Many people in IT are non-conformists, compared to our non-IT brethren. Common themes include being good at math, enjoying games – video, but other tabletop games like D&D as well –  beginning our day with coffee or other forms of caffeine, can’t stand that sportsball, introverted, spend all day in front of a computer, and a few others. This certainly isn’t an exhaustive list, and not everyone hits these, but I imagine most reading this found a few things that describe them. Others, like coffee and caffeine, aren’t limited to IT people, but add to the collective list of commonalities. For a bunch of people going against the grain, we seem to be choosing a rather similar direction!

You don’t have to be a non-conformist in IT, though. I’m not! I do enjoy my video games and I’m on the introverted side of the spectrum. However, I don’t enjoy math beyond calculus and even prefer english and related studies, I don’t drink caffeine on a regular basis, I love team sports especially football, and my main hobby is woodworking in my garage. I’m the guy whining about the lack of just plain water at a conference or causing your eyes to glaze over when using football analogies in meetings.

If there’s any point to this short article, it’s a reminder that we all do really have different interests. It can be a little weird to be made the outsider of the outsider group, so be sure to celebrate those differences instead of using them against each other.