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indispensability and value
I had a realization when I started my current job: I don’t want to be indispensable. For a very long time, I wanted to be indispensable, where things would come to a halt if I weren’t there or if I hadn’t left detailed instructions behind. I wanted to be so important to a company or a project that work absolutely required my expertise and my presence. I thought that was a sign of value, that it meant I mattered. But now, I don’t want to be indispensable. It seems to be a sign of arrogance to the point of irresponsibility and disregard for the well-being of an organization to be indispensable. I want to be valued and to train others to do my job, so that I have the freedom to take a vacation, or even (gasp) leave, somewhere down the road. I care about the team I’m on and want them to succeed, with or without me. What I want is to be valued, to be respected for the skills, knowledge, and ideas I bring, and to be regarded as a positive force on our team. However, we have a new tester on our team, and I’m training her. Though I know I really want her to succeed and be a partner with me, I still feel a little threatened, like… I’m no longer required. Even though I’ve been thinking these ideas, about the tension between indispensability and value, and coming to regard them as separate concepts, I still feel like they are the same thing, like the best way to be valued is to make myself indispensable. I actually talked with the new woman about this, so that she understands that if I start to sound a bit territorial or a bit fussy, it’s not about her, but about me, and she’s welcome to confront me about it. We’ll see how I react if she does confront me. :)
May 2016a documentation argument
I’m testing some vendor-supplied software, and I’ve been testing a variety of functions and integrations. I’ve been more deliberate in my testing on this project, less monkey-at-a-keyboard and more creative thinking about how it might be broken. I’m testing things that aren’t necessarily documented in the requirements. I got some push-back about it, that we should only be documenting (and even running) tests that have written requirements. That’s basically telling me that I shouldn’t do a thorough job because someone else didn’t do a thorough job. And that’s not how I want to work.
May 2016movie review: Code
Carl and I went to a screening earlier this week of Code: Debugging the Gender Gap. I didn’t expect it to be a great film (too many film festival awards), so I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be a coherent, cohesive, and compelling film about the gender gap in computer science, particularly in programming. It started with dialogue from young girls about what they thought of coding and who they thought of when they considered it. Some girls were defiant and said that there was no reason they couldn’t do it, and others said they almost always think of boys coding rather than girls coding. One of the sentences that really stuck out to me was a founder (CEO?) of a company saying something like, “I don’t feel like I can try to convince women to join a profession where they’ll be harassed.” I think her point made a lot of sense and addressed the catch-22 the profession has. It needs to change its culture to be more inviting to women, but it probably needs more women in order to change its culture. Groups of people don’t suddenly realize they’re being exclusive without more people around who are being excluded to point it out. They interviewed the founder of Goldieblox, who talked about her construction toys for girls and the engineering learning that goes along with them. They talked to founders and volunteers with female-oriented coding programs. They had extended conversations with a woman who works at Pixar about combining coding with her love of art and her experiences as an undergrad in computer science classes of mostly men. That was an interesting insight. She said that the men would get together and do their homework and projects together, figuring out the tricks and shortcuts embedded in those things, and they wouldn’t communicate any of that to the women. It turned into a self-reinforcing group excluding women from improving and learning as a team (they still succeeded, but they had to work harder for it). They talked about the changing stereotypes of coders, from the scruffy and socially awkward programmer of the ’80s and ’90s to the “brogrammers” of today (what a terrible word), who are more likely to be (or act like) frat boys. Women stopped going into the field around the same time as the perception of coders changed from logic-oriented people to nerdy men, helped by media and job ads. And they talked about the attrition of women in the field, something like 41% of women leave by their tenth year (I might be making up both of those numbers), compared with only about 17% of men. One woman attributed this to women feeling like their careers stagnate fairly early, while men experience acceleration in their careers. My own experience with sexism will be the topic of another post, provided I can do it without pointing too many fingers. But I will say that in software testing at my company, at least, women are pretty fairly represented among all the levels, including management, except on the automation team. I don’t exactly know why that would be, but I can guess. At other companies where I interviewed, they paraded in the one woman on their testing team, which left a pretty bad taste in my mouth. The movie comes out on Netflix in November. If you get a chance to watch it, I highly suggest that you do!
