The Most Comfortable Work Heel: @KennethColePrd Wedge Pumps

I would much rather wear a flat ballet slipper any day over a heel... until I found my Kenneth Cole Wedges.

I know Amber normally handles all things fashion, but I had to share these with you. Working full time at a university can have you walking all day from building to building, teaching class, to the bathroom, to your car, you get what I am saying. Therefore, I never really wear heals to work because they will end up under my desk.

Then I stumbled upon these when my flats literally had a hole in the bottom (#embarrassing). I am in love. I have worn them every single day for the past week with no complaints. I even went shopping after work in these! They also come in Maple (mustard yellow) and Teal Suede, but I went for the classic Black Leather. They are so comfortable that I was able to walk, not stumble, out of the gym in these after an intense leg workout. They are listed for $69.99 at Macy's right now and they are worth every penny. I used a coupon and got them with shipping for a little over $50.

I love them, you will love them, go to Macy's... now. And this post does not even have affiliate ads; I just want you to go to work as fashionable and as comfortable as I have been.

Do you have a favorite work appropriate heel that is super comfortable?

Think and Grow a Better You from Dr. Stephanie McGencey

Today we have a guest post from one of my new blogger friends, Dr. Stephanie McGencey from The Sister Source.


Several years ago I had an executive coach to help me make the transition to a new leadership position. She was instrumental in helping me put all of my experiences together to queue up a good start in my new role. There isn’t one thing that I needed to know, but there is one thing I needed to DO to be successful—THINK. 

Now I know this might seem obvious, but it is harder than you might imagine. My weekly assignment was to get into what she called ‘ED Land’. In ‘ED Land’ I was supposed to get from behind my desk, put away pen/paper, put my feet up and simply THINK about what I was doing. I was supposed to do this for only an hour a week and report to her what I ‘experienced’ during this time.

Would it surprise you to know that this was the hardest assignment anyone had ever given me?  My ‘go getter’ nature felt like I was wasting time and that I needed to be DOING something. But this time was, and still is, critical to my success in work and in life.

Instead of shooting from the hip and always reacting to what is happening around us, I have learned that it is critical to THINK about where you are going and what you want to do.

For example, are you in a relationship with someone that is just not working for you? Do you often wonder why you put up with the foolishness for little real benefit? I’m guessing that the answer is yes, and if you’re anything like me, your thoughts are occupied trying to anticipate their next move or reacting to something they’ve done. What a waste of time!

Before calling the girlfriend tribunal together to plot how to take out the troublesome person, THINK about what you want and why. Are your needs being met? Does this person act a certain way when say he’s had too many beers? Is it possible that she is jealous of you or something you have? Can you predict when the bad behavior will begin? I submit to you that most of the time we simply REACT to what is going on and don’t do enough to avoid the drama in the first place!

I know you’re probably thinking to yourself, when do I have time to think? If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll realize that you do have time to think. In fact we do tons of things to make sure we can’t hear our own thoughts. For me it is shopping, watching TV or surfing the web looking for nothing in particular. I can putz around the house for hours and not get anything done.

Of course putzing never solved any problems. How can we be successful at anything if we don’t THINK about what we want to do, how we want to do it, who we want to do it with, and why? Give yourself a gift and try this THINKing exercise.

At least once a week spend 30 minutes alone with your thoughts. No you can’t have the TV on in the background or have your cell phone in hand so you don’t miss an important text. Remember, no paper/pen/laptop/iPad—nothing to take notes. Simply be alone with your thoughts! The first few times will be very hard. But after a while, you’ll come to treasure this THINK time. As you THINK and grow and learn more about yourself the pathway to a better, healthier you will become clearer. You can do it!

Stephanie

Stephanie McGencey is reaching out to women on her blog  The Sister Source.  Her goal is to engage, educate and empower women to strengthen families and communities. Sister Stephanie invites you to participate in her efforts to make sure women are heard in the 2012 Presidential Election.

Work Procrasination

Thank goodness it's Friday. I really don't think I would be able to handle any other day of the week EXCEPT for Friday today. I need to know I have 2 full days of no work ahead of me.

As I was cruising through my blogroll today, I discovered an AMAZING post from Working Girl. They were speaking on a topic that is near and dear to my heart. Procrastinating at work. Have you ever had one of those days on the job where you are just determined to do nothing? Absolutely nothing? Well, if you haven't, more power to you, but I feel like this about once ever 2 - 3 weeks. (Okay that's a lie, it is probably closer to once a week and sometimes I can't even find the time to have a nothing day once a week).

