Historically speaking, our company has always had our company outing during the Chinese New Year. It was so because while it was not a holiday for us, much of the people we work with outside our country had it as a holiday. We worked with a lot of people living in countries with large a Chinese population that had that season as holidays. In that sense, Chinese New Year was quite apt for our 2 day company outing that were still considered work days but involved no work at all.

However, recent government policy changes had made it such that the Chinese New Year had become a holiday as well. This forced our company to change its strategy. Retaining the company outing on Chinese New Year meant asking employees to report to work on a holiday, which in turn meant having to appropriately compensate them. To our management, this was not an efficient use of resources.

So on this particular year, our company decided to have the company outing at a later date. This in particular was good news for me. I had not been able to join any of the previous company outings because they were held during the Chinese New Year, on which my family, being Chinese, had our own extended family gathering. This year was the opportunity for me to finally attend our outing.

* * * * *

“Outing email is out!” Chris declared.

He was usually the first to react to any company wide emails in our block. I had formed this theory that he attentively stalks his mailbox for the entirety of the day. That or maybe he just had some kind of notification system to prompt him of new messages. I preferred to believe the former.

“Oh, it’s not on Chinese New Year anymore?” Chris continued.

“Really?” I asked to confirm.

No one bothered to reply to my question as every one of us quickly focused on our respective email clients to read the announcement.

“Oooh… Makes sense. It’s a holiday so they had to move it,” Shirley remarked.

“So Jude, does this mean you’ll be joining the outing this year since it’s no longer on Chinese New Year?” Vivien asked.

I was kind of glad she took notice of that.

“Hmm.... I guess. The alternative would be coming to work when everyone else is having a paid vacation. That’s kind of a bad deal, so I’ll probably join.” I joked.

“Aha! You’ll have to drink with us!” Chris exclaimed.

“Eh… But I dislike the taste of beer. It tastes weird,” I reasoned.

“You don’t drink for the taste, you drink for the buzz!”

“Why would I want to be tipsy? I don’t want to go around all dizzy.”

“For lowered inhibition!”

“Why would I want that?”

“So the conversations would be more fun!”

“I’m pretty sure I’ll manage fine enough even while sober,” I tried to laugh it off.

Even though I still wasn’t planning on drinking, I was looking forward to joining the outing and finally learn what all the fuss was about.

* * * * *

Over the course of the next few days, several more announcements were sent covering the various details of the outing. It was going to be an overnight affair held at a beach resort at the end of March. There were a couple of optional office-initiated activities, like a trivia contest and some kind of beach relay race, but for the most part the outing was pretty much just a lot of free time. Most importantly though, we were told that the resort had no corkage fee.

It had been widely accepted in our company, albeit unofficially, that the highlight of the outing was the late night drinking sessions. During the evenings, people just somehow naturally grouped themselves according to their peers and drank the night away. While one might normally see these people all prim and proper during the office hours, those evenings were the rare chance when they could just relax, unwind, and engage in general tomfoolery.

There wasn’t anything overly wild happening during those drinking sessions, at least based on what I had been told. I had not heard of any acts of violence, or harassments, or destructive or disturbing behaviors. It was just mostly people acting weird and funny.

Or sociable, as was the case for one of the most serious and quiet colleague of ours who turns into a social butterfly under the influence of liquor.

The only serious anecdote I had heard coming from those drinking sessions was the one when an officemate of ours finally outed himself as gay, confessing his crush over another male colleague.

A few days before the outing, though, two key information were announced. One was the room assignment, the other was the bus assignment.

Upon receiving this email, I quickly combed through the list to see who I was with. The room I was assigned in had 2 queen-sized beds with 4 people in it, inclusive of me. My other three roommates were Ryan, Ted and finally, Jerold, our company CEO.

At first glance, sharing a room with our CEO might seem like a daunting task, but our company was a fairly flat one. Our company bosses were easily accessible to virtually any employee, and thus we frequently had interactions with them. As such I already knew that Jerold was an easy-going guy, who even jokingly told me of some office gossips during the previous Christmas party when I accidentally ended up sitting beside him, so I was fine with the arrangement.

Even better, I knew that both Ryan and Ted were part of a group of friends that regularly went out for drinking. This meant that on the evening of the outing, it was almost sure that they’d drink the night away. There was even a chance that they’d only return to our room on the morning. I could have ended up having an entire bed all to myself for much of the night.

The bus arrangement, on the other hand, was a slightly different matter. While for the room assignment comfort and perhaps cleanliness was what mattered, what mattered for the bus arrangement was whether there was enough of a crowd in that bus that could make your ride fun. So it’s a question of whether you’re in the same bus as your friends are.

