Coming to a small screen near me

I hate people so glued to their mobile devices that they can’t go the space of one 60-minute presentation without messing with it. But I’m afraid that something has come over me at the Grace HopperCelebration of Women in Computing.

That chick tapping furiously during the keynote presentations? That’s me, live-tweeting what Fei-Fei Li or Mercedes Soria or Melinda Gates is saying. That’s also me in panel discussions live-tweeting tidbits of the conversation. That’s even me at the two breakfast meetings I went to yesterday morning, live-tweeting. (Yeah—I had two company-sponsored breakfasts, which means I’m saving my employer hotel/convention center prices for meals. This is also why I’ve signed up for every event that offers food. They can pay for my transportation.)

(As an aside, I once said to my manager that, as far as incentives go, I would kill relatives for a week’s vacation—although probably not close ones. Some time later I mentioned in passing that I’d live-tweeted an event I’d gone to, and he seemed surprised by that. I asked him why he accepted without question that I’d commit homicide, but was taken aback that I know how to tweet. He did not have a real answer to that.)

In my defense, I am not checking email, commenting on Facebook or playing Candy Crush Saga (is that what it’s called?). I’m only tweeting out the words of wisdom I’m hearing. That—along with volunteering to be a speed mentor at a session yesterday—is my way of paying some of the wealth of GHC17 forward.

At least I’ve not progressed to walking around inside and out with my nose buried in the device. So there’s that.

Hopping good time

As I write this post, I’ve spent more than 12 hours soaking up keynotes, panel discussions and workshops on various issues around women in tech, chatted with reps of organizations ranging from The Walt Disney Company to the Federal Reserve, evangelized an idea for gender diversity certifications and been to parties thrown by recruiting organizations from Cisco, Twitter, Facebook, EA and the Fed.

I have picked up surprisingly little swag, considering that this is one of the major features of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing touted by everyone who’s ever been to one of these. So far, only one tee-shirt, a couple of totes, a mobile device charger and a few pens.

However, I’ve clocked more than 13K steps on my pedometer, and expect that I’ll only make it through the week by applications of Lidoderm patches and heavy doses of ibuprofen.

Tomorrow I have two breakfasts, a speed mentoring session, a couple of afternoon things, and six recruiter parties in the evening. One of them requires me to bluff my way through “Game of Thrones”. My plan is to wave my cocktail around and intone, “I drink, and I know things.” If pressed for how I feel about [plot point X] I’ll just grimace and say, “Intense.”

I expect someone will jump in to take over the conversation.

Broken hearted and gliding over Mulholland

After some confusion in the initial reports, it’s been confirmed that singer Tom Petty died on Monday, following a cardiac arrest. He was 66.

I don’t quite know what to say; Petty was one of my go-to rockers for so long.

Everyone has their favorites from him. “I Won’t Back Down” seems to be a popular choice, and of course it could be the hymn of the Resistance these days.

But I’ve got two different picks. “Refugee” is one I periodically turn to as a reminder that I don’t have to…well, you know.

There are many types of refugees, after all.

But my personal anthem is “Free Fallin’”.

There’s just something about that Valley vibe that takes me home every time.

Nonetheless, 2017, I am sick to death of you.

Writing on the door

I may not have written about it, but there’s something that’s puzzled me about my female colleagues. I need to preface this by noting that this is an employee set of highly educated (my guess is that—while there are a few people without a bachelor’s degree, there are so many with masters’ and doctoral degrees in rigorous scientific disciplines,  the average number of years of schooling would probably be around 17 years), and I’d have thought that basic hygiene practices would have gone without saying.

However, I’d be wrong, because every once in a while, I’ll be in one of the stalls in the ladies’ loo and I’ll hear the toilet in another stall flush, the door open…and then the exit door open. Meaning: no washing of hands.

I’d find this a little creepy at a dive bar at 11pm on a Saturday. In a building full of recovering research scientists it just leaves me gobsmacked.

However, it turns out there’s more. Because last week I began noticing used paper towels tossed on the floor—around the room, not even near the rubbish bin, where someone might have chucked them on her way out without noticing she’d missed. And, also: scraps of toilet paper.

Remember: not a dive bar on a Saturday, a professional workplace full of women who understand the relationship between litter and disease.

Well, interestingly, someone decided to Take Action, because when I went in yesterday morning, I found this message taped to the door of each stall:

Personally, I’d imagine that anyone who has to be asked not to trash the place probably isn’t going to pay any attention to the request, but I shall keep you apprised if this does the trick. 

