While I am posting pictures of neon colored steamed desserts from home, here’s a picture of my rainbow cake:
The flavor was right, but the texture was off… it came out too slippery, and had none of the stretchy sticky goodness which you find in regular rainbow cake. The recipe I used only called for rice flour, but I suspect more glutinous rice flour should be involved…
Tonight I attended the first seattle girl geek dinner held on Microsoft campus. The theme was “career development”.
I’ve been to a lot of career building/talking/planning/thinking type of women’s events, and I’ve realized that I only go for two reasons: networking and anecdotes. Not for the main event. Free food is a compelling third reason to attend. Tonight we had quite a spread: fruits, satay, lots of desserty things, wine and an entire cooler of Mike’s Hard Lemonade; definitely a refreshing change from beer and chips and pizza.
I guess what bothers me is that I often see panelists as larger-than-life, extremely successful women who are completely unlike me. They’re not relatable. It’s hard to look at them and think “yeah, that could be me someday” (although I’m fully aware that that is the exact sentiment which is supposed to be fostered by such events). I wish they would talk more about their struggles… especially the smaller day-to-day ones. I wish someone would tell a story about how they were having a bad day and had to cry in the bathroom until they felt better because men freak out when women cry. I wish someone would tell a story about how they sat at their desk composing and recomposing an email because they wanted to come across as forceful but not bitchy. But none of that. The stories are all about taking risks, being confident, being unafraid, but not a lot of focus on how you get to that point.
One of the panelists talked about dealing with a Japanese client who suggested that she hire a new VP of international sales; a subtle hint that she needed a male liason to do business with him. For her, hiring a male associate was a no brainer because it was the direct route to accomplishing her goal. “I didn’t want to lose, I wanted to win!” she said. I cringed a little. Sure, she made the right decision for the business… but I wonder to what extent she would compromise her behavior and beliefs in order to achieve her objectives. If women need to perpetuate male expectations in the workplace to ensure our success, how can we ever hope to create an environment where being female (whatever that means) contributes to instead of hinders our success?
Not that the evening was a total bust. I had an awesome carpool of women from Amazon. We talked about our teams, our own career paths, and bitched about male corporate culture. The carpool alone was worth the entire event for me because I made some new friends and hearing them speak was a more relatable and hence fruitful experience.
I’m definitely in for the next girl geek event. I might be jaded, but I do enjoy meeting other women in industry. And sometimes, in spite myself, I come away feeling empowered and less alone.
Today we went shopping for toys for Passover dinner. Apparently some families like to throw plastic toys at each other when describing the 10 plagues. Archie McPhee was a huge success as we managed to get:
Given my current obsession with all things bacon, I was sorely tempted to buy bacon bandaids, but resisted as I still have a pack of cowboy ones.
Reasons I started this blog:
