Heartcrossings

I am back consulting for client after a hiatus of three years. The last time around, they had just made a major push to outsource their software development work. The old hands in the company were still around, took pride in the products they had built and were accepting the new order grudgingly at best. The offshore team was expected to deliver high quality and when they failed, they were excoriated to put it mildly. If the B team did not cut the mustard, the vendor made sure they replaced them with A+ players. Someone like myself was able to work with the customer and help deliver a durable solution that met their business needs. It was a long and frequently aggravating process to reach the finish line but we still made it - the technical lead was typically an employee who functioned as the architect and oversaw the delivery. I remember sitting through some very brutal code review sessions after which forty to sixty hours of work was trashed and redone.That was then and this is now.

When strong is used in the context of women, often it implies strength at the cost of lost femininity. To be tough and womanly at the same time is a hard balance to strike. So you have the boss who cracks the whip and simply does not tolerate incompetence or insubordination. Her expensive clothes and accessories drip power and control instead of chic. On a "lesser" woman they may have made a fashion statement but not on her. Superficially there is nothing less feminine about the strong woman - she is just as attractive, blessed with just as much fashion sense as anyone else but in her mind she is strength first and woman later. She does not want gender to bias her or those who interact with her. I met Yvonne for the first time about five years ago. At the time, she was going through crisis in her marriage. Her husband had been cheating on her for a while and growing indiscreet about it. Her friends would find him with the other woman at restaurants and movies. The day she f