Now that I’m the Special Projects Manager, I feel like I need to mature three to five years. Changing from coordinator to manager is a huge step at my magazine. Typically, they’d give someone with two years of working experience an Associate Manager title.

I feel that because I’m a full-on manager I need to act older. Turning 24 helped my mentality a bit. But now, I can’t just be a young working girl finding her way. I need to know my way.

While I have a lot of great experience for the position, I know that people who have held the position before more have had more. I know some things and am learning others. I’ve never worked on a hotel contract before and I’ve never been in charge of an event budget. But I need to act like I know what I’m doing.

And, is it weird that I feel like I need to improve my appearance? I look pretty put together everyday at work but all of a sudden I want to cut my long hair into a more stylish, easy to manage haircut. I want a better wardrobe. I feel like my nails should be polished everyday.

Too bad I don’t have the budget for a great haircut, new wardrobe and weekly manicures.

This past week Working Girl had the privilege of sitting down with Liz Funk, author of Supergirls Speak Out: Inside the Secret Crisis of Overachieving Girls. Liz’s book centers around the idea of a “Supergirl” – someone who she describes as being under the impression that to be happy you have to be a size two, excel at your job, wear the coolest clothes, have the perfect boyfriend, and have gotten straight A’s (in high school and college). The book delves into the world of the Supergirl and how the most dangerous effect of being a Supergirl is not only competing against other Supergirls, but competing against themselves which is a destructive habit that Liz found can often lead to depression and other emotional disorders.

Before I get to our Q&A portion, I just have to give you a breakdown of how amazing Liz is. If we’re talking Supergirl, she is the definition. Liz Funk was born in 1988 (yes, that makes her 20 years old), and she is not only the author of Supergirls Speak Out, but has also has written articles for USA Today, Newsday, CosmoGIRL!, and recently appeared on the Today Show. She serves on numerous advisory boards, has great fashion sense, and loves Arrested Development. And she hasn’t even graduated from college yet! Safe to say, she is a Supergirl.

WG: First off, for those of our readers who haven’t read your book, how would you describe a SuperGirl?

A Supergirl is a young woman who wants to be a perfect 10 at everything she attempts. She wants to have a degree from a great college, to have a great job, to do great work and quickly ascend the corporate ladder, to be pretty, to have great friends, to have a boyfriend or a steady stream of hook-ups, and more broadly, to be charming. And on top of it all, the Supergirls want to make doing everything appear as though it comes naturally to them. And that’s where things get tricky. Often, Supergirls seek to achieve for the wrong reasons—they’re trying to find their value in being perfect, when they intellectually know that they’re demanding way too much from themselves and it’s impossible to be on top of things all the time.

WG: In your book, you call yourself a Supergirl – how do you think you became one personally? Do you think you had any particular influences on your Supergirlness? And do you ever wish you weren’t a Supergirl?

When I started high school—I went to a 7^th-12^th grade high school, so 7^th grade—I noticed that there were a lot of structures to reward high-achieving kids, like honor roll, student of the month, and annual award ceremonies, and even more implicit structures within the community where kids, particularly girls, who were high-achieving and beautiful and charming got the most attention. This really spurred my desire to want to do well in school, get my career started, and win others over. Also, to be perfectly honest, I have hair that is naturally dishwater-brown, but when I started having my hair bleached blonde when I was 17, I got so much more attention, and it made me work a lot more on my appearance and see my appearance as a really integral part of my identity as a Supergirl. I was also briefly anorexic in high school, and that totally sucked and was really intertwined with my achievement issues.

I often wish I wasn’t a Supergirl! I often have a hard time relaxing, I let work stress pollute my relaxation time, and I very rarely get drunk because I don’t want to devote the day after a fun night out to vegging on the couch with a hangover. I’m a work-in-progress, though: I’m really actively working to remedy my Supergirl drive and find a healthy balance between motivation and work, and relaxation and play.

WG: One person you interviewed in your chapter on working, Yolanda, talked about the concept of not apologizing at work because it makes you appear weak. Can you elaborate on this point and do you agree with her?

I do agree with Yolanda, to an extent. While I think that if you did in fact screw up and something bad happened because of your mistake, you probably should apologize, especially if you’re not the only one affected by the problem. However, young women are frequently the lowest on the totem pole in the office, and frequently they can be scapegoated by their superiors and expected to take the blame for things they played no role in. That’s a point where young women need to assert themselves, stand behind their work, and not apologize. I once had a boss make me apologize to her for a problem we were dealing with, and by apologizing, the problem became my fault, even though it really wasn’t in the first place! It’s situations like those where girls need to overcome their need to please others and charm authority figures, and put their reputations first. Personally, I’m a big apologizer and it’s one thing that I really don’t like about myself and that I’m working on.

