 All right. Hi, everyone. Welcome and thank you for joining us today at Empower Us, hosted by Chronosphere. We're really excited to have this awesome panel here with us today. We're going to be talking about imposter syndrome and kind of going to go through everyone's various experiences. We'll have some questions and then they'll, for the panelists, and then there'll be time for Q&A with the audience as well at the end. So if you have any questions, make sure to write them on the little piece of the paper on your table and we'll go around and make sure we can collect them and pass them on to Heather who will be moderating the panel for us. So just quickly going through the agenda, kind of what I just said, but so we're going to spend about 45 minutes doing the panel discussion in Q&A and then there'll be time at the end for everyone to kind of network mingle, talk to the panelists, that sort of thing. So we're wrapping up at 545 and yeah, so now I will hand it over to Heather, Heather Jocelyn. She's a features editor at the NewsStack and she'll be moderating for us today and I think you're going to take it from here. You're going to take it away. Thanks, thank you very much. Thanks, thanks Gibbs. Welcome everybody. I know that you're here because you're interested in our subject which is not just imposter syndrome but also how women can carve out more influence, women in non-binary folks can carve out more influence in the tech industry and I know you're here because you're interested in that and also you've submitted your vaccine card and your ID and your birth certificate and your mother's maiden name and all that sort of thing. So thank you for going through all that to be here today. So one thing again, my name is Heather Jocelyn. I'm with the NewsStack. I was previously with a cloud native consultancy called Container Solutions and I've learned a lot about the tech industry in the last few years and one thing that I have learned is how few women and non-binary folks are in it even though we are women are half of the workforce generally. The latest Stack Overflow Developer Survey found that women make up just 5% of professional developers around the world and in the U.S. they make up just over 9% of developers that 9% includes non-binary, non-gender conforming folks as well. So that's pretty startling and so what we want to do is talk to some women who are in non-binary people who are in the tech industry who can talk about what they see as not just the obstacles but how they deal with it and what they would recommend. We mentioned because of COVID it's a little trickier but we'd like you to if you want to write questions. We'll be gathering them and we can answer questions at the end of our discussion. If you have stories you want to talk at the end we'll have a little bit networking. If you want to talk to people here about telling your stories I'd be happy to hear your stories as well and I'm sure our panel would as well but we won't be able to go around with a microphone like we have in the past and things like this but we're really happy you're here and I'm going to let have each of our panelists introduce themselves starting with Sophia Vargas. Hello everyone my name is Sophia Vargas. I am currently a program manager at Google in our open source programs office which is a very generic title so I prefer research analysts because it's a little bit more aligned to the work that I do in terms of looking at market and industry trends as well as looking at our contribution analysis and some of our systems data. I've been in the tech industry for about 10 years now pretty much since I graduated college. I started my career at Forrester Research eventually becoming an analyst covering the data center and infrastructure market and then transitioned to Google three years ago. Calling call. Hello everybody happy Wednesdays it's Wednesday right okay I am calling call. I have been with the new stack for about a year and a half as their digital marketing manager media whatever you want to call me I'm in events and I handle the podcast and live streams. I love my title but I always get it wrong so I'm so sorry my apologies but I've been in tech for about hmm about almost five years and it before that I was in hospitality but it's mostly marketing and storytelling but when I got into tech it was just one of the most amazing challenges and it was in biotech and just working with software developers and just just getting in that community it's just been wonderful so when I got this opportunity with the new stack about a year and a half ago I just been amazed this is the best company I've ever worked for and the culture is awesome and and it's very challenging so that is me if you want to know anything more about me you can go on LinkedIn or we can talk later and I'm happy to be here and Eleanor Festian yeah hi everybody I'm Eleanor I'm an engineering manager at Coronosphere and I manage the platform team so the platform team is everything about how users interact with the product so we have support the web, the UI, the CLI, the API, things like that. Coronastere is a metrics and observability company but I was a web engineer so I came into to Coronastere really knowing nothing about metrics and observability and data and yeah it was really challenging and I'm excited to talk about it. And in for Aparna, Dina Karan, who was not able to be here today is Crystal Curriglin? Yes hi my name is Crystal Kirkland I am a product marketing manager at Arise AI, a machine learning company and I was a part of the initial crew at Arise. My background lies at the intersection of humanity and technology from the school of information at UC Berkeley and I am a greenie to tech I've only been in it for a year so fresh eyes. Okay so Eleanor's volunteered to take the first stab at our first question we're gonna just all get a chance to weigh in on this on these questions. What have you found to be the biggest obstacles to exerting influence in the organizations you've worked in and how did you deal with them? Yeah great question so I think so I had a web background right I was building web apps and then I moved to Coronastere which is all about data and observability and metrics and I really knew nothing and so I entered this team last December so coming up on a year and I was like okay how do I exert influence on this team that I'm managing and I was like you know I know nothing so where do I even begin so it sort of really started with like okay well what's what does success look like it's