Meet the Geeks: It’s Shane!

Last week might’ve started with the heartbreaking news that the Choco Taco is being discontinued, but we’re here to get this week started off strong with another installment of Meet the Geeks. This time, we’re chatting with Shane Fordyce, our Content Manager, about private events, some memorable Quizzes for a Cause and, uh, Disney onesies. 

For starters, where are you from and where do you live now? I’m originally from a small mining community in northern Ontario, Canada, and I’m now situated in San Antonio, Texas. I live in extremes: extreme cold and extreme heat. 

How did you first learn about Geeks Who Drink? It was through my wife, Paulina. She needed me to find something to do. We’d been in San Antonio for about five years but I worked nights and weekends, so I didn’t have a lot of time to find any hobbies. But she heard about Geeks and thought ‘He likes beer, he likes trivia, so this might be fun.’ We started playing and we were driving about half-an-hour outside the city to play. My schedule eventually changed, and there was a venue about 10 minutes from home. We started going there and became really good friends with the Quizmaster (QM). She moved on to do family stuff, I auditioned to host and got a slot. Twelve years later, I still host every Wednesday at Mad Pecker Brewing Company in San Antonio.  

What’s your current role with Geeks? I work on the editorial side and the curation side of the Private Events division. I look at the quizzes that come in. I’ll look at who the client is, figure out whether we’ve done an event with them in the past and learn what kind of stuff they’d like in their quiz. It’s my job to go into the archives and find the puzzle pieces that fit what they want. Sometimes you get some weird requests, like ‘Our company’s mascot is a penguin. Do you have any rounds about penguins?’ Well yes we do, so I’ll put that in their quiz. It’s a lot of just understanding what the clients want in their event and tailoring a quiz to suit that as best we can. 

Do you see that level of customization as one of our strengths when it comes to private events? Oh definitely. We have 12 years’ worth of material, just a vast amount of content. It’s very, very rare that someone asks for [a topic] and I have to say ‘We don’t have that.’ At the very least, I can through a couple of questions that hit the topic into a Random Knowledge round. 

What do you enjoy the most about working here? I love that it’s corporate, but not corporate. I feel good in telling my dad ‘Hey, I finally got that office job you always wanted me to do, but it’s more on my terms.’ Everyone is fun and easy to work with. It doesn’t feel like I work for a company, it just feels like a really big group project. 

Since you’ve worked as a QM and on the not-too-corporate side, are there any standout trivia-related moments for you? For a long time, we had a relationship with the San Antonio Rape Crisis Center and we did Quizzes for a Cause for them for years. They were a very small organization and they had to literally beat on doors to get funding, so they hooked up with us and we were a big source of fundraising over the years. Being involved with them and being able to help out is one of the more memorable things. Also, we’ve done so many theme quizzes over the years that I have a literal closet full of weird costumes – and I’m not kidding. There are so many costumes that I’ve worn for the love of the quiz. 

What’s the most recent costume you’ve worn? I haven’t really done any [theme quizzes] since before the pandemic, but the most memorable was probably being dressed in a Tigger onesie in front of a crowd of 250 people, in an incredibly packed bar full of Disney fans. 

Wow. Does that stay in the closet? Because a Tigger onesie sounds really comfortable. It gets cold in my office during the winter, so there’s a rotating wardrobe of onesies that get worn from day-to-day.