Glossed Over

Working Girl Wednesdays: "Don't Reach for the Check with Your Limp Little Arm"

Welcome to Working Girl Wednesdays! Need advice on handling the complexities of the modern workplace? Well, fret no more! Whether it’s a senior partner making a move or a catty co-worker plotting for your plum position, Helen Gurley Brown’s 1964 book Sex and the Office has a solution. Every Wednesday on Glossed Over, I’ll present a new tip from the legendary editor of Cosmopolitan. Is her advice utterly ridiculous or startlingly prescient? You decide!

Whether you’re looking to steal from your employer for fun, profit, or revenge, Helen Gurley Brown has some advice for you! But first, some scolding:

If you don’t overreach a little bit, you are probably a silly and a sucker—yet stealing is stealing. If you say that the lunch cost ten-seventy-five when it actually cost five-fifty you are lying, and lying is bad for you. When you operate like a South American dictator, it hurts inside, and that takes some of the fun out of it. Yes it does!...(Never mind what the company can live with. They can live with just about anything, I’ve decided. They’re miserable paranoids about raises and indulgent sugar daddies about expenses.)

Speaking of expenses:

In taking a man to lunch, I suggest you not reach for the check with your limp little arm in his presence—unless you never had any intention of paying. Even if he’s deserving, there’s just hardly a man alive who feels comfortable while a lady hassles with money or even hassles the check.

Next week: The advice about paying for lunch might come in handy. HGB tackles “what happens when lightning strikes”—the office affair!

Working Girl Wednesdays: "Get Ready to Be Asked If You've Had Dinner"

Welcome to Working Girl Wednesdays! Need advice on handling the complexities of the modern workplace? Well, fret no more! Whether it’s a senior partner making a move or a catty co-worker plotting for your plum position, Helen Gurley Brown’s 1964 book Sex and the Office has a solution. Every Wednesday on Glossed Over, I’ll present a new tip from the legendary editor of Cosmopolitan. Is her advice utterly ridiculous or startlingly prescient? You decide!

“The Wide, Wild, Wicked World” is waiting, and HGB is there to help with this chapter devoted to business travel. In 29 pages, she covers everything a working woman needs to know—from picking up a man on the plane to scamming your employer on the expense reports. In fact, about the only thing she doesn’t cover is the actual conducting of business. But who cares? It’s better to spend your energy sneaking past airline staff with wig boxes and other travel essentials.

I’ve got plenty on my conscience and not the least is having put everything heavy for years—pressing iron, camera, walking shoes—into a make-up case and then hiding the make-up case behind a post. After checking in, I would saunter to the post, pick up the case and tote it onto the plane unweighed. Last year I ran into a little trouble. Some ticket checker with eyes in the side of her head let me get all checked in, then said sweetly, “And now, Mrs. Brown, would you like to get your make-up bag and weigh it in?” I got the bag, of course, mumbling that I weighed only a hundred and nine pounds and felt perhaps I was entitled to a few pounds since most travelers started at about one-sixty…

Once you arrive at the hotel, she recommends approaching a handsome fellow traveler.

A dream walking lives two doors away on your floor. Wait until you know he is in his room, then put on your hat and coat, grab your purse, march right down to his room and ram your key in his door. He will come out irritated and sputtering “What’s going on here?” Compare his room number with the key in your hand and say, “Oh, good heavens, how stupid of me.” Then get ready to be asked if you’ve had dinner.

Next week: The dirt on employer-funded graft. Get set for a lecture, though; HGB warns that “[operating] like a South American dictator…hurts inside”!

Working Girl Wednesdays: "The Biggest and Best Reason to Stop a Midday Affair"

Welcome to Working Girl Wednesdays! Need advice on handling the complexities of the modern workplace? Well, fret no more! Whether it’s a senior partner making a move or a catty co-worker plotting for your plum position, Helen Gurley Brown’s 1964 book Sex and the Office has a solution. Every Wednesday on Glossed Over, I’ll present a new tip from the legendary editor of Cosmopolitan. Is her advice utterly ridiculous or startlingly prescient? You decide!

