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Home > Archive > IT career women > February 2003 > IT career woman's typical biography is?
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IT career woman's typical biography is?
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| deckeryan 2002-09-22, 9:35 am |
| I accepted that I really liked machines about 3 years ago, bought my first pc (MAC user and Chinese language and literature teacher before that), took a PC service and support class, took the summer off to deal with the death of my husband, took a W2K class, and walked into a job at the school in my own town (something or someone was looking out for me that day). Loving my job, raising my two kids and trying to get my MCSE before I turn 50. Three tests to go.
Also, not surprisingly, dealing with being the only "lady" in my IT group. One user used to refer to me as "that woman," as in "that woman was here working on my computer." Am amused at how middle-aged men obsess about their weight and learning what does or doesn't constitute an insult and acceptable behavior in the guy world. Verbal stuff is okay, but political innuendos of the nonverbal can catch you offguard. Had a tough time recovering from a complete misreading of my motives once (was trying to take on the physical grunt work of a move since my peer worker hates it and my network manager is overworked -- turned out the latter thought I wasn't keeping him informed of significant changes in the network. Ouch.) And you? | |
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| Learn from mistake or mis-communciation or ... Don't let it get you.
As long as you doing the job right.
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| loopbacklady 2002-10-16, 9:16 am |
| I get overwhelmed with the task of studying, training, and trying to find my career track at age 44, when most of my friends are discussing early retirement. My husband always had the good job, and I stayed at home with our kids and did artwork and signpainting.
Then my husband had a back injury that prevents him from working. Wow, do things change. I had only my high school diploma and some talent for art, and could not find a job. I struggled with the decision of technical school or college, chose vo-tech because I thought it would prepare me for a job quicker.
I started with business tech for 2 semesters, and then went on to information tech, and am totally wrapped up in it. I would much rather hook up someone's computer than to answer a phone and type all day.
Little did my daughter know what she was starting when she gave me my first computer 4 years ago!
And when I read of the strength of women like the first post above, I am inspired! | |
| Leisha 2002-10-20, 8:20 am |
| Hey, nice to know there are other career changers out there. I followed my military husband around for years, raising children and having to start over in the workplace every four years. I was an office administrator for the last five years when we moved again. This time I said "No way will I start over again". I loved working with the computers at my office jobs and have a technical background as well (ex-military) and knew that this was something that I could do. The one thing I really love about IT is the fact that there's always more to learn....it's never boring. I was very fortunate to get my first IT job right out of school and have been there now for five months. I've learned an amazing amount but since I was also hired on my bookkeeping and admin background I have to constantly fight to make sure I get to do the tech stuff too. I've made it very clear to my boss that I DO NOT intend to sit at a desk and he's been very receptive. Good luck to all you out there but don't forget that the skills you already possess will sometimes push you ahead of the other people vying for the same job. | |
| vdorsey 2002-11-06, 1:07 pm |
| It's great to know that women are doing what some constitute as a "Man's Job". I've been in the IT business for about 4 years now working as a Network Administrator. I got sold with a company that did not have an Administrator, and I can't say the exprience hasn't been overwhelming at times, but I love it. I started out programming in VB, but love the technical/network much better. I'm getting older and want to continue working in this field.
Good luck to all of you on your adventures in IT. | |
| MaulerJ 2002-11-08, 12:04 pm |
| Bravo, am so proud to "know" women are doing this, Screeeech.. I have been in Telecom for some time, now, and would like to stay home and spend a year off with my son doing the "Womans job" (just kidding) a parents job. It is always a challenge working with others, but you young ladies making this field a career is awesome, hope you folks love it the way I do.. Good Luck | |
| loopbacklady 2002-11-08, 8:00 pm |
| MaulerJ, you may need to shine up your skills in "political correctness", as it may not always be good to assume that women in IT are young or are ladies...
