Happy International Women's Day!

Happy International Women's Day! 

Years ago, when I was working for a company that got acquired by my current employer, I had to prepare release notes for every software delivery. They were done in an Excel spreadsheet.

One word: ugh!

Excel wasn't the right format for telling people about changes and fixes within software. Crunching numbers or making calculations with formulas? Yes. Paragraphs of text? No.

The manager who dealt with customers and shared this spreadsheet decided to change it without telling me. He went into our shared repository, checked it out, and changed the tabs such that the latest release was the last tab. The first tab that you saw in Excel was a release from eons ago.

I was annoyed. As the writer, I owned this document. Not this manager.
I undid his changes. Customers wanted the first tab to be the latest. I slapped a password on my spreadsheet. 

He noticed this password protection and wanted it removed. I said no.
A couple of years later, my current manager and I reminisced about this manager who had just retired. We ended up talking about this incident, with both of us hearing each other's side of the story.

After I had shared my experience, my manager said that this guy had approached him and said, "Control her."

This remark was news to me.

My manager said that I was doing great. He concurred with me. He didn't need to intervene. I had his support.

My manager is far from being perfect. He has flaws like all of us. On the whole, he has always been supportive. It showed here with a ridiculous, archaic, boys' school remark.

Today is an important day for women. Do you. Shine when you have a strong point to make. Be yourself.

As a man, support women. Be an ally. You'll do a world of good.
Of note, I ultimately ditched the Excel spreadsheet. I moved our release notes to Word, followed by our current authoring tool. Our team no longer handles release notes directly, but I handled the transition to the current person who writes them.

As women, we have come a long way. However, there's plenty more to do. Don't stop. Be your best.