One complaint that I heard a bunch last year – and levelled myself – was that it was so student focused there wasn’t a lot for mid-career women. But last night I went to two events that were really different from other events I’ve attended before at GHC! So exciting. First was Munchies, Mojitos & Making […]
I’m heading to Houston, Texas this week to go to the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. It’ll be my sixth time attending, and over the years I’ve gone in various guises. As a grad student, a Google employee, in disguise (I de-branded myself and refused to do any recruiting activities), as an independent. This year […]
Last week featured two milestones. I closed the first day of JSConfEU with a talk called “Some Things I’ve Learned about Color”, which is the story of how I left tech (not why). It’s about burnout, and how aside from overwork, there are 5 other things that cause it: lack of control, lack of reward, lack of […]
One of the things I’ve been meditating on since escaping the tech industry is what skills do you not acquire when the main skills you are learning are how to cope in a bad situation? And do you have to unlearn them to go back? The other thing about environments where we “cope” rather than “thrive” […]
Over the last year the way I use social media has changed. It wasn’t dramatic. Just time passed… how much I was willing to share decreased, I started to feel anxious at times. The most vicious things normally end up in the moderation queue of my blog, and I could probably still quote things long […]
Earlier this year I pulled out of a conference because the organiser and I disagreed on code of conducts. Specifically I thought there should be one, and he did not. He did eventually add one, but refused to define unacceptable behaviour. Myself and another woman pulled out. This whole experience was really upsetting to me, […]
I was annoyed recently, because a conglomerate organising a conference pinged us (and every other group that might yield “diverse” speakers) to promote their CfP… three days before closing. I sent them a series of comments on how leaving it to the last minute like that wasn’t helpful. As Chiu-Ki put it “we’re not a magic […]
When it comes to speaking at a conference which involves some travel costs, there are four* main options: The conference pays. The company you work for pays. You pay. You don’t go. The Conference Pays I think this, announced up front, is the most inclusive option because it means you don’t have to talk about […]
Several of my computers have been hit with hammers. I tell them they should be flattered by the complement, but they still have dents in them. Computers in Dave’s office keep overheating. But I don’t think it’s anything to do with Dave having the heating on high. Many of my processes are failing with specific […]
Lately I’ve been watching more men give talks about diversity. Personally I’m in favour of this, because 1) If women could fix this, we would have by now – making “diversity” a “woman’s issue” is a way of perpetuating the status quo. And 2) there is clearly a subset of men who won’t listen to […]