Week 9: Subprime code crisis

October 27, 2018

Did a little cry on Friday because I miss my old team and I feel like a bit of a loser that nobody wants to hang out with in my new job. Accidentally did this in front of the CTO who said some clever and kind things that put things in perspective for me. Well done JK.
If you’re reading this and you work with me, HELLO. Don’t worry, it’s fine to read this. Maybe you feel a bit like me admitting I cried on Friday was something you weren’t supposed to read but actually, look, it’s fine, I cry sometimes, I don’t mind you knowing that. Normalise crying.
I find parts of this article a bit annoying but the phrase ‘subprime code crisis’ is good .
Someone has gone through our car? They didn’t take anything because there wasn’t anything to take. They just threw our old rail tickets everywhere.
I went to the BreakfastOps thing on Tuesday and it was very good! Some interesting people said some interesting things, and the room they provided for me to pump in was great.
A new game (that I learnt from Anna Shipman, actually) is saying “OR SHE” when people (usually men) say something like “We don’t know who the next CTO is, but he’ll definitely care about X”. It’s good because it doesn’t derail the conversation and you can say it with a smile, or maybe a look of absolute boredom, depending on your personal brand.
The real woke move would be to say “OR THEY” but given these folks think there is currently only one gender applicable for technical people I think we’re going to have to inch their Overton window a bit further before they’re ready to hear there might even be more than two.
I finished my Ottoline jacket. I have written it up over on my sewing tumblr. Jake Champion saw it on Friday and said “I like your jacket!” and then I got to say “Thank you! I made it myself” which is always a nice feeling.
I know I am being irrationally angry about this but I find the rhetoric used in cancer fund-raising eg “Stand up to cancer” extremely irritating. Cancer is an awful and complicated disease. It’s not the school bully who is going to leave us all alone if we “stand up to it”. Argh.