Women on the up and up.

Read this short article about the best-paying jobs for women in 2011 a few weeks ago (accompanied by this cute list/slideshow).

Lawyers made #4 on the list:

Median weekly earnings: $1,461
Approximate median yearly earnings: $76,000
Women as percentage of the profession: 35%
Earnings as percentage of men's earnings: 77%
Last year's position: No. 3

I was actually a bit surprised at the  approximate median yearly earnings (only a meager $76,000???) and the earnings as percentage of men's earnings...  But I've heard enough anecdotes about the woman lawyer in a couple taking a more "low-key" position than the man lawyer/banker/etc. once kids enter the picture.  For example, one of my supervisors at an in-house position had made her transition when she found out she was pregnant and her husband was still working in BigLaw.  This is just one example of many that I've heard where the woman chooses(?) to go the in-house/public-interest route (which basically usually means less demanding hours but also less pay) once the couple moves from coupledom into familydom.

Compare that info with that of #2 on the list, pharmacists.

Median weekly earnings: $1,605
Approximate median yearly earnings: $83,500
Women as percentage of the profession: 48%
Earnings as percentage of men's earnings: 83%
Last year's position: No. 2 

 So, apparently the more well-represented women are IN a given field, the less the wage disparity between men and women.  From these two examples (though a small sample), you can see a bit of that trend.


Saw this interesting little infographic today via Forbes Woman and that reminded me of putting up some of this related info together.

Infographic created by: Educational Leadership (who wanted me to remove the link because: "The reason I am contacting you today is to ask that you remove all links from christineispink.blogspot.com that lead to EducationalLeadership.com. I don't know which pages will remain after the overhaul, and I don't want you left with a dead link on your pages.")

Please let them know what killed me.

I've been using ketchup packets I found in our break room cabinet. I don't think they are so old I might die, but if I fall violently ill, please tell them to check the ketchup in our break room.

Sacrifices that are worth it.

Left work at 8pm yesterday. But still with a smile on my face.

Why? I'm working late to do all the work I can't do next week. Because I'll be beachside in Mexico :D

Our resort

Will be pulling long days for the rest of the week but I'm sure it'll be worth it.

Excited for my week of fun in the sun. Especially since this past weekend my mom bought me my BARBIE BATHING SUIT!!!

It's this top:

From Everything But Water

With this bottom:

From Everything But Water

So this bathing suit but in the above color:

I FREAKING LOVE IT!!! I LOVE IT SO MUCH that I danced around the store wearing it and singing "I'M A BARBIE I'M A BARBIE!!!" until my mom just bought it for me (mostly I think to make me take it off and stop terrorizing other customers).

Then I came home and wore it for five hours and kept singing "I'M A BARBIE I'M A BARBIE!!!" until I had to get ready for a New Year's Eve party.  And even then, my mom and sister had to convince me I couldn't wear my new bathing suit to the party SADFACE.

SO EXCITED!!!!

Under the weather.

But going to work anyway. A little late but still gotta go. It never ceases to amaze me how hard life is when I'm sick. And I mean in a very practical sense of "hard."

The very act of walking to the kitchen for a glass of water is nigh impossible. I get there and I'm out of breath and dizzy. Every single thing I have to do seems monumental.

Getting out of bed is never easy to begin with and when I'm sick it's seriously such a chore. Getting dressed takes my breath away. Washing up takes forever because I need to take breaks every minute to catch my breath and orient myself.

Admittedly I woke up a little late (NyQuil induced sleep hits me hard) but it also took an inordinate amount of time to get ready. And I did the bare minimum. No makeup or special hair today. And I also just realized I'm not wearing any jewelry either. Really dropped the ball today.

I hope I make it til 5. It's hard to concentrate and do any work when I feel like this but it's really the commute that takes its toll. Being in those enclosed spaces with a bunch of other germ-harboring folks and all the stimuli! All those smells and noises and the pushing and keeping my balance in the subway. It's like sensory overload on an already wired to the brink system.

I just want to crawl back into be and sleep all day. Alas, this is less acceptable for grownups than children for some reason. I'm a huge advocate of ppl staying home when they are less than 100%. Why risk a longer period of semi-invalid status when a few days of nothing but absolute rest will do more to restore your system?

