Accidentally in Code

Tag: saying no

  • On Saying No

    On Saying No

    Keep Calm and Just Say No
    Credit: Flickr / Denise Dukette

    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. But sometimes we do things that we know aren’t the best career move but we believe are the right thing to do. Because paycheque and job title aside, we still have to look ourselves in the mirror at the end of the day.

    And I believed that the events, the Token Women talks, the mentoring, the interviews, they were the right thing to do. So I did them. A lot of it in the evenings, and on the weekends. But of course, some of it, during the day. Sometimes I worked late and made the time up. Sometimes I didn’t.

    Some of my colleagues were supportive. Some tolerated it. Some were “supportive” and talked good game but would make these comments so that I knew they thought it was a distraction from being an engineer. Some made comments about how these things discriminate against men.

    An aside, whilst we talk about distractions, the biggest distractions were actually things like being called a c*** by a colleague, or finding the word “whore” in a design document. Supporting a friend and colleague because she was being harassed. Trying to watch out for all the interns without letting them know too clearly what they need to watch out for. Or the tedious day to day of being undermined in a stereotypically gendered way. Did he have to repeat everything I said in that meeting? Did he really speak to me like that in front of everyone? Why the hell is this guy explaining the code I wrote to me, again?

    Showing up and giving a token women talk is not really that distracting compared to that. But I digress.

    Eventually I reached this point where I didn’t believe it was the right thing to do anymore. I looked at the emotional cost, and the time, and the output – and the output felt like luring capable women into environments where they would be mistreated – and decided not to participate in Corporate Feminism anymore.

    It might seem surprising that the most impactful thing I did for women actually came after that. But let me tell you what that was – I finally, must have been nearly a year later, wrote an internal G+ post about why I had stopped doing Corporate Feminism, and why. It’s lost to the ether now, but I remember that I wrote about no longer being confident it was the right thing to do, the exhausting judgement of my colleagues, and how painful it had been to try and get money for these things. That in an office rife with excess, I had actually spent time trying to negotiate for a car service for a speaker, been told “can’t she just take the tube?”

    Something actually came of this. Last I heard it was still going, and people used it.

    There’s something a little depressing about years of work and yet what really made a difference was 30-60 minutes writing a rant and posting it.

    And yet. That discounts everything it took to write that rant. That rant was a product of hard won and bitter experience. The rant was effective because I understood the system and could explain how the system worked – or didn’t. It was effective because people who knew how much I cared, and how much I had done, I wasn’t just whining – I had worked within that system, but I wasn’t prepared to anymore.

    Of course some people (men) thought it was whining, and wanted to share how they once felt unappreciated too. Unfortunately for them, I have a permanent 404 on worthless manfeelings. At the time I just ignored them. Now, I wonder why they thought that was useful? I had reached a level of frustration where I had given up nearly a year previously. Did they thing some comment about everyone being unappreciated was going to change my mind?

    This was the start of my – surprisingly radical – notion that it is not too much to ask that work for the collective be appreciated. The people who appreciate me know that I will do anything for them. But people who try and force random obligations onto me, well. I have yet to tell anyone doing this to go f*** themselves so I consider myself a very reasonable person.

    Saying no is a powerful thing. Refusing obligations and choosing your own priorities is an act of self care and an expression of hope. Saying no is an act of strength. A peaceful resistance. I embrace it, and as with all things, the more I do it the easier it gets.

    No, I won’t do unpaid work for your for-profit company. No, I won’t introduce you to someone else who might. No, I will not cover my own travel for your “diversity” event. No I will not enter into an open-ended “mentoring” relationship with you, person who found me yesterday – please come back with some specific questions. No I won’t let you speak to me like that. No, I will not be complicit in this system that I find morally repugnant. No I will not help you “hire more women” if I am not confident they will be treated well. No, I will not keep quiet for the “sisterhood” if this sisterhood is only cis-het-white women because this leaves many of my sisters out.

    Interestingly, this results in people (men) saying that I am not doing enough. That charge of “whining” again. First of all, I’m confident that me not doing enough is not actually contributing to a systematic problem. Deliberately, I choose here not to justify what I do do.

    But I have this radical idea that by saying no and by encouraging other women to say no I am in fact doing more than ever. That we are reclaiming our rightful space and autonomy rather than putting in a second shift of stuff that “feels good” but is at best pointless and at worst harmful, and definitely offers little to nothing in the way of actual progress.

    It’s my birthday this week and to celebrate for a limited time only Just Say NO to Thankless Emotional Labour t-shirts are available. Proceeds go to two amazing organisations, one in each of my homes (Europe / Colombia) and I’ll match up to 500 USD each [more detail].

