Ep 76 – Deep Dive with Women in Networking

In this episode, women network engineers discuss the current realities for women in the network engineering space: the challenges, the support they’ve received, and how we can continue to make the industry a place that’s open to everyone. (Step one: ladies’ cut vendor t-shirts.)

More from our Guests:
Lexie
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TracketPacer
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/tracketpacer

Eyvonne
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SharpNetwork
Blog: https://esharp.net

Micheline
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MichyfishMurphy

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Transcript

this is the art of network engineering podcast in this podcast we'll explore tools technologies and talented people we aim to bring new information that will expand your skill sets and toolbox and share the stories of fellow network engineers hey a1 fans aj here before we get started in the episode uh just wanted to let you know and acknowledge that there's been an awful lot going on in social media for women in tech this particular episode was recorded on monday december 20th which was before a lot of that kind of unfolded and took place and that's why there's no direct mention of it here in this episode but we will certainly talk about that a whole lot more enjoy the show okay hey everybody welcome to the art of engineering podcast uh you may have noticed in the last like two and a half seconds that i am not aj murray aka no blinky blinky uh i'm someone else and we'll introduce ourselves in a second but um just for some context on this episode this is kind of a special episode tonight uh we this it's the result basically of some really great conversations between all of us and the regular you know art of engineering art of network engineering podcast co-hosts and basically the guys have expressed the desire to highlight the voices of women in network engineering on the podcast so they have very graciously invited us to basically take over the podcast for an episode and share our experiences and and talk about what it's like so without further ado um why don't we go ahead and introduce ourselves um i'll start my name is lexi uh you might know me as track it pacer on twitter for the most part um i've been a network engineer for about three years now um i used to work at ibm and their hybrid cloud and now i'm working at blue origin and avionics integration very cool i'll jump in so i'm uh i'm yvonne sharp on twitter at sharp network i am currently a technical transformation lead for google cloud before that was a solutions engineer for vmware and then before that spent nine years as an enterprise network engineer i've also done a lot of work for small bars and integrators so um but but we're not going to add up all those years but anyway excited to be here and talk about women in network engineering hi everyone i'm micheline murphy and i'm on twitter at mishy fish murphy um currently i just took a new role so my current new role is as a pre-sales consulting systems engineer at wwt which is a cisco partner on the west coast or well uh st louis to the west coast um hoping to get larger before that i was an implementation engineer at cdw where i specialized in designing implementing troubleshooting cisco acid data centers and before that i was a trial lawyer for 15 years uh decided that was a little getting a little stale a little boring and decided to try something new um made the transition over the course of um i'd say about four or five years um and then now here i am and that sound means it's time for the wins winning in our discord channel this week is robin canella he passed the comptia project plus exam congratulations robin adil khan finished one off right before the end of the year the az700 which is the designing and implementing azure networking exam congratulations a deal bill murray passed the jncis service provider specialist exam congratulations bill and adam smith received an offer this is incredible adam received an offer for his first it networking job as a senior network engineer at a local municipality congratulations adam tata the automator did a collaborative giveaway with david bomble where they gave away over 600 copies of david's udemy courses which is a value of over 20 thousand dollars given to women in tech congratulations tata that is fantastic new patreon joining us this week is zhao munez thank you so much for your support of what we do here at the art of network engineering if you're interested in joining our patreon program and uh joining us every time we record an episode you can do so at patreon.com forward slash art of net end and we thank all of our listeners for your support and wish you a very happy new year welcome to 2022 now back to the show hey excited to be here tonight um all right well let's just dive into it uh y'all both have a lot more experience than i do in in the workplace with with network engineering specifically and um i mean how's it been as you know we're talking specifically you know about what is it like being a woman in network engineering which i guess really could apply to being a woman in tech in general right um what are you what have your experiences been you know what excuse me um what have your experiences been as as you know women over the years in different companies and moving back and forth how how is it you know has it been different at different companies has your experience as a woman been mostly the same um yeah i'll rate it on a scale of one to tons okay you know well i mean so i've had a great career first of all um and i've had lots of wonderful experiences i mean my entire career though i have almost always been the only woman in the room um but that was not necessarily something i was uncomfortable with i mean i i grew up within a farm family and my dad was a farmer and i was always interested in the stuff the men were talking about like i didn't want to be in the kitchen i didn't want to be cooking i wanted to be hanging out with the guys talking about farming stuff so that and i was a science math kid in school my favorite teachers were all men so i i was really comfortable with that um and i will say that there i've had some great advocates and guys throughout my career who've who've you know seen some ability there and encouraged me which has been wonderful i mean i have had some negative experiences um but but nothing like i've heard other people describe and i'm really grateful for that i've always been around enough advocates to kind of fill in that gap but i've also been pretty careful like if i got the creeps i would avoid certain individuals or you know just be really aware um especially when i was younger it's i mean i'm in my 40s now so i don't feel like it's such a big deal but um yeah i mean i was always careful at conferences and things like that but i'll say like my overall experience has been positive i mean we can we can tell a negative story or two but um i've had more trouble with leaders uh leadership than i have with like technical peers they've been wonderful for the most part that's interesting can do you mind if we dig into that um you don't have to get very well no i mean but um i mean i've had the experience so i was at a large healthcare company and there was one um senior director who i did not report up through him but any time we were on the call it was there would be times when it was like it was as if i was not speaking like at one point it was so obvious i had a colleague message me in the background and go i am so sorry he's behaving this way you know what i mean like it was obvious enough for somebody to to um to point it out i think i worked in an engineering firm a civil engineering firm when i was young and there was like an a guy he was he was older he was in his 60s and i was in my 20s and you know there's just creepy stuff but he never spoke to me unless just the two of us were in a room together like the copy room or something and then it would be like hey beautiful you know and and one time like i was standing in a counter and he walked up and put his hand on the smile on my back you know it was just creepy you know what i mean and so he was like he was then on my radar list like never gonna be in the building