Hopping at Hopper

Okay, Day 1 of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. At time of writing, I’ve been on my feet (operative term “on my feet”) since 0620, and it’s 2102. As they say in the old country, I’m shattered.

I had one complete waste of time interview with a Big Three management services company (seriously—their intention was clearly to hire software engineers directly out of college; I shouldn’t have been asked to interview. But having done so, they shouldn’t have put someone in front of me who literally had no idea what she should be doing, much less how to handle someone who didn’t Fit The Profile. Furthermore: if all someone can do is talk about their work with the IRS—in very limited terms—don’t put her in front of candidates you might consider hiring to work with other agencies. Duh). And I had a possibly useless conversation with someone from a company I’m interested in. Although, if the only person you have on the booth who can talk about product management is focused on only just-out-of-college prospects, you aren’t serious about hiring product managers.

I also had an informal chat with a recruiter and a product manager for the US Digital Service, which came about because the recruiter somehow matched my name from the GHC résumé database with an application I’d submitted in 2014. That was interesting; ball’s in my court as to whether I reapply.

Interestingly, I’d been informed that a former colleague would be attending GHC, and she DM’d me when I live-tweeted part of the opening keynote, asking if I wanted to get together with her. Well, not particularly, but if I can, sure. (I only mentioned the “sure” part.) So blow me if, in the early afternoon, as I was heading into the speed mentoring session, I didn’t come across her right next to the elevator! I mean—23,000 people at this flipping conference; what are the odds?

The evening was spent at five company-sponsored parties. I bagged one I'd accepted (Lyft’s) and accidentally crashed another (Nordstrom tech’s was right next to the IBM experienced professionals one in the Hyatt). I learned my lesson from Tuesday evening, when the bartender at one event made the most vile Dark & Stormy ever; D&S should comprise Gosling’s rum and ginger beer. This had Meyer’s (which, in itself, is not a deal breaker), and some concoction of maybe ginger extract, something else, and sparkling water. It was utterly disgusting. (Then I went to the HubSpot event where they claimed to be serving the Perfect Margarita. It was not. I dumped it.) Last night, I had a glass of perfectly acceptable white wine at the Lesbians Who Tech (sponsored by Goldman Sachs), while I chatted with a young man still in college who made a herculean effort to be sociable, so well done, Matt; then a Jameson’s at the Cisco Disco (photo below); then club soda at the Publicis.Sapient event; and almost a glass of (warm) prosecco at the Nordstrom do, which I carried into the IBM shindig. (I didn't finish the wine, did drink the one finger of Irish and left most of the prosecco.)

(Cisco Disco being in Texas, those are of course cowboy hats.) 

And so to bed. Another long day today.