Sital Ruparelia

Below is an old banking joke doing the email rounds in the City. I’ve heard it before, but it still brings a smile to my face.

A man flying in a hot air balloon realised that he was lost. He spots a man down below and descends. ‘Excuse me’, he shouts. ‘Can you help me ? I promised a friend that I’d meet him half hour ago, but I’m lost. Where am I ?’.

‘You are in a hot air balloon’, the man below replied. ‘You are hovering approximately 30 feet above this field. You are between 40 and 42 degrees north latitude, and between 58 and 60 degrees west longitude’.

‘Thanks’. replied the lost balloonist. ‘You must work in Operations’.

‘I do’, said the man below. ‘But how did you know ?’.

‘Well’, answered the balloonist, ‘Everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of it all, and the fact is that I’m still lost!’.

‘And you my friend’, said the man below, ‘must work in Front Office’.

‘I do’, said the balloonist. ‘But how come you knew that ?’.

‘Well’, replied the man with his feet on the ground, ‘you don’t know where you are, or where you are going. You made a promise which you are not going to keep, and you are now looking to me to solve your problems. And the fact is that you are in exactly the same predicament you were in before we meet, yet somehow all the blame is now being laid on me!’.