alone with this guy and gonna keep my distance because it was just uncomfortable now there was another guy there who joked around all the time and my last name is sharp so i'd walk in the room he'd be like where's a sharp woman but he joked all the time and he was that way whether people were in the room or were not in the room it was like his nature right which is very different than creepy dude who never acknowledges my presence except when nobody else is around like that was creepy touches you in a weird way yeah yeah yeah so you said he was on your radar after that you see you and you also mentioned earlier like being careful um i think we know what that means but for you know can you talk about that a little bit more like how have you been careful what so i i personally i don't drink anyway like that's just a choice my family makes um but like i would never like in a work situation be in a situation where i've intentionally limited my inhibitions or my cognitive ability like i just i just don't think that's safe and i think i've always uh try to have a safe person you know somebody you know you know their character you trust them like so if you're in a new situation to have somebody um another colleague there who you're like if i needed a ride or if somebody got really weird i could go to them and go hey could you walk me back to where and like you know at conferences i'm not going to stay out in the bar even not drinking until 11 pm right like i'm gonna go back to my room at 9 30. you know i am so curious about the conference experience that was something i wanted to ask about because i actually have not been to a conference yet like when i was always with great groups of people like at cisco live i've never had a problem cisco live yeah but i've always been really careful but you've been careful yeah right i the at the last cisco live that was in san diego i went out with some folks and we started out with a bunch of folks that uh you know they were all um all people in the same program that i was in so you know we started out at a dinner that we were being hosted for and um you know and eventually you know there was there's always there's always imbibing involved and i'm kind of like yvonne i'm always very i try to always be really socially aware i'm not gonna abstain i'll drink one drink you know just so that i have something in my hand but i'm you know especially in a strange town and i i don't know if you'll pardon the pun i don't know where all the exits are you know uh you know there's a there's a certain amount of hyper vigilance that that you know smart women um have to have that you know i've never seen my male peers have to worry about something like that um you know but i re i like distinctly remember i had gone out with some folks um went out with a guy that you know i would trust with my life uh went out with a couple of other women and the other women got really really drunk and so here we were in a strange city and you know he had left earlier and so it was just the three of us and so you know i was the only cerebral person around and i'm like fuck i gotta get everybody home you know and so it's two o'clock and i'm like walking all over you know san diego trying to get these these women home safely so um it's it's a thing that that you know um it's just one of those extra steps that women just have to do and you know and women have to watch out for each other you know when when you know you just you don't you don't see your male counterparts ever having to take all of these extra steps uh i remember a time i was um i was i was being shadowed on a call by a male peer of mine and and i was conducting the workshop so i was talking to the customer and whatnot and afterwards you know uh he he goes to me he goes miss you should just tell them what to do and you know how how do you tell another engineer a guy engineer who you know i could tell i could tell he just didn't have a clue i mean until until you've established yourself as a woman as an an expert you don't stand up in the front of the room and you just don't tell people what to do you have to kind of prove it first without it being assumed gently kind of push the customer you know and and persuade the customer that oh yeah this great idea that that i should really just tell you what to do was their idea in the first place and you know it's just another one of those examples that you know of how it's just more difficult i mean if i could if i had the authority to just tell him what to do you don't think i wouldn't do that i think not easy buddy like one of the things i've noticed in myself and it's a skill that i've developed which actually has has served me well at this point um is that i oh in my mind i only get so many words and so my words have to count like when i say something it has to be meaningful because if i say something that's flippant and gets me dismissed like that's not an opportunity that necessarily comes back around so like what kind of what do you mean by flippant sorry well i you know i guess i have just always wanted to be sure when i say something i know that i'm right and that it's going to be meaningful to the conversation that you know okay but because i don't i don't i don't want to misuse that opportunity and i can think of a few key times in my career when i first started at the healthcare company i was a contractor i wasn't even full-time and i've been there like three months and i hadn't said hardly anything i just kind of done my job kept my head down and at the time we had like the old vpn 3000 concentrators and we needed to set up landland tunnels on asa he's not done a ton of that well nobody who worked there had done that and so the boss was like we need somebody to figure this out i'm like oh i can do that and i knew i could do it and i'd done it before and i came in and i fixed a problem in a couple days that they thought it was going to take them a week to figure out because nobody done it they're going to have to learn it and uh and it was a huge credibility builder for me right it would have been very different if i'd have been like well i think i could figure that you know what i mean like speak up we've got something to say decisive and if you don't shut it and that would be i wish some of my dude friends knew how to do that that's a huge struggle for me because everything that comes out of my mouth is almost always self-deprecating and like i don't know i don't know what i'm doing even if i do maybe know more about what i'm doing because i'm so worried about you know looking like i don't know anything that i just get it try to get ahead of it uh this is in technical environments especially right like because i i still feel super new and you know when you when you you want to get ahead of it so you're just gonna tell people right away i don't really know what i'm doing even if that's not totally accurate and i've never heard a man do that not saying they don't do whatever but like i've never i mean so you know in the sales world like somebody's gonna you've got folks who play stunt the chump with everybody like you know what i mean like i'm gonna prove that i'm the smart as the you know sales engineer that i'm dealing with right and so i mean stump the jump is a is a game that technical people like to play so i don't think it's us um as women but i do think we've i have always felt a burden to earn respect that other people it's just assumed yeah i see that i mean and i had to tell you this this story um this is gonna stick with me until the day i die i this was just before i went away to college and uh my dad sent me sat me down one day and and uh he goes goes miss i i gotta tell you something he goes you know you're a young woman and you're you're chinese woman and you're never gonna have a level playing field and uh you're always going to have to be better and smarter and quicker in order just to get in the game and you know my my dad was really spare on advice and so when he gave it it it's always something that really just sticks with you that is damn it that's still true that advice that my dad gave me when i went away to college when i was 16 damn it that's still true and it makes me mad because when he gave it to me i was like no that can't be true that is so unfair you know i was like a hot i was a hot-headed teenager