I might as well not even be there

How not to break the glass ceiling

I keep getting all these emails at work to join some women's group. People seem to be obsessed with the fact that women aren't successful so they invent these groups to gather women so they can band together and beat the heck out of people who get in their way. (Well, at least that's how I see it would be useful.) Then I found out that they're holding this contest at work to get more women to file patents. And of course there are rules as any contest would have...and one of them is that you can work in a team...but the team has to be "at least 50% women".

Do you see what is wrong with that statement? You want to get more women inventing stuff, but then you have to drag men into the whole thing. It's like saying that women aren't good enough to come up with new ideas on their own, they need the help of men, because men are obviously smarter and more creative.

It reminds me of the time I played volleyball in this intramural team at work. Smack and I joined this team because "they didn't have enough women". Because every team had to have at least three women on the court at all times. I could live with that rule. But then they had to go and make it worse, claiming if they didn't have this next rule, then women would never get a chance to touch the ball. And that rule was that a woman must hit the ball before the ball goes over the net. Now I don't know about you, but I come from a place where even women learn as kids how to play team sports and how to cooperate and if you're going to join a team to play a sport, then you're going to PLAY. You're not going to sit around and get out of the way so some MAN can hit the ball because you don't want to break your nails or because you're afraid of getting hit in the glasses-face with a volleyball (been there, done that...except it was a basketball).

So I wrote a letter to the league president and I outlined (in bullets of course) reasons why we should abolish that ridiculous rule, and what happens? Well the president forwarded my email (erasing my name for my own safety) to everyone, and some woman goes, "It was OBVIOUSLY a MAN who wrote this. Let's keep the rule! YA YA YA YA YA YA!!!!!" Ok, so she didn't do the war cry at the end, but still. You bitch and moan about not having gender equality and for only earning 97 cents to the man's dollar, and then you say idiotic things like that. Let's face it, the glass ceilings are here to stay, because women are just creating them on their own.

Protest against Penelope Trunk

I cancelled my account on LinkedIn. I bet people around will be like, "that's a bad move for your career, how will you meet people to get you your next job?" Has it ever occurred to people that there are other ways to find a job or to meet people than by signing up for some lame social networking site where it's basically a contest to see who can gather the most connections?

Now for the real reason I cancelled my account. I found out that LinkedIn sponsors Penelope Trunk's idiot blog. Ok, I know, most blogs out there are written by idiots, including mine. But I feel like this is the case where the idiot is leading more idiots and may soon take over the world with their idiot army. Much of Penelope's content is pure mumbo-jumbo and it's pretty sad to cite other rarely-read blogs and random Google-found websites as your references.
She claims that the younger generation of workers nowadays don't care about money and only care about being respected at work or having flex time or having time to learn new stuff. Now I know she cited some sort study, but has she ever talked with young people who work? Most of the young people I know who work care a WHOLE LOT about money. And they would die to get a raise or a promotion (which usually means more money). Ok, so maybe it's the young people that I know, but who wouldn't want more money? I would not take financial advice from someone who blagged (blog-bragged) about how she used to have a job that made her more than $200K a year. So after making 200K per year for who knows how long, shouldn't it be easy for her to say that money doesn't matter? She's probably living off of savings and doesn't have to even work to get by.

I have many more rants about her idiot blog, but I don't want to turn into one of those obsessed people who stalks someone's blog just so I can write crap about her in my blog. So here begins my single, silent stand against poor quality blogging and advice.

Don't wait up for me

So you're a woman, so what?

This is not really me. It's a dramatization of what I hope I will NEVER become. Not that I don't want to be a mom. I just don't want to become one of those "mommy bloggers" who sits at home telling the world about the contents of my kids' diapers and how I need to join a community of online blogging mothers like myself just to get through the day.

Now don't get me wrong, communities are great...if you need that. There are groups for anything you can join nowadays, and to be honest, it's mostly about support. You join a group of people who are just like you so maybe they will understand your plight and tell you how you can overcome your shortcomings just like they did. And everyone knows it's nice having people comment on your blog telling you how great you are. I'm all for equal rights and empowerment to women, but sometimes I just feel like maybe if women didn't think they had issues with equality in the workplace or in society itself, maybe they wouldn't have problems.

So you're a female, and you blog. Does that mean you're special? Apparently to some women (*cough*BlogHer*cough*), you are. Apparently there's a lack of blogs by women. (Maybe blogs with "substance", I mean everyone knows we have enough of those "I'm breast feeding as you read this" blogs). But then again, that's a general problem, not just a female problem. I think women don't do the technical blog thing because they can't stand when people try to disagree or tell them what's what, and in most technical blogs, that's what happens. People (mostly men, because they like being right) argue and tell you you're an idiot because they don't agree with what you say. And typically a woman would run to her bathroom and cry and stop blogging forever, but nowadays with "womyn" empowerment and all that, they would say, "you just can't accept the fact that I'm a woman and I know more than you." Oh please, get off your high-heeled horse and go shopping or something.

Work: It's a love-hate relationship

Lately I've been having a love-hate relationship with work. Some days are great, I'm excited about doing things, I can't wait to sit down and do work, I'm so happy I have a job.

Other days I just want to strangle it. I can't believe some of the things that happen when I'm there, sometimes I can't believe how I'm treated by people, and I just wonder how I keep going there day after day.

I guess it's all about balance though. If you love it some days and you want to harm it others, it's normal isn't it? I guess that's true about everything.