Coffee Break: Bellport Heel
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I've always loved this winey color for shoes, and these heels from Cole Haan look great.
It's a really versatile color — you can wear it with navy and gray, and it adds a tiny pop of color with black, beige, or white. You can even wear it with saturated colors like red, where you'll find it a bit less harsh than a black shoe.
The heels are regularly $170, but during the NAS they're marked to $100. They're available in garnet (pictured), black, beige, and navy.
Looking for something similar but in flats? These Rothy's are nice.
Sales of note for 7/15/25:
- Nordstrom – The Anniversary Sale is open for everyone — here's our roundup!
- Ann Taylor – Semiannual sale, extra 50% off sale styles
- Banana Republic Factory – 40-60% off everything + extra 50% off clearance
- Boden – 10% off new womenswear with code
- Eloquii – Limited time, 100s of styles starting at $9
- J.Crew – End of season cashmere sale, take 40% off select cashmere
- J.Crew Factory – All-Star Sale, 40-70% off entire site and storewide and extra 60% off clearance
- M.M.LaFleur – Try code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off
- Rothy's – Up to 50% off seasonal faves, plus new penny loafers and slingbacks
- Spanx – End of season sale
- Talbots – All markdowns, buy 2 get 1 free, on TOP of an extra 40% off (last day is 7/15)
I’ve been unemployed for several months and this whole thing is so much harder than I thought it would be. My applications go into a black hole, company recruiters don’t answer me, and my network isn’t helping as much as I had hoped. I’m 10 years into my career and this is my first time being unemployed. Where do I turn? Are there independent recruiters/head hunters who would want to help me? Any recommendations? I’m in a medium sized city in the SEUS. Not a lawyer, background is banking compliance.
Try reading the blog Ask A Manager (askamanager [dot] org) and also browse around on the site. The site is organized by topics but also has its own search engine.
Alison Green, the author, has a free download to prepare for interviews. (She also has written 2 other books which are for sale on her site.) Finally, the comments section is basically kindhearted and helpful.
This is the funniest thing I have read all day.
I’ve never been an AAM reader. What’s the deal with it? Once good feedback that’s now riddled with out of touch feedback?
Signed, extremely long-time reader here who has heard about it for just as long and finds herself interviewing for the first time in 15 years and looking for allll the help
I found it useful like 15 years ago. Unfortunately Alison left the office workforce awhile back, and lost touch with that readership as they advanced in seniority and mid-career problems, while she did not. The comment section seems to be where nuanced takes go to die.
Some of her older posts about job searching are helpful, but the newer posts are often questions about ridiculous workplace scenarios. You can look through the categories for help on resume writing or cover letters, but a lot of that information can be found by just googling.
There is sub on R*ddit dedicated to the site if that tells you anything – AskAManagerSnark.
It’s 75% realistic workplace scenarios and 25% outlandish stories of truly bananas workplaces. I guess with the crowd here it might also matter that her advice is definitely not calibrated for the big law culture of getting paid boatloads and thus putting up with shitty conditions. It’s more middle of the road.
I have found her suggestions and examples of cover letters helpful as someone who needs a cover letter to make sense of a non-traditional and very eclectic career trajectory that looks more than a tad odd when looked at in a resume format.
I agree with others that it was useful 15 years ago and there are probably still some gems on the website, but most of the posts the last time I looked at it were about truly outlandish scenarios that garner lots of clicks but don’t offer value to job searchers – stuff like “my boss dressed as a banana for Halloween and asked me to dress as a monkey, what do I do?!”
She completely blocked me from commenting when I (respectfully) pointed out that one of her answers ran afoul of federal law.
It wasn’t even arguable; it is very much “here is the exact FAR clause requiring the letter writer’s government contractor employer to do this..”
I don’t look at the comments much, tbf. I think she has a pretty consistent stream of normal questions, but of course they don’t go viral or anything. I also think while an individual reader might evolve in their career and find some advice less relevant (true for me), the overall readership will of course always include people of all kinds of career stage. Sometimes I certainly wish some entry level coworkers would read ask a manager to understand professional norms. So the content gets repetitive because new variations of basic questions get sent in all the time.