like what do I need to do and like what's achievable and I think at first it was like oh I need to ramp up on everything metrics related and Prometheus and Alert Manager and all these things and I know nothing it's so overwhelming but it's it was really like if Coronastere has anything it is a wealth of experts in this space and I do not need to be an expert in that space and it's sort of like delegating that responsibility and that and like sort of my ramp up into this space to my team and so that's been just sort of making like what I thought was a failure in my skills as sort of delegating that to the team and having them ramp me up and then really being clear about like what do I need to be successful and what's realistic like I don't need to be an expert in this space to be successful as a manager I can focus on what I am passionate about which is people and culture and process and building a business that is inclusive and fun and a work-life balance and so that's what I am good at and that's what I'm an expert in and sort of can ramp up on the other things as I go so that's sort of how I overcame that obstacle is just being really realistic about what I could do yeah sitting have thoughts about obstacles what the biggest obstacles they've had to overcome in the workplace well a meaningful looks being exchanged here well I mean I mean if we're talking about challenges and and and having that I don't know if we are going through imposter syndrome but I mean when I got the opportunity with Newstack and even before that with the qi the biotech company like you said I wasn't an expert I know what sorry I know what my what my skills were but I'm like well okay well can I actually do this job I mean Eleanor is right I mean you don't have to like overthink the whole process because there are experts and there are so many people if you put your mind to it and have that mindset that are willing to help you and and it helps and but you have to have that mindset and you have to to be positive in that mindset and not just don't beat yourself up about it but having that influence because most of the time they want to learn something from you especially I thought it was really interesting that some of the software engineers I thought were like way you know smarter than I am and and they want to learn more about what I did so it's like a give and take so and you you can't have that influence regardless of where you're where you're from and where your background is I think it's worth noting too that just one thing I mean cloud native is such technology is so new and I mean Kubernetes is like six years old or something like that I mean it's so nobody knows everything yet and just like to keep that to keep that in mind is is helpful I have found helpful but but what about um well let's um let's talk a little bit about an imposter syndrome uh first of all has anyone has anyone experienced imposter syndrome a felt imposter syndrome at some point about it's almost quite a lot of people so um I tweeted this morning I tweeted today um that last night I was scrolling through Twitter before I went to sleep like you do and um somebody uh had posted like all the wrong people have imposter syndrome which I thought was kind of profound um that uh so um Sophia you said you would take this this one what advice would you give about about avoiding that feeling um especially if you're if you're somebody who is you know if you're not one of one of the the guys yeah I mean I think it's kind of been hard to completely avoid especially if you're walking into a new role or a new position I guess for me in my career it really hit me early on as a forester and I became an analyst after being a researcher and growing expertise in a topic and as a 25 year old out of college I was put in the room with people that were twice my age and did not look like me um and there was this moment of like you're the expert and you don't really look like you're the expert and there's kind of this judgment um assuming that like how do you how can you tell me how to do my job better if you clearly have only been alive for half as long as me and never worked in the industry so that was definitely a bit of a bit of an intense feeling where you just don't you have to develop confidence in yourself um and I think what really helped was I had a colleague who sat me down and was like you know the space that you're covering you're covering the data center market you've just spent the last two years learning everything you possibly can about this space like you are guaranteed to know something that is going to be new for these individuals even though they've been in it um and so just be confident in what you've learned and I I mean I think maybe not everyone's approach but I I just get really nervous about it so I would just kind of just throw as much information at people as I could come up with so this is a way to finally get something that was new for them and once you once they figure out that yes you know something that they don't know then the the balance shifts if it becomes a conversation they start listening to you you start talking about it versus just trying to get their attention so it was a lot of it was just being comfortable in in my own knowledge and I think I'd say for anyone in the room who's feeling this if you do your research you do your work to really become an expert in the thing you are talking about you are going to know you are going to know more than you think you do and you have to you have to believe it and be confident in yourself anyone and I think like the you be confident in what you know and be confident in your perspective like you are self-identified green age attack and that new perspective is fresh and it's important and valid and you sometimes raise a lot of things that you know experts or more senior people forget about so it's definitely about what you know and definitely about your perspective as well yeah I feel like imposter syndrome can feel like this multi-dimensional just weight on your shoulders of you know you don't look the part or you're too young or like your gender doesn't fit and very often I feel like I get lost in that and then I lose sight of my knowledge and my expertise and I have to come home to me and my knowledge and sit with it and be like okay actually you know I'm kind of smart I can like figure this out and I am capable and talking to other people especially help so much because it feels like such like an individual thing but we all experience it and I remember