Do you remember how I often try to break ice with the waiters/waitresses in a restaurant by responding to their perfunctory “Can I get you something else?” with a “Sure. A million dollars would help”? You probably also remember how that resulted in some hilarious responses (the waitress who said “Sure, it will cost you two”) and some inspiring conversations (the waiter who wants to start his own pizza place outside Milwaukee)?

Well, last night was one more memorable one.

The young lady had laid down dinner for me and my teammate and asked the usual question. I gave my usual response and waited to see her reaction.

She looked at all the numbers and figures my teammate and I had jotted down on a few pieces of paper strewn all over the table for the last fifteen minutes and then looked at me and said “A million dollars? Business that bad, huh?”.

I was like – Awesome!!! That is total sass!!

I laughed out aloud and let her know that I have a ten year old daughter at home who she reminded me of 🙂

While in Dallas, I was able to catch up with some of the youngsters from Indian Institutes of Management who had joined our company at the turn of the century (that makes it sound so long back, does it not? 🙂 ). In any case, many were traveling and many are not in Dallas any more. But it was great to catch up with Mohit, GV, Kapil and Ajay. Looks like I missed Dilesh and Ashish by a day. Abhay was in India… It was absolutely heartwarming to see how incredibly successful professionally and personally each one of them have become.

While catching up on the personal side, a really funny exchange took place with Mohit..

Me: “Where do you live Mohit?”
Mohit: “Wynnpage. In Coppell”

Since I lived in Coppell for 9 years, I pressed on to find out the exact location. I had a vague recollection that I had seen Wynnpage before. After a few minutes of apparent struggle, I asked him to start giving me directions from an intersection both of us knew. I still took another few minutes to figure out what was happening. I had completely messed up my North with my South. Once that was cleared, it was very easy…

Me: “Oh! Wynnpage!! Now I know! You are right next to ”
Mohit: “Yes”
Me: “That is silly of me. There is a friend of mine who lives there. I have visited him in Wynnpage too!! Do you know a guy called Manjit Sohal?”
Mohit [totally taken aback]: “How do you know Manjit?”
Me: “Long story. We used to work in our first jobs together in Bombay. And also, he met his wife thru my wife – when both of them were studying in UT Arlington”.
Mohit: “That is crazy. In any case, he actually lives in Plano now”.
Me: “He does? Man, I still talk to him on his birthdays. I always thought I was calling him in Coppell”.

And then something struck me.
Me: “But then, how do you know him if lives in Plano?”
Mohit: “Because I bought his house in Wynnpage when he moved to Plano!!!!”

And I was like – Aha! There had to be an intersection somewhere!!!! 🙂

For the second time in as many days, I found myself standing in the Atlanta airport security line. It was early in the morning and I was generally taking it easy. In fact, I was observing the distinctly German looking gentleman in front of me struggling to get all his stuff into the conveyor belt for screening at the TSA Precheck line. Every five seconds, he would remember he had one more thing in his pocket and he would hurriedly pull it out, and put it in one of his bags. Finally he was done; and as I was just starting to swing my shoulder bag onto the belt when I heard somebody call out “Is that Rajib”?

“It sure is”, I said as I looked at the general direction of the voice. Turns out it was the gentleman right behind me. He was standing there all the time as I was observing the gentleman in the front. And that is how my otherwise slow morning got to a very fast start. It is not often that I meet Chuck Townsley – an old buddy of mine. In fact, we have not met ever since he left our company – more than ten years back.

I was so excited that I started talking to him then and there; after a few minutes, the TSA guy reminded me that our bags have cleared and we had to be screened too!!

Both of us had about fifteen minutes at hand. So we grabbed a chair nearby and caught up on each other’s lives. It was fascinating to hear about his career success. Especially how he has worked his way up into IBM Sales.

On the professional side, I have always admired IBM’s ability to grow a formidable sales org – not just by talent but dealing with complexity of overlay sales orgs and highly nuanced compensation models. In fact, Chuck and I talked about sales compensation plans for quite some time.