These lovely working girls put together a list of websites to help  you get through your nothing day besides using Facebook and Twitter.

Enjoy! And Happy Procrastinating!

Internet Background Checks

Working in higher education, I see everyday how students do not think about the amount of information that they allow others to see, just by merely being so active on social networking sites. Don't get me wrong, I love social networking; it allows you to stay in contact with long lost friends and make new contacts as well. However, if you project the wrong image to the public... it can hurt you in ways that most people do not consider. For example, when looking for a job. This information would be obtained in a background check, which must be signed off on by the applicant, but HELLO, if you want the job, you sign the form. Social Networking checks are becoming more and more popular, just as the new and improved social networking sites. I found the following article from Forbes very interesting. ( Article format was edited to fit in this post. No content was changed)

How Embarrassing/Job-Threatening Facebook Photos Are Part Of Your Job Application

Jun. 20 2011 - 12:07 pm

Last week, the Federal Trade Commission gave a stamp of approval to a background check company that screens job applicants based on their Internet photos and postings. The FTC determined that Social Intelligence Corp. was in compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act. This means a search of what you’ve said or posted to Facebook/Twitter/Flickr/blogs and the Internet in general may become a standard part of background checks when you apply for a job.

No big deal, right? You already knew that employers were Googling you. I argued this was actually better, because Social Intelligence has to make sure its clients inform job applicants if they took adverse action based on something found on the Internet. That way you can delete and change privacy settings accordingly.
But there’s a wrinkle. If something job-threatening pops up on Facebook or Flickr or Craigslist in a search of you, Social Intelligence puts it into your file — and it stays there for seven years.

Update (6:47 p.m) — Social Intelligence has an important clarification: COO Geoffrey Andrews sent me a statement via email this evening explaining that negative findings are kept on file but are not reused when a new employer runs a check on you:

While we store information for up to seven years we do not “reuse” that information for new reports. Per our policies and obligations under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, we run new reports on applicants on each new search to ensure the most accurate and up-to-date information is utilized, and we store the information to maintain a verifiable chain-of-custody in-case the information is ever needed for legal reasons. We are not however building a “database” on individuals that will be evaluated each time they apply for a job and potentially could be used adversely even if they have cleaned up their profiles.

Social Intelligence had sent me some of the reports they’ve provided to employers so far, including a job applicant who had a photo on a social networking site that featured multiple guns and a sword, and another who was designated racist for joining the Facebook group, “I shouldn’t have to press 1 for English. We are in the United States. Learn the language.” Social Intelligence’s “negative” findings will stay in the files of Workplace-Shooting-Waiting-To-Happen and No-Hablo-Espanol for seven years per the requirements of FCRA, though new employers who run searches through Social Intelligence won’t have access to the materials if they are completely removed from the Internet. (That last sentence has been rewritten since the original post per an update from the company. The service actually seems less useful now, though more respectful of the rights of job applicants.)

“We store records for up to 7 years as long as those records haven’t been disputed,” says Social Intelligence COO Geoffrey Andrews by email. “If a record is disputed and changed then we delete the disputed record and store the new record when appropriate.”

The company limits its searches to what’s publicly available, mining data from, in Andrews’s words, “social networking websites (i.e., Facebook and others), professional networking websites (i.e., Linked In and others), blogs, wikis, video and picture sharing websites, etc.).” And a job applicant must acknowledge and approve the use of a social media background screen, just as they would a criminal and credit background check.

You should always be wary of posting job-threatening content on the Internet. It’s hard to erase something once it gets out there. But now that there’s a company that specializes in capturing this and putting it into a file, it may be even harder to undo the damage wrought by an unwise tweet or Craigslist posting. Handle your share/tweet/post buttons with care, and perhaps think about tools to protect you from sharing potentially humiliating and unemployment-guaranteeing material.

Professionalism in the Workplace

So yesterday, Amber and I were on a water run and we passed by another department and we heard some extremely unprofessional conversations. A staff member was trying to help a student and he asked the student, "Yo, so what you need? Let me tell you about yo account."

Before you go ahead and assume the staff member knew the student... he did not. Mind you, the student was an international student. The poor student didn't even comprehend what he was being asked!

Working in higher education can be hard to adjust to sometimes; especially when you are a young adult who isn't too far removed from the whole college environment. Professionalism still needs to take place though. I find that students respect the staff and administrators more when they conduct themselves in a more serious manner. It is okay to joke and fool around sometimes, but on a day to day basis, the professionalism still needs to be there. If anything, staff and administrators should feel that they need to set an example to the impressionable college minds that we come across everyday.