More hopping

Day 2 of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. I demo’d the Magic Leap One mixed reality product before having a get-to-know-you chat with a recruiter from Portland.

WRT the former, it’s an interesting approach for the person with the devices to show up ten minutes late and then denigrate me. (When I responded to her query on what I do by telling her what I do, she said, “You’ve got the marketing spiel down really well.”)

Right.

Went to a sit-down lunch hosted by Wayfair, which was nice enough until one of the co-founders sat down at the table. Until then, the blonde from Google had been held in check, but he seemed fascinated by every detail (and she did go into every single one) of her work, her love for Wayfair, her fiancé, and probably more; I zoned out and tried to control my resting bitch face.

The upside of the event was one of the appetizers was filet mignon on toasted baguette slice that was marvelous, and an Aperol spritzer, which was stunningly good.

I was disappointed by the afternoon’s roundtable for senior women that GoDaddy hosted. The topic was “Should I Stay or Should I Go”, and again, the discussion was hogged by one woman who gave us the rundown of her entire career. Every. Single. Job.

By the time I’d made an appearance at three of the seven evening parties I’d accepted, I was ready to call it a night.

On the plus side, I’ve not had to watch any of the shitshow in the Senate, and for that I am deeply grateful.

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.

Houston: We have a thing

Well, alrighty then—I have made it to Houston, to my hotel and to the convention center where this morning (starting at 0645 for a volunteers orientation) I shall be joined by 22,999 of my closest friends for the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing.

It’s going to be a whole thing.

But, as you know, I always try to stay alert for local color. And Monday night I was on my way back to the hotel from a local tech women meetup when I became aware of a whole lotta bird sounds, close by the House of Blues (where there’s some GHC-related event tonight. Or maybe tomorrow. I seriously forget). Here are a couple of stills:

And here they are in action.

I do not know what variety of bird they are—open to enlightenment from my birding friends. They struck me as unusual, although they certainly seemed right at home.

Anyhow—I closed out the evening by noting the moon over the convention center.

It’s a whole thing.

Not the friendly skies

Let me preface today’s post by saying that I loathe United Airlines. I would rather walk than fly United. This dates back more than 20 years, when both domestic and international experiences with them were consistently nightmarish. They haven’t improved in the new millennium, either. Last year’s journey to GHC in Orlando had their systems and crews consistently balancing incompetence and inefficiency with surliness.

So I was prepared for similar on my flight to Houston yesterday. Maybe it’s setting the bar so low you could crawl under a snake with it, or maybe I hit them on a good day, but it wasn’t a completely appalling experience.

But I was interested by the number of opportunities UAL takes to try to upsell you.

Here were two screens from my online check-in process:

(I clicked past all the options, but it "offered" me a second chance to upgrade my seat.)

And on board, the live intro to the obligatory safety announcement had the chief flight attendant reading (badly) from a printed spiel inviting everyone to sign up for their affinity Visa card.

It must work. Just not on me. I may be forced by schedules to use them as transport, but I’m not giving them one more dime than absolutely necessary.

Gratitude Monday: Anita Hill

This morning I’m on my way to the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, 2018 edition. Last year I had no particular goals or responsibilities, and on the whole enjoyed the experience. This year—well, I have some responsibilities for promoting a project from which I am increasingly being excluded, and I have personal goals of scouting a few target companies for career opportunities.

TBH, I just don’t know whether it’s worth all the tsuris, but I don’t know what the alternative is.

So—what to be grateful for? On Friday morning, I have a seat reserved to hear Anita Hill speak on “The Past, Present and Future of the #MeToo Movements”. I’m holding on to that as incentive to get through the intervening days.