If We Knew Then What We Know Now: Women Supporting Women in Tech for Over 20 Years.
I am super excited about seeing my friend next week, and it got me thinking about the first time I worked with her and my very first Consulting Project. We are the authentic Bad Ass Women in Tech. I hope you enjoy reading about our experience, and you will see why we are tough as nails and never give up!
It was my first consulting project. I was the Jr Ops consultant responsible for the service company, manufacturing, warehouse, and other operations on the project. The company had five separate companies, and we took all five companies live in 5 months. My friend was the Jr Finance consultant. It is important to note that when I started consulting, I came from a medical distribution background and had no manufacturing experience.
As we started the requirements session, I was the note-taker for all operations and manufacturing, and my friend was the note-taker for finance sessions. The customer IT Director was a fascinating person who liked to look over your shoulder as you took notes; as you can imagine, I wrote everything down because I didn’t know what was essential. Plus, I didn’t understand what Routing was or even BOM, so it all seemed necessary, and one of the companies was in Canada. As they said, Routing sounded different, so I kept thinking, was this the same process? My friend didn’t take as many notes because this was finance, and she had a better handle on the process and didn’t see the need to write everything down. The IT director said oh, Shawn is a knowledgeable and a great consultant and my friend said he was worried about her because he didn’t think she knew what she was doing, so it goes to show you that perception is a huge part.
We learned so many lessons from this project, not only about many additional features—this was my first time being exposed to manufacturing—but also about how women and tech are treated and thought of. Let’s continue some of the lessons and discuss a few things that happened during this project.
First, I learned never to talk about people negatively and put it in writing or email, even if I think it is just between two people or internally. My company's first project manager was fired from the project because she had made some negative comments about the IT Director in an email meant to be internal. Still, as the email grew with information, it eventually was forwarded to the customer, so he saw all the bad things she had said about him. So we got Pat, and Pat has gone down in history as the worst PM. To date, I have been consulting for 20 years.
I'm unsure where to start about Pat, but you should also know that driving to Anaheim, leaving my house at 4 a.m., and getting home at 10 p.m. was taking a toll.
Pat would like to come in unprepared for meetings and call out, “Ladies, can you make my copies?” he would insist that we go to the copy room and make copies for his presentation. The other thing is we had test scripts that had been written out, and the employees should come in and test if everything worked well, sign off, and if not, we would address them; it became a game with the customer because they saw how bad he treated us and even wasn’t lovely to their employee so they would come and say what’s the goal and how many do we need to sign off today is. We would tell them so they would go to the box of test scripts, pull a stack, and sign them so you can see how well our CRP went. And when we tried to say anything or give suggestions, he would say we were being Passive Aggressive.
At the end of each day, we would have a huddle and, of course, no courtesy of how many hours I had to drive home. The male Finance consultant would get busy, and we would always have to wait for him before starting. During the meetings, we would discuss our challenges and how to solve them. On more than one occasion, my friend and I would give a solution to a problem, and the PM would confirm with a male consultant they would dismiss us. After each huddle, my friend and I would drive to Starbucks and encourage each other; I am pretty sure after each day, we threatened to quit, but with both female and inexperience, we just supported each other and put on big girl panties as you say and deal with it. Days later, after we had come up with a solution but were dismissed and still had the issue, the lead senior consultant would come to the table with the same solution, and our PM would say, "Look, ladies, we solved the problem. So, at one of Starbucks's support meetings, we joked and said, look how great it was that the lead consultant passed our ideas down days later. You are right. What a great idea! It was our idea to begin with.
Things did get worse before better, and the client, especially the VP of Ops, would try to protect us. At one point, they even offered to take him back and work him over. But of course, we would never agree to that. We thought he was earnest on days, and we dreamed of a day when we would be more than the Ladies.
You would have thought we would say something, but when I said something about driving every day and if I could get a hotel, they said it was considered local, and I wasn’t approved. In the five months, I called out once and couldn’t make the drive. Since it was our first project, we had no idea what we could and couldn’t do, so we just went with it. One day, we got a new team member, and it was great; we bonded with him right away, and he jumped in and stood up for us, and we all became very close friends. It was almost like the day he joined the project. We had light and hope, and I know he took us under his wing, and just as the VP of Operations tried to protect us, he was someone who worked at our company.