talking to one of my mentors and she was like everyone experiences imposter syndrome and very you are likely not the person like since since everyone experiences that you're very likely not the person to be the imposter like get out of that mindset and just keep moving forward and it may feel sycophant but at the end of the day like you'll look back and be like wow I had a con for so much and um yeah yeah yeah that's it that's all I got like we can't all possibly be the imposter like some yeah exactly some of us have got to be you know some of us there's got to be some real some real um probably a little sticklier yeah exactly so Colleen do you want to weigh in on I think I mentioned it before because I yeah but it's the same yeah you have to be on your mind so you have to have like you said you have to have confidence in yourself that you know what the hell you're doing and and that's all on you and if and then you get the feedback from your colleagues and you just try and thrive and make it happen yeah yeah um Crystal do you want to take this next one how do you feel support how do you find support amongst other women and and other people within your organization and amongst allies in the organization and how do you how do you support them yourself absolutely yeah so I think backtracking thinking about my experience as a woman in STEM and just in life I feel like women are very often pitted against each other yeah especially in like these niche fields where it feels like there's only one spot for the token woman and so if you're in it with other women um then you have to fight for it and I feel like the first step is creating an environment where you don't feel like you're fighting for a single spot or two spots in an organization and in fact where it's open to women and to diverse ideas and thoughts and like at a rise for instance we have um a concerted hiring effort to hire women and to keep that in mind and we also have like ladies of a rise where we talk to each other like on a daily basis of like things that we think of like imposter syndrome and just keeping that open dialogue of like we're here together to help each other and not to be pitted against each other and that that like very mindset of like feeling like you have a team and that you have a spot and not only that you have a spot but that you're encouraged to welcome others into your team or your organization has helped so much um yeah yeah I think too like we talked a little bit last time about uh building confidence and like just being confident yourself and that's how you overcome some of these things but I think with the community yeah with your team that helps build confidence when that's just doesn't come naturally right is that you just sort of feed off the confidence from your peers and the people and people who are you know are your allies exactly that you can like trust fully yeah and then feel like you can be completely vulnerable and feel safe in that vulnerability yeah okay I think there's there's definitely an element of just supporting each other um and being the the woman who sat me down and said you know this and that was how she was able to allow me to grow in my own role because someone else that wasn't myself was confirming that yes in fact you can do this you can do this job um and so there's an element of of just support verbally either directly or in meetings sometimes it being um I moved into a new role recently and I just noticed that my my manager and the teams around me are incredibly promotional of my work internally where I came from a position before voice having to self promote in terms of saying hey this is me this is what I do are you interested can we work together um and then finding a new role where the team around me was actively promoting my work pointing it back to me and putting me in touch with others either internally or externally networking and it it was I mean I didn't know that was a thing before I mean I did but I didn't experience it before and it really kind of changed um my mindset of how um I don't know just knowing that you're on a team that supports you or you have people around you that support you so now that I've experienced that I know it's sort of on me to make sure that I am being supportive toward my peers and toward women uh and folks that are younger than me in their career that they they need that support they need that confidence they need someone else who's going out there who has a bigger network and can bring them into the conversation because they have that already built and that's how I got where I was able to move on in my career and I owe that to others that are just developing what are some of the concrete ways that you can support someone else in like to promote their ideas or promote their um like uh impact yeah impact there you go I think go ahead yeah what would you do if you you know for a colleague who you wanted to yeah what's an example of well I think mentorship is huge so I personally have mentors who look like me and who have lived like the roles that I have and that has been huge for me to see a path forward and now that I'm in a role that I'm comfortable in despite being green I can now help my peers and people coming into tech and so like me and my friends um at school like Cal especially we reach out and we help with like different clubs and different organizations and networking and creating this environment because I feel like especially in tech like there's still so much red tape and so much guarded knowledge of how to get in and especially if you don't have like the social cultural capital to know it like you'll never be able to get in and so I find it's like my responsibility now to help younger girls find a path forward and find a way into tech um and just distributing that knowledge is the first step this is maybe a very direct experience and very colored by my former role um as an analyst at Forester anything that I wrote belonged to Forester not to me so if I was going to cite someone else's work it was kind of all in the company there was never really I mean they were experts and you were known for your talks and for your expertise but anything that you wrote or became content like I've seen my reports be refreshed by other people my name is no longer on them anymore um and so there was no incentive to to really point to folks unless there was a very specific um question whereas now I'm in a role whereby work is can be referenced back to myself and so if I reference someone else's work I make sure