I, myself, fall into neither category, and don't like it wagged in my face, intentional or otherwise. Are you a sweet young thing, all full of testerone????? See how it goes? You may not mean to be derogatory, but we, as women, take it as such. Dig? It's just the nature of the BEAST. | |
| MaulerJ 2002-11-10, 12:03 am |
| I never never meant anything with bad intentions,(at least not to you folks) I meant only to say, this is a great field, and I am glad to see more women moving into it. As a former military person, I have had to work with every walk of life male, female, heck even some you can't tell, lazy, hard workers, brains, brainless.....
Getting carried away, I was just trying to get some feedback from you guys/gals (sheesh being PC is hard) on thoughts about a man staying home with the kiddos, while the wife is out earning the bread.
P.S. Loopbacklady, are you my wife, cause each time you write back, you always seem to be on my a$$, LOL, | |
| loopbacklady 2002-11-10, 7:26 am |
| MaulerJ, my humblest apologies.
I guess it's my nature to pick on nice fellas, cause the nice ones won't get vicious.
Sorry.
(where's that thread about hangovers, anyway? I got one to rate today!  ) | |
| Leisha 2002-11-10, 7:36 am |
| From one ex-military person to another (that's right...armament) I too have had to work with a whole hockey sock full of "interesting" people. And, as you've pointed out, laziness has no gender barrier. However, what I know about a woman working in a non-traditional field (lots of experience there) is that me as a woman have had to work twice as hard to be half as good (that's in other people's eyes). It would be the same as if you were to stay home to mind the children....anytime they went to school looking a little unkept, it would be "because their mom works you know". Believe me, we get it coming and going. But, that's ok....I love what I'm doing. All I meant is that I'm not a girlie girl (and that designation is in my mind only), never will be and never have been and I'm proud of it!!!! | |
| MaulerJ 2002-11-10, 4:33 pm |
| LOL, I completely understand, I married a HOAH HOAH woman ROTC, who joined the Army to jump from helicopters. | |
| Leisha 2002-11-10, 4:54 pm |
| She sounds like my kind of girl! | |
| enforcer 2002-11-12, 6:27 am |
| quote:
Originally posted by MaulerJ
LOL, I completely understand, I married a HOAH HOAH woman ROTC, who joined the Army to jump from helicopters.
You married a woman who joined the army to jump FROM choppers? mmmmmmmmm interesting, very interesting, now what kind of innuendo can i use here? | |
| Bingram 2002-11-12, 12:46 pm |
| quote:
Originally posted by deckeryan
Also, not surprisingly, dealing with being the only "lady" in my IT group. One user used to refer to me as "that woman," as in "that woman was here working on my computer."
How about arriving at a client's buisness, introducing yourself as, "me, the network admin." And then listening to everyone call you the "computer guy" or "computer gal" as the case may be.
All too often, in our short attention span world, people catagorize us all as "geeks" and with their limited understanding of the big electronic virtual world grab some simple discriptor that seems to cover us all. We don't call lawyers "law guys," do we? Nor do we call dentists "tooth pullers" to their face.
The assumption by the general public is all us IT people (man or woman) are "geeks." I can't tell you how many times I've had to look up from a project on a domain controller to answer some basic question about MP3 burning or web page design. As if just by virtue of the fact I can turn a server on and off, I know some mystical secret knowledge about music file sharing.
Being referred to as "that woman" is par for the course. Trust me, "computer guy" is not a promotion by any means. When confronted with such generalized references, I introduce myself to the individual with a buisness card and a comment like, "so when are you trating me for lunch?"
They seem to know your name after that.  | |
| MaulerJ 2002-11-15, 4:14 am |
| But that is good, because you the computer guy/gal can pull the wool everytime. Just tell them the DHCP server, is getting a brodcast storm from the website pinging the esoj (pronounced eee sah juh) which is actually my name backwards Jose (I love using that one)
I used to use it when customer would complain about static on the phone lines (telecom) I would tell them that the cable pair is having esoj problems, and would probably clear up in about an hour. Hey, I was in the military so calm down | |
| Bingram 2002-11-15, 7:02 am |
| quote:
Originally posted by MaulerJ
Hey, I was in the military so calm down
I'd bet a box of grid squares will fix that esoj problem. Might lub them with some frequency grease. And while you are at it, get a thousand feet of flight line to secure those grid squares. That will fix your FUBAR problem all right!
