Frugal Friday’s Workwear Report: Midi Slip Skirt
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Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices.
I saw a character on a TV show wearing a midi-length plaid skirt recently, and I’ve been on the lookout for one ever since. Initially, I was thinking of something with a more substantial fabric, but this slip skirt from LC Lauren Conrad might do the trick. I would wear this with a cozy turtleneck and boots for the office (and probably add a slip under the skirt for some extra warmth).
The skirt is $12.99, marked down from $39.99, at Kohl’s and comes in sizes XS-XXL. It also comes in four other colors.
Sales of note for 10/16 (ALSO, friendly PSA – check any NAS or Amazon Prime Day purchases for the return policies…)
- Ann Taylor – 50% off + free shipping on everything!
- Brooklinen – Friends & Family – 20% off sitewide and 50% off select bundles
- J.Crew – Extra 50% off 3+ sale styles with code – includes lots of suiting, sweaters, and pants
- J.Crew Factory – Friends & Family, extra 15% off your purchase
- M.M.LaFleur – October Sale Event, best prices of the season (Try code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off on other items)
- Nordstrom – 5840+ new markdowns for women, up to 40% off
- Talbots – Friends and family, 30% off your entire purchase
- Theory – End of season sale is on with extra savings (new prices are marked)
If you have a solid daily driver purse, particularly if:
— you are a car commuter
— you have a separate laptop bag
— you have a narrow shoulder that shoulder bags just slide off of (but if they are “baguette” types that get tucked under your armpit, they stay, but those bags tend to be very small).
Could you say what you have and if you like it or not? I feel that I keep getting bags that turn out just to be C- bags — maybe they are too heavy, maybe they are too large or too floppy, maybe they are too open or the pockets aren’t quite right, or they are too open and spill out or too hard to get into (i.e., why a Birkin would never work for me). I would give Goldilocks a run for her money! I want to get a good bag AND donate some of the others.
My daily bag is a Clare V Moyen Messenger. It is the most perfect unicorn of bags. It has a wide shoulder strap short enough that the bag tucks under your arm and a long, narrow crossbody strap. I have narrow shoulders and the shoulder strap stays on unless I’m wearing a big or slippery coat, in which case I use the crossbody strap. It is big enough to hold a large wallet, sunglasses case, phone, keys, small notebook, small umbrella, etc. but still looks relatively small, and somehow manages to be proportionate on people of all sizes.
What’s the pocketing situation like?
One internal pocket without a zipper. This is where I put my keys and pen so I don’t have to fish for them.
I have a small camera-style bag from Madewell and really like it. The strap is very versatile, so I can wear it crossbody when I want to make sure it doesn’t slide off my shoulder. It’s small enough that I usually just tuck it into my EDC laptop backpack for my car commute. It is large enough to comfortably accommodate my basics (keys, wallet, phone, lip balm, etc.) and but small enough that it prevents me from stuffing so much into it that it becomes heavy. The zip keeps things securely contained. Even when the zip is open the shape means things do not readily fall out, although I don’t have any issues reaching in to find things.
I have the Lo & Sons Pearl and it might fit your needs. There is a long strap or a very short strap, and the long strap is adjustable, so you can carry it in your hand, wear it as a crossbody, or shorten the strap to put it on your shoulder. I prefer a smaller, lighter purse and it is not terribly large, but is set up to hold a fair bit and keep it organized. There are two zipper pockets on the sides and an open snap section in the middle. I don’t have trouble with getting things in and out and the zippers and snap keep it closed, but I rarely snap the middle section and still don’t have trouble with things falling out easily. The different sections make it easy to find what I want without having to dig around.
When this bag is empty, how flat is it? E.g., could you stick it flat in a laptop tote at a conference, and then take it out to use for evening events while ditching the tote at the hotel desk?
Maybe an inch thick when it’s empty? The leather is pretty soft, so it’s fairly flat when empty. Depending on the size of your laptop tote, I think you could do that. I will say that I were looking for a bag for the evening to carry just my phone, a few cards, lipstick, glasses, I would probably use my Lo & Sons Waverley instead. (Yes, I like their bags!) It’s smaller and more compact, and while it has more structure and wouldn’t be much flatter than the Pearl, it would take up less space overall in your tote
Maybe an inch? The leather is pretty soft, so it’s fairly flat when empty. Depending on the size of your laptop tote, I think you could do that. I will say that if I were looking for a bag to carry just a few things in the evening (like phone, a few cards, lipstick, glasses), I would use my Lo & Sons Waverley instead. (Yes, I like their bags!) It’s smaller and more compact, so while it has more structure and wouldn’t flatten much more than the Pearl, it would take up less space overall.
