Another couple weeks in...

Hectic would be quite an understatement, with ongoing work leading up to a first-time financial report for the company on March 6. It's not as bad as the month leading up to their IPO, when I'm told people were sleeping at the office, but it's been busy enough to mean no time to sit and type. However, I'm now on a 20-hour trip to Miami for a conference (and meeting up with the family for a week), so I'm spending a few hours in Frankfurt with Wifi...

Work continues to be an adventure. I will never complain about policy or process again. Everything requires paperwork - and mountains of it. With no previous Investor Relations work/travel, the company processes are just not yet set up to manage it. And because I'm oblivious, my team is getting stuck picking up the slack:

- "I need this translated" - "OK, did you prepare an internal order to the Protocol group?" - "No" - "Oh, OK, I guess I'll just do it for you"

- "So I'm leaving in 2 days for the business trip" - "What?!? Did you pass an order for approval to HR? Did you provide exact costs to the accountants? Did you reassign your role to a different team member in the internal document system? Did the CEO sign (physically) your hand-written request to use a holiday day? Did the management board approve the cost of the hotel stay that are above maximums" - "ummm, no" - "Well you can't go until it's done!" - "ummm, ok"

I did my first round of HR training - this was the setup:

The booth had English and Russian translators, and headsets were worn as needed. Two of us out of about 12 people spoke English only, the entire training was Russian, and the trainer didn't know any English. It was a good sessions about changing internal culture and mapping processes to become more efficient. I think. Or maybe it was about filling in forms. Not 100% sure, but I got a certificate.

Beyond work, more oddities:
1) I think retail staff here are too used to plastic for payments...and a huge devaluation a couple of years ago left them without the skills for counting back large amounts of change...

I'm yet to see a register in a store anywhere here that allows the cashier to enter how much cash was given to them, with a display of how much change to give. And like the rest of the world these days, math skills seem to be lacking. I now have a card, but still like to feel rich and use tenge (10,000₸ = $35CAD) - but no matter what I'm buying, if I'm not giving them exact change, cashiers are as confused as hell. I'm constantly asked (in Russian) if I have cash of this or that denomination instead of what I've given. 

I was at a sporting goods store, total came to 16,060₸, so I gave 20,060₸, thinking 2 x 2,000₸ bills back and we're done. After a solid 5 mins of deliberations among 3 staff and several requests if I had different denominations (I did not), I was given back my 60₸ in coins along with another 60₸ in coins (for some reason), then 1,000₸ bill, 4 x 200₸ bills, a 2,000₸ bill and 2 x 100₸ coins. OK then.

Don't get me wrong, we've all had the same issue in Canada, but I'm yet to have an experience that ISN'T like that. Bought some batteries for 180₸, only had a 5,000₸ bill. Cashier bypassed the 2,000₸ and 1,000₸ trays, gave me a 20₸ coin, then proceeded to count out 24 x 200₸ bills.

2) Hot dogs are always served cold. 
- don't get it - had a cold hot dog at a hockey game, figured it was just crappy service...but nope...cold everywhere!

3) Food continues to be awesome and cheap. Take this:

There's a Sobey's-like ready-made food counter in the grocery store, all unique things I've never seen, so grabbing something different all the time. Asked for 8 perogies-looking things for supper (they were indeed handmade perogies). Lost in translation, appeared to be given about 8 lbs...but regardless, total cost was $1.35CAD

This particular supper with rice, shishkabobs, perogies and perogies-meat-hedgehog-looking-things was under $2CAD. Including the Stella...

4) I mentioned cell services are cheap. 
I bought an HDMI cable for about $14CAD, and was given this stack of SIM card with 500GB of data as the "free bonus". Will be great for the kids to pop in their phones when they come visit - will give them a Kazakh number and unlimited data!

5) At the end of the long days, I've been desperate to get a martini. 
Two issues though, booze variety is insanely weak, and mixing paraphernalia is not common. At first, I resorted to a surprisingly effective teapot shaker.

Later, tracked down a $70 bar set at "Zara Home", and put it to good use.

And with the advice of some locals, found a store with some alcohol selection to get what was really needed.

6) Lastly, water is very hard. Dishwasher was leaving massive spots, so went looking for some "Jet Dry" and like most shopping excursions, it takes 3x longer than it should, and involved intensive use of Google Translate on every product. I think I ended up getting Jet Dry. And unlike Canadian Jet Dry, this one comes with excellent, positive side effects, according to Google. Guess spotted silverware causes marital issues here. 

This week's video is brought to you by the Regis Hotel, where I've been going for Sunday brunch. Mid-way through each brunch, they do the traditional Russian-sword-champagne thing...

On to Miami for 10 days (and anxious for the 4 days of expense reporting and neccesary approvals that will follow).