At the Pizza Party

This started life as a completely unrelated excise in abstractly defining common tech-related professions like you would for communicating tech-infra, but it ended up being this silly mess of unhealthy tech-company stereotypes.

Please email in your additions, corrections and protests at the bottom of the post.

You’re meeting up with friends for your usual pizza party on Wednesday evenings, but only unhealthy tech stereotypes and other related professions show up.

People at the Pizza Party

Lawyer’s at the Pizza Party, precisely write around the subject of a pizza night happening next week. What the pizza is, specifying that pizza is not pie, how it will be eaten, what happens if it’s not, and specifically how to incrementally accumulate more slices in a conflict that may not occur. The pizza party was delayed.

Accountant’s at the Pizza Party, obscurely choose precisely how much of the pizza, and how it’s specific toppings are comparatively enjoyed, by whom, and how much could arguably be considered as officially part of the crust. The host’s old dog always gets the crusts.

Police at the Pizza Party. They help people socially navigate the pizza party when poor decision making leads to a margarita pizza for everyone regardless of their order, or when the pizza is actually cracker with cheese but charged at XL pizza prices by one of the attendees.

Marketing at the Pizza Party. They tell everyone that Donna Kebab Pizza is good for your health. (Small Print: assuming drunken-tastiness is considered part of your health. Based on studies of Kebab shop owners preferences.). And that, Blockchain Hawaiian pizza is brand new idea, and the tastiest pizza graze ever. (Tastiest that was made by us. Tested by our pineapple reserves department. May not contain Blockchain.).

Venture Capital at the Pizza Party. The regular pizza party host doesn’t actually own the house anymore and won’t be at the party, but they assure us that new owner says the pizza parties are going to be even better, with more pizza. You’re told you now need make a AI pizza designer app. It hallucinates disgusting pizzas, that never actually arrive. But the new hosts mate, Dave, has heard that people like AI, so he paid for all the pizzas, drinks and everyone’s taxi home. No one got any pizza though, and before next pizza party they sold all the chairs, and we’re now told that pizza parties will now be absorbed into Taco Tuesdays, only half of you are invited.

Domain Knowledge Hoarding Engineer at the Pizza Party. We’ve only done cheese parties before, and we all know Sandra makes her own cheese in the kitchen. She takes everyone’s pizza order, but she’s not sure what salami is, and the pizza shop can’t use her cheese anyway. She orders bread for everyone instead. We have her cheese on bread, and reluctantly accept calling it pizza.

Paddling Pool Engineer at the Pizza Party. The host’s flatmate Jeremy has been eating pepperoni pizzas here for thirty-five years. He’s fine with having a pizza party, but he’s only ever eaten pizza in the bath. He says that’s the best way. The host is nervous about upsetting Jeremy, but they can’t afford to build a swimming pool, plus Jeremy can’t swim. We flood the living room instead, everyone is cold and the pizza is soggy but we have technically had a pizza party. Jeremy stayed upstairs the whole night.

Angel Investors at the Pizza Party. A mate of the host wants to try lots of types of pizza flavours, just in case his usual goes out of stock, but he doesn’t have enough friends to have a pizza party with so many pizzas. So, he’s joining us tonight and choosing the pizzas, and tries everyone’s pizza, but he is paying for them.

Founder Syndrome at the Pizza Party. John makes an inappropriate joke and orders six pepperoni pizzas, even though we all spent ages deciding on a good mix of toppings. John gets angry and says he started this pizza party night tradition, he likes pepperoni and has seen other people eat pepperoni before. You’re not the right kind of person if you don’t like his choice of beer. An old friend is asked to leave the party abruptly for no real reason.

Commercial Sales at the Pizza Party. Jane will get you the special pepperoni pizzas, if you order twice as many. She says they’re worth more, but they’re actually cheaper. You can just freeze the extras for next time. They just end-up being normal pizzas, and don’t really freeze well, and you were up-sold stuffed crusts at the last minute. But, everyone’s happy anyway because you technically got a good deal and we’re all board of ordering now.

The Blackbook at the Pizza Party. You normally order from Local Pizza Shop, but Sam’s brother-in-law is the owner of Fancy Exotic Pizzas Incorporated. He only orders pepperoni but you all get amazing pizza flavours delivered in five mins, and you don’t think anyone’s actually paid for it yet. Sam get’s invited more often, but he doesn’t actually like pizza that much.

GDPR at the Pizza Party. Jane is worried someone will smash our windows. So now, we can only eat one big pizza in the kitchen together. Pizza’s are not allowed through the front-door so they’ll need to be passed through the back window straight into the kitchen. No TV, music or drinks. Actually, Jane is even more stressed, so just close your eyes while eating, and we’ll all take turns eating our pizza slices separately just-in-case. It turns out that, we should have just ordered our own personal-sized pizzas separately.

Graphic Designer at the Pizza Party. Ryan takes off his expensive trainers, and takes off his Lycra cycling gear. He’s very good in the catering world but insecure, and wants to design everyone’s pizza. It takes a lot of effort, lot’s of emotive language and you’ve never had to think about the mission statement of a pizza before. When it arrives it looks absolutely amazing, somehow it’s understated yet has every topping on it. Ryan doesn’t like it anymore, and you cant eat it as this is only the printed deliverable. It’s litho-printed though. Everyone’s hungry so you all order pepperoni pizza’s and agree to circle-back to the fancy pizza next time.

Someday soon…

Tech Hype Engineer at the Pizza Party.

Desperate Banter Guy at the Pizza Party.

Low Effort Engineer at the Pizza Party.

The New IT guy at the Pizza Party.

Karen from Administration at the Pizza Party.

The Experienced and Bitter IT guy at the Pizza Party.

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