Comment by ferdowsi
5 years ago
Cannot agree enough. I joined a startup that very clearly initially hired for Russian cultural fit (friends hiring friends) and the mood was like attending a funeral on a daily basis. During interviewing, the hiring manager very cleverly had the minority of native-born Americans speak to me so I never got a feel for the actual culture.
I couldn't imagine working long for a place where every day seemed like solitary misery, especially remote during a pandemic, where rapport and ease of communication matters a lot. Didn't help that the quality of engineering work was absolutely abysmal (see friends hiring friends). Was contacting recruiters within a week.
Weird, the only big “Russian cultural fit” issue I can think of is gendered norms and complete disregard for “political correctness”. People often make jokes at the workplace and make small talk, but yes, we don’t usually have big smiles during normal conversations or greetings.
Smiling and being entertaining are not correlated (personal experience after a few decades of being alive). There are few everyday situations worse than being welcomed by a smile which looks fake one mile out. A genuine smile is not an every-second gesture.