Thursday, January 30, 2025

We didn't all come out alive

Some days go better than others. As we all know. No sleep last night and as I was dozing off at dawn I'd promised to wake my wife at 7.00 so had to stay awake. Wife up and out of the house but by now I'm wide awake and no chance of sleep again. And walking to the local store (they're everywhere in Tokyo, we have four within five minutes walk), wasn't watching what I was doing and tripped. Flat on the face. Not great.

Problem being I now have a video conference at 11.00am, running a mild fever, bumped up and banged around I managed to get through that and then I really, really wanted some sleep. But managed to do some UK admin specialised for residents of Japan. Except for time zone... And as I put my head down my FB Messenger started to ping. Of course it did. But getting up to check I received a sad message. A guy I recruited nearly thirty years ago had passed away.

He was a good man, willing to tell me when I was wrong, something rare here. He had a view and could communicate it without leaving people upset but very clear of the message. In Japan you rarely tell your boss he's wrong, but this guys had the bravery and honesty to do so. And so I respected him and we grew to be friends. And now I'm going to miss him.  

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