When I fix something I always attribute it to FM. FM, what is FM? <explitive deleted> Magic.
Ah, what can I say. Too much time spent around "Smage" in my formative years. | |
| deckeryan 2002-12-01, 8:17 am |
| Haven't had a chance to get back and catch up on this thread of conversation for a while, but am delighted to see everyone's additions. It is sometimes frustrating to be "named" (although I liked the "that woman" -- makes me feel mysterious and threatening) but I try to remind myself it's an indication of a limited imagination on the part of the namer (and me as well if I let it get to me).
One of my co-workers hates being referred to as a "techie," and one of the teachers at our school always calls us that. For me, being called a "techie" is still a compliment (yeah, after some hard study, I have technical skills and I'm proud of that!) but I know that this teacher is being anything but complimentary when he refers to us that way. He also insisted on having "Dr." added to his ID tag (we all have to wear IDs in the school now). This kind of backfired on him, though, because the Director of our department immediately redid my card as well-- I have a Ph.D. too. It's part of a past life and totally irrelevant to my job, but it's fun to watch puzzled looks cross people's faces when I'm on the job and catch them reading my ID. It's a handy reminder that I might be able to do something more than crawl on the floor and plug their computers in for them.
I've always been a Columbo fan myself (and Jackie Chan). If others think you're stupid (or a "geek" -- who might be smart, but must be dumb about everything except computers, right?), they make it easy to be at least more intelligent than they are. And if they happen to show how little they understand about computers, well, we're human -- the noise of our servers is drowned out by "techies" laughing uncontrollably. Then we fix the esoj. . . | |
| Squishy_Storm 2002-12-29, 6:56 am |
| Quote: I get overwhelmed with the task of studying, training, and trying to find my career track at age 44, when most of my friends are discussing early retirement.
loopbacklady.
I can relate to that. In the past 6 months I have gone from a housewife and (recently)single mother, to IT student, trainee teacher, and now about to start teaching in Further Education in the New year.
It really can be overwhelming at times, but I love it and would not change a thing! The support I get from friends and colleagues is great.
As for being female, so far I don't feel that it has hindered me in any way (fingers crossed for the future)
It is nice to see the supporting views of the guys on this forum, thanks guys!!!! | |
| enforcer 2002-12-29, 10:23 am |
| quote:
Originally posted by Squishy_Storm
As for being female, so far I don't feel that it has hindered me in any way
far from hindering, i think it has helped you a hell of a lot in becomming a mother. Bit tricky otherwise | |
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| Hi, I'm a newbie here but am finding it very helpful so far. I'm also surprised to find out that a lot of the ladies here are close to my age 40+. I was sort of thrown into learning about computers. The company I work for basically "told" me that I was going to be the IT person here. They told me to figure out what classes I needed, etc. and to let them know. At first I was sort of excited. I mean I enjoy learning but I'm afraid now that I've bitten off more than I can chew. I studied A+ but haven't taken the test yet. I'm currently studying the required MCSE courses.
Anyway, it's nice to have found a place like this. I think I'm going to need it. | |
| Mr. Linux Guy 2003-01-15, 1:51 pm |
| Welcome. Please feel free to ask any questions that you may have. | |
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| Thank you. I'm sure I'll have a lot of questions. I'm still mulling around the forum and reading posts. Unfortunately work keeps getting in the way and I usually forget where I was or what I was reading. | |
| Mr. Linux Guy 2003-01-15, 1:58 pm |
| quote:
Originally posted by pcw
Thank you. I'm sure I'll have a lot of questions. I'm still mulling around the forum and reading posts. Unfortunately work keeps getting in the way and I usually forget where I was or what I was reading.