  • Book: The Power of a Positive No

    Book: The Power of a Positive No

    the power of a positive no 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, because your yes is commitment to quality? No to the overtime, because  your yes is commitment to family time? This builds upon an idea from Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Amazon). The second yes, is the (hopefully win-win) proposal that you offer in the hopes of continuing, and even strengthening the relationship.

    The only thing that irked me in this book was that it seemed that many of the examples involving women were disciplining children, or asking their husbands to work less. But despite that, I think it’s incredibly relevant – even with the extra issues women face saying no, or even because of them. Having a framework, being clear in commitments, is maybe extra necessary in that context.

     

  • And then, Nothing

    And then, Nothing

    credit: muse of nothing / deviantart
    credit: muse of nothing / deviantart

    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 look at, and think, illustrates so much of how we are socialised as woman. Socialised to put our needs second, and so we feel bad when we enforce them. Socialised to find it a complement when a man is attracted to us, however inappropriate it may be.

    And I feel for the guys in this, I do – because what is sexy when a woman is attracted to them, is creepy when she isn’t. This socialisation hurts men too. I wouldn’t find it sexy to have every move prefixed with “and are you comfortable if I do [X]”, but I definitely do not find it sexy to feel my personal boundaries steamrollered over, either.

    There’s been a lot of stuff on Twitter lately about women reporting men who behave inappropriately. I particularly liked this post – no details of the event are included, it’s just a how to. But I’ll give away the ending, she reported something, to the company and the conference organisers, and then… Nothing.

    The thing is, there are a lot of something’s that look like nothing. When you have to report someone for inappropriate behaviour, it’s likely you are going to stay well away from them. So if:

    • They realize their behaviour is inappropriate and seek professional help.
    • They continue on with it and eventually get written up a second time, which might result in some actual action.
    • Other women hear what happened and take care to stay away, resulting in no more complaints.

    It looks a lot like… nothing.

    And that’s really hard – I know when I have reported things, it’s been scary. To put myself out there and say I am not OK with this, and then… Nothing. I try to be brave and do it anyway, just in case a something-that-looks-like-nothing comes as a result, and I want to sincerely thank every women who stands up and does the same, but I’ll never judge a woman unwilling to put herself through that. Ever.

    It’s always scary to put your feelings out into the unknown and not know what will happen. It’s scary to say “Not OK”, for the same reasons it’s scary to say “I want more”, “I love you” first, or “I still miss you” – things that potentially have positive outcomes.

    In case you do, and then… Nothing.

    And that’s why it’s hard to report things. Because there is no good outcome, but one of the worst – and most common – is when you do, and it seems like nothing happens… it’s like being violated all over again. I hate to think about how the weirdo on the plane touched me, but I hate more to think about how he approached me in the airport, after I had made my feelings, and my boundaries – via the police abundantly clear. Him walking towards me? That is what it looks like when you say, “this is not OK”, and then… Nothing.

     

  • Post-Grad Rehab: September/October

    Credit: xkcd

    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. I would be doing it because I have been travelling so much, and how ridiculous to make a decision based on an aspect of my life that I would like to change. I changed trainer to someone who I can work out with when it suits me, rather than on a fixed schedule.

    I need to keep working at it. Saying no has been a continuous effort for me. But, someone told me that I seemed to be doing better at it… well, he said I wasn’t rushing around as much. I take that to be progress.

    For October, the theme is – public speaking. I have four talks scheduled this month (one down, three to go), and attended a number of panels at Geek Girl Con, went to Ignite NYC, and I have tickets for Ignite Waterloo coming up. So I’ll be devoting some time to trying to improve my own public speaking (the talk at Geek Girl Con was with a friend, so that was a new experience), and thinking about what makes a good talk, and a good panel. Oh, and advice given to female engineers that makes me livid – you have been warned!

  • Post-Grad Rehab: August/September

    Post-Grad Rehab: August/September

    No Nothinging
    Credit: Falling Fifth / http://www.fallingfifth.com/comics/20070627

    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 more. This is ongoing – something about the back to school feel of fall and having had a much needed break on vacation.

    September is about saying no. I am currently giving three talks in October. Current (tentative) travel schedule has me being away for about 2+ weeks a month from August to March.

    So my challenge – say no. It hasn’t started well, I was hoping to not do a trip (that I’d committed to) to New York this week but when someone announced it to a room of people and made a plan around me being in New York… on top of me realizing that it might be detrimental to my happiness but it would be good for my productivity… I booked flights.

