I want to talk about the dinner party that I attended for my company's 30th anniversary. It was held in Stockholm, Sweden during the week. Everyone in the Hanoi office was invited over to Sweden and stayed for a week. There was a lot of activities involved during the anniversary, but the one that really stood out for me was definitely the dinner. It was held on a boat, and before boarding, each of us was handed out a note with random numbers in it, which was actually our seat numbers. We were supposed to sit at random so that everyone from different departments got a chance to chat together during the dinner time, and I happened to sit next to the CEO himself. I was quite nervous at first because I was aware that the Swedes really value personal space, so I didn't really know how to approach someone that I had not spoken to before. But it turns out things was quite easy. Everyone was really friendly, and we even had an alcohol party afterwards where everyone just kept taking shots after shots. I, of course, was not part of the drinking. I sat at another corner with other non-drinkers in the company, and we chatted about a lot of stuff, and none of it was about work. It was really nice because prior to that, most of my conversations with my Swedish colleagues were very much confined in chats or occasional video calls, and it was a really nice opportunity for us to get to know each other a little bit more and talk about things that are outside of work. It felt really nice. I feel like I got a chance to know my colleagues at a much deeper level.
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