30th
Working Girl Wednesdays: “Stow a Pint of Vodka for Emergency Gimlets”
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 10, “The Office Party (and Other Pleasures),” suggests throwing elaborate teas and birthday celebrations during the workday. Just don’t allow such events to cut into your two-hour lunchtime assignation!
In this excerpt, Helen Gurley Brown weighs in on the wisdom of stocking up on party essentials.
Should you or shouldn’t you keep a bottle in your desk drawer? Oh come on, you’re a big girl! If you’re a secretary, you should not. As a minor executive I think you can. When I reached that level I stowed a pint of vodka and Rose’s lime juice for emergency gimlets. In the ad agencies where I worked there seemed to be about as much work from five to nine as there was from nine to five. (Many art directors are night people.) I wasn’t much of a drinker, but it just seemed friendly to have a small private stock.
Naturally a lady doesn’t hoist her bottle and guzzle away like one of the boys, but if one of the boys has run out of his own J&B, you produce yours. (Doesn’t a mother run for the snake-bite remedy or mustard poultices when her boy is bitten or ailing?)
Next week: How to “operate, prowl, chat with and check out the men” in a foreign city—all while on the clock!
