Metropolitan
Welcome to London — Episode 08
London. Friday. 9.30 am. It’s one of those days. We all gather around the “high table” in the meeting room and wait for the stand up to start. By this time I’m usually in the office for a couple of hours and sorted all my tasks for the day, finished last bits from the day before, checked in last changes to my code, ready to start real work.
I already came in with a particularly good mood today and can’t help but to smile enjoying the silent company of my fellow team members.
The entire floor is fairly testosterone heavy — I did not expect something different in the still male-dominated IT world. My team members, Team Rhino, however, are all men.
Not that I feel this is a disadvantage. It’s not like my friends predicted, that they reed every wish from my eyes, but close enough — buying their loyalty with homemade cake was almost too easy — they are literally eating out of my hand.
The Rhinos always assemble in the meeting room with the chest-high table and the uncomfortable but rather fancy cocktail bar-like chairs and while I listen to each team member, which task they tackle at the moment I’m overcome by the feeling of being part of a soap opera.
Staging one of those cool offices like you might imagine a startup. Of course, we don’t have table football and laze around in bean bags all day — we do real work.
The star of the series is obviously me — Nicky Dängler, Programmer in the capital of Great Britain, devoted to her job, successful, smart, metropolitan. Music is overlaying our conversation and the camera zooms in on my colleagues.
Sometimes it is ridiculous how well we fit stereotypes.
We have the classic comic book fan. Not only his desktop background shows different DC heroes, also a Superman belt buckle holds his suit trousers and when he rolls up the sleeves of his shirt he unveils a massive Batman tattoo. That is commitment!
We are beyond a dress code or any taste in Fashion. At the annual meeting where we all swapped the hoddies for suits for a change, the guy to my left wore his favourite outfit: purple jeans, a red sweater, and orange socks in his sandals every German would be proud of. And I am not making this up. Not even my designer mind would flag up this colour combination to make you aware of how bad it can be!
It felt a bit odd when they introduced me to Mr. Bennett in the beginning. I met Bill and Holly and Tony and then Mister Bennett. I did not find out why we call him by his surname — and thinking of it I am not even sure what’s his first name — however, if he wants it this way, no one’s going to challenge it.
Then there is the guy who prefers to wear slippers in the office and keeps them under his desk. So whenever I meet him in the office with a cup of tea in hand I imagine him just stepping out of bed and walking over to his computer to program a bit.
British accents are really tricky for me as a foreigner and there was one guy I was literally scared to talk to because I felt so embarrassed to ask again and again when I couldn’t understand what he was saying. Eventually, I found out, that it is not an accent, he is just mumbling so badly behind his bushy moustache that even the others don’t always know what he is talking about. But with some training, I am meantime fluent in Gibberish.
I have to admit we are a bunch of nerds. Not the hipster type of nerds with fluffy beards, stylish glasses, and a lovely spleen. We were all nerds before it became cool. We are not the popular kids at the playground.
We use to say “normal people” when we talk about our clients or colleagues, which means everyone without a technical background. However, it unconsciously implies that we are not normal? I feel pretty normal!
I am so used to my fellow Rhinos in the meantime, that I don’t really notice their awkwardness anymore.
The round comes to my turn and the soap opera tunes fade when I announce my tasks in the stand-up: “I finished the new feature, so I will need one of you to talk through it.”
Chris, our team lead nods scribbling away on his notepad. “Sure, just grab one of the guys.”
“You are not supposed to ambush us, though,” Tony adds and crosses his arms in front of his chest. If I am the star of the show, he is the ever pessimistic comic relief. He is always helpful like that and I just roll my eyes at him.
“Well volunteered, Tony,” Chris decides without looking up and moves on to the next topic, cutting off the complaint before Tony even opens his mouth.
On the way back to our desks I do grab Tony gently by his arm and redirect him to my computer before he can slip his duty.
I bring up my layouts and guide him through my click dummy. My face is glowing with excitement, like a child presenting her drawing to her dad.
But Tony’s not the type who’d pin some doodles on the fridge — his frown deepens with every word I say and when I finish, he only sighs and shakes his head as if disappointed of my ignorance.
“First of all — there is a typo in the headline.” Again this headmaster-look, although Tony is only a few months older than me.
I lift my chin defiant and wait for the second But.
“Second, did you think about the underlying system? How all of this can possibly work in the real world?” His glass is always half empty.
But I am prepared: “Of course I did! And our system is actually providing all of the requirements already, we just have to link the dots.”
Tony’s forehead has so many wrinkles by now that I wonder what his face looks like when he smiles — what does not happen often in general.
“The data might be there, but we cannot ignore the time it will take to process all of these calculations. The client expects results in an instant,” he pronounces slowly.
Trying to guess his next question I jump right in: “That’s exactly what this button is for.”
I jump up and scribble directly on our whiteboard wall. Passionate I set a full stop behind my last figure and turn, excited for Tony’s approval. Arms still crossed, an eyebrow raised — so hard to please!
Half an hour later, two metres of drawings on the wall further and with three other developers around us Tony struggles to find more arguments against me — however, he tries really hard.
“It’s probably not too bad,” he admits eventually. That’ll be all I get — good enough for me.
“But correct the typo in the menu, before you write up the tasks!”
I salute with a smile and we all return to our desks.
Tony sits across to me on the same bank and peaks between the monitors. “Good job, Dängler,” he states and smiles.
“Keep it down, you make me blush,” I joke and lean back in my chair, indeed a bit flattered by this rare honour.
The thing with us nerds is, you will have to get to know us. We are the shy and awkward ones standing at the side sticking to each other and making jokes no one considers as funny — socialising is not really our thing.
But once you do invest some time, you’ll realise our jokes are hilarious. We don’t need to draw the attention to our “genius”, so we rather stand by the side and let the insecure ones take their selfies in the middle of the room.
We might not be admired or cool, but we really don’t care what anyone thinks of us. So, who is truly cool in the end?
To Mister B. — The living proof that first impressions and prejudice hide the most interesting people from the doubtful.
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