This, I swear, is the final chapter about lunch, except it’s not really about lunch. It’s about using your midday break to have illicit relations! Here is HGB’s advice on how to have time for a noontime romp and still grab a sandwich:

Possibly you have a job which allows you only an hour for lunch. This schedule makes THE MATINEE pretty difficult unless you live next door to the office. You might, if you have a nice boss and resort to this ruse infrequently enough, develop a chronic intestinal ailment and have to visit your doctor. Generally, bosses can be pretty nice about doctor’s appointments.

HGB explains that “matinees” are best for sleeping with men who are married and thus can’t be seen with you in public. Charming! Of course, these kinds of indiscretions can’t go on forever.

The biggest and best reason to stop a midday affair is to keep yourself or your friend from suffering. As soon as you find yourself thinking about him when you’re not with him—or dreaming about the state of being Mrs. Matinee instead of his luncheon pal—you’d probably better admit your Matinee is turning into the Big Affair. Run for the train! You can be honest. You won’t need to trump up any other excuse than that you’re falling. He’s a fair guy, and he’ll understand.

Aw, how sweet of a guy to understand why you no longer want to entertain him on your lunch hour.

Next week, HGB explains “what else you can do on a coffee break.” Three guesses.

Working Girl Wednesdays: “Sex at High Noon!”

Welcome to Working Girl Wednesdays! Need advice on handling the complexities of the modern workplace? Well, fret no more! Whether it’s a senior partner making a move or a catty co-worker plotting for your plum position, Helen Gurley Brown’s 1964 book Sex and the Office has a solution. Every Wednesday on Glossed Over, I’ll present a new tip from the legendary editor of Cosmopolitan. Is her advice utterly ridiculous or startlingly prescient? You decide!

In the second of three consecutive chapters about the midday meal, “Lunchland II: Boys and Girls Together,” HGB explains the allure of dining with the opposite sex.

What about the lunches girls have with boys? They’re the greatest! Think about it. Lunching with men is a chance to have dates in the daytime on the pretext of business…and to have a whack at men who might not think of asking you—or be able to ask you—to dinner. Looking at it realistically, business lunch dates with men are sex at high noon!

One little girl can have lunch with six big men and keep them all to herself for two full hours. Just try taking that many to a cocktail party—if you could find them. They’d be sniped at and made off with within seconds.

Once at the luncheon I’d plan just to be pretty and sweet and happy and content but not scintillating. To scintillate isn’t necessary. They’d rather have you be a girl than try to come on like Jacques Barzun.

Right! Because it’s all about what the man wants. No, really. HGB explains:

My friend Ruth, who didn’t invent the system but is awfully good at it, says you must listen with all your pores open during those first few minutes to see if you can glean what shape he’s in. He may not actually tell you what’s happened to him the first instant, but you must be prepared to go along with his mood. Any wife can detect a husband-mood practically from the way he opens the door. She learns not to be happy if he’s miserable and to break out the champagne if he closed a deal even if she’s just picked herself up from falling down a flight of stairs.

Next week: she’s still talking about lunch. But this time, she’s talking about a “very special” kind of lunch break, if you know what I mean. Wink. Nudge.

Working Girl Wednesdays: “Cluck-Clucking with Strange Dreamboats”

Welcome to Working Girl Wednesdays! Need advice on handling the complexities of the modern workplace? Well, fret no more! Whether it’s a senior partner making a move or a catty co-worker plotting for your plum position, Helen Gurley Brown’s 1964 book Sex and the Office has a solution. Every Wednesday on Glossed Over, I’ll present a new tip from the legendary editor of Cosmopolitan. Is her advice utterly ridiculous or startlingly prescient? You decide!

Educational! Apparently, in the sixties when this book was written, employers granted lunch breaks. I can only surmise that the midday meal was an important part of the work day, since there are three—yes, three—chapters devoted to lunch. Here’s a tip from “Lunchland I: Lunch with the Girls”:

On certain fiendish days you and your girl friends need to be soothed by icy martinis, of course, and waited on hand and foot for morale purposes. In that case go to the restaurant, but make it a good one while you’re at it—for man-reasons as well as moral reasons. And take one—not five—dashing girlfriends with you. You may find the foyer so crowded you’ll get to cluck-clucking with strange dreamboats about the service. You may get seated in an alcove next to some of them or one may drop his overcoat on you in passing. Anything can happen, but not with five other girls.