    Anyway, tomorrow there will no doubt be something else for me to say no to. Wish me luck!

  • Choose: You Can’t Have Both

    Choose: You Can’t Have Both

     

    Magnolia cupcakes
    Credit: flickr / onlyforward

    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 prioritize the things you say you want at some point, or admit you don’t really want them”.

    I’ve given up trying to say no. Instead, I say yes to something else. A pointless rephrasing, perhaps. But – we make choices all the time, I’m just trying to be honest with myself. Yes to the diet, no to the cupcake. Yes to the gym, no to a night curled up with a novel. Yes to the more stressful project, no to the long weekend away. This evening, I was torn between going to the gym, being productive on a project, and curling up with a novel. Since I went to the gym this morning (no to sleeping in) I’ve opted for a compromise – this blogpost, then my novel.

    Last week I got two emails in a row from the same person. One saying no to something I’d asked them to do. The other confirming I was doing something that I’d tentatively-maybe-more-information-please suggested I might do.

    I don’t think they realized or meant to do this, it was a case of being overwhelmed and going through inbox looking for quick wins.

    But it wasn’t a great thing to come into on a Monday morning. As my boyfriend said, “that sums up exactly why you hate email”. And it stressed me out because I really felt that I couldn’t do both, but how to come back to someone and say that? I was worried it would come across as manipulative or petty. The thing they wanted me to do was a talk, and I don’t mind giving talks and I think it is a good thing to do. The thing I wanted done was organizing a meeting. I hate organizing meetings – it involves managing dates and email – neither of these is a strength of mine.

    But, I’d agreed on a priority for this quarter. The meeting was definitely part of this priority. The talk, tangential, related, good thing, but not as much. And I really felt that I couldn’t do both. They are not the same commitment time-wise, but the stress of doing something I hate (organizing a meeting) was much higher and so to me they seem equivalent.

    Anyway, I sought out some advice and explained to someone that I felt I couldn’t do both. She convinced me to do neither – someone else is organizing the meeting, and I don’t know what’s happening with the talk.

    But – choices. Next month, Random Hacks of Kindness and a running/biking event are literally on the same day. Less concretely, my paper from January has been invited to be extended. As has the education paper. And there’s an awesome dataset that I’d like to work on. And my team is headed to MTV. And I want to spend more time doing cross fit and take that trip to a spa that my boyfriend and I have been talking about since December.

    Some of these things will happen, not everything. It’s a problem, but it’s actually a pretty good problem to have. And so – I have to say yes to making choices. How about you?

     

  • In Pursuit of Awesome: The Perils of a Reactionary Workflow

    In Pursuit of Awesome: The Perils of a Reactionary Workflow

    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.

    After The Rain
    Credit: flickr / kimili

    I ran into my manager from IBM the other week. He gave me some really good advice:

    If you say yes to everything, you allow other people to determine your priorities.

    This is something to bear in mind as you approach capacity and have to start saying “no”.

    Someone I mentor and an organization I work with had that issue lately. Her “friend” manipulated her into running a project. It was stressful for a number of reasons:

    1. She felt manipulated, and guilty that she had ended up in this situation. In the same situation as she was in, I would have ended up in the same position. It was hardly her fault, and the only person who should have been feeling guilty was her “friend” (of course, he wasn’t).
    2. The other people involved in the project were not treating her well. The woman she reported to was disgustingly rude to her and in general was not respectful of her time – turning up late to meetings because she was “so busy”, etc. When saying yes means saying no to other things, and the people you’ve said yes to don’t seem to appreciate that, it’s frustrating. And not a good situation to be in. Saying yes to this did not only affect my mentee, it also affected what we said yes to as an organization because many of our resources were invested in it. As a result, their disrespect of her, also seemed like a disrespect to all the people we are supposed to serve. At the end, they didn’t even say thank-you. I was – and still am – furious.
    3. The project did not align with the priorities of our organization. My mentee was with me when my former manager dispensed this advice, and it struck a chord with us because it was apparent that in manipulating her into taking on this project, her “friend” had determined her priorities – and the priorities of our organization.

    All this meant that when things were rough, my mentee didn’t have a story to tell herself as to why it was worthwhile. Instead, she had feelings of guilt and betrayal about getting involved in the first place. Eventually, she was so upset, after her supervisor was really horrible to her (essentially berating her for not being psychic) that she was on the phone to me at 1 in the morning a couple of days before the preparation ended and the three day event began. It was then that we talked about the base case: that she had fulfilled her commitment, and the commitment of our organization and she wasn’t going to allow this supervisor to speak to her that way. She could walk away.

