by Anura Guruge
on August 27, 2022
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I am NOT sentimental. While I celebrate the birthdays of my closest, closest family, I do NOT celebrate my own. {Smile} That I am NOT 100% sure as to my birthday might have something to do with it. I know I was born in September 1953, but I cannot be sure, 100% as to on what day it was. {Smile} It transpires I was a hospital mix-up. They gave my parents the wrong (bloody) baby. I am so sorry for them. They sure deserved better. Hence why I refer to them now as my ‘adoptive parents’. As far as I can tell that is the BEST I can do. There is no word or phrase, as far as I can see, for parents of mix-ups. NO. I do NOT know who my biological parents are other than that my biological father was a ‘GAMBLER’! Now, doesn’t that explain it all.
IF you know me (& to be fair a very, very, very few do) you will see that I had to be the son of a gambler. How else could you explain me, this reprobate.
Anywho. My adoptive parents were married on August 27, 1952. That was a Wednesday. Don’t ask me why. It was most likely a date set my an astrologer. The right auspices time. Well, even then they were duped. Looked what happened just 13-14 months down the road. They got me — the SON of a GAMBLER. LoL.
So, that was the initial significance of August 27. My adoptive parents’ anniversary.
My adoptive father liked grand gestures. So, when we were to leave Ceylon in 1967 (for what I now realize was a self-imposed EXILE by my adoptive father) he chose August 27.
As such, I left Ceylon on August 27, 1976 — 55-years ago.
I did NOT want to leave. I had no choice. I wish I had never left. But, you can’t change time.
August 27, 1974, was indeed a pivotal day in my (rather sorry) life. My 1st day at IBM (Hursley). My very first day of working. Prior to that I had not worked a day — for pay.
That it was August 27 was an AMUSING accident.
I never wanted to work for IBM!
But, nearly 18-months earlier, IBM had given me, unsolicited, an unconditional job offer — open-ended (i.e., no end date). I was given a name. Mrs. McKraken. She was in H.R. I just had to contact her if & when I wanted to come & work for IBM.
I wanted to be a game warden in Africa!
I spent 9-months trying to get a job in Africa as a game warden.
Then, in the Summer of 1974, while we were in Bangkok, Thailand, my then girlfriend said that I really should get a proper job so that we could get married. She reminded me that I had an open job offer from that FILTHY, U.S. CAPITALIST COMPANY IBM. I didn’t want to work for IBM. I wanted to be a game warden. But, she convinced me. So, I sent a telegram to Mrs. McKraken. I gave her the last Monday in August 1967 as my start day. I was in Bangkok. I did not realize that it was a Bank Holiday in the U.K.
IBM was COOL. I went onto ADORE IBM. I loved working for IBM. I went onto be known as ‘Mr. IBM’. My entire professional life, for the next 40-years, revolved around IBM. I would not be here, writing this, if not for IBM.
Mrs. McKraken telegrammed me back. Said August 26, 1974 would INDEED be my official start date at IBM, BUT since it was a holiday, they will see me, in Hursley, on the next day, August 27, 1974. That was the start of my WORKING LIFE. I got paid for my 1st day of work — though I never worked it. It was a holiday.
That folks is how my life limped along. SMILE.
August 27 — a RED LETTER day in my life. SMILE.
