Happy Accidents with Jenny Gee-Link of Tangerine

About the guest:

Jenny Gee-Link is a Quality Assurance Automation Engineer at Tangerine. She has an extensive background in Mobile Applications, Wireless Technologies, and Telecommunications, having previously worked at large Telecommunications companies such as Motorola. When she’s not working, she always seems to have something on the go. Her spare time is spent on volunteer work with her kids’ school and on the board of directors for the local daycare, picking up another language, tinkering on the piano, and even out biking on the local trails. Binge-watching the latest shows? Nah. Life’s way too short for all that!

Find our guest on:

Find us on:

Show Links:

Additional Links:

Transcript:

ANA: Hey, y'all. Welcome to On-Call Me Maybe, the podcast about DevOps, SRE, observability principles, on-call, and everything in between. I am your host Ana Margarita Medina with my awesome co-host...

ADRIANA: Adriana Villela. 

ANA: Today, we're talking to Jenn Gee-Link, who works at Tangerine as a Quality Assurance Automation Engineer. We are very excited to have you here today. One of the first questions that we have for you today as you join us is, what is going to be your drink of choice?

JENNY: Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. Thank you for having me at your podcast. I'm honored. I'm happy to be here. Regarding your question as to what is my drink of choice right this moment, just to get over my cold, my pseudo cold, my sore throat right now, it's hot water, hot tea, hot cocoa if it's not too hot, too, too hot and burning my tongue. But that's pretty much my choice for now until I get better. [laughs]

ANA: I've been drinking a lot of tea. My roommate was sick. My partner was also coughing. And I'm just like; I'm just going to drink tea with honey, like, protect myself.

ADRIANA: Yes.

ANA: Stay hydrated and, like, just [laughs] [crosstalk 01:28]

ADRIANA: Protect the vocal cords. 

ANA: Yeah. 

ADRIANA: Totally.

ANA: What about you, Adriana? What are you drinking today?

ADRIANA: I've got fizzy water. It's Bubly sparkling water, and it tastes like cherry, so...

JENNY: Love that. 

ADRIANA: It's an improvement over my usual water drink I have whenever we record, but I do have water on standby as well, so... [laughter]

ANA: I'm definitely like the non-fun one for the day. I have water, just regular water for the day. I was going to make a mocktail, and I was like, maybe for the next recording. [laughs]

ADRIANA: That would have been fun. [laughs]

ANA: We shall see. So, Jenn, we've had guests from all walks of life come on to our podcast and talk about their journey. And we love hearing how people got started in tech. Like, what caught your eye?

JENNY: That's actually a very good question because how did I get here? I honestly don't know how I even got here.

[laughter]

ADRIANA: My favorite answer to date, yeah.

ANA: That's okay.

JENNY: I don't know how I got here. Oh, I remember there was one time, I do remember this; way back in school, I was applying for just a summer job in the U.S. and just for the fun of it. I was applying back in December for a summer job. Why? You're probably like, why? Why do you apply for summer jobs in December? 

Well, apparently, the Americans they do all their summer job hiring in January for preparation for summer jobs starting in May. So they do all the interviews in January and everything. They start prepping all HR people to pull you in wherever you are in the world so that by March 1st, they already have people lined up ready to go. So they fly them in ready for April 1st, May 1st. And then I'm there, voila, for a summer job. 

Anyway, I didn't know, and I was going like, okay, here I am in computer engineering. I didn't know anything. I knew nothing. And I saw in this job posting, "Do you know Python?" I go like, hmm, I don't know Python or anything like that. Oh, oh, oh, and do you know Perl? No, I don't know Perl. [laughter] Okay, let's look it up. Let's Google. Let's Google it up. Then I was like, okay, bam, on my resume, I can say I know Perl. [laughter] I can simply say on my resume, "I know Perl. I know how to do that." [laughter] 

And lo and behold, I got selected for an interview. And they say, "Hey, you know Perl? You must be an expert on this." I go like, "Yeah, sure. [laughter] Give me a job, please. Please do. Please. Please do." They go like, "Great. You're coming in May 1st you start.

