still not an advantage

When I was writing the previous post about having a young-looking face, I was reminded of a conversation I had with a late-middle age man who has always been "the smartest guy in the room" and expected (and received) instant respect his entire career. I had mentioned disliking how young I look in passing, and he said, "but that's such a career advantage!"

I'm usually reasonably even-keeled, and I'm the last person to start a fight in public (think cocktail party), but I had to fire back. What possible advantage could it be that every time I meet someone new in a professional situation, they peg me as a nobody, someone who couldn't possibly be very knowledgeable in (whatever I'm there for). Yeah, I pleasantly surprise a lot of people who were initially thinking "why on earth is she here?". And I can prepare a mean ambush for those who are on the other side in technical disputes. But it is so much work to get that respect that is just immediately granted to other scientists who look the part. I work on my physical presentation (stance, voice, etc), I have a whole strategy for how to work in my years of experience at whatever the task is, I make sure that I have all my technical backup ready to go and that I know the subject cold... and then everybody else just rolls in and does their thing.

You may be wondering if part of the problem is that I look young and I'm female. Yeah. The whole package really doesn't help. But that's a whole other post...

not the baby anymore

I am pleased to announce that I have finally reached an important career milestone: I no longer automatically look like the youngest person in the room! I have officially graduated to looking like a "young professional" instead of a college (or God help me, high school) student.

I didn't want to jinx it, but the last few times I've gone out to dinner with a field crew, I have been in the not-carded group. And I've just recently been in some high-level meetings that included someone else with a "baby face" who looked quite a bit younger than me.

Of course, my apparent age is still way off from my actual age and I'm still dismissed as insignificant even when I'm the technical lead, but I'll take what I can get.

lady in charge

Dear site visitor:

If you arrive at the job trailer, you may be met by a lady who asks what your business is. When she finds out your affiliation, she hands you a business card and invites you into the trailer, where she proceeds to give a safety briefing on the site and an update on the status of the work. She then delegates one of the young men in the trailer to assist you with what you need.

All this activity is a signal that the lady is in charge. You should not immediately focus, laser-like, on the oldest-looking male (who is, incidentally, 10 years younger than the lady in charge) and direct all your questions to him, give him your only business card, and pretend that this lady does not exist.

Since the lady is, in fact, in charge of this particular group of workers, she has sufficient power that she can make your future visits significantly more onerous.

yep, it fits

This is one of my occasional random posts that doesn't have anything to do with the geology or the environment or writing...

I've been thinking about getting a Large Object for a while now. About a month ago, I noticed a shabby little storefront with a prominently placed Large Object near my place. I'd been keeping an eye on it ever since.

I was running errands yesterday and feeling particularly productive, so I stopped by. The price on the Large Object was on the high side, so I dickered with the owner and ended up with an agreement for a slightly lower price. Cash only. Since I hadn't originally planned on this little shopping expedition, I didn't have enough cash on hand. I also had a bunch of bags from my shopping earlier that day, so I told the owner I'd clean the car and come back for the Large Object.

My visit had attracted a small crowd of bored retirees/nearby shabby shop owners.

One of the guys asked, "Isn't your car that (color) hatchback?"
Yes, it was.
"Oh, there's no way that Large Object will fit."

So there was nothing for it but to open up the hatch and show them that the seats did fold down, and if I moved all my stuff out, I would indeed have room. I left them to mutter about bungee cords and rope to hold Large Object in with the hatch up.

I came back an hour later, having more or less cleaned my car (threw out the accumulated junk like the horseshoes, stuffed the important field stuff and the grocery bags in the footwells of the back seats, pushed the shovel, ice scraper, and umbrella to the front of the cargo area), put the back seats down, stuffed the cargo cover in the front seat and gotten the cash. I'd also done a quick internet search to confirm that my price for the Large Object was indeed reasonable.

The crowd (still there - this was apparently the most exciting thing they'd seen in a while) was dubious. But the Large Object fit in my car with no problem at all.

After he received the cash and was relieved of the Large Object, the owner was in an expansive mood. He was also quite impressed with my car. He wanted to know how many miles the car had, how reliable it was, etc. How old was it, anyway?

The car's about 10 (give or take) years old.

So how long have I had it?

Um, I got it new, so 10 (+/-) years.

