Cheers!

Cheers.  Such a simple word to say but one with so many meanings.  The British use it as a toast when they clink their wine glasses together, presumably derived from the old toast "be of good cheer".  They use it to say thank you, ("Cheers!" I said to the man who held the door open for me in Glasgow today).  They use it to informally sign off emails when "Kind regards" is too formal to convey the level of friendship involved.

Today, at lunch, we used "Cheers" to say "Thank God that's over and didn't it go well?" when we clinked our wine glasses together.  We'd survived our first quarterly forecast review with our new Bigger Boss and it was far less traumatic than we'd expected.  Seriously, at 10.30am, we were expecting the worst:  some unexpected, unprepared-for question that knocks you sideways and results in a Sir-Alex-Ferguson-hairdryer blasting from the Bigger Boss. 

It didn't happen.  No difficult question.  No hairdryer moment.  Instead the meeting was relatively convivial and reasonably relaxed. I doubt all these meetings will go that way, but it was a good start.

Cheers!