Time for new friends

I can't believe I had this conversation with one of my friends :(

Friend: "You're lucky, you don't have to worry about getting a job. You're a woman in a field with like no girls, so all the employers will be like yay!"
Me: "Seriously? Did you just say that?"
Friend: "Uhh, I think you're misinterpreting what I said! What I mean is that you're a smart woman and most women in engineering are dumb, like L."
Me: "...what? WHAT? We're probably just as dumb as guys in engineering. Speaking of which, your buddy R. is pretty thick and he has a nice engineering job."
Friend: "Yeah, but people expect guys to be dumb. When they see a smart girl they're all like WOAH and they hire you right away."
Me: "No... just.... no. We will have this conversation again when you are sober, and then I will hit you."

Gaaaaaah.

Happy lame grad to you, too!

I've been mulling about my iron ring ceremony lately. It's a ceremony where you make a professional obligation to adhere to good professional practice and be responsible. In Canada, nearly all practicing engineers wear an iron ring as a symbol of their commitment. I'm not much for fanfare but my family is absolutely fawning over my iron ring. Yet, I still have a bitter taste in my mouth about the whole thing.

The first thing that bothers me is that it's supposed to be "secret". We were only allowed so many guests to the ceremony, and everyone was supposed to pledge to refrain from divulging any details about the whole thing, lest we ruin the "spirit of the occasion" or something. Doesn't that strike you as odd? We're here pledging our commitment to public safety, honour, and good practice, but you can't watch. Everyone go away and let us be noble and dignified in secret.

Yet, at the same time, the handouts I received from my school before the presentation stressed the fact that the ceremony is not in fact secretive or private. They just, you know, insist that you vow not to ever tell anyone anything about it. Totally different.
Global News Vancouver on "secret" engineering ceremony.

Ok, so big deal, engineers want to have their (our?) own little treehouse club member initiation. Animal sacrifice optional. Big deal. So what bothers me? I'll let APEGGA describe it, from http://www.apegga.org/About/ironr.html:

"Like many established symbols, in recent years, the iron ring ceremony has come under criticism. It is viewed by some as sexist and by others as archaic. Some argue that the ceremony should be public. Others suggest it relies excessively on Judeo - Christian principles. Some feel that language should be changed to reflect current times by eliminating any reference to gender or to God. Others simply state that the overall tone is inappropriate for these enlightened times."

Yes. Excellent. Not only is it all of those things, but they are clearly aware of it, acknowledge it, and make no move to change any of this despite repeated pleas for inclusion by various new members of the profession. I felt incredibly uncomfortable during the ceremony when anything non-inclusive came up and was immediately prefaced with, more or less "Some of you may feel left out or offended, but you shouldn't be offended because that will ruin our vibe" It was like waving a giant "Yeah, so what? Suck it!" in the face of anyone who felt left out.

What are the arguments for preserving the tradition as is? One is that it's not a requirement to be a practicing engineer. Fair enough, they aren't preventing anyone from graduating or working because of any silly willy personal objections they might have to swearing an oath that they don't believe in, or anything. However, simply not barring anyone from participating in the ceremony is not the same thing as actively supporting and including everyone! Shouldn't it be their (our?) goal to welcome everyone into the profession, regardless of culture or gender? I've been accused of being oversensitive, but I really did feel during the ceremony as though the ceremony was really for Christian men, and the rest of us were just being allowed to participate so that we didn't throw a fuss.

Another argument I've heard is the, "It's tradition" bit. A lot of things are tradition. That doesn't hide what they really are. I realize that a 85 years or so is basically forever in Canadian history, but it's kind of a flash in the pan on a bigger scale. Societies, cultures, words and meanings change over time. I certainly understand the desire to preserve the meanings of the tradition, but I don't agree that it means that we have to keep the wording exactly the same. If it has a noble and honourable meaning, surely it can be conveyed equally well with a slightly different set of language. For example, I don't see how changing the words "son" or "man/men" to "children" or "people" in any way alters the deeper meaning of anything, unless the deeper meaning is "women can't be engineers". Likewise, I don't feel that promising something on your personal honour/integrity or to a higher power, if you believe in one, is any less of a commitment than promising something unto God the Creator, unless the meaning of that part of the ceremony is "I promise to believe in Jesus." In which case you should not be labelling your ceremony or group of people as representative of a certain more diverse population (engineers) or as inclusive.

