Keeping aspects of your personal life private at work may feel necessary to you, or it may just be a personal preference. Maybe you’re worried that certain information about your life outside of work will make you a source of coworker gossip, or lead people to stereotype you, or even cost you your job. Or maybe you feel that some parts of your personal life simply aren’t anyone’s business. We thought it’d be interesting to talk about the things that readers prefer to keep quiet at the office — and why. Readers, do you keep certain parts of your personal life private at work? What parts, and why?
Do You Keep Your Personal Life Private at Work?
09/20/2018 by 42 Comments
Weekend Wednesday: Where to Shop for “Tough Girl Chic” Clothes
09/19/2018 by 25 Comments
I have some mom friends who are really (really) into Lilly Pulitzer and Vineyard Vines type of preppiness — and I thought it might be fun to round up different stores selling “weekend vibe” clothes in different personalities for our ongoing Weekend Wednesdays series. After all, we’ve talked in the past about the weekend you vs. the weekday you — as well as sharing our best tips for upgrading your weekend clothes and cultivating style in general. I tend to associate Lily et al. with the summer months, so we’ll save preppy weekend looks for next spring — and instead let’s start with the weekend vibe of tough girl chic, which has always been one of my preferred options,
Let’s back up a bit, though: As a reminder, there was an old style book I had where the author (CNN style commentator Elsa Klensch) talked about how “[m]any successful businesswomen I know tap into their private visions of themselves and express that inner being in their weekend wear. … On weekends, I want to be softer, more romantic. My fantasy in the summer is to look as though I just stepped out of an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel wearing Gatsby-style long skirts and gently flowing chiffon scarves.”
Where Do You Draw the Line Between Wedding Wear and Office Wear?
09/18/2018 by 39 Comments
I was looking at a major department store’s “Wear to Work” dresses and found myself negging rejecting half of the dresses because they looked like wedding wear to me instead of workwear. And it occurs to me: this topic comes up a TON — what is cocktail attire, what is office attire, what is wedding attire — and do any pieces straddle the line so successfully that you can honestly wear them to multiple situations? I’m not going to pretend to be innocent, either, as I’m sure many readers will note — sometimes we’ve made some workwear recommendations a little too closer to the “wedding wear” line. Still: what are your thoughts? Where do YOU draw the line between wedding wear and office wear?
For my $.02, from my own personal experience and everything I’ve learned in doing the blog, this is my sense of the line between wedding wear and office wear:
Tuesday’s Workwear Report: Stretch Crepe Pants
09/18/2018 by 342 Comments
Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices.
We’ve included these pants in a lot of roundups over the past year or so, but I don’t think we’ve ever featured them by themselves for a Workwear Report. Heralded by the readers as “magic pants” and “professional pajamas,” these pants are the thing you wear when you want comfort and style — certainly a solid pick for when you’re seeking comfortable workwear for late nights. They are a pull-on style, have no pockets, and have instructions to “dry clean or machine wash cold, tumble dry low.” They’re $168-$178, available in regular, petite and plus sizes, and come in a bazillion colors in the slim ankle pants (pictured in navy), as well as in straight leg full length styles. Eileen Fisher Stretch Crepe Pants
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What to Wear on Your First Day at Work
09/17/2018 by 10 Comments
Here’s a fun question for today: What are your best tips for someone on what to wear on your first day at work? Do you play it very safe with your interview outfit? If it’s a business casual environment and a suit isn’t appropriate, what do you wear for your first-day outfit?
We’ve talked about how to make your first day on the job a GREAT one, as well as what to wear on your first day at a very casual law office, but it’s been a while — I can’t wait to hear what the readers say!
Here are some factors that I would consider when picking out what to wear on your first day at work:
What Are Your Friendship Tiers — Who is a Close Friend vs. an Acquaintance?
09/13/2018 by 30 Comments
I know we just discussed the effect friends have on your life a few weeks ago, but I thought friendship tiers and theories would make a really interesting discussion: How do you define tiers of friendship? What is the difference (to you) between a close friend and an acquaintance, and how has that changed for you over your life?
Recently I saw an interesting article in Vox about “why 30 is the decade that friends disappear, and this is what you can do about it” — and it contained one woman’s friendship tiers:
First come acquaintances, people I can recognize and say hi to at yoga class, cookouts, church, that kind of thing. Then I start to connect with some casual friends, people I can do coffee dates and see movies with. Once we reach a point where we don’t have to make plans in advance — where we’re comfortable enough to do nothing together and I can just text that I’m on my way — that’s when I’ve made a close friend.
I immediately texted Kate to note that I disagreed with that “just text that I’m on my way” level — as an introvert, I haaaate when people CALL without a specific purpose (or, frankly, without us having agreed to have a call at X time — because I am crazy). If a good friend were to just show up at my door, I would be like, “Hi! Are you in dire need of a bathroom? Are you injured? Can I help you in some way? No? OK nice seeing you let’s get together soon!” But again, I’m kind of an extreme introvert. It’s particularly interesting to me because some of the people I consider my best, closest, soul-sister type of friends aren’t necessarily people who are in my orbit on a regular basis — they’re those people I maybe haven’t seen in nine months (or longer) but we talk for four hours straight without stopping when we do see each other. So for me, my friendship tiers look more like this:
