A Day in the Life of a Girl Geek

I love being a girl geek...except when it sucks.

I'm in the midst of a training for some cool new skill that will theoretically earn me more money someday. Yay! Truth be told, the money doesn't motivate me at all. I love taking classes. I would be in school all the time if I could.

Learning new things, forcing my brain to work through some convoluted programming trick, figuring out which wire to connect to which device to make the lights come on...my heaven in a nutshell. When in doubt and the DVD player isn't working, take it apart and fire up the soldering iron. Doesn't everyone do that?

Now I understand that most girls don't enjoy spending an evening building a computer. Fine. I am very used to being the only woman in the room at these things. Hell, considering that my job has me mostly surrounded by engineers and A/V technicians, I am ALWAYS used to being the only woman in the room. It usually doesn't bother me.

We may have come a long way baby, but lots of guys still get pretty uncomfortable when I walk in to solve their technical problems. Lord help them if I have to crawl up into the ceiling to pull some cable to do it...they just don't know what to do with themselves. Should they help me? Should they stare at my breasts? It's all so confusing.

So I walk into the classroom today, a room full of guys who are not only going to training...they are getting out of the office to be with other tech guys. It's fun and competitive. It means short days in training, late nights at the bar bonding with the other techs, and many beers with the trainer picking up the tab. It's totally guy time...and then I walk in. Now it takes them a minute to realize I am not the secretary. In fact it takes them way too long to figure it out considering I'm carrying a laptop and a tool box, but oh well.

The trainer always makes a big deal out of having a girl in the class. "Hey, the last time we had a girl here was, well...the last time you were here." Yes I know, I was there. The guys seem mildly amused that I have my own stocked tool box, just like a real tech. I begin the internal countdown, waiting for the inevitable joke where they pretend to be surprised that my screwdriver set isn't pink. There it is...4 minutes. Cute guys, never heard that one before.

Going through the motions of becoming one of the guys comes second nature to me. Swear a little at the right times, remember to laugh at the dirty jokes, be better at all of the skills than they are but pretend you don't know that you are better and all is good after a few hours. It just bugs me that I feel the need to prove myself at all. I think it's one of those men/women differences. The guys are definitely competitive, but they just want to be better than the others for the hell of it. There is no sense of needing to prove they are qualified to even be in the room. I know I am better than most of them, but I really want them to know it too. Why is that?

Class ends for the day and we head to the bar. Most have figured out that I am hard to offend, so they have relaxed a bit and are having a good time. Hell, I'm one of the guys now...or am I? Strangely, I am the center of attention (and if you know me, you know that's not my style). They seem oddly amazed that my work days are just like theirs. A few of the guys want to see the pictures of the install job I told them about because it sounds really cool. They keep talking about how they wish the women around their offices were more like me, less uptight, more like one of the guys. The day of competing to be better than each other has become a competition for my attention. I'm a novelty and they are fascinated. It's kind of weird but also really fun.

Did I mention that I love being a girl geek.