In the past, you probably have read about my team mate Bob Hickey and his really, really funny comebacks. He is a guy with an incredible sense of humor and presence of mind.

Early this morning, I called him up from the West Coast and went..
Me: “Was it your anniversary yesterday?”
He: “Yes”.
Me: “How many years?”
He: “32 long years”.
Me: “I did not realize that our anniveraries are so close. Mine is tomorrow”.
He: “Oh! How many years for you?”
Me: “Not as long as you. 24.”
Perhaps touched to the quick on that “not as long as you”, in about half a jiffy, he came back with…
“Hey! Rajib, only if my wife agreed, I would be more than happy to step aside and let you catch up to me”.

Again, all you could hear is both of us guffawing on either side of the phone!!!

After three days of coast to coast meetings, finally dragged myself to the Portland airport (with no help from United Airlines, if you needed to know 🙂 ). After checking in, went thru security and dropped down in a chair at the Delta Skyclub. There was one more hour long video meeting to be done before I could walk into my flight.

Somewhere during the meeting, as my team mate Anand Iyer explained something that has been a practice for quite some time in our company, I asked, rather impatiently – “But that makes no logical sense, right? Why would anybody do it?”.

Anand, much smarter than I – and who obviously agreed with my premise, instead decided to answer the core thesis behind my question. “There have been four Nobel prizes given in recent times to people who have proven that we all behave irrationally”.

I had to take a time out for a few seconds to laugh my heart out.

“Well played, Sir, well played!!”

Sometimes I wonder why do I foxtrot to office every morning – is it because I am surrounded by very smart people or is it because I am surrounded by very funny people…