LIU008: Breaking Barriers: Thriving as a Woman in Tech

Kevin

Welcome to Life in Uptime, the podcast where we talk with the people behind the technology that keeps our world connected. I'm Kevin, joined by my co-host Alexis. In every episode, we sit down with engineers, leaders, and builders in tech to uncover the stories behind their career, how they started, what they've learned, and where they're headed next.

Our goal is simple, to help you see how far tech can take you, no matter where you start from.

Alexis

So we have a great episode lined up for y'all today. I am so excited to welcome Melissa Brooks, who is also the first female on our podcast. Now, Melissa had a super, super interesting journey getting into technology, and she is currently a senior cloud engineer at Aritzia.

For all the girls listening, I know you know how big of a deal that is. For all the men listening, I don't expect you to know who or what Aritzia is, but it's fine. Today, we're going to be talking about goal-setting and making sacrifices for things that you truly want, and also being a woman in IT.

So, Melissa, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me. I'm so excited to finally be doing this.

Yeah. So to get us started, can you walk us through how did you get into tech? What was your first experience like?

Melissa

Oh, gosh. Well, my first experience was building my page on Nexopia, which I think most people in America use MySpace, but we built our HTML pages on Nexopia. But no, my journey to an actual career in IT was very roundabout.

I always say, like, I dropped out of university, I dropped out of college, I tried being a waitress, was terrible at it, and I had to figure something out. So at 22, I went back to school to a small private college and did a diploma in network security and worked my way through the ranks to here. Was it hard?

Alexis

Oh, go ahead, Kevin.

Kevin

I was going to say, but one of the questions I always ask people is, was technology something that you sought out and wanted to do, that you were passionate about it, or was it something that was a good idea on paper? You know, I had all the benefits, all the pluses. And, you know, I feel like people either go one or the other, and neither one's a bad thing, but just to get an idea of, like, where your mind was.

Melissa

I was just really broke, Kevin, and I had to do something.

Kevin

Okay, that's a legit answer. That is a legit answer.

Melissa

I mean, it was a really long journey, but, and I mean, we can certainly get into that, but the moment when I decided, okay, I'm going to do this diploma in network security was, I did do research. I mean, at this time, like I said, I'd gone to a four-year university. I went for about six months, didn't work out.

A lot of my friends were, you know, waitressing or working in nightclubs, and so, and they were making really good money, and so I just fell into that and didn't think maybe I'd have to go back to school until, and I mean, that's the truth. It wasn't working out for me. I was not a good waitress, and I, you know, I'd been fired from a lot of really, really odd jobs, and by the time I was 22, I realized, like, I have to do something.

Like, I'm just so sick of being broke, so I went back to, I did go back to the local community college, and I took a bunch of electives because I had no idea what I wanted to do, and I was just trying to figure it out. I took, you know, anthropology, economics, and I took introduction to computer science, and there's a whole story there, but I ended up just really loving it, and my instructor there happened to be this really cool chick. Her and I would chat, and she encouraged me one day.

She says, Melissa, if you really don't know what you want to do for a career, you should consider this, and one of the things I considered that Alexis and I had talked about because you post a lot about this was, I mean, this was back in 2012, 2013, so well before everybody was talking about remote work, but I knew, so I didn't know about remote work, but I knew I wanted to travel, and so while some of my friends, you know, had maybe gone to do a nursing or a career or something like that, I knew it wasn't transferable.

I wanted something I could do from all over the world. Not thinking remote work. I was thinking like getting a job in a different country or getting a job elsewhere, and I, you know, in researching computers speak the same language everywhere you go, and I happened to enjoy that intro to computer science program, so I did it.

Alexis

If I could back up a little, you said you went back to school at 22. What was that like? Because looking back, like I look at, you know, 21, 22-year-olds now, and I'm like, oh my god, you guys are babies, but I remember being in college when I was 18, and if you were also not 18, right, if you were 20 or 21 or 22, you were like the old kid in class, right?

What was that? Can you just talk me through what that was like for you, or if that impacted your choice at all to go back?

Melissa

Yeah, I mean it definitely is, I think anybody who's been a mature student can attest to the fact that it's a little bit, you have to kind of swallow your ego a little bit when everybody else is fresh out of high school, and you've kind of been beaten down in the world a little bit already, and, but the great thing, like the college I went to, I think we see this a lot in the small private colleges, is it's a lot of mature students, so in my class it was a mix of people coming right out of high school, and by the end of it, I was with the people who left, I was the oldest one, but when I, you know, it wasn't just the fact that I was the oldest person, it was the fact that I was also the only female, and I was also the only person who didn't look like the guys who typically go into IT.

I was surrounded by guys who knew a lot about computers, who had played video games their whole lives and knew what a server was. I didn't know what a server was, I'd never used remote desktop. The first time they said log in to your server, and I logged into a computer that wasn't the computer in front of me, my mind was blown, and that was more, that was harder than being the 22-year-old, but I always say, like, literally, like the rent was due, you guys, and I'd already used up my student loans going elsewhere, so this was my last shot, so you just have to swallow that and stay focused.

Kevin

Interesting. You mentioned that you had a goal where you know you want to travel, right? And what I find interesting is that you didn't start out with, like, a goal of, like, I want this job, I want to become a network engineer, I want to become a programmer, I want to be a cloud architect.

It was reversed, almost, where you're like, I want my life to look this way, this is what my lifestyle to be, how do I get there? I find that really interesting. What was your process like?

Did you go through and, like, you know, a to-do list and be like, or pros and cons, or some kind of organization where you're like, okay, I want my vision board to look like this, how can I get there, what kind of jobs can I get, or was it more just like, you know, just figuring it out as you went?

