Ceci n'est pas un job - Leila Verhaegen

Speaker 1: Hello everyone. Um today we we were talking about the Cinepas and Job For this talk I was inspired by a few famous people like Ronnie Margrit, Kant and Jean-Claude Van Damme. In 1929, René Magritte drew La Trahison des Images, which was a painting representing a peep. On this painting, it was written Ceci n'est pas une peep. I'll use the same concept for my talk. So my name is Leila. I'm 26. And I'm the co-founder of Leviat. Um I'm Django and Amber web developer and I love playing with electronics. Um this little plushie is Sam, my plushie debugger

Speaker 1: He is a bit sad because this year he didn't see his friend at DjangoCon Europe. Today we were talking about Jean-Claude Van Damme. and web development. I'll use some codes, well a lot of codes, of Jean-Claude Van Damme and apply them to the web dev web world, sorry. Let's begin with a little story. I often heard that my job was not a real job, that the fact I work at home was too easy. And that's that it was not working. Those remarks hurt me. I remember that thing my mom did a few years ago. We were in winter, woods were blocked by snow, and my mom

Speaker 1: called me to see if I could go to her city to pick up my little brother. And well, I accepted because it was my brother. The city was a forty-five minutes drive from my home in Fairwitz. And when W and when I arrived, the father of my brother was already there. I had wasted almost of the day and risk my life for nothing because I nothing better have to do anyway. Also sometimes people call us to see if we are free or if they can come over because they know that we are home

Speaker 1: and they are on holidays and are looking for fun afternoon or stuff or stuff like that In this talk, I'll use some codes to show you why our job is more than that and why we have a lot of responsibilities. But before that, if those remarks can uh can hurt me, can they hurt someone else? Yes, I think so. Is there something that we can do about that? The answer is also yes. A small disclaimer to be for to continue. Um I imagined and wrote this talk before the start of the pandemic. Since the start of it, some things have changed.

Speaker 1: Home workers are bet are better seen as well workers. But there are still a lot of people who don't know consider working at home to be actually working. A friend of mine regularly used the Oh hey work at home joke to say that she was no longer working. But why Jean-Claude Van Damme? Let's see what Wikipedia tells us about him. In the French speaking world, Van Damme is well known and often mocked for the picturesque aphorism that it delivers on a wide range of topics. Personal well-being, spirituality environment, women, dogs, this ability to crack walnuts with it

Speaker 1: with his buttocks, its realisation that Christianism is flood-based on the fact that snakes are nice and apples contain pectin which is anti-cholesterol, etc. He is not considered as a real philosopher nor a real actor Web development is not just a job. It's also responsibilities, creativity, power, and creation. But we will see more details about that during the talk. Um yes, there is f false ideas I want to change. I'm pretty sure There is more than that, but I have two false ideas in mind.

Speaker 1: The first one is home homework are not real workers. And the second one is We can't live from our job. I know sometimes I repeat myself, but I think this is very important to do. Yes, there is some false ideas about workshop because yes, homeworkers have real job. Exactly like others, like seller, like plumber, nurses or doctors. We all have a real job We all are we we are we all are real workers. There is also this question that I often heard, but

Speaker 1: can you really live from your job? But um yes, I think so. Well as of as we as long as we have work, we can't live Jean-Claude Van Damme said the cycle, the cycle of the cosmos in life, it is the big wheel. Which is made of things, moments, feelings. And the truth is that there is no truth. The truth is you have to find your own truth. My own truth How do you want me to talk to you this way? You would have spoken to me five years ago or three years ago or six months ago or yesterday or tomorrow

Speaker 1: You would have spoken to me that way. I couldn't have answered you that way. And thanks to my own truth, of which I don't have the answer of the of the truth yet I can speak to you in a more sophisticated way. Here ago, I would love I I would have talked to you about my muscles. by how m how much I hate in the morning, how beautiful and how how strong I am. I'm the best. Last year Uh no sorry. But in truth there is no better. In truth there is each himself We all change. Growing up our minds evolve.

