{"id":464,"date":"2013-11-21T10:24:16","date_gmt":"2013-11-21T18:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uw.edu\/reecas\/?p=464"},"modified":"2016-09-21T20:33:08","modified_gmt":"2016-09-21T20:33:08","slug":"lessons-from-the-field-the-value-of-personal-relationship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/news\/lessons-from-the-field-the-value-of-personal-relationship\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons From the Field: The Value of Personal Relationships"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Jack Coombes<\/p>\n

\"(Ivan<\/a><\/p>\n

(Ivan Demidov | Wikimedia Commons)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

After graduating from the University of Washington in 2011 with an MAIS in REECAS, I accepted a position as resident director of American Councils\u2019 Russian language program in Vladimir, Russia. I still remember how excited I was on my first day of work. It felt like two years of intensive graduate study had paid off, and I was eager to put my newly-acquired knowledge into practice.<\/p>\n

Despite my excitement, however, the first semester working in Vladimir was rough, and accomplishing even the simplest tasks was like pulling teeth. When I went to mail documents to Washington D.C., the secretary at the DHL office made sure to help every other customer before acknowledging my presence. Arriving at work in the morning, I always said hello to the university security guards, yet instead of responding to my polite greetings, they simply scowled as I passed by. Buying train tickets was a major ordeal \u2014 if I didn\u2019t have exact change, the cashiers would simply shake their heads and hand back my bills. I wasn\u2019t sure how much longer I could keep doing this.<\/p>\n

After a much needed winter break, I returned to Vladimir in the new year determined to find a better way to get things done, and it wasn\u2019t long before I learned how. One night while exercising at the gym, a guy I had never seen before walked up to me, held out his hand, and said \u201chello\u201d. Naturally I was a little taken aback, but I didn\u2019t want to be rude, so I shook his hand and politely nodded. I continued to watch as he circled the room shaking hands with every other guy in the gym. My first thoughts were \u201cOh, this guy has a lot of friends here,\u201d but it turned out that he was meeting a lot of these people for the first time.<\/p>\n

At that moment I remembered\u00a0Political Consequences of Crony Capitalism Inside Russia<\/span> by Gulnaz Sharafutdinova,\u00a0a book about the importance of personal relationships in post-Soviet politics that I read while conducting research for my REECAS master\u2019s thesis. I realized after watching his gym etiquette that this same principle applies to other areas of life, and if I wanted to be successful at work, I needed to build the same type of relationships.<\/p>\n

Over the next month, I made a concerted effort to get to know everyone I dealt with through work, and things began to improve. I gave flowers to the secretary at the DHL office on International Women\u2019s Day, and from that point on, she dropped what she was doing to help me whenever I walked in. I bought a couple bottles of Armenian cognac for the university security guards on Day of the Defenders of the Fatherland. They turned out to be pretty nice guys, and always smiled when I arrived to work. I brought candy to the cashiers at the train station, and then they were willing to accept thousand-ruble notes from me. \u00a0\u00a0I know that personal relationships are also important in the United States, but in hindsight, I\u2019m definitely glad my research reminded me of their significance in Russia, and I was able to reframe Russians\u2019 seemingly unfriendly behavior in terms I could understand.<\/p>\n

