December 22, 2008
My new laptop: is pretty much wonderful. All but the part where I can’t figure out why it will no longer let me make my recovery disks. Just because I started installing/un-installing stuff that I didn’t want? Oh shoot, was it related to Windows Live OneCare? Because I junked that as soon as Avast was up and running. Darned Vista, I still haven’t learned my way around it. Oh well, new tech, keeps me young.
Wire transfers: despite costing $18-stinkin-75, are not guaranteed to transmit immediately. Citibank’s website is a liar. I read the fine print, there’s no mention of an up-to-48 hour review. Which, btw, takes me right up to Christmas Eve, and Christmas. Sure can’t wait to pay double the expected fee for “storage” because I was misinformed and didn’t just set up the wire transfer on Friday so that it’d have gone through by now. *sigh* I should just expect things to go wrong like this and you know, see into the future to prevent this sort of thing. Among others.
Escape Brooklyn: makes me even more trepiditious about living in New York. But then again, I only wanted to live there for a year or two.
Business suit: Is an all black suit too conservative for SF? I’m not a hugely fashionable person, so I tend to stick to the basics, and because they practically never have anything but basics in my size.
I found a close-as-anything-fit 0P Tahari suit yesterday for $140 at Macy’s. Twasn’t on sale, but I had my good friend look up coupons as I sat miserably in the dressing room with 4 suits that didn’t fit. He found a rumor of a $25 off $100 purchase so I trekked to Barnes and Noble for a copy of the paper and found THREE of those coupons! That gave me an extra burst of energy to check the racks one last time, and I lucked out big time.
I can’t find pictures of it online but they had two options: a skirt or pant suit. Both were two button jacket with rounded lapels on the pantsuit jacket, and thinner, sharper lapels on the skirt suit.
The skirt suit, after coupon, and after a fatty $113 gift card, cost $11 out of pocket. Just have to decide if it’s impressive enough. As I was told that I barely looked 18 at dinner on Saturday night while our 21 year old guests weren’t carded, I’m going to need all the help I can get to look legal, much less highly competent and employable.
December 12, 2008
The feeling of material satiety has worn off with a vengeance. This feels a bit like a rebound from my “Simplify, simplify” mode and I’m not fighting it as hard as I should. The e-fund is still fine, but I hit a plateau when I got sick for two weeks. That meant no overtime. In fact, I had to burn some sick time. That’s what it’s for and I’m grateful to have it, but with the ability to overearn has gone my spending/acquisitive restraint and determination to build up the money reserves while I still can.
1. The dental visit made me feel like I should check with my dentist friend about whether or not he’d recommend getting a new electric toothbrush. I don’t want a single additional cavity, and since the current dental care regimen is evidently not doing the job, something needs to change. New electric toothbrush: ~$100?
2. Flat iron for self, friend (X-mas gift): $150?
3. Laptop: $650?
4. Boots: My older pair are too worn and, most importantly, hurt my feet. Winter weather always makes me long for comfortable boots to keep me warm, and browsing online hasn’t helped the neediness: $50? $70? Meh.
5. New towels: I’ll use a gift card.
6. Interview suit: I keep thinking that I can just wear my old one but let’s not kid ourselves — I couldn’t, er, latch the hook in July and I won’t be able to now, either. There’s an odd feeling: $200?
7. New coat: The thought of moving to a place that has Real Winter scares the bejeebers out of me. That’s probably why I can’t stop dreaming of new puffy coats, gloves that actually fit, scarves, hats and vests. 40 degrees is COLD, people! Frigid! Unbearable!
Where do I think this money is coming from?? Nuts. I’ll pass on the boots, coat, and the flat iron for myself. The travel/gift fund can take care of the flat iron gift and part of the laptop, the rest will have to come out of my expenses. Er, the suit? Well, let’s see if I can cobble together a sharp enough outfit from my regular business clothing to get by. Otherwise, I might try the (new! local!) H&M for separates to be tailored. I don’t want to cheap out on an interview outfit but I shouldn’t bust into the savings, either. I need that for rent! (Then again, I need a new job to pay the rent, too.)
Oooh there’s that “I hate spending money” feeling back. Whew, I thought I’d lost my mind there.
Is anyone else self-gifting this season?
December 5, 2008
The idea that you should dress for the job you want, not the job you have, or that you should dress one level up isn’t anything new. What struck me was mid-article, Don’t Let Your Wardrobe Kill Your Career, was the comment below in bold.
Several years ago, a woman I know who frequently publishes in her field wrote an article that was particularly well received by her peers. As a result, she received several speaking invitations. Since each of the offers included an honorarium, she was thrilled to have stumbled across what she believed would become a lucrative second income. After making those first few speeches, however, the offers abruptly ceased.
She never knew what happened. While she shrugged it off like it was no big deal, it was obvious to everyone around her that the whole episode was not settling well. Unfortunately, in spite of numerous hints, she refused to believe it was for the simplest of reasons, and one that could be so easily fixed: her professional attire.
……….
She looked great on paper: competent, well-educated, and obviously knowledgeable about her field. But in person, she looked ridiculous.
……….
Regardless of her background, experience, and writing ability, she lost credibility because of the way she looked.
Unfair? Perhaps. But given her education, profession, and social position, she knew better. All of her peers dressed more conservatively than she, and several of them had told her straight out that she needed to wear more professional attire. But she wanted to do what she wanted to do: march to her own drum, and have everyone else to follow suit. When they didn’t, she blamed them.
Now obviously this is an extreme example, but in many ways, not all that uncommon. What’s remarkable is that she made it as far as she had without professional attire — a true testament to her abilities. Most women would never have passed the $30,000 a year income mark, unless they had spent years with the same employer (as this woman had).
