# [[Under Grafana-branded T-shirts]]  ## Pre-production ### Prompts ** Thank you for your openness to participate in this ongoing initiative. We want you all to have the platform to share your stories and perspectives. We’ve listed some guiding questions that you’re free to use/reference when constructing your response. You can also share what resonates with you outside of the questions if you so choose! - How have certain aspects of your identities (gender expression, sexuality, race, religion, etc) impacted the way you feel comfortable in corporate settings? - What role/significance did DEI play in you joining Grafana? - What environment do you seek out to help you thrive as a professional? How does representation impact your willingness to join a company? - How do you want your organization to build an inclusive environment? - How do you approach understanding those you work with? How would you like to see this reciprocated to you? - Share about your journey to be where you are today, while taking into account how your identity played a role in this process. - In what ways have you embraced your identities and in what incidents have you felt the need to cover it. Discuss the journey of being yourself in corporate settings? - Free response, talk, write, record from the heart. - How important is representation to you? How has that impacted you in your role and what you look for in professional settings? - How would you like to see diversity grow at Grafana? Inclusion, equity? - How important is it to you to have representation in the workplace? What are the benefits you see, and how has seeing or not seeing representation in the spaces affected you in the workplace? - Share your professional story? How have you navigated to where you are now? And how has your identities impacted how you’re accepted in the workplace? - What does inclusivity mean to you? How have you seen this represented/ how have you experienced this in the workplace? Where are some shortcomings to inclusion that you’ve seen, that you’re hoping to see it be worked on. - What are some tenants of DEI that are sometimes overlooked that you wish to see focused on?  - Share your thoughts/ experiences on how you’ve navigated the working world with your identity. What were some challenging moments you’ve endured and what did you wish the other party did differently? - Share an experience or time when you experienced a microaggression at work. What were the blind spots you noticed and how helpful do you think having training/ resources would’ve been to prevent this? - Share how you navigate the working world as your identity? What are some things you’ve had to learn along the way? ** ### Script > Share your thoughts/ experiences on how you’ve navigated the working world with your identity. Hi, I'm Nicole van der Hoeven. I'm a Senior Developer Advocate at Grafana Labs, which means I spend part of my time learning and building cool technical things and part of my time telling me people how I did it, through speaking at conferences, making YouTube videos, writing blog posts, and generally talking to the community. So part of my time is in private, and part of it is in public. The ambiguous boundaries between the two can be difficult to deal with. The most important part of my role is authenticity. I'm not here because I want to sell a product. I'm here because, as an engineer, I came across k6 a few years ago and fell in love with it. My job is fundamentally to communicate that passion. That involves sharing information about myself (what work I've done, what else I like) so that people understand the context around that passion. That's where it's difficult. Not a day goes by where I don't question how much I should or shouldn't share about my life and identity. - I'm a woman in a male-dominated field, and that changes how I dress and behave. - I am multinational, have lived long term in five countries on four continents, and I live in two countries right now. I genuinely don't know what to answer when people ask me where I'm from or where "home" is. - I'm multilingual and English is not my first language. I didn't grow up speaking it at home. - I'm deeply queer, in a way that permeates every aspect of my life. - I'm financially independent and I don't primarily work for the money. These are things I would usually not share right away with strangers, but sometimes it's just hard not to let those things slip out when they're integral to who I am. So I wonder: How much can I share while still being professional? - If I share too much, I risk alienating people, detracting from my message, or saying something that reflects badly on Grafana. - If I share too little, I risk struggling with my mental health from masking all the time, losing the opportunity to be the representation I want to see in our industry, or failing to authentically connect with people. I don't really have an answer here. It's a constant negotiation, and one I'm still struggling with. Until then, I'll keep most of these facets of me hidden under Grafana-branded T-shirts and a big smile.