Speaker 1: Last last year we did not have the same truths or the same desires as today. Last year I will never do this talk. This year I want to send messages. Today I want to talk more about injustice Sexism, homophobia, racism and more. I'm not utopian, but I would like to try to change the world. If I come to it with my job, it's a good point. But I think that I will really invest myself more in the causes that seem important to me Trust to yourself. You have to believe even more what you believe. And when you start to believe what you believe, there is no one in the world who can move you.

Speaker 1: Jean-Claude Van Damme. Trust to yourself, trust to your job and what you do because no one will do it for you. During a few d during few years I had the imposter syndrome. I absolutely didn't believe in myself. in my abilities. Fortunately, I was very surrounded. I thought I had things to prove And today I'm more strong. I believe in myself, in what I do, in my work, and I'm much happier. If I tell you that today, it's because the fact that I received critics from people about my job, about my capacities. about the fact I run everything by myself

Speaker 1: touch me. It's because of that remark that I didn't believe in myself. When you get in an elevator, you think as a lot of things to creations, to people, to memories. So we are never alone spiritually But physically in the envelope, if I'm alone, well here I am, and I stay there. Until the doors open and then I start to work. I move my envelope towards my everyday mission. In the envelope and daily job, you're alone, working from a home in an open space, with your headphones

Speaker 1: on, but when left alone with your toes. You realize that you don't live alone in this world. You create things. Might your creations have an impact on the world? Let's take a look at an example. Creation of the web by Tim Berners Lee. It was intended to help people shark related information. The web is in fact used for watching lower cats was no intended but generally good. Searching Stack Overflow on Google was intended Porn was no intended but no judgment. Bullying

Speaker 1: no intended but bad. Radicalization, no intended, but really bad. Could these unintended uses have been foreseen? Lurcuts probably not. Radicalization yes. Improving communication also improves the means of spreading propaganda and propaganda leads to radicalization. Should he have thought about it at the time? Probably not. But now, today, in twenty twenty We should know better. We have to think about these kind of things. A lot of web developers are alone in their job. They work from home and there there is others

Speaker 1: who work in an office with other people. When you work from home, a lot of people don't really consider you as actually working compared to people who go to the office every day. The human being in general in life reacts. We react. That is to say we Do what we are to do we are supposed to do. Work eat. I apologize for the expression but cheat But I find that a human being to has to create. That's true. In our job we react. We react to critique from employers

Speaker 1: from customers. We react to customers' demand that we accept because that's how we can afford food at the end of the month. But do not just react, create. The second quote on the slide is my motto is always recreate oneself. You have to recreate yourself to recreate a better you. And that is very hard and ha and and it's very easy at the same time. And the last one is You have to fight to try not to repeat our mistakes. They are easy to remember but always repeat we always repeat them. Humans make mistakes

Speaker 1: and it's okay. But only if we use it to improve ourselves. I really think in our job we can't just react to something. Sometimes we have to think about what we are doing. Is this a good project for me? Does it match with my values? We also have to create. Yes. We have to answer to the desires of the customer. That's a fact. But we also need to show ourselves, show what we can do via new things Uh I will read um two quotes, one from Jean-Claude Van Damme and the other from Kant. So Jean-Claude Landamme said, I'm fascinated by the

Speaker 1: air. If we remove the air from the sky, all the birds will fall to the ground. and the plans too. At the same time, the air you can't touch it. It said it exists and it does not exist. It feeds man without being hungry. It's magic. Deer is beautiful. At the same time At the same time you can't see it. It's soft and you can't touch it. The air is a bit like my point and can say the light dove the light dove when in its free flight its speed tier was resistant it feels might to result

Speaker 1: it that we t would do even better in antier space. Van Damme and Kant expressed the same concept here What is also applicable to ID, browser limitations, because no browser, no up there. We have to protect the web because web is like our brain and we want to protect our brain. We want to protect it from bad things that could happen. So we have to do the same with the web. If you make good choice in your research on the web, in your work, you will protect the web. Yay, we read all our codes. Well done everyone.

