Office Space

Work is the curse of the drinking classes.

~Oscar Wilde

My workspace at Alfa Capital is on the desk for the investment staff; a long table with 5 workstations and 2 Bloomberg terminals perpendicular to the windows looking out over an internal courtyard. The area is very modern (flat screens), and pleasant (good furniture) and quite bright thanks to the windows. All this is presided over by a large, framed photo of Vladimir Putin. The president in mid-sentence, in a blue suit and blue tie, in front of a Russian flag, left hand raised as if in explanation of a point he has just made.

The previous occupant of my space is on maternity leave, and no one really knows when and if she will return. She seems to have left behind quite a bit of personal material, like vacation photos, and quite a bit more junk in the desk drawers; official looking paperwork and typical office detritus. Unfortunately, most of this flotsam is bound to the jetsam with some type of sticky brown liquid – so I’ve learned to stay clear of the drawers after an initial foray to find a pen.

My fellow workers on the desk are an interesting group of characters. Kostya sits next to me, and has a stream of all the pretty girls in the office coming to ostensibly ask him business related questions – which he handles with all the aplomb of someone accustomed to such attention. Andrey, who sits opposite Kostya, is a very keen observer, but quiet - and typically stays quiet for most of the day. Next to him, near the window, is Alexander – or Sasha. He’s the fixed income manager, and he’s enough of a character to make up for anyone else’s silence in any given day.

Like any good hotshot on a trading desk, Sasha has his little quirks – shouting on the phone in an exaggerated manner, etc. But most of all, he’s a master of English four-letter words as well as his native Russian “maht.” Maht is the Russian phrase that encompasses all the aspects of nasty, unpleasant slang that one simply wouldn’t use in mixed company or in polite society. It’s more than four-letter words; it’s a whole secondary language of expressions and terms and idiomatic constructions.

So Sasha, polyglot that he is, swears liberally in all languages available to him. He even mixes them together. A favorite tactic of his is to speak Russian on the phone but leave all the swearing in English. And by virtue of his switching back and forth between the two I feel that I will soon have a better appreciation and vocabulary in this earthy side of Russian. He is the Rosetta Stone as written by George Carlin.

I’m only just starting to get the hang of Russian office etiquette. For example, there’s the formality of greeting and bidding farewell to your colleagues. Upon entering or leaving the office, one must make the rounds and shake everyone’s hand and make personal contact - every morning and certainly every night. This is usually accompanied by some polite well-wishing to your “Dear Colleagues”. It’s kind of nice compared to most US offices where people slowly, and quietly, drift out alone without a word to anyone else – maybe a wave through an office window if someone notices your exit. I've decided to adopt this frequent handshaking into my own pattern of behavior.