A Kick In The Teeth

“We are all British gentlemen engaged in the magnificent work of governing an inferior race.” – The Earl of Mayo, Viceroy of India 1869-72

My new job. Officially its editor, unofficially its observer of the freak show that is my place of work. My direct boss is a rather special creature. Public school educated (or prep school educated - for the Americans out there). Cut of a cloth that I thought was long extinct. Yes the Colonial Rah. Signet ring toting and all. He of the British Raj. Those of you who haven’t read Charles Allens’ books on the Raj (they’re really cool actually) should swat up. As what was once thought to be an extinct breed of person – is in fact alive, well and functioning in Moscow. He’s not the last of a dying breed alas as he has procreated. The Sahib (I think this name shall stick) has a team of bright young kids and he treats them like mental deficients because they are simply foreign. Yet, and stop the press on this one, the irony is that HE’s the foreigner in THEIR country. It is quite unnerving to witness, especially when he publicly chastises and ridicules his analysts. He discusses his employees with other non-natives, in English (a language his employees understand), while standing in front of them like they were a bunch of remedial children he has been burdened with. He thinks them so idiotic that he believes that the only way he can control them is through this Byzantine system of fines. It is, in his mind, the piece de resistance of his regime. The fines range anything from $20 to $500 and can be for things such as missing deadlines to not putting doctor’s appointments in the right diary and bad punctuation. Here they tolerate it; sometimes answer back in that sullen Slavic way that Russians have. Ultimately though they just grin and bear it…without the grinning (actually there’s a whole load of joking going on here – much of it about him). The whole thing breeds apathy (they lose interest in their work) and it basically reinforces his notion of the stubborn foreigner (which he translates to mean “idiot”). It’s bizarre to witness. Sad too. I dunno.

But the analysts are absolute dolls. Total characters in their own right and that makes it kind of fun around here.