Overall, the messages I got were:
"We aren't binding you to secrecy, just asking you not to tell anyone"
"We're inclusive, we just refuse to use language that includes people who aren't like us."
"Don't make a fuss."
So I really don't know what to say to people when they ask me how my graduation or iron ring ceremony was. There certainly is a lot of value in committing yourself to the betterment of society, yourself, and your profession. And I'm sure it can be very meaningful to be welcomed into a group of people that will support you in those goals. I'm just not feeling it.

In which I burn bras and corrupt children

Recently, I received a scholarship from the government for "furthering the advancement of women in non-traditional careers". I had a really great time working with the programs I was/am involved with, and it almost feels wrong to accept any money for volunteering. But, I figure if I can relax about money a bit and do what I enjoy doing, then I'll have a lot more energy to put into other things, like volunteering and science outreach.

Apparently, other people think that it's wrong for me to receive the scholarship, too, but for different reasons. I was sharing my excitement with some friends, while sitting in a larger group, and had someone tell me that it's crap that I get a scholarship just for being a woman (!), and that it's unfair to men to have scholarships that encourage women. After all, there's no rule saying that women can't be (insert profession), so they should just stop whining and start working harder. And if they aren't as good as the menfolk at (insert profession), then tough luck, they should just find something else to do.

(/insert profession)

You know, I get a little bit jealous when someone else gets a scholarship or other award, but I'm pretty good at keeping that to myself, and I don't feel the need to publicly shit on them afterwards. It baffles me that he can go on and on about how unfair it is for to discriminate against him by supporting programs that encourage women and minorities to pursue engineering, while he's about to graduate in a class that's about 15% female. And seriously, he could have just said, "Congratulations!", or even " (complete silence) ". So basically, I went from providing hands-on skill building, encouragement, and leadership development activities to young women, to being a radical feminist that hates and wants to destroy men, all in the span of one conversation. I guess perspective really is everything.

Boogers.

Gahhh

Captain Useless did something useless again this week. Normally, I wouldn't mind, but I feel like I should keep him on track while his supervisor is away.

This would be merely disappointing, but he also decided to cover his butt by blaming me for his holdups in an angry e-mail to our entire group.Since he explicitly told me he had no intentions of running the experiment this week, I figured the time was right to update the software for some equipment. This has somehow turned into "unauthorized use, damage, and theft of expensive equipment". Still unsure of how the "damage" part got in there. I'm not sure whether or not to send a reply to the group e-mail or to let it sort itself out. Grrr.

Also, he's complaining about the "theft" of some wire (clothes hanger, if you want to get technical) that he stuck to the machinery. Right next to the rapidly rotating tooling with no brake. It wasn't theft, unless you count it as me stealing his Darwin award prematurely. Multiple times. I'm tempted to send a reply thanking him for explaining the source of our safety hazards.
Good old wait-a-day-before-you-reply-to-an-email-that-makes-you-upset rule. Please save me from myself and the trouble I would like to get into.

Maybe I'll just compromise and yell at him until I feel better.

And here I thought I was being discreet...

According to one of my co-workers, my face turns red and the temperature in the room drops by 10 degrees as soon as I start talking to Captain Useless when he visits my lab.

In my defense, he really should know the material I explained to him five separate times today. In fact, he was the TA for the course where I learned that material. I've tried getting him to repeat back to me what I just said, asked him questions about what I've told him to make sure he understands... but somehow 15 minutes later he always comes back with the exact same questions. It feels like he just doesn't care enough to bother remembering. This also pissed me off because he later brought them up at a group meeting with our supervisors, which wasted the short meeting time we had, especially when they said exactly what I said, along with a, "You should know this." It also kind of made us look really stupid. Like, "We should take less data readings to get rid of the noise." stupid. Aaaaagh. I spent my entire morning explaining these things so that maybe we wouldn't look like fools at the group meeting!

Oh, you didn't.

I left the grad student I call Captain Useless "alone" today to prepare a sample. Normally I would stick around to make sure things went smoothly, just in case, but my deadlines are looming and I can't simultaneously get my work done while supervising his.