Eventually, it was time to go. We got somebody to take a picture of us and I walked him to the train station in the airport. Just as I was leaving him there, he stopped me and said he wanted to mention something. I was naturally curious.

He narrated a story of an event that happened when he was leaving the company where we worked together. And he said “Thank you for making that happen”.

Frankly, I had forgotten about the incident. But I was struck with his sense of gratitude and generosity. All these years, and he still remembers it. And then I realized, this is Chuck we are talking about. He has not changed a bit!!!

[If you happen to be a reader who is of the feminine gender, you may be able to help this young soul]

Everything this morning was going like most other days. Early morning. Marriott hotel (in Durham today). Business meeting over breakfast. Settled down at a table in the far corner. Lady came and asked us what we wanted. I said oatmeal. The gentleman I was meeting perused the menu. To give him some time, I looked up to the lady, saw her badge – it had her name and mentioned “Washington DC” under it. Being somewhat familiar with that place I asked her “Which part of DC are you from?”.

Everything was going according to the script so far. Then she dropped the bombshell. She softly replied “I really do not know. I grew up in foster care system”! I was incredulous. How can one not know where one is from?

I persisted: “What do you mean you do not know where you are from?”
She: “I grew up in over 100 homes in DC and Durham area. I am not sure how to answer where I am from”
Me (turning to my business guest): “Do you mind if I take a couple of minutes?”. He readily agreed.
I asked her: “How old are you?”
She: “21”
Me: “How long do you work in a day?”
She: “All my waking hours”
Me: “How many jobs?”
She: “3”
Me: “Where are your parents? Wait don’t tell me. Would you mind if I spent ten minutes of your time after my breakfast with you to learn your life history? Should I talk to your manager? I know this is your work time”.
She assured me it would not be a problem.

And that was that. For the time being.

The business meeting grew more promising by the minute. What was to be a 45 minute meeting bled well over an hour and a half. Finally we shook hands and I walked him out of the restaurant area. As I turned back, I realized that the whole place was cleaned out. Nobody was around. I had a sick feeling in my stomach. Hurriedly, I walked towards the door of the hotel and asked the usherer “Would you know if Imani is still working here?” (BTW, I had memorized that Imani was her name before I noticed she was “from” Washington DC). He was such a nice guy that he said “I do not know. But let me find out.” Saying so, he went inside the kitchen and came out with Imani!

I was really, really relieved. We sat down in one of the numerous empty tables and I told her “Tell me your life story”.

There was this girl who was born to a dad who spent most his life in jail. She could not remember if she ever had seen her. Her mom became a drug addict. The state agencies came along and to protect her and her two siblings, pulled them away from their mom at a very young age and put them in the foster care system. The foster care system is where parents take care of kids and get paid by the state to do so. The system made sure that the siblings never got separated. The DC system was fine.

Then they were moved to Durham. She did not cast a very positive picture on the foster care system there. Some of the stories of what she and her siblings had to undergo is too sordid for me to write here. Being a softie, there are words I cannot get myself to utter. Being a dad of two daughters, I could not help myself shudder. Let me put it this way – think of the worst abuse a lady – especially young, can go thru – and she had to go thru all of them. As she kept moving from houses to houses.

“Why did you not report to the authorities? or the cops?”, I asked.
“Sir, we did. The authorities (not cops, foster agencies) came. They would ask us to go to a room and then talk to the foster parents. I can only imagine what happened there”.
“Why did you not let your foster mom know this?”.
“We did, sir”.
“Why not the cops?”.
“Today, I would do it. Then, none of us knew how to access cops we could trust”.

After that, every couple of minutes, I would interrupt her “Sorry, can you repeat what you just said?”. I had my daughters’ faces floating in front of me all the time and I was totally distracted and angry.