Jack Coombes is a 2011 REECAS alumnus. He is currently continuing his academic career at Duke University.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Jack Coombes After graduating from the University of Washington in 2011 with an MAIS in REECAS, I accepted a position as resident director of American Councils\u2019 Russian language program in Vladimir, Russia. I still remember how excited I was on my first day of work. It felt like two years of intensive graduate study<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":416,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,16],"tags":[47,57,160],"class_list":["post-464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alumni-spotlight","category-news","tag-career","tag-culture-shock","tag-russia"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLessons From the Field: The Value of Personal Relationships - The Ellison Center<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/news\/lessons-from-the-field-the-value-of-personal-relationship\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lessons From the Field: The Value of Personal Relationships - The Ellison Center\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"by Jack Coombes After graduating from the University of Washington in 2011 with an MAIS in REECAS, I accepted a position as resident director of American Councils\u2019 Russian language program in Vladimir, Russia. I still remember how excited I was on my first day of work. It felt like two years of intensive graduate study\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/news\/lessons-from-the-field-the-value-of-personal-relationship\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Ellison Center\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-11-21T18:24:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-09-21T20:33:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blogs.uw.edu\/reecas\/files\/2013\/11\/800px-Russia_vladimir_yerofeyevsky_descent-300x225.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rachel Brown\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rachel Brown\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/news\/lessons-from-the-field-the-value-of-personal-relationship\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/news\/lessons-from-the-field-the-value-of-personal-relationship\/\",\"name\":\"Lessons From the Field: The Value of Personal Relationships - The Ellison Center\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/news\/lessons-from-the-field-the-value-of-personal-relationship\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/news\/lessons-from-the-field-the-value-of-personal-relationship\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/blogs.uw.edu\/reecas\/files\/2013\/11\/800px-Russia_vladimir_yerofeyevsky_descent-300x225.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-11-21T18:24:16+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-09-21T20:33:08+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/#\/schema\/person\/e5202f849cb95d808f657d7e40cc9794\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/news\/lessons-from-the-field-the-value-of-personal-relationship\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/news\/lessons-from-the-field-the-value-of-personal-relationship\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/news\/lessons-from-the-field-the-value-of-personal-relationship\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/blogs.uw.edu\/reecas\/files\/2013\/11\/800px-Russia_vladimir_yerofeyevsky_descent-300x225.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"http:\/\/blogs.uw.edu\/reecas\/files\/2013\/11\/800px-Russia_vladimir_yerofeyevsky_descent-300x225.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/news\/lessons-from-the-field-the-value-of-personal-relationship\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Lessons From the Field: The Value of Personal Relationships\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/\",\"name\":\"The Ellison Center\",\"description\":\"Center in The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/#\/schema\/person\/e5202f849cb95d808f657d7e40cc9794\",\"name\":\"Rachel Brown\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/596c9e73bc8bc114690a0c84b6063a7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/596c9e73bc8bc114690a0c84b6063a7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Rachel Brown\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/people\/rachel-elizabeth-brown\/\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/news\/author\/ehlirae\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Lessons From the Field: The Value of Personal Relationships - The Ellison Center","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/news\/lessons-from-the-field-the-value-of-personal-relationship\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Lessons From the Field: The Value of Personal Relationships - The Ellison Center","og_description":"by Jack Coombes After graduating from the University of Washington in 2011 with an MAIS in REECAS, I accepted a position as resident director of American Councils\u2019 Russian language program in Vladimir, Russia. I still remember how excited I was on my first day of work. It felt like two years of intensive graduate study","og_url":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/news\/lessons-from-the-field-the-value-of-personal-relationship\/","og_site_name":"The Ellison Center","article_published_time":"2013-11-21T18:24:16+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-09-21T20:33:08+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blogs.uw.edu\/reecas\/files\/2013\/11\/800px-Russia_vladimir_yerofeyevsky_descent-300x225.jpg","type":"","width":"","height":""}],"author":"Rachel Brown","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Rachel Brown","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/news\/lessons-from-the-field-the-value-of-personal-relationship\/","url":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/news\/lessons-from-the-field-the-value-of-personal-relationship\/","name":"Lessons From the Field: The Value of Personal Relationships - The Ellison Center","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/news\/lessons-from-the-field-the-value-of-personal-relationship\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/news\/lessons-from-the-field-the-value-of-personal-relationship\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blogs.uw.edu\/reecas\/files\/2013\/11\/800px-Russia_vladimir_yerofeyevsky_descent-300x225.jpg","datePublished":"2013-11-21T18:24:16+00:00","dateModified":"2016-09-21T20:33:08+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/#\/schema\/person\/e5202f849cb95d808f657d7e40cc9794"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/news\/lessons-from-the-field-the-value-of-personal-relationship\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/news\/lessons-from-the-field-the-value-of-personal-relationship\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/news\/lessons-from-the-field-the-value-of-personal-relationship\/#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blogs.uw.edu\/reecas\/files\/2013\/11\/800px-Russia_vladimir_yerofeyevsky_descent-300x225.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blogs.uw.edu\/reecas\/files\/2013\/11\/800px-Russia_vladimir_yerofeyevsky_descent-300x225.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/news\/lessons-from-the-field-the-value-of-personal-relationship\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Lessons From the Field: The Value of Personal Relationships"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/#website","url":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/","name":"The Ellison Center","description":"Center in The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/#\/schema\/person\/e5202f849cb95d808f657d7e40cc9794","name":"Rachel Brown","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/596c9e73bc8bc114690a0c84b6063a7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/596c9e73bc8bc114690a0c84b6063a7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Rachel Brown"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/people\/rachel-elizabeth-brown\/"],"url":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/news\/author\/ehlirae\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/ellisoncenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}