Go live was an exciting time; the Director of Operations had a complete breakdown, and when I walked into the office the first day, they told me oh, Shawn, we moved your desk. You will never guess where. Outside the Directors' office, I was instructed not to let anyone pass. They promised the Director that none of her staff would ask questions, and I would answer them all. You must realize that many operations staff had been at this company for over 20 – 30 years. A lot of them and their spouses worked at this company. The owner would tell them oh, don’t retire. You will be bored. Keep coming to work, so they did. At one point, they taught me Advance Warehouse how to create warehouse shipments and picks because they would forget how the system worked. I knew enough to be dangerous, so they would at least get me in the area on the screen, and I would figure it out. The other thing they wanted to do was finish goods coming out of production. They didn’t want to require picks in or out, so we turned off all settings in that location, and they would transfer every finished good to a different location that required advanced warehouse. This was tough and a lot of work, and at times, it got very confusing, so I would handhold them so they wouldn’t go back to the director and ask questions. She wanted to remove them from such a vital inventory control position, but they didn’t; instead, they had me to help them guide them. This is when I made the rule that I would always wear tennis shoes. At one point, I tried to get IT to get me a golf cart or a scooter. I also had never heard my name, Shawn Sissenwein, call extension ### so many times a day; I just ran from fire to fire. The other thing that happened was the Owner and the President of the company would come in each morning and walk to everyone and say hi and check in, so my job was to get in at least an hour beforehand and speak with them first just in case we had an issue I would hear them. They could tell them that they had a problem. Still, it was reported, and I was working on it.
One day, the IT director called me to his desk and said Pat, our PM, had made my friend cry, and I needed to help her. They didn’t know what to do so I went and we comforted each other and it became a joke between us Ladies can you whatever the task was of course when Pat did it we both were so furious, but we just tried to support each other. I think this was the first Women in Tech support group, it just had two members, but we kept it together, and as rough as it got, we would tell each out we were both Bad Asses and that we were, and still to this day, both Bad Asses.
Another day, the IT Director and I went in and worked with the Service Manager; remember I said he liked to look over people's shoulders, had no personal space, and had some hygiene issues. The Manager told him to back up, and he didn’t, so that caused many problems, and she went to HR; the very next day, I got called into HR to tell my side of the story and what happened, but I didn’t say a word I told them that I couldn’t get involved in their companies issues and that they would have to work it out themselves.
We were so happy to have our first project under our belt. Even the owner came one day and tried to hire me and told me not to worry. He was a lawyer and could get me out of any contract, but first off, I wasn’t driving to Anaheim every day, and second, I wasn’t moving, and I had two small children at home. This customer was demanding consultants and wanted what they wanted. Even years later, my cousin came out, and at the time, I didn’t know she was going to see this customer; she implemented a payroll system like ADP, but on her first visit to them, she walked in and told them her name, and they said we know a Sissenwein. Of course, she was surprised when they told me it was me, and they loved me, and she said I was her cousin from then on. They loved her too, and her boss called me one day to thank me because, from that point on, the project went much smoother.
I am so excited to see my friend after 20 years, and I am sure we will talk about this project. The story's moral is to hang in there, support each other, and be kind. Being a woman in tech is challenging, but as we help each other, we hope that one day, things will change. We have made significant strides, but even when I go to the local High School to show the Agriculture class my Cow App, they are all amazed that I built it. I work with Microsoft, and I am a girl. This was just last year in 2023, so we have a long way to go!
As I look back at this experience today, I would never have put up with this and have a lot more confidence in consulting, but I also know my worth. As a significant mentor told me last night, I am a Bad Ass. And remember, you are “Bad Ass” Walk around the room and say it and look in the mirror and say, “ I am a Bad Ass” and “I Got This.”
Suppose you made it to the bottom of my blog; thanks for reading. If you have stories to share, post them and send them my way. We can create the best support group by telling our stories and supporting each other. Walk in love and kindness.