Melissa

You know, at the time, today, I'm much, much, much more intentional about my goals, and I've refined the process a lot, and I'm still working on it. I didn't realize that's what I was doing at 22, but that is what I was doing. I looked around, and I thought, okay, I need to make at least this much money, I want to travel, I want to not be stuck here, and I want to, you know, I want to buy a house, I want to work in an office, I decided I didn't want to work outside, like, I wanted a comfortable job, I decided I didn't want to work with people, I didn't, I obviously wasn't doing very well in anything customer-facing, so, and I didn't realize that's what I was doing at the time, but that's exactly what I was doing, I had this image of what I wanted my life to look like, and I reverse-engineered it to look at the skills that I did or did not have today. So, when I actually went to meet with the career counselor at the private college, you know, they, I think a lot of people, when they think about tech, they think code, programming, because that's kind of just what people understand, right? Like, people, they type a bunch of code, and somehow it creates like the internet as we know it, and that's, you know, and that's what I thought at the time, too, because the introduction to computer science course I'd taken at the local college was, it was just all about loops, and like, it wasn't intro to coding, just like a fun thing, so I went to the private college, and I said, well, I'm looking at your web development program, and God bless this woman, because she asked such good questions, which I would now, like, encourage other people to ask themselves today.

She said, well, at the end of the day, web development, and this is to your question, Kevin, about, like, what does your life look like? She didn't say, well, do you like web development? She said, at the end of the day, web development is building websites for customers.

That means your customers might not like the layout, or they might not like this or that, is that, like, problems that you'd be happy to deal with every day, and I said, oh, no, because I'm not really good with, like, design, and she was like, well, web development's a lot of design, and I kind of explained my thinking, and she said, well, we have this other program, network security, it's back-end computing, so what these, the web developers build something, and the network security people, like, this is what the website runs on, and so I shadowed a couple classes, and, you know, again, computers all speak the same language. I looked at what kind of, like, job opportunities were out there.

I looked all over, you know, North America and the world, and I thought, okay, this seems like something that checks a lot of my boxes.

Kevin

That's funny.

Alexis

I think we're recording this at a really interesting time. We're recording this right before Christmas, and so I've been thinking a lot about goals for next year. Usually, I wait until January 1st, and I'm like, ah, and I spend the first, like, five days trying to figure out what I want to do, but I was trying to get ahead of it this year, and I posted a story about it, and a whole bunch of people comment back, and, you know, we were going back and forth in my story, but what I think is especially interesting now about social media and being able to share your journey or even being a student and being able to, like, observe what someone else's life is like, I felt like when we were all growing up, social media, like, you might've been sharing pictures of, you know, your dog, your cat, your friends, but now you can literally observe someone else's career from their perspective as an adult, and there's all sorts of people you can follow that are doctors or dentists or pizza delivery men or network engineers, right, cybersecurity analysts, and you can almost find someone in any career that's creating some type of content, and I don't know.

I think the life design conversation is so much bigger than we're making it out to be, and I really hope that students are thinking about that now because there's so many, there's so much content out there and, like, things for them to make decisions off of that aren't just taking their guidance counselor's recommendation, right, or, like, taking their parents' neighbor's recommendation on what they should do with their life. Like, you can literally go out and watch and see.

Kevin

Yeah, if it's accurate. Social media is all fake to me. I don't know.

It's all games and acting.

Alexis

I mean, there's a little bit of a highlight reel. Come on.

Kevin

Everyone knows that. Yeah, they don't see the five-hour-long outage meeting that you want to, like, bang your head against the table and hate your life and go to the bar and drink because you're so tired and anxious. They don't see that part, but yeah.

Alexis

Unless you put it on the Internet, Kevin, you have to accurately represent your career.

Kevin

That's what I try to do with my content. I try to make it realistic. I have memes of there of, like, just, like, today sucks and, you know, I hate my life, but enough about my trauma and my troubles.

Melissa, what I find really fun with that story you mentioned is that I had the exact same, like, trajectory where I thought web design was what I wanted to do because that's what the Internet is. Like, you interact with websites and I like technology and that's what the Internet is, the website. So like, OK, web design is like the thing you do, not knowing that.

Like, I actually hated customer service and I hated dealing with people going like that button you made orange. I want it pink. And then two days later they go, oh, never mind.

I want it red. And you just want to, like, strangle them by the end of that. So I lasted a couple of years doing web design and realized I freaking hated it because it's a completely different job than I thought.

So I just find that really funny that we kind of had the same line of thought. But I didn't have a guidance counselor who actually, you know, gave me good questions and actually cared about where I was going. That's a big difference.

Alexis

So, Melissa, I'd like to dig in a little bit around having a beginner's mentality. You said when you started your network security course, you had absolutely no background. There was other kids in the class that came in that knew more.

But you still ended up graduating with honors. So how did that work?

Melissa

Yeah, when I first went in to shadow the cohort ahead of me to see if this is something I'd be interested in doing, I remember they were like, do you even know what DNS is? And I said, well, and this was kind of my attitude the whole time. I was instead of saying like, well, I don't know.

I was like, well, I know that that's what you changed to get American Netflix, which you cannot do anymore today. And that's honestly like where my head was that I was like, well, like I've always kind of been a little bit spunky, like, no, I don't know, but I'm not just going to sit here and cry about it. And so I think it's so I think this was the greatest blessing that I keep with me today is I knew how much I didn't know.

And the more you know, the more you know, you don't know. So it's not like now that I'm a senior engineer, I suddenly know I don't I only know that there is even more that I don't know and there's even more that I have to learn. So I hold that close to my heart today.

And, you know, so how did that look in the classroom? First of all, I knew that while everybody else was having, you know, they they already knew what DNS was, so maybe they didn't have to study as hard. I was at that school.

