Looking Chic without Looking Like a Bag Lady – Briefcases to hold all your Gear

If you are like most women, you have a briefcase, your lunch, maybe even your shoes to schlep back and forth to work. So how to you do that without carrying a ton of bags and start to look like a bag lady? 

If you want to create the well-groomed corporate image, the un-creased business suit and polished shoes are no longer enough anymore. It is almost necessary now that the corporate image includes a briefcase. 

To carry files, other business materials, your lunch and the other and do it neatly, you will need to get a briefcase large enough for your needs. The bag you carry doesn’t have to be the traditional type of briefcase, do some research on the subject, surf the Internet and see what is out there and available for the female business executive. It can be a soft sided envelope style of bag, a sling bag or what about a large purse? Most briefcases that are available for women come in a variety of colours from brown to burgundy to black to brighter colours like red or yellow or purple. Some don’t even look like a briefcase, but rather like a large purse.

They can be made from the traditional leather (which can range into the $200 range) or man made materials (which can range under $100). So depending on what you want to spend and what your needs are you can get a briefcase that not only meets our needs, but fits in with your personality as well. The bag you carry will tell everyone what a stylish and organized business woman you are.

Sleep, I Never Get Enough…

It is a song from one of my cd’s that I own. The rest of the line continues “…I’m sick and I’m tired, Sleep, I never get enough, if I don’t get up I might be fired…’

Add a catchy little tune and you have a hit, well not really, but as one who suffers from sleep deprivation, I can totally relate to this little tune. 

As a women that work full time, with a house, kids, pets, spouse, etc, etc, sometimes our sleep is the first thing that suffers. Few of us know that our sleep is like a bank, when that resource gets depleted, well you can’t continue to withdraw money when there is no more money in the bank. The same goes for sleep.

There are a lot of sleep robbers that try to interrupt us from having a good nights sleep. Of course a big cultrate is shift work because it messes up your internal clock, and stress is another. How many nights have we tossed and turned, unable to sleep because of some nagging worry or another? But besides these two obvious factors, there are a few other sleep robbers that can sneak in and steal those precious zzzzz’s from us.

Trying to catch up on sleep on the weekend can be more harmful than good. It can leave you feeling more tired and sluggish through the day instead of its hoped result. Another harmful condition can be aesthetics – whether it be a bright street light, a lumpy mattress or loud noises. A less than perfect sleep environment can lead to a non restorative night’s sleep as can a bothersome partner. This is my problem (plus I tend to have more of a ‘shallow’ sleep. But my husband tosses, turns, coughs, well just about everything to disrupt my sleep and more often than not I find myself sleeping on the couch

Being a woman can also cause some sleep problems. Symptoms such as pregnancy to pms to menopause can put a damper on a restful night as well. Not to mention young children (we have our daughters crawling in our bed every once in awhile due to bad dreams or thunderstorms). But what can you do to get a better night’s rest?

Everyone has a bad nights sleep once in a while, but if you have had sleep problems for more than two weeks it is best to see your doctor. Meanwhile, eat right, get plenty of exercise, and make sure your light’s out and waking time are consistent. With working nights, consider switching meals around (eat breakfast when you get up in the afternoon, etc) and mimic night in your sleep room. With your spouse, consider getting separate beds or a king size one and negotiate sleep schedules (I go to bed at 11:00; he goes to bed at midnight) and as for hormones, eat right, get lots of exercise and if hormones continue to be a sleep interrupter, consult your doctor.

Having restful nights sleep is imperative to almost every part of our daily life, so take of yourself when it comes to sleep and you will have one less thing to worry about.

Relationships – Part 1

Relationships are a part of everyday life and unless you are a hermit, they are unavoidable. This week we will cover relationships at work. 

No matter where you work, especially if it is a large company, you are bound to come across personalities you don’t like and possibly even can’t get along with. How can you maintain a profession work environment with people you don’t like?

Relationships we have with co-workers are called ‘non-voluntary’. Relationships we have with co-workers we like are fine, but when we are forced to be with many people of many different types of personalities during the day, including the ones that we don’t like, it can be some what stressful. 

So how do you cope with relationships such as this? Sometimes just listening to the other person maybe enough to change our perceptions about the other person, but if we have done all in our power and still do not like this person, there are a few tips to help you maintain a working relationship with them.

-focus on the task at hand. Focus conversation on the project rather than the people involved.

-avoid questions. Questions can be a way of starting unwanted dialogue

-use a more distant form of communication, such as email or phone rather than face to face.

-be polite. By using the utmost in politeness, the interaction seems much more formal and business like.

-don’t take things personally – separate yourself from the issue, the person or the task at hand.

-stay calm. 

-stay in ‘adult mode’. If tempers do flare, take a break, regroup then go back to the project later.

-take different lunch hours and breaks than the other person.

There are ways of working with someone that you don’t like at work, the trick is how to do it. If all else fails and you feel you have come to an impasse with this person, talk to your supervisor, maybe you can switch projects, cubicles or perhaps they can suggest what needs to be done.

History of Women In Business – Mary Katherine Goddard

Well not well known, it is possible that she had almost as big a part in the Declaration of Independence as the signer of the document themselves.

A printer, patriot and the first postmaster general of Baltimore, she was most probably the first person to hold such a position. In January 1777, she issued the first printed copy of the Declaration of Independence.

In colonial times, printing and newspapers were usually a family operation. Her mother, having set up her younger brother, Will in the printing business, he then set up the first newspaper in Providence, RI, the leaving shortly to begin a newspaper in Philadelphia, PA followed shortly by Mary. In 1773, both brother and sister moved to Baltimore, MD to start a paper there. Mary Katherine Goddard worked along side of her brother Will in his printing business and managed them while her brother went elsewhere to drum up support for his many newspapers, almanacs and while he began to set up a colonial postal system.

Through her brother’s influence, Mary became the first postmaster in 1775. After holding that post for 14 years, but in 1789, the then Postmaster General, Samuel Osgood, removed her from the position. stating “more travel…than a woman could undertake…”so she was replaced by a man who was much less experienced in the postal area than she. After much complaining about the sexist remark (even to George Washington himself) and getting no positive response, after leaving the newspaper business following an argument with her brother in 1785, she then became a proprietor of a book store until 1810 (probably the first woman to do so then) and died in 1816.

Besides being the first female publisher and postmaster, Mary Katharine Goddard was a champion of women’s rights and encouraged other women to begin careers, to fight the sexism of the era and a very brave woman. The distribution of the Declaration of Independence had been seen as treasonable document by the British government.