Rhonda Bracey: At Random

My  work day started reasonably early, then I had a meeting at 9am with my immediate boss and the new graphic designer. At 11am it was show time! I did a dry run of the presentation I’m doing at the conference in Portland, OR, in two weeks.

There were 20+ in the room, almost all of whom were software developers. Only four were women, including me, and, as far as I know, only one of them was a developer. Software development is still very much a man’s game, at least when it’s associated with the mining industry…

My presentation went over well, which was good seeing as though I’d written it for quite a different audience. I got some insightful questions from the audience, and there were quite a few heads nodding in agreement at what I had to say during the presentation – even a few “See? I told you so” glances across the table. A few people came up to me afterwards or sent me an email saying how much they’d enjoyed it and how they’d got a lot out of it.

And I didn’t run over time, so that was good.

The rest of the day was work – the graphics designer and I spent some time discussing how we could help each other out, and I spent some time with one of the subject matter experts getting details for the Help I’m writing for one of their clients.

Very late in the day, a colleague popped by. She’s one of the top 20 road cyclists in the world and she’s just got back from NZ, and is off again in a few days to compete in Europe. Her goal is to get selected in the Australian team for the Beijing Olympics. Pretty cool!

Tomorrow is my last day in the Brisbane office – I leave on Friday for the US. It’s been good catching up with people whose voices I know and whose faces I rarely see, as well as meeting the new team members who’ve started since I was last here six months ago. And I think the new ones have appreciated putting the face to the name and voice too. I even had a short chat with the CEO, who used to be the big boss of the area I work in and who was responsible for my contract negotiations when I first started.

But I tell you what, I’m glad I work from home. Having to dress for the office every day is a pain!