I'm not joking. Sometimes 18 hours a day from the time they open till the time they closed doing my labs study. And you can ask anybody who knew me at that time.

I was it was the hardest thing I have ever, ever done. And not only that, but like I said, I'd already used up my student loans going elsewhere. So this was like the last bit of student loans I was able to get.

I felt like this was my one shot, my one opportunity, and like I said, the rent was due. So I sat at the front of that class and I didn't care, you know, if I was holding other people up or whatever, my hand would be raised. If I had a question, please pause.

I have a question. Can you please go back to that slide? I didn't finish taking my notes and everyone, here's Melissa again.

But you know what? As time went on over the two years we were there. Yes, the other guys in the class, they were always better at me practically because they just had a head start, but it turned into this great thing where they would help me on my practical components and I would help them study theory because that's maybe wasn't their strongest area.

And I just really, really believe, well, I really believe in myself, but I believe this about everybody, no matter who you are out there, I think you're smarter than what you give yourself credit for, because I'm telling you, a lot of my teachers, when I was, you know, about to flunk out of school growing up, they would not ever, ever, ever have told me I should pursue a career in technology and that I'd be a cloud engineer one day. So and then, yeah, as I told you guys before, I did end up graduating with honors and I can't remember what academic achievement award it was that I got.

Kevin

But yeah, I find it really cool that you kind of took your weakness and you put it into a positive, like not to not to I know this is a woman's first episode, but like it's kind of like Rudy, right? Where like you're the short kid on the team. You don't have necessarily the best ability because you're coming in and you're you didn't make the team the right way, the right way.

Rudy analogy. But is that a movie, Rudy? You don't you don't.

Wait, wait, wait, wait.

Alexis

I don't know it either, Kevin. I'm just nodding along. You don't know Rudy?

No, I'm not going along with it.

Melissa

Did we just did we just eat him?

Kevin

All right.

Kevin

All right. So picture this. You're a little guy, right?

You want to go to Notre Dame. You want to play in the football team in Notre Dame.

Melissa

OK.

Kevin

It's like your dream, right? Oh, is this the Sandbox? But you're short.

No, it's Rudy.

Alexis

That's Sandlot. Sandlot, girl.

Kevin

Not the TV show. Oh, man. All right.

Just just quick for our listeners, too, because they don't maybe they don't know who maybe we're getting a lot of women listeners to this to this podcast.

Alexis

And OK, he's going to teach us about Rudy for context.

Kevin

This is only purely for context to relate to your story. Nothing else. So you want to go to Notre Dame.

You'll be the football team, but you're a short little guy. And you basically you don't make the team. You have to work your way onto the team and you slowly get there.

And then by the end, you have one play and who like he ends up sacking the quarterback and his one time ever playing his entire team, like rallies behind him and blah, blah, blah. But the moral of the story is that you outwork your your situation. You outwork what you're in.

Kevin

Right.

Kevin

And you at the end are successful. And that's what I was kind of getting at for the men in the audience.

Melissa

It's just like Rudy.

Kevin

Just like Rudy.

Melissa

So, no, I love that. And that's exactly the point. You outwork wherever you are.

You know, no, I went in there way below knowledge wise everybody else. But I just worked really, really hard. And I ended up, you know, outperforming those people in a lot of ways, not in all ways.

Practically, you know, there was some things just the more time you have. And this comes in your career. The more time you have hands on keyboard, the more little tips and tricks, you know.

And so I you know what, you guys, I even say today, I think even like I said, I hold this very close to my heart, always knowing how much you don't know. But I think it serves me well in my career today. I was just talking to my boss the other day.

I said, I'm still not the best engineer you have. I'm not the best technical cloud engineer on the team, even. But I have a lot of other skills.

And, you know, that accompany me and make me a great package as an employee. And the important thing is, I am very good at my job. I know how to figure things out.

If I don't know what I don't know, I know how to figure it out. And for the career trajectory that I'm today looking at 10 years into my career, it's fine not to be the best the best engineer, because I'm not looking to go down the architect's path, although I certainly could. But I think that's just something everybody has.

I wish if I could give a gift to everybody, I wish they would remember that. You know, true. I truly believe if you want to be a rocket science or a brain surgeon tomorrow, I truly believe that if you study hard enough and sit at the sit at your computer 18, 20 hours a day studying it, there's no reason that you couldn't.

It's just how hard do you want to study?

Kevin

How much do you want to sacrifice for it?

Melissa

How much do you want to sacrifice? Exactly. And I sacrificed a lot in those 18 months.

You can ask my friends. Oh, you can ask my friends all the parties I missed.

Alexis

Was there ever any, I mean, 18 hours a day is a big sacrifice, right? Putting that much time into anything without some sort of guarantee is a big sacrifice. I think it's something that we get asked a lot is if I take the certification, will I get this job?

If I do this, can you guarantee me this result? How did you go about determining, you know, was this worth making a sacrifice for? Or like, how do you even now when you're thinking about your goal setting?

Obviously, I mean, we all work in IT, right? Certifications take a lot of time. Learning a new skill takes a lot of time.

And there's not always a guaranteed ROI. So how do you go about thinking about that?

Melissa

Well, today, I really don't like the word manifestation because I think that's pretty thin. But for the sake of, you know, a general audience, that's how I think about it a lot today. I didn't realize that's what I was doing back then.

But I had, again, this idea of the rent is due. This is your last chance. I don't think it ever occurred to me that I wouldn't get a job at the end of this.

That being said, different economic times today. Tech is one of the safer career choices back then, 10 years ago, and still today. I think you're much more likely to get a job.

So, you know, part of it is just having a goal-oriented mindset. And failure was not an option, to say a cliche. That's one answer.