One last thought, if I weren't begging off for a week in the middle of January, I'd totally have stayed home today, too. :/

P.s. I'm scheduling this for later in the day. So don't worry- I'm not actually going in at noon.

Do happy lawyers exist?

Available at Amazon.com

Available at Amazon.com

Always a good question to ask, not only about careers in general, but for the one that you are currently pursuing.

I always assumed that lawyering was a means to an end for me.  A way to make contacts and gain necessary life experience and marketable job skills for whatever it is I decide I'm passionate about (writing my memoirs in short essays; opening my own day care/nursery school; becoming a professional organizer).

In this Corporette thread discussing whether happy lawyers exist, the ladies dole out some great insight.  I especially liked how Kat mentioned that there are people who like law school and people who like practicing law. 

I'm not sure where I fall right now, because when I started law school I LOVED IT.  But I loved it relative to what I had been doing - being an English-speaking puppet for a country-bumpkin school in Korea for a year (disagreeing wholeheartedly with everyone I had to take orders from not only about education methods and materials but also with the actual substance that I was teaching).

Compared to "working," I fell back into law school and loved it.  I loved preparing for class - I loved thinking there was a right answer, I loved the class discussions and the intellectualness of it all.  THEN, I started to dislike it.  After having "worked," I realized that school is NOT such a big deal.  Missing a reading or getting something wrong in class was NOT the end of the world - I had been in worse "emergency" situations in the past year and survived.  And perhaps that's where I got too lax.

Although I appreciate the perspective that "working" gave me - that a bad answer or less than stellar grade wasn't the end of the world (there ARE other people whose bad decisions and bad consequences are much worse than "a B+! Oh, NO!!!"), I also think it let me be too forgiving of myself.  In that vein, I also lost focus of what I wanted.  Since nothing seemed to be a life or death matter for me, I stopped asking myself the hard questions: What did I want to do?  What did I like to do?  What made me feel good?  What could I see myself doing for the next 20-30 years of my life?

Even now, I don't know if there are any "happy" lawyers - for a lot of my friends it seems like this is the lot they chose and now they must make do.  And there's a sense of not being able to complain because we are considered so lucky (can't complain about your challenging lawyer job when there are so many people fighting for those positions).  Nonetheless, it seems like the job is something some of them merely "put up with" - but for what?  The money?  Perhaps, we are, presumably, responsible adults who understand how education loans work and the promise we made to pay them back. 

But what else?  Why are my friends lawyers?  So many of them spoke of "changing the world," "making a difference," "helping people who really need it," and now nearly all of them are working in BigLaw at large firms who cater to corporate clients - more often than not defending their clients from indigent or vulnerable folks who have (most likely) been taken advantage of.

I believe I may have lost my kernel of thought - but I guess, I wish I knew more to finding this answer.  I recently attended a networking event of women from my undergraduate alma mater and was not surprised to find that I was 1 of 5 JDs in the room.  I WAS disappointed to find that I was 1 of 2 currently practicing attorneys and that the other 3 had transitioned into completely non-law-related careers and the 1 practicing attorney had just moved from commercial litigation to an in-house gig and that they were ALL SO HAPPY with their choices to leave practicing BigLaw.

One last note, the guys I've met (who are lawyers) seem to be more accepting, if not satisfied, with their lives as lawyers.  On the flip side, many of the women I've met are much more unhappy and much more vocal about their unhappiness.  Unfortunately, I'm a woman - so guess what the odds are saying?

One real last note, I think it's important to consider if you're really happy in your job, but it's probably also worth considering if you NEED to be really happy in your job.  I've never been one to define myself by my career - and so my career is not where I get the "meaning" or "purpose" in my life.  As long as my career/job gives me the means to do what I want OUTSIDE of work and doesn't interfere with my life outside of work too much/unnecessarily, I think I'd find myself pretty happy.

This isn't a very focused post - but just some thoughts thrown together around a fairly loose topic...

So, umm... experiments.

Sad poinsettia

It appears my poinsettia did not approve of the tea.  Wish I had a before and after - yesterday it was merely droopy.  Today it is all black spotted and diseased and floppy (floppy being even droopier than droopy).