This morning roundup post was five very typical ones: employee has an annoying conversational habit, coaching vs getting rid of a problematic employee, norms around using your phone when with colleagues, scene from a TV show with a real life lens, shady wage practices
AskAManager is both useful and entertaining. If you’re looking for a job ignore all the entertaining posts, but do click on interviewing and looking for a job on the side bars and read those. I also agree that its not biglaw calibrated, its normal jobs calibrated. And don’t read the comments, as we know from here those can be all over the place.
LOL the comments section is full of anti-social weirdos who give awful advice.
I was laid off last year and spent a few months job searching. I work as a business/system analyst, which is a tech-adjacent role. Not sure if all of these apply to you, but this is what I did:
1. Is your resume a list of job duties or accomplishments? Try to quantify (e.g. decreased cycle time by x%) your tasks. I was at my previous company for 20+ years and I don’t remember the specifics of every project I worked on so I guessed on some numbers.
2. Tailor your resume to each job. I sometimes took bullet points from the job description and re-worded them using my own experiences. I used ChatGPT some to help with suggestions on how to word things, but I never directly copied pasted from there.
3. Set aside time each day to apply. I used LinkedIn, Indeed and Zip Recruiter to look for job postings. Check out universities, city government or hospital systems that might have a role suited to your experience. I also used the site hiring. cafe for job searching.
4. On LinkedIn, I did mark myself open to work with the banner and there is another setting to be open to work for recruiters. I did have recruiters from staffing agencies contact me that way.
5. Look through your contacts on LinkedIn and see where they are working. I found some companies I hadn’t heard of and looked at their job postings.
6. Look for local staffing agencies in your area. A lot in my area are for factory work, but some have postings for office jobs too.
Wishing you all the best. Job searching is incredibly difficult and mentally taxing. You put your whole life’s work on a piece of paper and send it out into void hoping someone takes a chance on you. Hoping you’re able to find something soon.
This is all good advice, especially 1 and 2. I just went back to work this month after a year of unemployment, 6 months of which was seriously looking/applying. Mid-career director/VP level, for context. I did get my new job by cold applying, and I found LinkedIn helpful for identifying open positions.
A couple more thoughts:
Are you receiving unemployment benefits / have you registered with your state’s unemployment agency? That can be a helpful resource, they offer resume review services, more job boards, and a tracking tool I found kind of helpful.
I massively revamped my resume on the advice of the unemployment agency’s resume expert. Mind you, I’d already gotten resume review and advice from the outplacement service that came with my severance package, but the other guy’s was so much better. At-a-glance buzzwords and core competencies right up front, 4-5 impact statements supporting them on the first page, and brief work history after that. Visually, it was so much better than having impact statements within the work history! it could be coincidence and macro economic factors, but I started getting WAY more recruiter responses after I made that change.
I *did* copy and paste in chatgpt to help tailor my resume to specific job postings. I removed my contact information, and basically pasted both my resume and the job description, then asked chatgpt to highlight any gaps. My understanding is that a lot of companies now use AI resume screening, so making sure that the words in your resume register to the AI as evidence of skills and experience in the desired areas is important. Usually your resume is not initially being reviewed by someone with subject matter expertise, so this is a good check to make sure the parallels are idiot/AI-proof.
Good luck, it’s a tough job market out there, but people are still hiring. Don’t be shy about telling anyone and everyone you are looking, you never know where a job lead might come from. The unemployment slog can feel isolating and demoralizing, so make sure you’ve got something to fill your cup and a listening ear for frustration.
Thank you! I have a similar pair that I love and needed to be replaced!
Maybe this is shopping addiction, maybe it is just existential crisis as I feel have plateaued in a job I thought was my calling (highest possible level in a small NGO helping solve housing crisis in high poverty areas around the world) but I am spending hourssss after work in bed, computer open browsing shoppiing sites and adding shit I dont need to to carts feeling like buying something might fill the empty space or make the day feel a little more exciting or like I’m doing something for myself. But it never actually works… It just piles up the stuff, the guilt, and the feeling of being out of control. I have already unsubscribed from promo emails, deleted all apps and cant even use my phone as it is highly inconvenient for shopping hence the computer… Advice? Tips?
Get up and go do something that requires your full attention! Exercise, an art class, something where you can’t sit down and look at a screen.
