Working Girl's Guide #19: big feet, ballet flats, and my family dog Sophie

Happy end of summer. We’re talking whales, dogs, my huge feet, and still-going Labor Day Sales.

Let’s get into it.

Bad News For a Friendly Spy Whale

Animal lovers: buckle up because this news is tragic (skip and scroll down to the OoO section if you want to see a happy dog instead of sad whale news). Ok… anyone remember Hvaldimir, the friendly white whale who researchers believed was a trained spy? He was found in a GoPro, which sounds like some crazy Sea World sh*%, but is actually completely founded: both Russia and the US have trained mammals to gather intelligence for decades. Anywhom, the whale was found dead at the tender age of somewhere between 14-17. He might have been a Russian spy, but he was innocent, I will die on that hill, and I’m so sad for Hvaldimir!

Summer Movies Are Crushing

I admit I haven’t seen it yet, but “Inside Out 2” has topped the charts at highest-grossing summer movie this year, and the highest-grossing animated film of all time. “It Ends With Us,” which I sobbed through last week, is #7. Summer is technically over, but I have my list ready to go once it’s movies on the couch season (technically starts the day after Labor Day, I think?).

Belated Labor Day Sales

Is Labor Day over? Surely. Are the sales still going strong? You betcha. At the time of this writing (Tuesday, September 3 — you didn’t think I wake up at 3am to write this on Wednesdays, did you?), Ref is still 70% off, Away is 15% off, and J.Crew is 40% off. Full list of dope sales here.

I spent the weekend with Sophie, my family dog, and she is PERFECT. I really enjoyed living out my wildest suburban mom dreams, including trying tennis, taking Sophie everywhere, and pretending I was late to pick up my kids from daycare. My bed back in SF feels empty without Sophie in it. ☹️ 

Remember how I discovered white t-shirts last week? I’m back with another suuuper basic discovery: the ballet flat. I was always terrified to wear ballet flats because my feet are um a size 10.5 (where my big footed girls at??), but now that I’ve worn them once I’m never going back. I’m a huge fan of these — they also come in red and metallics, but I’ll leave those for the dainty size 7 girlies tbh.

I can’t be the only one who’s struggling with phone addiction. Apparently Gen Z is spending up to 7 hours a day on their phones, which is extremely alarming and also totally understandable. There’s so much good content to consume!!!! While you will NEVER catch me implementing screentime limits (limits make the screen seem somehow even more tempting, which says a lot about my orientation to the world), I have been trying to get certain tasks off my phone and into the real world: call me crazy but my to-do list is on literal paper on my desk, and I’ve been reading on my Kindle, which I know is technically a screen but doesn’t really count? For me, upleveling my habits by adding good habits is way more effective than focusing on cutting things out.

Has your direct report ever called you “Baby Daddy”? One of our listeners wrote in with this dilemma, and not that Ross and I are equipped to handle it.. but we did. We also get into our hatred for sharing fun facts in meetings, the time Elon Musk shared a super unflattering meme of Ross (I mean… attention is attention, right?), and some advice for a recent grad starting her first post-college job. Listen here.

Thanks for reading!