I will cherish you forever – Unknown.
Adam called his mom, and she explained to him that she will make necessary arrangements to be there, but dad wouldn’t be able to come with her.
The problem that I had faced with was that there was no provision made in the teaching system at all the teaching institutions for somebody to cover a parttime professor, if he or she cannot teach in case of an emergency. The only way I could have had a day off was if any other parttime professor was prepared to teach my class. I used to teach two classes on Monday, one at UNLV and one at the University of Phoenix. It took me forever to get in touch with almost every parttime professor at both institutions and finally I got two folks agreed to teach my two classes while I was going to be away. I promised them to return their Favour whenever they have an emergency like mine’s.
Lynda was gone to Ottawa, and I called her to let her know that finally I got both classes covered. The wedding was on Sunday, and I had managed to get a flight booked to come back home on Monday as I had another class to teach on Tuesday. Travelling was a very time consuming experience as there were no direct flights available between Ottawa and Las Vegas.
I taught a class on Friday night and left directly for the airport after 8:00 PM with the flight schedule at 10:30 PM. I needed to change a couple of flights but got to Ottawa on Saturday morning. I had told Adam that I am so sorry that I would not be able to join any other activities or formalities before or after the wedding as I needed to be back in Vegas on Monday. Adam had a bunch of rooms reserved in a hotel across from NAC where my relatives and Lynda’s relatives stayed. We took our families out for supper on Saturday night and had a nice time. Jenifer was gone to stay in Fairmont Chateau Laurier with her friends as they had planned to come directly to where they were getting married. Lynda and I had a room in the same hotel where our families were staying. Most of my night I spent going around and talking to different relatives as I hadn’t seen them for a while.
If I remember correctly, everything was organized by the wedding consultant, and everything went as planned. Right after the non-religious wedding ceremony, we moved into a different hall where drinks and a kosher buffet was organized with plenty food which everybody enjoyed. Then speeches started which lasted another couple of hours. Before we moved to the dancing hall, everybody took a little break to move around and talk to the people.
Adam had invited some close friends who also worked with us for a long time. He had also invited some clients who we did business with. I took a little break to go chat with those folks then Lynda showed up. She said let’s dance as Adam decided to dedicate his first dance to your favourite song – What a wonderful world (Louis Armstrong). I apologized to those folks and went along with Lynda to the dancing area where people were dancing and joined them.
Lynda and I were immensely impressed with the way Adam had arranged the wedding. I left first thing in the morning on Monday for Vegas. When I got home there were two messages on the phone – one from the professor who was supposed to teach my class on Monday and another one from the coordinator at the University of Phoenix. It was too late to call anybody, so I decided to go to bed. The next morning, I got up early and went to the clubhouse to do the exercise and swim. When I got back, I had another message from the professor. I decide to call him right away. He was very apologetic that he had some kind of emergency in the family, and he was not able to teach the class for me. I told him not to worry but I worried that the call from the coordinator could be a bad news. However, there was nothing else I could have done given the fact that I wasn’t going to miss my son’s wedding. In any case, I called the coordinator and the first thing he asked – how was the wedding? I said everything went just like a clock. He said unfortunately things here didn’t go just like that. He said the professor didn’t show up and 55 students were stranded with no direction. Some of them walked to my boss’s office and complained to him. I said there’s nothing I can say to explain the situation, and I don’t want to blame Fred as he had a family emergency. He said unfortunately my boss was so upset that he decided to teach your class for the rest of the year, Mir. I said in other words, I am fired? He said I wouldn’t exactly call it a “firing” as it’s not based on your teaching capabilities as we know that all your students like it dearly. I said I don’t blame you and I am also glad that your boss decided to teach the class as I know he’s indeed a better teacher than I ever be. We disconnected our telephone conversation on a positive note. He had also said if you decided to teach here again or want to use me as a reference, please let me know.
As soon as I put the phone back, it rang, and it was Lynda who wanted to know if everything is fine. I decided not to mention to her about what just had happened to me simply because I didn’t want her to worry about anything.