that they're called out at it it's just good research practice to cite where your thing came from but to say here's here's an idea or here's a slide or here's a summary of this paper and then to actually write where the paper is can someone go find it can someone see you wrote it are you saying who the researchers were you saying where you're getting your information from as a way to just continue to iterate that these are you're learning from other people and you're referencing their work you're supporting their work by calling it out and calling them out by name especially in in an environment that can go look them up but I think this this can happen just from as you share content but also I found that within maybe a smaller setting in a meeting if you're brainstorming people are coming up with ideas I've really appreciated folks that have called people out by their ideas to build on it versus saying oh someone said this and I'm gonna iterate on it but saying like oh well Sophia had had brought this up and I think that and then go from there and just by even saying my name it means it's hard to do in big settings but into small conversations it it helps attribute those ideas back to the person and even though they might only say one thing if I've now referenced them a few other times in the conversation they're still in it they're still being recognized for the contribution even though it might have just been that one point so there there are very small and scalable ways to make sure that people get credit for the things that they do and even a small reference like that can help support someone who's newer developing to be seen to be noticed for what they do I think I think that's a good that's a good point um that's something like early in my career like I had a couple of um examples of like an idea of someone taking like a supervisor taking credit for an idea of mine and so I feel like I've always been I've overcompensated almost in it like like I always you know I have a conversation with somebody and then I'm talking about their idea I'm like I try to make sure that I'm crediting them you know even if it's like a like an obvious thing like gravity exists you know obvious thing I try to make sure that they get credit um so that's a kind that's like just thing day to day things like that as well that's one way to offer support um how many um how many of you feel have ever encountered feel you've encountered unconscious bias in in in how people have dealt with you okay quite a quite a few um if so um if so um the question for you Colleen you agreed to take this one uh if so how do you decide when to call that out and what do you do in such situations well this is an interesting story um I arrived here Sunday and upon check in um everything was going great uh gentleman named Nicholas went smooth uh this was about well maybe five o'clock in the evening everything was going smooth and then there was another gentleman that um was standing right by me and uh he saw my mask I had a sequined mask because you know that's how I roll disco and um he looked at me up and down just as I was uh exchanging you know the card he's like oh I really like your mask and he looked me up and down he's like you know what there's this restaurant you have to go it's owned by this black man and they have the best chicken that says oh isn't this magical I have to deal with this today and I'm like first of all that's I did the unconscious behavior or bias is that where am I genetically predisposed to like chicken did you know I was vegan no did he ask no but do I have to waste my time and my my mindset on that today because I was so excited to be there this gentleman I mean this clown I mean yeah I'm going to say it he was a clown just almost ruined my day so what do you do if this is something in the workplace I don't I did not plan on giving this man a lesson in you know unconscious bias and please learn that was not my intention but what if it happens in the workplace how do you handle it do you push back and how do you push back and what is your strategy do you manage do you manage how they feel about you or do you manage how you feel about yourself and how will the company thrive if you become your human self but you're pushing back because when something somebody says something that's not good and it's it's unconscious bias do you push back do you take that risk do you ruffle feathers do you pair for the white flight or you hope on their side of things that they stay perched and they want to listen and then get that opportunity for the company's sake and for you because you are a colleague they have your back we well I've been risking this for a long time and I've been always looking for that culture that's more accepting but I have to push back because if I don't the behavior will continue so when somebody says something like that if they did say something like that in the workplace you have to say hey you know that's not really cool let's talk about this but you're risking will you be considered a troublemaker you know or hostile or whatever it's just you are taking that risk but will they listen will you be heard so when we talk about imposter syndrome I get it but me being a black woman in tech which I think I mean this might be controversial but I really don't care black women are the least respected and have to give up the most women in general are the least respected in the workplace and have to give up the most but for some freaking reason black women are always down a little bit lower and that's hard for me to accept because I know who I am I'm not a human and I expect people to take me for my work and not just who they think that I am but if I don't push back and when I say push back it's not in a negative sense it's just like you hey you have to listen to understand and let's talk about this I'm taking the risk can they take the risk can they get over their fear or a fear of being threatened take that opportunity stay perched listen and do it when nobody's watching now I love that everybody's diversity inclusion and this is nice but I mean come on this is at the end of the day and there's barely anybody here I think it should be more important and we should be pushing back and making diversity inclusion number one not at the end of the day with very little people here and I think there were about six men here and that's a conversation I want to have but and I can have it aside if anybody's available I have over 20 years experience this so I want to have those conversations