that then you know i'm a hot-headed not teenager now you know it still pisses me off that that is the way things are that as a woman as a as a a woman of color i'm always gonna have to be better than the boys that i'm always gonna have to be better faster than the boys and it's gonna always have to be you know higher just to be on the same field with them and you know now as a non-teenager you know it's it's something that i've accepted that it's just that's just the way things are um but you know it still makes me mad i'm like damn it how come that guy gets to be mediocre and he's got like confidence to spare and yeah you know what i i wish i i'm not saying i want to be just i i'm not saying i want to be mediocre necessarily but i want to be like i want it to be okay for anyone to be mediocre anyone and i i feel like i have i yes like i i only ever the few women that i've ever encountered in um you know this field i i i feel like every man who introduces like another woman to me is like really really excited about her and he's like she's kick-ass she's so cool because she can do all this stuff and it's great to like hear the support but i also get this it's this weird feeling of like okay but what if like there's a woman who's just like sort of okay at it just like just like a bunch of other men are can we just i'm so sorry i have this alarm keep going off god uh can we just have like permission to just be okay at our jobs like do we have to always be the kick ass empowering woman you know like that's and that's amazing and great um but i mean it's yeah we just have permission to be human it's really great to be kick-ass it's great to be recognized as being kick-ass but you know what i am but what what what gets my goat is that um is that you know you're you're you're so you're so alone sometimes or i'm so alone or maybe you know we all are so just that i feel like every time i get introduced to a new team i'm carrying like the entire weight of womanhood on my shoulder and i'm like jesus how strong do you think i must be that i can be the woman representative for everybody and you know why and it's just like what you said how come i just can't just just be mish that's a great way to put it and and and we i before i i've got so many ideas but i want to circle back to something michelin said real quick hooray for great dads yeah because most women that i have talked to and i i don't know lexi's background but most women that i have an awesome day okay i'll just say that okay so that's one two three four and i know another really excellent female engineer all of us have had strong dads that we admired i mean that's five out of five right that i know personally and i think if you want your girls to be strong be a great dad like that's that's an important thing to know like i had a i had a dad with such integrity i mean he didn't miss a day of work for 13 years he was a blue collar guy um but just you know not a lot of words but just a great dad and um it's a bit it's a big deal it's a big deal yeah i i don't know about y'all but my dad just told me all the time you can do whatever you want to do just do whatever you want to do just do it he didn't even really you know um anything anything i was interested in he he was willing to help me out with that he was really supportive and i think you're right yeah that means a lot so anyway and it gives you a good a good idea of uh yeah thanks dan thanks to all our dads you know i think it gives you good girls to hear that it's okay to go do xyz i mean yeah it's oh you know it's okay to go be in science it's okay to go be in engineering it's okay to go you know do computer science i had a experience you know and and you know just to kind of go with that whole you know you know being okay to go do those things when i was in i think i was a freshman in high school or maybe a sophomore um my school offered the very first uh programming language class basic oh my god basic um i was interested in it i wanna just try it i don't see what it was i so the class was really small there were 10 of us i was the only girl in the classroom the teacher didn't think that girls should coach so every time i asked a question i got ignored and oh my god no i got no help for any of the projects that we got set i got no time even though the class was small i mean it was 10. everybody had a computer we were all working on the same project right in the same room you know i got no face time with the teacher do you think i finished the class i didn't finish that class you know why would you yeah i'm like you know i'm smarter than that i'm not i don't want to waste this fool's time you know so that's why that's why i feel like you know having having that support from your you know mom dad whoever you know but we talked about dads earlier right like having i think there's something special about having a man and maybe like the most important man to you potentially like tell you you can do this they belong your voice you belong yeah yes you matter and whatever you want to do you can do because we girls need it later really badly because we have experiences like that um that's horrible okay so you just got ignored my folks my mom put me in a little local programming class when i was 10. like it was on apple to ease and we learned to write like basic loops right and then i had some really phenomenal science teachers um like my eighth grade science teacher was my best friend for a while like he was in his 70s it was bad um i didn't even realize it was a thing until i got to college so um i wanted to major in chemistry went to university of kentucky my mom was a teacher and she was like let's go over to the college of education and talk to them so i sit down i'm sitting across the desk from the dean of the college of education and we're talking i'm like well i'm thinking about majoring in chemistry and she's like it is so wonderful to see a young woman interested in the hard sciences and i was like huh like you know what i mean it was almost patronizing to me yeah and that was like my first glimmer that like huh and then i i switched over to computer science because i didn't want to do chemistry for a living um and uh and the only girl in most of my classes and like i had a work thing one day and so i was wearing a kind of a pant suit sort of a thing it was the 90s um and like i walked into class like with my hair fixed and no ponytail and and people almost did not recognize me it was so funny like but it was when i wasn't in my sweats in my ponytail it was like it was very clear that i was different than everybody else you know what i mean like it was like it was it was it was just a moment that i remember like oh one of these things is not like the other yeah yeah and you get a lot of weird attention to when that that difference gets emphasized right yeah well i mean i think that that difference can if you're savvy you can use that difference to good effect and set yourself apart and i mean there's no way that anything you say or do or you know any project that you complete successfully is ever going to erase the fact that you're a woman so you might as well own it right and you know uh i if if if the way that you know customers remember me is oh that woman engineer from that you know from the aci team you know she was awesome i'm okay with that you know i i want you to remember me and and remember that i was awesome and if the way for you to remember who i was is that i was the only damn woman on that team in the first place okay okay you know and it's kind of like you know it's kind of like taking these challenges that we've been given as women and just turning them on their head and then and then and then you know taking whatever advantage you can out of it um you know and it and it and it's really not you know just the in tech i mean i've had challenges as a woman lawyer like my entire life you know yeah you had a whole other career project and and you know what you want to talk about a scenario where you stand up in front of the room and you have to be able to command authority and you don't know these people from adam right you just picked them out of the jury pool you know they're like these are the dumb people who couldn't get out of jury service you know um and and you have to be able to tell them how to think about this case