Roam is one of those Wework kind of shared office spaces in Atlanta area. I think they have six or seven locations now in Atlanta area. I have had a membership for at least 10 years and whenever I am not traveling, I usually work from there. Consequently, I have gotten to know all the staff here over the years fairly well – and I think I joined here before any of the existing staff.

I have to admit this is one of the most friendly, helpful and professional staff I have had a chance to interact with during all my travels and work life. Thru the virus days, they kept the place open for people like us to work, opened up all offices free for members (usually you have to book and pay), put social distancing, sanitizers all over, re-tooled the doors so as to minimize contacts. And somebody from the staff would show up every morning before anybody else to make coffee and stack up free snacks and food for anybody who would show up.

Most of the days the whole huge place used to have two or three of us and we barely got to see each other. Now things have changed a little. There is still masks and social distancing. But we have more people working here.

Sharmila and I had decided to treat the staff to Indian lunch some day to say Thank You! Today was the day.

I was certainly a bit worried – given that Erin had not had Indian food before and the one time Micalah had Indian food – let’s just say it did not stay with her for too long! Katie, however cooks some Indian dishes at home and Zach is fairly well experienced in different culinary tastes.

The good news is that it worked out great. Everybody seemed to deal with the spiciness and flavors very well. Micalah even came back for more!

The conversations were even more enjoyable. Katie talked about her trips to India and Bali and we exchanged notes from our family trip to Bali a few years back. Zach’s family (I think he said his sister and her family) has been missionaries in Mongolia for the last four years. That brought back a lot of memories from Roger and my trip there three years back. And I found out that Erin’s best friend for 20 years is an Indian girl. Still have not figured out how she managed to escape without any Indian food for so long!!