Yesterday was my last day on the IE team (see this post for more details on what's next). It was a little emotional for me as people stopped by to chat or dropped me nice and sometimes touching emails. I definitely view my work as more than just a job; I've made a lot of good friends. I've known a lot of them for years, some since they were still in college. It's been very rewarding to see them grow and improve, to share their happiest moments like engagements or child births, and to grieve with them as they lost parents and other family members. I will miss seeing them every day very much.

There were a bunch of nice parting gestures from the team. The day before, my direct reports staged a faux meeting that was really an excuse to drink wine and eat cheese (not hard to get the team to drink). Then, yesterday, some folks on the team changed out one of the road signs we have up to help us navigate our maze of hallways, putting up a "Chor Street" sign. By our elevators, they also put up a life sized photo of me for everyone to sign. It was actually kind of creepy seeing such a huge photo of me. I haven't read the comments yet, but I'm looking forward to it.

Later that afternoon, we had a special edition of our normal "Triage Bar" (Friday afternoon drinks) and a quick bite and some beers at Daman's (a kind of divey tavern near work with surprisingly good food). We then headed out to a bar called Vessel in Seattle. Vessel has some of the best cocktails in Seattle including the Vessel 75 -- a bourbon, Peychaud bitters, and simple syrup number topped off with maple syrup foam -- yum. The Ginger Grapefruit Rickey (rum, fresh grapefruit juice, ginger syrup, and soda) was also tasty. We had a pretty big area upstairs to ourselves, and there was a nice (maybe 20+ people) turn out including some IE alumni.

We finished off the evening at the W Bar in the W Hotel where I gave Harel (one of the rising stars on the IE PM team) a quick hands-on lesson about whisky. (Even though he's new to whisky, he's a natural, preferring the more complex and peaty Ardbeg to the Macallan and Johnny Walker Black I had him try for comparison.) All in all, a very fun evening with great friends.

So, next week, I move offices to sit with the Search team in Redmond. I'll be there until mid-November or so when we move to Beijing finally.