and I want people to not be afraid especially what's been going on in the last year or so you have to push back if you're a woman if you're non-binary or you I mean you have or they're going to keep getting away with it and it's not cool yes you are risking something you might risk your job but you have to push back I mean well behaved women seldom make history I mean that's what my mindset but yeah I would ask my strategy was to keep pushing back and see what happens and and and encourage them but I am not I will tell you this I am not managing anybody's privilege or fragility not anymore if you are not ready then maybe you know we need to have that conversation and whether I belong but I am not having that I have enough to do I can't manage white fragility and I can't manage white privilege I have to manage who I am my work and I want you to thrive and if you're my colleague and you're of my tribe you will you'll see who I am because you hired me so and I dealt with that in corporate startups just everywhere and as you know check in that cube gun so yeah my strategy is to keep pushing back until until something good happens and I'm sticking with it thank thank you college does any does anybody else have a thought about dealing with unconscious bias and how to push back I feel like pushing back is important and also educating and creating allies is also important so that you kind of have like a little brigade behind you at any point I was talking to Tammy my boss about this question and she brought up an experience she had when she was at Adobe and she was like with a client and the client was walking all over her and told her that a woman's place is yeah okay first of all anything that starts with a woman's place she's not ever a woman's place is at home and and everything else is extracurricular so good for her for her taking like an extracurricular activity and starting a career and she was fate and she was with a colleague and he was a guy and he initially stood up for her and then this client just kept inundating her with his thoughts and eventually her colleague just put his face like in the plate it was just like I don't know Tammy excused herself and she initially had fought back and then just realized that it wasn't worth it but also that like she didn't know what to do right like what what are you supposed to do in that situation she's representing her company right so like is she supposed to just be a punching bag and after the fact her and her colleague had a conversation and he was like I'm so sorry like what should I have done like what can I do for you like what how can I remedy this and what should I how can I be prepared for next time because there's going to be an inevitable next time and she thought that was incredibly powerful and has been doing that ever since anytime she's like in a situation like that then with the people around her it's about educating right it's like why is that not okay and then what do you do and what can you say and how do you fight back as a team because you obviously have more strength than numbers and men clearly know how to talk to men probably better and creating this brigade behind you I think is extremely important as well oh like the idea of a brigade behind oh yeah army you know your allies and that makes a good point too that sometimes it's not your organization that's the problem sometimes it's dealing with a client or a customer or you know and and the whole then economics comes into it you know you don't want to cost your company business or something but absolutely and it's important not only for yourself if you see it within your where you work or even outside I mean be that person I mean you can't just I had to say victim but make sure part of who you are and where you want to get to especially if you're pushing back it's that you're helping others when you see it you don't just walk away you see it and you say you speak up that ain't cool dude that is not cool let's have this conversation and and that person didn't deserve to hear that but if you want to learn more I'd be happy to do it but stick up for your people and your employees is especially yeah especially these days they'll quit so I mean we've touched upon this I just want to see how we're doing on time we're okay left for for should we um questions yeah should we move to questions we have questions there on the if you want to write them down on the yeah yeah if anyone's written and then just bring them up at an anecdote well while we're well a conversation while we're waiting okay um I was just gonna say I had two thoughts one I definitely want a plus one the brigade um I I think I'm I can be timid and uncomfortable scenarios and I think for me what really helped was having a strong support system of peers or I could sit down with my other female colleagues and say just someone's those behavior bother you as well and see it's not just you maybe I don't want to be the overly sensitive one but like if people are being uncomfortable they might not always voice that and so saying I'm uncomfortable in a smaller setting where other people are also like I'm also uncomfortable now you know you have support now you know you have other people to lean on um and to come and have your back when you want to speak up and say something about it um on the flip side in terms of addressing it and a larger uh method I I found was quite effective and this really is dependent on this the this number of people but we had an offside of about maybe 70 people um and we took an anonymous survey ahead of time about language and how to refer to each other and people and contexts um and it was just a way for people to say these kinds of language or this type of behavior makes me more or less uncomfortable um and then they shared the data back with everyone so you know those were feelings in the room with you but no one had to say I'm the one who feels this way it was done in a completely safe setting because they were removed from that but they could still be completely candid with things that made them feel more or less uncomfortable and then for other folks that would have never I don't know it's it's really hard to confront someone when it's just like they're not physically harming you but they're making you uncomfortable um so to provide a setting to give that feedback and then share it with everyone so they know oh I'm not the only one who feels this way or oh I didn't realize people felt that way about this language and you hope that they change their behavior as