Two Hats

With the other colleagues in the regional team, I developed good professional relationships, but the atmosphere here was different from what I’d known before. Back in Russia, things were warmer, with more friendship, informal get-togethers, and a real sense of team.

In the German headquarters everything was much more restrained.

For example, on birthdays it was customary to simply bring a cake and send out a short email saying the treat was in the kitchen. Congratulations amounted to little more than a few stock phrases and polite, carefully worn smiles. The celebration dissolved into the office light just as quietly and unnoticed as it had appeared.

An analogy came to mind, the same one a Norwegian lecturer had once introduced to me: the world of the “formal you” and the “informal you.” Here it felt as if everyone lived in two separate roles, as if they wore two different hats, one for work and one for their personal life. The hats hung side by side but never touched. My playful “inventory safari” email would hardly have been understood or welcomed here, because it mixed those two worlds far too freely.

And yet, while this approach stripped work life of warmth and soul, it did have its advantages. In meetings, people who barely nodded to each other in the hallway would sit at the same table and solve complex problems efficiently. Personal sympathies didn’t get in the way because they simply had nothing to do with the work itself.

Once you accept those rules of the game, adapting becomes much easier.