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13 minutes
In this podcast episode Katie and Carol give you tips on decorating your office at work in by bringing some of your feminine touches. You spend eight hours or more everyday in your office it should be a space that makes you feel great!
- Have a small area rug and a warm table lamp in your office. It will make the room more comforting.
- Keep a plant or flowers on your desk.
- Ask the facilities folks if you can paint your office. (Don’t choose pink – just my bias.)
We are huge fans of comfortable environments. Why make your workplace cold? Did it ever occur to you that you could do a little decorating? If you have enough natural lighting and a table lamp, you can extinguish the fluorescent. Really – this makes a huge difference.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION
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Hello and welcome to the Skirt Strategies podcast! The podcast for tips and techniques you can use to increase your confidence and project a powerful image to get the job with a client, the raise or the promotion you deserve.
Katie: Katie here – with Skirt Strategies.
Carol: And Carol.
Katie: Here’s a little podcast – just kind of nice and light that has to do with femininity at your workplace. This is a complete girly-girl tip.
Carol: And we’re going to make you feel okay to be a girly-girl.
Katie: Well, I’m all about leaning into that.
Carol: Yeah.
Katie: It used to be that when I was an Engineer and I felt like I had to wear blazers and they were always blue, black or brown.
Carol: Did you wear a tie too?
Katie: I never quite did that.
Carol: You didn’t get there.
Katie: Yeah, although it was in style for a little bit when I was an Engineer – during that timeframe.
Carol: Yeah.
Katie: But you know, I’ve learned a lot from you because you’re more of a girly-girl than I am. I’m not a tomboy, but I don’t give in to some of the girl stuff, but I really do love it.
Carol: Yeah.
Katie: In this day in age where pedicures and manicures are… Man! I never had a pedicure and manicure. In college, I didn’t even go pay to get my haircut.
Carol: Oh well. Yeah.
Katie: But maybe it’s because you’re always poor in college.
Carol: Yeah, so you just let it grow.
Katie: You see, you just kind of let it grow.
Carol: Interesting.
Katie: So I kind of thought that…
Carol: Well, and I always think of you as more girly than me. Isn’t that interesting?
Katie: You do?
Carol: Yeah. Because you know, I do wear a lot of black. I mean, I look at my wardrobe then there’s black and there’s white and there’s one or two splashes of color somewhere.
But yeah, if I go to a store and I’m like – “I’m going to buy something blue today because I need color in my wardrobe.” I go right for the black and white and that’s it.
Katie: That’s interesting. When I get ready, I cannot stand a primp. I cannot stand it. I can’t stand to wash my hair and dry it. I like it when somebody else does it for me. I spend about 45 seconds on my makeup and sometimes it shows.
Carol: Ha-ha-ha!
Katie: And I’ve just gotten to be a master at throwing myself together – hopefully, without it showing too much.
Carol: Right. Okay.
Katie: So that part of me thinks I’m not really much of a girly-girl.
Carol: I see.
Katie: But when it comes to the environment that’s around me – I’m very good at decorating my home. I love putting things in spots and rearranging and having some soft floral accents. My mom taught me all that.
Carol: Yeah, and I love that too. I mean, with my restaurants and with my home, I’ve always wanted to make the space feel very comfortable for folks.
Katie: So that’s a nice transition into these tips that we’re sharing with the listeners today which has to do with the feminine feeling of the workplace.
And if you’re really good at making a house a home – Do you (as a woman) bring that same quality to a workplace that can be very beneficial?
Carol: Yes.
Katie: Because a lot of our self-talk (especially me coming from an engineering environment) might turn around and say, “Well, that doesn’t belong at work.” “Well, this is an engineering outfit.” “Well, this is a place where you don’t put little frilly things on your desk.” But really? Why not?
Carol: Right.
Katie: And I’m not talking about dumb silly things. But why not make your workplace a little bit more like human than a cold antiseptic field?
Carol: Yeah. You know, I’ve been watching a lot of Dragnet because my husband is all of a sudden into Dragnet. And this is a show from the 1960’s. And those of us who are of an age remember Dragnet because it was what was on and so we’ve all seen it.
And you look at the… Oh my God! The work areas! You know, what is that green called? It’s industrial drab olive green and a desk, a phone and I understand.
Katie: Uh-hmm.
Carol: So there are some workplaces where your desk is not your own. You’re sharing it with somebody else and you know, somebody is coming in after you and you don’t necessarily get to put things in your space. But as women, I think we need to give people permission to have their space and make it feel like their own.
Katie: My desk was the grey metal government, the classic looking grey metal government desk.
Carol: Government issue, right?
Katie: Aha. Yup.
Carol: And did you do anything with it or was it done at that time that you were…?
Katie: No. We were all kind of in a bank together. You know, open space together. And you know, we probably had a four door metal cabinet, file cabinet next to us. So it almost looked like a secretarial pool – the way we were lined up.
Carol: Right.
Katie: Not rows and rows of it. But there were a dozen of us out in the open space there. And then the planners were a couple of rows next to us and then it was the tech area where they were called assemblers, but they were really technicians. They’d assemble stuff on work jet desks, workbenches.
Carol: Uh-hmm.
Katie: So I don’t remember ever thinking, “Oh! Wouldn’t it be nice to have a lamp here? Oh! Wouldn’t it be nice to decorate this just a little bit?”
You know what I mean? If I had something that held my pen. I don’t even think I had something interesting that was holding my pens. It never even occurred to me.
Carol: Yeah.
Katie: Now I know that’s a different day in age. I know that is.