WG: You discuss feminity in the workplace a lot in your book, in your research did you find that there is room for feminity or do you think women need to appear more masculine to succeed?

Femininity is an extremely powerful tool; sex is not. I think that young women can absolutely be feminine in the office and can use their femininity to help them: I think women are natural negotiators, they work well with others in intimate settings and often easily meet people where they’re at, and I think that they are very perceptive and intuitive… all because of femininity! I invite women to embrace their gender as they approach work! When it comes to clothes, things can get tricky. You don’t need to dress like Miranda Hobbes for work, but you shouldn’t dress like Carrie Bradshaw, either. Yolanda, the banker who I followed for my book, had great work clothes; she would wear nice black pants that looked sleek and fit her well, nice heels, designer glasses, a snug blazer, and a shirt that maybe had a bit more pizzazz than the rest of her outfit. Also, she usually had one—just one—designer piece on her person, like a nice bag or a simple piece of jewelry. But Yolanda was also in a majorly male-dominated corporation. I think girls who work at non-profits and in the media have a lot more flexibility, simply because the throngs of women who proceeded them have already done that negotiating for them.

WG: Do you believe women have to adapt more to leaving college and entering the working world than men do?

That’s a great question. I hesitate to say yes, because there’s all these silly movies like Knocked Up and You, Me, and Dupree (not that I don’t love these silly movies!) that posit that when women overachieve, guys in turn become lazy bums who play video games and smoke weed all day. But I do think that girls make the transition a little better, simply because I think that girls are itching to enter the grown-up world and prove themselves to the industries they want to work in when they graduate, whereas guys seem to get jobs because it’s time.

WG: How important would you say fashion/looking good is to a career?

I wish it mattered less, but I think it does. I’m a big fan of the web-site Ed2010.com, a community for aspiring magazine and newspaper editors, and I remember a few years ago, we had a big discussion on the message boards about how being pretty and well-groomed plays a big role in landing an internship, and ultimately, most agreed that being pretty and fun to chat with over the cubicle dividers is a big part of getting hired. I think that there is much more to being charming and personable than being good looking, however, and I challenge Working Girls everywhere to put down the mascara wand and instead be as authentic and energetic as possible on the job.

WG: What is your advice to Supergirls out there who after reading your book still want to do it all but without the side effects – how can we still achieve this status without having a mental breakdown?

Supergirls need to admit that there is a problem before they can remedy the problem! Girls need to admit to themselves that they’re living inauthetnically and that they’re achieving for the wrong reasons. They need to admit to themselves that they’re trying to be perfect and that it’s not working. Girls need to let themselves be imperfect, and they need to figure out why they matter outside of what they accomplish, what they look like, and how others perceive them. Girls neeed to spend more time alone with their thoughts and they need to develop a relationship with themselves! Here’s a baby step: I encourage working girls everywhere, for one week, to not listen to music, read, or play with their phones during their commute to work. I predict that they’ll find that they think about a ton of interesting things, and perhaps stumble upon some thoughts that really make them think about how they’re living their lives and what they could do differently to be happier and healthier. Seriously, I hate to say it, but ditch the iPod, and you’ll find that you’re such a pensive person!

WG: You expressed a sense of disappointment in yourself – or really a feeling of ‘this still isn’t good enough’ even though you are very successful. Do you still feel this way even after writing this book and doing the research?

Yes. Wah. This has really been the ride of my life and I’m so grateful to have achieved the goal of writing a book (and finally meeting Matt Lauer and Meredith Viera on the TODAY Show!), but I’m always going to expect more from myself. I’m a Supergirl, after all!

WG: Why do you think it is so hard for Supergirls to adapt to corporate world?

Great question! Part of the problem is that the corporate world doesn’t exactly reward high-achievers the way college does. There is less return on the time and energy investment than there is in college. It’s like, in school, if you study and you do extra credit, you’re very likely to get an A. But there’s no guarantee for success in the corporate world, and success comes about much more slowly! Also, on some level, the corporate world is at odds with our humanity: sometimes, you have to hide your emotions, pretend to like people you don’t, and put in 100% on days when you’re just not feeling it. When you’re younger, you can be more in tune with your needs and desires, but when you’re a grown-up, you have to go to work!

It’s not all gloom-and-doom, though, and I think that the twenties are a great time for young women to figure out who they are and why they matter and why they’re special, and once that happens, they’ll experience 300% more happiness in almost every area of their lives. As a recovering Supergirl, I’m inclined to guarantee it.

