Comrade Carl returns from France

Always the rebel

Comrade Carl Marks, our chief nerd, disappeared last week and resurfaced today.  I thought that Comrade Carl was at home balancing his medications. One of our nerds stated that all the big data indicated that the Comrade  had been in Moscow, at a CPSU congress. But intuition and technology had let us down. The comrade had been in Paris.

Comrade Carl stumbled into our management meeting at 930, having arrived straight from the Airport. "Kibinimat Gloria, HR travel policy sucks.  Why did I need to change planes in Gander Newfoundland just so that HR can save a few rubles? Yob tvoy mat- I never even knew Newfoundland existed! Next time, I will fly Air France, even if  they are on strike!".

Immediately Carl opened his Iphone and played us Sous les ponts de Paris. Our CEO Stan, very much Yankee Doodle, asked me "Ramsbottom, you speak French. What the hell is she singing about?"

Then Stan bellowed at Comrade Carl, "turn off your goddamned  phone Comrade Carl. This is not a nightclub, for Christ sake".

Stan always ends our management meeting with a "give us a brief update of your domain".

Comrade Carl gave his  brief summary. "I visited the French office and met with our French comrades. Kibinimat, they are an analytic lot. Whilst our Russian nerds code day and night without asking questions as if they were fighting the Battle of Stalingrad, our French engineering comrades do not like taking any risks until they analyse each task in great depth. Clearly this is an HR problem, stemming from poor recruitment and lack of appropriate HR techniques. This is a huge surprise, because Gloria is half French, if my memory serves me right."

Suddenly I got a text: "Gloria, I know you are not half French, but I am making a point. With affection and kisses, Comrade Carl".

Then Carl continued, "Bottom line, HR is useless. I cannot understand why we can't find Russian software engineers in Paris. We need code, and lots of it. Too much analysis will kill us". 

Stan turned to me and said, "Comrade Carl has a point. Fix that Gloria...in a week update us on the solution".