TheGrindstone

Kelly Cutrone’s Assistant Has A Death Wish Apparently

Meredith Lepore — Wed, 16 May 2012 21:57:56 +0000

Wow. This guy has some nerve to steal from Kelly Cutrone, one of the toughest women in fashion. Yesterday the People’s Revolution founder tweeted, “One of my old assistants is getting arrested this week for grand larceny – stealing money from People’s – cannot wait – revenge is sweet.” The former assistant’s name is Brunson Stafford and he apparently stole money and samples from People’s Revolution.

Doesn’t this guy know how many young girls this woman has brought to tears? He is lucky he is getting arrested and not sitting in a room with her. As our friends at Fashionista pointed out, this guy’s career is clearly over. You do not mess with Kelly whether it be stealing or complaining that you are tired. I mean, this woman put Lauren Conrad in her place on her own reality show!

If you have forgotten some of Kelly’s best quotes, here are some refreshers. My favorite is still “We’re all hookers in one way or another.”

“I think that people hate women. And I don’t think they like powerful women, and I think it really goes back to Salem, I really do. I think it really goes back to this concept of, you know, hysterical coming from uterus. In Christianity, Mary gets pregnant on her own, she doesn’t even get fucked.”
“Sometimes, I am hell on wheels. I’ve been doing this a really, really long time and I’m a for-profit company. I’m not a college professor. I’m thinking about opening a college! This is a joke. And I’ll start charging interns to work here.”
“We have a lot of young kids, girls, they’ve been set up to believe they’re God’s gift. And they can’t take a phone message!”
“All the seven deadly sins come compliments of this job.”

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Afternoon Grind: Energy Drinks And Gay Marriage

Meredith Lepore — Wed, 16 May 2012 21:30:33 +0000

Divorce lawyers say more women are paying child support (YourTango)

How Heidi N. Moore does money (The Hairpin)

How to show your gratitude at the office properly (SavvySugar)

Gay marriage should have an affect on your marriage (DivineCaroline)

You’re not imagining it. Why having kids is getting more expensive (LearnVest)

The science of energy drinks (YouBeauty)

Wendy Tan White’s Moonfruit acquired for $29 million by Yell (Women 2.0)

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10 Signs You Are A Super Successful Person

Meredith Lepore — Wed, 16 May 2012 21:12:13 +0000

What do Warren Buffett, Sheryl Sandberg, Hillary Clinton and Tina Fey all have in common? Well, they are all super successful and according to Michael Hess of CBS News they may all enjoy stealing newspapers from flight attendants. Hess, who has observed many super successful people, found that many of them exhibit the same kind of behaviors. So if you want to know if you too are a super successful person (looking at your bank account would also work, but only in some cases) see if you have any of these traits.

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The Tax On Women: It’s An Unavoidable Part Of Capitalism

Lindsay Cross — Wed, 16 May 2012 19:50:14 +0000

Whether or not you believe in pay disparity between men and women, there’s one fact about men, women and money that no one can deny. When it comes to personal maintenance and health, women spend more. Make-up, hair care products, “medical spa” treatments. There are numerous ways that being female racks up charges.

Most of these additional expenses center around beauty and health treatments that women choose to incur, but men rarely do. (Think of waxing and facials.) But as Forbes and Marie Claire are reporting, there are some other, sneakier ways that ladies are paying more simply because of their gender. From dry-cleaners to deodorants and razors to health insurance, women are being charged more.

My first reaction is that of righteous indignation. How dare a company charge me more simply because I’m a female! I am consumer, hear me roar! I was all ready to start researching my favorite brands and write a couple strongly worded letters to whoever pretends to care about these things.

Unfortunately once all my anger wore down, I started thinking about the actual economics of gendered pricing. The fact is, most of it is built right in to the capitalist system. It’s not a bias on the part of these companies. It’s the economics of the way men and women shop, consume and behave.

Historically, teenage boys have paid more in car insurance than teenage girls. I haven’t dealt with this fact in quite a while, but if I remember right, boys are more likely to be involved in life-threatening or fatal accidents than girls. Because of that, they were a bigger risk to the insurance agency, so they were charged more.

Likewise, women pay for more health insurance because we are stereotypically more expensive to insure. We visit the doctor more. Even if the plan isn’t covering maternity care, women still have regular visits to the gynecologist and post-childbirth complications. On average, we spend more time around kids, so we probably pick up more viruses. Insuring a woman is a higher risk to the insurance agency, so they carge a hirer premium. Whether we like that fact or not, it’s pretty basic business principles at practice here.

