Читать книгу Tough Business - Владимир Баранчиков - Страница 3

St. Petersburg, December 1992. Three middle-aged men smoke on the stairs of a yellow office building on Suvorovsky Avenue. An ordinary conversation during a short rest, unhurried and full of free topics.

One of the interlocutors shared the news:

– A friend got a job with some serious people.

– And here he is looking for a job, – my friend and colleague Kostya reacted quickly and very correctly, pointing at me.

– Can you give me a friend’s phone number? – I decided to take the bull by the horns right away.

– Write it down.

My career at the Peleng company was coming to an end. Two and a half years of interesting and hard work, the search for new ways – advertising, exhibitions, the St. Petersburg stock Exchange, the director of a brokerage office, the first contacts with foreign businessmen – all this was fresh, interesting, unusual. A youth team, purposeful people with healthy ambitions, fun holidays… I was grateful to these guys, but our paths diverged – I wanted something bigger, large-scale. All this time I had to improve my business English on my own – letters, contracts, methods of communication by phone. And Volodya was lured here from the position of head of the planning and economic department of the NGO Krasnoznamenets, where we had previously worked together. In the evening I call on the home phone of a «friend» and hear:

– We are engaged in business promotion, the green conversion line…

I immediately realized that there were no specifics, and directed the conversation in the right direction:

– Vsevolod Valentinovich, trade operations and foreign partners are closer to me. – Pause.

– Well, then you need to go to Felix Andreevich, he’s doing it.

– Can you give me a phone number?

So, carefully pulling the thread so as not to break, I found a specialist who was engaged in an interesting business for me.

– Come here! – Felix Andreevich was attentive, polite and specific in a conversation with a stranger. So far, everything has been surprisingly easy.

The place for the meeting is familiar to me – the Central Research Institute Rumb, the industry information center of the shipbuilding industry of the country. I was here, on Zaitseva Street, about five years ago, during the Soviet Union – a secret organization, security clearances. And today, without these difficulties. A solid Stalinist building with white half-columns, wide staircases, large windows, high ceilings is a place where it is prestigious to work. Or, in modern terms, «cool»…

Felix Andreevich’s office is spacious, as befits the head of the foreign economic department of a solid organization. The owner himself is located at a large table to the right of the door, on the table are business papers, a couple of telephones and a mauser (just kidding). The amazing thing is that I immediately took a liking to this extraordinary man. A thick-set brunette of about sixty with confident manners, a handsome manly face whitened with gray hair and life experience with a prepossessing smile. The presentation of my story and the desire to burn at work was received favorably. During the conversation, he X-rayed me with the attentive gaze of his gray eyes and read emotions like an experienced psychologist. But there was no feeling of discomfort or tension, despite the importance of this dialogue. I was given to understand – he will report to the management and he will inform the decision. I was happy, I wanted to work here and do exactly that, and it was with you, Felix Andreevich – that’s how the stars came together…

Two weeks later I received a second invitation. Felix Andreevich gave a short briefing in the same office – you are going to my boss, the Vice president for Foreign Economic Activity for an interview. How are you with English: if you stumble, you will have a saving phrase… The way to victory is to go through a fashionable reception room with two assistant secretaries and enter the cherished double door.

At the table is a young man, no older than twenty-five, tall and handsome, fashionably dressed. There is a laptop on the table, expensive office furniture and office equipment in the room, the owner skillfully owns it for the good of the organization and, without any doubt, demands the same from subordinates. Bold, determined, from another, rich and successful world: it was felt immediately. Oleg Borisovich. The acquaintance took place, I presented a number of documents by correspondence with the Americans, but I blurred the story in English – I was very worried. After the conversation, Felix Andreevich went to the chief and returned with an answer – the decision has not been made.

– Call me in a week, – he encouraged me. It was hard to expect anything else.

The third attempt took place ten days later again in Oleg Borisovich’s office. But there was one significant change – there was another young man, a light-eyed blond with a strong-willed face, in a white shirt, and he was sitting next to the owner of the office, closer to me, but it felt like this man would decide my fate now, and all this time it was his decision that was being waited for. Surprisingly, the interview was friendly in nature, unlike the previous «exam», my counterparts even smiled after my story about how I earned a million rubles on one transaction – it was felt that their scale was about two higher. Perhaps they liked my frankness, my obvious desire to rush into battle. My insufficient knowledge of English for the main person was not decisive at that moment – we need workhorses, and then we’ll see… Later Felix Andreevich told me the good news – I was accepted! Of course, with a trial period.

February sixteenth, 1993 – my first working day at JSC Financial Association Holding.

– While you sit here, – Felix Andreevich allocates me a table in his apartment, and sends my colleague Sergei Nikolaevich behind the wall, to a separate office. By the way, today is his birthday, but I’ll find out about it later. Sergey Nikolaevich Muzychenko has been working for two weeks, has a humanitarian university with philology behind him, a former English teacher, a head taller in a foreign language than me, a rocket technician, and we have a polite mutual understanding with elements of rivalry in the same boat.

And here is the first task. Intelligent Felix Andreevich said that the company’s management had an idea – the organization of assembly production of video recorders from imported components in our building (!), and I was instructed to work out this idea promptly and report on the results. By entrusting this, he made it clear to me that the money here is not paid in vain, and took away from himself the beloved sword of Damocles of imminent reckoning and possible consequences. He deliberately did not indicate his attitude to this idea, leaving me to think on my own. Intuition told me that the second day could be the last if my conclusions did not satisfy someone. I got bored, but soon I realized that there was a chance to present it in a language understandable to the customer. Fifteen years of experience in the scientific and industrial sphere is no joke, I am an engineer and a patent specialist, I have been to workshops and worked out technologies from blanks to the final product with my own hands, tested detonation means (in other words, I lit a fire – a conductive cord with a detonator). In other words, he smelled gunpowder in the literal sense of the word. Therefore, in this situation, it was necessary, without going into technical and organizational wilds, to tactfully say «no» in a language understandable to the management. Felix called someone, and I was offered to inspect the «future production facilities» – being located on the territory of Rumb, the holding used the services we were interested in (for example, a printing house), crowding the native institute and gradually seizing corridor after corridor, floor after floor, peacefully coexisting.

So, on the second floor, a stranger from the institute accompanies me and leads me to a local apocalypse – a huge room cluttered with various kinds of metal fasteners, remnants of ventilation, hanging wires and construction debris. The employee who met us looked at me with great interest – as a resident from another planet. I didn’t meet his expectations by asking a simple question:

– Was there an EC-1020 here?

– Yes, – he replied with surprise.

The secret is simple – I have already seen this computing machine in my research institute, so it was not difficult to guess from the standard equipment. Keeping a solemnly serious expression on my face, I examined all the corners, the floor and the ceiling, mentally estimated the dimensions. The event took place.

The next step. Without questioning the possibility of organizing production, recruiting personnel, training them, obtaining permission to launch from various commissions and technical supervision («we can do everything»), I was studying the process of purchasing components. Yes, and there are customs duties on components in accordance with the codes of the commodity nomenclature of foreign economic activity. This is our bread – CN FEA! To bounce off the tooth! And now the disappointing conclusion for the anonymous initiator is that the payment of fees for components of the assembly units of video recorders increases the cost of production and the project may be unprofitable! This is stated in writing with the attachment of copies of leaflets from the customs primer, and for clarity of perception – tables with calculations. Which is handed over to the authorities. Felix Andreevich studied the material, lit up a little (appreciated, apparently). A couple of days later, the answer came that the management took note of the conclusion, and this issue was no longer raised. The first barrier has been overcome!