Last night I had a really bizarre dream that centered completely around work.

Let me set the scene for you: it was like I literally woke up in an alternate universe and it was like I knew this was my job, but I had no idea how anything worked. All of my co-workers were faceless and I didn’t know any of them. It was like I had started a whole new job and everyone knew me, but I had amnesia about what I did on a daily basis.

Enter panic. I am told by one of my faceless co-workers that it’s time for the event to start…right now. I can’t remember what event it is that I have planned and apparently I have done nothing for it. I was supposed to order Mediterranean style food, but I didn’t. I was supposed to get a curator to come and speak about Egyptian art, but I didn’t. Apparently, all I had accomplished was getting a meeting space. (I know, elaborate dream, but I kid you not I woke up thinking, I should have just called Roti – this Mediterranean place I’ve been to eat a few times).

I was literally panicking in my dream – I made numerous phone calls but couldn’t get through to people. And you know when in dreams you are doing things to make the situation better but it’s like you make no progress. That’s what this was like.

So I woke up in a panic thinking about cous cous and kebabs.

Of course, as soon as I got to work, I googled interpreting dreams and came up with this explanation:

To dream that you are at work, indicates that you are experiencing some anxiety about a current project or task. The dream may also be telling you that you need to “get back to work”.? Perhaps you have been slacking and need to pick up the pace.” -Dream Moods

Which womp womp just confirmed that I have been a severe slacker for the past two weeks. So thank you subconscious for making me feel even more guilty that I haven’t been working on that project I was assigned a few days ago.

I promise, I will work on it today…as long as you promise not to haunt my dreams again tonight.

Last Wednesday, Mom Boss called me into her office.

“Events Promo Manager is leaving,” she said.

I was shocked. I had had a feeling that Mom Boss wasn’t happy with Events Promo Manager for a while. And I thought that maybe she wouldn’t be around for much longer. But I was thinking months from now. Not right now.

What did this mean, I thought. Do I have her job? Was she fired? Do I have to ask for her job (again)? Would I get a raise? Did she want to leave? Would they interview other people? A hundred things were running through my head. The only answer I got on Thursday was “I have a plan. Just sit tight.”

I didn’t have to sit tight for long. On Thursday morning, I was called into her office again. “I’m assuming you want this job,” she said. I did want the Events Promo Manager job. I wanted it for a while. Now, I finally have it.

Well, I will in a week or so. Until then I’m working as the Marketing Coordinator and on our upcoming events. So I’m beyond busy but I’m also beyond thrilled. Thrilled mixed with nervousness and impatience. I wont know until later this week what my exact title is (associate or not) or my salary. Whatever the outcome, I’m excited to work more heavily on projects I’m truly interested in.

So that’s how I started my birthday weekend, with a promotion. Not a bad way to start of being 24.

This past weekend I jetted off to NYC to celebrate WG1 and our friend Catherine’s birthdays. But before I got outrageously drunk off large margaritas at Maracas Bar & Grill and sang along to Bon Jovi’s “Bed of Roses” at Iggy’s Karaoke Bar, I had a lunch date with some old co-workers at our favorite sushi joint. 

Meeting Notes is a weekly feature. Here we will dish on tidbits, news, and important things we think you Working Girls should know. So scroll down to hear what we think you should glean from this work week.

• I know most of us aren’t going to be resigning from our jobs any time soon, but keep this one on the back burner just in case. This employee resigned from his job at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard by writing his resignation letter on a cake. Yum!

• Last week, Sec. of State Hilary Clinton and First Lady Michelle Obama honored eight international working women who are making a change for gender equality in our world today. Included in the line-up were Suaad Allami, a prominent lawyer from Iraq, who defends women’s rights as well as Norma Cruz, director of the NGO Survivors Foundation, who combats violence against women. To read about all the receipients, click here.

• Did you know that for every 71 cents a woman makes in the state of Illinois, a man earns a dollar? This NY Times article’s theory is that discrimination and personal choices within the occupation are the factors of why women are earning less. Another factor? Men log more hours.

• Two weeks ago, the ultimate career woman turned 50…yep, Barbie! Yes, I know she’s a doll, but she has also been the ultimate Working Girl. On Barbie’s resume, astronaut, surgeon, even President of the United Sates. Below is a little skit that SNL did on Barbie’s birthday – and since it involves Kirsten Weig and the words “working”, I thought this might be a nice Friday treat. Enjoy!

About 6 months ago was when WG2 told me that she was moving home to Chicago my biggest concern was “oh no, our Working Girl readers are going to be so upset.” I eventually realized that I’d too be very upset and miss her terribly. We all survived her move and I’ve gotten used to her being so far away.