ANA: Oh my God. [laughs]

JENNY: And I go like, [gasps] yeah, that was it. That was absolutely it. They flew me in. I'm like, "Okay, I know Perl." "Okay, but what year are you in?" "Third year." "But how much Perl experience do you have?" "I read this document. [laughter] That's all I know." And they said, "Well, good enough. You're here already. It doesn't matter. [laughter] Oh, by the way, you get paid $22 an hour." "Oh my God, this is awesome." [laughter]

ADRIANA: You're rich, right? By university standards. [laughter] 

ANA: As a college student, I'm like, well, I mean, as a college student, but just in general, that is really good money for a first job when you're anywhere. [laughs] 

ADRIANA: Yeah. Totally, totally.

JENNY: Yeah, absolutely. That's all I did. On the job posting, they were looking for someone that knew Perl. I really spent 40 minutes reading that document [laughter], and then I can say on my resume I know Perl, which is true. It is true. Did I know how to run it? Yes, Perl blah, blah, blah.pl. Okay, what does it do? Hmm, [laughter] I don't know. And I got paid 22 bucks an hour. 

And I said, "Oh my God, this is awesome." I got flown in. I had an apartment. Yeah, my apartment was covered by my income. That's okay and everything. And I had extra money to spare after being paid 20 for 40 hours a week, sure. And I had more money left over at the end of the summer. And I go like; this is awesome. So that's how I started off with.

[laughter]

ANA: You mentioned you were studying computer science, computer engineering.

JENNY: Computer engineering, that's right. That's right. 

ANA: So, what got you into computer engineering? 

JENNY: Oh, because I didn't get into other things. [laughter]

ANA: This story just gets better.

[laughter]

ADRIANA: This is like the best story. [laughter] What did you apply for? 

JENNY: Civil. [laughs]

ADRIANA: You applied for civil engineering, and they put you in computer engineering? 

JENNY: [laughs]

ADRIANA: See, this is the state, like, Jenn and I went to school, like, we were in university together. We were in different programs. I remember around that time, computer engineering was the hot stream of engineering that everyone wanted to be in. And it was funny because you ask half the people, "Why are you here?" "It pays well." "My mom wanted me to study computer engineering," [laughs] or I guess in your case, "I got rejected from civil engineering."

[laughter]

JENNY: My physics mark was really shitty, and they were like, okay, you're not going to get in here. [laughter] And then it was like, but why didn't you apply to chemical? Because chemical I was actually really good at, I was getting top marks. And chemical was my third choice after computer. [laughter] So civil didn't want me. [laughter]

ANA: Almost. You almost made it to chemical.

ADRIANA: That is so funny. [laughter]

JENNY: Civil didn't want me, so computer took me. And then chemical, I guess they would have wanted me had they gotten the opportunity, but hmm -- [laughs]

ADRIANA: Computer engineering got to you first. [laughter]

JENNY: It's sad. It's really sad. [laughs] So that's where I ended up with. But why did I stick with it? Because after school, the company that I eventually got hired into, Motorola, I was put into a team for not just the cellular networks but the whole telecom network, the whole entire framework. And that was an eye opener for me as to how your cell phone calls started off with on that little handset going all through the base stations to the MSCs and then to the mainframe where I actually set the call setups and everything. So that's ultimately where my interest was coming from, just from my first job. 

In school, you learn. You kind of are taught it and everything, but you really don't know how it works until you're actually getting your hands deep into it so that you know that, hey, this call starts at this stage, to this stage, to this stage and eventually gets to this. And then wherever I am in the world, eventually, it gets routed to wherever, here to there. And everything comes right back out to whichever...whether you're talking to someone on the telephone line, or to someone else's cell phone, to an IP phone, or anything like that. 

