In an industry with such fierce competition as professional audio, most of us are quite thankful for all of our achievements, and opportunities, which come our way. In almost any situation, even situations where we think we have it tough, there are a myriad of aspiring and out of work engineers just salivating for the chance to be in our shoes.

To my absolute amazement, awhile back, I ran across a post on a pro audio web site where a touring engineer with over 25 years of experience, proceeded to complain endlessly about work. He also spent a great amount of effort insulting a certain segment of our industry that work very hard in the trenches. Almost every sentence in his post started out with "I'm sick of…" As a female engineer in this industry who is looking for steady work in a slowing economy, I found myself outraged.

This engineer is currently on a shed tour and faces the horrible ramifications of doing a "club tour" this fall, which he goes on the state that he is "dreading". His reasons? Well, he seems to think that clubs use his riders as "toilet paper". He claims that club technicians do little more than drink beer and socialize with friends. Can you believe that they provided him with Presonus Gate/Comps instead of Drawmers? Unbelievably, it gets much worse, and he actually attached his full name to this masterpiece.

While he complains and dreads his upcoming work, many out of work engineers received similar messages to the following:

In the case of this retraction, the opportunity occurred only a week after posting the open position, which is located in a very hot market for vacationers and business travelers. Now if this isn't a sign of our times, I don't know what is. Production companies are obviously either downsizing or sitting tight in hopes of holding on for a more prosperous day. Every day we see a new example of this trend in newspapers, trade magazines, and web sites worldwide. Meanwhile, our friend "dreads" his upcoming tour. You can imagine my lack of compassion for our touring friend.

I was approached by Roadogz.com to write something from a woman's perspective. I was asked if women still have a hard time breaking into the business. That alone tells me things are improving quite a bit. I think everyone has a hard time breaking into our industry.

It has gotten much better for women wishing to work in the audio industry, but the glass ceiling still firmly holds in place for the most part. I have experienced the ricochet from the glass ceiling many times throughout my 10 years in live sound. It definitely is not an easy business regardless of who you are or what experience you may have. However, getting your deserved slice of the pie as a woman in the audio business is something I continue to struggle for.

I found quite a few inaccuracies and items to which I hold strong disagreement in the article "This Is Woman's Work" published in this month's issue of Pro Sound News. I found it to be quite arrogant and pompous on the behalf of the businesswomen interviewed for the piece. I worry that articles such as this one stagger the efforts of the working female engineer. I personally run a web site and organization for women in audio, Women In The Audio Industry, which equally welcomes everyone and simply motivates networking of women in the industry. I would never allow someone to quote me on Pro Audio being "Woman's Work", and I take as much offense to that as if it were quoted as "Man's Work". I believe this article seriously portrays women in pro audio in a negative light and does a great injustice to representing the majority of men and women in our industry. We all work hard and we all deserve our slice of the pie based on merit. And for every person in the audio industry, who currently dreads their upcoming gig or finds his or her self to be superior to others, there is an abundance of qualified hard working eager men and women looking to take them out of their misery.

Amy B. Powelson
Audio Engineer