“Then what?”, I asked.
Her first break came when she managed to get a kinship program.
“What is a kinship program?”, I asked.
“That is when in school, one of your friend’s parents decide to take you in. The advantage is that they don’t abuse you – obviously, they are loving parents of their daughter who is around”.
Fortunately for her, the mom of her best friend in high school decided to take her in.

From there, her grades flourished. Straight A student.

After high school, she put herself thru a technology school (one of those training institutes) by working the rest of the time. But at the end, she realized that there were not too many technology jobs for people at her level.

“So, from here, where do you go?”
“I want to go to business school. So, I am working three jobs to pay off my debt – from the technology school – and then save for a business degree”.

I let her know that if what everything she told me was how life happened to her – and I have no reason to disbelieve her – first, I was sorry that she got a tough deck of cards but also that I had never come across anybody who knew how to take life by its horns and come up triumphant. I had no doubt, she would succeed.

As I prepared to leave, I suddenly realized that she had opened up to a total stranger in spite of a lot of abuse by men. So, I sat her down again and showed her my website. I told her I write about people I meet on the road. I showed her the picture of the Delta lady and mentioned – sometimes, my friends are able to help the people I write about. I asked her if it would be okay for me to take a picture of her and write the story on my blog.

She thought for a second and said – “On two conditions”
“I am listening”
“Talk only about the positive things. In spite of everything, sir, I am still smiling. That is important to me.”
I felt a lump in my throat. “Ok”, is all I could manage.
“And the other one, sir, I do not want anybody else’s money or help in getting better jobs. If some of your friends could mentor me, that is the best help I can get. That is the thing I cannot solve for myself.”
I really wanted to give her a hug. “Listen, I am blessed with some of the best human beings as my friends. I guarantee you many will jump at the opportunity to mentor you”.

We got somebody to take a picture of us. I was so overwhelmed that I did not even check the picture to see that it deserved a retake – till I was sitting in the plane.

And thus we parted….

As I listlessly walked away dragging the suitcase to my rental car, only one thought went through my mind…. I have been so privileged in my life. I have two daughters. I got a great deck of cards from life. Wonderful parents, wonderful wife, best folks in the world I call “friends”, great teachers… they have all pushed and pulled me to a position where I have been able to provide my daughters (so far) a privileged life. What should I do for them (and myself) to realize how privileged we are?

So, that was my morning story. Any of you – especially those of the feminine gender – if you are willing to mentor (by phone and email) a 21 year young lady who has not seen the brightest days in her life but is determined to change that, please send me a personal message. I will pass on her email id and phone number to her. You can talk to her and see if you can give her some guidance. Just tell her “I am a friend of that weird Indian guy you sat down to talk on Thursday morning”.

This goes back to mid seventies. There was this young guy majoring in music in college. Rick Roberts happened to be his name and French pipe happened to be the instrument. The young guy was smart and talented enough to rise to be a band director. His dreams came crashing quickly when he talked to somebody in his line with a lot more experience who dissuaded him from this line given the lack of career opportunities.

Not knowing any better, he followed his brother’s advice. Talked SMU into letting him in to a one-year MBA program. (this is late seventies; there were no pre-reqs for college admissions). Post that, he scored a job in the marketing department of one of the biggest employers in the Dallas area. His job was to go thru the foot-high reams of computer output to analyze data.

Remember, these were the days of long computer sheets and two layers of carbon paper for copy. Invariably he came home with arms filled with carbon paper ink. He decided that was not what he wanted to do. But, he also reasoned, since those were the printouts from a computer, obviosuly the data was sitting in a computer somewhere. All he needed was access to that computer and figure out how to get the computer to do his work for him.

Except that it was against the policy in this company for marketing folks to get access to the computers. Eventually, he convinced somebody in the data center to give him his user id and password (now you know why I am not mentioning the company’s name 🙂 ). With some effort and time, he learnt the programming language and how to get the computer to compile the analysis for him instead of doing it manually. With one caveat. He had to do it on the sly. Which meant, he would do it during night. He would go to office during the day, twiddle his thumbs for some time and then walk up to the boss and show the results. His boss (who had no idea of this) would never believe his output and then used to be astounded by its accuracy!!

