[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”.

I will let Bipasha explain…. 🙂

Got a chance to meet up with two of my oldest friends from Dallas area over dinner last night. It is always great to spend some time with Aniruddha and Indrani. Last evening was no different.

I remember – way back in 1995, I would play tennis with Aniruddha. Every single weekday. At 5 pm sharp. In his apartment complex – that was often referred to as CP-6!!! Not that our tennis skills was something we wrote home about; nevertheless, we would show up at 5 pm without fail. After a good game or two, we would sit around the staircase of the apartment building chatting ourselves to glory 🙂

Later, Indrani and Sharmila went to school together and we made some great common friends. This was when we were young couples without kids. A great weekend day meant we got up late, called each other up and showed up at an Indian restaurant a few minutes before they closed the buffet down and ate enough to justify a whole month’s worth of tennis games. 🙂

Unbelievably enough, I was a teetotaler then!! Speaking of which, we missed Sharmila last evening so much that we did the next best thing… the three of us had her favorite Pinot Noir 🙂 I am sure that is exactly what she would have us do 🙂

One of the best things about business meetings in Dallas is that I get to create intersection points with so many people that had crossed my path in the long past. The first one started with a guy I met on June 3rd, 1991 in the training room of COSL in SEEPZ in Mumbai – about two and a half decades back.

It was magical to get back in touch with a guy I had not met in many many years and is certainly the most creative person I have ever had a chance to know.

Aditya Garg!!!

Not sure where to start….

Maybe the fact how he was so meticulous and organized in everything he did? When, in those days, we cared very little about how crumpled our office clothes were, Aditya would invariably be found ironing in shirt before we left our flat to catch the office bus.

Or maybe that his flair for creativity rubbed off on me for a long time? If you have ever invited me to your house for dinner or lunch after 2005, you probably also remember the meticulously written Thank You letter written in a fountain pen with calligraphic nib on a monogrammed paper that you received in your snail mail. Well, Aditya was the guy who taught me calligraphy. He is the guy who taught me how to make calligraphic nibs.

You see, unlike in US, we could not simply walk up to a store in India and get the six pack Sheaffer calligraphic nib set. He taught me how to buy normal nibs and then patiently rub on a sandpaper and then rub even more smoothly on concrete to smooth out a hopefully-now-flat nib. He taught me how to make the two types of calligraphic nibs – flat and 45 degrees.

He was also the engineer par excellence. He had devised this lamp shade that was balanced by hooks in four corners of the room with four varying weights. Here is the marvel – you could place the lamp anywhere in the three dimensional space of the room and it would balance itself there for as long as you wanted!

Even to this day, he has not lost his zest for independence in thinking and deciding what is best for him – regardless of what the world thought. That, I mused this evening, looking at him, has to be the ultimate recipe for success in this world.

I gotta to meet him and learn from him more….

For the last few months, I have been trying something new in my weekly travel routine. I check in my suitcase. All I have over my shoulder when I loiter around in the airport or board the plane is a very small shoulder bag. Which has my iPad, a few printed pages, a yellow pad and of course two of my fountain pens 🙂 Given that I have eschewed sitting in a office for over 12 years and use iPad as my only computing device for office ever since they invented iPad (no laptop or desktop), I often have the luxury of watching how people with trappings behave. For example, the rush to board a plane! These days, I am usually the last person to board. Once, I almost lost my seat since I did not board with the rest of the first class passengers. I will tell you that story sometime.

Today’s story was about somebody I met when I went to check in my suitcase. As I walked into the DCA Delta counters, I noticed that there was nobody at the automated check in counters except one Delta agent standing around to help anybody who needed help. I had some time before my next call started (and LOTS of time before my flight left). So, purposely, I went to the unit right next to her and started chatting her up as I punched in my details at the kiosk unit.

“How long have you been with Delta?” I asked this lovely lady.
“Three years”.
“Wow! That is pretty recent. What were you doing before this?”
“I was an Oracle DBA”, she said.
“SAY WHAT??? What do you mean you were a Oracle DBA? And what are you doing here?”

And that is how the story unfolded. I was so engrossed that my unit timed itself out – so, I had to log back in again. You cannot blame me. I was stunned to realize that I was with a grandmom of five – who worked for Fannie Mae as an Oracle DBA for 13 years!! And during the downturn, as the government cut down costs, she lost her job. For the last five years, she has been unsuccessfully looking for a database job she would like. In the meanwhile, to support herself, she is working as an hourly employee at Delta helping people check in at the kiosk counters!!

I asked her if she would mind talking to me during her work time for a few minutes. She accepted. So, I got my luggage tag, handed it over to the TSA guys and came back looking for her. She was still there. I asked her about the difficulty of going from her six-figure job to an hourly wage employee. She told me it certainly has been very difficult but I detected no bitterness in her voice. I asked her what did she do during her off hours, expecting to hear a grandmom talk about her grandkids. “Oh! I keep searching for a career that I can flourish in”, she said!!

I got to learn about how she started her career in a 4GL environment and taught herself Oracle RDBMS and worked her way up to be a DBA. She talked about how she upgraded her skills to 11g a few years back.

Finally, I asked her if she would mind taking a picture with me. And that is how, I met Thomasine T at DCA airport. Her dad’s name was Thomas. They were expecting a son. When it turned out to be her, her parents just named her Thomasine. She also goes by the name Tammy.

If any of you travel to DCA, say Hi to Thomasine if you see her near the Delta counter. If any of you need a smart grandmom who can do a thing or two in Oracle, certainly contact her. It would be great to see if together if we can make a difference to the life of a hardworking grandmom.

At the core of my heart, I believe that the world belongs not to the ones who are born to better wherewithal. Not even to the ones who are born with superior intelligence. But to the ones who are willing to work very hard and not give up.

I have to believe in that. That is my only hope of personally making something out of myself when I grow up. And grandmoms like Thomasine …

As I started walking to the TSA Pre Check line, I asked myself if I had the mental fortitude to take a hit like Thomasine has and not give up fighting…. I suddenly remembered a Bengali song..

“Chirodin kaharo soman nahi jay
Aajkey je raajadhiraaj, kaal se bhikka chay”

(It is never going to be the same everyday for anybody in this world
One who is the emperor today will be begging for alms some day)