    She made that clear, and I was really proud of her for standing up to these people. I want to give you a happy ending – but there wasn’t one. There was a truce. The outright rudeness stopped, but my mentee still wasn’t appreciated, and wasn’t treated with the respect she deserved for the tremendous amount of effort she put in. In the end she learned some tough lessons – she won’t work with that organization again. I hope she’ll also be more wary of this “friend”.

    I think we both learned about the worse case result of allowing other people to determine our priorities. I have personally been tremendously lucky in terms of the opportunities that have presented themselves to me, and the experiences I’ve had. I’ve allowed other people to determine my priorities, but it’s worked out very well for me. However, this came just as I’m thinking about having to be more selective in what I say yes to, and this experience reinforced that message.

    The perils of a reactionary workflow have long been clear to me – being reactive means jittering from task to task. I’m not a manager. I’m a programmer, and sometimes a writer – for those things, focus is crucial. I avoid a reactionary workflow like the plague. For example, I tell people I’m terrible at email. This has been the case since I realized that being responsive to email was causing a reactionary work-flow and, er, stopped responding to it. For quite some time, I only checked email once a week. However, a couple of days ago I finally got to the backlog of *cough* several months *cough* and realized that actually I wasn’t that bad at it. The important stuff had been dealt with – mostly I was filing and deleting. To me, being good at email means spending the least possible time on it. By setting expectations really low, people are happy when I respond at all and people who know me make an effort to communicate by other means. Result, I spend probably about 15 minutes a day on email, with the majority of that being on my iPhone (so in non-productive time).

    However, making an effort to avoid a reactionary workflow with respect to email, that’s all for nothing if I say yes to everything and don’t determine my own priorities.

    The first thing is to know what my priorities are. What’s important to me?

    1. Finish grad school. Seriously, I need this to end.
    2. Working towards mastery as a software artist. Maybe I will eventually end up in another area, but I love working in tech. I love to feel like I’m creating things that make people’s day’s a little brighter, or easier.
    3. Giving back, in a way that maximizes my impact on things important to me: the community in places where I live, and women in CS and Engineering as my wider community.

    I don’t have a balanced life. I don’t think I want to. But there are things that are important to me that all need to have some time: my priorities above, my health (the gym!), and my friends, family and significant other.

    My top priority right now is 1. I don’t know that I’m doing a good job of making it number 1, but in my head it’s the most important thing. 2 months – and I can be free.

    3, giving back, is the most interesting area from this perspective. Opportunities – implicit or explicit – are everywhere. Which ones will I take? How can I make the biggest impact? There’s talk about an Awesome Foundation here in KW, and that would be amazing. But do I want to repeat myself? I’m wary of seeming to come in with a “Y’all aren’t awesome enough, and Imma gonna show you how it’s done” attitude – this is not at all how I feel, I’m falling in love with my new home. Furthering the interests of women in CS and Engineering – can I make that part of my work? Should I? Is that my 20% project or an additional thing I take on?

    Another of my mentees jitters from one idea to another. So we’re working on something at the moment – new ideas go on an “ideas list”. She’s committed to just writing them down for a while, rather than immediately acting on them.

    Perhaps that’s advice I could take myself. Spend some time exploring the ways in which I can give back and take a little time to think, reflect, and pick those that are most impactful and most interesting.

    How about you? Do you know what your priorities are? Are you saying “yes” to the things that best fit with them?

  • Saying No

    swarm1
    Credit: flickr / sillydog

    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 have tons of stuff going on for a meeting – which the other person did not show up to. The meeting, get this, was one I didn’t think was worth having anyway.

    Or, being left off the mailing list for an event with my friends that I’d tentatively scheduled, only to get caught off guard when I’m already 10 minutes late, putting my dinner in the oven and wearing pj’s. The following hour consisted of me getting lost downtown, having a panic attack trying to park, and getting upset when someone else has no problem saying “no”, and even hanging up on me.

    Penelope Trunk writes a lot about making yourself likable. An easy way (I think) to make people like you is to say yes to requests. Cate, can you teach this ski lesson? Sure (even though I’ve taught several hours straight and haven’t had lunch). Cate, can you review this and write some test cases? Sure (even though I just found another conference and have about a week to write another paper). Cate, can we get together for coffee? Sure (even though that time is not great for me). Cate, can we meet to discuss this? Sure (even though I don’t think there’s much point). Cate, can you make this workshop? Sure (even though what you’re paying me does not offset the international tuition that I’m wasting by not studying).

