I am visiting San Jose, California to meet with my remote boss and the team I am working on. I was sitting at the hotel bar last night when an older gentleman with a large bushy beard came in, walked up to the bar, plunked down a coupon, and ordered a scotch, Macallan 12-year old, neat. I've never seen someone get a scotch with a coupon before, so I remarked upon it. The gentleman sat down and we started chatting. The bartender needed approval from her boss, which she got, and then she poured half a shot before the bottle ran out. She asked if another half shot of Macallan 10-year old was an acceptable substitute and got a reluctant yes.
I eventually got around to asking what the gentleman did for a living (I understand that in some countries asking about someone's work is considered rude, but not here). To my surprise, it turned out he is working for the same company I am. He was visiting from North Carolina where he worked out of the Durham office. He was one of the early employees of the company and knows a lot about the architecture of the product and was out here to train new sales engineers about how the product worked. Although he was in sales, he was an engineer, so we had a lot in common. We talked late into the evening about work, college, cars, music, mathematics, and other various topics. I got a lot of good background information on the company and the product from him.
I suppose there's no real point to this story. It's just interesting how chance meetings sometimes turn out.