May 2016job and training
It’s Testing Tuesday! Let’s talk software testing! To start, software testing is finding weaknesses in software that, when fixed, make it a better product. Software testers don’t break software, they expose how it’s already broken. It is rather fun to say I break things for my career, but some people, particularly developers, respond poorly to that. Software testing is a productive practice in that it improves the end product, though it can feel a little destructive when the tester finds bug after bug. I’ve been at my new job since the end of March, ostensibly testing software, but mostly learning things. The first project I worked on was a small upgrade to existing software, and I didn’t have much to test, though I had plenty of time to test it. That was good, because I’m learning the formalities of testing and how this specific company does it, and I appreciated having time to get my bearings. On this project, the vendor supplied recommended test cases, and I was left to my own devices to create a suite of regression test cases. The people who had done the prior upgrades hadn’t left any test cases to run for regression, and the documentation of the tests they did run was virtually non-existent. The learning curve wasn’t too bad, though I did have to ask a lot of questions about some things, and the institutional knowledge of the product wasn’t great. A couple times, I got the response that something was working as designed when it was really a bug acting consistently across a subset of items, and when I asked why something was supposed to behave like that, I was told that the person didn’t know. This was frustrating, but the project could have been much more frustrating with less congenial people. I had a fairly high bug find rate, particularly in light of the number of test cases I ran and the amount of time I spent in ad hoc testing (which for me meant learning my way around and trying random and non-targeted things). As a novice tester, this has me very concerned that the software is really buggy (as opposed to me being very lucky or very good). Sometimes I wonder if the reassurances from my colleagues and managers are just false accolades, but that’s my own insecurity, not the topic of this post. All told, I really like the company I’m working for, I love the cooperative and collaborative environment, and I find the work to be fun and sometimes challenging. Plus, no one is going to sue me because of my work, so that’s a bonus. I was given training through SQE to prepare for the ISTQB exam. The certification is as a foundation level tester, and the exam is 40 questions long, with a passing grade of 65%. The training was fine. The teacher was engaging most of the time, and you could tell he had a real passion for testing. I didn’t find it at all useful in helping me to do my job though. It was about theory and vocabulary and forms. The only time we came to concrete techniques was a discussion about partitions and boundary analysis. The training did help fill in some gaps in the self-study I had been doing, but I think the usefulness of the training comes in giving the team common vernacular to use. I have kind of a big problem with 65% being a passing grade though. How should that reassure anyone that the person knows what they’re talking about? Another problem with the certification, aside from its low passing grade, it that it’s a one-time certification with no renewals necessary. There’s no requirement for continuing education, no need for production of work product to show competence. It seems to me to be a meaningless badge of legitimacy that isn’t needed once you have a real job behind you. I think a more valuable thing for a resume would be an online portfolio with a test plan and test cases. But I say all this as someone with a job now, and had I not been given a chance, I was planning on getting the certification on my own to show that I at least know something. I’ve been looking at a lot of resources to help make me a better tester quickly. These have included books, blogs, online resources, and streamed conference presentations. Of the resources I’ve consulted, one of my favorites is James Whittaker’s How to Break Software. Some of it isn’t applicable to what I do, but he gives real-world examples of how things can break. He talks about different kinds of tests to run through human interaction and manipulating file interaction as well. I just started reading Cem Kaner’s (et al.) Testing Computer Software. Just the first couple chapters are really useful so far. I’ve really enjoyed James Bach’s blog and Michael Bolton’s blog as well. They are both big into rapid software testing and rethinking the way exploratory testing is (and rechristening it simply “testing”). Their blogs are full of insights and good ideas for people who want to improve the way they think about software testing. As I finish or discover other resources, I’ll discuss them here. Until another Tuesday!
Jun 2012Things I Miss
A friend asked me today if I miss being at my former firm. I thought about it for a minute. There are some things I miss: being busy all the time (or at least a lot of the time) someone else shouldering responsibility for my work someone else being responsible for bringing in new work having a steady paycheck However, I know that these are things I miss now. I know business will come in the door in waves, and I won’t always be busy (or always slow). I know I can build a network of people I trust to respond honestly to my work product or my questions, which is something I’m already building. I know I’m getting better all the time at bringing in new business. And I know that the paycheck will come, and it will vary, but it will hopefully pay off in the end. In short, I miss having a safety net. But the freedom that comes with being my own boss is amazing. And that’s something I would miss tremendously at a firm.
Apr 2012choosing a name
I’m sure at least some of you are wondering why I chose the name “Vesta Legal” for my firm. First, a lot of lawyers use their names as their firm names, something which I believe is rooted in ethical rules. The rules have changed though, and a law firm can choose different names. I thought my name was too complex and hard to remember to be effective as a branding technique. And it would just be clumsy: “The Law Offices of Rachel Kibler-Melby” - ugh. I like my name generally, but as a brand, it’s not so great. So the next step was finding a phrase or name that I liked. I have always had an interest in mythology, so I thought that would be a good place to start. I searched for gods or goddesses with connections to wills, and I had a hard time finding anything. Then I thought having the goddess of the home would be a good bridge to estate planning, my primary area of practice. I’m more familiar with Greek mythology, so I first tossed around “Hestia,” protector of the hearth. But I didn’t like the sound of it. I went to Roman mythology, where “Vesta” is the goddess of hearth and home. I liked the sound of her name, and to my delight, I discovered that the Romans actually deposited their wills with the priestesses of Vesta, the Vestal Virgins. It seemed perfect. I searched the name and “law,” and a Swiss law firm came up, so “Vesta Law” was out. There also appears to be a town in West Virginia called “Vesta,” though strangely, no one had used it in their law firm name. So then it was just a matter of figuring out what I liked, and “Vesta Legal” won out among the various “law firm,” “law office,” “legal services,” and other variations. If you’re thinking about a name for a law firm, I would encourage you to not use your own name. Having a brand name is frequently easier to remember, and a bonus is that it allows room for growth. If I take on a partner or hire an associate or whatever, I don’t have to worry about changing the name. It also gives no indication as to the size of my firm (thus breaking no ethical rules by stating it is bigger than it is), which can sometimes give more credibility. So that’s how I came to name my firm what I did. I’m happy with it - I think it sounds elegant, and I like the background of it.