Result: My solid steel equipment got deformed today because soooooomeone loaded it to 60,000 lbs instead of 1,000. Incredulous, I asked him why he would do that, and he said, "Well, I was just going to load it all the way (500,000 lbs) but it started bending so I had to stop when the pieces wouldn't fit together anymore."

I guess getting him to help draft the procedure wasn't any insurance that he'd actually understand it or follow it.

This week's lesson: Orders of magnitude?

The pursuit of hopelessness

So glad my supervisor is getting back soon! He's been gone for the past 3 weeks and I've been forced to babysit one of his grad students. I've been so frustrated with this student lately though that I can't even begin to write about it without launching into an angry rant.

Although I know he has good intentions and he tries hard, he is absolutely incapable of working on his own. If you asked him to pick a random number, he wouldn't be able to. He doesn't seem able to follow basic instructions (in English, which is his first language), never mind get into the design of the experiment or future test plans.

This leaves us in quite a strange spot. I'm here for half the year as a research assistant before I head back to class and get my undergraduate degree. So far, I've designed, built, and ordered all the parts for his experiment, looked through literature to predict things so I could get instrumentation that will measure things in the proper range, decided which variables need to be controlled/measured/varied, wrote a program to display and record the data... It's at the point where everyone refers to this as my experiment, and I delegate work to him only if it's trivial, simple, and not an immediate priority.

Basically, it's Freaky Friday, but all year long. What will happen when I go to grad school?

I'm *still* not the secretary!

I keep on having to go to a giant pile of archives to look for things at work. Very important things... *cough* Yeah. It's such a huge pile of things that there are multiple secretaries that dual-class as librarians taking care of it. Their job is to help you find things and then photocopy them for you so that you have a nice big productive looking pile of tree to bring with you to meetings.

Well, apparently their job is to find things and photocopy things for EVERYONE BUT ME. This is the second group of people I've met at (large engineering company) whose brains physically can't lump me into the engineering pile. Even though I've been introduced to them on multiple occasions as an engineering intern, it doesn't seem to stick.

One of the secretaries went ballistic on me this morning because I dared to ask for her assistance in finding a file and photocopying it. She more or less called me a stupid lazy bitch and told me it wasn't her responsibility to train me to do my job. I ended up being late for a meeting when the printer ran out of paper and I couldn't get the copies I needed. Instead of doing something nice, like showing me how to refill the tray, she decided to rant about how stupid people are these days and then gave me an instruction manual for the printer.

So shoot me, I've never worked in a large office before, and I really don't have innate knowledge of which tray (A, F, B145, or Quillbert?) the 11X17 paper goes in. Or where the paper is stored. Or even how to use the damn machine, really.

It actually got to the point where I was wondering if I really had missed out on some big "change the paper in the printer" training day. But then male student in my office walked in, asked her to find a binder and copy it, promptly received copies, and left. Grrrrrrr.

I wish there was a polite way to say, "I'm not a fucking secretary and I in fact have NOT been trained in the ancient traditions of making copies, fetching coffee, and booking appointments!" Because it would really help clear up this situation a bit. Grrr.

Little girl!?!

I broke my no swearing at work rule today.

Most people at work are fine, it's just the exceptions that piss me off. A few people asked me if I was a new secretary (what does mechanical engineering intern mean to you?), which made me a little grumpy, especially since they received an e-mail saying who I was and what I would be doing at the company. And an introduction from my boss. One person, Mr. Y, despite repeated corrections, keeps referring to me as "the secretary for the engineering interns". Perhaps somewhat ironically, most of the work I have been doing thus far would be better suited to a secretary, but things are looking up.

Other people insist on holding doors open for me. Why is this a problem, you say? I don't know about you, but I feel awkward when someone sees me coming from far down the road and holds the door open for a good 5 minutes waiting for me to get there, like I should tip them or something. And they get this look on their faces as though they've done something amazing and I should be super thankful. Or maybe I read into it too much. Point is, it's awkward and uncomfortable when taken to such an extreme. Also, if there are 20 people in an elevator,all going to the same meeting on the same floor, and I'm in the back of the elevator, nobody else will get out until I leave first. It feels pointedly awkward, as though I'm being singled out for something. I actually tried waiting for a while to see what would happen, and after the polite coughing and "Ladies first!" proved ineffective, I actually had someone PUSH me out the door first, from the back of the elevator!

