What happens when someone you’ve worked closely with for five years decides to move on?  Why, you go out for sushi.

And you have some sushi and one of those gigantic bottles of Japanese beer.  You know the ones.  They’re the size of Tokyo.  You wonder why the Japanese drink beer in such massive quantities--is it because of their culture of competition?  Because of fears over their flagging economy?  Because if Godzilla returns to attack, they can just get him drunk?

And then everyone decides to have a sake box.  Apparently, your friends have their own sake box.  But you don’t--at least, not yet.

“What’s a sake box?” you ask.

Charlie, your man behind the counter, turns around and goes to a stack of small wooden boxes.  The ones he gives to your friends have felt marker lettering (in their own handwriting) as well as numbers.  The box he gives to you is blank.

It’s also overflowing with cold, delicious, somewhat fruit-flavored sake.  Liquid splashes out the side of the box and into a small green plate.  You drink the contents of the box.  Then you slurp down the plate like Snoopy with his supper dish.

And then Charlie hands you a felt marker.  “You are number 15,” he says.  “You have to mark your box.”

You’re a bit too buzzed to be witty. The best you can write is “Greg Ho: For a good time call 911”

I know, pathetic. But again, you’re not thinking clearly.

Then Charlie says something that astounds you. “You have a web site?” he says.  “You can write address on other side of sake box.”

How the bloody blue blazes did he know that?

Is it tattooed on your forehead?  Does “geek” radiate off you like fumes from a barbecue?  Is Charlie psychic?  Oh what the hell.  You try to scrawl greghoward.net/weblog on the side of the box, but the wood is soaked from sake runoff. As a result, the writing isn’t very dark.

But Charlie picks up the box and reads the URL correctly.  “Good job!” he says.

And then you say goodbye to your friend and then you go back to the office.  And this is the hard part, because after a Godzilla beer and a sake box, you’re in no shape for not one but two teleconferences.

So you sit in your chair and listen to the people on the other line and you concentrate with all your might and you say things like

“This will result in great synergies.”
“Yes, I concur.”
“Concur, I yes.”

And you rule, because you totally make it through both calls.  And you’re still sad about not being able to work with your friend any longer.  But you’re really glad you made it through those teleconferences.  And you look forward to going back to the sushi place in the very near future, getting sake box #15 from the shelf, and having a refill.