And when it comes to products like razors, that cost more simply because they have glitter thrown in the molded plastic, companies are only charging more because women are willing to pay more. Prices aren’t set based on how much an executive respects or cares about women. Prices are set based on what the customer is willing to spend. Females are willing to spend more on hygiene products and personal appearance products. Therefore, companies charge more.

I am not saying that sexism, misogyny and gender bias don’t exist out there in the world. They do. And they are serious issues that we should all be concerned about. But this “tax on women”? It seems to be just an economic response to the women consume and behave. Maybe we should focus our energies on more important battles.

(Photo: The Feminist Wire)

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Jennifer Lopez And 6 Other Women Rule The Forbes ‘Celebrity 100′ List

Meredith Lepore — Wed, 16 May 2012 19:10:55 +0000

Forbes put out what feels like its 87th list this month with the release of the Forbes Celebrity 100 list. Jennifer Lopez, with her $52 million in earnings in the last year and omnipresent-like quality, topped the list. Six other women including Oprah, Kim Kardashian, Katy Perry, Rihanna, Britney Spears and Lady Gaga managed to nab spots in the top 10. According to the Washington Post, this female heavy top tier shows the importance of “us ladies in the whole being-famous-and-generating-money business, the sort of significant thing that studio moguls should probably pay attention to.”

Jennifer Lopez managed to top the list despite the fact that she doesn’t rank in the top spot on any of the individual metrics used to determine the list. It is her strong and widely appealing brand that has landed her on the top of this list. There is nobody who uses her fame more strategically than Jennifer Lopez.

The list measures power based on his or her earnings for the period between May of last year and May of this year plus data related to the amount of press generated, number of online mentions and influence on social media. Though she is a judge for American Idol and has a clothing line (with Kohl’s), a fragrance (her 18th), and a deal with Fiat (she occasionally still does movies as well), it was probably the press coverage of her divorce that put her over the edge. Her social media following is also significant with 6.6 million followers on Twitter and 12 million fans on Facebook. “She appeals to such a wide demographic, almost every age range,” Stacy Jones, chief executive of entertainment marketing agency Hollywood Branded, told Forbes. Her wide demographic includes Latinas, working women and mothers. “There aren’t any more legs to add to it.”

Lopez even managed to beat out Justin Bieber who took spot number two (but he did nab the cover of the magazine.) He earned more than her and is a budding venture capitalist apparently but J.Lo still dominated. The last year was considered a comeback for the actress/singer/dancer/designer as it was only two years ago that she had two failed albums, four box office disasters (oh Gigli) and two failed clothing lines.

Her move to television with American Idol was considered a last desperate resort and a career risk, but it worked. Forbes writer Hannah Elliott wrote, “Viewers who knew only an attention-grabbing siren met a hardworking, self-made, empathetic single mother, who got emotional when contestants did well and when they failed.” A lot of this comeback was due to getting back together with her manager Benny Medina, who was the architect of this comeback. The magazine estimates that Lopez will earn $13 million from her upcoming tour and she can add that to her new $20 million American Idol salary.

Press coverage as well as many businesses is also what landed Kim Kardashian the number seven spot (she earned $18 million in the last year.) Lady Gaga got knocked off the top spot by Lopez, after she had a slightly quiet year compared to 2010. Oprah took second even though her $165 million was considered a pretty poor year for the media mogul.

First time ladies on the list included Zooey Deschanel and music sensation Adele.

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Are Infographic Resumes The New Norm?

Lisa Skapinker — Wed, 16 May 2012 18:40:05 +0000

Last week we discussed Pinterest resumes (or Pinteresumes) and whether or not they will replace LinkedIn as the digital resume of choice for creatives. But Pinteresumes are not the only player on the graphic resume block: And, more importantly, do hiring managers view infographic resumes as acceptable and competitive alternatives to traditional resumes?

Simply put, an infographic resume lays out the data and information from a resume in a creative, visual way. Since there’s no common standard for layout, they can be as creative, playful and unique as possible. They can incorporate colors, timelines, graphic or numeric representations of skills, maps, charts, graphs, or anything else.

This is obviously a fantastic idea for graphic designers and other creative professionals for whom streamlined, clever, creative design can be a huge help in getting a job. And journalism student Chris Spurlock made headlines last year when his infographic resume got him a job with the Huffington Post as HuffPo’s Infographic Design Editor. But could it have gotten Chris a more mainstream job, or any job not involving infographics?

