Category: Personal

It’s Hard To Talk to Engineers: A Primer

It’s Hard To Talk to Engineers: A Primer

by rachelgeist ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

So it’s been a year working from home now which is something. It’s also Women’s History Month (for not much longer, but here we are). I’m going to talk about something that’s happened to me many a time in honor of March and working from home and all the female engineers I know.

Maybe you know an engineer. This engineer doesn’t necessarily have to be a software engineer, but mechanical, chemical, aeronautical, you name it. Have you ever asked that engineer what she’s been doing at work, how work’s been going, or something to that effect? Or perhaps this engineer has brought up work in a conversation. Maybe you’re just being introduced to this engineer and you’re finding out what she does for a living. The conversation might go like this,

“How’s work been going?”

“Pretty good. I’ve been working on [insert project here].”

“Oh wow, that sounds complicated. Haha you’re smart.”

“. . .thanks? . . .”

Conversation moves to something else.

Another situation you might run across is a very excited engineer wanting to show you a project she’s been working realllllly hard on for a long time.

“Want to see my project I just finished up??”

“Sure.”

“Look! It’s [insert project]!

“Cool!”

“. . .thanks. . .”

Conversation ends.

I get it. It’s hard to come up with conversation for topics you may not be super familiar with. It isn’t just for engineers (I’m guilty of this in conversation too), but this is my wheelhouse and I’m using it as an example.

Now, what might one say instead of the token “cool” responses? I’ve been thinking about this for quite a while and here’s a few to get you started:

  • What’s been the most challenging part of this project?
  • What problem were you trying to solve?
  • How does X work?
  • Which part are you most proud about figuring out how to solve?
  • Did you have to work with teammates on this project? How were they?
  • What would you improve if you had to do it over again?
  • Are there any new concepts/technologies you used?
  • What was the most fun/challenging thing to learn about?

My intention is not to make anyone feel bad, because I know not everyone wants to hear a ton about work stuff all the time. I also know that it’s really hard to have an in-depth conversation with someone about technical information you’re unfamiliar with. (So, how’s all that tension in the metals and bending going, mechanical engineers?) I just hope that it encourages you to ask a follow up question or two the next time you stumble into one of these conversations. You’ll make an engineer feel seen and happy.

More next time!

-Rachel

Intentional: Word of the Year 2021 Edition

Intentional: Word of the Year 2021 Edition

by rachelgeist ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hi hi! So yes, I kind of planned this to be posted a bit earlier, but eh. I didn’t get around to sitting down to write it until now. So last year my word of the year was upgrade, and overall I think that it was a decent choice. For this year, I have been thinking a lot about what word to choose, and decided to go with Intentional. Here’s why.

I can trend towards being unintentional super fast. I just go about my business and do what needs to be done for a baseline, but start ignoring the extra stuff. So for example, going to work and doing my job is my baseline. But then when it comes to the extra (reaching out to people myself, extra reading and learning, putting myself out there in leader-y situations) I can sometimes forget about it. I have to be intentional about remembering to put the extra effort in for that extra nip.

At home it’s the same thing. I can baseline pretty well, but I’m not very intentional about doing what I would consider the “extras” all the time. In my opinion that is not a bad thing either; I can’t be on 100% of the time and doing all the things because I’d get so burned out. However, I want to be intentional about thinking about what extra things actually need to be addressed and then following through with them.

There you go, my word of the year. Do you come up with a word of the year? I think that it’s a bit easier to stick with rather than a resolution, but what do you think?

More next time! I’m thinking of discussing yaml files a bit. They’re something I’ve been looking into more recently and it helps me to wrap my head around something if I have to write about it.

-Rachel

One Year In: A Reflection

One Year In: A Reflection

by rachelgeist ♥ 1 Comment

Hi All!

So, I’ve actually stuck with this blog for a year. Boy, it sure helps when you pay for a domain and don’t want it to go to waste. But really, I’ve enjoyed keeping it up, even if I’m averaging about one post a month. At least I’m consistent, right?

Back in the Days of Yore, the Simpler Times of late November 2019, when I first decided to start this up as a kind-of-side-thing, I had hopes of keeping it up. I initially wanted to post more like once a week rather than once a month, but I was flexible and figured that as long as I’m consistent that I’ll be okay. And I think that’s worked out pretty well for me.

Now, have I been writing about what I thought I’d write about? Kind of. . . ? Not really, though. With starting a new job in late February and then working remotely in mid March up until now, it’s kind of shifted a bit from my initial goal of being more tech heavy to more of reflections of working from home and learning processes. And that’s been okay with me. Here’s my takeaways from the previous year.