Yeah, I have that problem as well. | |
| anaconda 2003-01-31, 10:11 pm |
| quote:
I used to use it when customer would complain about static on the phone lines (telecom) I would tell them that the cable pair is having esoj problems, and would probably clear up in about an hour. Hey, I was in the military so calm down [/B]
Use any of the BOFH excuses.
I once fixed a really simple problem at a clients site in about five minutes. My colleague and I decided that it would better PR for both us and our Company if they perceived us to be working hard. So we opened a binary editor on some stupid file that didn't matter and hurled bogus hexadecimal dialogue at eachother at a furious pace. After two hours we emerged, looking suitably harried, and they were VERY impressed with us claiming that we had stripped the parameter file and optimized the lookup table or some other such rubbish. It just wouldnot have done to say to the client: "Peter, I readjusted the permissions on the file that YOU screwed up." | |
| ultracrisp 2003-02-16, 4:48 am |
| i am a 26 year old coldfusion developer and i thought i would bore you with my background... i am excited to find a little women's communiting... i enjoy talking to other females in the industy in varying job fields. i decided in college (which i haven't picked back up yet) when i was taking computers in business general elective courses that i enjoyed computers and i enjoyed art, so i would try to merge the two and do computer generated arts.
with lack of funding or availibiliy, for that matter, for a good art school, i grabbed my boyfriend's (at the time... new hubby now) HTML big, fat 600 page book and started reading and tesing in notepad every spare minute that i had... i would operate on little to no sleep staying up just coding and coding. a couple of years ago, i started doing web design for local people.
a year or so later, i got a temporary contract to work on the NMCI project i think because i was aggressive and called him because i was tired of waiting on him (i waited a whole couple of hours! hehe) and said basically "hey, i want this job... i know my shit..." the guys first question was to ask me the quickest way to find a file on computer. and if i knew what the little hand on the folders meant... and a phone call later, i had my first job in the computer industry. no more blockbuster manager, no more legal secretary... blahblahblah.
Afterwards, someone spotted my resume and offered me a job doing coldfusion development. And I said "Cold-what?" Luckily they, found two people to do the one person job... one other gal that was i'm assuming supposed to mentor me. i soon found after a few months that if i wanted something i was going to have to get it for myself, so i started reading and coding and practices once again until wee hours of the morning.
and i swear that girl never did really teach me anything... i would ask for help on how to do something and she would just send me or show me the code... and i'd be like, yea, but what does it do? i like knowing what i'm doing and understanding the solution... i think that is why i have picked up everything so smoothly as my own personal little teacher.
still looking for that mentor though, if any of you ladies are accepting applications... lol.. hehe :-D
nice meeting you all... i'll see you again soon. (and girl from the office, if you are reading this... sorry about the stuff about you never teaching me anything... :-( don't kick me.)
later, gals.
chris | |
| MsSmokey 2003-02-19, 4:43 pm |
| Hello all, I am a newbie too. I'm 21 and am working on an aos in computer science and networking [double major]. My school says they will teach me how to certify for A+, N+, MCSE, MCSA, CCNA and CCNP as well as certified electronic technician. I am halfway through and do not think it is possible learn and absorb all the material covered in those exams to qualify within months. I think it is a MUST for me to get certified if I want to get that IT job I've been dreaming about since I am a woman and only21 and have no experience. Right now I'm focusing on A+ and N+. For all you professionals, how long did it take you? I know its important to have the hands on skills, where did you all get the win2k OS to set up the at home lab? | |
| kIdBiLLiE 2003-02-25, 4:27 pm |
| It's great seeing so many women in the IT field. I am a woman myself and I come from an entire IT department made up of women...
As a child, I have always facinate over computers and how electrical devices work. I'm 24 now and have been in the IT field for a little more then 4 years now....closer to 5 years. At the moment, I'm also attending school, majoring in Computer Network Engineering and Information technology Management. I have been certified in A+, iNet+, CCNA and MCP. The certifications I'm currently pursuing is my CCNP and MCSE. Others I want to attain are CCIE and CISSP.
I love IT. |
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