Gratitude Monday: good neighbors

It doesn’t take a lot to keep me amused; toss out some birdseed and I’ll watch the wildlife for hours. Especially as they forage on the ground. Viz:

It’s not just the birds, either. Although I can do without the squirrels, I enjoy some of the other furry critters. Like the little chipmunk that occasionally shows up:

There’s one guy I’m not sure of. I was looking out one afternoon at a squirrel and thought, “Gee, that guy’s got problems. Something happened to his tail.”

Only it turned out to be a wood rat.

It’ll be very interesting to see which feathered and furred friends winter over here, lured by my largesse. But I’m grateful for them all.

Except the squirrels. Pretty much.

Saintly things

Fun fact: today is Michealmas, the feast day of Saint Michael, in the Western Church. The Book of Revelation reports that the archangel Michael led the forces of God in driving Satan out of heaven and into hell. I’m not a fan of Revelations, as its whack-job, possibly drug-related predictions have been the banner for a great deal of evil, extending even unto our times. But Saint Michael has always appealed to me.

He’s like the captain of the Almighty’s Praetorian Guard, commander of the legions of the righteous, defender of the faiths (both Jewish and Christian), protector of the weak and, ultimately, the transporter of departed souls.

And it’s interesting that, for a guy perhaps most famous for leading the heavenly regiments against a traitorous former comrade (Satan started out as one of the angels, remember), Michael is considered more a symbol of the inner struggle of faith, of spiritual warriors. These days, in addition to watching over soldiers, he’s the patron saint of first responders (police, firefighters, EMTs), doctors and the sick. At the end of life, Michael appears at the deathbed to give a sinner one last chance to repent before carrying the soul away with great tenderness.

Guy’s got a lot on his plate.

Michaelmas falls close enough to the autumnal equinox to have the saint’s celebration tied into harvest themes. Michaelmas is a time for ensuring all the crops have been gathered in and stored for the coming winter, for giving thanks for nature’s bounty and for turning one’s thoughts to preparing home and hearth for the long nights ahead.

It’s that whole package of Michael—the warrior angel, the Osiris of Christian souls, the dividing point between summer and winter—that makes him one of my favorite saints. Michael’s was one of the three voices the young Jeanne d’Arc heard (along with Saint Catherine’s and Saint Margaret’s), which set her on the road from Domrémy to Orléans, Reims, and finally, to Rouen.

I like to think that Michael was waiting at the stake to lift her soul away from the flames and into heaven. I have a personal connection to Jeanne, and—through her—to Michael.

Tonight I’ll spend some time reflecting on these things, giving thanks for the joys of summer, preparing for the rigors of winter, and considering what it means—for me—to pursue faith like a military campaign.

Point taken. Maybe

Have I mentioned that I’m going to the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in Orlando next week? Why yes, I believe I have.

Well, social media is still awash with supplications for anyone who has a ticket that inexplicably has become surplus to requirements (less than a week before the event) to please let them know. (There was one spinning a queen-for-a-day sob story about how lovely it would be to have the opportunity to attend GHC, if only someone would very kindly surrender a ticket. As of course it would, but if she’s only now aware of the conference, perhaps shoot for next year, eh?)

But it turns out that individuals aren’t the only ones who aren’t having their finest hour.

One of the big draws for sponsoring organizations and tech women both is that GHC is a massive one-stop recruitment shop. It’s where companies looking to hire engineering talent (with the bonus points for scooping up women engineers, yay!) set up the kinds of enticements usually reserved for college football coaches seeking to sign high school stars. (I’ll write a post later about the number of networking receptions, dinners and other social events crammed into two evenings)

For the women tech talent, it’s possibly the one place in the world where they can be assured of the concentrated attention of recruiters from big names in tech (Google, Apple, Microsoft), in general business with tech needs (Allstate, Macy’s, Mastercard) and in sexy startups (Twitter, Facebook, Tesla, a whole bunch you’ve probably never heard of; I know I haven’t). They’re looking to hire everything from interns to people who’ve got a few miles on them. (Not so much that last one, but they’re sidling up to it.) So you can see why these women are still hoping that a ticket will drop from the sky into their laps—it’s entirely possible that you can walk into the Orange County Convention Center with a fistful of résumés and walk out with multiple job offers.

Even if you don’t yet have a degree in hand.