He sort of boggled at that, and I realized that (as usual) he'd thought I was at least 15 years younger than I actually am, and was trying to figure out how the hell I'd bought a new car at such a ridiculously young age.  I wasn't as annoyed as I would usually be, because I had a new acquisition... and my hatchback had proved itself yet again!

Team Briefing!

I recently heard back from a high mucky-muck that I had really impressed the guys at a field team briefing for... doing a great job at a field team briefing.

I'm not sure how much of a compliment that is. I mean, I assigned tasks to various people, I talked about gear and why we needed it, I explained the particular oddities of the site and client, I passed around paperwork to be filled out, and everybody filed out to Go Do Fieldwork.

I feel like this is the same thing I ran into when teaching a course a while back. Am I really that awesome? I'm a mid-career professional who's been leading team meetings for ages/teaching lots of courses. I have tons of experience doing this stuff, none of which is difficult.  Why is being competent surprising? I should be competent by now!

I know that the people around me know that I'm older than, say, 20. But maybe because I look young, people forget my actual age, no matter how often I add in references to my advanced age and years of experience. Or perhaps I'm socially awkward enough that people are surprised that I can string multiple sentences together in front of a crowd.

Or maybe I just give a damn good team briefing.

old field photo

I recently found an old photograph of me collecting a groundwater sample. The picture is at least 10 years old: I'm wearing a pair of pants that are at least two sizes smaller than what I have now and a hat that bit the dust at least two hats ago. What, you don't measure your career experience by hats?

The one thing that struck me about the picture is how young and.. fragile I looked.

I joke a lot about looking young for my age (short, slight, and baby-faced), but in my mind, my head is nearly level with that of everyone around me and I have a reasonable poker face that doesn't show every blessed emotion that flits through my head. It's only the distance of a decade that allows me to see what the rest of the world does.

good or bad?

Long-time readers will remember that I have a wee bit of a pet peeve about looking young for my age. It's a pain most of the time, but I've gotten adept at working my level of experience/age into an early conversation with everybody I meet. I do the same thing during the introduction to any courses I teach, but nobody remembers the course intro, and I don't go overboard in reminding people.

I got evaluations back from a class I taught recently - a class in which I was only two degrees of separation from several of the students. Word filtered back to me that I seemed especially smart and knowledgeable... for my age. I also got exceptionally high reviews for the class in general.

So, was it good that I was mistaken for someone much younger? I'm not sure. Maybe my complex about not being taken seriously is making it harder to be objective and appreciate that there are some benefits to looking young.

just you wait

Last week, I took the elevator downstairs with a gaggle of women in their early 20s. One started to complain about being mistaken for a teenager. She said, "my mother promised that I will appreciate looking young once I hit 30..." but she left before I could tell her that not everybody will feel that way. Like me.

Prematurely gray hair runs in my family, but I missed that particular gene. I'm only starting to get gray hair, and it doesn't seem to change anyone's impression of my age. It's too bad - I would love to be distinguished rather than young. At least that way, I wouldn't have to work my actual age/experience into conversations with every single business contact I meet so that my opinions have a chance of being taken seriously.

pacing problems

FSP has an interesting post today about pacing while lecturing.

I tend not to move around too much while lecturing, which is funny because in almost any other situation I am extraordinarily twitchy. I go on long, fast walks while talking on the cell phone in the field and invariably find myself hundreds of feet from paper and pen when I need them. I tend to work very intensely in the office (with one or both feet madly tapping) and then pop up at random to release tension. I am incapable of sitting still.

So why am I so stationary when I'm lecturing or leading a meeting?

I communicate much more easily by writing than by speaking - it takes me more effort to organize my thoughts. Connecting with an audience and presenting a coherent system is a real effort for me, so when I lecture, I focus intensely on what I'm doing. I'm also acutely aware of how friggin' young I appear, so in an attempt at projecting gravitas, I tend to move very deliberately.

Maybe when I'm old and totally comfortable with audiences, I'll revert to being a spaz while teaching. Until then, I probably won't be distracting my students by pacing around the room.

I have no idea

FSP has a nice post up today about answering difficult post-talk questions.

I haven't had too many post-talk questions that were especially aggressive or difficult. When I've given talks at a conference, it was as an extremely young-looking (if not especially young) grad student, so I didn't have too many people trying to trip me up.

One thing about dealing with drillers and other contractors is that it forces you to deal with questions you may not have immediate answers for. If you get defensive or say something totally and obviously (in hindsight) wrong just to say anything, then you have to deal with the consequences - extra time and effort, more miscommunication, and worse, bad data.

