by Solange Lopes | Jun 16, 2014 | Career
britnidanielle.com
Happy Monday! Hope everyone had a great week-end, and all the dads out there were happily celebrated for Father’s Day! Ours on this side of the blogosphere was quite busy, and getting started on Monday morning is proving to be a bit challenging (what else is new…)…
Just like the concept of career and giving back! Stretched thin as we already are between our careers, families and personal lives, it can indeed be quite challenging to muster the time and energy to give back to others. Very often, giving back in a significant and substantive manner, as we tend to imagine we should, tends to be put on the back burner of our lives, until we reach that third or fourth phase of our lives, after the kids are gone and retirement is in full swing.
Yet, as the famous adage suggests, why leave something for tomorrow that can be done today? Why not integrate our future plans of giving back into our current lives, and more specifically our careers? Especially as corporate sisters, we often struggle with our ambition, our family and personal obligations, and our strong, nurturing desire to give back. So how do we combine career and giving back?
1. Volunteer at work! Scour the opportunities to give back at work, and volunteer during work hours! Not only do these hours actually count at work, but they also greatly benefit your career by providing added exposure and increasing your chances of getting a promotion!
2. Mentor a sister (or brother)! Use your current experience at work and in life to be a source of inspiration for a younger future corporate sister (or brother). Sign up for The Big Sisters association, or commit a couple of hours a week to mentor a young person in need in your neighborhood. Not only will sharing and giving back of what you learnt fulfill you, but it will also greatly increase your skills as you keep learning as you teach!
3. Create career opportunities right where you are! Short of ideas or time on giving back. We’ll, create them! Have you spotted an important area where additional work is needed? Suggest a new opening to your management. Seen an opportunity to add value to your department or company by taking a few employees under your wing and mentoring them? Way to give back!
How are you combining your career and your duty to give back?
The Corporate Sister.
by Solange Lopes | Jun 13, 2014 | Career |
Flare skirt – $148 – jcrew.com
TGIF, and happy lunch break! Today, we are “flaring” with admiration for this flare skirt in super 120s wool from J. Crew! Loving the fit-and-flare shape of the skirt, as well as the fact that it’s tailored out of one of the finest merino wools, thus great for summer!
I would pair this skirt with a short-sleeve top just as pictured on a warm summer day, or tuck an elegant button-down shirt for added sophistication. This skirt is a great choice for work, with its knee-length and elegant draping! It’s $148 at J. Crew, and is available both in Regular and Petite.
Seen a great, office-friendly fashion pick you’d like to share? Please email corporate@thecorporatesister.com, or leave a comment!
The Corporate Sister.
by Solange Lopes | Jun 13, 2014 | Career
rollingout.com
Happy Friday! TGIF!
The week-end is upon us, and so are many social events, parties and other festivities to attend this season! Between graduations, birthday parties, weddings and other cultural festivities, keeping up with your career and social agenda can be a tough act!
And of course, incidentally, it’s always also the time when deadlines at work are piling up, the baby catches a cold, and you just remembered you missed the deadline to renew your license? Really? Yes, really…
I have to admit that at times, juggling the demands of work and my family’s social agenda has been challenging. In many a minority’s community, traditions and rituals take an important place (and quite a bit of time), and family is really a village (both in size, complexity and schedule)! And for those of us who live in the real world, drawing a clear line in the sand delineating work and personal is close to impossible. So what is one to do when the line between career and social is blurred, and there are (only) 24 hours in the day?
1. Get Real! This is real life, so time to get real! Gone are the days when you could attend multiple functions throughout the week, hang out on week-ends with the extended family, take care of work and home, and still remember where your own head is at! You cannot do it all, and neither should you! So take yourself out for coffee and have a chat with your overachieving self about what you can reasonably do, and what your tired self can no longer handle! And start passing some precious NO’s around, so you can save your sanity…and your career!
2. Get some help! I remember trying to plan the perfect birthday party for my baby, make sure I invite everyone and have the perfect party favors! Or trying to hang out with the girls after work and partying it up right before a department meeting the next day! Fast forward a few years and a ton of mishaps, now I’m booking a kids’ venue for the kids’ birthdays, and making sure someone else drives me to the girls’ night out…oh, and never before a departmental meeting…Just sayin’…
3. Get organized! Forget the last minute days when you could remember things in a snap, and get ready for a meeting in a cinch! The whole “flyin’ by the seat of your pants” concept, gone, right along with your natural abs! While I haven’t totally given up on my impetuous nature, I try to limit stress attacks by planning and getting organized ahead of time. Attending a family function after work? Pick up times and outfits are planned ahead. Night before the department meeting? Sorry girls no late night girls’ drinks…Just sayin’…
How do you keep up with your career and social life?
