El-mom

Comment section (if needed, again).

This, but let me elaborate on it a bit. Talking about finances as a whole is taboo here, and the cultural underpinning, I think, comes from the majority's run towards catching up with the Joneses. Being honest will have us confront our reality, our financial illiteracy, and we'd rather not have those conversations altogether than actually face them. But the interesting thing here, even if you stop living in the loop of catching up with the joneses and start living a well-to-do (middle-class to rich) life (as I'm imagining quite the majority of the people here are), culture follows you, in ways you don't expect. It follows you in deciding to tolerate your employer when they delay your salary, it follows you in not asking for your worth to try not to look desperate, and it follows you in employers not following up on you the moment you ask for the number of your salary during the interview process. Maybe Tech Nerd (or Naty, one of them) is right, it's better to switch to companies abroad whenever possible.

Why Are Salaries Hidden in Ethiopian Job Posts? https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-salaries-hidden-ethiopian-job-posts-ethiopis-tadesse-dtm-pmp-uaf1f?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android&utm_campaign=share_via

Everyone, meet my child.

The April edition of LinkUp Magazine is finally here, and we’re so excited to be back and with new columns we know you’re going to love. This month, we sit down with communications professional Diana Yohannes for a thoughtful conversation on her journey, her work, and her take on storytelling and impact. You’ll also take a flavourful ride with Reboot Coffee, get a glimpse of the Creative DNA Launch, and explore a space that works with you, GullÍt, alongside new columns like PhotoBreak and more. And the best part? You can enjoy the full issue now on the LinkUp Premium app Read here now: LinkUp magazine: April Edition @LinkUpaddis

Comment section (if needed)

I've been thinking about respect quite a bit nowadays, in the sense of people who demand it. I'm realizing that the people whom I've deeply respected and tried my best to appear as a good person in front of, never demanded it or even cared for it as much. They made sure their boundaries were protected, and they clearly showed you where their lines were, but beyond that, they were the most humble people I've ever met. On the other hand, the people who actively demand respect, those who felt threatened simply because I treated them like everyone else, regardless of their status, were the ones to whom I lost my respect almost instantly. And thinking through that now, I'm pretty sure security in itself is highly related to the way they demand respect. The people I respect deeply were secure to the point that they didn't mind being treated as equal to other people (and sometimes, equal to people my age), because they also knew that their presence, the way they showed themselves, was of someone humble but also not someone whose lines you could cross. And I'm thinking... this applies to us as a nation. Our pride comes from our insecurity, our demand for respect comes from our insecurity. We're insecure about our wars, about still being poor, about not living by our national values, and when faced with it, we choose to mask it by "we're not black though", or "we're generous", or "we're the birthplace of coffee". Arguable in all honesty, and a rumble more than a writing trying to jot down its points and argue, but food for thought (both for you as an individual and a citizen of a proud nation)?

Rereading this classic, stumbled upon something I've been thinking about recently. Long rant incoming....

Reminds me of this

Another thing I've been mulling over is this. "100% of the people in our program are women" - really, why?

Ok, this is probably going to be an unpopular opinion, and I’m still thinking it through, so please argue with me. Am I the only one who feels a bit off hearing things like "80% of our graduates are women", or "we make sure that half our workforce is women," or "we need quotas to reach X% women"? And this is coming from someone who very much considers herself a feminist. My argument here is two things. First: if the goal is equality, what does that actually mean in practice? Isn't the number supposed to be, ideally and in most cases, close to 50/50? I understand the need to correct historical imbalances, and I’m not against intentional efforts to bring more women into certain spaces. I get that. And I'm ok with certain fields being tilted to one side like that (because, historically, let's not lie, preferences among the sexes towards certain fields exist), but neutral/casual places being tilted like that? That's not equality now, really, is it? The second argument follows up on the first argument, but goes something like this: if we acknowledge that there is a preference among the sexes, shouldn't we focus more on creating the spaces and the mindset that enable women to succeed more than the numbers? My counterargument here is in fields like nursing. You don't see anyone complaining about the number of men being much less than the number of women in nursing, and we all know that there really aren't THAT challenging systemic barriers and limitations (besides, maybe cultural perceptions) that limit men from entering the field. Shouldn't the same argument be there for women in Tech? Like, I get the baseline argument that there are limitations, but isn't focusing on the numbers and the figures somewhat... demeaning, unnuanced? To be clear, I'm not against increasing women's perception; I'm all for it. I'm just wondering, in our quest to push optics and quantifying every "impact" we come across, are we losing the nuance of what equality in practice is?

If you have a different opinion, please voice it. I would really love to hear different takes on this. #anotherrandombloginthesameday #gasp #Theblogseries

On subscriber number obsession, why you should consider opening a channel? (unedited, mostly)

(It actually feels weird writing long-form about this.) I have a confession… of sorts. I have been thinking about this during March, and it is something I have known for a while, but couldn't quite admit because..... it felt weird to say out loud. I couldn't care less about my channel’s subscriber count. I feel like it might be because this is a personal blog, and I know what I say, my journey, my shenanigans, aren't relevant to everyone. And I do not expect them to be. I used to care about numbers in the early stages of this channel (lord knows how happy I was when I hit my first hundred), but now, if you gave me a choice between 200 engaged subscribers who actually get something from what I post (could be entertainment, could be someone relatable, could be something valuable) and 20,000 subs for the sake of it, I would absolutely pick the 200 ones. I mostly (not currently, lol) keep this channel public because I remember 14-year-old me stumbling into random personal content creators and learning a ton from them. I think that, to some extent, had an effect on my growth as a human. I was lucky to stumble into the good ones (most of the time, at least), and I hope I can be that for someone else, too (at least for the most part, I know I'm not the best). But the temptation to make this private, you have no idea. I think this felt weird to admit because, to some extent, quite a lot of content creators here (and almost everyone everywhere) value how much their content spreads. And to be fair, this is a personal channel, so the logic is different. I am not doing this to get monetized, or to advocate for a cause, or to build some outward-facing project that depends on reach. I am here to vent once in a while, share about my day, and see whether anyone relates. To be honest, over time, the people here have made this channel more than just me, and they are also the people who push me, especially during the moments I start losing the relevance of this and want to delete it. It... almost feels like I'm breaking a norm here by not celebrating when I reach a certain number of subs or certain amounts of figures (and not in the revolutionary way, more so in the "is there something I'm missing?" way), but yeah, this is what I think. And I hope this serves as an encouraging point if you want to start sharing your journey, but wonder if you'll get people to be interested in what you have to say. More often than not, it's really not that deep. If your goal is reach, then yeah, that's a different discussion point, but if your goal is just to be out there, find people, let things out, and just have an outlet of sorts for things like this, go ahead with it. Even ten people are enough. Make of this what you will :)

#randomblogsareback

Make sure to pay 250 and send the screenshot to the organizers 👀

Come by :)

read here: https://open.substack.com/pub/circlingqalat/p/what-even-is-a-creative-hang-out?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=post%20viewer @subtitles_et

For the tiny PSIR population here: Link

Just going to leave this here. Enjoy when you get the time :)

Anyone interested in being a social media host (female), DM me at @not_eldana with a CV and a video. If you have any links to attach (Instagram or any previous works), that'd be much better. The requirements are the usual - confidence in front of the camera, enthusiasm, ability to engage. No experience required.