 So, this presentation has a bit of a theme, and I can turn it back on. No, it's off. So, this presentation has a bit of a theme. So, it is a story of how I got here, how I became part of the Fodor community, and the challenges that I kind of went through as a woman to get here. Not particularly challenging, but I hope you can relate to them, and I'm happy to share my story for anybody who's interested. So, when Marie asked me if I would like to give a talk, I did find myself wondering what to talk about. I didn't know where to begin because, like I said, my journey into Fodor is not paved with good commands or PRs merged. It's far more ordinary. It was in its own way challenging for me, and I couldn't decide how best to tell it to other women and non-binary folk that people might relate to it and find it mildly interesting. So, I asked another strong woman who was my mother. And then after speaking to her, she reminded me of all the things that I needed to actually get over as a woman to be where I am today. And I may have found myself feeling like I could actually tell this story in a way that had a bit of meaning, certainly to me and I hope to you as well. She reminded me how lucky I was that I grew up with a woman role model like her that actually worked and had a career and was still an amazing mother and was able to do that without being a sacrifice of either. And that's exactly where I want to actually be in my life too. So then I found myself remembering that I actually have another important job as well that, yeah, I work on the CPE team, I work in Fodor, but I am a mother and I do have a son and he's 12 and he might be part of the first generation to grow up that they don't see gender lines as important to a career or as the amount of value that you bring to society. And I want to be part of that movement, I want to actually have that mean something. And I want him to grow up exactly how I did, seeing nothing wrong with a woman being a mother and having a career and still being an amazing parent and not being less because she chose either or. Because at the end of the day, I don't want it to ever be about gender, it's about people. So I asked myself, how did I get here? How did I end up in tech? And it did start with the opportunity in a tech company and it was a job that was typically female and through that opportunity I began my journey as a woman in a tech company and that led into a woman in a male dominated technical environment and I was able to learn about collaborate, values and technology itself. So I did not let the days go by and I didn't let the water hold me down. I took a chance and through when I eventually got into the technology company that I started in, I took a chance and went for a job that would bring even closer to the open source communities and technology that I had heard about but was very green to. It was said to be by actually another woman in the same tech company that I'm from, you all know who that is, that when she asked me and how did I get into CB, into the current role that I had, I said, well, I looked at what I was doing currently and what they were looking for. There was a lot of transferable skills there. And she asked me a question and I am still, I still always refer back to it, that she found it really interesting and inspiring that I was able to just go for it, that I was in a very female role and I wanted to progress into more technical areas and I sat down and I looked at what I was doing and I was able to make those connections to the skillsets that I had into what I, where I wanted to be. And she said to me, do you think a man would have hesitated as long as you did to go for it? And I actually don't know, maybe not. But it did strike a chord with me. Maybe they wouldn't. But I got over the hesitation and I have never looked back since. And then I may have asked myself when I got into CB, what the hell is going on? That was a land. Between my joined services, not one but two community infrastructures. They are the most technically gifted people I have ever had the privilege of working with and I am crazy about every single one of them. But I honestly had no clue what they were talking about and sometimes still don't. But I do love learning from them and I love learning from the communities that they are part of. The not doing computers line is just really not applicable anymore. And being close to open source technologies, so not just computers but like actually people who develop open source technologies who sit down in their spare time and they do it from a passion perspective is really confusing but it is very inspiring and really, really interesting. But I also found myself feeling like I need to be everywhere. So like I said, I mentioned earlier that I am employed by tech companies, Red Hat. So they have expectations of communication. The team that I am on in Red Hat has two infrastructures that they maintain. Two different communities. They need information. And then my own team itself, they require information. So that's about four ethos by my count. And everybody wants the same information but everybody receives it differently and they have different methods of communication. Some people prefer IRC, some people prefer email, some people prefer GCHAS. It is all across every aspect of tech and sometimes it's challenging and sometimes it's tiring. But I enjoy it. I like the context-searching because it's continuous learning and I can feel myself getting more and more familiar and faster with it. And I'm figuring out that there's a certain tone people prefer to receive information from. There's a certain level of information and depth that I should and should not go into. How people even consume my emails. Some people take them on a terminal so I had to learn that I had to click a button that has plain text mode. That was new. But I'm learning it and I'm iterating on it and I will always look for the best for everyone from it. And I may have told myself, this is not my beautiful house and by house I'm in office because it wasn't. I went from an office administration role. Very typical. You know how to run an office. And also a role that is typically female to a technical project coordination role in an engineering team with a lot of men in it. And I also went from a standard office to a virtual one. You know I went from running an entire building to you have to run the equivalent of an entire building is worth the work but from your desk on this computer and you have to reach a hell of a lot of people. So it was a different