So that kind of communication, I thought, was really, really cool, and that's where I started off with. And I'm kind of...even though I'm now in banking, and I'm not quite touching that right now, I'm still very well-versed with how things are working here and there and how things are working in the industry. So that's where I'm at. [laughs]

ADRIANA: That's so cool. And the other interesting thing, too, from when you started in telecom, is that it was probably around the time when cell phones were finally starting to become popular where it wasn't just the "use cell phone for emergency calls." It was like, oh, I can use it to talk with my friends. And then texting was starting to become popular on those little, [laughs] tiny keypads where you had to press the key like three times to get to the letter C. [laughs]

JENNY: Right. Right.

ANA: I miss those days.

ADRIANA: [laughs] Yeah, the simpler times

JENNY: I worked on the original StarTAC phones, I did.

ADRIANA: That's so cool. [laughs]

JENNY: I worked on the original Razr, the Motorola Razrs. I worked on the original -- 

ADRIANA: Oooh, that was a sleek phone.

JENNY: Oh, it was a sleek phone.

ADRIANA: Super sleek.

ANA: I owned the Razr.

ADRIANA: [laughs]

ANA: I also owned the other Razr that was like a non-flip phone, the pink one. Yes, that was...I remember being like; I must own this phone.

ADRIANA: Oh, pretty. [laughs]

ANA: And it was one of the first phones that had integrations with Apple, so it was like an iPod phone. And it was like the coolest commercials ever. And I was like, oh my God, yes. [laughs] So I'm a Razr girl.

JENNY: I'm glad to hear that because it is, like, if you look it up on Wikipedia, it was, or is, was, the most bought phone in the world, and it's still now; why? There are different reasons, but it was the most popular phone. I'm not saying the iPhone is not. It is very popular now. But if you look it up, you can see it's right up there.

ANA: Have you all heard that there's this group of Gen Zs that are trying to make it a thing to bring flip phones back? 

JENNY: Yes. 

ADRIANA: Yeah, it's hilarious.

ANA: [laughs] How do you all feel about that? 

ADRIANA: I mean, I loved having my flip phone. I loved having a flip phone. It was so awesome. And I was really sad, like, I love my iPhone, but I was really sad that it was no longer a flip phone. There's something very satisfying about just flipping it open to make a call. [laughs]

ANA: And on that note, I personally miss the sidekick. Being a millennial, the sidekick was like, full keyboard.

ADRIANA: [laughs]

ANA: Moving on from Blackberry, I was like, oh, look, it's got that cute, like what? Like 280 flip of a screen. [laughs]

JENNY: Oh, that's right.

ADRIANA: Oh, yeah, yeah. I never used one, but I remember there was a period in what? Like the early aughts where it was popular.

ANA: Like 2005?

ADRIANA: Yeah, 2005 to 2000 and, I don't know, 10, 8, something.

ANA: 23? [laughter]

JENNY: So, ultimately, yeah, phones I actually worked on. I still work on them now. But even back then, I even knew about the whole underlying infrastructure as to how all the calls are going through, how to intercept, to change to look for certain things. So every single keypad that you make, I see it. If you're in the back end, you could see every single thing. Oh, someone's putting in their credit card information into their phone; I see it. You can see it. It's all there. 

And it's really interesting when people sort of say, "Oh no, I'm keying in my credit card. I'm keying in my birthday and everything." Well, don't worry, well, for the most part. [laughter] It's pretty safe. It's pretty safe. Unless you have some judge that has put out a request for this sniff, we need to get this information out. So I've gone around to many different parts of telecom, at least specifically for cell phones and such. It's interesting how it all goes around the whole circle, how things get around, and people see how it works and everything. 

ANA: That's super cool.

ADRIANA: That's awesome. So then, how do you go from cell phones to testing software?

JENNY: That's really interesting because one of the biggest changes that happened to me about 10...yeah, ten years ago is the need, at an infrastructure level, as how can we emulate how many calls are happening at the same time? I mean, right now, our biggest problems, at least for the telecom level, is to say, how do we reproduce a high call load? How do we reproduce that? And how do we reproduce not just at one spot, how do we reproduce it at a state level, at a tri-state level? 

