Sooo I'm in a small trade and everyone knows someone. My class teacher met my boss a bit ago and called him "cocky." YUP. I confessed my boss told me I was likely going to fail at transitioning into the position I want. There was another guy still in the class and he went "THAT'S MESSED UP." Sometimes it's nice to be validated. Later we were alone and he was like "Don't take this the wrong way... But a lot of guys won't even hire women into that job. My boss told me he won't."

OH WORD? HA.

it's so funny to me that the trades bang on about getting women in and my mechanical company has a DEI committee, and yet. We get in and there's nowhere to go. They don't want us in the field doing metalwork as journeymen, or being foremen, or doing computer like I'm doing. Where are all these diversity recruits to go?

The role I'm in now is like a very technical PM. They want me as a PM, which they see as secretaries I think. I've lasted 3x longer than most of the very few women in my department.

Sometimes I think about joining the DEI committee and weaponizing them against the hiring and retention practices of women in my department.