But the more logical answer that I'll give you is you have to be smart when you look at it. One certification does not guarantee you a job. No, it doesn't.

That's not really what certifications are meant for in the first place. They're more meant for continuing education and continuing on an established career. But I just think you have to be really, really smart about it.

Yeah, if you go and study photography, you're going to have a harder time, statistically. Just look at the opportunities. Anything where you're going to be self-employed is going to be harder.

I don't know if that's really the answer you guys are looking for there. I just think, here's what I'll say. Go on, Alexis.

Alexis

No, I think there's a lot of truth. Just to back up, when you were talking about manifestation and believing in yourself. In your head, you were going to work as hard as you could.

And at the end of it, you didn't even question whether or not you were like, I'm getting a job at the end of this. I think the phrase is not even a shadow of doubt in your head that you were going to get a job. I don't know if you'd call that manifestation or law of assumption.

If you're into a lot of the Joe Dispenza stuff. We could talk about that all day.

Melissa

I'd love to talk about that, too.

Alexis

If you believe it's going to happen, it will.

Melissa

Different podcasting.

Alexis

Going back to that, you were so convinced that this was the thing. That's what you were going to do. You were going to get a job.

And I think that it comes back to having faith and belief in yourself. That you are capable of doing this thing and making it work. And knowing or at least trusting that you're going to be okay on the other side of it.

Because you're the one that has your back. And that goes into a lot of different scenarios. Not just, you know, we're talking about studying and jobs here.

But if you're going through any sort of big life change, knowing that you have, if not the skills, the work ethic to learn something new. To pull yourself out of a situation or put yourself in a different spot.

Melissa

And that's exactly what I would like to tell everybody. My path here was so different. I had no knowledge.

Trust me, when I say, oh, just set your mind to it and you can do it. It's not because I'm just so smart and I'm so successful. It's not because of that.

I'm truly saying, like, if I can do it, I truly believe that anybody could. With enough time and effort. And what I'll say to, you know, finding a job when it's all done.

And that ROI is coming back to that beginner's mindset. I didn't have, I knew I would get a job. I had no idea what job.

I was not picky. And I think I see a lot of people today who say, oh, you're a cloud engineer. I want to be a cloud engineer.

I had no idea. We weren't even talking about cloud when I went back in 2013. And like, that wasn't even in my program at all.

We didn't study that, you know, I had. So, but I was open to any opportunity that was coming my way. And I just think.

If you're worried about return on investment, you might be thinking a little bit too much about yourself and not thinking enough about where can I provide value. If you go into it with a value mindset of I'm open to any opportunity. I'm open to working anywhere I can because I have a good work ethic.

And I'm just willing to provide any value I can with whatever skills I have. You will find opportunity.

Alexis

And I think to walk back through your career journey a little bit. You took some unconventional jobs to get started. Or had some unconventional opportunities at those jobs.

I will say.

Melissa

Yeah, so I started on IT help desk, as you do. I think most people start on some sort of IT help desk or some sort of NOC or something like that. And I was not picky.

I mean, I offered to run wires through the roof. I think I swept the floors at like literally at some point. You know what I mean?

I definitely was taking Lysol to the storage containers because I was like, these definitely haven't been washed ever and they're looking grummy.

Kevin

Real quick, were you asked to do that? Or was that like, these are gross, I need to clean these?

Melissa

They were gross and I needed to clean them. I was not asked to do that. But it's one of those things when you're first starting out, eager beaver.

I wasn't going to be sitting there, you know, looking stupid. I was always trying to make sure my hands were busy. And I think that's something that's really hard if you start your career remotely now that so many things are remote.

I think that would be, I've talked about that before. I think that would be really difficult to be a junior as a remote person because you can't be showing people not that I think what you're doing, what you're learning. Yeah.

And so to that point, you know, always being very ambitious. I started on IT Help Desk and immediately wanted to get off of IT Help Desk and become a sysadmin. I thought, you know, that was the next step.

I was going up to people's desks. What are you doing? Can I watch?

Can I try? But they did sit me. And it wasn't because it was me.

This was just the layout. But my desk did face the door walking into the IT office. And being the new person, I always had to answer the phone, you know.

QHR IT, Melissa speaking. And so a lot of people did assume they would come in and they'd say, oh, IT got a receptionist. And I, ignorance is bliss, you guys.

I thought that was so funny. And it is funny. It's okay to laugh.

It's funny. And I think that speaks to my point. We kind of talked about this a little bit about like how opportunities come your way.

And it wasn't, that's a good example of like that happened because I was a woman. Nobody ever thought, you know, when John was the new IT guy, nobody ever thought John was that receptionist. But I was open to any opportunities.

And so the next unconventional thing that happened to me is because I was so loud and going to, you know, all the sysadmins, what can I do? Can I help? Can I watch?

Can I shadow? Can you train me? I know I'll never be allowed to touch the compellent, but can I just read the book?

Can you? Okay. Um, and so when my company was acquired and we, um, also acquired a telehealth company, they were starting a DevOps team and they were starting to build these DevOps pipelines.

And the, I think it was the director and another senior guy were starting the team and they didn't ask me to be on the team, but they knew that I was open to doing whatever. So they asked me to come take notes in their meetings.

Kevin

To increase your secretarial skills.

Melissa

And again, ignorance is bliss. I was just, you know, today we can look back at it and say, oh, was that fair? Because she's a woman.

I was open to any opportunities and I was open to providing value. I'm doing work wherever I could. And so I went and I diligently took notes.

I wrote up the notes all nice. I asked questions. I made sure everything was clear.

And that did lead to the opportunity of me being able to leave help desk and do DevOps full time.

