Grooming in The Office

This morning was like any other morning. I dropped my purse off in my cube, grabbed my coffee, and settled into my chair to start a new day. But as I was waiting for the updates on my computer to finish installing, I heard the unmistakable sound of somebody clipping his fingernails.

I'm not sure if this is just a personal pet peeve, but I don't understand how somebody who had the WHOLE WEEKEND to clip his nails in the privacy of his own home gets around to Monday morning in a cube farm and decides that this is finally the perfect time for nail clipping. And clearly there was some level of premeditation, because he brought the nail clippers with him to work. What happens if one of those nails comes flipping over the cube wall and splashes into my coffee like a small child doing a belly flop off of the high dive? 

Per Murphy's Law, this is bound to happen sometime

Unless you work in a salon, I feel like you should at least excuse yourself to the bathroom if you want to do any personal grooming. I typically go to the bathroom even if I am going to engage in much quieter grooming, like fixing my makeup after I thoughtlessly rub my eyes in exasperation that somebody is clipping his nails at work before 8 am.

I'm not sure about men's bathrooms, but I know that a few of the organizations I've been at actually have places for you to leave products like nail clippers, hair brushes, or whatever so you don't have to carry them in and out all the time. And there is nowhere to leave your stuff, you can always palm those nail clippers like a tampon and smuggle them in (yeah, that was an old school reference, bet you weren't expecting that!).

What I'm trying to say is: where there is a will there is a way. And if you are confused about what activities should be restricted to the bathroom at work or at home (not your cube), I've compiled this handy list:

• Relieve your bladder (I hope that was obvious to everyone, but just in case)
• Brush your hair
• Floss your teeth
• Clip your fingernails 
• Apply makeup
• Apply skin treatment creams (aka acne medication)
• Re-applying deodorant
• Practice Twerking

Do you have any other pet peeves of things people shouldn't be doing in their cubes?

Cheers, 

Vanessa

How to Respond to Emails

Today, I became everything I hate in an e-mail response.

I was typing a clarification email to a client (sent out to four people with me BCCed), and one of my interns stopped over at my cube to ask a question. Since he was patiently waiting, I quickly signed my name and hit send as I spun my chair around to give him my full attention. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my computer pronounce "Sending to... The guy who you intended and EVERYONE ELSE".

All hope was lost.

I frantically tried to cancel the email, but my reflexes were simply not fast enough. The deed was done. My intern continued to explain the details of his question, but my mind was completely consumed with the fact that I'd just committed a HUGE faux paus.

But why is this so bad? It was just a clarification email, after all.

I don't pretend to know all of the politics that go on with my client, but BCC-ing somebody is not an unintentional step. There are at least five clicks involved in doing this on my email client. And BCC-ing is typically done as a favor to keep somebody in the loop when they shouldn't be. So all I know, is that I was being told this as a secret favor,  and then I fucked it up by hitting the wrong button. Honestly, I have no idea why a BCC-ed person can reply all to people who didn't couldn't see they were copied,  let alone in 4 less clicks than it took to BCC them in the first place.

While I'm on the topic,  there are a couple other moments where emails have confounded me. For example, sometimes my boss will call me into his office to tell me that I am going to be spending the rest of the day at a client site to support emergent issues. As I get back to my desk and start to pack up the things I expect to need, my computer pings and I've gotten calendar items from the same boss with subject lines reading "Team meeting at 2 pm in fourth floor conference room ATTENDANCE MANDATORY". Now, I realize that these go out to the entire team, but I usually go back to his office just to clarify that the all caps warning was not intended for me.

The next type of email I don't get are non sequitur follow up emails. For example,  if I talked with someone ad nauseum about what Linux system we are going to use,  agree upon a solution,  and then I sit down at my desk just in time to receive an email stating,  "Per our conversation,  I am purchasing a Windows 8 tablet." This typically leaves me completely confused,  trying to figure out if they are being passive aggressive, if they simply can't type,  or if they are smoking a very potent hallucinogen and actually think that was close to being relevant.

The third type of email that I don't understand is passive aggressively CC-ing people. I typically try to email directly with somebody about issues I have found with their work, because I think that pointing out mistakes and copying people's bosses and important clients only makes them more defensive. And I think it's just generally douchey to make a spectacle of someone's mistakes before they have the opportunity to correct them. In response I have occasionally gotten vendors that will be frustrated with the fact that I have corrected them, and will send an email to me, my boss, our client, our client's boss, the vendor's boss, the water delivery man, the mailman, all the secretaries, and the President of the United States saying something along the lines of: "What exactly is it you want from me this time?"

