In the nearly four years I spent at The Conglomerate, I did a lot to try and improve the number of women working in engineering. It’s not clear how much effect this had. But I spent a lot of time and energy on it. Eyes open, I knew this wasn’t always the best career move. […]
The Power of a Positive No by William Ury (Amazon) is really an excellent book. Reasonably short read, and definitely worth reading. Recommend. Essentially it lays out a framework for saying “no” that is in fact “Yes! No. Yes?” The first yes is the reason why you are saying no – no to that assignment, […]
This guy came on too strong to me, I think he thought it was passionate but I just felt uncomfortable. So I actually physically pushed him away from me. Being a Nice Bloke, he was upset that he had violated my boundaries. And so, I comforted him. This is one of those scenarios that I […]
In September, I challenged myself to say no. And so – I didn’t take a trip. I set boundaries. Yes, I will do the thing I agreed to, no, you can’t change it about on me like that. After reflection, my boyfriend and I decided that now wasn’t a good time to move in together. […]
August was about change. I switched projects. We are buying a new car and will hopefully start taking more local trips. I’m trying a new trainer – with the amount of travel I’m doing, I need more flexibility. I’ve been changing the way we do women in CS stuff, and trying to decentralize and delegate […]
There’s this advice that women seem to give each other, it’s “you can have it all, just not at once”. I hate it, because to me if you can’t have it all at once, you’re not really having it all. Rephrasing it, I would say, “You can’t have it all at once. So remember to […]
I got an amazing response to my In Pursuit of Awesome post, here and on Geek Feminism. It’s inspired me to write a series of posts where I explore some of the tips I wrote about and related topics in more depth. I ran into my manager from IBM the other week. He gave me some really good […]
I’m terrible at this. It’s my biggest weakness, but also – the source of so many experiences and opportunities. So I can’t embrace saying no fully for fear of missing out. But certain things lately have made me think that I need to say no more. Like, crossing campus on a hectic day when I […]
I offended someone recently. I really would never have meant to do that… but unfortunately I did. Does spending some much time with people who are “on the spectrum” make you less attuned to people’s feelings yourself? I wonder. Anyway, I guess to summarize I thought I was suggesting something that would be easier for […]