kind of an office. It's still a different kind of an office. And I do like it. Trying to explain to people who aren't familiar with IRC that I host an office hours that is on a web service that's completely text-based to people who really don't understand it is, I get a lot of funny looks. So I had to adjust and I had to swap familiarity like I've always worked in an office-based environments for this new virtual one. But I like it because I'm continuously connecting with the Fedora community, understanding the projects that we're looking to work on, why they're important when I'm scoping and I know who to reach out to. It's as big as it seems, it's still very inclusive. And I also told myself this is not my beautiful wife and by wife I mean Sarah. Because it's also good to highlight that when I joined CP I was the only girl until the Louise to my film that came along, which is Sarah Finn. And she has talk tomorrow. So shameless plug, you should attend that too. And technically I am still the only CPE female member, but I am very happy to have Sarah on board with me too. But it didn't give me pause for thought because when I came from GWS, which is the administration role, I was on a team of 15 and there was two guys. So they were the minority because the environment was female heavy. I went from the opposite. I went back into a minority in a typically male dominated area and became the minority there. And I actually don't agree with either of them needing to be a minority. It shouldn't be. But it was interesting. But I am happy to see that times are a change and they are moving away from, you know, if a woman has to go to work, they have to work in an office. So I let the days go by working on a great and funny team. Like I said, the guys are amazing. They're working with all of them. And I can't say enough about them. I don't think I'd have enough time to go through it all. And I went into the blue again this time of Fedora, where I also like being. So I'm starting to feel a connection to the community. I'm happy to be here. I hope that you're happy to have me here. Because I like being part of something bigger. People are passionate here. They're honest, they care. Sometimes it sounds like they're angry. And they probably are angry. But I would rather see somebody be angry and honest than lie to be polite. It gains us nothing. And I want them to know that I care too. Even if I'm quiet, sometimes it's not because I don't care. Sometimes I don't understand that I'm not that technical. But I want to be here. And I hope that you will take the time to explain things to me when I need to. Because I want to be in this environment for the foreseeable. And you could say it's same as it ever was from a year on from joining the CPE that I've gone similar back to where I was. But it's not. It's different. It's definitely not the same as it ever was. It's, like I said, full of conversation about technology. Learning open source communities, how they operate, how they grow. Discovering that even more people, I'm discovering that it's even more important to appreciate people for who they are and not what they are. Being a woman fedora is important to me. But seeing as a person in fedora is even more important. So this is bringing me to the end of my song. Because you may ask yourself, how did I get here? How does this work? Where is that large automobile that I've sold my soul for to buy? Where does that highway go to? Am I right? Am I wrong? There was times where I thought, oh God, what have I done? But I ask myself all those things and I do still ask myself all those things. It can be hard to break down barriers society. There are some barriers that society has created in our mind. It took me a while to just go for this job. So because I felt like maybe I wouldn't stand a chance that maybe somebody would be a little more qualified than me. Why did I even think that? But they could have been. God, they weren't. But I mean, screw it, I should have just sold myself for it. This job it represented opportunity for me. It was where does this highway go to? And it was a means to getting that large automobile. I wanted to inspire my son who's sitting here behind me, kicking the door that he's lucky I don't lodge myself over at him. But I did ask him to be here. I asked him to sit in on this because he's my lucky charm. And like I said, a couple of slides back I found it important for him to understand that I am his mother, but I am also here making a career and I'm happy to have both. So ask yourself, what have I done? Just do it. You won't look back. It's exciting. It doesn't matter if you're made a female. You should just go for it. If you're worth it, it shouldn't matter. And I do still struggle with understanding the devil list. It's a scary place, I won't lie. But it's also exciting. And from even being in the last 12 months in CPE and in Fedora, like I can run Git commands. I know them. I understand the backstory of the technology that I'm using. I've learned about message bosses and all of these fun things. I've learned the pager and repos and pull requests and that's pretty cool. I'm still learning. Also, while I didn't even realize I was there or I needed, I found myself immersed in Fedora's culture and that I wanted to be here and that I have an identity here. And I really enjoy it. And I do always hope I remain part of this community. And remember that once in a lifetime, opportunities do come along. And they might be once in a lifetime. And your gender shouldn't be the reason to let the water hold you down on it. And that's it, folks. That is my story. I hope it made some sense. I hope some people could relate to it. And if you have any questions, please let me know. Hi, Eva. Hey, Marie. That was awesome. So, Eva has like this presenting style that just always includes like moving things in music and flash. A children. Apparently children. So I always appreciate your presentations. So I guess they have a question for you. Like, what did you go to school for if you went to school at all? I mean like university. Oh, God. Okay. So, right. I actually had my son very young. So I actually never went to university. My priority was always to find a job that provided for my family. I was actually completely ruled by choosing an employment that was close to school runs because I was a single parent. So I needed to be there and do that. But there was always a part of me that like hated those boundaries, you know. I didn't agree. I fundamentally disagree with the woman having to do that. But I