“Ever since I was a newbie
I wrote code like a storm
My databases rendered
In the fifth normal form
But I ain’t seen anything like him
On any IT team
That deft DBA can
Code T-SQL up a storm.”

That guess would be wrong. Rather this blog is going to be about avoiding the urge to judge a book by its cover, by being ‘blind’ to all but what is important.  It started back at SQL Saturday #50 in East Iowa. They had a ‘Women in Technology’ panel in the main lunch room, and some of what I heard sort of bothered me.  I heard it again at SQL Saturday #45 in Louisville, and finally, sitting at a table with Erin Stellato and Jes Borland in Columbus, the topic of women in technology was discussed rather vigorously, and I promised to write about it (I really have to learn when to shut up.)

Now, if you are particularly sensitive, you probably heard that women in technology bother me. Well, they do, but no more than men in technology. In fact I am annoyed by all sexes equally.  The point of this blog is that I don’t like irrelevant labels placed on any groups of people. If we were blind to all irrelevant factors when dealing with other technology people, life would be much simpler. In my mind, attaching a label to a group (like “Women in Technology”) can unintentionally marginalize all members of that group. Do they really belong in a group that requires special pleading or positive discrimination? Are Kim T, Kalen D, and Jessica M (to name just a few!) top in the field for any reason other than skill and hard work? Of course not. They are smarter and certainly work way harder than me (and most of you who are reading this blog.)

Throughout history, attempts to compensate for prejudice have resulted in a perception of forced equality, leading to jealousy, distrust and worse yet, quotas, meaning good people are left out and less qualified people aren’t. This then reinforces stereotypes making matters worse.  The fact is that I just want to have code that works and deal with less stupid questions than I would get from someone who is less talented than the right person for the job.

The second, not exactly politically-correct, term I have bandied about is “judgmental”. Is it okay to be judgmental? Of course. As a DBA/programmer we ought to do a lot of code reviews. Judging the work of others is necessary.  The problems happen if one allows one’s judgment of a person’s professional competence to be skewed by the shape or color of their body. You don’t judge a book by its cover but by the quality of the words (or pictures!) inside.  In my perfect blog world, people choose employees based on the following two criteria:

1.       Does this person have the skills and experience needed?

2.       Will this person reasonably support the purpose of the organization?

The first one is obvious. If you need a programmer, and the person can’t work a calculator, much less comprehend the concept of binary numbers, the fit is clearly going to be bad. The second is a lot more complex and controversial. I work for a non-profit organization, and we certainly can discriminate based on the bedrock beliefs of the organization. But should Pepsi hire you if you are an avid Coke drinker that owns the website www.PepsiTastesAwful.com (not a real website) which professes that Pepsi is made from rusty sewer pipe drippings? (To be fair, I like them both, but one had to be the patsy). Of course not. However, most times I have seen the concept of the “wrong fit for the job applied,” it has just been that the person seemed like they were “different,” which has usually seemed like they were quirky (and aren’t the best programmers a bit quirky, at least?)  The obvious problem is that it is just far too easy to mask sexism, racism, or really any sort of -ism with the concept of fit.

I perhaps have veered a bit off of the topic of Women In Technology groups, so let’s steer back there. I don’t want to make it seem as if I thought for a moment that ‘Women in Technology’ groups are evil and bent on world domination. The times I have attended their luncheons, the focus was on how we make it more socially acceptable to get younger girls into more technology oriented career paths. Excellent. But Don’t forget about the young boys. Technology has long been considered as unacceptable by the cool cliques, and while that is changing slowly, it isn’t changing fast enough. We continue to have a dearth of qualified people out there writing code and designing databases.

My solution would be to elevate technology in the classroom to one of the fundamentals, to the level of reading, writing, and arithmetic. It might not be popular with many students, but fundamental education is not designed to be popular, it is there to give you foundational knowledge to build upon.  The most helpful class I took in high school was one my father forced me to take but turned out to be one of the most influential in my future; typing. Twenty years ago, typing was not a common class that boys took (nor twenty-six years ago when I actually took it!); but my father, who was a mechanic at the time, wanted to prepare me for the future that he saw coming. All day at work, and even as I sit here typing this blog, I use my typing skills.  That kind of parental “encouragement” to build fundamental skills for the future is probably the most necessary step, and one that cannot be legislated but can start with you and your child/niece/nephew/neighbor. It is still a problem in this day and age that parents ingrain their children with an attitude that technology work is for people who can’t do “real” work. Showing them how great your job is and being an encourager will certainly help. In the end, a person’s career choice should be the intersection of what they have the skills to do and what they like to do.

The goal should be that we work to get every young person of all types involved with technology early, and not just for playing Angry Birds and texting random body parts to their classmates. Then we won’t just be helping women into technology, but men too. Let’s face it, if you are a highly qualified technologist, you should be excited about the concept of getting more qualified people in technology regardless of who they are.  Of course, if you are not qualified, well…I can see how you might be opposed.