Apr 2012new firm!
As my dear husband pointed out, I haven’t updated this since I was studying for the Missouri bar. In the past three years, I have taken (and passed) three bar exams - Missouri, Illinois, and Kansas - worked for two different firms - one doing civil defense litigation (asbestos) and one doing data privacy and records management consulting - and have recently started my own firm! I’m doing estate planning, and I hope to do asylum work on a pro bono basis. I’ll write a few posts on what I did to start my own firm, but I wanted to get a post out. Hooray for a new firm!
Apr 2012another long absence
I’m sure you’ve all been dying to know what I’ve been doing for the last six months, so here’s the update. I left my job and started my own firm, so that’s cool. I’m doing estate planning, though right now, I’m doing pretty much anything. In February, I started a bunch of seeds, and this year, I decided to do better than last year, where all my seedlings either died or ended up really leggy. I got a grow light and some heating pads, and we set up a table in the basement as my grow station. I know what it sounds like, but I promise it’s legit. I’ve planted 5 types of lettuce, spinach (which didn’t germinate, oddly), 5 types of carrots, kohlrabi, arugula, lots of different pepper, dill, parsley, cilantro, basil (a bunch of different kinds), mustard, chives, eggplant (including an African variety - yum), lots of tomatoes, thyme, little strawberries, cucumber, a few different squashes, and other things. I’m SO excited. Some of them have made it into the garden, but a lot of things are still waiting downstairs. I’ve been surprised at how much water they need, but considering the light and the heating pads, I guess I shouldn’t be. Outside, everything seems to be doing really well. Our grapes and (female) kiwi came back (we got a new male kiwi yesterday), the agastache is really happy, we’ve had asparagus, coming up, the raspberries and blueberries are turning into something recognizable, my herb boxes are doing well, and the strawberry patch is blooming. We built another raised bed and planted a bunch of flowers in it. I think Carl is going to build me a basil box to add on to the raised bed. That will be exciting. I’ve been baking quite a bit as well. I made eggplant parmesan a few weeks ago, which was delicious. And I still make my sourdough bread about once every other week. I’ve progressed to adding rosemary and olive oil or cheese to it. I want to try adding lemon thyme to it as well. I think I’m going to make a double chocolate crumb cake this week, so I’ll keep you all updated. I have the best husband ever, the dogs are great, and I have independence in my career. Things are going well!
Oct 2011Disjointed matters
I’m sure I will have many posts on disjointed matters, but here is the first in my recent posts. First, the sweet potato chips were a huge hit with the dogs. I think I may make more tomorrow for them. Second, I’m rather frustrated with my orchestra right now. I really miss playing in my college orchestra where people practiced and the conductor encouraged players to be better. One derisive comment the conductor made at practice tonight really made me think seriously about not going back. But I can’t leave the orchestra without a bass player… Third, I’m struggling with sewing ultrex, which is a goretex type material. My stitches are really close together no matter what stitch length I set them at, and the feed dogs push the fabric through faster than the needle, so it puckers. I fiddled with the tension and thought I had it figured out, but no. I’ve ripped out about seven inches of very close stitches, and I have another two to go, so if anyone has any suggestions, please share them. I definitely learned my lesson about practicing on scraps instead of the actual project. And fourth, I will be starting a new job in two weeks at another firm here in Kansas City. I will be doing e-discovery and data privacy consulting, as far as I understand it, but everyone knows you don’t really know what your job entails until a month into it. I am so grateful for the experience I’ve gained at my current firm, but it is time to go somewhere else, and I am excited about this next chapter in my career. That’s it for now. Mulling over a few other things that I might post, but we’ll just have to see.
Jan 2010work-life balance
This will be a short post, as I have to be at work in seven hours, meaning that I have five hours to sleep, but I wanted to say a quick word about balancing work and life. In the legal profession, or at least in private practice, balance seems to be actively discouraged. All through law school and while looking for jobs, I told myself that being balanced was very important. And it is. However, it seems to be a struggle to maintain it, and my job sometimes feels like it is a little kid on a teeter-totter who keeps moving closer and closer to the fulcrum. I’ve joined an orchestra and a gym, and I have taken over the music director position (“position” being a very loose word) at LCM as well as looking for a new church home in Overland Park. Also planning a wedding and starting to look at moving to KC (well, Johnson County really). And making time for friends. I should be able to do all this, right? It seems like these things are essential to my well-being as a person as well as a lawyer. And yet there is never ever enough time. As I write this, it seems more like I took too much on rather than work is demanding more of my time than it should reasonably have, so maybe I’m just whining. Today was just a hard day, and I’m starting to think that this struggle for balance, and this ideal of working at the office and not working outside the office is just that, an ideal.