Kevin

So now looking back in hindsight, do you think they ask you to do that because you're a woman or because you were that go-getter asking questions and wanting to know everything?

Melissa

I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and say it was because I was a go-getter. A more interesting question is, if my name was John and I was a go-getter, would they have still asked me to take notes or would they have invited me onto the team in a different way? I don't know.

All we can do is speculate today. I'm really grateful for the opportunity. And actually those people who invited me onto that team really helped my career in so many ways.

So all I'm going to do is thank them for the opportunity today. I'm not above taking notes. Today I can look back and I can say, oh, again, would you have asked John to take notes?

I'm not above it though. And I think that's so important to remember. None of us are above sweeping the floor even today.

If I was at Aritzia and they asked me to go work a shift retail, oh, well, actually, I would love to do that. I'm just grateful for the opportunity.

Alexis

Well, one, I'd love to also work a shift retail at Aritzia. Only if I get the employee discount for a day though. That would go crazy.

Could you talk a little bit about what it was like working as a younger woman on those teams, especially when you're getting started?

Melissa

I was really lucky that I can say I've never had a really negative experience. Everybody I've worked with has been super, super kind and accommodating. And again, a lot of the things that we could call sexism today is only in hindsight.

I never realized it at the time. One thing that would always happen when I was on help desk is people would call and they'd say, oh, can I speak to Andy? Sure.

And that would happen repeatedly until Andy would come up to me and say, Melissa, you don't need to keep forwarding these calls. And I was like, well, they just said they want to talk to you. And he said, Melissa, they can talk to either of us.

They can talk. And I like it didn't dawn on me that maybe people were. I don't know.

And I'm not I don't think I don't think anybody is out there maliciously thinking that some people are, unfortunately, but most people, especially people I work with, they're not out there thinking, oh, I don't want a woman to help me with my computer. A woman can't help. I think something that's held me back is not so much people's maliciousness, because I don't think I've worked with any malicious people, but not just being a woman, as we know, women are often, you know, there's a lot of studies done out there about how women are perceived differently.

I'm also a blonde woman who wears makeup and wears pink. And I present myself to be very girly. I think that, if anything, has made people perceive I think people perceive me to be younger or immature, just not as knowledgeable.

And their mind gravitates to, well, and he's always been able to help me. And I don't know if this pink sweater can help me.

Alexis

Girl.

Melissa

Yeah, the new girl. Like, I guess I'm just going to say, I don't think it's I don't think there was ever anything malicious, I think.

Alexis

Well, in the moment, in the moment, you're just trying to do your job. Yeah, that's why I say, like, I don't think about it. Like, usually I don't think about being a female in I.T. I just do the best job I can. And hopefully I'm recognized for it. Right. Or it's it's able my skills are sufficient for the current situation.

Like you said, it's only ever in hindsight, looking back, you're like, I don't know about that. All we can do is speculate. At the time, you're just trying to get through it.

And I think even, I mean, studying anything in college or going through any struggle in your life, I burned chicken and smoked out my whole kitchen earlier. You're just trying to get through it. And you're not sometimes like the action is the thought.

Melissa

You know, there's a clip of the artist Pink receiving an award or I don't know what it's about. Somebody says to her, like, is the music industry a place for women or something like that? And her response is something to the effect of like, I don't even want that to be a question.

Like we need like stop even asking that question. And I loved I loved her take on that. Like, let's stop dancing around it that way.

I always say, you know, people always want to. Oh, how did you get into the industry? But like what made you.

Hey, we can acknowledge the elephant in the room when a five foot ten blonde, confident woman walks in. It's different. It's not the person you see in the I.T. office every day. It's OK. Like, let's all just call that out. And that's OK.

But one thing that we do see come up is and I think maybe this is where you were going with your question is. The working environment is fine, but something we see come up is the guys working in the office, especially the managers who are maybe older. They're hanging out outside of work, they're going for beers, they're buddies, and that's really good.

Like, I obviously encourage camaraderie in the workplace. You know, Roger, 50 year old Roger, he doesn't want to be friends with 30 year old Melissa. And that's fine.

Roger, I'm not necessarily looking to be friends with a 50 year old dude either. But I think that can create these sort of systemic challenges.

Alexis

Does that make sense? We're like, yeah, no, I mean, I don't particularly enjoy golf. I'd like to be invited, but I don't really particularly enjoy it or I might not go.

And there's conversations that happen on the course that you might just not be there for. And I think that's fine, right? Having different interests.

But I also think maybe when you're planning events, being a little cognizant of something that everyone might want to go to, especially working in tech. And I mean, I don't really drink beer and I also don't really enjoy sports, but I can't tell you how many sports games or breweries I've been to as happy hours after work. And I think there's a lot of other fun group activities you could plan.

That are just as casual. And I'm not saying that women don't enjoy sports or beer. I know many women that enjoy both of those things.

I just don't really happen to be one of them. But it's not like I'm going to miss the happy hour because I do still want to see my team and I want to hang out.

Melissa

And I think something I always say is it's not just about women and men. It's also there's people out there who there's a lot more people today who choose to be sober. So men and women alike.

So it's not just, you know, who likes beer and who doesn't. If we're planning activities for the team, let's be a little bit cognizant of something that's, well, I think Kevin, you were talking about this last time we spoke, something that's accessible to everybody.

Kevin

But so as I'm a cis white dude who's middle-aged, right? So I've been quiet in this conversation if you couldn't tell. But my question for you ladies in IT is you want to be more accessible to you and your and the team cohesity of doing things that, you know, everyone can do.

But at what point is it like you don't want to be treated differently, right? You want to be treated the same as everybody else, but yet accounted for in that you aren't like everybody else. So it puts us in a weird spot of like, I don't, I don't know what I should do half the time.

