Erin M. McDermott

In the second part of this blog series on the hobbies of the reclusive, female engineer who lacks a cable t.v. subscription, we'll pick up where we left off: Photonics West.

You may be surprised to find that despite choosing to spend much of my free time alone, and despite what my parents taught me, I LOVE talking to strangers!  I also love seeing up-close and in-person all the latest technologies in a given field.  This all makes technical conferences and exhibitions some of my favorite types of playgrounds, so much so, that I didn't mind blowing 2 precious vacation days to go.  On the plane to Photonics West in San Francisco about a month ago, my excitement primed itself as I tried to imagine the new friends and new optical technologies I would soon meet.

I also prepared by skimming through a copy of Never Eat Alone, by Keith Ferrazzi.  Ferrazzi stresses the importance of personal connections in one's professional life and how to help your connections and ask for help from them to keep your network healthy.  He also gives advice regarding conference attendance including, "Remember to look sharp.  Don't underestimate the importance of dressing well in places where you'll be noticed."  I agreed, and decided to take it a step further and wear vibrant colors.  Not only would this assure I wasn't ignored at a booth, but it's also something a woman can do and a man can't without looking like a total tool.  Gotta play the cards you're given... and I only had 1.5 days to play them.

My expectations surely were not disappointed.  I met old friends, I met new friends and I saw bunch of awesome stuff, including this jaw-dropping glass art exhibit by Christopher Ries:

"Sunflower"

I think this one should have been called: "Oh Hey, You Lookin' At Me?  You!  You Lookin' At Me? Oh, No, I Guess You're Not"

You can see his other work at:  www.christopherries.com  and www.glassartprints.com

One booth especially delighted me; it develops and sells the technology which I had written a college paper on when it was still "novel" nearly a decade ago.  Optical tweezers were a crazy concept, and still are bizarro in my opinion, regardless of understanding the science behind it.  Moving objects with light, and light alone is totally Star-Trecky.  You can read about them at: www.elliotscientific.com/140-0/Optical-Tweezer-Systems/

Although, overall, I had an amazing time, there was one very disturbing down-side to my experience.  At more than, I'd say, 90% of the booths I stopped at where I didn't know anyone, people were deeply perplexed about why I might be there.  I got, "Are you, uhhh... are you in marketing.. or something?"  I got, "Uhh... what is your.. what is your interest here".  To which I replied, "What.. uhh.. what do you mean?"  Then I would get, "Are you... heh...do you have a technical interest in what we do?"  And then I would reply, "yes."  And then I might be asked when I was graduating.  *insert Face-Palm*  After a while, I would just ask, "what do you THINK I do?  No really, I'm curious.  Do you think I'm in HR?  ...Accounting?"  And then there was blushing.  Usually, though, I would just have to ask an intelligent technical question or two, and then the men would breathe a sigh of relief, knowing they could use "big" words around me without making me faint...or something.  This behavior was somewhat, slightly, miniscule-ly understandable, because the conference's girl:guy ratio was lower than that of my engineering university.  BUT, when I was briskly walking through a row of booths and caught one man telling another man how "stupid these women are", my dead stare met his eyes, and his voice immediately lowered and trailed off as we maintained eye contact.  That's right.  Look ashamed.  Do you really think that's a good way to represent your company?  If you want to be an asshat, wait 'til you're at the bar, afterwards, at least.

On my way out, as I ascended the escalator in my deep, yet vivid-red skirt suit, I thought to myself, "well, there are advantages and disadvantages to being a chick in this field; I've just got to keep finding ways to maximize the good and minimize the bad".  I also quieted myself with, "hey, at least nobody goosed you like they did when you went to Hannover Messe (the world's largest automation conference) in 2008."  (No really, I seriously got goosed, and I was so shocked at the time that I couldn't figure out which language to cuss the b@stard out in.)  I scanned the sea of people below me.  This conference was huge....

And as I surveyed the crowd, I realized I'd made eye contact with dozens of people.  And that creeped the hell out of me.  Oops.  Maybe the red was a bit too much...or was it?

Lately, I've been getting stumped by the same question over and over again, and usually, while at work.  Yet it has nothing to do with partial differential equations or a grand unifying theory of everything or even the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow.  No, it's a two-part puzzler which begins with, "what do you mean you don't watch t.v.?!" and closes with, "well what do you DO?".

"Uhh... stuff... I have...projects.  Yeah, I have a lot of projects." 

