An offer of free drinks in the café to meet new hires and sales folks who travelled to HQ for training? Why yes I will. This happens once a quarter and it’s nice to shake hands and help to make new Netscout employees feel welcomed (with beer, wine and snacks of course). On this particular day in late September 2014, Brian – who was not a new hire, but part of a NetScout acquisition with OnPath - chose to take the sponsored Sandler sales training that was being offered (and maybe to also get in on the free drinks/snacks). We shook hands, chatted and did the corporate ‘nice to meet you’ spiel. He was very engaging from the start (aren’t most sales guys though?) and we seems to have the same sort of sarcastic banter. He was proud to be from Rhode Island (I may have done a slight eye roll on that one), and also a diehard Pats fan, so, at least we can talk football. Okay, I thought, I’ll indulge this co-worker further with conversation. At the wrap up of the cocktail reception he made mention that he comes up to the area often – for both work and to see family (especially during football season), and would like to get together for dinner and/or drinks next time he was in town. Sure, I mean, you can never have too many friends, and plus, what’s the likelihood of that really happening? What the harm in letting this play out? Brian did the reach out a few days after we met via email with the ‘very nice to meet you’ and so forth. That was cool, but, he’s still a coworker, who lives 12 hours away in North Carolina. Fast forward to December and a few random emails thrown in, and he was travelling back up to MA for business. He asked me if we could meet for dinner, letting me choose the place and the location. Smart approach, Bri! We met at Allora, right off the highway in Marlboro, on Thursday December 18th. Dinner lasted for a good few hours and we even went to bar after we finished our meals because we never quite ran out of things to talk about.