Back at the office, drunk, Susan demonstrated for us the Official Chyx handshake - all Chyx members greet each other by emulating the world famous Farrah Fawcett simultaneous hair-flip-and-aim gesture, touching fingertips in mock gun-firing pose at the end of the gesture's completion. Dusty, Karla, Michael, and Susan were in the Lego garden practicing, and it was like boot camp: "Make it fluid, kids - remember, you're sweeping twelve pounds of Texan corn-fed hair out of your eyes and readying a loaded Colt .45 almost simultaneously. There's a slight flip of the neck involved, and the left gun-holding hand must reach horizontal position at exactly the same moment the hair-flipping finger has swept the hair and is ready to pull the trigger. Michael - a bit more grace. Dusty, what would Kelly, Jill, and Sabrina say about that jerkiness between the hair and the trigger? Take aim, Chyx. You are the world. Free your mind. Unplug. Plug in."
Microserfs by Douglas Coupland.
Microserfs - really, Karla, Susan, Dusty and Amy - were the reason I became a programmer. I mean, besides loving computers and feeling drawn to math and logic since a young age. It was reading Microserfs in late junior high that made me decide there was something alluring about that profession. Being a programmer meant you were entering a meritocracy of sorts, and that wasn't for the faint of heart. It meant being confident in your ideas, in your own intelligence. But it also meant doing something utterly creative: I saw bits of my vulnerability and mania and love of Ren and Stimpy in the women of Microserfs. In college, I majored in Computer Science, with an Art minor.
And now? I am a freelancer web developer, which means I get to combine the visual and artistic with the logical and abstract, which is essentially what I wanted to do from a very young age, if you were to describe that in very vague and general terms. When I was a kid, I went through phases of wanting to be a doctor, teacher, electrician, pearl diver, chemical engineer, cosmetologist... Computer scientist, programmer, webbo (ok I made up "webbo" but isn't it cute?) were never on that list until late in high school, something clicked. As a web developer, I get to challenge many of the parts of my brain (some projects more than others). I lived the last few years in Boston; a few months ago I moved to the Netherlands to see what it was like. I make time to pick up projects in illustration, am working on a children's book and a movie short. It's a great life. I don't mean to sound arrogant or any more self-centered than is necessary for the purpose of example - I'm insanely grateful that this is the way it is. I'm proud of the hard work I put in, but I also know not every young woman has a father teaching her Basic and a mother who praises her as the "computer whiz" (she never called me the "pearl diving whiz"). I was lucky, so the least I can do is talk about how super awesome it is to be a programmer.
The life of a programmer kind of rules, in both their career and their regular life. You just have lots of opportunities to exercise freedom, and to be passionate, which are kindof the two best parts of being alive. You can get super into/obsessed with projects you're doing, always improving and learning from yourself and others. You can also do work in a ton of different areas. Think the human brain is awesome? If you can program, you can help out with tons of awesome brain experiments and research. In fact, basically any science thing right now, in biology, chemistry, physics, medicine, genetics... astrophysics... can be aided by engineers and programmers. If you're artistic, we are in the same boat my friend. Programming isn't quite the same thing as sitting down with a sketchpad for hours, but it does allow you to scratch two different parts of your brain at the same time.
I'm a web developer in part because I grew up with the internet and I love it, having made my first Geocities site in 1995. I might not always be a web developer, but it's been super awesome for the past 10 years. I got to live in NYC and Boston, meet some amazing and super smart people, work on some hilarious and beautiful projects. If you like a more relaxed life, don't worry, there are way more awesome things you can do really hunkering into a place - you'll probably just be more successful than me at it.
The whole women-in-technology is a hot topic right now the same way calling out women in the streets and not needing a man as a membrane to work through are hot topics. It's gonna be awesome in the next like, 10-15 years. I can't wait to see it all happening.