My coworker buys a $12 manicure every week. You can do your own math to figure out how much that would cost over the next twenty years with 5% interest. Go on. It’s a lot - about $20,000, in fact.

Why is this relevant? My coworker is exquisitely well-groomed. She has perfect hair, fashionable clothes, and wears makeup every day. She’s also really good at listening, and even though we come from completely different backgrounds (she freely admits to spending most of high school reading fashion magazines), I like her a bunch. At work, I’d like to be like her - not just her looks, but her attitude.

One of the best blog series I’ve seen recently has been Trent’s Investing in Yourself. He argues in the Personal Appearance and Hygiene part of this series that “small efforts of personal appearance are tiny investments that do pay off.”

There are two facts about my job that tie into this:

  1. After a (very) rough adjustment period, I’ve decided that I enjoy it enough to stay here for a while and try to “advance through the ranks.” In this, I’ve accepted that a job worth doing is worth doing well, to cite the old adage.
  2. I don’t put as much effort into my appearance as half the women in my office. As long as I’m clean and my clothes match, I don’t much care how I look. I don’t wear makeup. I have a very limited wardrobe, and don’t follow fashion trends. I take a shower in the morning and arrive at work with messy, wet hair - which I haven’t had cut since August. I have never plucked my eyebrows, had a manicure or pedicure, or worried overly much about the condition of my skin.

Does any of this matter? I think it probably does in my workplace, which is largely populated by mainstream (read: non-geeky) women. My boss, for example, is female, and any promotion would come from her. I think investing in my appearance would show that I do, in fact, speak her language.

Just so I don’t lose my feminist cred, I do acknowledge the ridiculous beauty standards for women and the unfairness of the fact that women are practically required to put more money into keeping up appearances than men. But my workplace is not the place to be an activist. I won’t be getting plastic surgery or developing a sudden interest in fashion - we’re talking wearing makeup, getting regular haircuts, and blow-drying my hair before coming to work.

So where do I start - and how much do I spend? At what point will the initial investment exceed the expected payoff?

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