Many years later, access to computer was relaxed and that he is when he got into serious programming. He was adept enough in programming that the top computer science recruiter of Dallas area then – Texas Instruments hired him. There was a super programmer called Lamott Oren in TI. Rick’s job was to understand and learn the code that Lamott wrote. As Rick put it – Lamott would come one afternoon, spit out a bunch of Lisp code and then Rick would take the whole week to understand it!! In a complete twist of fate, many years later, that LaMott, Rick and myself worked together in the same team in a different company!!!

It was in that company – i2 that I got the honor of working side by side with Rick. The product he oversaw – Factory Planner – is without any doubt, the most successful supply chain product that I have ever seen. It became the flagship product for i2. His push for simplicity and eye for what makes a product succeed was beyond any comparison.

Fast forward a little later. I had long left i2. Rick’s position was eventually eliminated in those days of mass outsourcing and he was let gone. Disappointed that his role was eliminated, that day, when he came home, he went for a walk on the Main Street. There happened to be a guy playing an Irish flute. He stood there and listened to him. On a whim, he bought a flute from him for $3.

Then he practised like heck at home. An elderly gentleman suddenly practicing Irish flute in the kitchen for hours together can be intense for any family!! It was intesne enough that his twenty year old daughter decided to move out from home 🙂 Luckily, his wife, as he put it, decided to weather it all. Now, he is so good at it that he is often an invited and featured artist at events around the metroplex.

After many many years, Rick Roberts and I met up at an Irish bar over some beer, fish and chips. It was absolutely unbelievable getting in touch with somebody who I learnt so much from in my early stages of professional life.

It was really good to be with a really good guy again!!!

Last time I called up Angie to wish her a happy birthday, she mentioned that I was prominent in her list of people she wanted to meet from her past. I had figured that next time I was in Dallas, I had to find some time to catch up with her.

That day came yesterday. Among other things, she led our recruitment – especially executive recruitment. She was one of the rare recruiters who truly impressed me – and taught me how to look for the core elements of what makes a great professional or executive (and not the stuff that is written on the resumes).

I was aware she had gone thru some tough times in her personal life and also that she had beaten back all of them and thru the process had reinvented herself. It was inspiring and educational last night to hear the full story of how she took a tough challenge in life and emerged a better person.

As always, we also caught up about our old friends from i2. Looked like she had more updates than I did – and I do not face that too often 🙂

I had another reason I wanted to see her. Remember that lady – Thomasine – at the DCA airport? After hearing her story three of my friends – Jenny, Raghu and Angie had stepped forward to help her. In fact, Angie had already set up calls with her and spread the word around to 600 folks in her network.

I had to see such a gracious person and learn from her.

If you thought Stacy crying because I embarrassed her was a funny episode, (see previous blog), you should try this. This one is circa 1996 again. I had become a manager for the first time in my life. There was this young lady – Tammi Gagne Perry – who had just joined the group that I had become the manager of. Two months into her joining the group, my manager – Dan Stenger – undoubtedly one of the best managers ever in my life – one day called me to his office and discussed which teammates deserved how much bonus for the year. To be honest, I was so new as a manager, I pretty much went along with whatever he said. Plus I trusted his calls.

One of the suggestions he had was to give Tammi a $1000 bonus (which would have been out of cycle for her) for the results she had produced within a very short period of time. Again, I went along with it. Except that since I was the direct manager, I had to give her the message. It was not a particularly difficult message, anyways. So, I was up for it.

I followed all the management protocol. Remember, I was new to this. I called her to a conference room, closed the door, explained to her, her achievements in a very short time and that the company had decided to reward her efforts and results with a $1000 bonus. I was expecting a gracious nod. A token “Thank You” would have been nice too.

Instead, she just started crying. I mean crying fluently and copiously. Evidently, she was so overcome by the gesture from the company (actually Dan’s, not even mine) and she was so not used to being told “Thank You” that she completely lost control of herself.