And that need was mandated by the government to actually prove that, hey, does the software work? Can it handle that load? Whoever's buying the software they're paying billions of dollars for this, but they need proof to say that can it handle it? Will it die at the utmost need of time? I mean, we wouldn't want something like that to happen. We've already seen instances where networks have gone down, and I'm not going to name them or anything like that or name instances, but we've already seen it. We've experienced it, and it's pretty crappy. It's really shitty when hey, the cellphone network or telecommunication network is down because there's an overload. 

So that's one of the reasons why that came out, why I came out in testing now, because there was an absolute need where the buyer wants proof that can it handle it? We need to show it. The developer has claimed that it works, but they haven't tested it. They haven't tried it. They really haven't. I mean, one cell phone call, sure, that's one.

ANA: [laughs]

JENNY: But you need to make a couple million. And it's not just for one at one point; it's like a couple million for over a period of 18 hours, 24-48 hours, more than that. And that was the need, that was absolutely the need. And how much testing is done right now, I'm not going to comment. [laughter] But there is definitely a need for testing. Absolutely.

ANA: What are some of the practices that go into doing these types of testings? Like, is it all using stuff that's built internally that's very specific to your organization? Or are there bigger projects that are used or methodologies? 

ADRIANA: Like frameworks.

ANA: I ask in the sense that I come from the world of chaos engineering. We do a lot of making sure that reliability is top of the mind and inject failure wherever possible. And a lot of organizations always pair it with something like load testing. But I haven't been too close to folks that actually do that with telecom. So I'm like, ooh, does it kind of go through a similar type of process?

JENNY: In many ways, it does. We do realize that there is no way to really reproduce the exact same scenario that we've seen in telecom where things go down. We can only speculate based on the logs that we are able to retrieve and search and see that, oh, if this happens at this time, this will happen, et cetera, et cetera. We do use a number of in-house tools because we realize that there has been a number of tools that are provided that are open source, but they're very limited because it's only specific for certain scenarios. 

So if we need to produce a load, yes, we can produce a load. We just simply send out a whole bunch of basic, I would say...we're not even pinging; we're not doing that. But even just calls, just not constant calls but when we make that call, yeah, a response. Yeah, that's great. But that's not really the scenario that is actually happening out there. So whenever someone makes an actual telephone call, we need to have that one signal going from cell phone to base station, the base station to whichever MSCs that it has to go through and everything. And then we have to go through the whole entire call flow going through there. 

So, yeah, we can kind of automate where we inject a call out. But then we also need to communicate with different components to actually have that call setup happening, and that is a lot more difficult. We realized that we can't do the full call setup because, generally, when we test, we're not testing for a million call setups happening at once. Because the only time I can think of that people are doing that is there is an emergency 911, and literally, there's a volcano that comes out that says that [laughs] "Heeey, I'm going to explode." And then there'll be a million people making that phone call who are like, "Call 911." That doesn't necessarily all happen. [laughs]

ANA: And now I'm just curious, like, is one of the other high traffic days like New Year's as well for telecom, or had it been in the past and maybe not as much in current times?

JENNY: Not necessarily because now, with the introduction of...you know what? The funny thing is that there have been less calls being made now than there have been before because everyone's now Instagramming each other. They're all text messaging. There are actually more text messages that go out than calls, kind of funny.

ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. [laughs] I definitely believe that. I hate talking on the phone. [laughs] Like, text me; do not call me. [laughs]

JENNY: Exactly, right? No one leaves voicemails anymore, and no one calls.

ADRIANA: No. 

JENNY: Yeah, it's all texting or even just messaging someone using whichever messenger you want. I'm finding that more and more teenagers are using Discord to communicate. Even though they're not playing games, they just simply say, A, I already communicate with you when I'm playing games. I'll just message you. Just DM me, and then blah, blah, blah. And I'll send a message going like, "Hey, this is what I'm doing on New Year's Day." So that is happening.

Regarding call volumes, if you really want to know, I'm finding [laughs] that for call volumes, it's usually if a radio station is having some kind of giveaway. During those times when they're making a giveaway...at 8:00 p.m., call me at this time; 80th caller will win this. Yeah, that's when the spike goes up, but those are actual calls. If you're talking about calls, that's when it's happening. 

