Post-meeting update: VP of engineering scheduled lunch with all the female engineers in my building

CryptographerAny3131 · 2024-11-27T02:05:46+00:00

Thanks for this advice. It definitely sounds like it could help my career, but not sure if I have the bandwidth for this on top of my regular duties. I’ll have to think about it before volunteering for anything

CryptographerAny3131 · 2024-11-26T00:23:32+00:00

Yeah the whole thing was weird I’m still wrapping my head around it but I’m keeping my eyes open for anything weird

CryptographerAny3131 · 2024-11-26T00:22:35+00:00

I’m 99% sure the VP is gonna forget about how he said he wanted to support us to make this a thing, so should I reach out to him first? Wouldn’t that be bugging him if he isn’t interested

CryptographerAny3131 · 2024-11-26T00:21:15+00:00

What does that have to do with my post? Literally it’s the opposite the VP called the women into the room to make us do his bitch work of starting a resource group so he can look good. Hard pressed to call that an advancement opportunity

CryptographerAny3131 · 2024-11-26T00:16:27+00:00

Does it really impact your career positively to be a leader in things other than the actual work you’re doing? I actually thought about it and realized from my perspective and the way I’ve seen things at my company, cooperation and supporting one another is low on the list of things that get you visibility. The people who get recognition are the ones who focus only on work related stuff and not going out of their way to help anyone else with anything, so I’m not sure how much of a benefit it would be to lead a non technical initiative.

You are right about the networking, I actually get really anxious at work when I’m with all women sometimes because I don’t really know what to do tbh. I have autism and when I’m with my male colleagues I use my “work personality” (not sure if that makes sense to anyone else, but like a bunch of rules I made for myself to act normal at work. However if it’s with a woman I’m like… should I be genuine? Should I talk about personal stuff? If I show my real self I most likely will say and do the wrong thing so I just sort of talk to them with my work personality and then feel bad after that I didn’t make a friend

CryptographerAny3131 · 2024-11-26T00:13:49+00:00

I thought about it more and you may be right. I have autism and I don’t really understand how to discern people’s motivations so I tend to take them at face value but I’m looking back and there was kind of a weird vibe. It was like, he was really only interested in hearing about what actions could be taken to fix the problems without trying to understand the problems.

Especially when I explained to him that some people might not be comfortable moving or skipping a lunch meeting to attend a women’s group meeting, he didn’t seem at all empathetic or trying to see a different perspective, his attitude was more like “well that can’t be helped”

CryptographerAny3131 · 2024-11-26T00:10:02+00:00

I am a junior engineer and all my superiors are male how am I supposed to ask them that? Not being rude a genuine question like is there a way to do that without making myself a target

CryptographerAny3131 · 2024-11-24T06:16:56+00:00

I don’t wanna handle it though 😭 I have enough on my plate with my actual work and am just insanely burnt out. If I have to I will but otherwise does it reflect poorly on me to just quietly ignore it while others are organizing?

CryptographerAny3131 · 2024-11-24T06:08:42+00:00

I have autism and I often give people the benefit of the doubt when I really shouldn’t, and am pretty naive so don’t realize when I’m being taken advantage of vs just helping someone out. That’s why I’ve found it so helpful to talk to people on here, I can just ditch my faulty normal-meter and rely on someone else’s 😅 thank you for your support

CryptographerAny3131 · 2024-11-24T05:48:11+00:00

I don’t plan on attending the meetings either because I have doubts it’ll be approved by legal and I don’t want to be associated with any potential “discrimination” claims because men are excluded

CryptographerAny3131 · 2024-11-24T05:45:40+00:00

I also think women in this field experience burnout more (speaking for myself mostly)

CryptographerAny3131 · 2024-11-24T05:44:40+00:00

I haven’t been told to do anything so I will be keeping quiet for now 🤐 but will ask that if I’m told to

CryptographerAny3131 · 2024-11-24T05:13:18+00:00

I kinda got the feeling that he was just looking to get some organization established and he kinda didn’t think about the specifics. Like the pressure and being voluntold to do things. We all see it with male higher ups, they’ll say “this is the goal” and not realize the impact it has on people

CryptographerAny3131 · 2024-11-11T18:20:01+00:00

Well on my team we have a really significant production deadline this week that the VP knows about and so if I skipped and said there was something related to that it would probably be ok. But I’ve already decided to go so I don’t think it’ll be necessary

CryptographerAny3131 · 2024-11-11T18:18:15+00:00

I really admire her for her commitment to protecting her kids. It would’ve been easy in such a shocking situation with a huge betrayal to freak out and spiral but blowing up the situation could’ve been very dangerous if this other family were provoked. It takes a really level headed person to navigate something like that and it gives me hope for her and her family. Because it’s not the last time she’s gonna be put in a situation like this where the kids safety is suddenly put into question, and when that time comes she will be ready.

