There’s been a movement around #payToSpeak conferences on Twitter and elsewhere, that is conferences where the speaker essentially ends up paying to speak there (travel expenses, time put into the talk, time not working when being at the conference etc.). I think that speakers should be paid, or they at least shouldn’t be going negative in budget to speak at a conference. Here’s my experience:
I was taught asking someone how much money they made was a rude question. You just don’t do it along with talking about politics and religion and a myriad of other somewhat taboo things. But why? Equal pay day wasn’t that long ago and a contribution to the reason that women don’t get paid as much is because we don’t know that we aren’t…so let’s talk about it! I got the motivation from this great article by Ellen Pao. Check that out for more ideas.
I’ve written about this before in some form or another, I’m sure. But why is it that fire fighting is so attractive in relation to our work lives? Oh yeah, it’s that hero mentality…
I find it slightly humorous that I find myself in the agile field sometimes. Agile was and is about disruption to the norm; what we had gotten used to. When I think about my internal inclination, one of the pieces I’ve been trying to become more okay with is not having to always be in the “norm” or follow all the rules. As a teenager (like many I’m sure), I just wanted to fit in and only stand out when it was overwhelmingly positive. I didn’t want to be the “weird kid” and I still feel that a lot of times. I was curious how this manifested itself in my work and relationships and really how I had fallen into agile.
In the wake of multiple tragedies in the world, where there seems to be no end in sight, I wanted to take a moment and address the lack of safety we’re likely all feeling. Personally, I feel like I cannot safely travel anywhere (which is an issue because I travel every week for work). There are dispassionate psychopaths around every corner, dictators fulfilling their own agendas through fear mongering, and hate trying to win. And while the lack of safety is terrifying, somehow we slowly become numb to it. It’s not that we don’t care but we’re no longer surprised. It becomes normal – not “OMG how did that happen?!” but “oh, that sucks…” It seems that the workplace is hardly a safe haven from these episodes either, for the workplace can all to often be unsafe.
