Outgoing CEO’s invitation to join him surprises me

When my turn to speak came, I was already shaking and could feel droplets of sweat trickling down my back. When I got to the microphone, I tried to speak but the words simply could not come out. Just looking at the crowd made my heart race and for a moment I did not know what to do. From the corner of my eye, I noticed that Shiro was giving me an encouraging smile.

This gave me some guts and so I took a sip of water and said: “My throat has been acting up of late.”

I continued in the same fashion as the other speakers; I said that the CEO was a great person, ‘‘a joy to work with and we in Mombasa will miss his wisdom and counsel.”

MC came to my rescue

Luckily for me, the MC came to my rescue by taking the microphone and saying, “guys no more speeches, let us now dance and party till dawn.”

And party we did. I recall at some point overhearing one of the managers who clearly had drunk too much ask the CEO; “Why did you always give me such bad appraisals?”

I could not believe my ears since the guy had been one of those who kept singing the boss’ praises. At one point the outgoing CEO grabbed from the dance floor and said: “I need to talk to you.”

He was clearly drunk and spent close to half an hour telling me to watch out for my enemies and to be wary of backstabbers.

He even told me that, “you should kiss all these backstabbing guys goodbye and come work for me.” Even through in a rather tipsy haze, I could not help feeling a bit perturbed by his remarks.

The CEO told me, “anyway today we dance, call me next week.”