Perhaps I’m latching onto a less significant detail of the article, but I’m a little surprised at that particular statement and number. Is this surprising to anyone else or have you witnessed a similar effect to the same degree the author states here? Is the (salary) line between professional with a career and a simple wage-earner drawn at $30,000?
I’m trying to think of real life situations where this has occurred but I can only either think of ridiculously dressed wives of professionals, or caricatures of such people on television. Hah, or Erin Brockovich, right?
Makes me glad I’m growing my professional wardrobe.
September 2, 2008
This weekend, I tried every which way to put together an outfit appropriate for making an excellent first impression in a business-casual encounter. Not for quite a formal Interview, call it a prelude to an interview sort of dealie. I wanted to establish a (preferably black) trouser, crisp button down shirt and belt combination as a go-to staple in my wardrobe.
Unfortunately, my attempts to look sharper at work on a daily basis have reduced my best black pants to second-best. They’re still nice, but they’ve lost that sharp, crisp look that gives off *professional* so well. Alas, they’re a bit worn. That’s what happen, y’understand, when you actually wear things on a regular basis and possibly also when you’re most frequently shopping bargain bin. At my size, bargain bin and quality don’t always go hand in hand.
In my frustration, I groused to a dude friend about the pants I didn’t think would be tailored quickly enough, and he convinced me to go shopping.
Macys, I decided. Macys would have a grand Labor Day Sale and I was armed with a coupon and gift card. To Macys!
To Macys we went, and seven pairs of trousers later, my attention span somewhere between my heel and the tiger bandaid on my foot to fend off a threatening blister, I was about to give up. I had, for once, been smart enough to wear heels of the approximately appropriate height that would normally be worn with the pants. Smart, I say! Except my feet were tired within twenty minutes and being somewhat less of a shopping maven as, say, my dude friend, I was ready to give up. He refused to hear anything of it, “we haven’t even gotten started!” and chivvied my lazy bum out to the next stores.
Le sigh.
It was a good job he did though because we hit the jackpot at Ann Taylor Loft. I only had a $30 gift card there, but I found three pairs of pants, all 00P, and promptly sent him to scour the sales racks while I found the dressing room. Had not yet gotten my hopes up since the price tag I saw was $79, when I tried on the first pair and my jaw dropped. They FIT. Perfectly. Seriously, they fit absolutely perfectly. Waist, length, tush, rise, everything. The only possible objection was that the fabric looked like a softer, heavier cottony material, instead of that more coarse, crisp polyester blend that’s commonly accepted as the more professional look. It also buttoned across the front, so it didn’t have belt loops. The next pair was the preferred material, and just about a perfect fit as well. It turned out they were the $79 pair, though, and for more than eighty dollars after tax, I’d like to see some lining in the pants. The first pair were *only* $60, machine washable, ever so comfortable and once again: fit perfectly.
I bought them immediately. So, chalk one up as a win for the wardrobe, and a $30 hit to the pocketbook. Overall? No blister = a good day.
Caveat: I would normally never advocate the immediate, impulse purchase of a nonsale item, but … it happens. And it happens more often because the good quality 00P sizes don’t occur very frequently in nature. This is an unfortunate, incontrovertible fact. I promise to take very good care of them.
P.S. I suck. There was a printable 20% coupon online valid this weekend. Drat. Should have checked before I left.
July 31, 2008
Know why? Because I returned the Martin + Osa shirts ($30), and only paid $19.90 (no tax!) for this one that fits per-fect-ly. Oh and I didn’t spend ALL of my travel money on Con (more on that later).
It’s short sleeve with a Mandarin collar, fits like a dream, is soft and stretchy and will go with jeans, tucked into business skirts – both regular and high waisted – and trousers. I did want fuller sleeves, but I can live with these.
July 22, 2008
I complained too soon. It was really just the tracking information page that was pathetic, because my package was delivered yesterday while I was at work.
Sadly, the contents were not all I’d hoped they would be.
The ruched scoopneck tee was a really soft, durable seeming material until I looked closer at it. The ruching was evident on the outside of the shirt: you could see gobs of thread at each of the gathers. When I looked more closely, the fabric near the gathers was stretched and in one spot, had a hole in it! A light experimental tug was all it took for the fabric to give. Definitely not high quality, definitely not a keeper.
The white button down was nicer in that it wasn’t ready to tear, but the construction was just a little too boxy. I often have this problem with shirts where there’s too much material under the arms and I look like I have a fabric-membrane set of flying squirrel wings. But on a shirt. Also, since it’s white, it’s quite a bit more see-through than I like. I’m undecided on this one because a seamstress could easily fix up the squirrel wings, but I’m not sure I like it quite enough.
All in all, I was a little disappointed in this ordering experience. After all, these shirts retailed for $34. Just because I got them at a discount shouldn’t, and wouldn’t, change their quality so that means they’re selling pretty shoddy, insome cases, overpriced clothing under guise of a schmancy name. If you could believe it, the receipt came sealed in a thick dark blue/metallic silver envelope made of nearly cardstock with a silver embossed logo. Their clothes were presented wrapped in a generous sheaf of tissue paper. If only the products matched the presentation and implied quality, I’d be much more impressed. Posh on the outside, poor on the inside. Hah, reminds me of Moneymonk’s empty castle, full cabin!
July 21, 2008
Perhaps it was too much to ask for with free shipping, but I was hoping to take my new Martin+Osa button down shirt with me to the East Coast. I placed the order on July 11th, and the tracking information still hasn’t been uploaded, so that’s probably not going to happen.
I wonder if this slow delivery is typical of their shipping methods, or if there’s a problem? Hope it’s the former.