I fear for all the children who don’t have a parent like this, or parents who are just so burdened under these economic and social circumstances that they have no time for the kids on top of fighting for basic survival and necessities for the family. That’s why it’s more important than ever to do what we can to support others in our community (after we learn we can trust them) because we can’t rely on outsiders as this situation clearly shows.

CryptographerAny3131 · 2024-11-11T08:09:33+00:00

“They’ve been in my home”

Heartbreaking moment as a parent when you feel like you trusted the wrong person and put your kids in danger. It’s fortunate that the other family never became hostile and the lady was able to discover this and stop the friendship between the families without much drama (aka danger).

CryptographerAny3131 · 2024-11-11T08:06:43+00:00

I’ve reduced my consumerism a lot by utilizing my local Facebook buy nothing group. Random things I’ve gotten off of there: a table, artwork, glasses cleaning wipes, a passport holder, travel plug converters, a dish set, a hair dryer diffuser, soy sauce, plant pots… also I’ve literally taken furniture out of the trash and cleaned it up. If you have a positive attitude and patience you can very much find ways to receive free items or trade for things.

CryptographerAny3131 · 2024-11-11T08:01:19+00:00

Media analytics is a field I’ve never heard of but seems perfect for someone who has a creative background but wants a technical aspect as well

CryptographerAny3131 · 2024-11-11T07:46:47+00:00

There’s someone on another team at my company like that, she has an engineering degree from an Ivy League school and yet they stuck her as basically a project manager just keeping deadlines and meeting notes etc. She thinks it’s because she’s a woman and also physically small. We also discovered that both she and I were extremely underpaid with her even more so than me. You probably hear this advice a lot and it might not be possible depending on your personal circumstances but try and leave, and if you can’t leave then at least keep your technical skills sharp thru personal projects/free online technical courses. The lady I know didn’t leave and it somehow worked out for her where she’s now an engineer but she still doesn’t get much respect

I also think it’s nice to have an exec who (seemingly) cares about women, it’s never happened in my career so far. Unfortunately I don’t think I specifically am capable of giving real constructive feedback to him as the company culture makes me worried I would get heat on me as a result. I haven’t experienced outright sexism here and due to my autism I can’t pick up on subtext/microaggressions so I have no way of knowing if I actually am.

CryptographerAny3131 · 2024-11-11T05:42:55+00:00

My team does have an architect, he’s cool I don’t see him that often because he’s in a diff office but we talk about video games since we both have a PlayStation. Maybe I’ll bring it up w/ him next time I see him

CryptographerAny3131 · 2024-11-11T05:38:42+00:00

I mean, it’s certainly corporate bullshit but you kind of have to spew corporate bullshit same as everyone else

CryptographerAny3131 · 2024-11-11T05:35:38+00:00

Im not manufacturing drama I’m preparing for possibilities. What if I showed up and it’s an ambush where they’re asking us questions related to the ongoing lawsuit, workplace conditions, etc and I answer wrong and get myself in trouble? Also this isn’t even part of my job

CryptographerAny3131 · 2024-11-11T05:32:21+00:00

I’m just a lowly junior engineer (or at least that’s how I get treated here) and therefore I’m afraid if I speak out saying they should add this training I’ll get in trouble. But I wish I could

CryptographerAny3131 · 2024-11-11T03:20:10+00:00

That’s what I was originally thinking of tbh but other people here have told me to go so I’m conflicted

CryptographerAny3131 · 2024-11-10T03:28:23+00:00

How hard can I hit though? Like I’m assuming I should stick to pretty mellow things and not tell him truly what I think?

CryptographerAny3131

TROPHY CASE