I guess the vendor thought he was putting me on the spot here, by making it seem as if I have had completely unreasonable requests. Apparently, he had been complaining that he should be paid more to fix all of my unreasonable requests. What I don't think he entirely think through is the fact that I could, and would, reply all with a list of the bullshit problems they have had and continue to have.

After having that list received by the rest of the involved parties, you  can bet that I got a corrected document back very quickly. He also received no additional pay. So please, don't carbon copy people on an email chain if you haven't fully considered the consequences of having an open dialogue. Or do, because it is incredibly satisfying getting to destroy irresponsible people in reply all.

Love,

Vanessa

PS. What is the most embarrassing interaction you've had over work email?

How to Pick A Cute Work Hairstyle

I apologize that I missed last Monday's post. I'm going to try post two times this week to make up for it (insert gasps and cheers from all 20 people that read this blog regularly and never comment). This week I decided to go with a less substantial topic that still impacts engineers: hairstyles.

In an all male environment, it's hard to find inspiration for ways to spice up boring hair days. Something about wearing your hair completely down and having it look nice by the end of the day is a concept that completely evades me. Perhaps it is because of the hardhat I have to occasionally don, perhaps it is my hair's natural proclivity for knots,  or perhaps I just fidget too much. Any way you slice it,  I need a hairstyle that is cute while still being durable enough to deal with a full day of work.

Everyone has a day like this sometimes...

While I considered posting pictures and instructions for the different styles I like, I realized this is a solved problem and that there are in fact dozens (if not hundreds) of videos that show how to make every hairstyle I feel like I've invented. To that end, I scoured YouTube for engineer-proof hair tutorials, and have come up with the following:

Hair Tied Ponytail 

The simplest of these hairstyles is a sleek way to spice up the average ponytail. Hair wrapped ponytails hide your neon hair elastics, and make the hairstyle look office appropriate.

Rave reviews from one coworker say, "But...  Where does your hair end? "

French Braid Side Ponytail

This is a slightly more complex variation on the side ponytail. It only takes 10 minutes or less to do in the morning, so it won't cut back on your much needed sleep.

What my coworkers have to say about it: "Vanessa,  your hair confuses me."
"You must have magic to make hair do that."

Braided Bun

The braided bun is a great way to get a sleek look quick, when your hair is not cooperating. Cons are it isn't necessarily good for a hard hat, and it uses an ass-ton of bobby pins (which is relevant for workplaces which regulate the amount of metal you have). 

One day,  when I was wearing my hair in a Braided bun,  my coworker found a bobby pin on the ground. While I was minding my own business typing an email,  he slipped it into my hair and said, " I believe this belongs to you." Truth is, he was probably right because I was the only one wearing my hair up, but it was VERY uncomfortable anyways.

Side Bun

I'd love to say that I wear side buns instead of regular buns because they are more fashionable. But the truth is, my preference for side buns over regular buns is a result of the fact that regular buns make driving in a car quite literally a pain in the neck. There is nowhere to put your head that isn't super uncomfortable. I would venture to guess that the longer a commute a woman has, the less likely she is to wear a huge bun protruding from the back of her head.

So if you love buns, and hate neck-aches, here is a tutorial for how to make a quick side bun:

Standard fair. Poorly done you look like an angry librarian. Well done,  you look like you mean business.

Hairband:

Especially if you have shorter hair,  this is the easiest way to look like you tried with minimal effort. I recommend doing a side part,  or letting your bangs fall normally (if you have them)  so your bangs don't look like somebody out of an 80s work out video.

If you don't know how to use a hairband yet... than here is 5 ways to do so:

I go through prolonged hairband phases, and they usually involve solid colored hairbands. Although, I will admit that I was involved in the blinged out butterfly and flower hairband phase and am not entirely over it even though I am aware it is socially unacceptable.

That's all for now. Variety is the spice of life, so try a new hairstyle tomorrow!

Love,

Vanessa

How to Eat Like a Lady

I'm not the most graceful person, and I never claimed to be. You'd think that in a field filled with men, my less than dainty habits would be accepted at face value. But my occasional "unrefined" behavior seems to always seems to end up attracting more attention than intended- even at the lunch table. Take the following example:

SCENE: It is noon on a Wednesday and the fluorescent lights of the lunchroom are beating down on an odd conglomeration of people- mostly men. They range from youth fresh out of college, to card carrying AARP members. Some wear polo shirts, and others wear ties that slowly strangle them throughout the day. It's lunchtime and in their ravenous fervor, these men have all turned into children- devouring their lunches like Cookie Monster with little bits of sandwich flying like meaty shrapnel. They curse at each other and casually joke with their mouths' stuffed. 