If you opt to dine at your desk, should you imbibe? Why, yes!

You may work in an office where consumption of an alcoholic beverage is strictly forbidden, at least on the premises. (No telling how many Manhattans and Gibsons are brought into the office in people containers after lunch.)…

Should any of your co-workers discover your fine, boozy secret and giggle it up, smile sweetly and say, “I like a glass of wine with my lunch. It is a very civilized custom.”

A younger girl might explain, “We’ve always had wine with meals at home. Daddy knew how good for us it is.”

Next week: how to have “sex at high noon”!

Working Girl Wednesdays: “Just Lie Down and Let Office Politics Wash Over You”

Welcome to Working Girl Wednesdays! Need advice on handling the complexities of the modern workplace? Well, fret no more! Whether it’s a senior partner making a move or a catty co-worker plotting for your plum position, Helen Gurley Brown’s 1964 book Sex and the Office has a solution. Every Wednesday on Glossed Over, I’ll present a new tip from the legendary editor of Cosmopolitan. Is her advice utterly ridiculous or startlingly prescient? You decide!

Given the current state of the economy, who couldn’t use a little advice about hanging on to a job—and landing a new one? In a chapter entitled “Jungle Warfare,” she takes on the office politics that can derail a career:

Why can’t you, by being a dear, sweet, good little girl and wearing dirt-repellent miracle fabrics, just lie down and let office politics wash over you?

It’s almost impossible! Though you should be safe as a secretary, for instance, your boss may be on the ten-most-unwanted list. If you’re having an affair with a man who’s headed for the firing squad, I suggest you stop whatever you’re doing right now, get a big white hanky, cut two holes for eyes, tie it around your head and go to the mirror. You’ll want to know how you’re going to look as you both go down together.

Time to hunt for a new job? After reading HGB’s advice to list age, marital status, and hobbies on a resume and attach an 8 x 10 glossy before sending it out, I’ve never been more glad to be alive in the era of sexual harassment and equal-opportunity laws. Here are some of her tips on interviewing for a new, ahem, position:

Come on strong charm-wise. A picture of the dreariest-looking wife and kiddies ever photographed gets a warm, “Your family? You must be very proud of them,” from you. Glow a little. Bring up anything happy you’ve ever heard about the firm.

Do you flirt? Only be hanging on every word the gentleman (or lady) utters and not interrupting. As a matter of fact, this is flirting if it’s a man; it’s just being attentive if it’s a woman. Let them do most of the talking. Your resume will have said almost everything necessary concering your career, so you don’t need to blabber away about that.

Next week: Eating on the job, part 1! Enjoy recipes such as “Rich Dessert Tuna Salad” and “High-Powered Meat Loaf,” and “have three or four potato chips for wickedness, if you like.”

Working Girl Wednesdays: “Draw the Line in Your Personal Life If You Wish”

Welcome to Working Girl Wednesdays! Need advice on handling the complexities of the modern workplace? Well, fret no more! Whether it’s a senior partner making a move or a catty co-worker plotting for your plum position, Helen Gurley Brown’s 1964 book Sex and the Office has a solution. Every Wednesday on Glossed Over, I’ll present a new tip from the legendary editor of Cosmopolitan. Is her advice utterly ridiculous or startlingly prescient? You decide!

The maxim “fake it until you make it” gains a new significance as HGB reveals her techniques for getting her way in Chapter 5, “The Key to the Men’s Room” :

I can see your mouth corners turning down…being nice to people you hate is phony. All right, Miss Pure Motives, have it your way—but in my opinion, a business office is not the place to discriminate between the worthy and unworthy recipients of charm. You can draw the line in your personal life if you wish, although I never do. (I positively slather over the milkman to get certified raw skim milk delivered to my door, and he looks more like a tugboat than a dreamboat.)

After the jump, a thinly veiled tale about a “new young editor” and an “older editor” at a fashion magazine. Next week: “the art of loving a bunch of bastards”!

Working Girl Wednesdays: “Only Seventeen But What a Pusher!”

