Sunday column: Day late but with extras!–edition

We got back from our excellent vacation through the Southwest yesterday. It was a slightly epic day of travel and travel hangover–it feels like we’ve been gone two months, not two weeks–but here, albeit delayed, is yesterday’s column. It’s a three-fer! How to deal with endless requests to contribute to friends’ charity drives, Kickstarter campaigns, and the like; putting on lipstick at the table; and how to thank someone without coming off like you’re tipping them. The classics.

Also, I did a special column on workplace etiquette and career planning, here.

The business one was fun because I my other job is at Harvard Business School, researching and writing about career planning, self-presentation, and the like. My boss and I got the cover story in Harvard Business Review in March with a piece on work-life balance. When Mr. Improbable and I were coming home yesterday, we saw a banner ad outside the airport newsstand featuring a picture of that very HBR!

It was the cosmos sending me a message, I know it. “Vacation is over! Back to work!”