I am silently observing the feasting, as I slowly eat my grapes. It is gross, and fascinating. Then, one fateful grape slipped out of my fingers and swiftly fell down my shirt. Of course I had managed to not only drop food, but drop it down my high cut shirt. The commotion stopped, and everyone became eerily quiet; somehow everyone managed to have seen my mishap. I froze, unable to figure out how to act. Do I retrieve the grape from down my shirt in the middle of a room filled with male coworkers as they watch?

You could feel the tension in the room as I lowered my eyes, reached for another grape in my Ziploc baggie, and continued to eat ignoring the cold grape in my shirt. One by one, people seemed to think they had tricked themselves in what they saw, and they resumed their normal behavior. Meanwhile I silently freaked out about the fact that there was still, in fact, a grape in my shirt.

As you can see, a simple slip up can cause a very awkward situation. So when eating with coworkers you should sit up, chew with your mouth closed, and don't drop things down your shirt. If you can manage that, then you'll make it out just fine.

Love,

Vanessa

Like what we write? Then subscribe to our RSS feed!

How To Be An Engineer, Not A Secretary

I took minutes for a few meetings this past week and sent them out to everyone in attendance. Each time, my boss hit the reply all button and commented with a simple and quick, "Great minutes, Ruby. Thanks for doing this." I am fully aware that I respond well to praise and validation, so this little comment from my boss is a nice touch. However, the number of thanks I've got for taking meeting minutes is disproportionate to the number of thanks I've gotten for doing other things, such as my daily engineering tasks. This makes me wonder, I am perceived as a better secretary than an engineer?

I know I'm good at secretarial things, like taking epic meeting minutes. As an engineer, I find it easy to accomplish and integrate them into my daily tasks. After all, I'm the technology-savvy one of the group. I can essentially type at the pace that people talk and capture all the important pieces of conversation while simultaneous pulling up schematics and study designs and contributing to the meeting. I can also manage to reorganize my notes so that it's more cohesive and understandable than the actual meetings.

I choose to complete some secretarial tasks to improve my own job performance as an engineer. But just because I'm good at secretarial tasks shouldn't mean that I should be relegated to a secretarial role in my boss' or coworkers' minds.

In fact, I find that more people (and my boss in particular) are aware of and impressed by my secretarial skills than my engineering skills. This is a little surprising. I know that my technical background can be impressive. After all, one of my coworkers told me I'm one of only two young employees he respects technically. I've also been given the nickname of "genius" (which is really awkward when said in hearing range of any of my other coworkers). Given my experience, accomplishments, and expertise in technical work, it's weird to get compliments on non-engineering work rather on work that takes a lot more skill and expertise.

My question here is: Why is it that I'm more recognized for being secretarial than technical?

I can imagine a number of explanations including gender role prejudices, a subconscious drive on my part to be a secretary, it's a knee-jerk reaction/compliment, or just because I'm the newest kid on the block.

Maybe the reason for my receiving praise for secretarial work can be attributed to gender role prejudices. I know there's a study which indicates that generally women in the group are relegated to "female" jobs such as being the secretary.

Women who have internships or jobs, she [Susan Sibley] explains, find they"are too often relegated to 'female' roles of note-taker, organizer or manager." ~Study by Susan Silbey at MIT 

In Susan Sibley's scenario, the female engineer is in the minority and therefore her coworkers will consider her the only option to fill the role of the (female) secretary. My problem is that this scenario isn't really applicable to my own situation. In my workplace and especially in the aforementioned recent meetings, I have been surrounded by what might be considered an abundance of women. Anything ratio of women:men which exceeds 1:1 is unusually high in the engineering industry. And most of the women I work with are intelligent and diligent scientists and engineers. However, I seem to be the only woman amongh this crowd who takes on the role of secretary.

It could be that thanking me for secretarial work is just a knee-jerk reaction on my coworkers' part. It could be that it's a habit to compliment someone for doing something outside of the scope of their everyday job in the same way it is a habit for you to always respond to, "How are you doing?" with a simple "good" or "fine." It's possible that my coworkers would give the same compliment regardless of who did the actual minute-taking. In this scenario, they aren't necessarily pointing out that I was doing secretarial work, but just that they appreciate it was done.

Perhaps, as I mentioned earlier, this whole situation has arisen because I have the unconscious mentality that I should be a secretary. I personally don't think of my note-taking and organizational abilities as my subconscious trying to make me into the obedient little secretary it always wanted me to be. That would be a seriously weird and devious move on my subconscious' part. Rather, I think of my actions as a means to obtaining the best notes possible and not being able to trust someone else to do it as well as I can. Because seriously, no one takes better notes than I do. And if getting the best notes possible is the goal, then taking them myself is the practical solution. (Mindset of a control-freak engineer, right here.)