After going through lots of pre-bid meetings, initial orientation/safety meetings, and discussions with clients/regulators, I had lots of practice working through the implications of a question with a big audience waiting for an answer. And lots of practice saying, "hmm, I didn't think of that. I'll have to check and then get back to you"!

conference drinks

I was at the post-conference cocktail hour, where everybody tries to juggle drinks, lukewarm appetizers, and business cards. I was staying at a hotel a couple blocks from the conference center and my only bag was my giant laptop/paperwork briefcase, so I'd just brought some cash and the room card.

Nobody would serve me a drink. C'mon! I've got my conference badge with my scientific and clearly non-entry-level job title! I've got my little conference drink ticket! And it's a long, cold trip back to the hotel for my driver's license.

So I got my coworkers to order me a glass of wine and then sneak it to me when the conference staff wasn't looking.

sweetie

I got recently involved in a whole long discussion about using words like “sweetie” or “hon” in a business setting. A fair number of people thought that folks who didn’t like/complained about being called “sweetie” were obnoxious complainers, elitist, or just plain unpleasant.

I don’t mind being called by some form of endearment in a casual setting. At a restaurant? Fine. It's even sort of charming if it’s a diner sort of place and the waitress is old enough to be my mother.

It’s another thing altogether when I’m wrapping up a long phone call about a bunch of technical details with a subcontractor. I’m the client. You know my name. Cooing “bye, bye, sweetie” right at the end is completely unprofessional.

A lot of people will think I’m being overly sensitive. But I’m guessing those same people haven’t had to fight to be taken seriously with every new business interaction.

advantages to looking young

Long-time readers of this blog will recognize that I have a bit of a complex about being mistaken for a much younger person. I am super-polite (in fact, I'm probably too much of a pushover) most of the time, but if someone dismisses me (or worse, patronizes me) because they think I'm younger/less experienced, I react... poorly.

It pains me to admit it, but there are advantages to looking less experienced when you're working in the field. When I'm trying to fill out resident surveys or asking for permission to access a property, I'm seen as unthreatening. For example, old ladies were somewhat more likely to answer the door to me than to some of my grizzled coworkers.

Also, actively hostile people will tend to attack the person who looks older, even if we're doing the exact same thing (say, collecting groundwater samples from wells on the same street) independently. Not that I can't handle myself, but I'm pretty happy to avoid having an angry neighbor get all in my face.

I guess it's better that I surprise people by being experienced and competent, rather than have folks assume I know what I'm doing and then screw up. But when someone asks if I'm doing surveys for a school project (and no, they're not thinking grad school), it's still incredibly hard to smile and turn the conversation to what I'm actually asking for.

Hey, you!

It’s hard to know how to address females in a business capacity. My single pet peeve, as you may have noticed, is to be considered younger/more inexperienced/more helpless than I actually am. So I hated being called “Miss”. I felt like “Miss” should be reserved for someone under the age of 18.

So it was pretty funny when someone called a friend (same age and stage in life) “Ma’m” and she got really mad because she thought only old ladies were addressed as “Ma’m”. That’s when I realized that no matter what you call a female business acquaintance or client, you’re probably going to irritate someone. From then on, I resolved not to get worked up about being called “Miss”, because the hapless addresser has no idea what my personal preferences are. If they knew me, they’d use my given name.

By the way, calling me “sir” isn’t the best way to go about things either. The number of female geologists has increased significantly since the days of yore, so if you’re a driller, I’d suggest not having “yes, sir” as your default response to requests.

babyface?

Three people in as many weeks have professed astonishment (astonishment!) when they found out I am x age. Each time, it was a different situation, but in each I was doing something professional. I told one person, “but I have crow’s feet and gray hair!” (ok, not much...but it seems pretty visible to me!) and she shrugged me off by saying her mother had gray hair in high school.

I’m not exactly sure why I look so young. It’s not just my small stature – I have lots of petite friends who don’t have this problem. I don’t have a traditional “baby” face (wide-set eyes, round cheeks, full lips), so I’m not exactly sure what it is. I guess I’ll just have to wait for more gray hair to look the “appropriate” age.

