Sitting here at the docks. In a fancy Café in a fancy hotel.
Taxi driver tole us when he was young, they were tole not to go past O’Connell Street. Bullshit of course, yewd have to be able to go as far as Busaras.
“The Gardaí have been notified” the PA system used to announce, admonishing us to be beware of pickpockets.
The hippy lookin fella who looks like he has moved in on one of the benches give you a bag of mushrooms.
Docks now are a bit different. I remember U2 complaining that their recording studio was going to be torn down. Poor things, I hope they got over it.
I’m perched on a bar in a fancy café looking at the Luas going by. There are old terraced houses rammed up against glass shelled hotels.
I’m a nerd, so I want to see the sights. This has to be planned. I needed a disguise. I packed up my laptop backpack with it’s small unobtrusive logo on the back. Multinational logo. A fucking Nerd magnet. I generally just have it packed with baby wipes, nappies, the kids water bottles, but no… Not this time, this time I put a laptop in the laptop bag!
Stop number one on my sight seeing tour was the VEEAM launchpad conference. In my hotel I got to see the schedule. Wow, they got an awards ceremony and everything! In the National Conference Center and everything.
This looks very fancy to bogger boy here from the shticks.
There seems to be two types of people in the area. A load of people dressed all fancy, business causal like (grey, black, long coats and slacks). And a load of people working, builders and stuff. Unfortunately, I am dressed as neither.
I’m there with a bloody orange hoodie and long hair. I misjudged this. I was sticking out like a sore thumb. I threw caution to the wind, and headed across the river cause I wanted to see some more sights.
Crossing the big bridge with what looks like a TV screen stuck to the side of it, a loud South African fella (to judge by the accent) shouts behind me “Happy to be at (name of logo on my bag)”. I do hope this impressed his colleagues. Yes, my disguise was working, but fuck it, these weren’t the wildlife I wanted to see. I wanted Nerds in hoodies, not these business causals!
Bridge crossed, planning to get to nerd headquarters “google”, I see a pub. It looks old, like when the docks were actually docks. I can see a bunch of guys in there, with their long black coats, having a pint for lunch.
I worked a small while in London. In London, the sales guys, the account managers, the project leads, they all wear these long black coats. They work too long, go for pints after work in a suitably “traditional” looking pub, and get hammered. And talk. Talk shite. And here I am and I can see them, and it’s on the Docks in Dublin! How things change.
I continued to walk down the freezing street, towards the Google building. It was one of those winter days with blasting sunshine but fucking freezing. My back was sweating from the dam laptop bag, and my hands were about to fall off from the cold. Aggressive weather I would classify this as.
Then I realised. All the nerds will probably just be working from home. All the hoodie wearers could well be getting forced to “enter the docklands”, maybe once a week. Some see their future, knowing full well that some day soon, they too will be in “business causal”. Some will question why they are even working for this crowd.
That’s why the South African guy shouted at me, he recognised me, he knew who I was, and that I didn’t belong here.
For now.