had to do it. I mean, there was nobody else I had to. So there's still a child of a human that you care for to take care of. Yeah, exactly. So I didn't actually go to university. I worked from a very, very young age. I had Charlie when I was around 19 years old but I had been working before that since I was about 16. I did some part-time courses. I did some project management courses. I did I kind of remember. I did a lot of on-the-job training. A lot of my experience in real life. And I don't know, I think you can go to as many lectures as you want. But you're not going to learn real life stuff in the classroom. It's good. Honestly, I think that's a really cool story. An important story to tell. Like you don't have to go to a university and you can still get a great job in the technical fields. In the software fields. You don't actually have to go to school for that necessarily. It's building up other towns and finding where that's applicable. So what's your official title at Redham? No, it actually stopped. It kind of changes. My if you're in Redham and you look me up you'll see that I'm associate project manager. My emails have me as a product owner. Pingu did a typo and called me a project owner. And I actually said that is what I identify with. That makes sense to me. We don't really have a product per se with CPE. We don't produce a thing. But we do have a lot of projects and we do deal with that work and they kind of flow through me so I try and help organize them. The guys do the actual real work. That would be great. We did this in 12 weeks. Do not even talk about real work. I know what you're doing as a program manager. I think my title is I might be a similar associate program manager or something. They do skill trees or something like that. There is so much work to do that. I feel like with project management and program management that is a certain personality type. That was what I was thinking when you were talking about how you went from running an office to this technical field where you didn't necessarily have all the technical engineering background. You went from the office there. I think the piece is your personality. You were showing that off in the office. Were you working at red hat previously? You had to build some connections there. Another part is don't be afraid to be yourself. Ironically, it was a man in the office who would be really good at that job. I don't know anything about REL. If you can run an office, you can run a project. It's the same principles. Skillsets are transferable. Does anyone else have questions? Ifa, you're an inspiration. Ifa's title is she's Ifa at CPE. People are getting a mosh. Something that we're doing at Fedora Women's Day this year is we're going to try to put together a cool video afterwards. We have this little script and if you're comfortable reading it, we would love for you to read it. I think if Nick is able to, he'll copy in the chat here in a minute. The first part, you're going to speak in your native language. In Irish. Or the swearing. Swearing. No, Irish. Irish. The second part, we would like you to speak English. You'll see the example is mine. Hi, my name is Marie. I'm from the U.S. I'm a woman and I speak English. The second part, you would say in English. The first part in Irish. Second part in English. Go ahead whenever you're ready. Oh, Jesus, you mean now? We'll work through this. We can do a couple takes. You might have to google us. If English is your name, if you're more comfortable in English, I would not stop you. Hang on. I might actually ask Charlie because he's got. Okay. I have a semi-ignorant question. Is Gaelic an Irish? That's the same. Yeah. I'm trying to, obviously, I can't remember the text is now gone. I can't remember how to say I'm from and I speak. I am a failure to my nation. Give me one second. Yeah, there's a google translation in the chat but it's... I'm literally googling it now. But what's painful though is it'll start giving me different dialects because it's bad enough that Irish is complicated but we have dialects. Right. And I speak. Oh, Sarah has one. Maybe. Sarah, seriously, if you can give me a dig out here. Check the chat real quick. I'm so sorry. Oh, yeah, yeah. And then I speak in Irish. Oh, okay. Right. So I'm copying it again for you. So it's right there, fresh. Go ahead. Still. I should be muted right now. Can we do them? Yeah. I think so. That's not even a monster. okay. I speak English. but I don't know much about it. Larga, other said Labrén, English. So we are from different countries. We speak different languages and we have different cultures, but Fodor unites us with open source. Cool. So I guess English is just something you're like, you're just super familiar and like everyone's kind of speaking English around you. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, in Ireland you go, you study Irish for 12 plus years. There is dedicated Goja schools and the majority of the population go, that, forget about it. While you're in school and then you leave school and you go into like jobs that have people from all around the world and you bring shame to your culture and your heritage. You can't remember a word. I can't remember any kuplifokum. And that's not a swear word. Fokum is Irish for word. That's hilarious. That's like perfect for this scenario right here. Very cool. Well, thank you so much for coming to present and speaking with me and letting me ask you a bunch of questions. Oh, I'm happy to be here. Marie, thank you so much. I'm more than privileged to be a part of this event. It's really cool. It's my first time actually speaking at an event standalone. So I couldn't think of a better venue to. Yeah, like usually it's been like with somebody. The group of people. Yeah, this is my first one. And like I actually couldn't think of a better venue than women in Fodor to do it. So. Awesome. Thanks again. I'm going to pop out and I will see everybody at 3 PM for the last session of the day. Or whatever time zone you're in. Bye. Thank you. I know we're on this thing. I don't know do we? But thanks everyone for I really appreciate you joining. If you do have any questions, I will drop in my email. If you don't know it already, you might be. And you can always read that to me. Twitter is 94 and IRC is only one and I have no idea why I have so many numbers attached to the end force. Yeah, and so I'm going to drop. But thanks for having me. Thanks for attending. I hope I made a bit of sense and I didn't bore you to tears. And I will see you around the conference.