Moose had his whole head inside my work bag at 6:50 Thursday morning, looking for the turkey wrap. He didn't find it, because the lunch bag zips and the work bag zips, and those two zippers are a big part of why I'm still carrying this bag seven months later. I've been through four work bags in a little over two years. This is the first one I'd buy again.
What it has to hold
My office days are Tuesday through Thursday, and the bag does the whole day with me: a 38-minute drive, a third of a mile across the parking lot, meetings in three different conference rooms and, in the fall, soccer practice on the way home. This is the list it has to carry.
- A 14-inch work laptop and its charger
- My lunch in a small insulated bag, usually one of my $4 meal-prep lunches
- A 24-ounce water bottle
- My badge, a notebook and two pens that actually work
- A small pouch with lip balm, hair ties, a phone charger, earbuds and a few bandages
- A compact umbrella, because spring storms here don't check anyone's calendar
- In the fall, snacks for soccer practice
The soccer snacks are not a small thing. Ben coaches Harper's fall team, and practice is Tuesday and Thursday, two of my office days. On those evenings I drive from Huntsville straight to the field, and the bag carries a box of granola bars and a bag of clementines for whoever forgot theirs. Right now, in May, that pocket holds one granola bar for Harper's Tuesday piano lesson.
The four bags
| Bag | Where | Paid | How long it lasted at this job |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brown leather tote | Belk | $85 | About 3 months |
| Black backpack | Amazon | $45 | 8 months |
| Large nylon tote | Target | $35 | About 11 months |
| Black nylon laptop tote with leather handles | Nordstrom Rack | $79 | 7 months and counting |
The leather tote was my hospital bag, bought in 2019. It was lovely, and it had no padded sleeve, so the laptop rode loose at the bottom. By March 2024 a corner of the laptop had worn a hole through the lining, and one shoulder was carrying the whole load a third of a mile at a time.
The backpack fixed the weight problem. It held everything, and the walk across the lot got easier. But in client meetings I looked like I was headed to a 9 a.m. statistics class, and the side zipper split at eight months.
The nylon tote was light and cheap and had no structure at all. Everything sank to the bottom, the laptop slid around, and once I spent a full minute digging for a pen while a client waited on the other side of the table. I retired it last October.
The bag I carry now has a padded laptop sleeve, a zip top, a flat bottom that stands up on its own, two outside pockets that fit a water bottle and an umbrella, and a strap on the back for a rolling suitcase I never use. It's black nylon with leather handles, $79 at Nordstrom Rack. After seven months of three days a week, plus a full soccer season, one bottom corner is scuffed and the handles have softened a little. Everything else looks the way it did in October. I wipe it down with a damp cloth when it needs it, which is mostly after soccer.
From the HR side: what people notice about your bag isn't the brand. It's whether you can find what you need when you need it. I sat in on interviews where a candidate dug through a tote for a copy of their own resume for two full minutes, and the room got very quiet.
All told, the four bags cost $244, and $165 of that went to the three that didn't work out. If I'd written down the list above before I bought anything, I could have skipped two of them. Harper, who finished fifth grade on Thursday, looked my bag over this week and said, "It's fine. It's very mom." She carried a backpack covered in keychains all through fifth grade, so I'm taking that review with a grain of salt.
