Empty Nest - Salaryman style

Those of you who have followed my blog from the beginning or has made sure to catch up on the older posts probably should be familiar with "The Boy", my former junior colleague who I first met when I joined the management consulting company that I was in when this blog got started. After I left the consultant company to become a more regular corporate suit, he stayed on and we have kept in touch as something akin to friends since I left, frequently meeting up with the old gang for drinks and very interesting rowdy conversations. Particularly me, The Boy and Luke makes for quite a dynamic team.

Considering that he's almost ten years my junior and that our first professional relationship was defined as that of him as a junior employee and me as senior, I have grown very fond of him and see him a bit as something of a mix of a surrogate son and a Mexican illegal immigrant worker I have do my dirty work for me. You can find a digest of the posts where he has played a part in some way here.

But now my little Boy is all grown up and moving out of Japan to go back to school for some fancy degree in some fancy school in Britain. Of course, I still have my biological little daughter, Baby Sunshine here with me, but seeing the Boy all grown up and moving out of the country, to a harsh and unforgiving world, makes me both worried and proud.

Looking back, some of my favorite episodes with him was probably that awfully long month we spent together with Cpt. Britain in Project, working with the boob project. After spending a month working together all day long, eating breakfast, lunch and dinner together, day after day, slowly grinding each other down, but with nothing else to do really. The final weekend together when we had to stay in Paris to finish up some things and no energy to do anything big and the Boy asks me in a very tired voice "So, yeah, you wanna have dinner together?" and I gather up all the energy I have left to put on a big smile and very enthusiastically exclaim "Yeah, I think that's a great idea, you know, I have the feeling that you and me haven't really spent enough quality time together recently".

On the bright side, maybe he'll take me to the London Dungeon and Tussauds if I squeeze in a visit!

(...and of course the title of this post is a friendly nod to neighborhood blogger Karen!)