I was in bus C. Cathleen, Richard and Desmond, the people who entered the office at the same time as me who I became close with, were all in bus A. Chris was likewise in bus A. Shirley was in bus B. Greg and Nick were in bus B with Shirley. Interestingly, Vivien was in bus C. On the other hand, most of Vivien’s batchmates like Lionel and Faye were in bus A, while a few names were in bus B.

The takeaway here was that Vivien’s friends were all in the other buses.

* * * * *

<[email protected]> hey

<[email protected]> yo

<[email protected]> what’s up?

<[email protected]> do you already have a seatmate for the outing bus ride?

<[email protected]> hmmm

<[email protected]> not really

<[email protected]> why?

<[email protected]> do you mind if we sit together in the bus?

<[email protected]> everyone else is on the other buses :(

<[email protected]> i hardly know anyone in our bus lol

<[email protected]> lol

<[email protected]> i don’t mind

<[email protected]> i hardly know anyone in our bus as well

<[email protected]> hahahaha

<[email protected]> thanks :)

<[email protected]> no prob :P

* * * * *

I was fairly cutting it close on the day of the outing. Our management had earlier announced that we had to leave our office area via our buses at 7 AM, and anyone not there by the call time would be left behind. This was fairly early considering that our office hours begins at 8 AM.

I arrived at our meeting area at 6:55, with just a few minutes to spare. On my way to the bus, I spot Chris who happen to just arrive as well. He was carrying a guitar bad on his back.

“You’re bringing a guitar?” I asked Chris.

“Yeah, jamming during the evening,” he replied.

“I thought you were drinking. Is the guitar bag full of beer instead?”

“Hahaha no. We drink and jam. The others brought the drinks.”

I wondered if they would just end up singing unintelligible lyrics once drunk, but seeing as the buses were about to leave, we had no further time to continue discussing the merits and demerits of drunk singing.

We split up and hurried over to our respective buses.

* * * * *

Upon boarding our bus, I quickly glanced around to see if Vivien was already there. Most importantly, I wanted to know if anyone was seated beside her. We had only discussed the seatmates thing that one time, so I wasn’t totally sure how serious it was. The pessimistic side of me was half expecting to see someone else beside her.

Nevertheless, it did not seem like she was among the people seated in the front rows, so I proceeded to go further inside the bus. Halfway through, I spotted her seated at the row before the last one. She had spotted me as well, as she had waved at me.

It did not seem like she had anyone seated beside her. It looked like the seatmates thing was still a go. So far so good.

As I drew nearer, I noticed that a bag was placed at the aisle seat beside her, as she was seated at the window side. At this point I started worrying perhaps that was someone else’s bag. In any case, it was too late for me turn back now.

Finally when I was a few steps away from her, she had put down the bag from the seat beside her on the floor, near her feet. I was relieved. It was her bag after all and I was indeed going to beside her. I was saved from the embarrassment of needing to turn around and once again look for an open seat.

“You’re late!” Vivien quipped.

“Just almost,” I replied with a laugh as I placed my bag on the overhead compartment.

I sat down beside her and gave her a belated morning greeting. She greeted me back.

“I really did think I was going to be late. Good thing I’m just in time,” I remarked.

“Yeah, I was getting worried. Last year they really did leave Albert behind. He had to take a cab and meet us at a stop over along the highway.”

“Wow, that strict eh?”

After a quick roll call done by the admin in charge of our bus, we were finally on our way.

* * * * *

One of the things that I had been contemplating the night before the outing was what to do during the bus ride. I didn’t want to come across as a horrible seatmate, so at the very least I wanted to be able to respond appropriately whatever the situation was.

I was the type of guy who would simulate in his head what could happen in any given scenario. So several questions had occurred to me earlier: Should I keep trying to converse with Vivien if there was dead air? Should I offer some food? Should I have some kind of entertainment with me?

Ultimately, I just decided to cover all my bases. I had 4 bags of chips in my bag, in the event anyone got hungry. Likewise, I had 2 bottles of water just in case. I also had a couple of candies that I could perhaps offer to Vivien. My phone was loaded with a couple of episodes of anime that I could watch with her. I also had a jacket in my bag to offer in case the bus got really cold. Heck, I even had a rubik’s cube in my bag for some reason.

I felt fairly confident, even as I was still anxious about it, that come what may, I would be able to come up with something good based on the supplies I had prepared. It was perhaps due to this that after a couple of minutes when I turned to look at Vivien, I suffered a shock.

She was asleep.

All my anxieties from the night before until that moment had all proven to be for naught. In the end, it became just another instance of me overthinking my situation. After all, the worst case had not happened. There should be some sort of relief in that.

But I was mostly just disappointed.

I decided to just simply sleep through the rest of the bus ride.