How to play it cool when the heat's on

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How to play it cool when the heat's on

Hong Kong’s expat bankers have perfected the art of a post-party client meeting. And they are now showing the rest of the world how, as a young friend of mine just proved on a business trip to Sydney.

As party-loving employees like to do on work trips, the fellow took advantage of the freedom of being in a different city to imbibe heavily with his colleagues. So when a group of Aussie bankers invited him to a weekend party on a farm outside Sydney, he couldn’t resist — despite facing an early Monday morning flight to Brisbane for a client meeting.

Unfortunately, after partying to the full, the fellow woke up early on Monday in a shambles, more than an hour’s drive from the airport, and missing his wallet and suitcase, which were undoubtedly in one of the fields he had been guzzling wine in the day before.

But true to Hong Kong form, he thought quickly, borrowed a clean pair of clothes and some money from one of his mates and made a dash for the airport — taking advantage of the country’s lax travel laws that require no identification or a hard boarding pass once someone has electronically checked in to their domestic flight.

Against all the odds, he made it to his meeting, secured the mandate and promptly flew back to Sydney mere hours later to search for his belongings. My friend’s boss was none the wiser — and I reckon that neither were the most of his drinking buddies. 

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