Client dinners

This week I ran a two-day project for a UK client  at a country house hotel in Oxfordshire.

As is expected at such events I dined with the team in the evening.  This wasn't a chore as it was a small group of mature, interesting professionals who were very comfortable for the conversation to flow between work and non-work topics.  Most but not all drank wine.  As I had emails to attend to I left as the others ordered coffee.

As corporate dinners go this was a good one.  The bad ones begin with a group decision to abuse the company Amex and end with a drunken argument (or worse) with the management when the hotel bar closes.  The worst client dinner I can recall ended with the police being called.

As an external supplier its a common sense rule that you never get drunk in front of a client.  A less obvious caveat to that rule is that you should never bear witness to a client's drunkenness. 

There is no upside whatsoever in dealing with a client who was vomiting in a gutter the last time you saw him.