Speaker 1: There's a point I really wanted to abort on this talk. It's sexism. The web world is one of the more sexist worlds. Women and minority had a lot of difficulty to be integrated on. Jean-Claude Van Damme said something I didn't show them to you, but I wanted to talk about that. Some people think that women in particular can't work in the web world. But what I wanted to l wanted to tell you is that everyone can do this job. As a woman, a man, a gender food. or whatever. We all can have the same performance because what is important is not our envelope

Speaker 1: is what we are inside. The way we have to create things, to show to the world what we can do. And that is more important than anything. But what job really mean? The word the word travail from Latin tripalium is a thort instrument. If one of you here thinks that his job is a thought instrument Please think about this talk. Think that you have the power to change that. You can change this talk into into a wonderful and wonderful and passionate job I finished with the talk, but I would like to show you my own conclusions. For me, the dream

Speaker 1: and for everyone, even if people don't know it, and even if d if they don't do it if they don't know it, they know it The dream it's a feeling, it's a sensation, a sensation to real that happen if we want. For me, since the day I wrote my first line of code, I wanted to be a real developer. And today my dream is realized. I worked hard for that and I still have a lot of work to do But I'm on the good way. So please always trust trust in your dreams. Another quote of Jean-Claude Van

Speaker 1: Damme The big fight is against yourself. The victory is to have understood what you want and believe and to believe in it. For me today it's done. I believe in myself and I hope that if for you it's not it's not, I could have helped you a little bit with my talk. My role model is myself. I am my best role model because I know my mistakes. my qualities, my victories and my defeats. If I spent my take as if if I spent my time taking another model as a model

Speaker 1: How do you expect this model to be able to model in the correct line? To me that's not really true. I have another model with my partner. She teaches me a lot of things about life, about web development. But in the facts, I think this cause is quite true. You are you are your your better model because you know yourself Last one. The world is made up of our is made up of hours and molecules and electricity, like the Big Bang. You see and you see, and all of that together makes the universe

Speaker 1: I think this is quite the same for web world because the web world is made up of web developers, designers, graphic designers and more. And all of that together makes this wonderful and powerful community. Yes, that's true. This is not a job. It's much more than that. It's responsibilities, it's power, it's creativity. We can change the world with our job. We can't decide to do good or bad things. So maybe it's not a real job. But it has real consequences.

Speaker 1: I wanted to thank you all for taking the time to listen to this talk. I would also particularly like to thank you Daniele and Joachim. for the for their help. Without them I would not have been able to be to do my talk today. And I would also like to make a part a special dedication to my partner who also helped and urged me to not give up. Thank you.

Speaker 2: Yeah, sorry I'm in the train so it's hard to really speak, but uh it was really really nice. Thank you.

Speaker 3: Okay. Did someone have some questions? No, you will just ask me. I can't hear you. Why Um I I can't hear hear you Does anybody have a question?

Speaker 3: I have a different explosion. Oh yes J'ai moins que Yes, I think uh just I I consider G C D uh more a philosopher than an uh a memoist Oh okay. The question is do you consider GCD to be more of a philosopher or an amorist? And I consider him more philosophy. I

Speaker 3: I don't think it's funny. Did someone advance them? No.

Speaker 4: Yeah. Noah here. Noah.

Speaker 3: Yes. Hi Noah.

Speaker 4: Hi, hi, hi. Noah it was another question. I just wanted to say it was a good talk. Uh did a great job. Um I really enjoyed it. Really enjoyed it. Yeah.

Speaker 3: It was my first one, so I was a bit danced.

Speaker 4: No, it was it was good. It was good for the first time, yeah

Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it was great but uh the only problem that I at least I uh saw here is just it wasn't very clear sometimes what he talked because I guess because the mic was uh too close pure mouse or something. But accept that, great ock.

Speaker 4: Okay. Thank you Yeah. We will trade next time. Next DjangoCon you'll be doing great.

Speaker 3: Yes. It's I I just The the the the only thing is I can't do better next time. I can't yeah.

Speaker 4: Yeah you can do yeah you'll do great next time yeah not better you'll do great yeah

Speaker 3: Okay, thank you. Uh someone else No? Okay. Um well I will stop the cough then. Um thanks again, everyone.

Speaker 4: Okay. Bye bye