and and and they have to say oh okay um you know so in terms of that ability to command that authority you know it's been you know a trial in the end pardon the plan it's been a trial my entire career you know do you feel like that trial lawyer background beginning you know got you ready for dealing with it in tech or it was just like being a network compared to there are there are there are maybe a lot more women lawyers at least in their the you know in in the county i practice in and in the practice area that i practice in there are a lot more women i think that tech recognizes its problem more than the law does so you know there's there are very few women who who make it to be partners or managers or you know um a little bit more so maybe now judges um you know there are very few women lawyers who get it get up into the highest echelons of the law um you know take a look at the supreme court i mean there's what there's there's not there's nine seats and there's what two three two women two three women now on it so you know women are 50 of the population so you know we're still missing two women that's one that's really interesting you know you brought up a good point like tech tech is aware that it has a problem right it's aware but you know if what's being done about that problem is another question but it is fairly self-aware in that regard and here's my point about what needs to get done i mean the tech industry was being built by a bunch of dudes you know there there there are women contributions to tech that are embedded in its history that have disappeared because of all of the you know all of the guys who have come in the past in the future um the problem with the tech industry and its gender disparity was built by men so men have to participate in the solution so they made this problem they need to you know put on their their big girl panties and you know start working the salute working the problem so you know we've got a bunch of smart guys here um you know yeah it's a problem there yeah there's a lot of men who care about it right yeah there's a lot there are a lot of men who are supportive and care about it case in point we're here tonight right and so you know it's i i think you know something like this giving giving your platform you know giving people a platform to speak giving wimps or giving women a platform to speak um you know i've i've always said like i have this i have on my twitter profile i've had this tweet pinned up one of my like first tweets like you know i've had it pinned there forever because i feel like it just it is it is the question that i've had forever and it's like how do we get more women into network engineering basically and i've got so many responses from men on there and they vary from like very supportive and thoughtful and like you know maybe we need to maybe we need to have more women making making content for network engineers maybe we need to have you know more programs for girls specifically geared towards network engineering and then we get the comments like well maybe women should try harder or like maybe women need to not expect handouts or something that was my one of them so i leave that up there because every once in a while somebody looks at my profile decides they want to they want to answer and it's really interesting hearing because it's almost always a man like most of the con there are some from women which are all helpful but many of them are most of them are from men and and they're just like you know it's an interesting mix of people but i think that there are men who who care right very much and but they don't know really where to start so sometimes i like to say like hey you can do little things in your workplace like if a woman's talking in a meeting you know this doesn't have to be a tech this could be any any career field right like if a woman's trying to talk in a meeting and no one's listening to her maybe you should command your presence in the room and bring everyone's attention back to her you know um that might feel patronizing in the moment but like you know you have to be an ally in some form or fashion you got to try right because a lot of men say they care but they don't really do a whole lot about it and they just sort of talk about and don't do anything and you're right they have to participate actively you've got to try you've got to put yourself out there and listen to women but be active about it too right and i think the things that i've appreciated the most is when a colleague who i've worked together on a project with acknowledges my part of it right well you know stands up is like well i did this part yvonne did this or these were her ideas or she had the idea to or you know what i mean like acknowledgement of um and and honestly um the culture where i'm at now in google cloud in my particular team that's been wonderful and honestly it's been so wonderful it was startling to me like uh that somebody was like hey yvonne did this thing and it was really good you know i mean um not not that i haven't had people advocate in the past but it was so intentional where i am now so i think you know like you know if she does and and not and i'm not saying say she's exceptional when she's not but if she had an idea and you should do this with anybody who has an idea right like right give them credit for it right and and support um you know it just that builds everybody up and it's going to make the team better but for me i've deeply appreciated or you know if you're meeting with an executive and working with her on a project and she's made a real contribution bring her into the meeting i had people do that for me yeah um and and because sh she may need that like transitive trust that you can provide right um she may not be able to get that great term yeah transitive trust that's a that's a great term did you make that up i love it no i hope i got it right i was like i think it's i think that's what even if you didn't i love it yeah yeah transitive trust so i trust you because somebody i trust trusts you right okay yeah yeah um that's a that's a really really great i think that's like a solid example of what someone can do i i love i love your example ivan especially you know because we were talking earlier about how how how often it is where we're we're in a room and we're having a conversation and we're being talked over or you know our what we've contributed to the conversation is not being uh acknowledged and that situation is such a vulnerability that someone just someone this artist could just come scoop in there and take whatever we've just we've put on the table to con that we've contributed earnestly to the conversation and say look at what i just did and you know rooster up and and say you know call and and and and to have colleagues who have that kind of integrity to say oh no no that idea belonged a mish or that idea belonged to lexi or yvonne you know um is important and i think that's an indicator of um a more healthy working environment and i think that one of the things that really gives me hope uh and this is the um this is the old union lawyer in me uh talking about the the great resignation and this this this this this flux that we've had this year of companies not being able to find the talent that they want you know and or not being able to retain the talent that they need i can't tell you i've had like so many customers who are who are finding themselves in a pickle because all of a sudden they're aci yeah talent their aci engineers like matt i found something new i'm out of here two weeks see ya you know um so you know that kind of atmosphere work where companies are really thinking hard about how they retain the you know the smarts that they need to retain really should be looking carefully at what does their culture look like how are they treating the women engineers that they have or how are they going to attract or retain women engineers you know because the market is so competitive now that it's you know it's a really good time to push change and you know i just went through uh you know an interview process for myself recently and i flat out asked the hiring manager i'm like look you know i have a social media presence i have a lot of women engineers who who who i talk to you know as a as a woman engineer and a lot of women engineers who