You know, like do it, do I invite everyone to go beers and to a sports bar and invite the woman or go, no, today we're going to go, um, I don't know, do, I can't even think of something a woman would want to do.

Alexis

Just pick something different once in a while, just once in a while. It doesn't have to be all the time. It doesn't have to be every event.

And like, I mean, I think we can all recognize, I'm sure Melissa and I would love to go to TJ Maxx and get our nails done and get iced coffee.

Melissa

But we're not going to ask the whole team to do that.

Alexis

Like you don't. Yeah, we'll have a whole day.

Kevin

We'll have a great time. I'm down for a pedicure. We can go for a pedicure any time we want.

Alexis

I'm sure that your Saturday you would prefer to like, I don't know, maybe browse Home Depot and get a burger at Red Robin. Like just, just make.

Kevin

That sounds like a great Saturday to me.

Alexis

So yeah. There's men and women like to do different things and I think it's fine to recognize that. And again, I have no problem going to a brewery and a sports game, even if it's the majority of the time.

But once in a while, it would be nice to go to paint and sit or candle making.

Kevin

Would that feel awkward to you though? If like, or that feel good that, you know, we're all trying to accommodate something that you like to do. Or would that feel like you're being like.

Alexis

I'd be stoked. I could, we could all, I mean, the men could bring candles home for their wives as presents. Who wouldn't like that?

I wouldn't love that.

Melissa

But it's true. Nobody wants to feel singled out. It's like, you know, when we talk about if there's somebody who's physically disabled on your team too, you don't constantly invite people to come play soccer.

You also don't say, let's all go to wheelchair basketball. Nobody wants to be singled out in that way. But there's so many ways that, um, there's so many things we can do.

One of the best rules I heard, I've heard of managers doing and side note, I think this is the mark of a really great leader. Somebody who can do a team building outside of work without anybody feeling singled out and everybody feeling included. A sober person can choose for themselves and on their journey, if they want to go to a brewery and order a soda, or if they want to not go, or you can go, there's a ton of restaurants out there you can go to that are not bars where a sober person can come and get a soda with everybody else.

And the mark of a good manager would be choosing a place. Maybe that is wheelchair accessible. You know, you would be looking into these things without advertising it.

And, well, I don't know what you have there, but here we would all go to Brown's or Joey's or the Cactus Club. And that's something that's really accessible that everybody can go to. And one of the best rules I've heard from managers is, because again, you know, Roger's over there having his poker night with everybody.

I'm not offended that I'm not invited to poker night with all the other 50-year-old dudes. It's not my idea of a good time anyways. Like I said, I've dealt poker in another life.

It's not really my thing. I've worked a lot of hot jobs. I'm good to go home and hang out with my fiance.

I'm not offended that I'm not invited. And it's so good that you guys have that camaraderie. But understand that when you guys are always having that poker night, it means that when you're looking to promote somebody subconsciously, you trust these guys more because you know them, because you're friends with them.

And so I think when you get to be a manager or a director, unfortunately, I do think to be the best manager or director you can be, not that you have to cut off your friends, but there is a sense of like separation that you have to have. And I keep saying the best rule I've heard, and I'm going to say it and not get distracted again, is managers who will no longer have dinners or anything that they wouldn't do with a female employee, they don't do with male employees anymore either, which maybe means poker games, which maybe means dinners. It means they're only going for lunches or that they're only going for appies and happy hours, but they're not doing things that explicitly exclude.

Like if you wouldn't take two females out to dinner or out for a steak at 8 p.m. on a Friday, they don't take the guys either. Does that interfere with your poker schedule? That's for you to decide, Roger.

I don't know.

Kevin

Frickin' Roger.

Alexis

And Roger. I think that's a really good way to think about it. And I would hope that's included in most leadership training today.

I know there's a lot of organizations that will send you to some sort of leadership training when you become a manager. I would hope that's something they go through. I do want to pivot just a little bit.

Melissa

Yeah, let's pivot. We've got so much to cover.

Alexis

Oh my God. We've talked a little bit about how you were adjusting to tech in a male-dominated world, but you're also working at Aritzia, which is one of my favorite companies. Same.

And you told us this was a really full-circle moment for you.

Melissa

So can we dig into that a bit? It's so fun because there's so much discourse online right now about your inner child. I like doing what makes your inner child happy.

And this was totally one of those moments for me. Growing up, I wanted to be a fashion designer. I would sketch clothes.

I have so many old notebooks still today. I have all these clothes I would sketch. I wanted to be a makeup artist.

I wanted to be a superstar until my family did tell me, you know, Melissa, you can do anything you set your mind to, but you're going to need a lot of voice lessons for that, sister. And I grew up in a family of artists, so I always wanted to do something artistic. Sorry, I could talk about this all day.

There is a conversation to be had about how women are pushed into the arts and men have been pushed into the sciences. We're totally seeing that change today. We're totally seeing those statistics change today, which is amazing.

But that was my story. Graduating in the early 2010s, I was pushed to do the arts and, you know, went to university for English and psychology, as you do as a good, you know, blonde girl, and realized, like, I really don't like this. Like, what am I doing this for four years?

And that journey from not doing well at university in the arts to, you know, stumbling through my early 20s, not being a good wager, not being good with, you know, not being a good poker dealer, couldn't sell ice cream from the ice cream truck, all these things I did. And finally, to find that instructor at that college who was like, Melissa, you're really good at this. And I was really good at it.

That's so crazy. Like, I remember, so I slowly, when I went to the college and I had all these random courses, I slowly started dropping out of them. And by dropping out, I mean, I would just stop going to them and get product.

It was not responsible, not the way to go. But God bless the Canadian student loan system for me. So, and I ran into these girls outside of class and they said, oh yeah, that computer science class was so hard.