ADRIANA: That's hilarious.

ANA: Interesting.

[laughter]

JENNY: It's really funny. It's really funny.

ADRIANA: [laughs] So the last remaining relic is the call into the radio station. I guess some things never change. [laughs]

JENNY: It's really funny. It's really, really funny. But that's a niche form of communication. That's only for radio stations. The main communication is for this messaging that people are messaging, or when people are actually video and streaming whatever they're doing and showing their friends, and they're broadcasting from there. That's the big one.

ANA: So, like any video calling like Zoom, FaceTime, like Discord video.

JENNY: Yeah.

ADRIANA: Or live streams.

ANA: All the Twitch. [laughs]

ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah.

JENNY: We're not really using our calls to communicate with people. It's been changing. You can think of it as it's now data being passed on. It's no longer calls anymore. So you use your cell phone not to call people but to transfer data to people as you're communicating. And that's the change in people's way of communicating over the past decade or two decades.

ADRIANA: That's so trippy.

JENNY: It's really funny. It's really interesting.

ADRIANA: You don't even realize until you take a minute to sort of reflect on it. And then you're like, oh my God, the way that I was communicating 15 years ago is not even the same way that I'm communicating now. It's super wild.

JENNY: Right, right. So now people are using their cell phones to bank. [laughter] So why not? But to even communicate, to talk to people...no, no, not communicate but to even just send videos to people, TikTok, there we go. That's just interesting. That's very interesting overall.

ANA: [laughs]

ADRIANA: I wanted to switch gears a sec and talk about the fact that...I don't think this has ever come up in our podcast yet; like, you're a working mom in tech. But we've never...I don't think we've ever talked to anybody or at least talked about being a working mom in tech. And I wanted to get your thoughts on how that has been for you. [laughs]

JENNY: It has been hard. I'm well aware of the sacrifices that I've had to make over the years, and because they'll...right now, even the kids know that mommy's on a call right now. I need to stay quiet, and they really don't know why. But they know that mommy is busy working on certain things to make it better. Now it's gotten better for me. But back then, I really had to make severe sacrifices back then which I do regret. I kind of wish I didn't have to do that. 

And it's been very, very tough. Why did I make those kinds of sacrifices is more the fact that I've felt that I needed to prove my value, my worth. And I don't want to be that junior engineer forever middle person. I need to be the senior after so many years. And I need to prove my worth by getting to that level that I know something more than dipshit over there. [laughter] 

ADRIANA: I feel ya. I feel ya.

JENNY: It's been tough. And that's also another reason why I've taken the job at the bank because I needed to slow down so that I can actually do the things I should have done back then. You're probably thinking, well, what did you do back then that was so fast, that was so necessary? I don't know. I'm not going to continue on with that part.

ANA: [laughs] It's okay.

ADRIANA: I would like to comment that I remember when I came back from that leave with my daughter and put her in daycare, and I swear to God, [laughs] it feels like every week they're sick. And I can't tell you the number of days, the number of times I had to leave work early. One time I just dropped her off at daycare. I stepped into the office, got a phone call, "Hey, she's got a fever. You got to pick her up from daycare." And it's like, hi, guys. Bye, guys. [laughs] 

And feeling like, okay, I got to take care of my kid but, holy shit, I feel so guilty that I'm having to walk out of the office right now. People are judging me. I felt like people were judging me. I don't know if they were, but I certainly felt like it. They probably think I'm not pulling my weight. So I felt guilty. I felt like I wasn't doing a good enough job as a mom because I was thinking about work when I was with my daughter. And then I'm thinking about my daughter when I was at work. 

I feel like you can never win compounded with depending on where you're working; if you don't have a welcoming environment or nurturing environment that makes you feel like it's okay to do that or it's okay to be human, I think it makes it way, way worse. So yeah, that was my personal struggle.

JENNY: Absolutely. Absolutely. I was working with a team all-male team. My manager was also a male. He used to work for the military. So he operated the whole team as the military. 

