Thick Skin

 

The first time I attended a Dagstuhl workshop was in 2017.

From my experience, people who aren’t computer scientists, even in Germany, don’t know what or where Dagstuhl is. Thus, first an intro.

Dagstuhl is a, not-that-easy-to-reach, place in Germany that allows computer scientists to organize workshops quite cheaply. The workshops are invitation-only, and the crowd is kept to ~60 people. The goal is to focus on a research topic with experts for either half a week or a whole week. It is a big deal to get invited to one. Therefore, I was quite excited to attend one.

The first day of the workshop, we had a session, where people could sign up to give a short presentation on a topic that would potentially trigger discussion among the attendees. I did sign up. I gave my presentation. Except for a couple comments, the reactions weren’t that encouraging, and I received a somewhat personal, non-technical, negative comment as well.

For the purpose of this post, the topic of my presentation, the man who shouted out the personal comment, or the comment itself doesn’t matter. This man apologized to me the next day, which I appreciated. I have received nothing but respect from him since then, and he is someone I have high respect for as well.

The important thing is how I felt after that presentation, especially as a result of that comment.

I wished the week to be over and to get out of there. I was annoyed that Dagstuhl is out of nowhere, which is on purpose, so that people have very little distractions and can focus on thinking “big thoughts”. But if I could spend a few hours away, in a city, I could have more easily cleared my head and found focus again. I thought I would never want to attend another Dagstuhl workshop. I felt alone. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I left the evening social activities early to lock myself in my room. I over-drank one evening. My plan was to visit my cousin and his family, who live in Stuttgart, after Dagstuhl. I looked forward to seeing my cousin, a man, whom I had a very different relationship to, one that didn’t require any armor, compared to the men who surrounded me in Dagstuhl.

The next time someone reached out to me for a Dagstuhl workshop, it was 2019. I was asked by Goetz Graefe and Caetano Sauer to co-organize one, also together with Allison Lee and my academic sister Renata Borovica. That was hard to say “no” to, and that was the workshop that healed my relationship with Dagstuhl and helped me to get rid of most of my armor in similar work events.

 

With the distance of the years, I can now say that most of the comments after that presentation, even though not super encouraging, helped me develop better technical arguments and realize what I should have made clearer while presenting that particular topic. That is the thing with the technical comments. Even if they may sound negative or aren’t expressed in a constructive way, they can still help you improve yourself for the next presentation, discussion, paper or grant submission, project, system design ... This is one of the reasons why I love giving presentations and receiving comments and questions on them.

However, I cannot play pretend and put a positive spin on that personal comment even today. It was not ok. But was it really “I want to get out of here” bad? Would it make the same kind of impact on me today? Why did I have such a “thin skin” back then?

 

Earlier this year, I read (or audibled to be more exact) Roxane Gay’s Opinions: A Decade of Arguments, Criticism, and Minding Other People's Business.

Roxane Gay is one of my favorite authors. I once met her in Copenhagen airport. We were on the same flight. I saw her sitting in the waiting area of our gate, but no one else seemed to realize that she was there. I approached her and asked, “Are you Roxane Gay?”, to be sure. She confirmed. I told her that I really loved her writing. She thanked me and asked me for my name. Then, we shook hands. That was pretty much it. I preferred to keep the interaction brief, partly because I didn’t want to bother her in her private time and partly because I thought my heart was about to find its way out of my body based on the way it was pounding.

In Opinions, Roxane Gay writes about the “thinning of the skin”. Her argument is if a person or a group of people, such as minorities, are often subjected to comments or interactions that are hurtful or painful, their skin will become thinner. Hence, they will be more sensitive to any comment and may have more triggers. This argument contradicts the popular belief, at least the one I more often heard, that the more you face harsh comments or painful events the thicker your skin gets. She also questions the glorification of thick skin pointing out that thick skin implies the lack of feeling emotions.

 

This year, our department had its annual retreat in September, while I was in California for the HPTS workshop. In these retreats, we can propose to run a session on a topic we deem important such as well-being of PhD students, grant writing, finding collaborators ...

One of our colleagues, Louise Meier Carlsen, proposed to run a session on Advancing Gender Equality in (everyday) Academia. She asked the female faculty, postdocs, and PhD students to anonymously share some of the things we endured that can be put under categories such as harsher comments, dismissal, isolation, sexual behavior, etc. at work. Her goal was to avoid potential dismissive comments such as “these are isolated cases” by collecting data from a variety of women in the department.

On the last day of HPTS, I took some time to write about my experiences including the one from my first Dagstuhl workshop. I was grateful to Louise for running this session. It was helpful to write but also grim to realize that I could write so many things in such a short time. Similarly, it was both helpful and grim to read what others wrote.

 

Do I have thicker skin now compared to my pre-30s?

While I will never be a poster child for thick skin, I think the answer to this question is yes.

Did I develop that thicker skin because of all the shit I wrote about for Louise’s session? Or did I develop it thanks to all the people who supported or acknowledged me on the way making me realize that there are people who believe in and respect me regardless of those discouraging personal comments and interactions?

Before reading Opinions, I believed, somewhat uncomfortably, the former, because that is what I was taught by society, but the latter makes a lot more sense now.

 

Running to Schiphol

Last Thursday, I flew to Amsterdam for Tim Gubner's PhD defense. The defense was on Friday. I booked an extra day for myself in the city, since I like Amsterdam and I thought it would be a nice break after the extra-busy September.

I have been to Amsterdam many times at this point. This time, I did two things differently.

