See Sheep, Eat Sheep, Expense Sheep!

For a few years I managed a software development team in Siberia.

Yes, Siberia!

I spent most of my time in California, but occasionally traveled to the office in Novosibirsk. I made sure to go in summer – winter temperatures can plunge to -40 degrees Fahrenheit!

A Different Point of View

The Russians held a different perspective from their US counterparts. I remember when we were trying to hire a Russian manager. We interviewed several candidates over the telephone.

Picture a group of Americans huddled over an office phone sitting on a table in a conference room. The Americans are asking questions and the Russian candidate is doing his best to answer in broken English.

American question: “How do you motivate your employees?”

Russian answer: “They are motivated or I FIRE THEM!”

The Russians spent time and money differently from Americans. This sometimes drove me nuts! Imagine that a stapler breaks in the office. Americans will purchase a new one. We have money but time is a precious commodity.

If the same stapler breaks at the Russian office, three engineers will spend an hour repairing it. They are habituated to having time, but money is precious. In the meantime the company spends 3 engineer-hours (roughly $45) to fix a $5 stapler, and the schedule slips.

But I grew to admire the self-reliance of the Russian Team. In many ways they exhibited a very American entrepreneurial spirit. Did self-sufficiency arise from the remote location, the cold winter climate, or the less than ideal working conditions? I have no idea. But I developed a grudging appreciation for the hard working, hard drinking, Russian Team.

Siberian Bushcraft Meets American Expense Reports

We had been working very hard to make a recent delivery. So we gave the entire Russian office a vacation. They decided, as a group, to spend a week camping in the rugged Altai Mountains. The Altai Mountains separate Russia, Mongolia, China, and Kazakhstan. They run approximately 1,200 miles southeast to northwest.

The group set out with their spouses and instructions that the company will pay for the entire cost of the vacation. All they had to do was record their purchases and file an expense report when they returned.

During the trip, they purchased a sheep for food from a local farmer. The farmer killed and butchered it for them and they cooked it over a campfire.

When they submitted their expense report, there was a line item: SHEEP. I approved the expense without thinking twice.

Excerpt from expense report

Now, submitting an expense report for SHEEP in an American corporation is not very common.

Unbeknownst to me it generated a tremendous amount of mirth within the company. In fact, my expense report for SHEEP eventually found its way into our corporation’s Board of Directors meeting. The CEO wanted to show the investors how we were spending their money… on SHEEP!

I still hear about that expense report to this day…