Carol: Well, and hopefully it changed. And there is appropriateness and non-appropriateness. So let’s talk about that. Let’s give the tips and then we’ll talk about this some more.
Katie: Alright. So the three tips we’re covering today are as you may know from the book – Skirt Strategies: 249 Success Tips for Women in Leadership found on Amazon, as well as on our website – skirtstrategies.com/book. In case you want to go there and read more about it.
Carol: Yeah.
Katie: And these three are as follows. Why don’t you share those with us, Carol?
Carol: Will do. It’s Tip Number 60: Have a small area rag and a warm table lamp in your office. It will make the room more comforting.
Katie: And I think by warm table lamp, we don’t mean the one that puts out the…
Carol: With LED light, the warm light.
Katie: A table lamp that reflects a warm glow.
Carol: Tip 61: Keep a plant or flowers on your desk.
Katie: And a little biological edition.
Carol: Tip 62: Ask the facilities folks if you can paint your office. Don’t use pink. That’s Katie’s bias.
Katie: Yeah. That might be going too far – pink. Maybe not. I don’t know. But I’m a huge fan of comfortable environment. So it’s just pushing on it a little bit. What is your workplace look like?
If I were to walk into your office tomorrow and I looked at something – What would you say? “Oh my God! I’m horrified by this, Katie.” Or what would you say, “I really like the way I’ve arranged this.” How many of you would say, “I can’t see through the clutter. I know it’s bad.” How many of you would say, “I never noticed that I couldn’t see through the clutter till I stood back and looked at it with fresh eyes and realize – how am I even working here?” When you have guests over at your home – you notice how you look at it with fresh eyes?
Carol: Oh yeah!
Katie: And I think, “Oh my, gosh! I didn’t think my kitchen was very cluttered.” But right now it looks really cluttered. It just kind of creeps up on you.
Carol: Sure.
Katie: Your workplace is the same way.
Carol: Oh! And my clutter does creep up on me. So I mean, that’s what I would look at and say, “Oh!” And it keeps me unsettled – the clutter does. So I need to get rid of some of the clutter. And you know what I do to get rid of the clutter?
Katie: No. What?
Carol: I stack everything up in one pile, instead of four piles.
Katie: It’s good.
Carol: No, it’s not good!
Katie: A uniclutter.
Carol: Yes. So now I have one major pile to get through and sometimes it’s more daunting than I have the energy to deal with. But the other thing is – you know, my office couldn’t really afford when we built our building. They couldn’t afford to put in paintings and things so I brought my own paintings to my office because I wasn’t going to leave the walls bare. I mean, to me – I’ve got to have something. So my mother’s a painter and I’ve got some of her paintings and some other posters that I’ve got nicely framed.
Katie: Well, and before anyone decides to [Inaudible][0:09:14.1] these tips or the thought of putting art in the workplace – there is research that validates a person’s productivity based on the environment provoking them to feel artistic or creative or comfortable.
Carol: Nice!
Katie: So it pays for itself.
Carol: Right. So encourage it.
Katie: I just like that idea. You know, we talked a little bit in the last tip about the difference between a culture and a climate. And a culture is the way things are done around here, but the climate is how it specifically feels. And you can affect that.
Now there’s some linkage between the two. So if you consistently create a climate that feels good for you, feels feminine or comfortable or warm or productive or engaging or cuddling or whatever you might love, it will eventually affect the culture of the organization in a positive way.
Carol: Absolutely!
Katie: I love that!
Carol: Well, and the other thing on this tip that you have. If you have enough natural lighting and a table lamp, you can extinguish the fluorescent. Really, it makes a huge difference.
And in my office, it’s interesting. We had a woman that worked there and she was very into energy savings. And so she would turn out every light as soon as she came in. She’s like, “Nobody’s using this hall light!” And it gets very dark as you go around the corners so it’s a little dangerous, but loved her for it.
And we all got to the point where we were turning off our overhead fluorescent lights because they do give you a different vibe and they can give some people headaches and other things. So we turn them off as much as possible and use natural light.
Katie: Last night, I taught a class at the university at the management school and it’s an evening class from 6:00 to 9:00. So everyone that’s in there has just spent a whole day at work and then they come to the leadership class for three hours. And they’re great, but they’re so completely wiped out and they’re just like, “Oh God!”
So they’re down in the coffee and any junk food. The lights were out in the room and there was some natural light coming in from the window and there was some light coming from two big projectors that are in the room. And I started to turn one on and they’re like, “No, no, no, no! Do not turn on the lights!” Because they’re big fluorescent overhead lights. I said, “Is it going to woo you to sleep if it’s too dark in here?”
Carol: Mood lighting.
Katie: Yeah. It was light enough to read and to follow along and to see each other. And so I just kept them off the whole time and they were just happy as clams because they did not want to sit under that light any longer. Humans really do not work well. Plants might.
Carol: Under fluorescent. Yeah, they do.
Katie: We get that confused.
Carol: Yes, yes.
Katie: So Skirt Strategists, here’s the thought for you – a reminder about feminine flare that you bring to the workplace.
“Don’t squelch it simply because you might think that girly things don’t belong at work. Know that they do in the right quantity and appropriateness and push on it just a little bit. Bring a little bit more of yourself, make yourself comfortable. Don’t forget that you’ve got a natural tendency that when you’re living by it, you’re much more genuine and you’re more likely to be happy.”
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We’re so glad you joined us for this episode of the Skirt Strategies podcast. We’d love to hear from you with questions or comments. Email us at info@skirtstrategies.com or interact with us on Facebook. Now more than ever, the world needs powerful, confident female leaders – and that’s what we are!
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