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!!!