And I thought, what? That's literally my blow off class. And it's so easy.

It's the only class I'm still going to when I'm on academic probation. And I had this conversation with my instructor. I said, I'm not going to write the final exam, or I could, but like, I'm on academic probation.

So it doesn't matter if I write it or not. And all of that to illustrate that this whole time, I had a very science and math oriented mind. And it took a lot for me to realize, like, I'm not very good at matching colors.

Like, I don't understand why patterns and colors don't really go together. It's not really my forte. And so to be able to go through that whole journey and then work for a fashion company, which Aritzia is so exciting because it's such a Canadian success story being coming out of Vancouver and now being, you know, famous in Canada and famous in America and getting to contribute to this great Canadian fashion brand, but in a way that my skills actually provide value in a way that my brain works.

So I don't have to be matching the colors and building the displays. That's such a cool full circle moment. And like, when you talk about like feeding your inner child, I feel like when I got the interview out of Aritzia, like everything else in my life went on hold because I wanted this more than anything.

And again, it never even occurred to me that I wouldn't get it. I just said to myself, wow, I have this opportunity. So that's just going to be that.

And it's the coolest full circle moment.

Alexis

What I think is really cool about that is that you can work in any industry, right? With technology, your skills are transferable. So you could work in fashion, you could work in gaming, you could work in finance, you could work in sports.

I can't tell you, when I was at Cisco, I worked with someone, all live streaming for television. Oh, wow. For sports broadcasting.

It uses a lot of multicast. And so he was like a multicast expert. And he worked with like Fox and all the major, like the NFL and like all the major sporting leagues to do their broadcast systems for the news.

And I was like, that's cool.

Melissa

That's really cool. It's one of the reasons I tell people like, be totally open. Don't go into this saying, I'm going to be a network engineer, I'm going to be a cloud engineer.

Be completely open to any opportunities that come your way. And just look to where you can provide value because it, you know, I mean, at the end of the day, yeah. A lot of what we do is the same, no matter where we go.

But I can tell you working out of Rixia is completely different to where I started, which was for a medical technology company. We've hosted Canadian healthcare records. And like I said, we hosted a telehealth platform.

The scene, there's things that I'm exposed to at Rixia I would have never known, you know, the way the distribution centers work, the way they roll out changes to stores, getting to have even a really small hand in that is so cool and so completely different from the things I worked on in medical technology.

Alexis

And I think at the end of the day, it just makes you a better engineer, right? Because you're getting more exposure to more systems. You've worked on different types of projects and probably, I mean, I would guess it keeps it interesting.

Melissa

It keeps it really, really interesting. It's one of the things I love about our line of work is we can have so many different projects on the go and I'm definitely the type of person I've always been, always been a very scatterbrained type of person. I need to sort of keep things interesting.

So I love being able to sort of switch gears. I love being able to work from home, not gonna lie. I love to, you know, stay comfy and cozy and have my snacks and be able to go into the office, you know, for the social fun of it all.

And because the OTC office is beautiful and I love being there and being in the busyness of it all. But I love being able to, sorry. I need the behind the scene pics.

I wanna see. It's so, I don't have any, but it's just trust me. It's very cool.

It's very fun. I love being able to switch gears as often as you want. And something I love to, something I wish that I could tell all young people.

I mean, there's so many, there's such, because of social media, we're all seeing these influencers live these really glamorous lives. And I mean, I'm not getting invited on any brand trips. I'll tell you about my life.

Isn't quite that glamorous, but something that we've talked about Alexis is having the freedom to travel, the freedom to work anywhere. You know, I've worked from all over Europe. I've worked from Mexico.

I've traveled, drove all across Canada and back and being able to have the disposable income to buy the clothes I want, to buy the makeup I want. There's so many ways. And to get to work for Ritzia, which is so frigging cool.

There's so many ways that you can live a pretty cool, glamorous lifestyle that aren't necessarily being a content creator. And again, giving back in ways that are more suitable for your skillsets. I think that's pretty exciting.

Today we actually live on a small homestead and we just have chickens. So I'm not in the city. It's not section of the city over here, but it's still, even that is such a dream thing for a lot of millennials to be able to move to a small town like we have.

Alexis

I think it's a great point because so many people want to be an influencer now. And influencers, I mean, you can make a great career. I try to do a reframe.

Anyone's talking about being an influencer. And I'm like, you're really an online entrepreneur. Like you are a digital entrepreneur.

There is an element of owning your own business.

Melissa

It's all affiliate marketing.

Alexis

Yeah, operating and treating yourself like a business where it's not like you just get invited and given free things all the time. Like you do have to do your taxes. Like you gotta figure out.

There's a lot of other elements to working with brands that aren't just, hey, I got this cool free thing. Look at it. But you can, like you said, you can provide yourself that lifestyle without having to expose all of your personal details on the internet, without having to be on your phone absolutely all the time.

Like you can still have a normal, very normal nine to five job that pays you very, very well where you can do all of the things that you see online. And also like, I don't know, I mean, we could get into this, but like we were saying, Instagram's a highlight reel and people post what they want you to see. And so if you're seeing, you know, one number one influencers doing that or even your friends or peers or colleagues or people you went to high school or college with posting that, it's also a highlight reel, right?

Kevin

And for every like one influencer who is, you know, showing travel and all this fun stuff, there's a thousand people who are just doing that as their normal day life. They just don't post about it. They just don't feel the need to invite the public into their own lives.

Alexis

A hundred percent.

Kevin

It's a real thing.

Alexis

I can't tell you. And I mean, I say this as someone who has been traveling full time since April. It's December.

