[UbuntuWomen] Choosing a job wisely (Re: Article: Computer World: Why women quit technology careers)

[Caroline Ford]

2008/6/23 Tricia Bowen <tricia.bowen at gmail.com>:
> On Thu, Jun 19, 2008 at 8:04 PM, Jacinta Richardson
> <jarich at perltraining.com.au> wrote:
>>
>> Caroline Ford wrote:
>> > 2008/6/19 Tricia Bowen <tricia.bowen at gmail.com>:
>>
>> >> to rethink my career choices. Do I want to go back to a conference room
>> >> where men google "anna kournikova" obsessively and display crude pics
>> >> of her
>> >> on the projector screen before meetings? Do I want to got back to an
>> >> atmosphere where the bosses male lunch buddies get promoted while the
>> >> few
>> >> women, who have no position of power, are stuck back in the office
>> >> doing the
>> >> grunt work? Do I want to sit in another stinking "war room" pulling an
>> >> all-nighter to make the higher ups feel good, when I know the reason
>> >> we're
>> >> all here is because of poor planning. Poor planning that was pointed
>> >> out
>> >> months before the launch date.
>>
>> > This is why I went back to work in the public sector administration
>> > and didn't continue my IT qualification. I have far too much self
>> > respect to deal with these people.
>>
>> I'm not going to try to talk you out of your decisions, I understand there
>> are a
>> lot of reasons people make the career choices they do.  However, I do want
>> to
>> say that not all IT jobs are this bad.  In fact, I'd argue that _most_
>> aren't,
>> but I don't have statistics so I could be wrong on that bit.  If you
>> enjoyed
>> doing IT, even if you didn't enjoy where you worked, I would encourage you
>> to at
>> least look around at IT jobs when you start looking for jobs to restart
>> your career.
>>
>> Unarguably the *best* jobs that exist are the ones you can find through
>> networking.  So put LinuxChix, UbuntuWomen and any other group of contacts
>> you
>> have to work.  Ask here for leads to jobs (to be sent to you privately),
>> in your
>> city/state, preferably in businesses that we're working in or have worked
>> in or
>> have other good reasons to feel are women-friendly.  You may be surprised
>> at
>> what you find.
>>
>> All the best,
>>
>>        Jacinta
>
> I've tried applying for jobs at local colleges, which have jobs with sane
> hours and healthy work environments, but I keep getting the "over qualified"
> response. I was told by one woman that she couldn't see how I would be happy
> installing someone elses program instead of writing my own, even though I
> stressed that I would not have a problem with that. It doesn't mean that I
> wouldn't joke that I could write that bloated program in ten lines of perl,
> but at this point I could care less about writing the program myself. I just
> have to figure out a way to convey that on interviews.
> --Tricia

I've noticed that there is a much higher percentage of women in public
sector IT, I guess people are safer with a large organisation with
strict rules on discrimination.

Caroline