It took a while for me to realize that this answer probably makes me sound like I'm either cooking up meth when I retire for the evening, or smoking it.

So, I think it's time to elaborate a little bit.  Here, I'm going to share one of my "projects", which has been neatly arranged, side-by-side with some of my other projects within a folder on my computer entitled: Crap.  I suppose I should further explain that "Crap" in this case is a synonym for "Miscellaneous", and to have your name in my Crap folder is a wonderful thing!  To have your name on my "List", on the other hand, is heinous, horrific thing with gnashing of teeth and all the rest.  Folder ≠ List

Okay, moving along...  For several weeks on end before Christmas, I worked diligently on a portait I was commissioned to do, shunning socializing, drinking, and other fun things that even monks do.  Do monks watch t.v., btw?  I'm sure they do.  Let me rephrase:  ...shunning All fun things that even monks do.

Of course, passing up beer o'clock in favor of alone time with my tubes of acrylic garnered me some well-intentioned ridicule.  Now that the piece is completed, however, I hope to give back the Lameness Merit Badge I earned as I show off all that hard work via one of the coolest things anyone's ever done for me.  It's so wonderful to have creative friends...

Thanks very, very much to Dave Egly for putting his brilliance to use in creating a video of the painting as I went along, and to Adam Schmidt for his outstanding idea to do it in the first place!  I'd have nothing to show for my not-watching-t.v.-ness if it weren't for you guys.

I hope you enjoy the video.  Meanwhile, I'm in San Francisco getting ready to indulge in another weirdo-t.v.-free hobby of mine: talking to strangers (at Photonics West!).  Hit me up if you're here, too!

Click here if the embedded video geeks out on you: ErinMMcDermott_Painting_TennesseeWoodards

Having trouble coming up with a perfect last-minute Christmas gift for that dirty old man at the office?  Well, you're in luck!  I have just the thing for you.

This holiday season, I did something special for one of my favorite old men I've worked with.  To protect his anonymity, I won't say whether he is a past or current co-worker, or more importantly -- what he did to deserve this year's gift, but I will say he's been waiting on it for a long time...

Let me back this train up and give you some insight into my take on old men at the office.  As a female engineer, I'm frequently put into contact with men who have little or no experience working alongside women.  I understand this, and to a degree, I don't mind a couple slip-ups while they're still riding the learning curve.  So, I give old men I meet at work a "free pass" or two, or three if I really like them.  The free pass protects the offender from my wrath for each faux pas which can range from somewhat innocuous to wildly inappropriate.

For example, audible release of noxious gases in one's cubicle (which happens to share walls with women's cubes), might get one or two passes.  Hey, accidents happen.  But after that, each roll of thunder I hear coming from his cube will be met with an equally booming "God Bless You!"  or  "Oh Dear, You Might Want To Go Check Your Pants!"

I'll even give a free pass for what happened one day when I walked into work with a skirt on: "Oh, MAN!" he exclaimed while intentionally staring at my legs.  Free pass number 1 granted.  I'm sure you thought this was a compliment.  I will meet your words with silence hoping you get the picture.  "Your boss gets All the luck!"  Free pass number 2: spent and gone forever.  You're on your own now, buddy.  "Well I can see what he was thinking when he hired you!"   ...              ...            ...        I hate you.

Things played out a little differently for the old man who got my awesome Christmas gift this year.  He used up all his passes pretty much in the first few days I met him.  The difference is, I told him about the passes, and after he'd used all his up, he kept incurring charges.  But I really like this old man, so I repeatedly promised I would get him some more.  And I finally did this year.  These are the final ones though!  THE FINAL ONES.  You're supposed to be learning...

Here they are:

And as my Christmas gift to YOU:  here is a PDF of these passes:       docs.google.com/open    You can now consider your dirty old man co-worker gift shopping done.  Merry Christmas!

 Ok, time for that add-on to the list of things that make Seymour, Indiana a much different world than Rochester, NY...

THE GOOD

Remember that annual Oktoberfest I found out about when I first arrived, which served as a glimmer of hope of awesomeness?  Well it finally happened!  And it was huuuuuge, Rochester, huuuge!

The whole town came out  and swarmed the normally vacant street corners referred to as "downtown".  I heard people got the day off from work, and kids got a day off from school!   It was like a religious holiday to celebrate fried foods.  The restaurants and shops were, for the most part, vacant as it appeared most Seymourians (?) had their lunch, dinner and beer meals "downtown".  

