Saturday, September 6, 2014
It's next to impossible for a woman to convince men in the workplace that they treat female coworkers differently from their male colleagues. They vehemently deny it. Given examples, they always have reasons. She doesn't have the experience. She's not as technically astute. She doesn't see the big picture. She doesn't have the necessary leadership qualities. Blah blah blah.
Men don't listen to women the same way they listen to men. If a man objects to some statement, they will listen and consider what's said. If a woman makes the same objection, they immediately assume that she just doesn't understand.
Men rarely interrupt a man speaking in a meeting. Women are regularly interrupted, and no one notices or objects. If she objects and finishes her thought, no one listens and she's described as loud and pushy.
Stuff like that.
Personally, I got tired of men talking to my chest.
Well, finally we have observations from people who have been on both sides. Transsexuals! They know exactly what it's like to be a man or woman in the workplace, and then to experience the treatment as the other sex. And they are the same person with the same skills in both roles. They pretty much say exactly what women have been saying for eons.
They say that as a woman, no matter which way their change went, they got/get no respect.
The New Republic article is at http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119239/transgender-people-can-explain-why-women-dont-advance-work. I urge you to read it, and pass it around, especially to MEN!
(And then wait and see - those men will opine that it's the addition or subtraction of testosterone. Apparently, testosterone makes one logical.)
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I am reminded of a conversation I had with an IBM manager once. He asked if I wanted to go into management. I said "No, I'd rather stay technical."
He asked what my goals would be (he was thinking stuff like fellowship and so on). I replied, "I want to be listened to in meetings. I want that when I say something, people stop and listen and actually think about what I just said. I want people to want to hear what I have to say."
He said, "Oh, so you want to be seen as a technical expert?"
I blinked twice and said, "I! AM! a! technical! expert!! I want them to stop staring at my breasts and listen when I speak. Apparently they ARE subliminally hearing me, because after my observation is ignored, passed off as trivial, not even worth discussion, the next week some other guy says EXACTLY the same thing I said, using the EXACT same words, and everyone thinks he's a genius. Nobody remembers my having said exactly the same thing with exactly the same arguments the week before. I'm getting tired of that. I don't know how to get past it."
He didn't know what to say to that. Especially since he had been in some of the same meetings, and had seen it happen.
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Saturday, September 06, 2014
3974 Perspective
Saturday, September 6, 2014
Ebola is the big health news right now. But it's not the biggest killer. Malaria killed 627,000 people in 2012 alone (World Health Organization, http://www.who.int/malaria/media/world_malaria_report_2013/en/), and that's after intense efforts to control it, it's supposedly down by 45%, and the fact that malaria is treatable. But still, 627,000 people died of malaria in one year. I find that number shocking. Ebola has killed less than 1/600th the number in the 6 months of this outbreak.
So, I'm not sure why ebola gets all the press. Maybe because ebola can travel to the US easier than malaria? So that scares us more?
But ebola is a lot easier to avoid than malaria:
1. Don't eat bats or monkeys
2. Don't touch body fluids from strangers.
3. Don't touch body fluids from family members who have done 1. or 2.
You want to be scared for a more logical reason? How easy would it be to dump some ebola virus into your local reservoir?
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Ebola is the big health news right now. But it's not the biggest killer. Malaria killed 627,000 people in 2012 alone (World Health Organization, http://www.who.int/malaria/media/world_malaria_report_2013/en/), and that's after intense efforts to control it, it's supposedly down by 45%, and the fact that malaria is treatable. But still, 627,000 people died of malaria in one year. I find that number shocking. Ebola has killed less than 1/600th the number in the 6 months of this outbreak.
So, I'm not sure why ebola gets all the press. Maybe because ebola can travel to the US easier than malaria? So that scares us more?
But ebola is a lot easier to avoid than malaria:
1. Don't eat bats or monkeys
2. Don't touch body fluids from strangers.
3. Don't touch body fluids from family members who have done 1. or 2.
You want to be scared for a more logical reason? How easy would it be to dump some ebola virus into your local reservoir?
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Friday, September 05, 2014
3973 Highly annoyed
Friday, September 5, 2014
NOTE to everyone who has a blog I occasionally comment on, AND uses a Yahoo email id for comment notifications: For some unknown reason when I comment on your blog I am getting "undelivered" messages from Yahoo, saying that the notification was not delivered. As far as I can tell, Blogger sends you an email about the comment and changes the path to indicate that it came from me (or something like that) and Yahoo has decided not to honor "third party" emails.