Firstly, for the stay, I picked a part of the city that I haven’t stayed before to explore something different, meaning I chose a hotel that was not 10-20mins walk to the central station. This choice came with the extra benefit of an additional m2 at a cheaper price for my stay while still being in a central location. 

Second, I didn't inform any of my friends living in the area, since I needed some time for myself, like it is expressed in that beautiful Lucinda Williams song Side of the Road. 

And I had a lovely day in Amsterdam.

Then, it was time to go back. From my hotel, the easiest route to the airport was taking bus 397 from Museumplein. My bus ride on the way to the hotel from the airport was ~30mins.

I was at the bus stop around 16:00. There seemed to be some delay in the bus schedule according to Google Maps, and I could see the traffic in front of us, but the cars still moved, and the bus came earlier than what Google predicted, so I got on it ~16:10. The bus moved slowly but steadily, so I decided to chill and turned on audible to continue listening to Kelly Bishop's memoir, The Third Gilmore Girl.

From the memoir, I learned that Kelly Bishop is a Tony-award-winning actress and dancer who has been rocking being a childless cat & dog lady since at least the 60s. As a Gilmore Girls nerd, I knew her as one of the pinnacles of the Amy Sherman-Palladino TV-universe, most notably for her role as Emily Gilmore, the mother to Lorelai Gilmore and grandmother to Rory Gilmore. The first time I watched the show, the mother-daughter relationship I focused on was the one between Lorelai and Rory. As I got older, in my Gilmore Girls rewatches, I became more drawn to the relationship between Emily and Lorelai and highly appreciated the existence of a matriarch like Emily on TV.  

Emily Gilmore is also part of my TV battle crew, which, in addition to Emily, includes Sister Michael from Derry Girls, Olenna Tyrell from Game of Thrones, Xena from Xena: The Warrior Princess, Buffy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Villanelle from Killing Eve.

Let's get back to the bus, which stopped moving somewhere after two stops. It was 16:45. I had been in the bus for more than 30mins at this point.

My flight was at 18:45. I prefer being at the airport at least two hours before for within-EU-flights, since there are no passport and visa checks. I aim for three hours, otherwise. In other words, I was already late based on what I was aiming for. While there was no reason to panic yet, it was time to put Kelly and my battle crew on pause and start thinking about alternatives.

I checked Google Maps again, but it wasn't able to show me a solution. There was a tram stuck in front of us and heavy traffic left and right. It was too far to walk to the Central Station at this point (~1hour), and I wasn't sure which other station I could check. I didn't know how to call a taxi in Amsterdam, but even if I did, I wasn't sure how a taxi could enter that mess or where to walk to in order to call one. In the meantime, we managed to move a little bit, but not by much. There were no announcements by the driver. Some asked the driver to open the doors so they could leave, but all the people with luggage remained in the bus, so it wasn't only me who didn't know a better way to get to the airport.

I decided that it was time to ask for help. I approached the closest person with luggage, who was a young lady (will call her Helper Sister from now on): "Do you know any other way to get to the airport?" She shook her head and said: "No." She looked worried.

More passengers became audible asking similar questions. Some started to move toward the front of the bus, and Helper Sister and I followed. Helper Sister started chatting with another lady in Dutch. Afterwards, she told me we would get off the bus and call a taxi.

Getting off the bus took some time, since the check-in/out system of the bus was disabled and people wanted to check-out before getting out. Eventually, people simply accepted that they would have to get out of the bus without checking out.

As soon as we got out, the tram in front of us started moving. The bus door was still open, so we got back in, and the bus started moving, but only to get stuck again in a short-while. 

At this point, I started thinking "They probably have another flight to Copenhagen in the evening. It is Saturday night, it shouldn't be difficult to find space in it. In the worst case, I'll stay one more night in Amsterdam." Helper Sister was on the phone talking to someone. The driver got off the bus to talk to some other drivers who were stuck in their cars behind us and came back with no news about what was going on.

Then, Helper Sister ended her phone call and told me: "I will leave and try something else, you can come with me." I replied: "OK."

It was ~17:15. We got off the bus. She mentioned something that I didn't fully get, but I remember hearing "I think it will be faster. But we need to walk." I said, "I am fine with walking." I blindly followed her as we alternated between fast walking and running. When we were at a spot where our side of the road was empty, meaning the cars could move, she started hitchhiking. It was the second time in my life I was hitchhiking. The first car we saw stopped. It was a mother and daughter in one of these small cars that requires the people in the front to exit the car in order for people to sit in the back. We did that at the side of the road and took our luggage on our lap. My luggage was a carry-on, but Helper Sister's wasn't.

Helper Sister told them directions in Dutch while in parallel explaining the situation. At least that is what I assume, as I can't really comprehend Dutch. We started to approach an Amsterdam Zuid sign, and I finally got the plan.

Where we got stuck in the bus was south of the city, which was closer to the Amsterdam Zuid station, where one can take a train to the airport. I don't know if hitchhiking was always part of the plan or if Helper Sister assumed we can walk/run to Amsterdam Zuid and improvised on the way.

We thanked the mother and daughter, they were lovely, made it to the 17:35 train, and were at the airport at 17:45. I was at my gate at 18:05 and ate a gevulde for dinner.

Helper Sister and I went our separate ways once at the airport since we were on different flights, but I thanked her a bunch before that. I don't know her name, she doesn't know mine either. The only thing I know about her is that she had a flight to Heraklion at 18:40 on that Saturday and she can speak Dutch. I don't know why she picked me from that bus full of passengers. Was it simply because I reached out to her for help? In any case, I am very grateful. I hope she had or have been having the time of her life in Heraklion.