Teasing

I was apparently born with a giant sign on my head that says "tease me." I am physically unthreatening and blush easily. This makes it hard to maintain my authority. Here's an example of what I mean:

I'd been working with one drill rig for several months, so we knew each other well by that point. The driller had two helpers who were my age (early 20s at this point). I should say that one of the helpers was built like an ox and the other spent his day using drill rods as dumbells. One day, the driller took off to get supplies or something and we were waiting around - probably we were waiting for the backfill to settle around a well before finishing installation, or we were waiting for the concrete to set.

At some point, the conversation moved around to the 100-pound bag of concrete I was sitting on. Helper 1 said something about me weighing less than the concrete.

Me: Not really.
Helper 1: You can't weigh more than 90 pounds.
Me: I assure you, I do not weigh anything close to 90 pounds.
Helper 2: My girlfriend is your size and she weighs 90 pounds.
Me (getting a little irritated): Look, a lot of women lie about their weight. I don't have a problem with how much I weigh, and it's more than 100 pounds.
Helper 1: There is no way you weigh more than 90 pounds soaking wet.
Me (now riled up): You know what? You don't know squat about womens' weights. In fact, I weigh 120 pounds! (thus becoming the only modern female to ever fudge her weight up a couple pounds).
Helper 1: That's horseshit.
Me (insulted): Well, then, it must be that I weigh so much because I've got more muscles.
Helpers 1 and 2: AH HA HA HA!

The rest of the week, my name was "muscles." All I heard was, "hey, 'muscles', why don't you pick up that (object weighing at least 200 pounds) and bring it over?...'muscles', why don't you break the drill rods for us?"

Note to self: getting goaded into an argument about my weight does not help me project an aura of authority.

smile, dear!

Sorry I've been AWOL - I've been on vacation (along with what feels like everybody else) and I didn't have internet access.

I am normally an exceptionally easygoing and friendly person. I am cranky on this blog, but it's my way of unloading all the things that get under my skin. A perceptive (or not so perceptive) reader may realize that being perceived as a teenager is a massive pet peeve of mine. When this happens, unfortunately, my manners go out the window. My typical response is either a) start spluttering with indignation or b) my smile freezes into a grimace and I get a slightly crazed look as I try not to do option a.

Last week I met a middle-aged man who asked me what my school was. I know he was assuming that I was an undergrad, so I said that I went to (undergrad school) and then (grad school). But I didn't actually say that I was a grad student. My bad. So this guy goes on and on about how I probably know this person he knows, who is, as it turns out, a current student.

I was with my mother at the time. Needless to say, she knows me well. She jumped into the conversation and explained that not only was I not a current college student, I had graduated from college before this girl started high school. She then steered me away before I could say something obnoxious.

I realize that announcing my actual age and then stomping off in a huff is not the sort of behavior that helps me gain respect in the field or anywhere else. I have managed to not do that. But it is really, really tempting.

crybaby

FSP's post about crying students reminded me of a certain incident from fairly early in my career.

As I've said, I do struggle to project an aura of authority. However, not only do I look young, but I am somewhat of a crier. This is interpreted by many people as a sign of being overly sensitive. I am not overly sensitive. I cry in the same way another person may go into a snit or throw a tantrum. I have only cried on a few occasions after being belittled or shouted at, and generally I am able to busy myself with paperwork or go rummage around in the back of the truck while I pull myself together. Afterward, I'm able to discuss whatever the problem is rationally.

However, there is one exception...

I took over as sample manager about halfway through a large field project. Samples were just pouring in, and we were innundated. I did have a new employee who had been helping the previous sample manager, and she got me up to speed on how things were organized.

I'd been doing this work for about a week when the head of the field effort (I'll call him "Bob") stormed into our area. He'd just found out how we'd been organizing the samples and he thought it was stupid and would make later analysis difficult. Well, what we'd been doing had been cleared by other folks, but I could see his point and if I had started the program I may well have done things his way. I tried to reason with him, but he was on a roll. What possibly possessed us to do it this way, he had too much to do without worrying about sample organization, he thought we were somewhat competent but apparently he was wrong, etc etc.

Bob must've yelled at us for a solid 5 minutes. I stopped saying anything after the first couple of protests in the hope that he'd wind down, but no luck. Eventually, the other employee stormed out, muttering "I don't need this shit". Bob then rounded on me, saying that he expected her to screw up because she was a lazyass and she wasn't going to be there much longer if he had any say about it. But he hadn't thought I'd screw it up.

