Me: “Hey, housemate, do I want to go to the local technology group’s monthly hack night tonight? They posted about it to the mailing list but didn’t mention the time, the facilities available, or whether there’d be food, but I managed to figure out the location by looking at older mailing list posts, and I’m guessing it might be at 6pm, the same time they hold their meetups. There’s no information about it on their website.”
Housemate: “What’s the best case and worst case scenarios?”
Me: “Best case: it’s where and when I think it is. There are bunch of cool people hacking on awesome projects. I find someone who is knowledgeable but doesn’t yet have a project to hack on, and they pair with me on Growstuff. Someone has provided pizza, including good vegetarian options, and there are drinks other than beer. We get lots of good stuff done, and they sign up as a contributor long-term.”
Housemate: “And worst case?”
Me: “I take public transport for over an hour to get there, find a motley group of people, some of whom I dislike or who dislike me, others of whom just dismiss me as not a serious/cool enough coder. There is no food, and I haven’t had dinner, so I wind up low blood sugar and cranky. I try to work by myself but nothing goes right and I give up in frustration. I spend over an hour getting home again. In the rain.”
Housemate: “I have to say, the worst case sounds more likely. If you want to get out of the house that badly, you could just go for a walk.”
Housemate gives good advice. I’m going to go for a walk. I wonder if the grocery store has paneer?