Welcome to Working Girl Wednesdays! Need advice on handling the complexities of the modern workplace? Well, fret no more! Whether it’s a senior partner making a move or a catty co-worker plotting for your plum position, Helen Gurley Brown’s 1964 book Sex and the Office has a solution. Every Wednesday on Glossed Over, I’ll present a new tip from the legendary editor of Cosmopolitan. Is her advice utterly ridiculous or startlingly prescient? You decide!

In Chapter 4, “Sneaking Up on the Boys,” Helen Gurley Brown explains how to make the jump from secretary to CEO. This excerpt spells out why being a late bloomer in the business world is better than being precocious.

Why am I plumping for a better job for you if I found taking one so painful myself? Because the only thing painful about it was the fear of failing. Aside from that, the better job, with its new men, more money and more prestige was a pleasure dome…

Don’t worry too much. A retarded beginning is better than taking off like a jet and having your tail drop off. Take the case of little Terry Jane Moss. Terry Jane and I worked together at radio station KHJ in Los Angeles as stenographers. The child was only seventeen but what a pusher! The day Pearl Harbor was bombed, little Terry Jane realized with her child’s mind that something Big was up. She popped on the bus, got herself down to the station and worked through the night with newscasters, AP and UP representatives, engineers and executives. She was even out on the roof spotting bombers for them. On Monday morning when the rest of us nincompoops showed up for work, Terry Jane was being driven home in the station manager’s limousine with a hundred dollar bonus in her purse. Now by all rights, Terry Jane ought to have her own broadcasting company by now. The last time I saw her (she would be about 41 now) she was working in a Laundromat. I figure she burned herself out as a teenager.

Next week: “Collect fabulous men as friends and lovers” using your professional connections!

Working Girl Wednesdays: “Do You Realize What a Wicked Woman You Are?”

Welcome to Working Girl Wednesdays! Need advice on handling the complexities of the modern workplace? Well, fret no more! Whether it’s a senior partner making a move or a catty co-worker plotting for your plum position, Helen Gurley Brown’s 1964 book Sex and the Office has a solution. Every Wednesday on Glossed Over, I’ll present a new tip from the legendary editor of Cosmopolitan. Is her advice utterly ridiculous or startlingly prescient? You decide!

Chapter 3, “Make-Up and Live,” argues for cosmetics as an essential part of a working wardrobe.

Many an “expert” advises working girls to keep make-up to a bare minimum. An office, they say, isn’t the place to razzle and it isn’t the place to dazzle…Well, I’m convinced the experts must all be left-at-home wives who, if they had their way, would also have office girls wear shrouds and nettles. Of course you don’t keep your makeup at the office to a bare minimum! For the love of heaven an office is where the men are!

After the jump, all 16 steps of Helen Gurley Brown’s regimen to achieve the “natural look”! Next week: Landing the job with “the taffeta-rustle sound.”

Working Girl Wednesdays: “A Special Word About Lady Bosses”

Welcome to Working Girl Wednesdays! Need advice on handling the complexities of the modern workplace? Well, fret no more! Whether it’s a senior partner making a move or a catty co-worker plotting for your plum position, Helen Gurley Brown’s 1964 book Sex and the Office has a solution. Every Wednesday on Glossed Over, I’ll present a new tip from the legendary editor of Cosmopolitan. Is her advice utterly ridiculous or startlingly prescient? You decide!

Picking up where we left off last time, here’s her perspective on “lady bosses”:

A special word about lady bosses and other lady executives around the place. They’re supposed to be a pretty horrible bunch—putting burning matches under the fingernails of little female underlings and all that. I never worked with or for such a lady but I’ve met some of them at luncheons. Usually the women are over forty-five, and the reason they act the way they do is because it was harder to succeed when they succeeded. Men in the office were very mean to them. Most lady bosses under forty are as nice as anybody. If you happen to have drawn a female Tartar, young or old, I’d suggest you learn everything you can from her—some of them are pretty smart. Work as hard for her as you would for a dreamboat, and when you’ve had all you can take, move on to the next job.

Next week: Helen Gurley Brown dispenses advice on your workplace wardrobe!