My client is very successful by any standards! An intelligent, tough, international businessman who made himself fabulously wealthy by dint of skill, hard work and of course not a bit of the luck that we all need from time to time! However even he asked me the other day:
''why are Bulgarians so blatantly difficult?''
Of course his opionion is hardly neutral as he is exasperated by the behavior of an intransigent building contractor! There are dodgey Contractors wherever you go, however it can sometimes feel that business practice here defys logic and comercial sense when certain behaviour appears at odds with long term business development.
There are of course many delightful, scrupulous, hard working and lovely Bulgarians, indeed I have been v.fortunate to meet more than a few over the last 6-7 years! However it seems that the actions of a significant minority and the passivity of the moral majority conspire to make life rather difficult. As I have oft mentioned in this blog, power is concentrated in the hands of a post Soviet elite who jealously guard the ''power-politics-money-crime'' nexus, allowing too many to behave with apparent impunity.
Anyways, in the end I decided to answer my client with a simple list which I accept leaves me open to the accusation of gross stereotyping for which I apologise! However this is after all my blog and I need to vent a little! (I freely confess to being a sinner and all the more human for my multitudinous peccadillos!):
Balkan characteristics:
First the good stuff:
*
Family orientated
*
Respect for the elderly
*
Respect for parents (the father especially)
*
Great friends (one-to-one)
*
Undeniably many Bulgarian ladies are v.attractive
*
Very hospitable
*
Great food (if fresh ingredients) in copious quantity and choice
*
Good music/musical people ('Chalga' excepted!)
*
Great traditions
*
Strong sense of national identity, pride, culture and history
*
Generous
* Good Bulgarians are better than good, they are simply amazing!
Now for the not so good stuff:
1) ''L.W.S.'' = Last Word Syndrome - even the best Bulgarians don't seem to be immune to this national characteristic!
2) ''B.P.'' = Balkan Pride (not BP as in oil spill but similar result!) - i.e. the type of pride that made the monkey cut off the branch or his nose to spite the proverbial! (...add a heavy dose of macho and patriarchal pride too, hey why not!)
4) Responsibility phobia - endemic post Commie hangover
5) Entitlement Culture - post Commie hangover!
6) The ''Balkan Valve'' - oligarchic instincts to crush all competition. i.e. control the information flow and you control the cash flow! Again a post Commie hangover!)
7) Short Termism - fast easy cash now & tomorrow be dammed!
.8 ) Passivity to authority - another post Commie hangover that allows the unentitled to ride roughshod over the gentler Bulgarian majority who give a long suffering sigh and a shrug ''as if to say hey what you gonna d0?''
9) ''nyama problem''/''sitchku e naret'': I would be a millionaire if I got a pound for every time I have heard these famous phrases ''no problem''/''everything's OK'' many in the workplace especially in construction seem to have a philosophy that if you don't mention ''it'', it will go away! Experience sadly informs me otherwise if you don't confront the issue at hand head on in the moment then it grows teeth and claws and one day sooner it turns round to bite you in the derriere!
10) ''Shopska Salata'' syndrome: By that I mean that for every decision a supplier, client business partner or investor wants to take they will typically ask you to mull it over for what feels like hours over a Shopska salad in some smoky restaurant or bar. This may sound idyllic however when it applies to all decisions from a 45 BGL internet connections to 5 million BGL deals it makes it hard to fit the latter into the schedule for all the 5 BGL 'Shopska deals' you are invited to mince over! Time is money, however the ability to prioritise according to scale and profit is often lacking (thankfully not on all occasions!)
11) ''Balk-anality'' = excuse the French but this covers any other collective behavioral identifiers I may have missed!
12) ...feel free to add to the list!
Frankly I'm here > 6.5 years and still on the road to enlightenment, (that's a posh way of saying I'm still none the wiser!). Why do you stay I hear you say? Well of course I must not so secretly love and admire something about the people & the place! I am a sucker for a sob story and suffer to see a nation of such overwhelmingly great potential fail to live up to that potential. Of course the contents of this post are subjective and personal and governed by my black mood on this particular day, however it only takes is a few good men to say nothing and we are all lost!