Remote Relationships

It’s definitely been a skill to develop working relationships almost purely online (I’m going to count that almost a month of being in person). It was definitely something that I was very suspicious and anxious about starting off. My main takeaway is that you just have to be super super intentional. Intentional with questions, asking for help, initiating chit chat, being intentional with how you show your visible listening cues over online meetings. It’s been a thing, but overall I think a good thing.

Personal relationships have been similar, but we’ve been fortunate to have a pretty good group of pod people to hang out with during this time.

A Slower Pace

This year was not that go go go feeling. Before all the pandemic jolly started, I got frazzled and high strung a lot. I just don’t love being so busy, but it’s kind of what happens when you work full time and have a kid in school and have activities outside of those things. I was so tired all the time. Now there’s a lot of the extra cut out. I do miss aspects of it, but I don’t miss how incredibly exhausted I was all the time. I feel like at work I’ve been just as productive (or more so now that I’ve learned way more of the goings on at work and am no longer a new hire) but without feeling so incredibly wiped. It is just so exhausting to just hit the ground running at 7 am or so and not stop until 9 pm or later. (I know that there are others that have not had this pandemic experience) So being forced to slow down has actually been very good for me and I would like to say my family.

I have also felt like I’ve really been able to enjoy the seasons and weather this year more so than in years past. I was able to walk outside, eat my lunch on the deck, work outside in the nice weather, all things I couldn’t do at the office.

Productivity At Home

I was pretty nervous about how productive I’d be working from home. And honestly, it really hasn’t been bad. I’ve been able to really focus on work for the most part. Of course, there’s been other times where that has not been the case, but it’s definitely not as bad as I thought it would be. I’ve also been able to use my breaks to either do crafting projects or do household chores, so I have definitely doubled up on productivity.

Concluding Thoughts

I like everyone else did not expect 2020 to be a doozy of a year. And I will be the first to admit that overall my family has gotten off pretty easy through this whole thing. While there has been a lot of negative things associated with the year, there have also been a lot of good things too. For every cancelled event, mask drama, election nutsy, killer bees, there is also more time with Brett and Ellie (and Calvin), spending time reading, learning about and making new crafts, and I wouldn’t have that changed.

More next time!

-Rachel

Screen Free Hobbies: You Should Have Them

Screen Free Hobbies: You Should Have Them

by rachelgeist ♥ 2 Comments

Hello, everyone! Hopefully everyone’s fall is faring well. I’ve been working and Ellie’s been learning at school, Brett’s been subbing, and nothing too exciting has been happening. Now if we are to contract our definition of exciting and exclude any truly exciting things (like trips, visits to restaurants, etc) then I do have some exciting news to share!

Okay, so as you all are probably aware, I spend the majority of my day working at the computer. I haven’t figured out how to get VSCode working on a piece of paper. . . yet. . . So in that light I look at screens a lot over the course of a day. When I do have downtime, I think that it’s really important that I incorporate as many non-screen hobbies as possible. If you wind down by doing other screen activities (video games, phone staring, tv watching, etc), I’d encourage you to pick up a hobby that allows you to work with your hands in some way. Based on my experience, here’s why.

Physical Benefits

If I am too computer and phone heavy, I get repetitive stress injuries with my wrist and it’s painful. It’s really helpful for me to incorporate activities throughout the day that don’t involve scrolling or typing. And even when I do those things, I wear a wrist brace.

It gives my eyes a break (I do have blue light filtering lenses which has really helped too).

It helps me with back and neck pain and tension.

Mental Benefits

I’ve been getting back into sewing recently and have really enjoyed it. I’ve made a couple of things for myself (flannel shirt and a skirt) and a dress for Ellie. Being able follow the directions of the sewing pattern and sew a garment is so much fun. It’s like a puzzle and logic sequence where you’re able to have something practical, functional, and pretty that you made yourself. It also paves the way for tons of research into different stitches and methods of sewing, the best types of tools and notions to use for a project, and how garments were sewed historically. I just really enjoy having something non-computer-y to learn about and research.

Of course, reading is also a huge part of this for me. I’ve been into social and fashion history for a few years now and find it fascinating. I love researching how people lived daily back in the days of yore. Being able to think about and mentally explore that and imagining what people did in daily live is just fascinating. And I think that mentally exercising your brain with different types of thinking benefits the other work-y thinkings you’d have to then do for work.

Concluding Thoughts

I really hope that you have a fun non-screen hobby you’re able to enjoy doing. If you do, I’d love to know what it is! If you don’t, what types of things would you want to try?

More next time!

-Rachel

New Job Alert!

New Job Alert!

by rachelgeist ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hey All! I know I’ve been a bit AFK here recently, but there’s been a lot going around here recently. The biggest is that I got a new job! I started February 24th and have really been enjoying it so far. I’m working in a much larger environment with a bigger team, which has been exciting. It’s really nice having other people around to ask questions about Python again.

