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border control officers
Jan. 9th, 2007 06:28 pmI've recently seen an unusual border control officer when returning to Russia via Pulkovo-2 (LED).
Of course, that was a female (I've never seen a male border control officer in Russia yet). The unusual thing was that she was smiling. I've heard a suggestion that they are generally not human, but I disagree: If I talk to them, they are usually nice and even smile some times. One I've seen lately was smiling w/o any apparent reason, like americans do some times.
But still, I can hardly imagine the small talk I once had with US INS border officer in Portland airport happening anywhere else in the world:
- Hi, what is the purpose of your visit to US?
- Training.
- What company?
- (one big and famous high-tech company that has a large R&D and some fabs in Oregon)
- Oh, you are software engineer? Working with linux?
- Yes, somewhat.
- What is the primary difference between schedulers in 2.4 and 2.6 kernels?
- O(1).
- OK [no more doubts about entry stamp] I am also in s/w engineering a bit, working as a part time consultant reviewing the code written by Indian engineers for few local medium sized s/w companies.
- :-=)
Of course, that was a female (I've never seen a male border control officer in Russia yet). The unusual thing was that she was smiling. I've heard a suggestion that they are generally not human, but I disagree: If I talk to them, they are usually nice and even smile some times. One I've seen lately was smiling w/o any apparent reason, like americans do some times.
But still, I can hardly imagine the small talk I once had with US INS border officer in Portland airport happening anywhere else in the world:
- Hi, what is the purpose of your visit to US?
- Training.
- What company?
- (one big and famous high-tech company that has a large R&D and some fabs in Oregon)
- Oh, you are software engineer? Working with linux?
- Yes, somewhat.
- What is the primary difference between schedulers in 2.4 and 2.6 kernels?
- O(1).
- OK [no more doubts about entry stamp] I am also in s/w engineering a bit, working as a part time consultant reviewing the code written by Indian engineers for few local medium sized s/w companies.
- :-=)
