{"id":308,"date":"2007-07-31T14:43:02","date_gmt":"2007-07-31T10:43:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/?p=308"},"modified":"2007-07-31T14:47:13","modified_gmt":"2007-07-31T10:47:13","slug":"deserved-reputations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/308\/","title":{"rendered":"Deserved Reputations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Long-time commentator Tatyana asks me a question in the comments<\/a> of this post<\/a>:<\/p>\n

You see now, how Russians came to have their reputation?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Answer: yes.<\/p>\n

I always used to think very positively of Russia, and usually thought the best of Russians.\u00a0 As it happens, I still do.\u00a0 I still maintain that you’d be hard pressed to find a bunch of more hospitable, care-free, and genuine people than the Russians, and defy anybody to claim that\u00a0an evening\u00a0spent\u00a0socially in the company of\u00a0Russians does not rank in the top\u00a0five of their Most Memorable Nights Ever.<\/p>\n

But boy, can Russians be idiots.\u00a0 As readers of this blog\u00a0should by now know,\u00a0this part of Sakhalin Island is dominated by the oil\u00a0and gas industry.\u00a0 With the oil and gas industry comes oil and gas facilities, and with oil and gas facilities comes health and safety standards which require a type of behaviour which is often incompatible with the prevailing culture and mentality of the locals.\u00a0 In short, being\u00a0three sheets to the wind\u00a0on an\u00a0oil and\u00a0gas\u00a0facility does not sit well with those who own and operate the facility, nor anyone else whose life depends on the hydrocarbons within not catching fire.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0Russian man\u00a0was recently discovered completely drunk on an oil and gas facility, the random alcohol test having failed to pick him up.\u00a0 Fortunately, he was not actually working and his condition did not lead to anyone else getting hurt.\u00a0 Upon his discovery, he was removed from the facility, taken to\u00a0a clinic with a calibrated testing machine to confirm his inebriation, taken to his accommodation camp where he collected his belongings, and was\u00a0taken from there to\u00a0a\u00a0cheap hotel by the airport where he awaited the next flight back to his hometown\u00a0on the mainland.\u00a0 When his employment began, he was required to read, understand, and sign his acceptance of the\u00a0company’s alcohol and drugs policy, which\u00a0was\u00a0in Russian.\u00a0 He had undergone the facility\u00a0induction, also in Russian,\u00a0where it was explained that\u00a0there is a zero-tolerance approach to alcohol consumption, the penalty being immediate dismissal.\u00a0 He had agreed to the\u00a0accommodation camp rules which stipulate that\u00a0consumption of alcohol is strictly forbidden in the camp\u00a0and\u00a0the night before an individual is due\u00a0to work.\u00a0 Still, this chap went out and\u00a0drunk a\u00a0bottle of vodka, got caught, and lost his\u00a0livelihood because of it.<\/p>\n

That evening, the rest of the workers in his\u00a0crew, 20 or so\u00a0Russian men,\u00a0were assembled at the accommodation camp where the\u00a0consequences of\u00a0the individual’s drinking were pointed out to all by way of his absence and empty room.\u00a0 They were\u00a0for the umpteenth time reminded of the company policy, the camp rules, and the facility rules, and warned that the following morning there would be compulsory alcohol testing for everyone and whatever else they choose to do that night,\u00a0for\u00a0God’s sake, do not drink.<\/p>\n

The next morning, the assembled group was asked\u00a0if anyone had been drinking the night before, if so step forward now to avoid an awful lot of problems\u00a0at the alcohol test.\u00a0 Two hands were raised, and two people booted back into the camp to await disciplinary action.\u00a0 Any more?\u00a0 No? Good.\u00a0 So off everyone goes down to the alcohol test, where no less than\u00a0five more\u00a0of the crew\u00a0are discovered to be drunk.\u00a0 All five were sent packing to wherever they came from.<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of all this, somebody asked\u00a0what could be done to prevent incidents like this occurring in future.\u00a0 My suggestion is shooting complete idiots.\u00a0 Anyone have any better ideas?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Long-time commentator Tatyana asks me a question in the comments of this post: You see now, how Russians came to have their reputation? Answer: yes. I always used to think very positively of Russia, and usually thought the best of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}