adrienmundi (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
adrienmundi) wrote2006-04-27 04:25 pm
adrienmundi) wrote2006-04-27 04:25 pm
job jail and the prison uniform
After talking with aesthetic yesterday about job and career stuff, I came away feeling... well, I'm not sure. In response to why I'm not in project management (which, on the surface, does seem like something I'd be good at, and enjoy), I said that the primary reason was the combination of corporate and boy drag.
I'm sure I've complained before about the difference I perceive between letting people believe what they choose about you, and actively encouraging people to believe things about you that aren't true, but... it seems more real, now, for some reason (that I probably can't articulate well). It bugs me that likely the first thing anyone sees in me is an assignment of some form of "man", but I work to undermine a lot of that in visual ways, often resulting in being read as sexually suspicious (ie, gay), hip, or something. It's insufficient, but it's something. Corporate drag would erase much of that; it's about conformity and control, tied into deeply conservative conceptions of binary gender naturalizaton.
I'll admit it; I'm bored a lot at my job. I can go the certification/engineer route, but that holds little interest for me, and I'd be at best a mid-grade net-type. I could go the more managerial side, but... that brings me back to the corp/boy drag thing, as well as my inability to say "yes!" whenever called upon to do so. It feels like I've falled into the trap of gender related job anxiety and stasis, and it certainly doesn't help that statistically speaking, I'm doing faaaaabulously for someone who's transgendered (and then I worry that it's only because it's not obvious, yet). I don't like the feeling that this is the best I can do or expect, but that idea seems to have some solidity to it
I'm sure I've complained before about the difference I perceive between letting people believe what they choose about you, and actively encouraging people to believe things about you that aren't true, but... it seems more real, now, for some reason (that I probably can't articulate well). It bugs me that likely the first thing anyone sees in me is an assignment of some form of "man", but I work to undermine a lot of that in visual ways, often resulting in being read as sexually suspicious (ie, gay), hip, or something. It's insufficient, but it's something. Corporate drag would erase much of that; it's about conformity and control, tied into deeply conservative conceptions of binary gender naturalizaton.
I'll admit it; I'm bored a lot at my job. I can go the certification/engineer route, but that holds little interest for me, and I'd be at best a mid-grade net-type. I could go the more managerial side, but... that brings me back to the corp/boy drag thing, as well as my inability to say "yes!" whenever called upon to do so. It feels like I've falled into the trap of gender related job anxiety and stasis, and it certainly doesn't help that statistically speaking, I'm doing faaaaabulously for someone who's transgendered (and then I worry that it's only because it's not obvious, yet). I don't like the feeling that this is the best I can do or expect, but that idea seems to have some solidity to it
no subject
I don't understand that jargon. Dressing like a boy? Dressing like you work for a corporation?
I get the feeling that you may have a limited sense of what management, project management, and/or engineering would entail as a career. Or perhaps not limited, but certainly different from mine.
no subject
Dressing in a way that reflects business casual/formal codes that appear to manifest conservatively and in such a manner as to erase or minimize individuality; dressing in a way that reflects cultural expectations about what is appropriate to those assigned "man" status.
Are you saying that I don't understand the work and skills involved, or that perhaps I'm overvaluing my ability and facility to do the work?
no subject
I should have been clearer, my apologies.
I think that a career in project management would not require you to dress in ways that would erase or minimize individuality and reflect expectations about what is appropriate to those assigned "man" status. I think a career in management might, but I don't think it would to the degree that I think you think it would.
I think your inability to be a yes-person would not hinder you in a management career.
I think you might find engineering more interesting than you think you would. I doubt you would be at best a mid-grade net type if you wanted to be something better.
Our different views of those jobs and their suitedness to you undoubtedly merely reflects our different exposures to them, not any lack of understanding on your part. I thought you might benefit from an additional viewpoint.
or that perhaps I'm overvaluing my ability and facility to do the work - I don't understand what "overvaluing" means here, so that's probably not what I'm saying.
no subject
My contact with PMs and managerial types both have all reflected the "moving up=giving signs of co-option", which I suspect is largely invisible to them, but still... don't get me started on assumptions of convention as standardization or naturalization (unless you want a long, rambling, profanity filled rant). ZB, ties, which are no big deal to many, are symbolically worse than a dead albatross, to me, for me.
My problem with engineering, as I understand it, is that one, I genuinely like and need interaction with people, and all the engineers I've worked proclaim their love of their jobs being tied to not having to deal with people. Secondly (and this is probably an excercise of personal preference, if not privilege), days of nonstop linear analysis and scanning screen upon screen of code for an errant semicolon sounds like torture to me. I get that a lot of people (one of whom I live with) genuinely enjoy that, but...
no subject
Dress standards vary by employer as much as they vary by position. In the places I've worked nobody has worn ties unless they wanted to as their own personal fashion statement. I'm sure "business casual" presents its own issues for you, but it at least affords a greater degree of flexibility and less concern about conformity. Some places don't even worry about business casual.
In my experience, PMs need organizational skills and people skills. They need to stay on top of things and they need to get people to work together and do things. The best PMs can get people to do things without giving anyone the impression that they're being pushed in any way by the PM. How the PM is dressed doesn't seem to matter.
Management is very different from Project Management, btw.
In my experience, engineering can and should be full of contact with other people. The engineers and other high-level technical types that I've dealt with are all quite happy that they don't have to deal with people in the sense of taking calls from random idiots all day long, i.e. they're happy not to be working in front-line tech support. But an engineer's working day is filled with contact with other people; their job requires it. The ones that are brilliant technically and miserable at being social human beings usually think they're great at their job and are usually dead wrong.
That said, some kinds of advanced technical work may hold no interest for you. Maybe all kinds. I couldn't say. But I'd hate to see you write off a potentially enjoyable and rewarding career path based on perceptions formed from small sample sizes.
Just to take one narrow subfield, programming: there are programmers who view their job as that of an artist, a craftsman, an engineer, a construction worker, a janitor, a teacher, a student, a philospher, and a priest. None of these are more right or wrong than the others; there are good and bad programmers in every such category. The programmers mold their jobs to their own temperments. The jobs do not mold the people.