Did I mention this was in a conference room? With glass panes as a wall?

Can you imagine the scenario? There was this young lady sobbing and crying uncontrollably. Facing him was this the-then-young Indian guy with a sheepish grin but totally clueless about what to do next. And then there were these passers-by on the corridor watching us and wondering whether they should step in and ask her if she needed help!!!

It certainly sounded funny today as I met Tammi almost twenty years after that incident and discussed it. (Again, it was far less funny for me on that day). It is with great relief today that I can report that she takes to compliments far less violently 🙂

Seriously though, it was just magical to get in touch with a human being that I had grown so close to over the years (even her mom who we lost to cancer, her husband and daughters as well as her sisters).

Great evening with Leanne and Robin over a glass of wine. We worked together long time back in i2 technologies. It was lovely catching up with both of them and remembering some of the stories from the late nineties and later. I am sure they do not want me to write the details of some of them here 🙂

Picture this – circa 1996 – a newly minted manager (in fact, first time manager) – yours truly – gets a chance to present his team’s activities to the CEO. I invited my entire UI team to attend the presentation. The presentation went swimmingly well, except for one minor hitch.

And that hitch turned out to be my understanding of the English phrase “dropping the ball”. I was eloquently presenting all our achievements and successes. Somewhere, there, I had to explain that we had to deprioritize a sub project called “UI Editor” in favor of something else. In fact, the developer working on it – Stacy Roderman – had to be pulled from that and put on high priority project. However, I spoke about it as “We dropped the ball on the UI Editor”. The slide clearly showed Stacy’s name against the sub-project UI Editor.

I have no idea why, till that day, I thought “dropping the ball” meant you “set it aside”. Of course, in reality “dropping the ball” meant… errrr. “dropping the ball” 🙂 Funny part is that the CEO did not even flinch, nor have any questions. But I could see that Stacy – sitting in the room – was visibly upset.

At the end of the presentation – which, as I said, went extremely well – I was feeling really good, when another team mate – Tom Moellering, came by and said “You might want to talk to Stacy”. Eventually, I went to Stacy’s room and I could see that she was upset. Not knowing what is going on and wanting to give some privacy. I asked her if she wanted to go to Starbucks for a coffee. She readily agreed.

We did not talk much as we walked to the car. I had barely started the car and started pulling out of the parking lot when she started laying it down to me. She was bawling and taking me to the cleaners, demanding to know why would I berate her in public – that too in front of the CEO. As you can imagine, I had not the faintest idea what just hit me.

I did keep my calm and tried to get out of her what seemed to be the problem. When I finally realized what the problem was, I was really amused by the comical scale of the misunderstanding caused by my lack of knowledge of an English phrase. She did not find it that funny at all. (Fortunately, she found it as funny as I when we talked about it this evening – which is why I am even daring to write it 🙂 )

While that was not the only time I got into trouble for not being knowledgeable of the language called English, it was certainly when it was healed very quickly.

We had a great laugh as we talked about it. We, being, of course, Stacy, her husband Brian and myself. Both Stacy and I worked in the same team and over time I got close to her and her husband. That was over ten years back. We had two kids each roughly around the same time and we continued to work in the same company roughly till around the same date.

Another funny story. Coming from India about a quarter century back, I was not terribly used to the concept of divorce and re-marriage. I mean, I knew what it meant – but I had no friends who had parents or siblings who were divorced. Or remarried. Against that backdrop, I am sure you will be sympathetic to my condition when one day, while describing something that I cannot remember, Stacy talked about “My stepfather’s ex …..”. She continued with her sentence but I was stuck at that phrase. By the time she had finished her story, I was still staring at her blankly while my overworked brain was desperately trying to compute who the heck is your “stepdad’s ex” 🙂

It was fascinating catching up with Stacy and Brian today. Once again, I reminded myself how blessed my journey has been by the presence of some really great fellow travelers on this journey we choose to call “life”.