you know look to me and i would like to be associated with a company i need to be associated with a company that i would be proud of saying as a woman you would you would be treated well to work here and i said how do you respond to that that is a need i have you are so much brave yeah me too i am so afraid to ask that question i well you know i was sitting on a job i already had and i'm like you had all the cards yeah i'm like i have you know but i think it's very important to ask those questions how you know how is it because as a woman and i ought to be you know real truthful with you you know this is my third career uh i don't got time to be i don't have time i don't have energy i'm like old and tired now and you know if i got to play those stupid ass sexist games you know i'm gonna be leaving real quick so i don't wanna have time one of the things um i wanted to just circle back to that occurred to me as michelin was talking is that you may find yourself in a situation where you realize that a woman is being talked over or talked down to or there's just something not okay going on and you're like why doesn't she stand up one thing that you need to understand is sometimes she can't because if she does she gets bitch stamped on her forehead and then she loses credibility so there are situations where she's doing a social calculus about whether or not she's in an environment that's safe enough for her to push back and you may have no idea whether it's an environment that's safe enough for her to push back because you're not living it every day and i and that's not necessarily even a slight to you if you're a dude working in tech but understand that sometimes women need somebody else to advocate for them from a position of safety and strength um that's and that's totally true i mean you know and it's going to go so much further if you're like if i unfinish your thought and you don't have to be a jerk about it but just like or uh the girl in the meeting says something and then some dude who never works who heard a good idea is like oh you know what i think we should and it's what the lady just said go oh yes yvonne just said that i mean it doesn't take a lot and it doesn't even need to be confrontational but yeah that's what it is to advocate it's not you know coming in ready to fight it's just acknowledging yeah yeah i i think a lot of people might be a lot of men i'm guessing may be overwhelmed by the by the you know at the thought of being an ally an advocate because it sounds like it could take up a lot of energy and emotions but but you're not just like yvonne said it's it's not it doesn't take a whole lot really especially man to man-to-man type of conversation or type of interaction if you're a man telling another man oh yeah yvonne just said that if yvonne had a great point yvonne can you repeat that sorry some people may not have heard or something like that like it that's all it takes that's all it takes um and i mean i think that there are a lot of different levels of it of of of being supportive and i i my two bits is that you know if you're gonna be supportive you know pick where you are on the spectrum where you where you start out and then move up you know it's great if you're in a meeting and i'm i'm and i'm getting ignored and you're like oh yeah miss just said that that's a that was a great idea um but don't stick there forever and you know um you know because at some point like you know i think you know i've heard a lot of stories i have never actually been in a situation um but i've heard a lot of horror stories where you know sitting in a meeting and someone just says something flat out inappropriate in the meeting you know and everybody's sitting around going did he really just say that and no one and no one called it and no one says anything and you know it takes i want to be i'm going to real straightforward take some real courage to to step into that silence and say dude that was totally inappropriate but that unanswered can do a lot of harm can be a you know can be just as bad as if he if that you know inappropriate was just i crawled across the table and stabbed you in the in in the heart you know um yeah it is there are just some things where you know you just got a step and what my i i always i mean i always struggle with this i i love it when you know to to encourage people to be you know step up and and and give a prop appropriate um you know credit where credit is due um but it bothers me when that's all they do um because you know that's not i mean that's a great start i'm really glad you're in that but you you can't rest on that the toughest part for me is um like recognizing that that inappropriate thing has happened and then getting over the shock of it because honestly i i think i would i like to say this i've never heard something super inappropriate in a meeting in front of everyone i like to think i'm the kind of person who'd be like all right what the fuck but but i i do understand like the shock of like someone saying something like that because it doesn't happen often i'm guessing at like decent places um that can be difficult but you're right like you kind of have to push through that because stuff happens and you gotta yeah well and and i've got one more horror story and then we're gonna start being more positive um but i had a situation once where a different senior director and this was a company that i loved working for and my boss was amazing um but like i was my senior director kept bugging one of our our sales engineers for shirts they never get a shirt like come on get his shirts and so he was talking to the senior director i stuck my head in the door i'm like hey when are we gonna get our shirts and no joke my senior director made a quip that involved me not having a shirt ooh in front of a vendor that i didn't grow no and i mean i got i turned red i'm turning red now i had to leave the room you know what i mean and like i tried so hard to let it go like i tried to let it go and i couldn't and so a few days later i walked into his office and said we need to talk you know a couple days ago you said this thing and it made me really uncomfortable like i don't want anything to be weird i don't want it to go beyond this but you need to know you said this thing and it made me really uncomfortable and then he left me alone which is fine um but then i went to my boss who i really trusted who i had a great relationship with um and i said look this is everything that went down this is what he said i went back and i said this to him i don't want you to do anything but i want you to know in case there's a change in attitude toward me right um and so on one hand yes i'm saying dude sometimes you need to step up but understand that a lot of times like we have to have those very frank direct conversations ourselves like you said it's social calculus basically like you have to weigh the pros and the cons and you know like sometimes you're thinking like okay the weight if i don't speak up then all the other women who come after me or something may not you know me they may have to deal with this too so i kind of have a responsibility but then it's like well but what about me and like i have to take care of myself and what if there's retaliation yeah i'm not gonna and i knew the power so much i had been there several years i knew i had credibility with leadership around that guy i knew that he'd had issues with hr in the past so he was really like he really didn't want to go there again right like there are all these things and so it felt like i could go because of a great guy just a great dude and you know i he's a husband and a dad and i don't know that you know i'm not gonna say he's a horrible person it does not freak sorry i'm gonna i apologize better to say what he said husbands and dads do this shit all the time that does not preclude you can have a daughter and that doesn't mean shit i'm sorry if you have a daughter that doesn't mean you can't be sexist or gross to the women in your office sorry i'm not yelling at you i hear men say this all the time it's like well i have a daughter myself so i would never i don't give a fuck if you have a daughter that doesn't mean that doesn't mean you're a good guy it doesn't mean you just treated me appropriately right because i'm not your daughter so you know i'm