a result of it but it's a way to also share it without putting someone on the defensive too if you confront someone and say hey what you said is insensitive their immediate reaction is is to be defensive because you've just attacked their character but if you show it as I mean personal bias here I'm a data analyst if you haven't noticed um I find that sometimes data can be that intermediary where it doesn't have any feelings it's just the numbers you're looking at aggregate across a number of people and so there's there's no person out there's no like personal stake in the game you've now anonymized it in a way where you can take it as just an observation I have a problem with the word defensiveness especially even when you know you're not being heard and you have to keep sometimes yell and say hey hey that's not what I said that's not what's been going on I'm not being defensive I just don't think you're hearing me I don't think you're listening so yeah I mean that unfortunately sometimes that's what we do when we push back we're you're being defensive you're being or emotional yeah at that time of the month there yeah I'm like uh that's actually had someone tell me that I'm almost 20 years I'm marketing I'm like dude are you serious yes and it was a white male yeah well let's well we're waiting for cool are we how are we doing let's do I was thinking we do a little lightning round of common situations and um you know how how you handle what your tip is for handling it um being interrupted in a meeting and you want to take you I mean this happens all time yeah you're I'm I think you just be like and back to me so like if there's anything I don't I I will be an idiot I don't care but I and I also be that person that's like and it's my turn now and like I just bring it back to me like you can interrupt me all you want but I'm gonna it's gonna come back to me okay and then just sort of fight for your place I like the D flipped 100 flip the hair it helps a must I like to call it out when other people jump in across each other like oh what what what were you saying calling like just as a way to remind them that no she wasn't done speaking so I think it's it's you can sort of stand up for yourself and the jump in as I was saying before you interrupted me but it's also I think equally important for others in the room to just help make space for each other yeah totally and that was one of the questions that came up um in our from our audience so did that hopefully that um that answered also we at the Kamala Harris I'm speaking that gave us all the strategy um uh so somebody said uh flip side in this I encountered a colleague who was repeatedly harassed by a newly divorced man who was twice her age it made all of us in the area uncomfortable both for her and ourselves however she did not uh want to report to HR or have anyone intervene what would you do if I guess if you were in that situation or if you were well twice my age they'd be dead I think so I guess if you if you saw a colleague was this was happening to a colleague would you be like well let her handle it or would you I mean the whole business of reporting to HR too I mean HR generally works for the organization not for yeah that's the employee which sometimes people find to their to their dismay you know but I think there's a difference when you yeah HR stories when you go alone but if you're going to like um Crystal had mentioned if you have a colleague someone to back you up of course try and get that support because you'll be surprised that there's some they might have had the similar you know experience but I mean if they are alone um just consider the risk and um you have to make that that decision on your own and it's not going to be easy but at least you'll have it on file I mean we're gonna get legal but that's what you you do I I say do it do I I wouldn't consider I mean this is like downright it's it's like almost it's illegal it's like it's abuse yeah yeah either way if you were the person being harassed or if you were a colleague of the person being harassed you'd go to HR yes I think if I couldn't go to HR I would ask someone on my team that was in those interactions if if I wasn't alone to be like hey watch out for this makes me uncomfortable can you just help me when this happens and it could be like let's go to the bathroom or like uh you know like that's disgusting gross you know like if you have someone else speaking up for you it can be very helpful or just exit the situation good question well to your first question I would definitely push back because if you don't then you're giving him permission to keep thinking it's okay and yes you are risking but if like we said if you get people behind this I mean this is not a part of your job it just isn't or have that conversation hey I hear what you're saying and and you know and this is experience but this is how I feel about it I know that sounds you know but I mean that's the first way you do it and then the second way is like I don't think you've heard me but you've got to keep pushing back and then somebody might hear you like you said another colleague and they're like you know yeah that's that's not fair at all and he might he or she or whatever might get the the clue that yeah that's not okay and they probably nine times out of ten no it's not okay they just want to see this huge narcissist probably to see how far they can push you one thing I would suggest is like because um in addition to pushing back the the the danger is that you push back and then it becomes somebody else's problem you know some other woman in the office this problem or some other person's problem like one thing to suggest maybe is like why don't we rotate this duty amongst the team like you know I you know this person orders food for this time and then the next person does it I mean that's just like saying like I feel like it's always my job and it's not my job you know um what is I think sometimes pushing back is hard because you're like identifying like I have a problem with this and like you don't want to be like I have a problem right because then you're a problem but sometimes I'm just like you know DoorDash does this or like seamless or something like that like offering like like you know Domino's delivers like what are we gonna do here like just like introduce a joke or something I know it's like kind of not you're not pushing back you're not getting to the meat of the problem but it can be a good entryway into why are you asking me this this is not my job