Oh, well.  Lesson learned - poinsettias don't like Solomon's Seal tea (what we call doong-gool-leh).  My fittonia, on the other hand, is doing just fine.

So, 1 for 2.  I'm ok with that.

Apologies.

I've got a BUNCH BUNCH BUNCH of blog post/ideas in the works.  I've just been SUPER busy this week (I'm actually doing work at work!) plus there have been a bunch of after-work events I've been attending (the rush before the holidays and all).  BUT I'll try and line up a bunch of posts - there's a few good thinkers coming through.

Happy Holidays to all!!! (will do a more festive one I swear).

And my pre-gift to you: a look at my SERIOUSLY messy room (this is like ... heresy, against me).

My room when I come home late for 4+ nights

UGH ... I literally threw up in my mouth a little just looking at this.  SO GLAD I CAME HOME (semi-) EARLY tonight and cleaned that mess up.  It's like I can breathe again... aahhhhhh... =)

Holy poopers, it's past 1am ... UGH so late!!!

Inspiration and Execution: A *casual* work look!

More work outfits!  Sorry my life is so boring - I wish I could do posts of fun outfits, but I really do just wear work clothes and having always interned and worked in law offices rather than in fun fashiony jobs, my work clothes are rather tame.  But hopefully, I can use this as a space to reflect on how to "jazz up" a rather boring template.

So, here's a rather casual Friday outfit.

Inspired by Belle from Capitol Hill Style (for her - featuring the peeptoe flats again but for me, I liked the pairing of the casual blue shirt with a black pencil skirt).

I also came across this Polyvore set I'd saved a while ago (I have no idea what I would've saved it for - normally I look up specific pieces that I have trouble with and save a bunch of sets that use that one item but I don't recall looking for any of the pieces in this set - maybe brown boots?).

I don't have a chambray shirt, honestly I'm not a "casual" person (lol!) and have no idea how I would wear it in real life unless I were... calling in the ranch hands after a day of "working the land."  Nonetheless, using these two casual inspirations, I was able to create an outfit around a blue oxford polo shirt I had worn somewhat often to class and found much too casual to wear to work.

I actually liked doing a casual shirt with the black pencil skirt because it made it easy to wear brown and black together (with the brown helping make the black more casual).  Wore a dark brown belt and lighter brown ankle boots.  I think I wore a dark grey turtleneck but now think I could've done brown as well.  I wore black tights because of Belle's 2 out of 3 rule and my brown tights looked a little weird.

Good?  Bad?  Should I just give up trying to casual myself and stick with the formality that I'm comfortable with?

Inspiration and Execution: Sheer black blouse and Chanel-y jacket

I have this Milly blouse that I love but could only wear it out to bars with friends because I couldn't figure out how to make it more day/work-appropriate.  So when Belle at Capital Hill Style posted this Three Ways she helped solve one of my work conundrums: how to make a sheer black blouse work-appropriate.

My take:

My jacket is a little less Chanel-y than the inspiration jacket, but it's a white knit jacket with ladylike ruffles.

I'm horribly unphotogenic even when you can't see my face (how sad is that?).  I swear the outfit was SUPER-cute in person.  I got compliments at work and even my mom was super-impressed that morning and commented that I had put together a really good outfit.

I need to figure out how to take better pictures.  This is just getting embarrassing...

Useful Tuesday: PR Pros Share Secrets on Getting to the Next Level

I think I saw this short article on Twitter somewhere and sent it to myself to read later.

Nothing too groundbreaking or new, but nothing wrong with a refresher.

I've always heard that the part I quote below is one of the hardest things for women in the workplace to do.  We're just not "taught" that this is acceptable behavior.

How important is tooting your own horn—how do you do it? What if you feel awkward about “bragging”? How can a woman overcome that?

Toot your own horn, just not too loudly. Strike a balance between passive and pesky. It's tricky, especially if you feel awkward about touting your accomplishments. One effective way is not only to pat yourself on the back, but also to pat others harder. When working on a team, don't just highlight the good work you are doing, include and promote co-workers' contributions as well.   