After a couple of weeks after, I had a call from the president of the organization which represented the interest of the minority groups in the casinos. She said to me that she met with a group of people including the president and vice-president of the company which is interested in marketing an automated purchasing system which will help casinos to save some time and energy to deal with all their purchasing requirements. She said she doesn’t know too much about the system, but she thought I could be some help not only to make her understand what they were trying to accomplish but also to explore the possibilities of utilizing my services. I asked her why they approached her. She said they were told that she represents the black folks who work in each casino. She also said that when she mentioned to them my background and qualifications, the vice-president of the company expressed interest in meeting with me. I told her that I am all for that. She gave me the information to get in touch with vice-president, and his name was Larry.
To make a long story short, I met with Larry briefly to understand what they were trying to accomplish and how I can be of any helpful. I learned that they had an automated purchasing system which was being used in other states in various industries, and they wanted to work with the casinos to learn how they can modify their current system to suit the purchasing processes in a casino environment. Based on my previous experience working in various industries, I knew that an automated purchasing system automates the entire procurement lifecycle through features like electronic purchasing requisitions, automated purchase order creation and dispatch, automated invoice matching and payment processing. Typically, this system must be supported with a vendor management system.
I told Larry that I will brief the president about their objectives, but she would like to know how her organization can help you folks. Larry said they are looking for some help to get a couple of casinos lined up to let them work with them to document their current procedures and processes with the possibility to used them as pilot projects. The time I left the meeting, I made sure that Larry understood my situation. I had no position or authority to influence the decision to work with them. However, I assured him that I will make sure that they understand what Larry was trying to accomplish.
After the meeting I went directly to meet with the president. We took our coffee and sat in the boardroom to go over the details which I had learned talking to Larry. In the end she asked me what the major benefits of an automated purchasing system are, Mir. I said the major benefits could very well be summarized as:
- Increase Efficiency;
- Reduced Errors;
- Improved Compliance; and
- Real-time Spending Visibility.
She said perhaps it’s worth our while to help them get connected with the right casinos to work with, what do you think, Mir. I said, I totally agree with you. She thanked me for my time, and I left her office.
The next week, Lynda came back from Ottawa. She was very tired. It took a couple of days for her to recover. I explained to her about getting fired at the University of Phoenix and she said you will find something else to keep yourselves busy. Funny enough that the next week I had a call from Larry, the vice president of the consulting company. He wanted to have lunch with me to explore the possibility of assisting them with their idea of modifying their system with the help of one of the casinos. I got in touch with Larry. Larry wanted me to come on board to look at what’s going on with them and assist them to get organized. I accepted his offer and told him that I will be there first thing in the morning to start working with his group. It was unexpected, but I wanted to do that. I explained to him that I will have to continue to teach a couple of days during the week otherwise I will spend whatever time I can spend to help them out. Larry appeared to be a reasonable guy and demonstrated a lot of respect for my background, and he was prepared to take whatever time I could afford to spend with them. I left Larry with the promise to show up at 8:00 AM on Monday.
I called Judy, the president, to thank her for her recommendations and told her that perhaps Larry is looking for your support to get their business going in Las Vegas and he is smart enough to hire me with the objective to keep in touch with you. She said, “You are right”. She continued – At the same time, you being there will provide me with a comfort level that I need to learn whether Larry’s company has the expertise to support the casinos. She said it works both ways. I only know you for a short period of time, but I trust you more than I trusting Larry. I thanked her and said I will do my best not to let her down.
I was so amazed how things worked out for me. It was pure luck but nothing else.
While everything appeared to be going just fine with me, I was worried about the overall impact of the Year 2000 (Y2K) Problem which was creeping up on us. Perhaps the best way to explain the problem was to say The Y2K problem, refers the potential computer errors related to the formatting and storage of calendar data for dates in and after 2000. Many programs represented four-digit years with only the final two digits, making the year 2000 indistinguishable from 1900. This led to widespread fears that computer systems would fail to recognize the correct date, causing disruption in critical sectors such as banking and government databases. Despite the panic, extensive preparations were made to address the issue, highlighting the importance of foresight and proactive measures in technology management. In other words, bank system storing “31-12-99” followed by “01-01-00” could mistakenly think a customer’s next payment was due 99 years earlier, causing transaction or record errors.