At that point, I just exploded with these horrible, loud sobs that I couldn't get under control. And there was an entire peanut gallery hovering at a discreet distance - most of our field crew. Ugh. The worst thing was, I wasn't really crushed by his tirade as much as enraged, and then mad at myself for not responding in a more socially-appropriate way.

One thing about my ouburst was that it made him feel like a shit, and it made the rest of the crew think he was a world-class asshole. Well, fair enough. The problem was that I was now considered fragile and had to be tiptoed around. One of my (male, older) coworkers had dissappeared during the commotion and brought me cheesecake, which was nice, but I just wanted to be treated like a professional who had just temporarily and justifiably lost her temper.

Relationship Problems

Drilling is my least favorite activity in consulting. It is also the one activity that generally requires a geologist, as opposed to an engineer or other type of scientist.

I do enjoy sampling. You never know what you'll find when you open a split spoon, and in some situations it's really exciting. Once, we punched through some old newspapers, and were able to date them based on the sports stats, and they were over 50 years old.

I dislike drilling for several reasons, but number 1 is working with drillers. The problem is that I want wells to be installed in a specific way. I need to not drag down potential contamination from above, I need representative soil samples, and I need to produce a well that will give good data over the long term. A driller wants to finish the job on schedule and without breaking anything. The way I want to do things is generally slower and more of a PITA for the driller. All the requirements I should be insisting on are in the contract between us. However, this contract is usually hammered out between us and some sort of manager at the drilling company, and the guy who goes out and does the work usually doesn't give a rat's ass about the contract. Especially where it contradicts his standard practice (which happened on every job - my company and I were picky).

Human nature is to test limits. Every single driller I have ever worked with has tested me. I am unfortunately a conflict-avoiding type, and when I started, I was shy and nervous about asserting myself. Also, drilling is complicated - most rigs have been modified, and each driller has his own way of doing things. The universe of things that are ok to do is large, and the universe of things that are unacceptable is larger. When I first started, I had some (minimal) training, but 2 days of having someone shadow you doesn't prepare you for the millions of ways drillers will try to take shortcuts that you have to catch. You look stupid and petty if you keep the driller from doing something that is fine, and you get poor results (and lose respect) if you don't stop the driller from doing something that is bad.

And here is where my appearance comes in. As I mentioned, I am short and female. I am incapable of hiding my feelings, and I flush at the drop of a hat. In grad school, I've been told that I look 16 or 17...I didn't look any older when I first started working! The only way I can assert my authority is to not let drillers get away with things (I do tend to bend on some stuff that isn't critical; otherwise I'd be nagging all day). I have to prove with each new job and each new driller that I am not a doormat and that I know my stuff. It has gotten easier as I gained knowledge and experience. I have honed my "cut the shit" stare. I can relax a little and not feel like I'm exposing myself if I ask a question.

But I still start every new job dreading what the new driller will do and desperately hoping I catch whatever it is.



Note that I have referred to the driller as "him". I have only met one female driller, and I did not work with her personally.

who am I?

I graduated from a small liberal arts college (SLAC) right when the bottom fell out of the job market. After some panic and a few missteps, I found myself employed as a geologist in an environmental consulting firm. I was bright eyed and annoyingly enthusiastic, but I quickly ran up against some things that suck.

My first major problem is one I've had all my life. I am short. I have always looked much, much younger than I actually am. People tell me, "oh, wait until you're older and then you'll appreciate it"...still waiting! So here I was, nervous little recent grad, and I got to go out and tell drillers who'd been working longer than I'd been alive how to do stuff my way. And I looked like I was 14.

That didn't go over so well.

Then, I discovered managers with their heads up their asses, malevolent competitors, and contamination that just will not go where it's supposed to go, dammit!

The impulse is to write about things that suck because that's what gets you worked up. If it's a beautiful day and I'm not, um, trying to finish my thesis, I'm going to be outside, enjoying life and not posting. I will try not to make every single post a bitch fest, because out in real life, I am having a terrific time. Mostly.

So, to start things off on a positive note, here are some things I like:

Custom kilts with beer holders. I also like beer. I saw these at a scottish fest (rkilts.com) and they kick ass in black leather. Not very authentic, though.

Claymores (from same Scottish fest - customscottish.com). This one is almost as tall as me, which means I would look super cool swinging it dementedly.

Pouty, blue-eyed, not-straight rock stars

I think what we have learned from this little exercise is that I should have been born a boy. *

*just kidding! I am actually fine with being female, thanks.