January 8, 2010 at 11:39 am
cherie j sheriff-437357 (1/8/2010)
The article stated that men were self promoters while women did their work and waited to be recognized for the work they had done. The article wasn't talking about IT, but I can see some logic in this. Most of the men I work with will readily point out the things they have done in a manner that they are happy about what they did. I do find often that I do things and I don't self promote as much as the men around me and I think to myself I just do not have the time to go around tooting my own horn.
I am male and found some time back that tooting your own horn is the best way to be seen. I found myself constantly feeling I was getting anywhere before and realized I was saying often, "No one recognizes you when things are working, but they sure know where to find you when they get an error, even if not related to anything in your app." My dad was a used car salesman and I started discussing with him the sell. Basically he told me tooting your own horn is a general way of selling yourself to management, just like I was saying, they don't notice you when things are going right so you have to kind of have to get in their face and make sure they know you are there.
At one point we hired a guy who would constantly say out load "I am a freaking idiot" several times a day then boom "I am a coding God" just as he released something he had been working on. And since I had access to salary data I took a peek and noticed he was getting consitently higher raises on average than most. So in a way he was indirectly tooting his own horn which ensured he was noticed.
In the business world it is far better for you to be heard than just seen is what I have found. You don't have to be overbearing (that can get on peoples nerves) but you cannot just be quiet.
January 8, 2010 at 12:00 pm
cherie j sheriff-437357 (1/8/2010)
On this line, I read an article fairly recently (I wish I could remember where - will try to find it) that talked about the difference between men and women in the workplace. The article stated that men were self promoters while women did their work and waited to be recognized for the work they had done. The article wasn't talking about IT, but I can see some logic in this. Most of the men I work with will readily point out the things they have done in a manner that they are happy about what they did. I do find often that I do things and I don't self promote as much as the men around me and I think to myself I just do not have the time to go around tooting my own horn.Please don't take this as me saying anything negative, but it is an example of how promotions and bonuses often get skewed. I have seen it happen like this so many times.
I won't say I thought this article would be true all the time because I am fairly hubristic about the quality of my work, but I see a lot of women who do good work and don't say anything and they are not seen by management as having as much contribution as some men do, but only because of the awareness that men bring to themselves.
it is something to think about.
I agree, and this is something that I've had to learn since I got into the workplace.
If you do something of note, make sure you let your department know. It'll make sure that any good that comes out of it gets put on your record, and shows that you're willing to take responsibility if something goes wrong. I'm not as pushy about it as some of my coworkers are, but I make sure that if I've done something that others would need to know (be it because it's a fix for something that could happen again at a later date, because it's a particularly clever piece of code that others could use, or because there's the potential for something to go wrong and they need to know who to go to as soon as possible to minimize downtime), they will know.
I've found that it's easier to push myself out there if I think of it as either CYA or cross-training in an environment where things are always changing.
Jennifer Levy (@iffermonster)
January 8, 2010 at 12:13 pm
Antares686 (1/8/2010)
cherie j sheriff-437357 (1/8/2010)
The article stated that men were self promoters while women did their work and waited to be recognized for the work they had done. The article wasn't talking about IT, but I can see some logic in this. Most of the men I work with will readily point out the things they have done in a manner that they are happy about what they did. I do find often that I do things and I don't self promote as much as the men around me and I think to myself I just do not have the time to go around tooting my own horn.I am male and found some time back that tooting your own horn is the best way to be seen. I found myself constantly feeling I was getting anywhere before and realized I was saying often, "No one recognizes you when things are working, but they sure know where to find you when they get an error, even if not related to anything in your app." My dad was a used car salesman and I started discussing with him the sell. Basically he told me tooting your own horn is a general way of selling yourself to management, just like I was saying, they don't notice you when things are going right so you have to kind of have to get in their face and make sure they know you are there.
At one point we hired a guy who would constantly say out load "I am a freaking idiot" several times a day then boom "I am a coding God" just as he released something he had been working on. And since I had access to salary data I took a peek and noticed he was getting consitently higher raises on average than most. So in a way he was indirectly tooting his own horn which ensured he was noticed.
In the business world it is far better for you to be heard than just seen is what I have found. You don't have to be overbearing (that can get on peoples nerves) but you cannot just be quiet.
Definitely. And I also document my a** off. If everything I do is documented - and then I tell EVERYONE in the department that I've documented it in the Wiki and give them a link - it makes it easy for everyone to see how much work I've been getting done. I am also a huge believer that keeping secrets on how things work only gets you in trouble and gets you fired. Documenting everything makes you look like a hero because you can go on vacation and the company can survive without you. This makes you look better - NOT worse.
January 8, 2010 at 1:46 pm
cherie j sheriff-437357 (1/8/2010)
On this line, I read an article fairly recently (I wish I could remember where - will try to find it) that talked about the difference between men and women in the workplace. The article stated that men were self promoters while women did their work and waited to be recognized for the work they had done. The article wasn't talking about IT, but I can see some logic in this. Most of the men I work with will readily point out the things they have done in a manner that they are happy about what they did. I do find often that I do things and I don't self promote as much as the men around me and I think to myself I just do not have the time to go around tooting my own horn.Please don't take this as me saying anything negative, but it is an example of how promotions and bonuses often get skewed. I have seen it happen like this so many times.
I notice this. I also notice the biggest salesmen tend to make themselves seem better than what they really are. It is not uncommon to have to re factor the work these people brag about because it performs like crap. When you bring this up to management these same folks claim they didn't do that piece of code or start speaking in vowels (Oooohhh ahhhh uuuhhh) and blame consultants. Comments and source control don't lie.
I notice these same guys are generally condescending to other women, talk over their peers and throw people under the bus any chance they get.
It is negative because that is how the industry becomes flooded with <insert explicative>.
January 8, 2010 at 9:54 pm
sreid08 (1/7/2010)
Gift Peddie (1/7/2010)
I believe it is because we simply aren't interested in operating systems and networks
What do other women think - do you want to work with operating systems and networks and hardware or with programming and web applications and databases??
If you are talking about Kernel mode programming which in the Microsoft platform relates to DDK it maybe part learning curve because it is C/C++ and the same with operating systems, C# can be used for network programming but it is still complex area of programming. I also think opportunities are limited because only very large companies like Microsoft, Intel, HP and a few others use system and kernel mode programming. There are more uses for network programming because SMTP, web services and other low level web infrastructure includes sub set of network programming.
Hardware doesn't do it for me - though I can certainly swap out hard drives, install a NIC or RAM or do what I have to do to fix the problem. It may take me a little longer than the hardware geek in the next cubicle over - but I can do it. What I LOVE is all of the various versions of *NIX. Unfortunately, my most recent job is an all Windows environment and I don't get to work in a *NIX environment anymore. I started working with UNIX back in the early 80s - I was taught computers on that - and that is what I know and love. I am a solid SQL programmer - but it isn't what I love. I do it well and do enjoy the times where I am trying to figure out how to do something and finally do. There is a definite sense of accomplishment and pride - but I would love to get my hands back in a *NIX box. 😀
--Sherri
I am RDBMS vendor agnostic so I have run Oracle in IBM ISeries, Solaris, HP and Linux so on the low level Unix is not more complicated than Windows AD in business application development. You could always run Canonical's Umbutu as a dual boot. I think Java is missing about one third of C# classes which takes more work to develop applications.
Kind regards,
Gift Peddie
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