I drive a full size, 15 passenger van. When I first started driving it, I was polite, gave plenty of advance notice that I was changing lanes, merging, turning, yada, yada, yada.

What I quickly learned is that people can't seem to see the dang thing. Its like I'm driving with a cloaking device on. So now I just go. I'm bigger than about 90% of everyone else, they will move, or I will win. Yeah, it's fucked, but that's also why I carry good insurance.

No, of course that's my absolute, and only experience in the industry, and I absolutely never worked anywhere else... ever...

In case you couldn't tell, that was sarcasm.

The job I illustrated was the job that broke the proverbial camel's back for me. Enough with the being treated poorly. Now I will agree with you the guys in the dept with me were mostly cool, it seems that management collects a disproportionate amount of douchebaggery.

I'm happy with where I'm at now. I'm self-employed, and as long as women are having babies, I'm not at risk of being downsized, outsourced, or insourced. :)

I disagree, there weren't and aren't many girl geeks, and they are significantly outnumbered by guy geeks but they do exist. They are not mythological like unicorns..

I was playing in vi when I was still in high school. Why? Because I've always enjoyed code. My mom *gasp* was a hacker in the early '80s, and taught me how to code on my apple ][e. There are others, but often we're treated to a "pics or it didn't happen" mentality. Sometimes it's easier to just leave gender out of it.

I left the industry in the late 90's in part because of misogynistic assholes. When the guys in the dept have one dress code, and I as the only female in the dept have another (that applies to all the secretaries) it gets really difficult to do your job. After a while you begin to suspect that the only reason your boss wont let you wear jeans and a company polo like the guys is because he really gets off on looking up your skirt when you're up a ladder...

I still like to geek, and am raising a pod full of little geeklings, but now I'm a midwife rather than a network engineer. I find I prefer working with wetware over hardware any day ;-p

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure - or have you never heard that old one? We could reduce our national health bill greatly if people had easy access to affordable preventative care, rather than relying on ERs and Urgent Care.

As a 30 year old, my paper book collection exists solely as tomes and tomes of medical texts. My digital collection, which is primarily fiction, exceeds 1GB of data...

Up until about 5 years ago I used to tote well over 2000 books around whenever we moved. When my husband and I were looking at yet another cross-country move he begged me to consider donating the books and moving to digital formats - if nothing else than to save his back.

While I enjoy curling up with a cup of tea and a good book, I admit there's a certain tactile and sensory experience that is missing from an e-reader.