Geek Alert!

Today is Geek Pride Day, to quote Wikipedia: “an initiative which claims the right of every person to be a nerd or a geek. It has been celebrated on May 25 since 2006, celebrating the premiere of the first Star Wars movie in 1977.”

I like to think that everyone has a little bit of geek in them (careful) and I myself have many self-proclaimed geek qualities. I like my sci-fi and fantasy, I’m a big Buffy fan which has on occasions begun to boarder on serious nerdy-ness (yes I have signed photos), I love bad horror and last summer attended Fright-Fest (geek-o-rama!), do tuck my jeans into my socks when I cycle and would definitely not claim to be the coolest cookie in the jar when it comes to clothing, dexterity and romancin’.

As you’ll have gathered by now I also work with some geeks and nerds, and I’m not just talking about the IT department. We have the geekiest of geeks in the form of Andre, Lord of the Geeks in fact. I’m surprised there isn’t a picture of her on that Wikipedia page. But apart from Andre I think this department is possibly the ‘geek’ of the company as well (even going up against Finance), we’re full of the nerds and rejects and no one really knows what to think of us. At company events people tend to shy away and we keep ourselves to ourselves. Because of the nature of our work we can irritate the shit out of people and I’m sure if there was some massive company game of rounder’s our department would be picked last, with sand kicked in our face just for good measure.

But in true geek tradition we carry on regardless, unashamedly holding our heads high with our NHS glasses and awkward glances. Geeks rule. If there were a nuclear fall out then only the geeks would survive (probably because they’d seen how to avoid a nuclear fall out in an episode of Stargate Atlantis) and then would be responsible for the survival of the human race. Just as if they got rid of us lot then this company would fall on its arse without any flanges or christmas trees being supplied. What would they do? Hire more geeks I expect. I never said we weren’t expendable.

So today I raise my coffee cup to geeks all over the world. Especially those who follow in Andre’s footsteps with their LOTR loving, Elf speaking, Medieval garb wearing, sumo wrestling watching, falconry flying, armor and weaponry collecting, convention attending, costume making, ancient recipe cooking ways. I bet she’s like the head vampire – you cut her head off and geeks all around the world would drop down dead. Let’s hope that never happens. I’ll tell her to be more careful with that crossbow….