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.

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Northern Virginia traffic light cycles are the longest in western civilization. Some I’ve clocked at upwards of two minutes, which gives me time to do a lot of looking around. (I expect most folks start texting; I just let my eyes wander and my brain wonder.)

Then I often reach for the camera when something piques my curiosity. Viz:

Generally speaking, the purpose of putting business details on your business vehicle is to let prospective customers know you’re in business, right? And maybe to give you a ringy-dingy? So I wondered about this one. Perhaps they’ve changed phone numbers? Or they're in stealth mode? Or they really just don’t want you calling them?

Then there was this  one:

Dunno if you can see it, but the skin looks completely crackled. As though it had shattered; just not broken apart.

I can’t decide if that’s on purpose—because glass company—or if it’s just old.

Mathematical uncertainty

‘Kay, this one’s a month old, but still.

As you know, I very often walk along the W&OD Trail, dodging cyclists and hardcore runners. Occasionally there will be signs announcing one event or another. (Although there wasn’t any advance warning about a Diabetes Run that happened two Saturdays ago; first I heard of it was them setting up for it as I did my morning stagger. And a run marshal, who was unpacking his kit and lamenting—loudly—that he was missing a page of instructions. Oops.)

Anyhow, last month I was out and saw this:

I’m still puzzling over the commutative tee-shirt.

Auto-atonement

Yom Kippur began at sundown last night and continues until dusk tonight. It’s the culmination of the Days of Awe in the Jewish calendar, and the time for a sort of moral Spring cleaning—the Day of Atonement, when you’re meant to rummage through your behavior over the previous year, acknowledge your shortcomings with respect to your fellow humans, apologize (to those they’ve trespassed against and to God) and resolve to do better.

Then—having cleared the slate, so to speak—you’re good to go for another year.

Well, the deal is that God opens the Book of Life on Rosh Hashanah and inscribes your name in it, but doesn’t close-and-seal it until the end of Yom Kippur. You have those ten Days of Awe to get your ducks in a row.

In recent times, people have taken to issuing blanket apologies for transgressions, presumably in the hope that anyone who’s actually suffered at their hands will happen by at the time the apology emerged, and will catch it in passing. And, of course, SoMe has amplified this impersonalization of what should be a very personal act of contrition.

I have never subscribed to the one-size-fits-all approach to giving or receiving apologies, but that’s just me. I mean—in the Roman Catholic Sacrament of Reconciliation, we’re meant to hawk up actual things we’ve done, say them out loud to the confessor and accept the penance we’re given. (Toughest priest I ever knew wouldn’t give you any generic Hail Marys or Our Fathers; no, no. If I’d been pissed off at my family, he’d tell me to go back and be specially nice to them. Killed me, he did.)

Anyhow, last week, my ex-manager emailed me to ask if we could reschedule a regular Wednesday morning meeting this week, on account of it being Yom Kippur. I said sure, adding, “May you be inscribed in the Book of Life. And your family.”

He replied, “Thank you. Please forgive me for any sins of omission or commission that I have committed, whether known to me or unknown.”

I suspect he’s being smart-assed. Pretty sure he doesn’t remember this, ah, incident, although it immediately sprang to my mind.

Jury’s still out on whether I forgive him.

Shroom-shroom

Hurricane Florence gave the District They Call Columbia a pass, but we’ve been getting a lot of rain, and it’s the tropical-temperatures kind of rain. You walk outside and your glasses steam up. Even in my house, where I’ve got two upstairs windows partway open, when you get halfway up the stairs, the bannister gets sticky.

So it’s no real surprise that fungi are having a field day around here.

For example, this mushroom growing atop one of the distance markers on the W&OD Trail:

And then I saw this profusion of little ones on one patch of my corporate neighbor’s campus:

So far no sign of a large boat with pairs of animals on it floating down the Toll Road, but I’m not ruling it out.

Gratitude Monday: bare feet on wood

It’s been almost three months since my living room floor flooded, courtesy of a gutter downspout that didn’t drain away from the house. And it’s been a month since I’ve had to live with the tarry subfloor that you can see in this video.

I won’t go right now into the whole michegoss of why it’s taken so long to complete the repairs (but if you want a recommendation on what flooring company not to use, give me a bell), because today’s Gratitude Monday, and I am so blissfully grateful that I have a new floor, and I can walk around the house barefoot.