and I'm not here for you to walk all over me like let's get Domino's or whatever my favorite is reprioritizing you find what they really care about and then you're like would you like me to reprioritize that who order you lunch like I can spend a couple hours ordering you lunch for sure you want me to like go buy it I'll reprioritize your projects yeah I was thinking that too crystal yeah because I just always think of like and I think that maybe not just in this example but anytime like someone asks you to do something it's always okay what am I gonna not do because I have a full bookly book schedule so if you're asking me to take time out of my day like you're gonna have to tell me what I'm not gonna do for you and it's one of those things where it's like you force them back and the prioritization how do they want to spend their employees time and maybe it's I'm I mean there I think maybe a mixed approach here potentially would be valuable but I do agree with that as well because I think it's it's very practical you hired me to do a job and by asking me to do something else you're reducing my productivity so is that a conscious decision I agree um I want to follow up to on your question about the remote because there are a lot of people that are starting jobs fully remote like I'm meeting our new stack team is here today and I've met most of them for the first time this week in person and we've worked together for months so uh yeah so I mean that's a an issue that more people are dealing with do you do any of you have ideas for how to find support amongst other women in your organization when you're I've been lucky to find meetups locally and globally really um I I mean I know they're out there and especially now because we don't really have a choice but uh yeah find them and they are super helpful I mean I do miss this networking uh but when you I mean you don't have a choice um and you can find some really really good meetups virtually and remotely and they can help you in so many ways and you won't feel alone uh somebody in Germany or could probably have the the same issues or experiences that could help you and that I mean even though it's probably like maybe a different culture but find them they're they're everywhere as um if you I would love to help if I could um I started full remote actually a year ago at a rise um and we didn't have obviously like COVID was a thing still is a thing but even more so than um and we weren't able to meet up or at all and everyone was scattered across the country and you know I got a good gauge of the girls at a rise and then I started asking like you know guns of blazing questions so like when I was negotiating my salary it was like what do you guys earn and then we had like a great conversation about it and it in fact helped all of us um and we also developed like quite a bit more trust and there seemed to be like a lot more transparency and just like understanding amongst all of us that we were helping each other and it still is really difficult because we're still all scattered across the country and even across the world but it takes quite a bit of proactive concerted effort to create that community but it matters immensely to me and to my team so we put that effort in like we do lunches every two weeks like old ladies of a rise lunch and we like have these side conversations and we talk about you know femininity and we engage in conversations that matter deeply to us and it takes effort and it takes time away from you know whatever else we're supposed to be doing for a rise but it also creates this immense sense of transparency and solidarity that is immeasurable. Oh go ahead I was gonna add one more I am a big fan of non-work meetings especially now during just to meet people I think it's always the like you have your meeting schedule and I like to have a productive meeting and sticking to the agenda so like only five minutes of chit chat but you're missing all of the side hallway conversations where you really get to know people so during the pandemic I became all more proactive with actively scheduling coffee meetings and just like just to meet people and say like hey you're on my team we should have a one-on-one even though we don't have an agenda I just want to get to know you you can even bring questions like you would for a regular meeting like tell me about your job tell me about as much I don't want to say tell me about your personal life because people will share as much as they want to but just maybe just do like icebreaker questions and just just try to get to know each other outside of it because I think if you are only doing meetings for being productive in the meeting we're missing all of that although the other connections and so you have to generate it manually now versus just stumbling into it. One thing that a little bit on that on that note my previous job at container solutions one night we went one time we did have sort of like a zoom happy girls happy hour women's happy hour of all of the all the female employees were invited and we we sort of just you know talked over it had like a talk over zoom like I think we may have played like some online games or something but it was just it was nice it was just like it was also like in the middle of the winter the pandemic winter so it was kind of nice to just have a have a virtual you know party of sorts but it was it was good it would it really um you know it did help bond us a little bit so something like that you know organizing something like that oh the activities are great yeah one time we all just ordered each other tequila it's a good idea and then we played like telephone but with drawing I'm forgetting like the name of it but it's it's like a free what was that is it Pictionary it's not Pictionary it's like on it's it's some website crab something yeah yeah yeah yeah oh it's oh yeah like a shot of tequila in that like you'll be best friends um another another question of the audience how do you know what type of support to ask for that's appropriate um like the vocabulary the gesture like what what how do you ask for support like how do you um as I guess as a mentor situation or just um part of that brigade we talked about how do you ask internally or yeah it doesn't say but let's start with internally just ask because that's is it that I mean I'm not sure how do you ask by yeah I think it's more like how do you ask like how do you how do you approach the conversation yeah how do you approach the conversation what what you know yeah yeah well