a thinky seminar or conference, and really listen — take notes as if your life depended on it. Take some time to apply what you’ve learned to your current job (and, perhaps, to your boss’s job). Set up a meeting or write a memo if you come up with tangible ideas as a result.

The other main kind of “attitude revamp” I’ve seen people need is when your job makes you miserable — perhaps even your profession — and you can’t easily get a new job (or a new profession). The only thing, in my experience, that I’ve seen work for this is to reconnect with some older, core version of yourself from the time before The Job. For example, maybe you were on the swim team in your youth — and you can just rejoin an adult swim club that does drills and the like. For me, I found myself in this situation a few years ago, right after I’d missed my best friend’s wedding to do a doc review — and the only thing I could think to do to reconnect with ME again was to take a humor writing class, which I hadn’t done since I was 17. I signed up at Gotham (with the very excellent teacher Sara Barron) and realized in pretty short order that a) I could write something other than a law brief, and b) I was kind of good at writing, as well as giving other people in my class useful feedback on how their own stories could be better. As soon as I reconnected with the “me” I’d been when I was 17 — full of hope and ambition and sarcasm — weirdly enough, good things started to happen. I met my future husband later that month. I got on a much better project at the job, working closely with a lawyer I truly admired, about two months later. I decided to start this blog about four months later. None of those things had anything to do with my rediscovered humor writing skills — but so much to do with my rediscovery of me, the person I’d been before I’d spent nearly 15 years throwing myself into school and work.

Readers, what are your tips for getting your groove back? What other major attitude revamps have you been through?

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Open Thread: Ways to Relax?

by Kat on 05/04/2010 · 165 comments

in Career, Energy, Exercise, Personal Care, Stress

Today’s reader mail is asking for an open thread discussing relaxation techniques…

It would be fun to see an open thread discussing what readers do to relax/pamper themselves. I just bought the Discovery Channel “Planet Earth” series, for example, because it was on sale and helps me calm down before going to sleep.

Excellent topic! (And perhaps useful as it is also just in time for Mother’s Day, for those of you who have difficult-to-buy-for mothers.) (Pictured: Day 94, HNT Massage, originally uploaded to Flickr by lintmachine.)

For my own $.02:

I find that exercise is absolutely essential to helping me unwind, even though I work out in the mornings. It just seems like if I go several days without exercising, I can’t unwind at all.
I love sitting with the hubs and talking about our days while listening to chill music and enjoying some wine. (I have a “Smart Playlist” in my iTunes library, and tag dinner-party-appropriate songs with the “genre” dinner.”)
Also, shopping — physically, in stores — relaxes me. I think it has to do with it being a tactile experience, and not a terribly intellectual one: I like to walk around and touch the clothes, play with color combinations in my mind, and so forth. Buying isn’t necessary!
I love a good massage, also, if we’re talking serious pampering, or — if budget or circumstances allow, a trip to a spa with a girlfriend for a series of spa treatments. (I’ve only done that twice, though — once to help a friend celebrate her 30th birthday in Sedona, and once for a semi-bachelorette party at Canyon Ranch in Las Vegas.)

Reading before bed can be helpful, but I find it depends heavily on what I read — anything that has to do with an agenda on my “to do” list makes me anxious, and anything that’s too “brain candy” like makes me want to stay awake and read it. I’d love to learn more about meditation (sometimes I say the rosary, which is supposedly the Catholic form of meditation). At various points in my life I’ve also tried to get into habits like drinking Celestial Seasoning’s “Sleepytime Tea” before bedtime, or putting L’Occitane’s lavendar hand lotion on my hands before bedtime, just to give myself a Pavlovian cue that “it’s time to relax and go to sleep.” Finally — I don’t have a television in my bedroom, but if I’m stressed enough I will rewatch my favorite movie on my laptop or whatever.

Readers, what do you do to relax? How often do you have problems relaxing?