I do this also and tell myself I’ll just return everything. Maybe switch to Zillow dreaming or even just fancier shops like Neiman or Saks where you can’t easily buy a bunch of crap? Signed, $70 in my old navy cart currently.
exercise
Learn to knit or crochet so your hands are busy? Unfortunately this can lead to shopping for yarn and patterns.
I LOLed at shopping for yarn. You should see my stash!
Ha, yes. I picked up knitting to keep me off my phone. I shop in person at my local yarn shop and I’ve spent $200 YTD (but also have some truly lovely handmade gifts for Christmas!)
honestly, I just buy a new pair of shoes or a lipstick rather than “I must revamp my entire wardrobe.” It gives me that shopping high and is a low stakes purchase (especially since most of my shoes are more practical styles these days – Carrie Bradshaw I am not.)
Honestly it sounds like you’re depressed and using shopping for the dopamine hit. I use food, so I get it. You need to find an alternative dopamine fix. At the very least, leave everything in the carts and only buy it if you still want it a week later.
Make a shopping wish list instead.
Browse all your sites, find all the shiny stuff, but instead of putting it in your cart, make a bookmark. Review your bookmarks once a week/month, and then buy if you even remember why.
I think you would enjoy Hannah Louise Poston (or something almost like that) on youtube. She is excellent at unpacking why we shop, and have done several very interesting no buys.
The library actually scratches this itch for me!
What safety measures do you take while traveling alone? I was recently given a 1st floor room and trying to decide if it was worth the trouble to switch – I just wound up putting the ironing board against the windows. Mirror check? Hanger on the doorknob? TikTok has so many “helpful” tips lol.
I just remember to put on the door chain, and don’t open the door to randos (nothing truly scary, but I’ve had drunk people who thought my room was theirs knocking on my door a handful of times). I’ve lived in first floor apartments, so that would not generally stress me out, although I understand why it might.
I would definitely ask to move to a higher floor. It’s not even about the real risk, it’s about my inability to sleep from paranoia.
If they hotel clerk says your room number out loud in front of other guests tell them to assign you a new room without announcing the number. If you get a weird feeling about someone in the hallway keep walking past your room. I don’t tell uber drivers that I’m a visitor- if they ask I give a polite but vague answer then stop chatting with them. Don’t share any travel or hotel information with your plane neighbor- even if they seem harmless you don’t know who else can overhear it. Depending on the area I might wait inside for my uber instead of standing on the sidewalk. When walking look up directions before leaving instead of staring at your phone en route.
I traveled pretty frequently by myself for work for years. At first I would be paranoid like this, and all worried about someone idk, breaking into the room?? But once I got used to it–and saw my female boss and colleagues who traveled a lot not seem to care about any of this stuff– I calmed down. I have in my Marriott preferences “high floor preferred” and lock my door and that’s it. I really think the true crime entertainment boom has made people lose their minds a little. Yes, there are bad people out there, but you can’t live your life expecting something bad to happen.
None besides locking the door and using a deadbolt/chain if they have one.
First floor wouldn’t bother me at all. I live in a SFH so I don’t think of a first floor hotel room as being inherently any less safe than my house (the area might be less safe but there are also more people around paying attention than in my pretty quiet neighborhood). My only scary hotel experiences have been getting followed into elevators and then down the hall on my high floor late at night, so I’d probably actually feel safer on the first floor.
I always use the deadbolt, ask for two keycards, and stay aware of who else is in the hallway with me (who might see what room I enter/leave). I also count the doors from my room to the nearest stairwell in the event of a fire.
Biggest decision is that I generally stay at nicer hotels. I lock the door in my room but am otherwise not stressed. Eating out I generally prefer to bring a book with me rather than scroll on my phone. Non-fiction about dinosaurs (or equivalent) tends to be excellent repellant for anyone chatting me up, unless it is about dinosaurs.
What is the mirror checK?
Probably to see if it’s one-way or not.
I let someone know where I am, keep the door locked, and don’t stay in motels where the doors open to the outside.
I lock the door and that is it
I don’t like ground floor rooms, and will ask be moved if they’ve put me in one. One level up from ground floor is fine.
Any ideas for baptism gifts? I am at a loss.
