A few times I approached a booth because I heard some good things about them. More often than not it’s an attractive woman who stands there all bubbly to attract engineers. I ask technical questions about the product because I assume that this person wearing the company’s shirt that they actually know something. But then they shepard me to toward the technical staff who are exactly who you expect them to be.
One time this happened I asked them why they aren’t at the front talking to people and they said their managers wanted someone who could pull people in. I figured out then that the eye candy weren’t even employees at the company.
Yep. It’s awful. And then you have the occasional other situation when it reinforces that women can’t be “real engineers” so a few of my friends and colleagues have been at booths at events and have to deal with awful sexist nonsense because of this being the awful sexist norm.
I hate when companies do this at conventions.
A few times I approached a booth because I heard some good things about them. More often than not it’s an attractive woman who stands there all bubbly to attract engineers. I ask technical questions about the product because I assume that this person wearing the company’s shirt that they actually know something. But then they shepard me to toward the technical staff who are exactly who you expect them to be.
One time this happened I asked them why they aren’t at the front talking to people and they said their managers wanted someone who could pull people in. I figured out then that the eye candy weren’t even employees at the company.
Yeah unfortunately this has been around for long time. “Booth babes” was coined in the 80s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promotional_model
Yep. It’s awful. And then you have the occasional other situation when it reinforces that women can’t be “real engineers” so a few of my friends and colleagues have been at booths at events and have to deal with awful sexist nonsense because of this being the awful sexist norm.