I had just finished leading a project that turned into a product of its first kind for the business. The project took me two years to complete. Two years of refining, honing, pitching and re-pitching followed until I got the funding to proceed. We hired three bright young men in the newly minted project. I built, tested and fortified algorithms to perform against variability over the next three years.
This was at a time when algorithms were still driving solutions because data was sparse and not yet the king. A lot of time was spent in sourcing the data and categorising it in ways so that representativeness of the domain could be captured. I also interpreted and incorporated them into the algorithmic framework.
The rest of the time, I was the inveterate optimist. I focused on camaraderie, energy and enthusiasm in the team, setting up mock trials to perform validations and selling our work to the business leaders.
Recognition, rejection, and reflection as a woman
I was forty-eight when the project came to a close. Our team won recognition. More funding flew in for further work in the same domain. My two colleagues got promoted. I was pleased as punch, until …
It occurred to me that the company had passed me up for promotion. My new boss was unfamiliar with what had gone into making the project a success. He told me that the general opinion was that while I had done a great job in leading the project, they (read ‘the algorithms’) were not mine.
I turned to one of my trusted senior colleagues for advice. “Wipe that grin off your face” was his first reaction. I was stunned. He proceeded to tell me that I smile too much. That gives the impression of not being nerdy enough. The company would consider me more seriously if I maintained a relatively impassive expression. I liked and respected him and knew he meant well.
For some time after that I did try to smile less in the hope that the organisation saw me adapting to a call for change. I got promoted over the next couple of years. By then my smile was back; so I don’t know what part the grin had played in the decision.
Looking Back
This episode reminded me of another one that happened I was in the university. I was twenty then, studying for a Masters degree in Physics. It was a subject of my choice, a subject that I loved. I was part of a gang of women and men who were evidently interested in trooping together to go for concerts, participate in singing and dramatics, read, write, debate, argue and generally “hang-around”.
Much later a good friend from those years told me that Prof. M, one of our teachers of impeccable reputation had serious misgivings about my intent and capability as a Physicist. He thought I would perhaps make a good writer of popular science articles.
Prof. M was correct on one of those counts – never in the more than three decades since then have I paused writing. Diary, poetry, essays, travelogues, and, also, research papers!