2 Eggs and Fred

I. Introduction - 'I quit'

With all the tumult and transition in the Financial Services sector, particularly in the U.S, we have had our hands full particularly at my organization where we have been trying integrate two large behemoth companies into one working unit. And in a peculiar way I found myself in the eye of that storm. So I have had an existential crisis for that past year and half as we all, myself including, tried to find firmer footing.

Slowly but surely, finally during the course of this year, we steadied the ship in my business and have begun to crank, with increased momentum in results. Nice! I said to myself, now, to stand on a stable platform and build the next layer on top of it.

So you can imagine my surprise, when my boss suddenly two Wednesdays ago said she was quitting (abruptly). At senior levels, particularly here, there is no two-week notice type of stuff. If you announce you are quitting, you are gone that evening.

I had to scramble Thursday morning to not only reassure my team, but as a leadership group, all our teams and reassure the senior execs that we could steady the ship.

So every other plan went out of the window, and we went to DEFCON 4 and just focused on running the immediate business in our manager's absence.

II. Two Eggs

This past week was spring break for Boston schools, so we were going to take a vacation. But with the tumult at work, we decided to travel to Princeton/Philly as a family and I could work out of the NJ office and the families could all meet.

So we stayed with my dad for a few days.

One evening we were having dinner and some of my Dad's other professor friends came over. We were talking about 'food adventures' for some reason. And there were a couple of doozies.

My story as part of this conversation was that one of our friends, who is well off after he sold his business, took his family and ours on his private plane, time-share 'Net Jet' to Niagara Falls for a weekend. All fancy and everything. In the middle of this flight, (it was just us in this small 8 seater jet), we took out a tiffin box of chinese food and started enjoying it. We were completely scared that the pilot would be confused by the strange odor wafting into his pilot cabin!

Then my dad's professor friend told the following story. He said, that when he was traveling he was concerned that in one of the day trips there may not be any good food to eat. He was diabetic, and did not want to be stuck without food. So at the breakfast buffet, he took two boiled eggs and slipped them into his pant pocket.

To his great misfortune, they were not boiled eggs, but actual eggs. And thus instead of the completely absurd sight of two big eggs sticking out of his pant pocket, he had the even more absurd sight of two smashed eggs and leaking fluid all over his pants in the restaurant with his traveling group.

III. Lost

We had a very tightly engineered week. I was at work, the families were shuttling back and forth between Princeton and Philadelphia. There were logistics with our Dog Fred - where would he be, who would take care of him etc.

We managed to work through all this through the course of the week - and then came our last day Friday - when all hell broke loose.

- My dad had a 'cataract' operation that morning and my brother took him to the doctor and back. So my dad was laid in his bed, needing to rest his eyes.

- I had a big presentation at work Friday morning, and was completely immersed in this critical meeting (in my boss' absence).

- My wife and son, MK and RK, were returning from Philadelphia.

- Our dog, Freddie was in my Dad's house till we all got back.

I finished my meeting and was going to pick up MK and RK. They called to say they had taken the wrong train and went to a completely different train station (in a dangerous neighborhood).

My dad called at the same time in a panic and said that he had opened the door for the postman, and Freddie slipped out of the house and ran outside and because of his cataract operation could not see what was happening.

And I was stuck behind a funeral procession not able to make any maneuvers on the road.

Anyway, I turned on my GPS and got to the train station where they were and picked them up. We called 911 and animal services to start looking for Fred and we raced to my Dad's house.

We fanned out to look for him and he was nowhere to be found.

Then we got a call from Fred's pet insurance company. They said, that since Fred had a tag on him with their number they received a call from someone who found him and gave us their number.

A young woman had spotted Fred in the middle of a farm field 5 miles away from my Dad's house, stopped her car walked over to him and stayed with him to make the call to our insurance company.

We then drove all the way to where she was and picked up Fred, with our son RK bawling at the top of his voice the whole time.

IV. Aftermath

We thanked the young woman profusely. RK stopped bawling and resumed playing with his Nintendo DSX. My dad went back to his bed to relax and rest his eyes. My boss' boss called me to say that he was very pleased with our work.

And we headed back to Boston.

And went straight to bed.