Mrs. Smith Goes To Silicon Valley
One day, back in my “previous life” as a law enforcement officer, I was sitting in the local jail with a co-worker waiting for our next block of morning court hearings to start. The coronavirus pandemic and the need for social distancing meant most court proceedings now occurred virtually, and as such deputies were no longer transporting incarcerated individuals back and forth from the jail to the courthouse for their trials. Those who were in custody now had their day in court through a Zoom-style meeting, sitting in a tiny office in the jail with two or three deputies, awkwardly communicating with the judge and attorneys through a screen instead of being physically present in the courtroom. Admittedly not the greatest set-up, but there’s only so much the system can do when a persons constitutional right to a trial is their constitutional right and has to happen, pandemic or not.
Anyways, on one particular day my co-worker and I had a bit of time to kill. Deputy Smith* had always been one of my favorite people to work with, an older guy who came back out of retirement to work part-time. Deputy Smith had a warm, jovial laugh and a very sweet spirit about him, a perfect fit in a jail environment where the day could often be stressful and gloomy for both deputies and inmates alike. But though I liked working with Deputy Smith, I didn’t honestly know too much about him. Figuring there was no time like the present, I started asking some questions about Deputy Smith’s life, which led us to the topic of his wife.
“So, what does your wife do?” I asked.
“Oh, nothing like this. She’s a programmer.”
My heart skipped a beat. A programmer!
Now, a little aside here — after having worked for five years in law enforcement and not feeling particularly happy with my career choice, I myself had stumbled upon the ~Magical World of Coding~ through the suggestion of a friend of mine. I had been using all sorts of free resources to learn some coding basics, and by the time of that conversation with Deputy Smith I had actually decided to take the plunge into applying for a software engineering bootcamp. Learning about programming filled much of my free time, and any mention of someone-knowing-someone who was actually doing the thing in the tech world filled me with a lot of joy …and an avalanche of questions, which Deputy Smith was more than happy to answer.
To say I was impressed with the stories Deputy Smith told me about his wife would be an understatement. Mrs. Smith had been working as a programmer for almost thirty years — basically working on computers before they became the computers we know them today. Mrs. Smith was also Black and had entered the burgeoning field of computer science when both the number of women and the number of people of color was strikingly low — to be a Black female programmer was very much an anomaly in the 90s. Deputy Smith told me harrowing stories about his wife in college, the discrimination she dealt with, the sometimes overwhelming feeling of needing to prove herself. But, like all wickedly smart and passionate people, she got her degree, got a job, and thirty years later was on the path to her own retirement. Deputy Smith beamed when he talked about his wife casually working on some calculus at the kitchen table, designing something for work — “I don’t know why she’s with me”, he laughed. “She’s just so smart!”
The thing is, there are so, so, so many Mrs. Smiths out there that we don’t know about or appreciate enough. People who have been defying stereotypes in the field for a looong time, who have been pioneers in their own way. For every Alan Turing or Steve Jobs or other fabled tech titan, there are Grace Hoppers, Ada Lovelaces, Adele Goldbergs, Katherine Johnsons, and thousands more like Mrs. Smith, who have been there all along, doing their own little part in constructing our now ubiquitous virtual world.
I don’t quite know where my coding journey is going to take me. I have some ideas and dreams, but I also know there is a very, very long road ahead of learning and working and frustrations … and, if I’m lucky, some triumphs too. Luckily for me there have been plenty of people in my shoes that have gone before me, whose stories I can lean on if and when things get tough. And maybe thirty years from now I too will be working at my kitchen table with a partner nearby, beaming and thinking to themselves— “I don’t know why she’s with me. She’s just so smart!”
*name has been changed