Eugene Woo, the founder of infographic resume company Vizualize.me, thinks so. He told Business Insider that traditional resumes are becoming increasingly obsolete since there’s so much information regarding a candidate online on LinkedIn and other social media. He said that recruiters often defer to that information in any case.

“‘I’ve done hiring for quite a lot of companies, including many senior leadership roles — for GE, and my other startups,” Woo explained. “And very often I also do hiring for my friends who own companies. If I’m hiring for someone with a technical background, I’ll scan the resume for it. Then look for more information outside the resume. I’d Google the candidate, I’d look at their Facebook, Twitter, read their blogs, get a sense of who the person is. Humanize the name on the piece of paper.”

Woo claims that infographic resumes streamline that process for recruiters who don’t have the time to give a thorough read through of hundreds of resumes for each job.

“The advantage of the infographic resume is that you can summarize everything in five seconds. It’s nice to look at. There’s also the potential for employers to pay more attention and more time with your resume. But on the flip side, it also helps them eliminate candidates more quickly. For example, if they want someone with 10 years of experience, and it’s easy to see [via the timeline] that the candidate has only had 5 years, they can dismiss you pretty quickly. The employer doesn’t have to calculate the years. In that way, this resume helps with pre-screening.”

Infographic resumes are a great idea, and we know people love to look at graphics. But traditional HR departments and hiring managers in traditional fields like finance, medicine, law, and accounting may not be as open to resumes that diverge so much from their established norms.

“Traditional employers may be reluctant to accept infographics as ‘the new normal’ in hiring,” Mona Abdel-Halim, co-founder of online resume tool creator Resunate, told HP’s Input Output blog. “You risk alienating the very audience you are hoping to win over.”

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My Husband Has The Summer Off Work. Will He Drive Me Crazy?

Ruth Graham — Wed, 16 May 2012 18:04:15 +0000

I work from home, and my husband is a college professor. During this most recent school year, our first together as a married couple, we were a pretty normal working pair: We’d have coffee together in the morning, he’d leave home for campus, I’d get to work, and he’d be home in time for dinner. But now school is out, and everything is about to change. Not my work load, which continues unabated. But suddenly my husband is free to do his own writing and reading, and basically hang around the house all day, every day, flaunting his big, fat summer vacation in my loser, year-round-employee face. Argh.

Though I anticipate a bit of resentment as he totes his towel down to the lake at 2 pm on random weekdays, however, I think we’ll make it. Luckily, we like being around each other (phew!). He’s sensitive to my work, takes it seriously, and does extra work around the house when he has the extra time. But I can’t help compare us to, say, my dad and my stepmom, who both had careers as high-school teachers, and therefore got to enjoy the summers off together. Isn’t there a particular cruelty to being a “normal” worker married to someone who gets the summer off?

When I asked around about this, I heard from one woman who feels my pain. Jacquie Burchard is a Montana mom whose works in PR for the financial services industry. Her husband is a stay at home dad.

“During the school year, that’s a great arrangement, and my husband pulls his own weight in terms of housework, errands and other work,” she said. “Not only does he run the kids on their errands, help with homework, etc., but he also does house remodeling work for us.”:

But in the summer, it’s a completely different story, and he doesn’t apologize at all for rarely working. A few years ago, he took our two boys on a six-week vacation. I was able to go on two weeks of that trip and then had to return home to work. Great for them, but wow — it must be NICE to have that amount of free time! They went to Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon and other places that I’ve never been. Yes, I’m jealous! And he doesn’t necessarily pick up more of the housework or any other extra duties during the summer.

This year, he’s thinking of a four-week travel vacation that includes a visit to his parents’ house. He says that it’s not really all vacation because his father is in poor health and so it means helping his parents around their house a little. One week of that four-week trip will include a few days at my family’s reunion on the Oregon coast. But the rest is just pure fun for him & the boys — camping, visiting his family, and traveling around. He also is talking about taking two weeks during the Christmas holidays to visit his family in Colorado. Which means that I’ll get to see our kids for just a few days right around Christmas and they’ll be gone the rest of the time. Plus they’ll be out having all sorts of fun while I’m working.

After these vacation periods, I’ll often find out that they’ve attended movies that I want to see or done other activities that I’d love to do … but don’t have the time for. In addition, summertime often means extra bike rides for him and the kids, extra time at our cabin and other great adventures … while I’m working.

Chilling! Perhaps I and other working women whose husbands have the summers off should consider this a warning. Awesome work schedules aren’t always awesome for everyone in the family.

