thoughts

Monotheistic - good
monothoughtistic - bad

I went to camp when I was little and nobody talked. Our first conversation
was about how to have a conversation. Everybody really got into it. Then
some of the kids wanted to have a real conversation and try it out. But,
we'd been having a conversation about having a conversation.

It occurs to me that sometimes, when people lack confidence due to the
exalted resumes of those with whom they are mixing, that they tend to do
things like not express their own thoughts. I was an engineering student in
the 80's - at which time a woman had to 'be a man' to be an engineer. By the
90's, I was allowed to let my XX chromosome show. Today, it's okay for
someone to say stuff like was said at a recent meeting, "It's good to have a
woman on the team, they do coordination better than men." Of course he
should have said 'most women' and 'men tend to' - because differences of the
sexes are tendencies not rules (I don't think a woman could make it as a
Sumo wrestler - and it took them forever to figure out how a woman could pee
in space - but generally there are tendencies not rules.)

Janice strikes me as doing a classic 'woman lacking confidence' pattern. You
guys are all guys. Had you all been women (or had a couple of you had a
stronger feminine side), you probably would have responded earlier and less
intensely and Janice would have learned and grown instead of getting
squashed.

"Oh, jiminy, now the pushy broads want to take over. Isn't it enough that we
let them speak?"

;)

Actually, I have frequently tried to not speak my mind, but it never works
out. I wanted certain designs in a project - got voted down. The project got
built - the customer made us redesign and modify the whole thing for free
because it didn't have my initial ideas in it. (Documentation - yes. But one
sometimes must choose between being right or being happy. Politics must be
played.)

In summary, Janice, if you are still reading, 'be yourself and also be
kind.'
And everybody else, if you put yourself in the other person's moccasins for
a second, you might not get so offended.

Debbie Mann
(765) 477-1776
Received on Fri Mar 24 09:45:16 2006