Nov 22 2008
Fun work story #2!
Another offsite trip!–my company was building a new, very large scale manufacturing facility and so we were buying all kinds of goodies for it from a whole slew of outside companies. On this occasion, the company in question was going to show us their pride and joy, a software package that simulates mixing behavior inside various types of stirred tanks. So we watched the demo in the morning, then they brought some lunch in and we had time to ask various questions more pertinent to our specific applications. I was only peripherally involved in that specific project so I didn’t get deeply engaged–I made a few comments about comparability of results involving various mixer designs but other than that pretty much just munched pizza and listened to everybody else talk.
After lunch was over, the simulation engineer asked if we wanted a quick tour of the shop. We all agreed that would be interesting and informative and got to our feet, and as we were all milling around securing laptops and dumping pizza trash he said to me, very abruptly, “Don’t be scared if they holler at you.”
I froze in mid-motion, then peeked around to insure that he was, in fact, speaking to me; he was, judging from the peculiar paralyzed looks on the faces of our corporate engineer and project manager standing right behind me. So I returned my attention to him: small guy, mid to late twenties, skinny with a pot belly, black-framed glasses, earnest expression. “I’m sorry?” I said, totally confused.
“The guys,” he said, and essayed a smile. Note: We had all gone round the room with the standard introductions that morning, but aside from that, this guy had not once made eye contact with me, and had only spoken to me in direct response to my few earlier queries during lunch; I hadn’t even thought he’d really noticed my existence. “They’re not used to seeing anyone like you on the floor.”
Light dawned. I involuntarily glanced down at myself, half expecting to see my quite boring business casual ensemble of button-down shirt, slacks and loafers completely replaced with a red leather miniskirt, platform shoes and a corset, but no–a snort issued from someone behind me and I straightened back up to stare at him. “I’m sorry I shaved off my moustache this morning–I just wasn’t thinking,” I said cheerily. He turned red, which pleased me enough to add, “Maybe you should let those poor guys out of their cages at night, you know, so they can mix with the rest of humanity more often, see a few girls now and then!”
Suspense! Did he pass out from mortification and/or apologize for being a complete and unprofessional moron? Nope to either one. Though I am happy to report that he did not inflict any more conversation upon me for the rest of our sojourn there. And did any of those shop floor savages holler, hoot, whistle, catcall or make any other vocal incursions upon my person? No, in fact they did not. Til the next time, signing off!
–Lisa, the Perky Girl Engineer
