Little Lady – At Sea – [02/24/2015]

Every so often you get one of this instances that makes you somewhat preen, even though it’s really such a small thing and not particularly preen-worthy.

You would think that in this day and age, the “little lady” attitude (as in “don’t you worry your pretty li’l head about it little lady, this is men’s business”), would have fallen by the wayside. We all know, however, that it hasn’t. And it’s just as prominent in my field as anywhere else. I never used to notice it much, after all, librarian is a field one somewhat expects girls to be in (to be fair, the few guys on the librarian team probably notice the same attitude only reversed) – but tech? Tech is all too often considered not to be a “girlie” field. And since I’ve taken over the internet position, I’ve noticed a sharp upswing in people who simply refuse to believe that yes I not only can resolve a great many of their technical problems, but it is in fact my job to do so.

Now, I’m very lucky, the ITO on board (who is awesome) has desk hours once a day in the afternoons to help take the pressure off the worst of my peak times. If there is a problem I am unable to fix I can redirect it to him, but that doesn’t stop the fact that I’m able to handle most of it myself.

Anyway, this morning, a gentleman comes up to me and asks – as many people do – if the “internet guy” is going to be in any time soon.

Now, this is a question I get a lot – some people have really complicated computer problems and have been working with the ITO the whole cruise, and some aren’t even aware that there isn’t an internet manager anymore. But sometimes, it’s the tone…the tone that totally dismisses me as the secretary and goes looking for the “man in charge”. So I quirk my head to one side and explain that the ITO won’t be in till later today, but the internet is basically my job so perhaps I can assist him.

And he looks at me blankly.

Either one of us can help you sir, what seems to be the trouble?

And he looks at me, and I swear it feels like he looks me up and down, and again, dismisses me.

Well. It’s a technical issue.

And I can’t help it, I feel my eyes go flat in reaction to that “you couldn’t possibly help little lady” tone, just for a second. And when I respond it’s in that slightly overly chipper voice.

Try me.

And he hands over his tablet and explains what’s wrong, and I can immediately see the issue is way simple. So I flip into his settings, adjust one slider and one switch (which takes about five seconds) and turn the screen around to face him;

That better sir? Looks like your brightness settings just needed to be adjusted, you can turn off auto-adjust to prevent it happening again, if the device thinks its battery is dying or it’s getting low on memory the first thing it does is dim the screen because the display is a massive battery drain

He looked suitably shocked…and even apologized for doubting my competence.

Little lady indeed….