Thursday night.
After some 5:30pm peer pressure from coworkers, I did an about face on my “going home, going to dinner, then going to the gym” evening and instead joined them at the bar for happy hour. It was a welcomed break. See, the whole annual review process at the sawmill culminated today, ending in a manager staring-contest worth of Guinness. In the end, things went as good as can be expected, and, as always, the proceedings were torture. So, to recap: reviews are done; cold beer was had; calorie intake was monitored. Let’s go.
The crew that met tonight for happy hour is a crew I’ve run with almost from day-one at the sawmill. Because of this, we have a lot of history, a lot of stories. And, on the rare occasion when we all get together (difficult these days, as we now live on different continents), those same told and re-told stories are trotted out and run once around the track again for old-time sake. Something of a tradition, even though we’ve all heard them before, we tell them again.
… the Cuban arm-wrestling contest in the Shanghai apartment…
… the guy who left a pair of soiled underwear in his desk drawer after losing his job…
Seems like they get funnier and more grand with each telling. How a story about “finding” an employee who’d gone completely MIA whilst in Taiwan by seeing him on television, whilst visiting there yourself months later, being arrested in a transvestite prostitution sting can get any more “grand” remains to be seen, but we seem to be able to pull it off.
Every single time we get together. Comforting. Permanent.
A good way to start off a weekend.
Goodnight.
Also written on this day...
- on the moors - 2019
- topic-jumping - 2008
- running away - 2007
- grooming our replacements - 2004