It was another argument about badges that got me into trouble again. It was agreed that it would be useful for everyone to wear badges at the new series of evening networking sessions set up by the British Computer Society exclusively for women. The question was who would pay for the badges, and whose responsibility would it be to make them up?

I fought for my idea to be heard. “The solution is simple”, I shouted. “The committee members already have BCS badges, so they are sorted. As for the rest of us, all we have to do is take a badge from another event, take the card out of the plastic holder, cut off any logo, and pop the card back in again. Hey presto – badge for the night!”

Committee member EH responded with passion: “That will never work. Who would ever keep their badges from one event to wear at the next?” Above the noise I started to explain how I kept a whole set of badges intact over the course of five networking events in 2011/12, but nobody was listening.