sorry i have a daughter as an excuse and it doesn't fly in in court so i have a daughter so i would never you know xyz you know charge one charge two charge three um yeah uh yeah you know and i said all that really told that story to kind of say think about the jokes you tell the movies you talk about the the the um you know all the team getting together going to lunch those conversations right you know i mean the the what what and i'm in the south we use phrases like mixed company which is a very old concept but anyway you know like it's not an old friends i i don't i don't know i feel like it's very southern is it gender role kind of oh it's like this company is like you know men and women together like there's things that are okay for guys i didn't realize that yeah anyway sorry interesting okay and um but you know we couldn't tell yavon but you know like it's not okay to talk about you know how hot the chick was in the movie or get detailed about your date last night or you know whatever it is like those are just not work appropriate conversations and when a woman hit a lot of those it's she may play it off and you may be like oh yeah but she's cool stop it right she's not okay with it because she has a job to do and she wants a relationship with her peers so she's acting cool because she's not going to be a jerk in every single conversation and tell you to shut up but like and while we're on this topic you you said no horror story no more horoscope but i wouldn't no it's okay i i understand uh we're talking about it quite a bit but i just there's one thing we haven't completely touched on yet that i think we need to and that is hitting on your female co-workers so like specifically we've sort of talked about jokes but um that's a big problem i think there's a lot of people in the chat i am seeing the chat by the way guys i'm sorry but there's a lot of people in the chat talking about you know we have fathers who are like you know i want to raise my boys right i want to make sure they don't do this kind of stuff when they grow up and i'm not a parent so i can't you know speak to specific like parenting techniques or anything but i just say like please start out if if you are willing to take a suggestion from me please start out with teaching boy your boys the idea of consent um in some form or fashion right like um don't hug the you know if your child is really young you know and he wants to hug anybody it doesn't have to be a little girl but anybody you know if he wants to hug someone and that person that child doesn't want to hug him back tell him you know don't don't hug her she doesn't want to hug you and that's okay right um you know things like that because i remember being a girl and thinking this is problematic when i was very young is like you know that little boy has a crush on you go hug him he wants to hug you and i didn't want to hug him right like just think about that yeah so but i think it starts in that sort of way teacher teach your boys their whole lives not to be like to respect other people's personal space that includes whoever they're attracted to right um well the other thing that's at a certain point yeah go ahead i was gonna say the other thing too is is that you know in the context of the conversation we're having which is that we're we're all network engineers you know that's a job you know i am showing up to work so i can get my paycheck i'm not here to get hit on same as you you know i am not here to get hit on i am here to give you advice about your routing protocols or your data center or you know let's talk about you know nx os versus you know aci versus vxlan open source but you know what if you want to talk about the size of my tits or you know am i free on friday go with yourself you know and let me go talk to my boss because i mean you know i've been married i got married really young so that was never an issue for me like i was uh you never had people hit on you even though you were married i feel like that does not stop that doesn't stop men sometimes uh that makes me but i mean i just was like you just don't flirt you don't like they're just again you be careful you know what i mean like you gotta be there's the social there's the social calculus though right because um you know if you're nice to your new you're new at a job for example and and you're new to maybe the career field and you know you're just being nice to everybody because you want to be friendly they're your co-workers and you're trying to learn and you might be needing to learn from them um that can just being nice and friendly to people as well not fucking be mrs yeah that's not flirting right that does not mean you know if i've had a man just completely assume that i'm interested in him then find out that i'm not available and then have a mental break a self-described mental breakdown about it and then just completely ruin my work experience um so you know you teach your boys not to do that maybe and also like just keep in mind you know women women are there to do a job and even if even if she is single even if she is looking for a man it's not the end of the world if it's if it's not you and it like you're her co-worker worker right like you don't have to ask her out like just move on just go somewhere else right i don't know i think that's the safest option i i i don't like being hit on at work i'm sure they're you know there are women who would be okay with it if it's someone they're interested in but it's just such a weird tricky terrain just maybe don't do it like default to not doing it you can't lose you know so so the analogy i use is that you know if if you and i'm talking to a male co-worker would would have trouble if eric hit on you why the fuck do you think i'm not going to have trouble if you hit on me you know the workplace is the for me the workplace is the workplace i am here to work not find a date not get flirty with anybody not you know not get sexy with anybody not to hook up none of that shit happens at work that's not what they're paying me to do so um i don't understand why guys just can't keep that out of the workplace and especially true for for women in network engineering yeah they're there because they're interested in the craft you know what i mean they're not they didn't choose this career because there's so many women they're looking for a man you know um so yeah i mean and that's a yeah yeah that's a hard one no one picks a major like oh yeah there's there's almost no women in that major i you know there's almost no women in computer science i'm gonna go major in that like are you kidding me it's it's 20 21. you know so i one of the things we we've got in the notes um that i've always and honestly even about this podcast i've always been reluctant to be the person carrying the flag for women in tech like i wanted to be an engineer and i wanted to have conversations about engineering and i wanted to be technical because there's only so much bandwidth you have and only so many like causes you can give yourself to and i didn't want to be the woman who talks about being a woman all the time right that's a tough one and a tough one didn't i just say it about having to carry womanhood yeah basically exactly what's up with that you know uh you know i've been i haven't i've yet to be on a team where i'm i'm not the only woman yeah you know if i fail does that mean that like everybody else on my team are like oh you know those women engineers they're so sketchy you shouldn't have a woman engineer it's a lot of pressure i don't need that nobody needs that you know like like we were talking about before it should be okay to be just okay you know at your job like it's great to be kick ass a lot of women are but like it's okay if if for not i had a really really cool boss who was who was like mish failure is a part of life at some point in time if you are if you were doing the job you will fail you know when that of inevitability happens you know uh i don't want to be extra burdened with the with all of these conceptions of oh you know women engineers just aren't up to snuff because mich failed at x i'm like damn it that's not fair i mean you don't do that when eric fails why should you do that when i fail you know um and and that's that's that that's the remnant of that fiery you know hot-headed teenager saying