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I Had A Party in Hong Kong!






What are we celebrating? We are celebrating an "ending" of a long corporate career of 26 years of my boss. Friends of Paul (FOP) flew in from Singapore, Japan, Korea and China to give a boost to his morale in an uncertain corporate world.

I did not expect this "ending" and hence I was taken aback. It is really a time of reflection on the behavior of the new corporate universe. It has become a landmine where one cannot be sure one can get out unscathed by the spreadsheet management of numbers. There are no human beings involved in this exercise. I have heard of a laid off employee attempting suicide in Australia. There are many untold stories of what corporate excesses have done beside the highly publicised story of the collapse of Enron, a once proud Fortune 500 company.

On a personal front, I am glad to participate in a party of friends and human beings who want to encourage and help one another. There is no greater joy than friends taking the time to spend with one another. Is this a sign of old age? Is this a development of the life cycle process - that one's emotional quotient goes up while the intellectual one goes flat or down? Is it a sign of realizing that the winner of a corporate rat race is a just a rat, after all; unworthy of even reaching our dinner plate? There are many more questions with few answers. Attempting to find answers remains an intellectual exercise until the real thing strike you.

My time could be better spent in building friendship, giving back to the society, which has given me the opportunity to be what I am today. The most important people in my life - my family, deserve all my attention, which I may have neglected in between those business travels and dinners. It is not too late to start to spend precious time with them and with friends. This is the party spirit in every encounter.

As for my boss, the ending of one role is the beginning of another. He has since gone to the Philippines to relax and reflect on his next new beginning. It will not be in the corporate world. It is a pity, that this sector has lost one great talent, while the social responsibility world has gain one more member. There are many more going that direction to want to give back, instead of taking and destroying this fragile earth.

As for me, I am thankful for all these buddies in my life and thanks to the wonderful "HP Way" which binds us in the spirit of trust and respect. It made me realize how enlightened David and William Packard were when they formulated these universal principles, which they called, "The HP Way".

Yes, we are grateful to the company for giving us a career for this long. If the time comes to leave; we must be prepared to walk away thankful of all the people who became our friends and the places we have seen in our work instead of being resentful. The end of one is the beginning of another, as it has always been.

This was what happened in Hong Kong, where we shared our stories and drank to their past glories. That was why we flew in just to celebrate his new beginning. Thank you, Paul for your leadership and look forward to more fun and joy in the coming years!

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