POSTING #137

On Becoming a Road Warrior

It was a few days before Christmas in 1994 and I was flying home from Moscow. Two colleagues and I had just spent a couple of weeks in Russia trying to decide whether we would recommend that the Canadian Government submit a bid for a two-year World Bank contract to construct some 20 model employment offices from Moscow to the Pacific Ocean.

In the end we had decided to recommend that a bid be submitted. The terms and conditions required that the bid contain the name of an on-site manager. After some arm-twisting, I had agreed to let my name be used.

We didn't think that it was likely that Canada---if it did decide to bid---would win. It seemed more likely that the US, which had already submitted a bid, would win. 

But as the plane headed for Montreal, I was running two  'What if' questions through my mind. What if Canada decided to submit a bid? And what if it won?         

It was a big project. How would I run it---not from Canada---but from Moscow? And how would I cope with all the travelling involved---the travel to and from Russian, and the travel across the eight times zones from Moscow to the Pacific?

The man in the seat next to me was tall, slim, dark-haired in his later 30s or early 40s. We had chatted briefly when we embarked, enough to establish that he was from Montreal, had been working in Russia for two years, and was going home for Christmas. As soon as the seatbelt lights had been turned off he got out his computer and started writing something.

Meanwhile, I continued pondering about what would happen if Canada won the contract.

My seatmate turned off his computer  and we began to talk. He was an aviation engineer with a Montreal company that had a joint arrangement with a Russian firm to produce aircraft components. He was working in a city a few hundred miles east of Moscow.

I told him about the possible bid we were working on for the World Bank project, and about my concerns about how to manage the project if we won.

He said that I would have to become 'a road warrior'---the first time I had heard that term.

When I looked puzzled, he stood up and got a large, shiny black leather case out of the overhead compartment---the kind of case I had seen lawyers tow into court on a set of wheels.

The front of the case dropped down to provide a writing surface, with pens, pencils, paper, Post-it notes and other stationery items neatly arranged in pockets. He showed me that his computer fitted into a compartment behind the stationery, along with a portable printer. Behind all that was another compartment for telephone and email communication items, including an acoustic coupler, assorted telephone jacks, electric transformers, and an assortment of electric plug adapters. In yet another compartment, he had what he called ' survival items', for example rubber plugs to fit Russian hotel sinks and bathtubs, a small roll of toilet paper, a bar of soap (all items that most Russian hotels didn't provide), some first aid items, and a Leatherman knife with a wonderful combination of knives, screwdrivers, wrenches etc.

I was bowled over, and immediately decided that if we won the contract I would have to create a road warrior kit.

He put the case back in the overhead compartment and started to talk about what it was like to work with the Russians. His Russian colleagues were well trained but not very well motivated, at least by North American standards. He described things he had tried to do in order to motivate them, some of which had worked, and some of which had failed. I listened carefully, storing away his anecdotes and advice.

As we got closer to Canada, he started to talk about a relationship problem that he would have to deal with during the Christmas holidays. He didn't say whether it was a wife or a girlfriend but it was clear that it was going to be messy. When he had been talking about his work, he was calm and competent, but as he shifted to talk of the relationship he cleared his throat often and fidgeted with his hands. He was not looking forward to the confrontation that he said was going to happen.

Looking back on our conversation, I think he had enjoyed talking to me about his road warrior kit and about his Russian experiences because they had taken his mind off what awaited him in Montreal.

When we arrived in Montreal, he wished me luck, gave me his business card and invited me to contact him if we won the contract, and if I needed some advice or a shoulder to cry on.

I set out to find the bus for Ottawa, and he went off to deal with his relationship issue.   

I never had to contact him---the fact that he worked outside Moscow made that difficult---but the few hours of conversation in the plane were enormously helpful to me in my work in Russia. It was an invaluable 'Idiot's Guide to Living and Working in Russia' ---something this 'idiot' needed in the worst way.

As soon as the World Bank gave the contract to Canada, I started assembling my road warrior kit. I decided to use a soft case instead of his hard one, feeling that the soft case would be a little more flexible but my kit had all the same essentials as his.

My road warrior kit was a best friend for the two years in Russia, and then later in the Kingdom of Jordan and Azerbaijan. 

Airline check-in people would sometimes blanche when they weighed it and saw that it was---as normally happened---well over the 10 Kilo limit. But they never separated it from me, or forced me to take things out of it.

Last year we had a cleaning-out bee and I decided that the time had come to say goodbye to it. I took a picture of the case and then handed it over to a company from Niagara Falls called, Just Junk. The company boasts that it donates useable things to charities, and I like to think that someone, perhaps an impoverished college student, is using my case. 

The travel-worn bag that housed my 'road  warrior' kit. I don't have a photo of it in operation, bulging with everything needed to 'set up shop' in hotels, airports and airplanes. It also served as a welcome footrest on long Aeroflot flights. (Pat thinks I should have had it bronzed!)

I often think of my airplane companion, and of his kindness to a new road warrior.

And, I wonder what happened with his relationship issue.

Working in Russia in the 1990s (and perhaps still today) was often tough. A supportive relationship, as I was lucky to have with Pat and our family, was a real plus.

I hope that things worked out well for him.

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See you on March 4, 2012 for Posting #138 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting,  or email me at johnpathunter@gmail.com.

Note:

Posting # 7 of The Icewine Guru blog is now up. The Guru offers his views on the birth control furor in the US, on whether it was 'an epic blunder' by Obama, or a clever trap set by him for the Republicans. Click on  http://theicewineguru.blogspot.com/