damn it the world should be more fair you know well and something that i struggled with a lot i think i'm finally starting to get over it um but especially when i started getting brought into the social media conversations like when i was invited to be on packet pushers when i was invited to pr participate in tech field day and they are wonderful those are wonderful organizations and they did a lot for me in my career um have nothing negative to say but internally i was always had that well it they picked me because i'm a woman and like if i were a dude with my skills would i have been selected right i mean that was a struggle for me to you know and and on one hand i'm like well i'm here so i'm gonna make the best of it but at the same time there was this internal i don't know if it's imposter syndrome i don't know what that is but like am i here just because they needed a woman um because if you look at most the delegate pools there's one sometimes two women yeah um and and it's like well they just they just needed a woman and like i said i think i'm getting over that um but that was a real concern that am i am i am i just here as a as a token as opposed to being a valid contributor that has something and that one's hard that one's hard to address too because you know of course people want to include women and we want them to trying to do better right yeah exactly that's that's a sword so we can it can only what i'm saying is i guess i think probably we can only solve it with time and more and more women coming into the field because then that results in you know panels with more women than men sometimes and you know like it's a little bit more normalized but right now it just it's kind of this weird side effect of of you know not very many women in the fields and if you get the opportunity take it like absolutely right those are those are great things um but just it was always like an internal struggle of mine you know that reminds me just real quick i had an interview once upon a time where um it was clear that i was not the right person for the job like very early in and the rest of the conversation was really awkward because we were trying to fill i guess the interviewer was trying to feel like you know 30 minutes at least um but one of the things that he said to me um what like towards the end was oh you're so lucky to be a woman everyone is looking for women everyone's trying to hire women and it i'm sure he didn't mean it too terribly but like it was but it was shitty it made me feel really shitty yeah like i don't know who you are i just want and it's just another one he's saying like well you suck but you're lucky because you're a woman so you'll get hired you know he's like you suck at your job but someone will hire you you know like that yeah that feels i mean that's just another form of objectification though i mean we always talk about oh you look at that you know you know whatever you know whatever movie and and you cast that woman only just because she's got big tits and a great ass you know and she has no speaking lines and she feels no purpose in the plot but you know there she is um i don't want to be that woman you know i don't want to be that woman on any engineering team and if that's what you're going to hire me well four four then you know f that because thank you next you know yeah yeah exactly thank you next um yeah you know i'm glad yeah i'm i'm glad when we hear that stuff though from people like i'm glad i heard that from that interviewer because you know it made me feel better about really bombing that interview is like i don't want to work there anyway so really glad i couldn't answer your bgp questions man you know whatever exactly but i think that you know it's and i struggle with this you know like i said i've i've reinvented myself three times i have always struggled with um being confident about my own skills yep you know about being confident enough to say i know that i don't have to go google that for affirmation i can just say that in the room i know that the answer to that question all right you know and it's something that i don't know if it's as a woman or if it's as me personally or you know uh you know as a lawyer that that that facade of confidence is something that's a requirement i mean you you know you're gonna suck as a lawyer if you can't emanate some kind of confidence in the courtroom uh but that doesn't mean you have to feel that i mean it it could be just as phony as an actor you know playing a role um so i've i've struggled you know about just being able to embrace that and and this this is my third time around as a career you know i'm i i i was really intentional about okay i know what skills i have and i know how strong they are and and trying to internalize you know that confidence and i'm okay with saying okay you know what i don't know shit about collab or i don't you know i'm going to have to get back to you on that um it's being confident in what you know and you don't know but you know you've got an aci question and i'm telling you it's not going to work that way and i may not just stand up in the room and just tell you what to do because you know that woman thing but you know but god damn you know i know i'm right yeah so yeah well we've talked about the challenges and some of the things that men have done that frustrate us um why don't we talk about you know pivot a little bit into like what yeah it's sort of sort of that feeling a sense of like okay what can men do but also like what have we specifically experienced that has helped us along um from men or other women even you know helping help supporting us in our careers and in this field i mean i'll i have uh you know at ibm there is somebody who mentored me for a long time and he was just amazing i mean he i consider him a a close friend now um he just one day you know i expressed a little bit of interest and i think python and he was like yeah let's let's have a session and he just he just you know we had a webex and we talked for three hours about python and he gave me an introduction to it and he you know ever since then we've just been on and off talking about different things he'd always if i had a question sit down with me and go over it it it you know it just just the best kind of working relationship i i've ever had was you know this mentorship because there was never any never any mention of like you're a woman so i'm specifically mentoring you because i think more women should be in the field no it was just sort of and maybe that's the reason why or maybe that contributed but he didn't say it and i didn't really care because he was nice he was he was kind and he was helping me um without being weird somehow that's really difficult for some men but you know so mentoring a woman in in your field not specifically necessarily just because she's a woman but if she expressed interest that's something you can do as a man in a professional environment that is appropriate acceptable and very supportive and you it doesn't i mean mentoring does take a lot of energy and time i know that but if you have the mental space for it and you're ready to go like if there's a woman who looks a little curious about something you can at least ask like hey do you want to know more about that and if she if she misinterprets it and doesn't like it and thinks you're being creepy just let it go and and leave her alone right but if she's interested and she wants to engage with you do it you know i got to tell you you know um and here's my contrast having gone from different fields when i got into network engineering of course you know you know i started out and i started i started reading books and you know going online and things like that and of course the inevitable question comes up because you know you can't get like a hundred percent of anything from like just a document um so you know i started asking questions there are some incredibly generous kind smart people out there who are you know so free with their their time and energy in tech it i think it is one of the biggest strengths of the industry that if you take some time to to stretch around and find the right place you will find some incredible people who will literally spend hours with you and will be just as excited when you get the concept as if they got it themselves uh you know