Ugift529? I think there are ways to gift stock or bonds.
Beautiful classic hard back fairytale collection.
I just moved from a cute old house with character into a very bland and boring condo. For many reasons this was a great move for me, but I really want to make the new space more beautiful. Any ideas for instagram accounts/blogs/whatever to follow for inspiration? There are lots of really amazing looking spaces out there, but I’m starting with not very high cielings, orange peel textured walls, and no character like built-ins or crown moulding. My style leans more English cottage but I’ll take inspiration from anywhere!
I feel like the Insta account houseandgardenuk might be right up your alley. Lovely design, and a lot of it on old cottages with low ceilings.
I love Apartment Therapy for inspiration.
I know blogs aren’t the first place to go these days, but take a look at Laurel Bern blog. She has featured some pretty bland interiors that are given character with molding and other architectural features.
Did anyone else see the NYT roundup of wedding guest dresses? I was underwhelmed and thinking of the reader here who had a stunning (pink?) dress a few weeks ago that everyone told her wasn’t fancy enough. Seriously what are people wearing to weddings these days if that one wasn’t fancy enough? (Does anyone happen to remember the brand for the pink dress? I thought it was stunning and can’t remember it now.)
Is that the list from Wirecutter? They have to be trolling us for half those dresses – especially the WHITE Reformation one!
Good Lord that was a really pitiful selection.
I thought the choices skewed really casual. Half of the suggestions are cotton/sundresses? I feel like the middle 80% of weddings in terms of dressiness call for something solidly in the “cocktail dress” category, which basically only one of these fit. This is to say nothing of the white dress.
That seems like a very East Coast perspective to me. I’m in the bay area, and a cotton dress with a floral print has been what 90% of the attendees were wearing at the last two weddings I attended. One bride even put out a sort of lookbook tab on her wedding website and it was all dresses like that – not cocktail or semi-formal. Garden party chic.
totally. Sundresses are west Coast formal!
I’m in the midwest, though I may still be off base! I’ve been to some casual/garden weddings and agree the longer printed dresses are perfect for that (ironically I think the white one is nice in cut and pattern, minus the color), I just also feel like the majority of the weddings I’m invited to are either explicitly or implicitly cocktail attire and most people are wearing dressy fabrics. I don’t think I run in particularly fancy crowds, either. The red Ganni dress is something I’d wear to dinner with friends (if I spent $300 on sundresses).
I mean, I am pro cotton sundress admittedly. But cheap polyester satin does no one any favors and it makes my skin crawl to think of wearing it to a summer wedding where I’m inevitably going to get overheated. Temu, please make this trend die!
I’m in So Cal and would wear a pretty, dressy sundress to an informal wedding, but the ones featured in the Wirecutter article were mostly just ugly and way too casual.
I need a new water bottle after leaving my last one on a plane. Sell me on your favorite!
Do I go with trendy Owalla? Reliable Hydroflask? Flashy Zojirushi? I care about design more than I’d like to admit, so I’d like something sleek and cute.
My Owala is cute but doesn’t fit in a cup holder, which is annoying.
I love my Zojirushi. It’s four years old and going strong, even though I use it almost daily, have dropped it, left it in my car for three weeks (it had coffee with milk in it)….
I have a matte black S’well that I really like for travel. Wirecutter’s complaint was that it was too expensive for what it was, but it doesn’t leak. I’ve had the shinier versions and they get dinged up easily.
I use simple modern straw water bottles at work and home but they are not good for travel.
I have an Owalla and while it’s cute and I love the straw, it also just started leaking :(
Weirdly, the Owalla is now the cat’s water bottle. He doesn’t drink directly from it, but won’t drink water unless his water bowl is full to the rim, so the filled Owalla sits next to his water bowl so I can top it up every time I walk by.
I am reminded of George Carlin’s bit about if aliens came to earth and saw humans walking behind dogs and picking up their poop, they would be convinced that dogs were the leaders of the Earth.
Not far from the truth… and yeah, agree that the current use is the only thing my Owalla bottle is good for.
I like my reliable hydroflask! I find the design (color, size, shape, material) pleasing to the eyes and in my hands. I have two, a larger straw one to keep around the house, and a smaller one that I bring to the car.