Volunteering to help set up the local beer festival has a number of benefits.
- It’s nice to do some proper, physical work for a change that has visible progress and a tangible benefit, even if only for a few days. I was going to say that there’s no work-place politics but the person leading our barrel lifting team did seem to whinge at length about the poor allocation of volunteers and stewards by upper management.
- You get to meet new people outside your work/home/friends set. I had a great chat with someone in the staff tent after the evening’s work was finished and the “thanks’, guys” beer was flowing. We started off chatting about Xbox games and Microsoft and phones and so on before I asked him where he was moving job to. “Glaxo”, he replied, which allowed me to get evangelical about @BenGoldacre and his Bad Science / Bad Pharma books. I think it ironic, assuming it was true, that he was going to be working in corporate ethics and compliance. After many years spent in the past at Microsoft, it’s nice that there are companies like GSK that put the title “evil empire” into perspective.
- Beer tokens, I hope…
Follow Reading Beer Festival on Twitter – @ReadingBeerFest.
Get tickets from www.readingbeerfestival.org.uk.
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