i remember when i first started out i was having a question and i was trying to figure this concept out and and i was on um is actually the cisco learning network and i was i was i was posting back and forth which is a kind of an awkward medium and the person i was posting with ironically happened to be another woman so that was actually really really cool and we were going back and forth in these posts with this big delay and finally she just said i'm going to call you you know she didn't know me from adam i did not know her she was going to help me with this understand this problem i found out on that call she was calling me from the middle east somewhere and now i'm in the pacific northwest in the united states so she's got to be like nine time zones away and is that she took the time to call me and talk me through this problem that i was working on you know to this day it still sticks with me i mean that people in this field you know are that generous with their time and with their with their their with their own brain trust and so that is i mean that's an incredibly awesome thing so you know and and again it was a situation where it didn't matter that i was a woman obviously because you know she was a woman too so all cool you know but i've had i've had guys who've been like you know in europe and they're like hey let me just i have that config do you just want me to email it to you you know so you know if you look around there there's a lot of hope for me there's a lot of hope there's a lot to be proud about this community that it's general that it's generous like that you know you you just kind of got a step or something you just got to step around those you know um those those bad apples and and you know um i'm kind of the opinion that bad apples will make the whole barrel go bad um you know so you gotta identify them and kick them out but you know there's a there is a lot of the barrel in it that is worth saving and is and is worth keeping in mind so uh that that's my two bits yeah i'm i i really echo that like most the vast majority of my experiences have been positive people been decent and helpful there are a couple folks in particular who have been advocates as long as i've worked for them help me get jobs help me get visibility inside an organization um who've amplified my voice um and uh and and that's been great and i feel like specifically the networking community is great about that um so you know i mean there are like hardships and there are challenges um but but it's like i said at the beginning like at the end of the day it's it's been great for me it's been great for my career it's been great for my family um and and i've enjoyed the vast majority of it um and it far outweighs um the negative and you know i have had some difficult experiences they've not all been because i'm a woman some of it's been i was in an organization with just a horribly broken culture some of it was i was paired with people who there were just personality clashes that didn't work and i don't believe that those were gender specific because i know people of other genders who had similar issues um you know what i mean so i mean life is struggle you know for everybody at one time or another but um there's just been a lot a lot a lot a lot of good so i like and i i think that yvonne i think you bring up a really good good point you know for myself and i think that i speak for for you know most if not all women engineers i i don't the big mantle i know shit there i go again i'm joking i'm sorry um you know i i'm so sorry i'm gonna throw you off i'm just joking with you please please you know every problem is not because you're a woman yeah right i don't want that yeah exactly that's exactly i just at the end of the day we're engineers right i just want to be another engineer yeah exactly the other day i just want to be recognized as another engineer i want to be a part of the solution and not a part of the problem and i don't you know i just want to be valued for what i can bring to the table you know in terms of my skills and in terms of the you know the solutions that i offer um or maybe the perspective that i give on you know working a problem uh if i could leave my skirt at the door and not have it be like some sexist joke and come into the room and just be you know another engineer i would do that i would do that in a split second you know and yeah you know it's it's i i'm not recommending you do this because the world's very different when this happened but i mean for me i always felt like when i reached the one of the guys sort of status like that was a good thing um because it meant i was a peer um but i get also how that may not be a moniker that every woman would appreciate you know what i'm saying so i i don't recommend you ever telling a female peer that like she's just like one of the guys because depending on her background and her life experience that may not be received well that may not be the compliment you want it to be right yeah but for me 20 years ago it was like okay um you know we're peers and that's that's what i want i want to be a peer with uh yeah yeah in the chat why not pure or equal um being treated that way is really what you want right like saying that to someone maybe not the right words but treating them that way yeah i i don't i don't want to be treated especially because i'm a woman yep i don't want to be treated especially because i'm not white you know i i want to be i want to be like i said i want to be part of the solution that we're working on uh you know and i don't want i just don't want to be weird yeah i don't want to be weird i'm like weird guys don't make it weird summarize this whole conversation don't be weird don't make it weird don't make it weird can we get that on like a bumper sticker that's the top top sticker andy andy that's the title of the episode don't make it weird don't make it weird you know yeah i hesitate to say it on a shirt because depending on where you place it you know don't even get me started about it yeah exactly yeah ladies cut t's people ladies oh for f's sake can i just say how many the vendor swag bender swag i'm like do i look like a box no t-shirts no t-shirts if you've learned anything tonight ladies cut tease benders the sleeves are too long uh man i think that's a great place to actually sort of start wrapping up tonight now that we're there um is there anything else you all want to say i feel like we've said a lot of stuff and i feel good but is there anything else you all want to say about you know what men can do how to not make it weird um besides the t-shirts thing anything else we haven't touched on that you want to end with or i mean i think so if you've made it to the end of this conversation thank you but but i do think the whole you know like women that i know that do this for a living they really do just want to be peers they want to be treated like you know just another colleague and they want to make a contribution and they want um they they kind of want the same things um well they don't work to work yeah they want the network to work they want to be great at their jobs um they don't want to hear or talk or think about sex at work you know i mean really it's pretty simple you know yeah i'm going to agree with you on that i'm like we're here to do a job we're here to make the network work we'll make we're here to make the packets go and don't ask me if i want dinner with you you know unless it's like a team thing yeah invite me to that you know don't do it you know it's just the guys no team building yes yeah date no yeah yeah okay well thanks everybody for joining us tonight this has been a great conversation i've had so much fun with y'all thank you yvonne and michelin this has been wonderful so i think we're ready to end it there bye hey everyone this is aj if you like what you heard today then make sure you subscribe to our podcast and your favorite podcatcher smash that bell icon to get notified of all of our future episodes also follow us on twitter and instagram we are at art of net edge that's art of n-e-t-e-n-g you can also find us on the web at artoofnetworkengineering.com where we post all of our show notes you can read blog articles from the co-hosts and guests and also a lot more news and info from the networking world thanks for listening you