Softpanorama (slightly skeptical) Open Source Software Educational Society

May the source be with you, but remember the KISS principle ;-)

Twenty-five Signs of a Completely Americanized Russian Programmer

Translated from Russian by Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov

1. Your English is still broken but you occasionally use articles "a" and "the" in front of nouns
    
2. Teaching your American co-workers dirty words in  Russian is no longer fun.
    
3. You 'd  prefer technical books in English to their Russian  translations, but you've stopped buying books and seldom open the ones you have. 
    
4. You can throw out technical magazines you are subscribed to without reading them.  Can throw out 90% of your mail without opening it.
    
5. You have at least twice more computers at home that there are members of your family, but some were not switched on for several months.
    
6. You occasionally buy paper for your home printer in Staples instead of bringing it from work.
    
7. Can no longer consider the division of the country on Republicans and Democrats as a communist-style circus for red necks and start to distinguish Democratic party platform from the Republican platform Some even start have own preference in presidential elections and do not vote for Republicans because they hate communists. Few develop allergy to Fox News. While you regularly read Inosmi.ru, you start verifying translation by finding original articles via Google. And sometimes even suspect that NYT Russia coverage is not fully controlled by State Department.
    
8. When you ask your child a question in Russian you are not surprised that he/she answers you in English.
    
9. You order a double deck hamburger and diet Coca-Cola.
    
10. More often speak with children using cell phone than in person.  If relaxing after work you sit on your lawn you are not surprised if wife or child calls your cell phone from the house.
     
11. You judge the size of the house by the number of bedrooms in it. 
     
12. You know your social security number by heart
     
13. Are not surprised that your neighbors complain to the police about loud music in your house.
     
14. Can explain the rules of  baseball. 
     
15. Forget how to open the hood of your car;  do not wash your car and disregard the shopping cart dents in your rear bumper for several months.
     
16. Write into email conferences  more frequently than you phone your relatives.
     
17. Are not shocked that you own your bank a six-figure sum for your house.
     
18. Coming from work or a trip to the mall judge who of family members are at home by looking at the cars in the parking lot.
     
19. Use "parking", "appointment", "OK", "shopping", "insurance", "lunch", etc  as Russian words.
     
20. Respect the opinion of people who think that food in Burger King is different (and better) than in MacDonald's. Regularly order iced tea in winter.
     
21. Buy fat-free food right after you've driven an additional 5 minutes around the parking lot to find a parking place three yards closer to the shop entrance.
     
22. You now know that 90 degrees Fahrenheit is hot and 30 degrees is cold and stop thinking about people who used Fahrenheit as backward and clueless...
     
23. Not surprised that speed is measure in miles and square footage in feet. Able to explain directions using American measures of distance and do not think about them as anachronisms.  When stopped by police office for speeding you do not try to fool him by pretending that you are used to measuring speed in kilometers per hours and mixed then with miles per hour.
     
24. Can' t turn on your TV if your remote control is lost.  Periodically when you came home try to open the door of your house with car remote and are surprised that it does not work.
     
25. Know what 401K means and notice that the value of S&P500 index can influence your mood.  No longer think that stocks are for suckers who want to lose money or for Wall Street sharks who feed on 401K suckers...
     

Created June 1, 1998; Last modified: November 23, 2008