This is complicated by the fact that I often comment on old posts, like a few days old, when maybe you no longer have any reason to revisit the post --- so you are unaware I have commented. Sorry. I'm really not ignoring people. I can't do much about it except complain to Yahoo, and I'm not sure how to do that exactly.
Oh well.
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Toward the end of July, Hal started throwing codes. You know, the check engine light stuff. Randomly.
I took him to the dealership, and two weeks, a new sensor, and $450 later, he behaved again.
Exactly three weeks after that fix, last Friday, he started doing weird stuff again. I had pulled into a WaWa, set the brake, turned him off, pulled the key, unfastened the seat belt, opened the door, and the siren went off. For no reason whatsoever.
When I came out of the WaWa and started him, he popped up the check engine light. This is 6 pm on a Friday of a three-day holiday weekend. Of course. Can't do anything until Tuesday.
The Check engine light was yellow, not red, and the book says I can still drive, unless it turns red, then I have to stop immediately, so I drove (a little bit) during the weekend --- during which time the "service engine soon" light (which means that Hal thinks it's time for regular maintenance) came on as well as the check engine light. By Tuesday the check engine light was off. I called the dealership on Wednesday, and I have an appointment tomorrow.
I am completely and utterly pissed. Especially since his warranty expired in early summer. Funny how that happens.
Long time visitors to this blog may remember when Fred, the van, started doing much the same kinds of things, and one year, $9,000 in service, sensor replacements, and rental cars later, I gave up, bought Suzie the Suzuki, and Fred spent the next three years or so parked in the driveway, until an independent mechanic found a split in the rubber cover over the computer. Fixing that fixed Fred. It wasn't the sensors at all; it was the computer. Everytime it was damp out, the computer threw random codes, made bad decisions, and stalled in the middle of intersections.
I HATE those sensor things. Seems like they are supposed to warn you when things are wrong in the unit they're supposed to be sensing, but the fix IN EVERY CASE I have ever experienced is to simply replace the sensor. There's something very stupid about that.
What makes all this worse is that I'm planning to go to Gettysburg next Tuesday. This has been in the works for two months. And now I have an undependable car. I am completely and utterly pissed.
.
NOTE to everyone who has a blog I occasionally comment on, AND uses a Yahoo email id for comment notifications: For some unknown reason when I comment on your blog I am getting "undelivered" messages from Yahoo, saying that the notification was not delivered. As far as I can tell, Blogger sends you an email about the comment and changes the path to indicate that it came from me (or something like that) and Yahoo has decided not to honor "third party" emails.
This is complicated by the fact that I often comment on old posts, like a few days old, when maybe you no longer have any reason to revisit the post --- so you are unaware I have commented. Sorry. I'm really not ignoring people. I can't do much about it except complain to Yahoo, and I'm not sure how to do that exactly.
Oh well.
-------------------------------------
Toward the end of July, Hal started throwing codes. You know, the check engine light stuff. Randomly.
I took him to the dealership, and two weeks, a new sensor, and $450 later, he behaved again.
Exactly three weeks after that fix, last Friday, he started doing weird stuff again. I had pulled into a WaWa, set the brake, turned him off, pulled the key, unfastened the seat belt, opened the door, and the siren went off. For no reason whatsoever.
When I came out of the WaWa and started him, he popped up the check engine light. This is 6 pm on a Friday of a three-day holiday weekend. Of course. Can't do anything until Tuesday.
The Check engine light was yellow, not red, and the book says I can still drive, unless it turns red, then I have to stop immediately, so I drove (a little bit) during the weekend --- during which time the "service engine soon" light (which means that Hal thinks it's time for regular maintenance) came on as well as the check engine light. By Tuesday the check engine light was off. I called the dealership on Wednesday, and I have an appointment tomorrow.
I am completely and utterly pissed. Especially since his warranty expired in early summer. Funny how that happens.
Long time visitors to this blog may remember when Fred, the van, started doing much the same kinds of things, and one year, $9,000 in service, sensor replacements, and rental cars later, I gave up, bought Suzie the Suzuki, and Fred spent the next three years or so parked in the driveway, until an independent mechanic found a split in the rubber cover over the computer. Fixing that fixed Fred. It wasn't the sensors at all; it was the computer. Everytime it was damp out, the computer threw random codes, made bad decisions, and stalled in the middle of intersections.
I HATE those sensor things. Seems like they are supposed to warn you when things are wrong in the unit they're supposed to be sensing, but the fix IN EVERY CASE I have ever experienced is to simply replace the sensor. There's something very stupid about that.
What makes all this worse is that I'm planning to go to Gettysburg next Tuesday. This has been in the works for two months. And now I have an undependable car. I am completely and utterly pissed.
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