I was at the Harvard APALSA conference this past spring and attended a panel entitled "Women in Leadership."  I forget the exact list of speakers Here's the list of speakers (they were impressive).  One of the women said that you need a brag buddy - this is easier for women than bragging about yourself.  She said to get yourself a brag buddy, which is like a (lady) wingman but for networking events and such instead of bars and broads.  I really liked this idea because it seems a lot more natural and perhaps even more sincere when a friend is singing your praises rather than doing it yourself (of course, this might be harder to do within your own organization - especially if it's rather competitive - but you can find a brag buddy in a different department or specialty to do this for you with your own superiors at work events - and of course you should reciprocate!).  I've been trying to do it (secretly!) with one unni of mine at networking events I drag her to - I hope it works!

I will say, though, their last tip is one of the easiest and super-importantest ones to do.

What kind of paper follow-up do you need after an introduction or interview?

Send an email within 24 hours of the conversation; then a handwritten note within the week of the meeting; and make a follow-up phone call or email two weeks after the meeting if you haven't yet heard back. If you opt for the latter, it's always good to dig around for some industry news or relevant article tied to your conversation that you can share to show that you are still engaged.

 I don't know about the handwritten note (unless I was invited to coffee at the person's home or something similar that took more effort) but I try to email people that I've recently met (usually at a networking or bar event) within the next few days following up on something we discussed and asking if they wouldn't mind continuing that conversation.  Most people I've done this with have been very receptive.  Some people are very busy but even those people usually respond and say email or telephone works.  I'd highly recommend following up quickly though - you want to be one of the memorable ones!

Swearing in ceremony outfit: NJ edition.

So, I had posted a few weeks ago about what to wear to my swearing in ceremony for NJ.  I had quite a few helpful suggestions from my question over at Corporette (I'm comment 14).

I ended up going with the skirt suit because something about pants suits screams "CASUAL" and "HILLARY" (as in Clinton) to me.  And I pulled a hybrid for my shirt.  It was both a button-up and a silk blouse.  I wore a silk button-up blouse with a fancy ruffle collar (I wanted to wear something fun and festive and fancy to signal it wasn't just any other work day!).

Here are close-ups of the ruffle details from eBay (so you can see it's not just any old button-up):

Whole blouse (mine is gold)

Collar and cuff detail

Isn't the blouse lovely?  I think it was originally $495 or so at Saks but my wonderful mother purchased it on crazy-sale in the fall of 2008 (purging of merchandise when ppl stopped shopping after the financial mortgage crisis/collapse of the big banks) for something like $100.  I usually feel a bit too uncomfortable to wear something so luxe to my government workplace but it was perfect for a special event!

Originally tried black tights but something seemed a bit off.

And as the kind commenter AnonInfinity pointed out, collar out seemed a little wonky, so:

The official outfit in full was collar in, nude-for-me hose (except the sheen on the hose makes my calves look uber-wide):

Inspiration and Execution: Twist-front top and suit.

Maybe I'll think of a better name (especially if this becomes a regular thing).

In college I started to keep a notebook with clippings of outfits I've liked (from catalogs and magazines mostly) and now I have a digital folder with outfits and pictures from the Internet.  I started this because my mom got tired of me calling her in the morning (when I was away in college) and asking her what I should wear (yes, I'm aware that I might have some attachment/mommy issues).

Anyway, I sometimes feel like I get stuck in a style rut and like to keep images for inspiration.  I also started photographing my daily outfits - first because I liked documenting outfits that I really liked but then it turned into a bit of a documentary project.  I found patterns and habits and comfort zones.

For example,  I wear a lot of solid colors.  Most of my wardrobe is solid and it falls into two color/season categories.  My fall/winter clothes are black/grey/navy and my spring/summer clothes are yellow/pink/white.  I own hardly any blue, green, purple, red (no saturated colors, really) and not that much in the brown/khaki family.

I have NO prints - sometimes I get as adventurous as a wide-stripe or a polka dot accent.  So, I started to try and buy some more clothes with prints on them.  (I'll have to document some examples of my old habits and new trials sometime).

Anyway, the point of THIS entry is to share an inspiration outfit and my actual outfit.  So here goes,

The inspiration outfit was from a series called "Three Ways" by the lovely Miss Belle over at Capitol Hill Style.

I didn't have a grey top like that - but I did have a black one so my version of the outfit inverted the colors.  I wore a charcoal grey pinstripe skirt suit with a black knot/twist-front jersey shell.  (Sorry about the horrible lighting - you can barely see the contrast in color).  And as per Belle's suggestion, I wore rather large-ish-for-me earrings.