The Corporate Sister.
by Solange Lopes | Jun 12, 2014 | Career
Nailed It Desk Organizer – $58 – uncommongoods.com
Sunday is Father’s Day, and you know as busy as you are, you may have been planning for it, yet haven’t had a chance to actually get to it…
Well, for those of you still wondering, here is a great idea for a Father’s Day gift, that we stumbled upon on uncommongoods.com! The Nailed It Desk Organizer is a conversation piece, what with its unusual design, recycled steel and salvaged tool parts! Loving the originality of this gift that will make everyone smile, including the dad in question (please tell him it’s a not a real hammer…)!
It’s $58 at uncommongoods.com, and is ready for next day shipping too 🙂
The Corporate Sister.
by Solange Lopes | Jun 12, 2014 | Career
Stretch cotton sailor pants – $69.50 – loft.com
It’s lunch break time! We are in a nautical mood today, so we’ve picked these stretch cotton sailor pants! It’s always tricky to find a nice pair of well-fitting, flattering white pants for the summer; we all know how revealing white can be (i’ve had my share of unfortunate white fashion experiences…)
Loving the chic wide leg and nautical details of these elegant pants, making them very office-friendly and super fashionable! The Julie Fit is also a curvy fit that is really flattering to curvier corporate sisters like myself. It’s $69.50 at Loft.com!
Seen a great, office-friendly fashion pick you’d like to recommend? Please share with us at corporate@thecorporatesister.com or post a comment!
The Corporate Sister.
by Solange Lopes | Jun 12, 2014 | Career
galleryhip.com
Happy Thursday!
Hope all my corporate sisters are well and striving along as we come near to this week’s close!
Speaking of striving, after so many years fighting to be successful at work despite unfair race and gender-based prejudice, we tend to raise defensiveness walls which can at times stand in our way to success.
From my own experience in Big Corporate, I know I’ve exhibited more defensiveness in some cases than was necessary. Due to our experience with race and gender-based prejudice, we may at times mold our thought process, and resulting reaction pattern, to excessively rely on defensiveness in many a professional situation. I know I have…
Yet I’ve also come to understand that while prejudice is real in many a corporate or other professional setting, it’s also not always about race or gender. Raising our defensive walls at work can certainly have its benefits, yet it may also hinder us from leveraging the feedback we may be receiving from colleagues, superiors and even simply situations at hand.
How do we then differentiate between the positive and negative messages we get from our professional environments, so as to respond accordingly? Is it even possible to tailor our response to the many changing factors at work in our professional environments? And really, is being defensive hurting us more than it actually can help us?
While I strongly believe that each one of us has a responsibility to leave our workplaces a bit better than we found them, we must also carefully pick where it is most productive to expand our hard-earned energy.
Raising our defensiveness walls to ward off prejudice may be necessary in some instances, yes! Yet choosing to act instead of reacting, and responding with stellar performance instead of defensive words or actions may not only ward off prejudice if need be, but also set a positive precedent in all cases.
Do you think raising our defensiveness walls may at times stand in the way of our success?
The Corporate Sister.
by Solange Lopes | Jun 11, 2014 | Career |
Muller Greek corner yogurt – mullerquaker.com
It’s coffee break time, and incidentally, snack time as well! Just about that time to grab your wallet and rush to the vending machine, right? Wrong!
Observing a healthy diet is hard enough as it is! Now observing a healthy diet between 9 and 5, while you’re dealing with the stress at work, attending pizza lunches and desperately trying to avoid your co-worker’s cupcake-themed birthday celebration, is literally close to impossible…I said close, because there are ways to get around the 9-to-5 diet trap and actually manage to eat well…healthy snacks at work (at least, reasonably so, baby steps here….)
So instead of your usual M&M’s peanut candy (and stop arguing that you don’t eat the yellow ones), here are a few tried-and-true mid-afternoon snack alternatives that will keep you satisfied and feeling a bit better about that bathing suit shopping trip this week-end (arrrghhhh!):
- Yoghurt : Love, love Muller Greek Corner greek yoghurt and peach combo, tastes like a treat, and at 140 calories, feels like one too;
- Larabar fruit and nut bar,love love the key lime pie flavor;
larabar fruit and nut bar – she knows.com
- Dark chocolate: enjoy a few squares (we said a few, not the whole thing…);
- Hummus and carrots is a nice alternative if you’re craving something salty;
- Salsa and blue corn tortilla chips for an “Ole” snack time;
- and for those who are better than I am at packing their snacks, almond butter or peanut on celery sticks or an apple (working on this one).
And please, you, yes, you, get away from the vending machine…
Do you have other suggestions of healthy snacks for work?
The Corporate Sister.