one of the things that I I've always when I used to consult um for friends looking for jobs especially on linkedin and I said you know what just put you know put yourself out there but when you do want to approach someone don't ask them hey I need a job you know say hey I noticed that this is you know what you do I'm looking for for something within that field how how would you approach this you you make them like oh hey um this person thinks that my skills and my knowledge is pretty important and somebody has asked me I'm like oh yeah I'll jump on that like in a second before you do the ask because it will make them once you you highlight their skills and knowledge as a fan or a groupie or whatever they want to help you so maybe you have that type of approach by just just without discussing hey I need my mentor I need you to mentor me because I need I need I need I need just just um yeah just just just talk to them about who they are and give them the compliment and say hey this could help me with what I want to do and to develop and grow and it always works always yeah I like the framing of reaching out to like a subject matter expert and then identifying the gaps in your knowledge and being available for having like a conversation that really dives into you know what you need and how the other person can help you and then like how you potentially can reciprocate yes I would agree with that I definitely feel like I've learned a lot from folks and just by reaching out to them as a source of information you learn more about them as a person and how they got there and so I think it's definitely about building a relationship I think it's hard to get support from someone who doesn't know you so find ways to get to know each other I think for my last role it was definitely a bit of volunteering for projects with people that I was really interested to learn from where sometimes there'd be an opening of like hey like I saw you're doing this can I can I help you with it I I've been thinking about something similar and finding for basically identifying collaboration opportunities that allow you to get to know the person better they work with you they understand what you can do and your relationship builds from there actually I think there's definitely this the sense where you mentorship doesn't just happen overnight it's definitely a relationship that you develop with people and you might not necessarily know your their mentor until later which has happened to me a few times where I'm in hindsight I was like oh yeah she was my mentor but like I never really put that together because we were just working on projects together but developing a relationship and support and trust between us so I think just there's there's an element of putting yourself out there but also just asking can can I help you with something can I learn from you just to build a relationship and one more question what can an organization do the organization that you work for any any of us to prevent the biases that come up in day-to-day work acknowledge it have as many different kinds of people review something as possible because you might not see it because you wrote it and even I've written things that later some of us pointed something out and it's like oh yeah that's a problem and I just I was too in the weeds and couldn't see it so just it's a little scary to share your thing sometimes because it can be scary to get feedback but it's it's always worth it because other people will see things that you don't okay um is anything else any other questions oh one more I'm sorry could you could you speak up just a little bit louder you can yeah yeah that's he's trying too hard kind of so you're that you're sort of like treating he's trying to you feel he's trying to put you in a position of being like the the you know the the word police or something like that or the hmm sounds like gas lighting to me yeah he's trying to make you responsible for his behavior well I mean I mean it's like dating I mean a little bit but it's not your I'll keep saying this it's not your job to manage his privilege um and to get validation from you even though he says it but oh that's not what I meant for you you know no you have to you can do whatever you want to do but I would say you have to keep pushing this this is not acceptable behavior and if I do sound like I'm you know miss you know whatever it's just because I'm not doing it for me I'm doing it for the rest of my company because that's just not right and you we can't it's tiring managing other people's privilege I'm I'm over it I really am they had I mean they had to know how to act I cannot hear you I'm so sorry see now that's that's gas lighting just kidding I think he's plenty aware you kind of called it out too it's like no other man acts like this just like straight like maybe it's worth just telling him no other man acts like this around me like this is bizarre yeah yeah he could be just like not big on the social skills you know I mean I think we kind of forget that sometimes like some people are just not not good with yeah but it's also not an excuse not excuse thank you but true but we can't manage their behavior is yeah I mean if no other guy is yeah you work with it like this I mean yeah that that doesn't make it okay but I'm just saying people's intentions that's I mean that's interesting but again you can't manage it they have to know their grown-ups they know I mean the world is I mean we're talking about it you there's no more excuses you can hide behind your privilege after 5 p.m. go home or you really want to work at it have the opportunity to take the opportunity listen learn and do it when no one's watching I'm going to keep saying that don't do it in front of people just because you think you're a superhero and you're an advocate when you really not just do it and it the the perks of it when people actually the culture where I am right now it just it's a it's a relief I didn't use the F word but it is so any any other questions this has been this has been great I mean I feel like we've gotten had good good questions and and I just want to thank her thank our panel Sophia, Colleen, Eleanor, Crystal and thank you to Chronosphere for for sponsoring this and gathering us all together and and thank you for being here so after this just if you're welcome to network and talk and tell it you know share your own stories and and I'll be around for a while too if anyone wants to to talk and thank you very much thanks for showing up thank you for showing up