The color contrast is a LITTLE better here - but I'll try for better lighting/contrast next time.  And I know her "Three Ways" if focused on the shoe - but for me, it was really the outfit that I'd liked.  I just don't like peeptoe flats.  I don't find them attractive on my vamp and I think it's just a little, too, forced (hard to explain).

What do you think?  Was this a faithful "execution" outfit?  Should I have stuck closer to the inspiration?  What would you have done differently?

Sunday nights vs. Monday mornings.

Source

This is EXACTLY how I feel right now.

Still finishing up a memo that's due tomorrow morning and knowing I have to go into work and finish up a memo that was due last week.

(Hey, 1 out of 2 memos on time is better than 2 out of 2 memos late!).

Wrong foot forward.

Via Flickr (adorable at her age)

I wore my Tory Burch Revas yesterday for my commute.

I've never found them as AMAAAAZINGLY comfortable as people rave (not enough arch support for me) but yesterday I was surprised at how uncomfortable they were.  They were fine for the morning commute.  But the after-work commute back home was pretty uncomfortable.  My feet felt pinched in all the wrong places.

Today, I wore them again.  Realized I wore them on the wrong feet yesterday...

Now, I've gotta say, a shoe that you can wear on the wrong foot and merely feel mild discomfort and not get the obvious feeling that something is wrong is quiet impressive.

Or... I'm just dumb.

You can't say "bomb" on a plane.

Source.

Or in a building full of the Attorney General's state government employees.

I heard a few ppl rushing past my office just now followed by, "Grab your things! There's a bomb threat!"

I was going to ignore it until an official announcement was made (our building has great security) but then all the staff workers were rushing by in their coats with their bags.

So I peeked into the hallway and our Bureau Chief was out there - explaining that there's a bomb threat a block away between Liberty and Maiden Lane.  And although we don't have an official building announcement yet they were advised to move anyone with Broadway-facing windows into the interior of the building.

I'm way in the back by Nassau so I'm in the "safe" zone.  Now we're just waiting for more "official" news.

Also, my trip to the bank (front-facing on Broadway inside my building) is momentarily postponed.  Oh, dear.

Official bar exam results.

Available here.  Click on the K to L panel and scroll down to me!!!

(Actually most of my close friends are on that page, 4 Kims and a Kwak!)

Also, some stats from this year's exam:

11,182 candidates sat for the 2-day exam.
69.2% of all candidates who sat the exam passed.
78.5% of all first-time takers passed.

Only 35.4% of all foreign-educated candidates passed.
My sympathies - English is a brutal language =(

Passed the NY bar.

Win!

  

Edited: Ha.  Anonymous blogger FAIL.

Bizarro boss.

I've posted at least once before about how much  I love Ask a Manager.

But she got this one question that seriously has me scratching my head in a WTF manner.

Like, seriously.  Your boss goes THROUGH your desk to steal your food?

SO WEIRD!!!

Reading stuff like this reminds me of how lucky I am to NOT be in that situation.

But also, SERIOUSLY!?!?!? Who steals other people's food? ESPECIALLY when they know it's YOU?!?!?  And are doing things to try and prevent you from stealing it (putting it in her desk)?!?!?!?  AND YOUR STEALING IT PREVENTS THIS PERSON FROM EATING AT ALL????

OMG.  There are just so many things wrong with this boss, I can't wrap my head around it.

Law School Lies.

An Occupy Wall Street perspective on the current law school/legal climate.

Being a "volunteer attorney" and working with a handful of other volunteers sponsored by my law school's "generous" government fellowship program - we talk about these types of numbers and the truthiness of it all quite a bit.

Voices in my head. Please hang up and try again.

Source.

At first I thought I was crazy. I felt like I could hear a fuzzy voice somewhere in my office. Then I thought someone was playing a prank on me. Like they had hidden a small radio somewhere in my office and left it on so I would keep thinking I was hearing voices. But then I remembered I don't have any work friends like that. So then I just decided I was crazy again.

Then I realized I had knocked my phone off the hook and the operator voice was repeating over and over and over and over again, "Please hang up and try your call again."

T.G.I.F.