ADRIANA: Oh geez.

JENNY: So it was really hard. It was hard. It was heartbreaking when that came about. And I was working really late hours. Kids never saw me until 1:00 a.m., 2:00 a.m. 

ADRIANA: Oh, shoot. 

JENNY: My husband was the one who had to leave to pick up the kid. And then he said, "Okay, tomorrow, you're working from home." And we sat there, and we were like, "Okay, it is what it is." And it was very difficult. I mean, you had the one, I had the three. 

ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. [laughs]

JENNY: And it was very difficult. During that time, I swear I went crazy. I went crazy during that time. Out of desperation, I hired a cleaner to my house because everyone was getting sick. And when I hired her, I didn't bother asking for references. I didn't ask for...beyond her name, her phone number, or anything like that; I just said, "How much? Okay." And I handed her the keys to my house. I said, "I'll see you whichever day. Please come clean." 

And she said, "Oh, am I cooking dinner?" I said, "No. Your sole job is to come every week and wipe down the counters, bathrooms, kitchen countertops, so that...oh, and then also wash all the sheets in the bedrooms. Just wash them all so that no one can spread any more germs." And that was her sole job. She was being paid 70 bucks a week just to come to my house to clean, and that was it. I felt shitty because I didn't know her name. I didn't remember her name. My husband's going like, "You did what? Gave keys to the house?"

ANA: And I think in immigrant homes, it's even harder to understand outsourcing stuff that our families would do or, like, I tell my mom certain stuff that I spend money on. She's like, "That's so expensive," or like, "I could be doing that for you." And it's like; literally, corporate America is so different.

JENNY: Yeah, absolutely. The thing was that it was time, my time, my sanity. Even when I had the kids in daycare, I was still working late hours, keeping up and everything. Was I actually physically in the office? Yes, I was because I need to show that I can actually pull my weight. And I did. And every so often, my husband would be messaging me, going like, "Are you okay? It's 1:00 a.m. Are you okay?" And I said, "Yeah, I'll be leaving in about two hours, three hours. I don't know; I'll be there." Really crazy time. 

And after about four years of doing that, I noticed that the kids were also feeling the effects. Their learning was delayed, the reading was delayed. And I felt like a shitty mom. Of all things, you don't know how to read. You don't know how to read, all right. I was desperate for anything, any type of book, some magical book to have them read basic, "It is a man. It is an apple. Come, go, come, go, come," like those basic things. And it was absolutely a struggle, absolutely a struggle.

ANA: I'm sorry. 

JENNY: There's nothing to be sorry about. I realized that over time that these sacrifices had to stop, and it did happen right before COVID. And that's why I walked away. That's why I'm at a bank. [laughter] There's nothing wrong...I'm not saying that I went to the bank because it's an easy job; it's not. But it's realizing that I cannot go down that route again.

ADRIANA: Like, you're in a place where there's better work-life balance so that you can maintain sanity, take care of yourself, the self-love, self-care that we all deserve.

JENNY: Absolutely. So if all of a sudden the bank starts noticing that I disappeared for two hours in the afternoon, they will ask, but I say, "No, I needed to go for a walk. Yeah, I'm done. I needed to go for a walk. I really have to...I'll make up for the hours later on tonight. But for those two hours [vocalization]." 

ANA: [laughs] You need a break.

JENNY: I really have to. The other place I could walk away, and I did do that on a regular basis. But then I'll be back in half an hour, and then I'm right at it going at full blast.

ADRIANA: And you're probably panicking while you walk away; oh my God, I've got all this shit to do. [vocalization] [laughs]

ANA: Yeah, they're going to say something. 

ADRIANA: Yeah, the whole butts-in-seats thing. [laughs] 

JENNY: I went crazy. I did go crazy. I scared off a number of Jehovah's Witnesses. [laughter] It's actually quite scary. It's very scary. I imagine normally, people run away from Jehovah's witnesses, and they're usually happy to talk to you. But no, I swear, I scared off a group of Jehovah's Witnesses when they actually showed up at my house. I scared them. I really did scare them.

