Going out was borderline luxurious as Russian trains go but on having lunch with a friend of mine in Moscow he began to put the fear of God into me about my potential sleeping partner for the return. After a couple of hours he had me completely convinced I would be spending the night with a large, shabby, incredibly smelly Russian man. I was so convinced I actually stopped off at a chemist to buy the Russian equivalent of Vicks vapour rub - if the smell was that bad I could rub the vapour rub under my nose a la mode of CSI and dead bodies.
I found my cabin, opened the door and my heart sunk. There, sitting on one of the cabin beds was a large, shabby, bearded Russian man - luckily absent of dead body smell but ticking all the other boxes of my fears. He sat there grinning at me and then muttered something in Russian. I couldn't respond, didn't understand for a start and my mind went completely blank. After 10 minutes of just sitting there staring at me the man got up and left...phew... and returned... not phew.... with his teenage son...really not phew. The 2 of them proceeded to then just sit there on the edge of the bed grinning at me. They didn't move, have any other expression although occasionally said something to me in Russian which I just didn't get. After 2 hours of this I had reconciled myself that I would be sleeping fully clothed including my boots - hell, who was I kidding? I wouldn't be sleeping more like keeping watch.
At some point in this very weird stand-off there was a knock at the door and an equally large, shabby and bearded Russian woman entered the room. You know what? It didn't matter a blind bit that I never spoke Russian. In less than 20 seconds I had a very clear understanding of this woman's issues! She was obviously the older man's wife and on entering the room had taken one look at me and informed her hubby, less than politely that if he thought he was staying another minute longer in this cabin with this English hussy who would obviously throw herself at her man during the course of the night then he had another thing coming. In 2 minutes she had his belongings in her hand and had both men shuffling out of the room whilst screaming one word of English - "Out! Out! Out!"
I don't know where that poor man slept that night on what was indeed a jam packed train and in truth, I don't really care. I bolted my door after a while and had a very pleasant nap back to Petrozavodsk arriving suitably refreshed with my virtue well and truly in tact.
However, all this was a very stark demonstration of non-verbal communication; I think I read somewhere words are only 10% of what we "say". The 2 men obviously hadn't mastered the other 90%. The wife however - crystal clear!
I thought of this today when I was embroiled in a long and complex email chain. Relying on email, IM or text means all we are sending is that 10%; chuck in an emoticon and you can probably improve that rating a fraction. Today, instead of prolonging the email agony I got up and went and spoke to the gent concerned and in 10 minutes we had completely sorted any problems and left smiling and joking - harmony restored.
So whilst I don't recommend hitching up on an overnight train ride with some complete weirdy stranger and a pot of vapour rub or at the other extreme, busting into a room shouting "Out! Out! Out!" maybe occasionally I need to rely less on the impersonal convenience of texts and email and instead embrace my coffee-addiction and invite colleagues to sit down and have a good old chat... preferably not in Russian
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