Even though we were not in the Information Technology business to take the responsibility for coming up with an answer to the problem but all our contracts in Ottawa were with the federal government and every department was totally in panic which was affecting our performance and Adam was wondering whether or not we would be able deliver the results of our contracts on time and within budgets to fulfill our commitment. In summary, the Y2K crisis was solved through massive global collaboration, where programmers reviewed and updated billions of lines of code, tested systems extensively, and replaced outdated technology – ensuring computers correctly recognized the year 2000. The Y2K crisis cost the world an estimated $400–500 billion to fix and prevent potential problems. While the actual disruptions were minimal, the large-scale investment modernized global computer infrastructure and prevented what could have been catastrophic system failures.
While there was a panic in Las Vegas about Y2K, it didn’t affect my consulting work. I was still teaching three classes a week and spending three days on the consulting assignment. It was indeed an interesting consulting assignment. I was learning how casinos manage their procurement requirements. Some casinos were using semi-automated procurement process to acquire products and services but at the same time there were some casinos where the use of the technology was minimum and getting those casinos interested was indeed a challenge.
On a personal note, this year was our 27th wedding anniversary and Lynda wanted to do “something” to celebrate it.
When we got married in Toronto, it was a civil marriage performed by a justice of peace in the middle of a snowstorm, and we didn’t have two pennies to rub together. The ceremony also non-denominational simply because I was Muslim and Lynda was Jewish. I could only afford to buy a ring for $100 dollars which she had accepted without any hesitation.
I agreed with Lynda wholeheartedly. I thought she deserved more and better than anything. I said to her, “Let’s go shopping for a ring before we determine where and when we celebrate our wedding anniversary”. The next day I took her to Jeweler shops outside Chinook Centre and told her to pick any shop and we will do the ring shopping. She picked up a shop right in the middle, and we went in to start browsing the wedding rings. We spent a few minutes looking at the rings and whispering until we got the attention of one of the sell staff who was watching us with interest. Lynda never let it bother her and continued to assess the rings one by one. Finally, she zoomed in a couple of rings and turned around and pointed them to me. I pointed out those rings to the guy who appeared to be keeping an eye on us. He right away pulled his keys to the showcase and opened it and pointed out to confirm the rings that Lynda was interested in. She nodded her head to confirm and then we followed the guy to his office where he put both rings on the desk in front of Lynda and wanted her to try them on. She tried it one by one and looked at me asking me to say something. I remember saying – I like both rings and you pick whichever you like the best. The guy said once you selected the ring, I will make sure that it fits you perfectly. Once she was happy with the ring, she handed me the ring that she liked the best and said hope we can afford it, babe. I said don’t worry about it. I owe you one for a long time. It didn’t take too long for me to work it out with the sales person, and I paid for it. He cleaned the ring and put it in a nice box before he gave it to Lynda. Lynda appeared to be very happy with the ring. Before we left the store, the guy suggested “You need to bring the ring every year for appraisal as we do that for every customer to let them know the increase in the value each year.”
I had never heard of a this before, but I agreed with him.
On Sunday, Lynda took the ring to the clubhouse where she showed it to everybody and explained that we were going to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary on the 23rd of January. Brenda, our friend suggested she, with a couple of other folks, would throw a little party at the clubhouse and invite our friends to celebrate our wedding anniversary. Lynda and I were very impressed with the offer and delighted to hear the other folks agreeing with Brenda. Thanks for the offer but Lynda wanted to get married once again at a casino like millions of folks come to Vegas t get married. Brenda said in that case you go ahead and plan to do that, but as soon as you’re done at the casino, come to the clubhouse. We all be here with food and music to make a rememberable night for you.