Photo: Kurhan / Shutterstock.com

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‘I Was Sent Home From Work Because Of My Outfit’

Meredith Lepore — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:13:52 +0000

Kelly: Dammit, Meredith, where are your panties?
Meredith: It’s casual Friday. Happy?- The Office

Dress codes in the office have changed a lot over the years. Historians say it was in the 1960s that the rules for what to wear began to disintegrate. But there are still some employers that are very set in their ways and always expect a certain uniform in the workplace which not everyone is aware of or wants to believe, especially when it is 85 degrees outside. Can you imagine being sent home from work on a hot summer day because you weren’t wearing pantyhose? Well, this has actually happened. We talked to some people who were sent from work because of their outfit.

What is appropriate in an office has changed a lot since those glamorous Mad Men days. The concept of business casual didn’t really exist back then. There was dressed for work and then dressing for work if you worked in a lumber yard. There are still some industries (law, finance) that are very strict and old-fashioned requiring suits for men and nylons with skirts for women with no open-toed shoes.

Violations of those dress codes are clear. The problems seem to start with the more laid back, lenient dress codes. Casual Fridays can be a real mind field for some people. That episode of The Office where Meredith wore a bathing suit because it was casual Friday comes to mind. “There’s a difference between casual and sloppy,” says Sally Morrison, associate manager of Career Partners 3, a job search and career coaching firm. “It’s surprising to me what some people think is appropriate. “I think that when you allow casual dress, some people start to be more casual in the way they approach their work,” says Morrison. “I’m not saying people have to keep their jackets on all day long, but there’s a level of professionalism that comes with wearing the appropriate attire. It garners more respect. If you are dealing with clients, I think this is very important.”

Here are some real stories of dress code confusion resulting in employees being sent home.

The Skort Incident

Samantha Villegas, President of SaVi PRI, told The Grindstone about being sent home from her first job.

“It was 1993 and I was 23 working at a boutique PR agency. I was wearing a plaid skort and a sweater with socks and healed loafers (I know, but they were very “in” at the time). I thought it was okay because it was all very tailored and neat, and I was not planning to see any clients (we worked in a small, seven-person office of all women). The skort was pleated and reached mid-thigh like a mini. At the time, I weighed about 125 pounds (at 5’2″) and was very fit. My boss, a woman, sent me home. She thought the skort was too short. I was mortified, and cried the whole way home and back. I seriously considered not returning to work but I did. That episode stuck with me my whole career. Ever since I have been very traditional and very conservative in the way I dress for work and I find myself critical of other women who border on the sexy or too casual.”

That awkward thing called pregnancy

Ora Shtull, Executive Coach and author of the soon-to-be-released The Glass Elevator: A Guide to Leadership Presence for Women on the Rise told The Grindstone:

“My first job (many years back, in the early 90s) right out of business school was at a cosmetics company that valued fashionable attire. I attended a corporate conference in Arizona in the early stages of pregnancy. I was at that awkward stage when I no longer could fit into my chic suits but was far from ready for maternity clothes. I showed up at the first event in an A-line jean dress with large colorful buttons, which was actually fashionable at the time. My male boss took one look at me and said, “Can you please go change your clothes?” But, I simply couldn’t! Needless to say, things went downhill from there.”

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This Is Why Your Boss Doesn’t Trust You

Lindsay Cross — Wed, 16 May 2012 16:04:36 +0000

In yesterday’s Co-Worker Conundrum, we examined a common complaint in the office. We’ll call it the “I’ll just take care of it myself” situation. Plenty of employees get frustrated because they would like to help their boss or their team, but no one takes the time to discuss what’s needed. There’s a lack of trust between the employee and their supervisors and it creates a ton of office tension.

Personally, I advocated that an employee should try to find one task of medium-level importance and focus on doing that task extremely well. Then they can continue to add jobs in this matter and gain responsibility. Don’t go after the jobs that are the most fun or that will earn the most praise. Just aim to demonstrate your capability. Then, you can start working on team projects and continue to build a reputation for dependability. Basically, work your tail off to earn your boss’s trust.

One manager says that while my advice made sense and could be helpful, I may have jumped the gun. A reader of The Grindstone wrote me an email with the subject line, “This Is Why Your Boss Doesn’t Trust You.” Well, not me personally, but the general working “you” out there.

This small business owner says that instead of immediately assuming that the boss is simply mean or micromanaging, employees need to look at their own actions and figure out why a supervisor might not be giving them more work.

“Listen, most managers are happy to have someone take responsibility for a project. We would gladly delegate the work and focus on other important jobs. So if your manager isn’t giving you anything to do, you probably need to take a look at yourself and figure out why.

