y! gay

Yahoo! Celebrates Gay & Lesbian Pride. Or as I like to call it informally around the office, Y!Gay. And yes, it’s exactly what you think it is – a gay portal site from Yahoo!. (Although with all the World of Warcraft I’ve been playing, when I think “gay portal” I imagine Hearthstoning into the Castro, for some reason.) I was one of the engineers on this project, where I was on what is called an all-gay, all-volunteer tiger team. This is the part where I would make a clawing gesture and making the gayest meowing sound you’ve ever heard, but I figured I don’t have much dignity left to lose.

This was my first experience actually working on a team where everyone was gay. It’s pretty much exactly what I expected:

Gay Male Project Manager: (Wrapping things up) Okay, we’re almost done – thanks for all the hard work, everyone, and thanks for having this meeting during lunch.
Everyone else: No problem.

(Gay PM leaves room. Everyone else pauses.)

Gay Design Manager: Oh no, she did NOT call for a lunch meeting and bring her salad in while we’re sitting in a room, totally starving.
Ernie: Oh, but she TOTALLY DID.
Gay Web Developer: Rawr!

You’ll notice how, for better or worse, I ended up being featured as a featured gay blogger on the Yahoo! Pride micro-site. Some of you might be assuming that I volunteered for it. Well, I guess I technically did. Technically.

Gay PM: So, we need a gay blogger.
Everyone else: (looks directly at me)
Ernie: What. You know, you guys are gay, too.
Gay DM: But we haven’t been in the Advocate.
Gay PM: And we know that you won’t be putting up X-Rated photos of yourself in the blog.
Ernie: …
Everyone else: …
Ernie: FINE. I’LL DO IT.

To be honest, we might be changing the featured blog on the Pride micro-site so it’s more of a group weblog. You know, something that’s actually useful. We’ll see.