The Beers Theory

Here's an interesting story that happened last night ...
We had a dinner celebration to mark our 3 million users base at Kagen's a top Japanese buffet restaurant in town. We managed to get a room but was told that we need to finish our dinner by 8.20pm as there was another booking. We agreed. There were 12 of us but we drank like fish the Sake and beers kept flowing with the meats and fish on the teppanyaki table.

Somehow we managed to use the 'delayed in service' to extend our room pass the 8.20pm mark as we were enjoying ourselves with good food and free flow of drinks. It was pass 9.20 when the staff reminded us again that they have a new guest waiting and a guy was already standing there holding the cheque for 10 minutes so I duly paid the bill.

My partner then asked for the more Sake before we leave citing one last round, as a top Japanese restaurant in Shanghai and given that my partner is 'White dude' they agreed but said it's just 1 round only. They immediately send in the staff to clean the table and scrub the teppanyaki grill to prepare for the next group. We finished our Sake within minutes and my partner again asked for another round of FREE beers. Our Ops director (*young co-founder) told him that there is no way they are going to give you another round of free beers. As my partner told the staff waiting and he just ignored him, then he went to call for another senior staff whom told him politely they cant entertain anymore FREE beers once the bill had been paid. And another and another whom all had just smiled and move on ... but he was determine to get us 1 more round so he persisted and the beers came with a black face on the waiter saying loudly "this is really the last round".

15 minutes passed and we finished the beers.
My partner again said he wanted 1 last round for the road. But this time my ops director said he can guarantee there is no way to get 1 more round. They placed a bet on the table and the bet increased to $500 that he wont be able to get the free beers within 10 minutes. My partner took out his iPhone and click on the stopwatch ... tick ticks ticks ... then he went to tell the waiter this is the final round for the road, give me 1 more round and we are off in 5 minutes. But after 7 minutes we looked at the bar and there was no sign of anyone pumping any beers.

My young co-founder said out loudly that he is sure to win the $500 as he saw all the signs that no one would entertain the ridiculous request of a drunk "laowai". Yes indeed in business we need to be able to see the signs around us ...

2 more minutes and my partner ran to the bar told the waitress there ... "hi pretty girl, I promise you if you give me my last round I will leave in 3 minutes" ... surprizingly the girl bought his smile and the word "pretty girl" did the job. She just said "really promise to go ok" and started to pump the beers. My partner won the $500 and said to everyone in the room ...

"When everything seems impossible and hard dont ever give up, even if the every signs tells you are gonna fail". "Everything is Impossible if you think you had failed but Nothing is Impossible if you keep trying".