SWEet!!!! Young Things

One of the personal responsibilities I feel as a working engineering professional is to encourage engaging young woman to pursue careers in math and science. This week I had a chance to give a presentation to the ASU chapter of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE). Basically, your company pays to give a spiel about how fantastic your company is and how they should all grow up and be as lucky as you to work there.




Your contribution covers the cost of food, and as you might suspect , free pizza will bring out any starving college student. Since 99 percent of the time these little productions are given by men I thought I’d give a different spin and talk a little about my company and more about how to stand out from the crowd in the dog eat dog world. Here’s the type of food they should present at these events.

Artichoke Feta Dip
1 can artichoke hearts, chopped fine
1 cup mayo
½ cup parmesan cheese
½ cup feta cheese

Combine ingredients, mix well. Pour into a shallow baking dish and cook at 350 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown. Serve with rye party breads or crackers. Artichokes are your friend, you can never eat too much of a good thing.

Good evening ladies, I’m Mrs. Tuna and I work for Giant Engineering Company, Inc. where I’ve been a big muckity muck for the last three years. We do tons of different engineering, some of which I don’t even know what it really is but I work in transportation. Our core ideals are peeps are our greatest advantage and getting bigger is essential. You can look up more info on our website, giant-engineering.com. Now I’d like to talk about how to get a mentor, how to be a leader and networking doesn’t mean updating your Facebook status.

They'd eaten their chow and were trying to gauge how long they’d have to stay before bolting back to the dorms for beer pong. Time to change tactics and go for the stand up comedienne routine during the question and answer phase. The few boys that showed up for food and perhaps to pick up girls began to avert their eyes and slouch in their seats. But one brave guy asked the first question so partial credit was given. I digressed into funny stories about competing in a man’s world.

When asked about sexual harassment in the workplace. I told the story about how at one place on Valentine’s Day while standing at the copy machine, the owner of the company offered to show me his special Valentine’s underwear. When I declined, he pulled up the corner of his heart adorned boxers so I could see the edge. I told him that he needed to put himself in timeout.

When questioned about interning, I explained my last intern was the son of a previous supervisor. My current boss queried me about his work ethic and I told him as a sophomore in high school he did a good job mowing my lawn. He ended up working for me for3 years after graduation.

When asked about my project team, I said they knew when I asked them how their weekend was, they need to tell me about it in three sentences or less. It’s not that I don’t care, but my head if swirling with all the tasks at hand. Spit it out already.

In the end, they said I was the best and funniest speaker they’d ever had and would I be the opening act every meeting. I said as long as when our competitors We Think We’re Better Engineers presented next month they’d tell them our company were the better Rock Stars.