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's hard not being recognized for your braininess. It's hard to be recognized for your simple, mundane (though necessary work) when what you really want is to be recognized for the big things that I accomplish.

You want to be called first and foremost an engineer because you put in your time at school, you went through the pain of all-nighters, you learned those complex formulas and processes, and you earned your engineering degree. But you're not done yet. You have some more time, pain, and learning to go before you'll be universally recognized as a engineer.

How to Avoid Dating Your Client's Children

Pretty much every woman in engineering has dealt with being courted by a co-worker, boss, client, etc. While I'm sure some fairy-tale romances have blossomed from the office, most of the time office courtships are weird and inappropriate. But eventually,  you accept it and learn how to fend off future advances.

I figured I'd escape the burden of trying to appear un-dateable with some of my coworkers and clients who are literally old enough to be my parents. Fortunately they tend to not be "manthers" (men who go after women half their age) and I make an effort to not dress like a flasher, so I thought I was in the clear. But what I'd never counted on was that they have sons who are just about my age. In the past year alone, I've had THREE clients/coworkers try to set me up with their children.

Each time is oddly similar. It's almost like people who are trying to set their children up with people at work have a well established method of how to bring up the idea of dating their very single child who may or may not even live in the same state as you.

So, I'm going to share the script of how co-workers try to bring up the idea of dating their children to help you prepare for a similar event. Or if you have a twenty or thirty something year old child who you've always wanted to set up a coworker, but just didn't know how to go about it,  this script is the perfect way to make your coworker extremely uncomfortable.  

PHASE 1: THE COMPLESTION

The awkward courting ritual always begins with a complestion (a compliment whose main purpose is to ask you an otherwise inappropriate question). They are usually focused around determining your age and/or if you are single. Take the following example:

Them: "You seem so young to be so knowledgeable about <subject matter>. How old are you anyhow?"

My guess is that the questioner expects that the target [in this case me] will be so overwhelmed by the compliment that they will unquestioningly share personal information,  which will determine if they are dateable.

PHASE 2: THE SNEAK

The true meaning of the complestion becomes revealed when they just happen to remember their own child's age:

Them: "You know what, I just remembered my son's just about the same age."

Typical reactions from the target include some confusion about how one forgets the age of his or her own child, and increased wariness of the nature of the conversation. 

PHASE 3: THE HOMAGE

Next comes the "homage" where I have the pleasure of receiving a sermon worshiping the perfection that is my client or coworkers son. He may not be a god, but he is damn close:

Them: "He was on the honor roll all through college, and then he joined the military saves a town of women and children and now he's got a great job. He's already been promoted twice because he's so smart, reliable, and he's just got a great personality. You know, everyone used to come up to me at little league games and tell me what great sportsmanship he has.  AND he's single right now,  but who wouldn't want to date a guy like that?"

Me (in my head): You know he does sound perfect for me, especially those part that you omitted about the smoking, anger management problems, and his clingy dependence on his parents.

Me (spoken aloud): "Sounds like your son is a great guy." (Spoken in the least encouraging tone possible without coming off as sarcastic, to try and discourage the continuation of the conversation).

PHASE 4: THE SUGGESTED MEETING

I never claimed to be an artist... 

The final phase of the wildly inappropriate attempted setup is the suggested meeting where the client/coworker comes up with some ridiculous way in which you can meet his or her son:

Them: "I think you'd really like him, maybe I'll get him to come in the next time we have a meeting and you two can chat afterwards."

Me: "..."

Honestly, I still haven't figured out how to respond to that one. Meeting a guy who is not affiliated with your company or your client during working hours seems all sorts of unethical. I am also skeptical of anyone who can manage to take off of work to meet me at 2 pm on a weekday. One of  my coworkers actually flew in their 28 year old son to for "bring your child to work day" and introduced him to me amidst a hoard of under-supervised screaming pre-teens. It was really romantic. Surprisingly,  we are not dating.

If you happen to experience all four phases of this set-up without having been able to stop it one way than you have officially entered the world of super awkward setups. Once you reach the final stage, beware: there is a strong implication that you should make something happen. My solution for this is simply to out-awkward  everyone else by acting as if I am completely unaware of their intentions. I've found that people feel exceedingly uncomfortable if they have to spell out the fact that they want you to date their child- which means that if you hold out in complete naivete long enough they give up and you can avoid the problem effectively all together.

Good luck,

Vanessa