But I couldn’t be more excited that she’s here in New York RIGHT NOW for my birthday weekend!

I have so much to post and share with you all but I’ll have to save it for next week. Enjoy your weekends and have an extra drink in honor of my birthday on Saturday (sorry, I’m kind of self-absorbed on my birthday!).

I was not a avid The Office fan until my senior year of college when watching repeats became a normal hung-over routine between me and my roommates (hell yes we sprung for DVR). But I quickly became addicted to Michael’s comments that made you wince, Pam & Jim’s glances of lust, and Dwight’s quirks.

So the past few years, I would DVR Grey’s and dutifully watch The Office because I couldn’t not watch it as it first aired. But these days my love of The Office has faded. And now I turn on Grey’s (even though Izzy is dying – wait what?!?) and watch The Office on Hulu.com when I get bored.

In a recent article in the LA Times, writer Jon Caramanica argues that The Office is slowly fading and the reason is Michael Scott. His solution: fire someone. And if we’re getting specific here, he says fire Michael Scott.

Caramanica writes, “Early on, taking after Ricky Gervais’ David Brent on the original British version of the show, Michael was a catalyst for misbehavior and ill will. He was difficult, verging on unlovable; you almost had to shield your eyes watching him, so great was his capacity for awkwardness.” He argues that Steve Carrell isn’t playing the character like he used to – and he even physically looks better. He has better hair, better posture, and we almost feel sympathetic towards Michael Scott. Which should not be the case.

And I have to say that I whole-heartedly agree. Something is off (come on, I would rather watch Grey’s obviously something is off).

The article goes on to say that Steve Carrell isn’t the only problem – Jim & Pam are even annoying…Jim especially. The article describes Jim as being “smug and self-satisfied”…again, I agree. Before, Jim used to deliver one-liners that weren’t blatantly stings, but now it’s like he’s not even trying. His one-liners are borderline cruel.

So who is keeping the show afloat? Sidekick storylines – plain and simple. The Accounting corner is probably one of the only reasons I tune in any longer. Oscar, Kevin, and Angela are a great combination that always ellicit laughs.

And my favorite character who doesn’t get nearly enough lines? Kelly Kapoor. She is hilarious! I love her pop culture comments, her need to stay thin by eating tapeworms she buys from Creed, and she (like me) loves her birthday. So let’s give her some new story lines please.

If it were up to me, I would fire Stanley. Ever since he blew up last season, he has become my most hated character on the show. He’s sarcastic yes and sure sometimes he makes me grin, but his bad attitude is killing me slowly. Quit already! And give us some new Office blood.

P.S. Where the hell did Ryan disappear to?

I never thought I was good at managing my money. In college, my bank account was nearly $0.00 ninety percent of the time. If it wasn’t at $0.00, it was negative. Ok, I might be exaggerating a little, I only over withdrew twice. I had enough to buy my books, my groceries and (most importantly) alcohol. What else do you need in college? I was set.

Entering the “real world” was a bit of an adjustment. There were several more things that had to be paid for: rent, cell phone, cable, gas/electric, transportation, work clothes, even more groceries and (of course) alcohol. I meant to make a budget for myself, several times, and never did. But I managed. I learned to live on what I made and never over withdrew my account.

Lately, despite the recession, I feel like I’ve been spending more. Maybe I’ve been spending the same amount but it just feels like more because of the recession. How am I supposed to know? It’s not like I balance my checkbook or keep track of my spending. I don’t have time for that. And if you asked me how, I’d have no idea how to balance a checkbook.

Recently, I noticed Mint.com mentioned on a few blogs that I read. It’s a money management site that makes it easy for you to track your debit and credit card transactions and set a monthly budget for all of your expenses. You can also have emails or texts sent to you when you are close to hitting your monthly budget on, say, shopping or taxis.

I only joined Mint yesterday and have only used it for creating a budget. But I’ve read that it can help in paying off student loans and lowering credit card interest rates.

In times like these, it’s a good to have an idea of your spending habits and a budget (even if you go over it once or twice). So if you’re like me and need a little help managing and keeping track of your spending, I’d check it out.

This past Thursday I woke up with a crick in my neck so horrific that every time I lifted my arms, it sent a very intense, very painful shooting sensation up my neck. Apparently I am 24 going on 85. I tried getting in the shower and fighting through the pain, but I couldn’t even wash my hair (or put it up so it was just a limp gross mess around my face). So I made the executive decision to take the day off and lay in bed groaning and watching Tyra’s special on babies in beauty pageants.