You just have to meet people
October 2015 ยท 3 minute read
After 10 years in hospitality, seeing and hearing some pretty whack shit and having experienced people at their worst I was under the impression that it would now take a lot to shock me. Wow, was I wrong….
The people I’ve met recently are honestly a whole new level of people. Their entire way of thinking and the conversations they can hold are just on a whole new level of intellect. The articulation when these people speak is insane, I feel like I’ve broadened my vocabulary over night to words I’ve never even heard of before. I can’t give any examples, that’s probably not true but that just how it kind of feels.
Amusingly though, along with that intellect comes also a whole new level of arrogance. This is by far my greatest pleasure, in particular now when I meet arrogant IT people (most IT people, and rightfully so). I don’t know if it’s the years in hospitality or just the years but I’ve learned to let people speak before offering my opinion or experience. I also like to ask dumb questions sometimes just to see what response I’ll get.
It’s fun to play for a bit before I get offended by how stupid people think I actually am. Aaaand that’s when I lay it out. It’s fantastic. Didn’t expect I knew about that did ya? All of a sudden the conversation changes. You can feel it. The opinion that was initially formed of you just changed. Just this minute. And now it’s your turn to be a little bit arrogant too. There’s no feeling quite like that satisfaction.
I’m slowly getting there though. One of these days soon I’ll decide, screw it, screw the comfort zone, I don’t even care any more. I can kind of already see what that days going to be like. I’ll be over tired, there’s a possibility I will have had a beer or two and I’ll cracking ridiculous jokes to complete strangers non- stop. Like unstoppable, non-stop. Now that I think about it, this is regularly how I meet new people. Ha, funny. Maybe that’s not overtired, maybe that’s just what happens when I do get comfortable….
I’ve been going recently to a few IT meet ups with a friend, mainly because I want learn cool new stuff and meet more people in the industry. So far I haven’t managed to actually talk to anyone aside from my friend who I’ve been going with. I guess there’s a few factors there. 1. I’m shy and awkward so that doesn’t help. 2. Some of the talks are a bit out of my depth, since I’m still quite new. And I don’t want to ask stupid questions. Although, apparently the questions I had wanted to ask but didn’t have the balls to ask weren’t actually all that stupid. 3. Its hard to form a defendable opinion about a topic you know little about to people who know a lot about it.
Like I said, one day soon I’ll get the confidence and this won’t be a problem. In the mean time, all I can really do is keep showing showing my face, learning and writing code. When I feel like I know enough, that’s when the confidence will come. Not that I know how much enough is but I do know how I feel when I understand something new and get it working myself. (Pretty sure I just nailed omniauth with pundit and rails, just saying :D)