At about 10 AM, I noticed the people in my pod and the adjacent pod getting up and heading towards Meeting Room 8.07. Tim was leading the group. Tim is our tall white-haired air quality guru.

“Joan,” he said as he passed me, “We’re going into the meeting room to celebrate Scott’s newborn son with a Russian tradition. Would you like to join us?” I got up and allowed myself to be ushered into the meeting room. The door was shut behind us.

Tim put a bag onto the table and took out six little shot glasses and a jar of clear liquid. Oh! I looked at the adults around me. I could see where this was going.

Tim casually poured the vodka into the glasses, then gestured for us to take one.

“Is Junior on the phone?” he asked Scott.

“Ready and waiting,” Scott said as he turned up the volume on the speakerphone. We heard a distant gurgling and cooing.

Tim said, “Now, we all have to sing the traditional Russian song. There is only one word, which you sing three times. Then we repeat the whole thing another three times so we end up with three verses. I’ll start and I expect you all to join in by the end.”

Tim began singing with gusto and unexpected musicality.

We all began laughing and tried to follow. “Nemstrode…ta! Nimenostreta…um…taaaa! Namistrone…….ta!”

Then in unison, we all downed our shots of vodka.

I felt warm and fuzzy the rest of the work day.