A salesperson at a lunch meeting started making jokes about how few girls there are in engineering and kept on bringing it up. Yes, it's true, there aren't a lot of girls in my program, and some of them are butch, so what? Why bring it up? You wouldn't go up to a black employee and ask, "Were you the only black person in your class? Are there other blacks in your classes? You don't seem to be as much of a thug as the others! Boy, I didn't think a lot of black people went into XXX field! Sure weren't a lot when I was there. Man, I bet you're going to get hired right away when you graduate! Y'know, equal employment..." Thanks for discarding the notion that any of my accomplishments are due to merit.

While these things don't always bother me on their own, it's slowly been getting me for the past few weeks. This week was a week full of awkward stares, awkward building entrances, awkward elevators, and awkward conversations about why I chose engineering as a career. I guess everything just adds up until a bunch of small things feel like people don't take me seriously and like I'm being singled out for something. But anyway, back to today's adventure.

Mr. X walks into the office. He asks for Mr. Y, another student, who is clearly not there. I offer to tell Y that he stopped by. X asks what Y's schedule looks like this week, where Mr. Y is, and when he'll be back. Mr. Y is in a different department, so we don't share schedules. I mention this to Mr. X, and suggest that he ask someone in Mr. Y's department because I don't have access since I'm in (unicorn engineering group). Nonetheless, he gets angry when I can't tell him when Mr. Y's next free slot is, and makes some comment about how I really need to learn how to do my job better. I hold my tongue.

Mr X then starts politely coughing while gesturing at a sheet of paper. Unfortunately, I can't see all the way across the room to other student's desk where X is standing. Then, X was so kind as to take the pen and paper from Y's desk, walk across the room, and thrust them in my face to demand that I write down a message from him to Mr. Y. Word for word. I don't say, "Write your own message, you lazy ass." or, "Why don't you just e-mail him or leave a voicemail?" or, "I'm not his secretary, dammit." After I write down the message, he smiles and says, condescendingly, "There, that wasn't so hard, was it? That's a good little girl." And then he gets the pleased with himself look for putting a woman in her place and doing the woman a favour and teaching her how to do her job (which is, incidentally, NOT to be a secretary for the other engineering students).

DDIIEEEEE!

I'm above the median height for men. I am by no means little. I spent the better part of a decade playing "enforcer" in sports, and when I'm in good shape I can keep up with anyone on the field. My calves can crush diamonds (seriously, they're amazing). And he's lucky that my calves didn't activate my leg muscles to crush his face in.

I'm not even sure what I said, but I think it involved the words "fuck", and "yourself". Oh, that's right, I told him to go fuck himself! Yeah, not my best moment. But the funny thing was, the same part of his brain that won't let women have man jobs, also won't let women swear, so he just got a funny look on his face and walked off. I'm pretty sure he couldn't process what I said properly or I'd be out of a job. Although I'd kind of like a job right now where the other employees had seen a girl before.

Let's do the time warp again!

Sometimes I work internships so I can afford to go to school. Officially the reason is because I want to develop my technical skills and build a portfolio of diverse .. stuff... and yeah... actually I did build a bit of a nice network in an industry I'm totally not interested in working in. I'm fortunate enough to attend an institution with a pretty decent 5-year plan for students who want to work (ie pay for school). Thus, every once and a while, I apply for a billion jobs and go out on about a million interviews. Or something like that.

Here are questions I'm used to hearing:
"What are your strengths?"
"Can you describe your past work experience?"
"What was your favourite course?"

Here's an interrogation session that threw me right for a loop:

"You're in engineering? I thought girls liked Arts, nursing, you know... maybe teaching? Why would you go into engineering? Don't you get lonely? What was wrong with teaching? It's a very stable career! Do you hate children? Seriously, why would you go into engineering?"

I'm sorry, I thought we were living in the 21st century. I'll study engineering for the same damn reasons as anyone else, or no reason at all, but I don't think that I'm required to justify my motivations to anyone just because of my gender. Obviously, it makes a lot of sense to ask me about why I'm interesting in working for your company or in your industry. But to validate my mere existence? Piss off! Unless you'd like to stay around for the 2 hour saga of my lifelong dream to be a camp counsellor, drifting from summer to endless summer, running around outside, living in cabins, and having my food cooked for me.