Well, but it’s incumbent upon the companies, and their recruiters, to make the case for why this talent should choose them over all the other organizations. And if you don’t have the budget to throw a Game of Thrones-themed cocktail reception (as HBO does) or hand out yet-to-be-seen amazing swag, then you have to be extra primo good at communication.

(I’m going to have a few things to say about how the recruiters communicate—and if you want to know how I feel about recruiters in general, take a look here. For now, I’m just going to say that many of them have miles to go.)

But here’s one crowd who were having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day when they sent this invitation:

Point72 turns out to be a “family investment management” company, which changed its name recently but apparently still couldn’t outrun its bad press. They’ve had compliance issues.

Well—you might think the email was fairly innocuous; indicative of an outfit that’s not much interested in spending money to recruit. Emails, after all, cost hardly anything.

But, as it turns out, Point72’s email cost them rather a lot. They sent it in clear: instead of putting all the recipients on a BCC list, they sent it to all more than 200 of us. We could all see everyone’s email addresses. And, of course, anyone could scrape the email addresses and use them for Russian phishing attacks.

Now, this would be bad enough. What's worse is that they're a fintech company; protecting personal private information (PPI) is the sine qua non of that industry. But they sent it to more than 200 women in tech. This was about the worst group of recipients they could have chosen for this faux pas. A fact that was discussed on Twitter yesterday.

So, their first response was… assuming less than full accountability. Perhaps the public outing had an effect because later in the afternoon they shot out this email; this time to an undisclosed group of recipients.

Nowhere near as glam as the first one. We’ll see how well it works.

Riding the rails

When you ride public transportation, you cannot escape from the…public. I’ve come to understand why my fellow passengers on Metro have their ears full of buds, and their eyes glued to screens. I suspect that they’re not listening to or looking at anything; it’s just a ploy to block out any kind of acknowledgement of fellow passengers.

Yesterday on my way home, I was vaguely aware that the fellow passenger in the seat behind me was eating something for several stops. (This is strenglich verboten, but as I’ve even seen uniformed DHS personnel chowing down on sandwiches and coffee between Metro Center and Tysons, it’s clear that no one pays any attention to this at all.)

How did I know, you ask? I could hear him. ‘Nuff said.

Anyhow, somewhere around Greensboro Road I put away my device to look out on the NoVa scenery, and in my peripheral vision I noticed something on the back bar beside me. I turned around carefully, and this is what I saw:

Looks like someone had a worse day than I did.

Putting a happy face on it

Huh. Seems like only…three weeks ago that I was writing about Facebook’s love of serving up ersatz “memories” for its users. And how, when you tell them to get stuffed, they give you that same look of contrition that you get from your four-year-old when caught with cookie crumbs on his face.

Well, as Gomer Pyle was wont to say, su-prise, su-prise. Over this past few days I’ve had a load of Facebook’s happy-clappiness. Another serving of “memory”—from the whole summer, which (this being officially autumn), I might already have forgotten:

Once again, I told them, in the limited way they allow, to get stuffed.

But then they’ve taken to extending the happy-clappiness to faux-genial greetings when I log in. Viz:

And here’s the robust mechanism they give me to drop-kick them into the People’s Republic of North Korea:

I’ll close out by saying that Zuckerberg should have devoted more resources to policing hate groups and Russian election campaign ads. If he had, I’d be less crabby about this crap, and this happy-clappy ersatz wish might be nearer to reality:

Gratitude Monday: Autumn air

Friday marked the autumnal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. And even though here in the District They Call Columbia, we’ve had a spate of temperatures hovering around 90 degrees, there are small signs that fall is on the way.

For one thing, the humidity has begun to slack off, which is a massive relief. For another, I’m having to sweep leaves off the patio every two or three days. (I’m thinking about raking them into piles next to the fence at either side of the yard. I don’t have a composter, but they’re organic matter, right? At some point, they’ll decompose.)

And, of course, there’s pumpkin spice everything. We’ll have that curse until it’s overtaken by peppermint mocha everything.

I’m looking forward to seeing the colors change, and to preparing the comfort food meals that colder weather seem to inspire. Don’t know why, but “comfort food” doesn’t seem to encompass caprese salad or poached chicken breasts on a bed of arugula. Don’t get me wrong—I love both of them; they just don’t say “comfort” to me, the way cottage pie does.)

But perhaps one of my biggest points of gratitude that this season heralds is the dying down of these dang-blasted mosquitos. I spent 15 minutes on Friday afternoon, chatting with a neighbor out in the front and got a huge welt from one of those little consarned critters.

So, bring on the colder weather—I’m ready and grateful.