"I am shy and introvert"

Today was a pretty dull and boring day of preparing for a meeting in the coming week while dealing with 4-5 completely unrelated subjects at the same time. In conjunction with the meetings, I'm also setting up a small dinner party so the guests can interact with the Tokyo team in a more relaxed environment and I sent out a pretty standard invitation to the participants in the Tokyo office asking them whether they can or can't participate, expecting nothing more exciting than a few "Yes I will particiate" and some "No, I cannot participate".

The first reply comes pretty immediately from one of my colleagues, a very nice timid guy close to his sixties, hardly known for his sense of humour, more known for his talent of blowing things out of proportion sometimes. The response to my Japanese e-mail came in English (which he is reasonably good at) and was as follows:

"Sorry.
I won't join the drinking party because I'm shy and introvert.
Alcohol is said to be among the top 100 medicines here in Japan .

Anonymous"

Since it was sent from his e-mail it was obviously not anonymous however you looked at it and I was first completely confused by the mail. But after a quick clearing of my head I understood that he was actually half-joking, he is shy and introvert and doesn't want to participate in the party because of this, but then he turned it into some form of twisted joke. After digesting it for a few minutes I actually appreciated the humour he had put into this.

After barely recovering from this reply and meanwhile also receive a bunch of "Yes please, I would like to participate" e-mails, the next e-mail came, also in English:

"Hi Mr. Salaryman
I would too like to join this wonderful dinner if it is soooooo nice!!"

It seems like this simple thing really triggered some people in the company to do very creative replies and with some people not yet having answered, I might look forward to more freaky mails tomorrow. That said, I did enjoy the mails and a lot more entertaining than the standard replies.

This enhanced my quality of life during an otherwise boring day!