So better part of a year now. I can't tell you how many people that I've met who live on the road full time and have not posted. They don't even have an Instagram.

You don't have to, right? And I mean, we're talking about travel. It could be, you know, sports, working remotely.

It could be just, you know, being able to buy what you want when you want. Like there's people who make plenty of money that are not influencers and don't post about it.

Kevin

It's foreign to me. I don't understand it.

Alexis

Yeah. Something like putting all your personal details on the internet, Kevin.

Kevin

Yeah, it's crazy, right? So we're getting close to the end. Melissa, before we end it up, I want to touch on something real quick.

You mentioned a lot throughout this interview that you were super confident that you were going to get the job, that you were going to graduate, you were going to make a career out of this. Have you ever had the experience of being like imposter syndrome or doubting yourself in any of this?

Melissa

No. If I say I don't, then I don't.

Kevin

All the time, you just manifest that you don't.

Melissa

Yeah, all the time. I mean, it's a tricky one because you want to say like, no, I don't. And you believe it.

And then it becomes slowly, you do move in a direction where, no, you don't. But no, the truth is, of course I do. I do all the time.

The best thing I've ever learned to overcome that is, I've said this before, but I'll keep saying it. You're thinking, I'm saying this to myself, so I'm not trying to be condescending to anybody else. I'll say it about myself.

I am thinking too much about myself and I'm not thinking enough about how to help everybody else. And that changes it from, oh, do I not know enough? Am I not meant to be here?

Am I not smart enough to, okay, maybe those things are true. Maybe they're not. But you're here right now.

How can you help? What can you do right now? And more often than not, there's a lot you can do because it's just imposter syndrome and you are meant to be here.

There's a lot you can say to about, a lot of us have the same education, blah, blah, blah, blah, but you're just trying to rationalize it to yourself then. But a lot of the times, sorry, go ahead, Alexis.

Alexis

I think that's a good way to almost do a decision matrix of your skills. Maybe you have imposter syndrome, but say there was a situation at work or there was a project at school. And you're sitting here like, oh my God, what can I do?

Well, break down the problem. What actually needs to be done? What are the different pieces of it?

Yeah. Could I do this? Yes or no.

Could I do this? Yes or no. I do this?

Yes or no. And it's a good way to take in a really honest matrix of where you're at and the skills that you have. I love that.

Kevin

I think it's, go ahead.

Melissa

And sometimes, something I love about imposter syndrome, again, trying to flip it to be a positive is you never want to get ahead of yourself and think that, oh, I do deserve to be here because I'm the smartest person in the room. If I'm having imposter syndrome, okay, is there a place where my skills need to be sharpened? And that happens to me all the time.

Dang, I haven't worked on a Red Hat command line in a while and now I'm doing this and I'm forgetting my commands. Yeah. You do have to go sharpen some knives.

That's the way of the world. That's okay that you don't know everything all at once.

Kevin

Yeah, sounds like a nice balance between, you know, knowing where your weak spots are, wanting to improve yourself, but also then focusing on what you can improve or what you can do to your team, for your workplace, whatever, and not just thinking about what you can't do or what you're afraid to do, but looking at what value you do provide for people and your positivity.

Melissa

We need to stop thinking about how we're perceived so much. And that's a lot of, I think, where imposter syndrome comes from. Do I look stupid or do I look like everybody else in this room?

You know what? Sometimes you're going to look stupid, especially when you're me sometimes.

Alexis

And we've also talked about putting out early videos, Melissa. I know you used to create content on TikTok and getting that one year ago today, two years ago today, and looking back and being like, I look pretty stupid.

Melissa

I hit post on that and people launched it. But you know what? If people, that's such a good example, old videos.

Did it make someone laugh? All right, great. Did it make me laugh?

Great. And so same thing in the workplace. At the time, it was great.

At the time, I was doing the thing I felt that I needed to do. Exactly.

Alexis

With the skills that I had available.

Melissa

So when you have imposter syndrome, all you have is this very moment. And how can I help? How can I provide value?

How can I help the team right now? I promise if you're always thinking about how can I give back to this team? How can I help this project?

That's the end of it. You'll do great.

Kevin

Love it. So as we're wrapping up here, Melissa, is there one piece of advice that you would give your younger self or someone, another woman who wants to break into IT or get into IT that you would impart on them?

Melissa

I would say there's no education that will ever do you a disservice. The number one thing I hear people say is I don't know what I want to do. And I did.

And you think I just love computers so much. And so I just like... No, but you just...

No matter what you do, if you sit around thinking about what you want to do and it dawns on you, that's my dream job and you go out and you get your dream job, there's going to be shit days that you hate that job. Even if you're an influencer, like you were saying, those shit days when you hate your job, even your dream job, but they're a lot easier when your bills are paid. They're way easier when you're making six figures.

So just do something. Even if you don't know, just get started. Just do something.

I wish I just started sooner.

Alexis

Pick a direction and figure it out as you go. And you can always pivot if you don't like it. But as long as you're moving in a direction.

Melissa

Exactly. And I tell people when you're sitting here thinking, oh, do I want to do this? Do I want to do that?

But you're fighting 10 beasts. You could just pick one beast and fight it. And again, hey, maybe that career won't work out and you won't like it, but your bills will be paid more than they were before you did some type of education, more than they were.

And it's just easier. I'm just saying it's a lot easier when you're making money.

Alexis

Love it. I agree. 10 out of 10, Melissa.

And that is it for this episode of Life in Uptime. Huge thanks to Melissa for sharing her journey. And thanks to you for listening.

If you enjoyed this conversation, be sure to follow the show so that you never miss an episode. And if today's story gave you something to think about, feel free to share it with a friend or a colleague who might need it. So until next time, keep learning, keep building, and keep your uptime high.