They even changed the street signs:

Funny thing about the street signs is, I still can't figure out what they mean.  I lived in Germany twice and can hold a conversation in German.  I can even read a little Technical German which is a language all its own, but I have no idea what the hell is written on these signs.  My best guess is that they didn't have an "ß", so they stuck in a "b" instead.  Well, good effort.

So, that was pretty cool.  Except for the part that it was only a few blocks from my house, so I got to hear the drunks breaking things and stumbling away.  Then again, I was one...

I digress.  Moving onto --

THE BAD

Dear Seymour, for being a town that holds an annual tribute to all things German, why, oh why do you mutilate asparagus like you do?  Don't you know that Germans have asparagus festivals?  If they knew what you were doing, they would seek you out, no matter which "Strabe" you ran down!  Look.  Look what you did:

I'm pretty sure I could start a fire from rubbing these dry twigs together.  Disgraceful.  I'm sorry, Seymour, but I can't let this one slide.

THE UGLY

And now, for the coup de grâce.  When I first got here, I saw so many mopeds!   And I thought it was so cool!!  "Wow, it's so neat that you can ride a moped without shame here.  Maybe they are all really into the environment.  I'm not, but mopeds are the shiznet!  Maybe I'll get one."

I shared my enthusiasm for the trend with my coworkers, and that's when they set me straight.  "Yeah...um.  No.  They're not riding mopeds because it's green, or because it's cool, they're riding them because if you get a DWI and have your license suspended, you can still legally drive a moped."

W.T.F.?

Well....  Hmm.  Luckily, I've made some awesome friends here and together, we've been making our own good things happen!  More on that later...

It's been over 6 months now that I've been slavin' away as an engineer in Indiana, far from family, friends, beaches and garbage plates...  I've done things here I thought I'd never do, like buy pepper spray to protect myself from creepy old men on mopeds and say, "gosh, it's so chokingly hot and humid here that I'm looking forward to fall for the first time ever - maybe winter, too".  But it's all worth it, 'cause I'm making bank, right?

Well, then I took an Excel spreadsheet and held it up next to my finances and learned it would be a very long time before I was making anything that would merely stay in the bank.  Granted, I've had a few wildly extravagant purchases.  Opulence?  Yeah, I haz it sometimes.  Like when my clutch died when I first got here and I spent 1/3 of my signing bonus to get my car moving again.  Or, when I had to catch up on several years worth of needed dental work so that I could get through the day without painkillers...  But other than those fast and loose purchases, I've been living modestly.  I eat a lot more meat now than when I was unemployed.  And did you know that Walmart sells wine in Indiana?  Almost a whole $3 a bottle!  Yeah, I suppose I could cut back a bit on my eating habits, but for one, it wouldn't do much, and two, I'm so tired of living on a shoestring.  So tired!

All kind of sounds like a recipe for suicide, huh?

It seemed the only thing to do, if I couldn't reduce expenses was to increase income.  So logically, I started a new business venture, and began spending my freetime chatting with my new friend, and supplier, Nancy Meng in China at 2 a.m., instead of dating or socializing with real, live, in-person humans.

My brain baby's name is Spire Starter, and I'm gonna put her to work doing....well, pretty much whatever the hell I want.  You can see her placeholder website here:  www.spirestarter.com

Spire Starter's first venture is in publishing.  After all the encouragement I got to write a book, because of this blog, my head got so big that I'm going to go ahead and do just that.  My first book will be something I wish I had when I was a student getting ready to study abroad.  I wanted to learn from the experiences of others who had already done it about what to do, what not to do and their every tip on how to prepare.  Unfortunately, all I got was drunken frat boys (oh sorry guys, "fraternity members") saying, "it wasl...it was-sh awesommme.  Do it!  Just Go!"  Or not-so-intoxicated friends saying, "well... it was... it was just awesome... you have to go," plus a couple valuable tips here or there.

So on behalf of that doe-eyed, inquisitive girl that was, I'm paying it forward.  The plan is to collect hundreds of student interviews -- a mob's worth -- from the United States and compile them into a book that's fun, comical and informative.  The hub of the activities surrounding this project can be found here:  www.studyabroadmob.com

If you happen to have ideas or comments about this, or want to contribute, please get in touch!  I'll be over here drinking some Walmart wine with Nancy, if you need me.