So I was dragged into another site visit yesterday.
My all time favorites are those where I have totally missed the design phase, had no idea the project existed on the face of the earth until the person responsible -who knows all about it- either drops dead or finds something better to do -it's always the latter. In such cases I quickly review whatever I can find on the job, go to site, try my best to look the least dumb, blabber some questionable advice which I will later contradict via email from the office.
My feelings on such assignments oscillate between self-loathing and stress-induced nausea. This particular day however I had other thoughts running in the background. As we stood around, all 11 of us from various trades staring at the mysterious floor above, I wondered what I looked like to these men. The only woman on site, the quietest, the furthest in the huddle -social distancing was on the H&S induction. I wondered if their thoughts reached conclusions such as: This woman is clueless, this woman is an engineer, all women engineers are clueless. But why did I see myself as a woman in the first place? It's the International Women's Day soon!
The other day at work we were asked to pose for cameras so the Suzis & Sarahs who were about to go become Instagram influencers see that women CAN be engineers too & the ones that do become engineers look... what? normal? Of course, back in my days and in my unprivileged background, you chose a field of study, because you really wanted to do that kind of work.
So as I stood there worrying about my parking meter running out, praying for no questions & feeling underprepared & useless, I didn't think I was just having a bad day at work. I thought I belonged to the category of misunderstood female engineers. Female first, engineer second, human last.
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