Sad IHOP

Over at my ask.fm, I received the following question:

How does one sad IHOP?

Sad IHOP is a tradition I’ve tried to keep over the past few years of conference-hopping, which I’ll start on again in less than 9 hours. The idea is really simple: conferences are full of life, people, interesting ideas, thoughts, inspiration, chaos and just all-around good things. One of my conference rules is to try and never have food alone. Always find other friendly developers, be they old friends or people you just met, for every meal at a conference – whether it’s breakfast, lunch or dinner. Sad IHOP is none of those meals, but it adheres to that same rule.

The International House Of Pancakes – which in full American tradition is named International despite being a North-American chain that only opened its first non-North American store in 2013 – is a cheap fast-food breakfast chain that tends to be open very late. It’s not very good food, and it’s not a very good atmosphere.

What IHOP is, though, is a great way to slow down after a long day and night, chat about the day with some friends, reset your expectations down to ‘what am I doing with my life’ and make sure no matter how terrible you feel when waking up after too little sleep, it’s at least better than the lukewarm pseudo-pancake you half-ate at 3:50AM. That’s what Sad IHOP is.

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