But back to that interview... This was the very first thing the interviwer said to me when I came in the room. Well, actually, the first thing he said, incredulously, was, "You're.... a... GIRL!?!?" No joke. Then he asked if I was the first girl that had gone into engineering. I'm certainly not the only one, although I have been in some smaller classes of 30-40 where I was the only representative of my species... err gender in the room.

So, the interview keeps going. I talk about my last job designing and building equipment. Lots of design, lots of grungy shop work, and lots of mechanical skillz going into action. I also mention something about my old old job hauling dirt bales. After all of this, the interviewer looks up and says to me,
"I'm wondering if you would be able to handle all of this job. Some parts of it involve working in the shop. Sometimes people get dirty in the shop. Have you been in one before? Are you ok with being dirty?". So, at this point, it's pretty clear that this guy isn't listening to a thing I've said. I keep talking about my experience to try and quell any doubts he may have as to my qualifications. Then he apologizes, and says (more or less, I can't recall the exact phrasing), "I'm sorry, I just can't hire you for this. There is lots of dirt and heavy lifting, and it is not a proper environment for a woman. It is too noisy and too dangerous and you don't want to work there."

I should note that the job (apparently) involves carrying about 20 pounds, on occasion, across a shop floor. Which isn't a particularly deadly or evil machine shop floor, it's just a shop floor.

Finally, at the end of the "interview", he turns to his more linguistically gifted counterpart, who asks his big question... "So, uhh, like.. do you think you have any mechanical aptitude at all? Y'know like, uhh... guys like to fix cars and stuff. That's mechanical." Great. And that's coming from someone who apparently is a recent graduate of the university. I know it's not exactly polite to call out your boss for something, but seriously, THROW ME A FREAKING BONE HERE and tell your boss that he might not be reflecting the company's (supposedly friendly) hiring policy. Don't play "Play along with the boss and insult the woman's competence."

Also, no, I have no mechanical aptitude at all, and I hate machines with every fibre of my being. Thank you for reminding me of my one true calling, gold-digging. Say, are you single? How much are you carrying in student loans? Oh, nevermind...

Long story short, I called HR some time after the interview. I basically said, look, whether or not this guy is serious, I definitely didn't come away with a good impression of your company after that interview, and I'd appreciate it if you'd remove me from the list of candidates as I wouldn't feel comfortable working in that kind of environment. The HR person hemmed and hawed and said, "Oh, he's only been here for 8 years, his English isn't very good, I'm sure he didn't mean that." Basically, "You must be overreacting, I don't believe you." Thaaaanks.

Otherwise, the company was fairly nice about it and offered to consider me for a position in a different department. They said they would have a meeting with the interviewer and go over their company's tolerance policies . Wait, this guy has been conducting your hiring interviews for students (3-4 students a term, 2 terms a year) for several years and you've never been over this before? Or nobody has ever said anything? Or noticed?

How did he manage to avoid seeing a girl? Seriously, wtf!?!? Plus, if he hasn't ever interviewed a woman... that suggests that the likelihood that he hires them is fairly low. How has the company not noticed this? This is a fail at every level, if the company even remotely tries to pretend that it's interested in supporting, promoting, hiring, or even interacting with women in technical positions.

My co-ordinator at the school suggested that I push really hard to get the job, then be the female pioneer or something. I don't think that eight months of working in a shitty environment to only, at best, have someone say that I did just as good a job as the male students they've had, is really a worthwhile experience for me. Realistically, a single summer student isn't going to radically change a large company's attitudes or policies about anything. And, there's always the possibility that if I mess up anything on the job, they'll attribute it to me being a woman and not to me being inexperienced or anything, or just generally incompetent.

I'm not a fan of sit-there-and-take-it, but I also don't believe that this particular endeavour is worth it. Once I've graduated I think I'll be in a better position to go and revolutionize the revolution that should have happened 5o or so years ago for these companies. Until then, I'll be satisfied with shooting them dirty looks every time I see their booths at hiring fairs.