As I’m sharing my apartment with some distinct specimen from the IT-crowd I must really stress the fact that there has do be done something to fight the stereotypes associated with our profession.
It drives me crazy to see young people sitting for 2 months straight on the same spot on the couch and stare at what they already stared at work for 8 hours.
I’m far from a prime example anybody should follow, what I want to achieve with this cry out, is to hopefully annoy those addressed, make them reflect on themselves and remind myself never to let it come this far.
Having said this, I also must admit that not all of my mates are the nerds I was suggesting before, which gives me hope. Like I already suggested in a comment to one of Jonas‘ posts, our stay here in Ireland isn’t all about IT it’s more the social factor which is put to a test. Hearing just from one of my colleagues about a joint activity after wok with his workmates isn’t a good average. I must say going out with my colleagues from work was a good thing to do and that’s what connects people even more. Another positive aspect of activities like this is that you can meet even more people this way.
People who know me won’t be irritated by the teaser picture I used today, because they would know that I won’t propagate alcohol usage of any form. I rather prefer the atmosphere of a pub or bar because of the people and the way they act more openly.
So after a very nice evening/night at actually two pubs with people from work and some new acquaintances I took off early in the morning after just 4 hours of sleep to get the most of the day.
I made the trip we made by car before, with the Antrim Coaster (.pdf) because I wanted to see the scenery once again from a passengers perspective and visit the bushmills distillery.
It was a pretty nice trip as well as a nice tour through the distillery itself (unfortunately there were strictly no cameras allowed). I used my free drink voucher for a soft drink of course and had a tasty Steak Pie (my favourite kind of pie from now on).
Having relaxed a bit too much at my coffee break I missed the bus back to Belfast so I had to wait for 2,5h for the next bus (out of 4 this day). I decided to walk to the Giants Causeway from Bushmills but there I encountered the worst weather so far and the rain was so intense that I could not shoot a single photo and I probably contributed to the massive cold I had to fight for the whole week after this trip…
Anyway, I just got back in time to Belfast to get to the Paul Oakenfold Event that Saturday.
At first it was like:
…but then it was like:
1 2…
btw. this is the reason I rather prefer to take photos instead of recording videos (I am just slow and do better one frame at a time ;).
In the end I can say I’m happy with how the plan for that weekend worked out and would recommend it to everybody.
If hanging around pubs, clubs, cruising around the whole country and talking to total strangers (technically they are just strangers before you have spoken to them…) is the way to go is something you have to find out for yourself but I guarantee that you won’t find out by playing some mindless game the whole weekend…