[laughter]

ANA: Rough times. What do you think the industry should be doing to support working parents more, like, if you could give advice to folks that are in leadership positions to build cultures that people feel like family can come first, that you are a human, and this is a job, but you're able to attend to your other needs?

JENNY: I'm not sure. Maybe it's because I was really pushing myself to keep up with the other senior developers in ensuring that the whole entire development pipeline keeps going. And I'm not talking about actual pipelines but the whole entire process it all gets through. I find that if management actually says, "It's okay. If you need to leave, it's okay. Someone will cover you. Don't worry." 

But then if you're saying that, "Oh, but really, I can do it myself," and then they just go like, "No, no, no, not really. You take care of yourself. We don't want you to the point where you're going to really throw yourself off the cliff because you've gone...you're so worried that this is not working. This other thing is not working. Please take the time. Take care of yourself first, then your family. Work will be always here tomorrow. Don't worry." And I think that is the most important thing that they actually can say that. And I don't see that very often with management.

They'll say, "Oh, go home. You take care of your family, yeah, yeah, yeah." They won't say that "Work will be here waiting for you. Don't worry. It won't go away. It won't explode. It won't disappear." I think that's more of the thing. "It's okay. It's not a big deal. We'll handle it. We'll push out the schedule. It's no big deal. It'll be here."

ANA: Actually take actions to support their employees versus just words. 

ADRIANA: Yeah, we definitely need more of that. Absolutely. 

JENNY: Right. And then later on, not judge you based on the fact that, oh, your bonus this time won't be that big because you missed your deadline. Everything got slipped. But I think that's the expectation; it's supposed to slip. That deadline you just made up is just made up. It doesn't matter. You pulled it out of your butt, out of thin air, last week. Who cares? It's just a date. What is it? It's just a number; it's just that. And that's the problem is that they should realize it's just a date. It's okay.

ADRIANA: Yeah, I totally agree with you. And that's definitely been a personal gripe I've had around estimation. It's like, oh, you must stick with what you estimate. It's like, dude, I estimated. It's a best guess. If I were accurate, I wouldn't be working here. I'd be a millionaire or a billionaire. I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you. [laughter]

JENNY: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, those dates are just dates expected to be slipping.

ADRIANA: Yep. Shit happens, right? [laughs] 

JENNY: Yeah, shit happens.

ADRIANA: You can't account for everything. [laughs]

JENNY: You can't throw bodies at it and expect to actually keep that date. It's just not possible.

ANA: I think a lot of it, too, is like leadership leading by example of finding workplaces that have leaders who are also parents, underrepresented folks that are able to create a culture for their employees that they feel like they can bring their whole selves. Or they're actually taking spring break off because they're spending time with their kids at home or actually just signing off to do dinner with them and things like that. Those little motions really do go a long way.

ADRIANA: Yeah, exactly, exactly. Well, I think we're coming up on time. So I want to thank Jenn for joining us today. It has been super awesome chatting with you and getting your perspectives. And honestly, it's so refreshing to have a candid conversation about these things because we don't have enough of those conversations. Certainly, I'd say in the corporate world, that's the type of conversation that we don't get enough of, and you kind of take for granted in the startup world. 

So I think it's nice to surface these types of conversations because these are problems that still occur, and they need to be addressed. Like, we're not robots; we're humans. We all need TLC. We need to all take care of each other. So thank you for sharing your thoughts and your story with us and with our audience. 

Don't forget to subscribe and give us a shout-out on social media via oncallmemaybe. We actually just joined Mastodon, so you can find us on Twitter and Mastodon on oncallmemaybe. Be sure to check out show notes on oncallmemaybe.com for additional resources and to connect with us and with our guests on social media. For On-Call Me Maybe, we are your hosts Adriana Villela and...

ANA: Ana Margarita Medina. Signing off with...

JENNY: Peace, love, and code. 

ADRIANA: Woo-hoo!

ANA: Woo-hoo!