Last week was one of those great ThoughtWorks weeks in Chicago. There were lots of people in the office, it was a new hire week (with several people in orientation), and there were lots of gatherings to which I was either invited or managed to latch onto. It's always a mixed crowd at ThoughtWorks, with business analysts, project managers, and, of course, developer geeks. During one of the meals, I started talking about Language Oriented Programming (I know, a big shock to those of you who read my blog and/or been around me lately). The business analysts sitting nearby didn't have a clue as to what we were talking about. At one point, I turned to someone sitting next to me and apologized for the obviously obtuse (for non geeks) discussion. That reminded me of a similar situation that happened in Columbus, OH, when I met fellow ThoughtWorkers (a developer-type and a project manager). Of course, we started immediately talking about very esoteric software engineering topics. At one point, just as this week, I turned to the PM and apologized. She said: "That's OK, I'm just enjoying the passion".
Both events, last week and in Columbus, is a vivid reminder why I do this for a living and why I work where I do. How many people you know are really passionate about what they do for work, and so actively proselytize it to everyone they meet that can understand it? And in fact actively seek out people who can understand it so that they can talk about it some more? Even the non-techies at ThoughtWorks enjoy it, albeit vicariously.
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Thank you, Neil - you have taught me "vicariously", my new word of the week. I didn't even know that there was a word for feeling things as though participating in another's experiences.
But now I know what to say next time my skydiving friend gives me the heebies over her near-death experiences.
- Liz
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