It has been an unusual week. I went to Reading in the UK for work--I rarely travel for work--and it was an EMEA summit for women of my company. I was pleasantly surprised that I even managed to get approval to go. I was also dubious about how useful I would find the summit.
Like many people, I am not super comfortable about networking in a large roomful of strangers. I do better with people one on one. I took the plunge a few times over the day and a half, and accosted random people. Funnily enough, I kept meeting and felt more comfortable with people who were external to the company.
I also met a couple of smokers outside... a scenario I am well used to. One German woman is of my generation and had a good sense of humor. She also is on the board that runs the women's association. She however was not impressed when I said I had to leave early. "You will miss the main speaker!" "I know, I am raging but I miscalculated the timing on my flight and it took longer than I expected to get here from Stansted--I went with the cheaper airline."
I suppose this planning snafu doesn't reflect well on my abilities, but it was one of those doh moments for me. It happens.
Some of the speakers and discussions were interesting. A few of the internal and external women were of course overachievers, and I would not want to be like them. And am not. One of the big topics was mitigating the adverse effects of having children on your career--not something I care about either. The bigger problem for me is that career advancement means being a manager. I have managed people, but that is not the interesting part of a job for me. It would be nice to have a successful career path that did not require management. Two other women and I talked about this at one of the breaks; they too would be interested in an alternative.
Prior to the summit's kick-off I had a proper work meeting with an security analyst, which was fruitful. He also wants to set up a meeting between me and his management to discuss things. I guess I had better let my manager know...
If nothing else, I guess the summit has made me dust off my ambitions and examine my career.