I’ve been looking at a smaller shoulder bag and don’t want a black hole. My front-runner is the new Veronica Beard Dash shoulder bag, but haven’t tried it on IRL.
https://veronicabeard.com/products/dash-saddle-bag-burgundy?_gl=1*1yj4aff*_up*MQ..*_gs*MQ..&gclid=CjwKCAjwi-zWBhAdEiwAqlRf-NTgCHLa67YE4q5thNcZR90W04SSq4ygxQs6w1WuVd4N0A-rtr3AARoC7jQQAvD_BwE&gbraid=0AAAAABMxaq_92tTCt-Hl94Pi2G8mw2WtU
I have been carrying the Portland Leather Sloan Doctor Bag in the Oversized size since January, and I really like it. I do not use the crossbody strap. It has two zipper pulls, it’s a perfect size for wallet, sunglasses case, small tote with my random stuff, small notebook, phone with room for other things if needed. It’s not too deep, so I can see everything.
I just had a very mediocre performance review, down from last year despite having a better year, objectively. My whole leadership chain is new this year. It wasn’t a bad review, just not great- the middle ranking. I don’t have visibility as to how the new big boss views performance and my boss was not particularly helpful. Suggestions for how to sit with this, and also to try to intuit whether this is a precursor to more serious concerns? I’m not great with reading the tea leaves generally.
Is new leadership of the type to default to the middle ratings? I was at one org where there were three ratings and allegedly each department could only give out one top rating per year. Everyone else got the middle.
After being on both ends of the review process for many years, I don’t believe that performance reviews are anything but a tool for manipulating employees.
Only 5% of employees at my company can get the top rating. Everyone else is meets expectations or does not meet expectations. I am generally in the middle and as long as there isn’t any negative feedback, I am fine with it.
Draft a response that gets added to the record that states it’s been a better year. Nothing inflammatory, just put it out there.
Do not do this, it does nothing but make you look defensive and entrenches negative viewpoints your manager probably already has. A middling review is something to be concerned about. If you want to keep your job I’d suggest sitting down with your manager and having a heart to heart about how to improve. Takes notes and review them during the year. Also, put in visible effort into things, help your colleagues, be fun to work with. Engage.
Disagree. The time to do this would have been during the self review.
A few years ago my org went from a “manager’s discretion” to “baseline is the middle option” rating system and now only reserves the top rating for people who are on a leadership-approved promotion fast track. I am in a terminal role, so I went from the highest ratings every year based on my work quality, quantity, and overall likeability, to middle of the road every year. It doesn’t actually impact my pay or raise potential, so I’ve just learned to not care.
I hate this. We have marginal performers that get inflated because of this while they become just more expensive headcount. And they think they are doing OK but they have deficiencies and yet they resist correcting them because they are “meeting expectations.” But they aren’t. I’ve given up.
How do you write an out-of-office message that makes it clear you’re genuinely unavailable? On my last vacation I kept getting peppered with small questions.
You say clearly in the message that you won’t check email while out, and then you either don’t check or don’t respond. There’s no magic way to make people not ask, but you can put yourself in a position where you don’t have to respond and have given them appropriate notice of that fact. I do suspect that over time, people will realize that you don’t respond while out and the number of inquiries will go down, TBD how long that process will be.
Yup, include”…will respond when I return” in your OOO message
Make sure you include the person they can go to in your absence. It’s infuriating when people put an out of office message up without an alternate contact.
Just don’t check your email or work phone?
In my industry everyone has basically the same OOO, they look like the below, usually bilingual.
Hello,
I am out of office, returning X date, for urgent inquiries please contact XYZ, otherwise I will respond upon my return.
Thanks
Hi! I am out of office until [date]. I will return to your message when I am back. For anything needed before my return, please contact [team member name].
Thanks,
Anon
And then don’t reply to the one offs.
Internal or External? I set a separate OOO for each.
The answers to this will vary a lot based on your work situation and how long you are gone for. I’ve used various strategies but I have facilitated longer trips by having a short daily window to check/triage emails.
The wording doesn’t matter as much as you not responding to any emails while you’re out.
You can’t change human nature with what you say! You CAN clearly say that you’re offline, won’t be checking email until you return, and will respond after X date.
And then don’t check your email.
