From WAP to WAF….
So this month I decided to do a thing. That thing was to become a woman in STEM. Now, the most STEM thing I’ve ever done is a lateral flow test or maybe that ‘Heritage DNA’ pack I was gifted last Christmas (and yes, turns out I'm 100% that bitch). So I pretty much was completely clueless with where to start or what I actually wanted to do - or why, if I’m being totally honest.

Louise Jeffery
16/11/2021 | 2:50 pm

Put the lime in the coconut…
The ‘Tech Team’ at DeadHappy consists mainly of men, so maybe it’s my feminist side kicking in, wanting to represent alongside a couple of other women we have on the team. Or perhaps it’s because I raise so many customer bugs from working as a Honcho and feel that it would be cool to solve these myself. Or maybe it’s just my FOMO and that I just want to sit in on their morning stand ups or post more relevant things in the tech channel – not just a picture of me drinking cocktails on my day off (yes I thought that would be a good way to wheedle my way into the team… I was on a bottomless brunch at the time and the strawberry daiquiri told me it would be a great idea…)
Anyhoo, I’ve said women in STEM so many times that some of them decided to help me achieve this – luckily none of them have asked me if I know what it stands for yet *sets reminder to google it later*.
Dream about (bed)bugs tonight
So this week I’m starting a course that has been recommended by one of the team and because we’re both in the office on Mondays we’re going to complete it together. Another person has taken my incomprehensible notes and ideas about what I want to try and do and is putting them together as a coherent development plan that even I can understand. I’m also going to be helping with debugging and testing with an upcoming feature/release (at least I think that’s what they call it – I’m yet to get my jargon down).
We are the weirdos, mister
Basically working at DeadHappy is super cool, I’ve put myself out there, with a subject I have no idea about and I have been taken seriously – well as seriously as someone can be taken who dresses as a teenager from the 90s. I’m in an environment where growth in new areas is welcomed, where we can interact with each other because we’re not confined to departments and just have bloody lovely people around us who will, at the drop of a hat, tell you that John is talking about Firewalls and not a Cardi-B song…