    If any of the people who’ve made these requests find this post, they may like me less. But here’s the thing – I may be coming across as resentful but I don’t mean to, because I’m not. What I’m trying to get across, is that there’s always a reason not to do things that someone else asks you to do. But often it’s worth it. Take ski instructing, I’ve said yes to basically everything that comes my way, and carried around protein shakes because they always need people at lunch and this way I’m available. So last Sunday, I turn up to see what I’ve had booked and the guy in charge grabs me and takes me to cover for a race coach. And yes, I was thrown off and without ski poles (not really that necessary when teaching 4-year-olds) but after a rocky start featuring a fall off the lift (child) a wrenched shoulder (mine, trying to catch aforementioned child), a fall, a suspected head injury, and the ski patrol (not me for once!) it was awesome.

    Every day, I come across things that I would like to say “yes” to, but I don’t. These are the things where I don’t have to respond, so I just don’t. And the opportunity flows by, but it’s okay. Because I have tons of opportunities I’m taking advantage of, and I know that when I have more time I’ll be able to find, or make, more opportunities. I think this is part of learning to say yes slowly.

    Where I struggle, is when a response is requested. And I know I need to draw a line – between those requests that are opportunities, or easy to fulfill, or worthwhile… and the things that are just people guilting me, or taking advantage. Because this is what happened with the passive aggressive – she made request after request after request, sometimes explicit, mostly implicit, and eventually I cracked because it was too much, too unbalanced. My giving wasn’t reciprocated at all – and wasn’t appreciated either. Why bother? It just made me miserable. And that “no” was liberating! People have tried to wear me down on it, but they haven’t. I can reason as to why – frankly it scares me when someone thinks unhappiness frees them from any standards of reasonable behavior (though, of course, they do not apply this to other people – no-one suffers the way they do). But ultimately, I sigh and say I just don’t have the time or the inclination. End of discussion.

    So perhaps my problem with trying to be likable, is that there are lots of other people who don’t try to be likable. So in the situation with my friends, they probably don’t understand why I didn’t just say no because I found out too late what was happening. And I don’t understand why they don’t realize that I was trying to be nice, and not let people down, and why don’t they have that motivating them when I’m upset. I drove 10 minutes (well 20, but I got lost), they wouldn’t walk 20 metres.

    And that’s okay, because we’re all motivated by different things. I’m no longer asking the question, “why wouldn’t they walk 20 metres?” and instead I’m asking myself why I left the apartment in the first place. I didn’t want to. I just felt obligated. And I didn’t have to be – that’s all in my head.

    Saying no. I need to do this more. I need to ask myself – do I want to? Do I have to? Why do I feel I have to? Is that a good reason?

    Or:

     boolean sayYes(Event e)
    if (doIWantTo(e)) {
        return true;
    }
    if (doIHaveTo(e)) {
        Reason r = whyDoIHaveTo(e);
        if (isGoodReason(r)) {
            return true;
        }
        return false;
    }
    return false;
 }

    (I bet robots don’t have these kind of problems)

  • Lessons Learned from a Recent Screw-up

    xkcd: Frame
    Credit: xkcd

    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 her and fit in well. But  I was wrong. Worse, this means that I’m not sure I can suggest the better solution that has since occurred to me. And, obviously I need to sort this out. Urgh.

    It’s really important to learn from this kind of experience, here’s what I have so far.

    Work on the ask. Needs to be general enough to encourage people to approach you, but not so general that you’re compelled to accept everyone who does.

    Don’t say yes, follow up. There will be a bunch of details that you neglect to mention. Later you may realize you didn’t clarify something you “always do” and they are expecting something different than what you’re offering.

    Don’t say no, follow up. I’m pretty poor at saying no, especially in person. It’s easy to override me. This turns it into a yes – if I’ve followed up by email, I can think about it for longer and decide whether or not the objection is valid.

    Even if you are the sole decision maker, behave like you’re not. Gives you more leeway.

    Look for other options. Maybe you can’t give the person what they want, but know people who can. Allow yourself time to reflect on other connections that you can create, and the value that might come from them.

    Just because someone offers, you don’t have to say yes. I messed up in this case, but more than offending someone I screwed up because I agreed to something that I’m not sure is in line with what I want to do. There are so many better options now I’m not standing in front of someone having to come up with an instant response, but I may have put myself in a position where I can’t suggest them without offending this person further – not good.

    So to summarize – don’t just agree to things, buy time to consider your options and talk with other people who may be involved and can give you better perspective.

    And if you see me doing anything else, kick me (I’ll thank you for it later).