Do you already have tasks that you’re ignoring because they aren’t fun or exciting? Have you completed all the training necessary to do the jobs? Have you offended a customer or co-worker who now doesn’t want to work with you? There’s almost always a reason that we aren’t asking you to do more. There’s a reason that your manager doesn’t trust you. And you should probably figure out what it is before you go on this mission to ‘prove yourself.’

I get really tired of employees complaining that they want more responsibility when they haven’t completed something I gave them weeks ago. And if your last two projects were handed in late or are running behind schedule, of course I’m not going to give you any more to do. A good manager utilizes their resources. I promise there’s a reason that someone isn’t giving you anything to do.”

Our reader brings up a really good point that plenty of us don’t like to admit. Sure, not every manager is the best, most logical person on the face of the earth. But most of them have goals to meet and are will use the tools in front of them to do so. If your boss doesn’t see you as a tool, you need to figure out why.

It is possible that you simply haven’t had time to prove yourself in a new position. Anytime you have a new supervisor, there’s going to be a learning curve. And you shouldn’t walk in to a new department expecting to get the same amount of work as everyone else. Your bosses are still trying to gage your abilities.

Also, if you haven’t completed previous assignments in a timely and satisfactory manner, no boss in their right mind wants to trust you with more. They want you to focus on the small things until they’re perfect before they more on to bigger tasks.

The most important lesson we might have learned here is that you really need to look at the situation from both sides to see the actual solution. You need to look at how an employee deals with a certain treatment, but you also need to consider why the manager chooses to act the way they do. The best tip might be to put yourself in the boss’s shoes and ask what your motivations would be. At the end of the day, an employee’s job is to make their boss’s job easier. If you aren’t serving that function, you might find yourself a whole lot more bored. Because you might be out of a job.

(Photo: Patrick Breig/Shutterstock)

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Looks Always Come Into Play No Matter Where Women Are On The Career Ladder

Meredith Lepore — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:40:11 +0000

Two women in extremely powerful positions, Rebekah Brooks and Hillary Clinton, have been in the press a lot lately and instead of focusing on the fact that one of these women may have broken a law and the other is the foreign affairs leader for the most powerful country in the world, the press is focusing on their looks. This shows that a woman’s looks are always part of the focus, no matter how far up they are on the career ladder.

Last week there was a ton of attention on Secretary of State’s choice to not wear makeup during a public appearance. The Daily Mail wrote “Make-up free Clinton shows the strain of her busy travel schedule.” Rebekah Brooks, former News International CEO who is on trial for her role in a phone hacking scandal involving a murder, has taken even more of a beating for her rather untamed red, curly hair and her choice of dress. Never mind the murder, let’s talk about that woman’s split ends. One comment was “Rebekah Brooks. We get it. You have lots of curly red hair, but wearing Orphan Annie’s dress to the Leveson hearing? Seriously.” There’s even a Facebook page dedicated to Brooks’ hair, called Rebekah Brook’s hair is so big because it’s full of secrets.

It is no wonder women look in the mirror at least eight times a day, according to a new study. Another recent survey found that women would rather go on a job interview (torture!) than show up to work without makeup. And this isn’t just college graduates at their new job, this is women at the top of their games too. Earlier this year, a female CEO in the investment banking industry admitted she had 10 plastic surgery procedures.

“Whether you’re coming up the career path or at the height of your career like Clinton, we still see women, certainly more than men, judged on appearance not accomplishments,” said Nancy Mellard, general counsel for business services company CBIZ. There are no studies showing that how a man wears his suit will impact whether people think he is smart or not (unless he wears them on his head but in the right context that could be hilarious.) For women there is study after study telling us that if you do not wear the exact perfect amount of makeup, your career may be in danger. Rebekah Brooks is going through a horrible trial right now and her career has been destroyed so maybe she didn’t want to straighten her hair that morning. And because of that she was stoned by the press.

It would be great if we could all adopt Hillary’s attitude of ‘I’m a powerful lady and some days I don’t feel like futzing with my hair and putting my contacts in,” but most of us are not as brave as her. Because, the problem is, it is this focus on our looks that will never help us get into the C-Suite. It takes away from what we really want people to be focusing on. One study sponsored by the Women’s Media Center and She Should Run, a group advocating for more women in public leadership, found that sexist comments about female candidates, including critiques on appearance, lead voters to question how effective they would be.

Photo: Inga Ivanova /Shutterstock.com

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