“I will be out of the office from X to Y with no access to email or voicemail. I will respond to your email when I return.”
And don’t respond. If possible, refer people to someone else for emergencies/issues.
We use outlook and in my org, if you are about to email someone who is sending automatic replies, that will show up when you put their email address in. It’s great. Tells my brilliant colleagues that they best find someone else for their petty and extremely urgent request, at least for the next week.
+1.
Agree that it doesn’t matter what you put in the OOO if you respond to emails. But I do think language in the OOO is useful. In my OOO, I always include if I’m checking email or not.
So for a true offline vacation, I include:
“….out of office until XXX with no access to email and no cell phone service. I look forward to responding after XXX.”
Now if I’m just out of the office for a work conference or meetings, I might put:
“…out of office for meetings with very limited access to emails and phone calls. My responses may be very delayed.”
Also should go without saying, but please list a person who is your backup and include their email and phone number. I use my OOO as a training method for my contacts to use my team – I list each person and their responsibility area, and suggest they contact them for quicker responses.
Also for vacations, I add a day to when I’m going to return emails/calls in my OOO. So if I’m back in office on Monday October 26, I put October 27 in my OOO to give me a day to catch up before being expected to respond. I’m pretty senior though – if you’re junior in a corporate setting your managers may side eye this.
Peppering isn’t going to stop no matter what your OOO says, because that’s how asynchronous communication like email works.
Just state that you are out until Date and will respond after you return. If you want to emphasize that you are offline you could add in that you expect to have no connectivity, but it’s not going to stop people from sending you messages. It’s on you to have the discipline to not deal with their questions until you are back.
For the current law students: how is it on campus these days? Are people running scared that AI is going to take away legal jobs? And how is it with what I understand to be some big firms hiring people permanently as 1Ls?
And for recent grads: do you feel that law school actually prepared you to pass the bar and start practicing? Or is it “we teach you to think and you will learn everything you need to know on your actual jobs”?
Following with interest!
Law school has never been about teaching you to pass the bar and start practicing.
+1
This is well known. I feel like law schools have been trying to add more programs, classes, clinics etc. designed to give students more “hands on” experience, but this still falls far short of actually preparing students for first year lawyer tasks. FWIW, I don’t think it’s a realistic (or desirable) goal to have students “prepared to practice law,” when what new lawyers typically mean by that is “familiarity with how to identify and complete required daily lawyering tasks in a specific practice area in a specific jurisdiction in a specific context.”
My fear is that it’s a lot of interesting and/or niche classes that aren’t enough to turn a clueless person into a useful brand-new helper so that they don’t get a cold-offer as a summer associate or get counseled out in the first or second review cycle (or fail the bar because you could be in a position where you have to learn a TON of new things to pass a local-law-heavy bar exam while also learning corporations and secured transactions and negotiable instruments and trusts and estates).
Hat’s off to Wisconsin, where you graduate one day and get sworn in the next.
Is that what LLMs are for then?
No. Bar prep courses (or cramming review books yourself) are for teaching you to pass the bar, and practicing is for learning how to practice.
I will answer based on my daughter’s experience. She is a second-year in BigLaw and went to a state flagship school. She knew she wanted to litigate, so took classes very much focused on litigation, and she participated in trial team. The training in civil procedure and in legal writing has proved very on-point for her job (not so much for the bar exam, but that’s what bar study courses are for). From the time she was a summer associate, she was learning to use AI within the firm’s guidelines, but there is no fear that AI will take her job.
I haven’t heard anything about permanent 1Ls?
I have heard about firms hiring 2L summer associates during 1L year.
As someone who graduated in 2009 and saw many classmates’ job offers get deferred rescinded, I would be very skeptical of any offer extended so far in advance.
Is there such a thing as a tall suede boot that won’t kill my old lady feet but doesn’t look old lady?
Aquitalia?
Following!
Blondo Velma. Have them in multiple colors. Super comfortable and chic and last forever.
Looking for some help shopping! I am in search of a simple, classic leather belt to wear with high-waisted trousers and jeans. Black, brown, cognac. Here’s the catch: I have an aversion to shiny hardware. Looking for either a brushed metal, or cloth, or something else (?) buckle or at least something very understated if it’s going to be the typical shiny metal.
Several of my belts from Banana Republic (and Factory) have hardware with more of a brushed satin finish. The leather is really nice, too.
Boden has some non-shiny metal options.
Cute skirt. Nice way to try out that trend for $12.