or: As Far As Last Days Go, This Was Great
Friday was my last day working in Japan (for now anyway; who knows, I may be fortunate enough to work here again) and I am now on holidays to sort out my relocation (and have a few more farewell lunches, dinners, drinks and some sightseeing) before flying back to Hong Kong in a couple of weeks.
Like most last days I’ve had over the years, it was busy. Unlike most last days, it was a different kind of busy. Not the frantic kind. It was the fun kind. It wasn’t a mad rush trying to clean up, finish emails, make sure everything has been handed over or at the very least, in a state where if someone needed to, they could work out where the work was up to.
Most of this was done by Thursday.
Friday was facilitating a management offsite with one of my colleagues. It’s a great way to spend a final day with some colleagues who I’ve enjoyed working with and are at an interesting and exciting part of their strategy. I’m disappointed to not be a part of it anymore but it is not my time. It is my time for some other things instead.
It’s great partly because I enjoy preparing for these types of sessions and facilitating is fun. It is also a useful way to distract myself from the fact that I’m leaving the country a little earlier than what I would have preferred. It’s a shame because I have enjoyed my time here, the people, the country, the food and the toilets have all been fantastic.
Unfortunately me and my job were not a match made in heaven at this point in time. If my role had been more facilitation, strategy, implementation and less Japanese employment law, the match would have been significantly closer. Oh well. This was unknown at the time I was asked to join and it has still been an amazing experience.
Back to Friday…
At the end of the session, I was given a rather large bunch of pink and cream flowers and some Japanese biscuits and my favourite coconut things which I am still clueless what they are called. I’d been given a smaller bunch of flowers from my team earlier in the week which were also pink. I’m impressed how well people here know me already.
These flowers accompanied me to a nearby bar as it is tradition after our offsites to have at least one beverage together. Many stayed for more than one and wished me luck and good fortune in Japanese, English and sometimes a mix of both as they left. Thankfully we have a few bilingual people that can help translate. We’ve also all improved our charades.
I managed to hold myself together until one colleague in particular said his goodbyes. I had worked with him quite closely in one of my previous roles in HK too and I knew this was likely to be our last time together. He is one of those people that can clown around and still get things done. He speaks English fairly well though he’d say he doesn’t and we have our meetings now mostly in English which is impressive. I throw in a few Japanese words here and there for a laugh and also so he can help me learn too. He’s open to new ideas and likes to explore alternate ways of doing things. From a HR point of view, this alone makes him a joy to work with.
The crowd gradually thinned to leave four of us. We left the local and caught a taxi to Roppongi. This is an area that has a bit of a reputation. More like Lan Kwai Fong / Wan Chai though there are also quite a few Japanese people out too, rather than mostly expats which would be the case for the HK areas.
The flowers joined in.
A few beverages later and another colleague arrived. A few more beverages and it was time for a groove at a nightclub.
With the flowers.
We danced, we drank, we were generally silly and a good time was had by all.
Including the flowers.
You know it’s a good night when it ends at a kebab store and you manage to get home at around 3am.
With the flowers.
* Thanks to Noah and the Whale for the title to this post. After eight years, they’ve just called it a day. This is one of my favourite tunes of theirs (who am I kidding, this is one of the albums that I still have on high rotation after a few years! Just realised it was released in 2011, goes to show my perception of time is a little fluid…).