International Women’s Day — Inspiring colleagues: Maureen Smailis

I started out in life wanting to teach. 

I love it and while, as a secondary school teacher (like A levels) I was usually the only female teacher, it didn’t bother me. Because when it comes to what we can know, gender doesn’t make a difference.

So, when I left my job as a secondary teacher because I wasn’t being paid enough for my expenses, I thought to myself, What can I do that I would enjoy, but make better money doing it?

There was a training company in my area that was experimenting with a novel approach. If one took the Windows NT Systems Engineer course and passed all the certifications, then they would hire you at a salary that far exceeded what I was currently making.

Windows NT was the current Microsoft operating system in 2000 when I decided to take the plunge and learn a skill that would be more profitable. I was one of the few females who did so. In almost every class, I was the ONLY female. 

When I became an IT instructor, I was almost always the only female in the room.

And a great many of the students looked at me, with arms crossed, wondering, what could this woman possibly know about servers and networks? But they ONLY looked that way until I opened my mouth and started to show them how much I knew. 

It was, at that time, 25 years ago, almost exclusively a male job position. But IT isn’t like some other jobs where a certain amount of physical strength is needed. For example, you would NOT want me to be the firefighter who comes to rescue you, I am not physically capable of doing so. But that is NOT a limitation in IT.

The ONLY limitation in IT is how much we are willing to learn. 

Since that time more and more females have started working in IT and attitudes have shifted a great deal. 

Because of my work as a trainer, I have gotten to see a variety of different aspects or job roles that are available in IT and I have seen women excel in ALL of them. Whether one loves servers and Networking, or Security, or Data Analysis, there are good-paying jobs in every part of IT.

When I first started in IT, I wanted to learn everything. I quickly realized that the IT field is too big, too vast to do that. But that is also a benefit because there is a niche for everyone. I happen to love databases, especially Microsoft relational databases. The knowledge that I already had on how servers work and how computers communicate across a network helped in my ability to manage database servers. So, one piece of knowledge can help with the next piece of knowledge. 

NO matter the gender, no matter any physical limitations, there is a place in IT for anyone who wants a spot. 

It is all a matter of how much we are willing to learn. And the ONLY person who controls that, is us.