The Importance of Not Being Rude

Being Russian, but raised and educated in Western cultures for most of my life, I have been subjected to very nice people during most of my self-conscious life. Or at least people who do not snap at you for no reason whatsoever. The skill of trusting that the random person you are about to talk to, whether it is a receptionist, a cashier, or anyone else, is not going to yell at you for distracting them (and making them do their job) gives you peace of mind. Except when you are in Russia, which I forget every time I spend a couple of years in the United States and am reminded of the minute I set foot in the motherland.

The idea of customer service is only now catching on in Russia and, even then, is limited to big cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg. I have no idea why, but Russian people do not have the same concept of being nice to people they do not know as the people in Western cultures. In fact, many Russians who immigrate to the United States at a adult-conscious age (teen years and older) find this niceness quality "fake" and annoying. They do not believe that you should be particularly nice to people that you do not know and should reserve your niceness, love and affection for the people for whom you genuinely feel it.

And maybe those Russians are right...when it comes to personal relationships in your personal life. But at work, it pays to be nice. I have already talked about this in my previous post on which non-financial incentives motivate me at work . One of them is nice colleagues who do not put me down to make themselves feel better.

On the flip side, I remember back to a year ago, when I interviewed with a top management consulting firm for the Moscow office. I flew out to New York extremely excited, little and naive as I was, to meet with consultants from Moscow and imagine what it would be like to work there (a childhood dream that I still hope to  someday realized). I met with a Russian manager from the Moscow office and he quickly put me in my place.

Throughout the whole interview, he was courteous, but made me understand that I am nothing. His tone of voice very clearly indicated the following line of thinking: "Who do you think you are, little girl and what are you even doing here?" Now, this consulting firm is famous for creating stressful situations for interviewees and seeing how they perform under pressure. However, this was beyond that. This was his Russian side exercising his manhood over me. In the end, I did not get an offer, but it made me think long and hard about whether I actually want to subject myself to this kind of work environment.

And this kind of work environment is why my parents think I am completely unprepared to work in Russia (whatever). I was educated in France and the United States and do not know how to deal with people being disrespectful to me for no reason, just because they hold a position of power over me (or think they do). Or maybe this will make me grow a thick skin that will be helfpul later in my career. I honestly do not know, but what I know is that even Donald Trump believes that rudeness at work has negative effects on the company.

Rudeness decreases spirit, enthusiasm and therefore productivity. So, Russians and everyone else, please stop being rude to your colleagues so that we can all just get some work done.

Every Girl Has Thought About Marrying Rich at Some Point

When I was in Moscow several months ago, I met up with a male friend of mine for a cup of coffee. In this case, the word "friend" is a bit of a stretch. He messaged me on Facebook a year and a half ago, flew halfway across the United States to meet me and propositioned a long-distance relationship. I was immediately freaked out by his direct actions and slowly let him down after spending a whole day showing him around San Francisco. However, when his Facebook status informed me earlier this summer that he got a job in Moscow working in a private equity fund organized by a very powerful Russian bank, I was impressed and intrigued. Which is why we met up for that cup of coffee.

The friend, whom I shall refer to as Dmitry, turned out to be quite an impressive guy. We talked about a lot of things: getting a job in Moscow when you have work experience in America (fairly easy), convincing your interviewer to hire you even though he can hire three Russian guys for the same cost who will work just as hard (really hard), cultural differences between America and Russia (too many) and things that are culturally unique to Russia's capital (e.g. if you take the metro, you are considered a lower-class person). It was a great experience for me - I learned a lot from him that would be helpful when I try to get a job in Moscow within the next several years. I also now really liked him (of course, Murphy's law...) and could not believe I was stupid enough to reject him back when he was interested. Timing is everything. We did not work out, but that is a story for another post.

One of the things that he said that really stuck with me was when we talked about what each of us wants out of this life. He said that, for a woman, a career as a high-powered executive and a good family life is much harder than for a man (don't I know...thank you, Cecilia Ridgeway). I agreed, but said that I need to make something of myself in this life and am willing to work hard at it. This, by the way, is being tested right now. Dmitry replied that a woman has a much higher chance of meeting and marrying a rich man when working for a non-profit or some kind of charity because men with real wealth often deal with organizations that are of philanthropic nature. This was in contrast to really hard working females in law, banking, consulting, and other upper middle class professions, who meet men at work and marry them. They then have combined incomes of approximately half a million dollars, which is really great, but not as high as others "out there."

To be completely honest, the statement haunts me to this day. A small part of me wants to just marry a rich guy, live the high society lifestyle and enjoy a financially-worry-free life. And then the majority of me hates the trophy-wife small part of me for even suggesting that to myself. Because it is not honorable and in the end I do want to make something of myself. So I'll just keep on working for now...and maybe watch out for some of those non-profit volunteering opportunities.

Disclaimer: I am by no means a gold digger. I think at some point every girl has felt like this...deep deep deep down inside. Even if she is not willing to admit it.

Also, this guy came off like a snob in this post, but he really is not. He is a great guy. I just best remember the most scandalous things that he said during our conversation.