Meeting Notes

Posted by . August 13th, 2009 at 1:03 am. Leave a comment.

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

  • Abercrombie hires for looks. American Apparel hires for style. At least, that’s what they want you to think. [via nymag.com]

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Julie & Julia Makes Me Want to Go Work

Posted by . August 11th, 2009 at 3:22 am. Leave a comment.

I just got home from seeing the movie Julie & Julia and I feel super energized/motivated to just do something! Anything! Maybe even cook (or not because WG1 is the cook/baker…I could burn water).

I think we all know that the story centers around Julie Powell, author of the blog the Julie/Julia Project, and superstar chef Julia Child. Originally, I didn’t really want to see this movie since I definitely want to be a foodie, but I definitely am not (I could eat chicken fingers every night for dinner if asked). But my dad offered to take me to see the movie and out to dinner and I can’t pass up a free meal/movie, so I accepted. And to say I was pleasantly surprised is an understatement.
Don’t worry! I don’t intend to put up any spoilers! I just want to talk about how inspiring these two women are to WG’s.
I know I am young. I’m only 24. I’ve only been out of school for 2 years. But I’m sure if you read this blog quite often, you know that this was not the career I pictured myself falling into. Right now I currently work in marketing and corporate event planning, and while I love it I know it’s not my first true love (because if it was I probably wouldn’t be writing this blog). Yes, everyone, I too, like many other bloggers, want to be a writer. I have wanted to be a writer since I was a little girl. I used to write books when I was 10! But sometimes paying the bills is more important than finding a job that makes you want to jump out of bed at 6AM every morning because you’re so excited to be there.
Watching Julie Powell and Julia Child being portrayed in this movie tonight reminded me that being happy at work is essential. Julie Powell blogs her way to success after not finding satisfaction with her job that pays the bills, and Julia Child found her calling in cooking much later in life after dabbling somewhat in espionage. Yes, espionage. And it made me want that feeling – that after I leave my 9-to-5, I want to feel like I accomplished something.
And so right now I can’t be a stay-at-home writer, but I can appreciate that I finished everything on my to-do list today or that I kicked ass in a meeting. Find happiness in the little things until you find that big thing that makes you jump with joy.
What they Powell and Child had in common in this movie was finding joy in what they do. And really this should serve as an inspiration to all us WG’s. If you find joy in what you do for a living, then ultimately you will lead a happier life – that’s the lesson I learned today while at the movies.
P.S. Sorry if this post makes zero to little sense. After the movie, my dad and I hit up Filipo’s (which was AMAZING – go there!) after the movie where we each finished a bottle of scrumptious wine. And then to top it off, our server Annette, loved us so much she made us take shots of limoncello with her that was made with Everclear. Yea, not a good idea. Everybody in the club getting tips(y).

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Working Girl Cooks: Cooking For One

Posted by . August 7th, 2009 at 12:17 am. Leave a comment.

I spend a lot of time thinking about food. Mainly, what I’m going to have for dinner. I love reading food blogs and watching the Food Network, but I have a difficult time cooking meals for one. I take that back, it’s pretty easy to pan-fry some chicken and put some greens on a plate. But a Working Girl can only eat so much chicken.

I’m a fairly new cook. My news year’s resolution, which I’ve finally decided to start practicing, was to cook or bake something new once a week. I’ve yet to find a site or blog that focuses on cooking for one, so I’ve decided to start a bi-weekly feature here on Working Girl called Working Girl Cooks.

Inspired by a friend’s tweet, I decided to cook goat cheese and roasted corn quesadillas. Corn is one of my favorite summer veggies, and I’ll eat practically anything with goat cheese.

The original recipe can be found here. Below is the WG1 version.

Ingredients

Half a bag of frozen corn
Half a container of crumbled goat cheese
6 corn tortillas (6-inch)
Salsa

Instructions
I defrosted the corn in the microwave and then sauteed the corn in a pan over medium heat. In the future, I would follow the original recipe more closely and use fresh corn, since I suspect it may brown a little nicer.
I then transferred the corn to a bowl and combined the goat cheese. Yum.


I put the mixture onto the tortilla and topped with some salsa. I then put the tortilla in the pan until the tortilla browns a bit. I topped with another tortilla and flipped! I then repeated with a new tortilla.


I made three tortillas, had some salsa on the side for dipping and some diced avocado because I just love avocado. Almost as much I love goat cheese. Voila!

