Butterfly Nerd

Often in one’s career you have to do things you don’t like. This is one of those times. After a lovely trip to Switzerland last week, I’m paying penance in WAGs central. Today I saw three girls who were so brown I actually thought they were black at first glance, two words…oh dear! Girls in the North of England love their tanning salons!

My client is an office full of happy nerds. They sit all day coding, creating line after line, having heated debates about functions and spending hours gassing with the database guy about how to get a line of data to sort itself out. Today, I spent 30 whole minutes only hearing keys tapping while sat in a room full of people….wrong!

They are also on lockdown, its been ages since I’ve been in an office environment where they are not allowed to use the internet for anything personal. They even make you sign a piece of paper agreeing to it. Poles apart from my office full of bloggers, tweeters, yammerers! In my world (feel like I’ve been out of the office for ages!) it’s not out of the question to go past someone’s desk and see their current task on one screen and a blog feed on the other. It’s part of what we do, knowing what other people are thinking and saying about technology so our clients can trust us to know whassup!… Except when you’re in the client’s domain. I’m not even allowed to use my own laptop in case I infect them with something!

Another noticeable thing is the dress code. They take pride in their greys and blacks and perfect ties. I am one of only two women (out of 12-15 guys…keep loosing track). Plus I’m wearing jeans. It didn’t even occur to me to pack anything else, I live in jeans, I didn’t think I was entering the ultimate corporate vault and needed my old uniform! Add the colour of my skin and the increasingly high fro (it’s getting a mind of its own now and I didn’t find time to put it away) …well lets just say I’m noticing being noticed!

This is my world, having to constantly emerse in the land of the uber nerd so that they don’t forget about the real people on the outside, it’s a dangerous job but someone has to do it. I’ll get my thanks on the other side, when the people of the real world need never look for the help button again!

I thought I would share this delightful pic of a scooter I saw outside a restaurant in Geneva. It’s had a wee accident (see leakage) but I sooo want one of these! When I get one I’m gonna give it some makeup just like this one!