Czarina Burrito's Journal: Well, I may as well get used to this. [EDITED]

[paints finger nails black]
[Applies black lipstick]
[Sprays hair black with temporary* hair dye]
[Dons torn black pants and black coat]
[looks downward]

Drowning alone, I gasp for air.
Coldness creeps over pale skin.
There is sadness so deep it pulls me down
Happiness dies in a deep, dark sea.

[*] Geez, I'm not that hardcore.

But seriously. Demonstrating science to middle school girls is my specialty. I am especially fond of the self-selected sets who are actually interested in science! And then you just hand this oppurtunity to the suck-up douche across from me without giving me a chance! Yay! Now the girls can continue to learn by example that science is for men, but isn't it cute that they're interested?

I used to think that gender inequality was dead. I mean, I truly believed that. I believed that we had won, that we were all equal. But we're not. It's just become more subtle. Maybe hypersensitively about sexual harassment is partly at fault. It's a double-edged sword, that one.

I have never felt that I was treated differently until this job. I've tried to shrug it off and blame myself for the past year. Notably, this has been the only position I've ever been in where from the moment of onset, I was the first female to the scene. It's "The Gods Must Be Crazy" all over again. I'm the Coke bottle, and they don't know what to do with me. This has been to my irreversible detriment.

But But But...

[Real World Stuff]

How you supposed to land a man if you go around flaunting your education...sheesh...

Re:

[Czarina Burrito]

Naked chemistry demos.

Re:

[nizo]

Beware the splatters of hydrochloric acid. Though I bet this would be a great way to teach chemistry in school and actually have the students pay attention!

Re:

[rk]

Thank you... you've just killed my spiffy new Intel iMac with the spray of water I just laughed all over it. My boss is gonna kill me.

If you're really the Coke bottle...

[StalinsNotDead]

...then everyone will eventually find a use for you that you are uniquely qualified to fullfill. This will in turn lead to strike because you are limited in supply. And to combat the strife everyone will decide that you have to be thrown off the edge of the world.

Good Luck.

Here's a thought

[TechnoLust]

Maybe they sent him because he's a no talent ass clown and they'd rather have you there because you do good work.

Re:

[Czarina Burrito]

Not buying it. My boss tried to pull that shit on me when I asked why it took him 13 months to teach me how to use [piece of equipment completely vital to our work] while [New Guy] was taught in his first month there. I'm also pissed that nobody ordered business cards for me while [New Guy]'s business cards arrived before he started. There are a lot of things that, individually, could be taken as mere oversights. It's getting harder and harder to see them that way.

Anyway, apparently I wasn't taught how

Re:

[Czarina Burrito]

Oh, sorry. By 13 months, I mean 18 months.

Hey, in 4 months I'll have been here for 2 years. Gosh, it's amazing how times flies when you're plotting ways to kill yourself with invisible tape, paperclips, and high voltage!

Re:

[TechnoLust]

Sorry... I guess they ARE evil pig-dogs and deserve to die. From now on I'm buying GENERIC post-its!

Re:

[Czarina Burrito]

No! Buy Post-Its! They're the good guys!

*sheds tears of longing for the wonderful land of mining and manufacturing*

Re:

[TechnoLust]

Wait, I'm confused. I thought you still worked there. did you change jobs or just divisions?

Re:

[Czarina Burrito]

I was effectively an intern there during college and for a few months afterward until I got a "real" job. I am currently at my "real" job, sometimes thinking that it wouldn't be so bad to take a 60% pay cut to go back to where people were nice, appreciate, helpful, and let me do stuff.

The fact that my boss there was the best, most perfect, wonderful, and fabulous boss that anybody could ever hope for really makes for a striking contrast with my current supervisor. Plus I could wear jeans and a t-shirt the

Re:

[TechnoLust]

Oh. I was cornfused. So ummm... yeah. I think you should look for something else. Maybe you could find something at the Post-It Paradise? When interviewing they will ask why you are leaving the company. The correct answer would be "because I'm repeatedly passed over for important projects which are given to lesser qualified employees." Use your own judgement as to when to add "I feel this is because I'm female."

Re:

[Czarina Burrito]

I've been looking. There's an open position that is clearly in my old group, but I lack sufficient PhD. There are 3 open positions that are clearly in the OLED group with whom I had an interview back in the day (the 8 hour interview of fun and ponies), but I lack sufficient electrical-engineering-fu.

I can tell you with absolute certainty that I was hired for my current position partly because I am female (bossboss let it slip in the interview that they wanted to hire a female). I think they just needed t

Re:

[TechnoLust]

Then you have some leverage! You need to stop using your powers for good and start using them for Awesome!

Come to the dark side

[janeowit]

Not only do we have cookies and know biochemistry, but two-thirds of us are women.

Who's the minority now little man?

  P.S. You'll always be my special little snowflake.

Re:

[Some Woman]

1/2 to 2/3 of chemists seem to be women. 1/3 to 1/2 of chemical engineers in my class were women.

But I appear to be in this weird place where mechanical engineers and physicists thrive. The list of people I like/trust at work has gone from 2 to 1 this week. Now it's down to the 61-year old Korean chemist who really likes naps and thinks that I should cook up an anti-aging solution in the lab so that my joints won't hurt like his.

And you mine.

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[rk]

"1/2 to 2/3 of chemists seem to be women. 1/3 to 1/2 of chemical engineers in my class were women."

I scored in the top twenty in the state of Ohio in 1985 for high-school chemistry students, but I let the lure of blinkenlightens steer me into systems analysis/computer science instead... only to find this out NOW!?!

Still, I managed to find my geek gal soul mate, so I suppose it worked out.

Re:

[Abm0raz]

Look on the bright side... at least you never have to worry about outfitting yourself on any MMORPG.

-Ab