2025-10-30 –, Main Stage
I always tell my students: "Failure is fun! We learn, when things fail!" ... so why do I feel so shitty right now?
Tess talks us through channeling moments of failure and "imposter syndrome", into moments of introspection and learning.
Every one of us will have moments in life where things end up in confusion or frustration. Relationships, family life and a plain fact of daily life: our jobs.
A few times in her life, Tess has struggled through the questions "Is this really what I want? Am I really the right person for this job? Am I really not some fraud, fooling everyone?" Each of those times, it took a lot of time and soul searching to find the answers.
Figuring things out like:
- Why Tess left IT ... and came back.
- Why Tess is not fulfilling her long-lived dream of employing juniors.
- How she failed OSCP ... and some day she'll be okay with that.
- How she might not be doing what she wants to... and how she copes with that.
Tess would love to share with you some of the tools and techniques she's applied over the years, to get to some of the hard truths she had to deal with. Mind mapping and associative thinking, the "Mindy"-method and even tarot. No spooky esoterica, just another great way of asking yourself questions.
An open and heartfelt talk from someone with 25 years of professional experience, hoping to make life a little easier for her juniors.
Tess Sluijter-Stek often describes herself as "a Jill-of-all-trades, but master of none", as "eternal newbie" and as "nerd-for-hire". She contracts as consultant for Unixerius and she teaches Linux and DevSecOps at ITVitae.