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Meeting Notes

Posted by . August 5th, 2009 at 9:27 pm. Leave a comment.

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

  • Back in March, it was announced that publishing house Conde Nast was ridding its ranks of all receptionists not on “editorial floors”, but rumor has it that all the remaining receptionists will be laid off in the (very) near future. [via Gawker]
  • A lot of women are up in arms about Hollywood’s recent treatment of women in movies (example: Sandra Bullock’s bitchy boss character in The Proposal and Meryl Streep’s portrayal of Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada). The most recent culprit is Katherine Heigl’s control-freak TV producer character in the movie The Ugly Truth who is tamed by manly, brutish male character played by Gerard Butler. [via NPR]
  • A report presented in July by the Women and Work Comission in London stated that women are still paid almost 23 percent less than men in on average but the economy could benefit up to 23 billion pounds if that gap were closed. [via New York Times]
  • We are uber excited for the new Alexis Bledel movie, Post Grad, to come out on August 21st! We think a lot of us will be able to relate to the theme of not being able to find a job after graduation. Trailer below!

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Three Day Weekends Every Weekend

Posted by . August 5th, 2009 at 12:24 am. Leave a comment.

It’s only Tuesday and you’re already counting down the to the weekend. Friday can’t come sooner. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could count down to Thursday instead?

If you were a government employee in Utah, you’d be used to this schedule by now. But there is a catch of course, employees have to work 10-hour days Monday through Thursday to make up for the lost time on Friday.
According to this article from The Atlantic, 82% of the employees prefer the new work schedule. The state of Utah has also found that the change is helping them a be little more green. They’ve saved $1.8 million in electricity and eliminated 6,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide.
Scientific American said that many local governments have been looking at Utah as they consider changing their work week. This could very well catch on in local government. And maybe further to other industries?
If my office changed to a 4-day, 40-hour work week, I’d have to work nine to seven without a break for lunch. Some weeks, I eat lunch at my desk every day and I’m at the office until 6:30 every night. Another half hour every night wouldn’t kill me. Then I’d have Friday off and Thursday would be the new Friday.
This is all fine and good. But I spend a lot of money on the weekend. Even when I’m making a effort to spend less, I spend more on a weekend day then I do on a week day. I shop, go to the movies, go out to dinner and more. Could I afford a 3-day weekend? Not to mention instead of my company spending money to keep the office cool in the summer or warm in the winter, I’d be spending my own money on that for an extra day.
Comments on The Atlantic article bring up a number of other concerns: Would an extra day with your kids make up for two less hours with them each night? Would this really work in most industries? Would letting employees work from home for a day be a better idea for business?
Something that seems so simple and beneficial to all involved, may not be so.

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Suing Mad

Posted by . August 4th, 2009 at 12:16 am. Leave a comment.

As reported by the Huffington Post, a woman filed a lawsuit last week against Monroe College where she received her bachelor’s degree because she can’t find a job.

The woman, 27-year-old Trina Thompson, claims that the Bronx school has failed to provide her with what it promised her when she first enrolled – help from the Office of Career Advancement to provide her with leads and career advice. Because she hasn’t found a job and has claimed to not have received adequate attention from the college, she is requesting that the $70,000 she spent on her information technology degree be returned to her.
A lot of this lawsuit seems to be tied up in what Thompson feels is false advertisement. If you peruse Monroe College’s website, you’ll see that they promise a “focused, career-oriented, quality education” and state that every student will receive a Career Advisor who will provide them with one-on-one assistance. The site goes on and on to tell them just how they can help them – resume writing, job search strategies, and even boasts that they have an E-recruiting tool where you can find job postings. So Thompson’s lawayers are going to have to prove that she was pulled in by a lure of a false promise that wasn’t delivered on.
I guess I’m having a hard time thinking how they’re going to prove that Thompson didn’t receive adequate attention. And if Thompson’s lawyers manage to win this case, then is our country (and world) going to go suing mad? Couldn’t I just as easily sue my own college for not finding me a job after I graduated?
Personally, I believe that our educations and the services our colleges/universities give us are just tools. We then use these tools to procure employment. Essentially it is up to us to find jobs, but we can choose to utilize places like career centers and people like career advisors to assist us in finding that job. They can’t just magically make it happen for us – we have to do the legwork ourselves.
What do you guys think?

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