Soccer Fans Are On Another Level

I used to work in IT as a student job for my university. We’d fix problems, set up machines and conference rooms, and rent out equipment like loaner laptops and projectors. Sometimes when the projectors and other loaner equipment weren’t really being used, we’d attempt to “advertise” by using one to project something random on the wall of our room.

One year, we decided to start streaming the World Cup on the wall. None of us were really sports fans, let alone soccer fans, but we had a diverse crowd move through, so it wasn’t distracting and it brought people into our office.

On day two or three, we started streaming, and we had a random guy come in all sheepish.

Guy: “Hey, uh, I hear you’re showing the World Cup?”

Me: “Oh, yeah!”

I pointed to the wall.

Guy: “You mind if I sit in for a bit?”

Me: “Nah, go for it.”

He was there for a while. He was a really nice guy and pretty quiet. We had almost forgotten that he was there when, suddenly, one of the event coordinators barged in like a bat out of h***.

Coordinator: “YOU! YOU’RE ON! NOW!”

Guy: “OH!”

He ran out of the room.

Apparently, he was the guest speaker who had flown in from outside the country. They were tearing apart the building looking for him and by sheer dumb luck stumbled across him in our office. He was there for at least thirty minutes, possibly an hour or more.

I don’t know exactly how long we delayed the conference, but from then on, we were banned from showing any World Cup matches. Apparently, it’s just too addictive.