It was a big decision to start looking for a new job, but I knew that it was time to make the next step in my career. Looking back on it, here’s a few things I took away from it.

Be persistent. There’s going to be rejection. Don’t let the Muggles get you down.

Always be looking. You never know when the right job is going to be posted. Keep an eye and an ear out!

Keep your resume up-to-date. If you’re always looking around you want to make sure your resume is ready to go for applying right away.

Use networking to your advantage. This was is harder for me because I can tend to hermit it up. Start going to events (try looking at Meetup.com or whatever) in your town that’s relevant to your career interests. Talk to and get to know people at other companies.

Practice interview skills. Play around at hackerrank.com or similar to get confident about your problem skills. That site also has good interviewing tips too.

Be confident. This one is also hard for me. I can imposter syndrome hard and assume everyone is smarter and better than me. But hey! That’s not true.

So hopefully you find the above encouraging. I’ll try and start posting a bit more regularly again shortly.

-Rachel

Tinker with Your Thinker

Tinker with Your Thinker

by rachelgeist ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Howdy howdy howdy! It’s still January and it’s getting ready to be all snowy and icy here. Whee. . . It’s just my favorite. . . You know I’d much rather be scraping snow off my car in the extreme wind than say, sitting on the dock at the lake with a book and iced coffee eagerly awaiting a boat ride later in the afternoon.

Anyhoo, so recently I’ve been thinking a lot about knowledge and how much I know and how much I don’t know and such and such. I tend to go down the rabbit hole of thinking about how many topics and concepts and etc that I don’t know about or don’t know enough about and then just start wallowing in my thoughts. Which got me thinking. . .

Bart Simpson writing, "I will not wallow in my thoughts" on a chalkboard in a classroom.
Look, Ma! I found a

It really isn’t about how much you know, but what you do with the knowledge you do have. I have been trying to focus on what I do know and what I can accomplish with that knowledge, rather than getting discouraged by thinking about all the things I don’t know enough about. With the knowledge I do have, I can do a ton of stuff. And the more I do with what I have, the more potential I have to learn new things. For example, I know how to knit. I’d like to knit something new sometime soon (I want to make some cute mittens or maybe a sweater). I’d really like to have it be in a fair aisle pattern, but I’ve never attempted such a thing. Instead of me getting discouraged, I’m going to just pick a project and start it.

I’m not going to become an expert overnight in some subject, but I do know that I can learn new things every day. And all these new little tidbits of learning add up over time.

-Rachel

Upgrade: My Word of the Year

Upgrade: My Word of the Year

by rachelgeist ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Last year was the year of dealing with unexpected events. I’m not a huge fan of unexpected events and behaviors, myself. It took a lot of energy to handle everything last year, and I’m pooped out.

I’ve been thinking about resolutions, goals, and themes for this new year, and I think I’ve decided on Upgrade as my theme. I want the 2020 upgrade to encompass many things this year.

I want professional upgrades for me to look like learning new skills and applying them. It also means more meaningful networking with other people in town. A lot of the time (most of the time) I seriously doubt every skill and ability I have. I want to lessen those doubts this year. My big goal this year is to actually put a project into my GitHub repo. I have a ton of stuff in private repos and with work, but nothing out and about in public land.

Personal upgrades include upgrades to the house, upgrades in the amount of effort and energy I exert on getting did up on a daily basis, and upgrades in the amount of energy I spend socializing with family and friends. I generally exert the least amount of effort getting ready in the mornings if I get overwhelmed. If you’re into the enneagram at all, I’m a 5w4. It’s been a pretty handy tool in recognizing good and bad tendencies in myself and helping out with some personal growth.

Here’s to 2020 and some high hopes.

-Rachel

Rachel Starts a Blog

Rachel Starts a Blog

by rachelgeist ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

So I’ve been thinking about this for a while and finally decided to start a blog for my professional self. I’ve written blogs before, but they’ve all been personal and short lived. The goal with this website is to write about cool things I’m learning about at work and on side projects.

What Do I Plan on Writing About?

  • Python!
  • Queries!
  • Stuff I’m Currently Learning!
  • Other Topics I Deem Relevant to the Scope of This Blog!

Right now I’m learning about Docker, so I’ll probably start off with some posts regarding that and my Learning Journey. (Because that sounds a lot better than Iterative Keyboard Head Banging and Sporadic Ah Ha Moments. . .or does it?)

My Gang: Brett, Ellie, and Me (photo by Shannon Anderson)

For posting frequency, we’ll see. My long term goal is to post weekly, but I’m probably going to start off posting once per month or every two weeks. Something reasonable that won’t overwhelm me.

Anyhoo, I hope that you’ll enjoy reading about whatever I deem relevant of writing and then posting about.

-Rachel