The way back home
Every one of us has a place where everything and everyone in it is familiar; where everything just kind of falls into place. A place of comfort and trust, a place that we call home.
One of my favourite things to do is watch and play soccer. I cannot remember a time in my life where I didn’t play soccer. My most treasured childhood memories are from the matches I used to play with my friends. Unfortunately, when growing up, my passion for sport was often burdened by the need to fight against stereotypes and the misconception that some activities and tasks are “not for girls”. I cannot count the numerous times when I heard misogynistic sentences casually thrown around, sentences like: Girls can’t play soccer, girls shouldn’t play in the school band, girls can’t be engineers.
Nevertheless, reminiscing back to my childhood, I cannot help but realise how simple those times were. I would play with boys and, of course, I would get laughed at, but that only lasted until I started kicking the ball and they’d realise that I knew what I was doing. After those awkward few minutes, we would be friends and I would become one more player in the team.
Even though the soccer field was my home for many years, life goes on and it pushes us in different directions. Eventually I had to give up on my longstanding dream of being a professional soccer player, as that is not a realistic career choice in Honduras (much less if you are a woman).
I searched for something that would make me as happy and as comfortable as playing soccer for a long time. That’s how I found programming. I knew nothing about programming before deciding that I was going to study Computer Science. I have always loved a challenge and this was not going to be the first one I was going to back down from.
When I was working on completing my degree, I often felt like a failure. There were a couple of times where I really doubted myself and wondered if, maybe, everyone who ever shut my ideas down was right. Maybe girls weren’t meant to be programmers. Despite all my frustrations, I kept pushing through my major and managed to get a job in the field.
Great! I had what everyone was looking for, right? Well, I had a job and I was learning, but something was lacking, it didn’t feel like home. It was time to find that missing piece. That’s how I got to PartnerHero.
I started working at PartnerHero in January 2015. Everything was different about the company. I remember how nice and inviting everyone was on my first day. I remember feeling so comfortable that work stopped being a burden and became something I was looking forward to. Once again, (months after) life happened. I got an offer for a different position in another company. I was terrified both of accepting it and turning it down. I was at a crossroad and, in that moment, it seemed to make sense for me to take the new path, the new challenge, as it was a next step in the ladder of my career. So I took it.
After some months of juggling between two jobs, I came to the conclusion that I wasn’t happy. The new opportunity was nice, and I learned valuable lessons that I hope I never forget, but it wasn’t home.
I am not the only one to have taken this journey. One of my favourite players in the world, World Cup champion Christen Press, has had her fair share of struggles to find her “home”. Christen won the Hermann trophy award back in 2010 and she was, and still is, the all-time leading scorer for the Stanford University women’s soccer team, with no less than 71 goals. Despite all that success, she was missing the one thing she wanted the most, getting called to be part of the US women’s national team (USWNT). This caused her to develop a negative relationship with the sport that she used to love the most.
When the league folded back in 2012, she packed her bags and went to play in Sweden. She focused on falling back in love with the game and playing for herself. Playing because it fulfilled her, and not because she wanted to make an impression on any coach. Unexpectedly, she got a call to be part of the USWNT a couple of months after she let go of her dream. She has been part of the team ever since.
She is now the captain of her club, Chicago Red Stars. She is part of the Equal Rights fight that the USWNT is leading against the US Soccer Federation. While I do admire her technical soccer skills, those are the things that make her a role model to me.
Women like her are still out there fighting for equality in the workplace: we see it in politics, science, and sports, to name a few. I am proud to say that I work for a company where we are valued as professional individuals despite our gender.
I see the struggles that women all over the world are fighting against, where something as basic as having access to education is still a battle for many. I am grateful that PartnerHero is a place where being a woman doesn’t mean that I cannot manage people, or being young means that I should just follow orders and not provide input.
I didn’t move all the way to Sweden like Christen, but I did stray away from PartnerHero before I realized that it was my home. I might not be the captain of the Chicago Red Stars, but I am the manager of my team. I am not a world champion, but I love my job and I’m proud to say I work for the best company in Honduras.
I’ve found my way back home.
