I recently noticed that many women in my office carry 3 or 4 different types of shoulder bags on their way into or out of work. This may only be new to me as we recently moved locations and now have a covered walkway from the parking deck to the door, so I walk in line with people more. So, what’s with all the bags? I assume there’s a standard pocketbook, and probably a laptop bag. What’s in the others? Why are they separate? Wouldn’t a single, larger bag be easier to deal with?
You can’t steal that many office supplies with a simple purse, now can you?
What, women carrying 3 or 4 bags at the same time? I know women who sometimes carry 2 (regular and laptop), but can’t remember seeing anybody with more than 2 outside an airport or train station 
Personally, my work computer is a laptop (I own it, I’m a subcontractor) and I usually leave it at work; its bag stays there as well. I use a small handbag daily, and if I’m taking the laptop out of the office I’ll have both - but the handbag I use most frequently is, to my mother’s and sister in law’s chagrin, small enough to go into the laptop’s bag, so I’ve taken to putting my keys into my jeans’ pockets and the handbag into the laptop’s bag.
ETA: maybe some women have another bag for gym stuff? Putting something heavy and dense, like a laptop, in a really big and flexible bag is a bad idea, it’s harder to carry it that way than in a bag which is semirigid and the right size.
I carry my laptop in it’s bag and a purse. Sometimes when i don’t have a ton of documentation in the bag there is room to stuff my purse inside the laptop bag but that’s rare. I’m not a gym rat but I know some of my coworkers carry a gym bag as well. Depending on your location some women might also be carrying shoes.
In general it’s not very convenient to combine them. I leave my laptop in the car when I’m running errands on the way home and having to drag along my laptop wouldn’t be a lot of fun. At work my purse stays in a drawer all day but my laptop bag is too large. I empty it in the morning and the empty bag just sits on the floor under my desk.
Yes, and it’s not just an odd handful, it seems to be a trend. Gym/workout stuff might be in one of the bags as my company has onsite yoga/exercise classes.
If you go into work in older/more comfy shoes and carry in your work shoes, you might want to keep those in a different bag from your lunch. Lunch/beverages wouldn’t be good in a laptop bag in case of spillage, or the laptop shifting and squashing your sandwich.
I carry two bags in, and just make sure to heavily bag both my lunch and my shoes to keep smells/spills from being a problem.
Don’t even tell me about it. Someone I know does this, and I keep telling her she should get one of those wheeled cart thingies I see people using. I mean, if you are going to carry so many?
I mean, it’s not that I don’t sometimes have more than one. My purse, which is fairly little, a bag for my lunch, some days a bag for my shoes if it is very wet outside and I don’t want to ruin my shoes.
Your lunch cooler
Your gym clothes/other shoes
Your briefcase/laptop bag
A small purse so that you don’t have to lug a big bag around when you do errands at lunchtime
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. My wife carries the one big panier on her bike, but if you look inside, it’s bags within the bag. She has shoes that she walks or rides to work in and those don’t go with a suit so she needs “indoor shoes”. Usually she just leaves them at the office though, but if she does carry them, they’re in their own bag because she doesn’t want her clothes and stuff rubbing up against the soles.
Then she’s got her lunch and gym stuff. Each in their own bags because when you’re done working out, you don’t want your nasty, sweaty clothes mixing with other stuff. She doesn’t carry (or own) a purse, but if she did, that would be there too.
ETA: Actually I just looked at my backpack. I kind of have the same thing. My pack has three compartments and a pocket. Wallet in the pocket, work stuff in one compartment, gym stuff in the other, and then lunch and stuff. So not that different really. I just don’t need to accessorize.
I have one bag that’s a purse (like, a pocketbook, I guess), and I have some tote bags which I’ll carry around if I have more stuff (books for class, library books, etc.). I usually only bring one out at a time though. Don’t own a laptop so thankfully that’s one less thing to worry about!
When my left arm was in a cast and sling, I discovered the joys of tote bags, keeping my one good hand free. Nothing to carry! I wish I’d known thi forty years ago.
The amount of stuff I carry around with me; the weight of it, and the number of bags required to do so drives me insane, and yet I. Cannot. Stop.
- Enormous handbag. Seriously, it’s like a sack. Filled with… I’m not even sure, most of it is rubbish. Purse with cash and cards, phone, travel card - ok, I do need those. Enormous bunch of keys - for home and work. At least I assume they’re for work. Frankly I have no idea what half of them open. Large make-up bag - don’t really need that, certainly not all of that, but like to have near me. What if I’m suddenly invited to a yacht party?! Couple of scripts I’m trying to learn - yep, need them. Umbrella - I’m in the UK, I definitely need that. Two pairs of gloves - that might be excessive, given that I only have one pair of hands. Diary - unused. Everything goes in my iPhone. Box of vintage jewellery given to me by my grandma - er, not sure why that’s even in there. A veritable bag graveyard of tissues, pens, receipts, train tickets, etc - surely every bag has this? Several other bags - for carrying the following:
- Lunch. Don’t want anything dribbling over my otherwise beautifully organised bag interior, do I?
- Spare shoes. For the days when my heels just get too much.
- Yoga kit. Because one day I might actually go.
- Lap top. For when I’m pretending to work from home.
I have tried to downsize, I just can’t seem do it, despite the protests of my now permanently sore right shoulder. Part of me remains convinced that all of the above will suddenly become vitally important *on the very day I decide to leave it all behind. *
I’ve gone weeks without using my laptop at home and decided to try leaving it at work one night because I was going directly from the office to class and then home to sleep after class. No chance I’m going to need it right?
MAJOR issues arose that night at work that I limped my way through by talking a team member through what needed to be done, I ended up deathly ill the next day and again limped through the day using my home PC and the 50% access that works that way. Never again.
Get a large backpack like I did, and those multitude of bags go away. Although the downside to that is it starts to fill full of things I don’t need and it gets heavy, but not full.
So what I do is I take the bag, and dump ALL the contents out. All of it. I then put back what I need to carry around, and [del]leave it all in a pile[/del] put away what I don’t.
Most of the time, I carry one bag - my purse. On days when I know I’ll have time, I bring my walking shoes. That’s about it.
This post made me smile! I know exactly what you mean - who knows when I might NEED that extra USB drive?
I carry a purse, a bag for gloves, umbrella and lunch, a plastic bag with shoes to change into once I get to work and the laptop. I work in a pretty fancy building right downtown and some of the ladies have these nice bags with wheels so they can pull all their things behind them. These are different than shopping trolleys or suitcases. Sort of like the old style adidas bags but with wheels and a handle.
I carry one bag. I have a backpack for my laptop (I work in a casual place, I can wear jeans everyday if I want to) so a backpack works. I can fit my lunch (in a ziplock bag in case of spills) and shoes (in a plastic bag to keep shoe dirt off other stuff) and laptop all in the backpack. That leaves one hand free to carry my coffee. I don’t carry a purse; I just have a little zippered pouch to hold my cards and driver’s license. All that goes in the top pocket of my backpack, or else in a zippered jacket pocket, along with my gloves. I used to carry a purse to work and then I found I never used anything from it during the work day. I don’t re-apply makeup, and everything else, such as aspirin, lotion, etc., I keep extras in my desk drawer.
I’ve been known to carry three - purse, tote for lunch and/or shoes, another tote for library books to take back. If I did any shopping, more bags. Can’t put everything in one enormous bag, what am I, Santa? And no backpack, please, I look douche-ish enough as is.
My daughter bought her first purse at age 22, a little black canvas thing, and that’s all she carries. We call it Baby’s First Purse and hope it grows up to be a Coach bag someday.