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Redbull and Coffee? What to Eat for Energy

by Kat on 04/29/2010 · 165 comments

in Energy, Fashion, Food, Lifestyle, Organization, Stress

We smiled when we got this reader mail because, well, it’s a subject near and dear to our hearts:

I would love to see a story on what everyone eats! Given that the topics of conversation frequently discuss clothing size, size of models, etc, I’d love to know what everyone eats. How do women have enough energy to make it through long days? Are people subsisting mostly off of coffee and redbull? Do people order in all the time or bring PBJ (like me!)? How much is typically spend on food a week? (I know that will vary greatly by location)

We’ve talked about it a bit here before, but it does seem like an evergreen topic. So here’s the question: What do you eat for the days when you know you need to make it through a super long day at the office? (Pictured: Dinner @ Office, originally uploaded to Flickr by jetalone)

For this author, the answer depends upon small meals that keep energy levels high and blood sugar levels constant. For us, this translates to lots of fiber and protein. A typical long day might look like this:

first breakfast (within an hour of waking up) – a few raw almonds, half a banana, or maybe a few prunes (with coffee, of course, which I usually drink black)

second breakfast (after getting to the office after a workout) – yogurt mixed with a high-fiber cereal, maybe oatmeal, maybe hard-boiled eggs, maybe eggs over hard if I’m eating breakfast at home, or maybe an egg sandwich if I know I’ll be really busy that morning and unable to snack. Also, at some point I got into the habit of filling a stainless steel water container (like these Klean Kanteen Stainless Steel Water Bottles from Amazon, available for $16 or so) with water the night before; I’d start drinking that when I arrived at the office (with the aim of finishing it by lunch, then refilling it and drinking a second one by the time I left that night). (I’d pour the water into a second cup so I didn’t have to wash the water bottle very often.)

snack - apple or other fruit

lunch – could be anything, but popular choices include: a Subway sandwich, a sandwich I brought from home, maybe a toasted bagel with cream cheese, a spinach salad with feta and cheese (or lately I’ve been liking spinach, shrimp, alfalfa sprouts, tomatoes, carrots, balsamic vinegar, and Saltines crumbled up in the salad — try it!) to some soup from the place downstairs with maybe half a piece of the whole-wheat bread. Oh — my afternoon caffeine hit is always Diet Coke with lunch — I’ll start drinking Bottle #2 once I’m done with that.

afternoon snack - ranges pretty widely, from a decaf skim latte, to some oatmeal or other breakfast-type choices, to a 100 Calorie VitaTop, to some nuts, to candy or chips. (Regarding candy or chips as a snack — for me it seems to make me more hungry, more quickly, and so I try to only eat it if I know that I plan to order dinner fairly soon. But: hey, you know what they say about best laid plans…) Oh, and occasionally I’ll have a jar of peanut butter on hand and just eat a spoonful or so.

dinner — here, it really depends how long a haul I think I’m in for, and who’s paying for the dinner (at my old job we were allowed to bill a client for dinner from Seamless Web if we stayed past 8:00 — at least up to a certain amount.) So if it was 6:00 and I thought I’d be working until midnight, I tended to order foods that didn’t have to be eaten all at once. For example, if possible, it’s great to eat fruit BEFORE you eat your dinner — it seems to give a burst of energy and, by the time your sugar levels spike and you’re starving, it’s time for the main meal. Or ordering soup (to eat first) and a half a sandwich (to eat in 2 hours). Other frequent dinner items at the office included things like omelets, grilled salmon or other fish, sushi, Chinese food (I like to order chicken or shrimp with broccoli, steamed, and black bean sauce on the side). Sometimes I’d order frozen yogurt and fruit for dinner, sometimes grilled, lean steak. I also liked cooked veggies like spinach, bok choy, green beans, broccoli, and whatever strikes me as interesting that day. If I hadn’t had a salad for lunch I’d often eat a salad for dinner.

final snack: On the days I intended to be there until midnight and really needed to crunch, I’d mix a cup of regular and decaf coffee and drink that around 10:30 or 11 — because I’d do it only occasionally, the effect would be to spike my energy levels SUPER high, and then I’d completely crash about an hour and a half later– just in time for bed. (My personal rule was that I tried not to work past midnight unless I really had to — I found my work product was better, and my energy levels the next day better, if I left at midnight and got up at 4:00 or so the next morning to finish whatever it was.) If I was hungry again I would maybe eat the same kind of snack I would have in the afternoon, also.

So that would be my “long haul” day — oh, and I’d estimate the cost to me would be less than $10 for everything so long as the dinner could be billed to the client. What does your long-haul day look like, readers? What do you do if you CAN’T bill a portion of the day to your client?

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