YoooHooo

 

In 2013, when I moved to Madrid, Spain, my friend and I decided not only to commit ourselves to excellence and continuous improvement in the workplace, but also to create a social community that would bring people from diverse backgrounds together. One night, whilst sitting outside of a bar at 4am, still drinking (I discovered that many places in Spain will actually remain open until you decide to leave) we took a little catchphrase that my friend always used and converted it into a name for the community. It was YoooHooo (he used to say it fast and brief in a high-pitched voice, almost like a whistle). We specifically enforced that it must have three o’s either side of a bold upper-case H. The regular meeting would be ‘YoooHooo Thursday’ because, my friend stated, ‘if you are going to be hungover, better to waste Friday than a day of your weekend.’

YoooHooo grew and became a monster – something that we would say frequently in later months and years: ‘we have created a monster’ – and we would often have hundreds of people crowding the street outside of a bar. The beauty of Madrid was that it was easy to go to the bar, order a bucket of beers, and then take them outside to distribute, so it was not a case of standing in a crowded place and waiting for ages to get to the bar as so often happened in the UK.

The community brought a great amount of fun and pleasure, but it also brought its fair share of trouble. Being a manager in the one of the most well-known companies in Spain, whilst most people were desperate for jobs in a struggling economy, as well as being the lead vocalist for a popular band, and co-founder of the YoooHooo Community, meant that I received a good deal of attention from people who were often a lot younger than me and, in many cases, were eager to spread stories. I developed a reputation that was not exactly conducive to lasting relationships and, as a result, lost love painfully at times.

Travel, music, literature, art, partying amongst diversity… these things have a tendency to change people to the extent that it can become difficult to surround oneself with those who have led conventional lives of work and domesticity. If a person has not travelled, if a person is not moved to tears by music, not inspired by poetic words or the colours and passions of art, then they are, quite frankly, less cultured, less open, less secular, less liberal, less empathetic than those who have and are.