h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Last year our company CEO came to our office and selected people were allowed to dine out with him (and as usual for these affairs it turned out to be a very very boozy occasion - involving my biggest hangover for a decade)

After the first meal (there were two, one German one Korean) he decided that he was my new BFF and that I must sit with him at the Korean restaurant. I was, I'm half-ashamed to say, totally drunk but apparently (according to others there) very witty and hilarious. I also called him on some corporate bs and his insistance on saying at every speech "I'm just a simple engineer I don't know how I got to be CEO" - and he agreed with me, with a massive barking laugh, that yes, it is fun when he gives an order and 16 people jump to attention

He's a very charming chap, actually, and a lot of fun (as a non-Korean and very very low down in the food chain I think he could be quite relaxed around me and my colleagues who were also there because we're no threat to his position, and he can't do anything to affect our day-to-day lives).

He was in our office the week I was off sick after my operation. And apparently in advance he'd sent a mail with 3 names of people who absolutely MUST be there for this time's dinner, booze-up and karaoke. And I was on it. But I couln't attend, so he got the HR assistant to arrange a bouquet for me which has just arrived.

And obviously, it's nothing to him at all to just say: "send flowers" and it's taken care of. But he had to come up with that idea himself, because the card is signed in his name and I know that nobody would dare unless he said to do it.

So, although it's a bit bs, it's quite cute. And so, contrary to unspoken company regulations (that even forbid me to email anyone at VP level or above) I'll write and thank him.

How lovely Sho! And quite deserved as anyone who has actually met you would want to do so again.

I hope you're well on the way to total recovery btw.

Congratulations, Ms. G

Take it easy now & enjoy the summer

Seems you must have made a lasting impression with him, Sho!

lil x

That is lovely. I hope you are better now, but do remember to till go easy.

As for CEO

(a) either something happened while you were away that proved how indispensable you are and he got to hear about it
(b) He realised just how much you do and due to the nature of your op, that you are a woman
(c) he had the hots for you all along

Either way, good on him for being human and finding a moment to pay his respects to you.

Our CEO is a woman and she can't even remember my name, despite working there for 12 years.

who wouldn't want you by their side at the dinner table?

I suspect he remembers me because, as you know, when I've been at the ol' vino collapso (not to mention vodka, beer and soju) I just don't stop talking. At all.

we have about 30,000 people in our company, I don't expect he remembers the names of more than the handful of people he sees on a daily basis, and that he does his homework when he is visiting somewhere. He always has an entourage, and it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that someone from our place sent him a summary of who he'd met before.

But the flowers are lovely.

Ah yes, Vino Collapso, I know it well! Made from the same grapes as the French Chateau Migraine and the Portuguese Vinho Podagras, I believe

I had to look up Podagras. I literally ed.

You probably wouldn't have ed (much) had you known podagra from personal experience, your lordship

I never had a migraine, but from what I've been told it feels like podagra in the head - so imagine if you will a migraine in one of your big toes