“Thou shalt not steal… but thou can bring non-smelly animals to work…” — the coolest company rules from the guy who got a billion dollars stolen from him

“A person has the right not to get hired. We do not like bad hygiene and stupid accents that are inappropriate for this locality. We will not hire those who still have not lost their tails” (translated from the Euroset’s code of conduct).

Evgeny Chichvarkin — the owner of Evroset (photo by Evroset)

Many companies have official or unofficial codes of conducts that establish certain norms of behavior — the dress code, the corporate policy on smoking, or what purchases can be expensed. Most of those codes are boring, cuz they are written by the trained HR professionals.

But I have quite a story to tell about a unique and extravagant company that was owned by a flamboyant entrepreneur who gave his employees the bizarre rule book called “The Book of Rights and Gang Ethics”.

The company reflected the cheerfully explosive personality of its owner — Evgeny Chichvarkin. Even at the black-tie official dinners in London or Moscow he would show up dressed in torn jeans (yellow or pink), colourful t-shirts, or something even more exotic, like blue pajamas.

Dressed for success — Chichvarkin’s business suit

The company is question was called “Evroset” — in 1997 it started selling cell phones from a tiny single booth at a Moscow stadium — 10 years later it had over 5,000 stores in 4 countries, and had a revenue of $5.6 billion. It was just reallygood at selling cell phones and accessories. In 2008 someone of the very top of the Russian plotical elite liked the company so much, that after a few weeks of unrelenting pressure by the criminal police and customs office, Mr. Chichvarkin was forced to sell it on the cheap (losing a billion dollars in the process) and barely escaped to London.

The company’s motto was the“Shock and Outrage”. One of the less racy ads simply stated “Evroset. Our prices are just f****d (really good). The company would offer free phones to the customers who would enter its main store totally naked — well, obviously, that store was packed with connoisseurs at all times.

And now moving to the cool part — the little yellow book called “The Book of Rights and Gang Ethics” (I list just a few of the most memorable rules):

· On talent: Fainess equals Inequality. Your income depends on your talent, and not on your wants and demands — enough already of those old Communist tales;

· On money: Money is the universal tool of freedom. It allows you to choose where to live, how to live, where to study, how to chill, etc. Whoever says otherwise is LYING— either to himself, or to the others.

· On Customer Service 1: The key source of revenue for the company — is the happiness of a Customer.

· On Customer Service 2: The freedom of one employee ends where the freedom of another employee starts. And the freedom of both ends where the freedom of the Customer begins.

· On Employee preparedness for work: Every employee’s set of working tool must include — common sense, innate kindness, non-lazyness, victoryholism (similar to alcoholism) and piecework wages.

· On promotion: All employees can only move up and forward. Nobody gets demoted. Bye! Hadn’t McKinsey come up with it first?

· On corporate expenses: All corporate expenses must lead to corporate profits. Otherwise they are just “f***ups”(“screw-ups)

· On Meritocracy: all bosses must be the best people — both professionally and personally — we don’t hire your brothers, your in-laws, or even your friendly whores

Some store were just funky — photo by TASS

Well, after having been introduced to the key operating principles, the employee learned that he or she had indeed some inalienable rights (including the pursuit of happiness, of course). The key one included:

• The right to work — once you are in, you transfer go to any city within the network;
• The right not to work — if you achieve your KPIs, you can show up at the office anytime, or not show up at all. Still, only the bad dudes would take December 30th as a sick day;
• The right to have a freedom of speech — you can tell “to f*** off” (“to go away”) to any lazy bum, bureaucrat or idiot. And you have a right to be told off as well, if you are one of the above-mentioned. If your boss is an as****e (bad person) — just call the owner directly;
• The right to self expression — no dress code, except for the yellow top. You can bring quiet non-stinky animals to work. The tattoos, piercings and hairdos are not regulated — being different is good!
• The right not to get hired — there is zero tolerance for bad hygiene and stupid accents unsuitable for the locality. Absolutely “no hiring” of those who still have not lost their tails;
• The right to be fired for the drug use, alcoholism and gambling addiction. But… the occasional use of light drugs is not a sign of drug abuse. Both Cheech and Chong would have approved.
• The right to be fired for smoking — the smoking wastes company’s time — one has to take smoking breaks, look and wait for smoking colleagues, come back from smoking area. And stinking of tobacco sucks!

An ad for employees states — “If you are smoking while on the clock — You are stealing my money”

• - The right to experiment — your boss will cover the losses;
• - The right not to steal translates into the right to be prosecuted, including having a hand cut off, being quartered, or impaled — as soon these methods become legal;
• No one in the company has the right to say “No” to a customer. One MUST find the phone or any other widget that a customer wants, even if the employee has to give away his own, or buy from a competitor… Unless it was a Nokia phone — no Nokia models were allowed and the secret Nokia lovers are to beswiftly caught and fired.

The company was the bright star in the Russian economic sky. It has not survived long under the new “owners”, and hundreds of millions of dollars in value just evaporated. And the creator of the star, Evgeny Chichvarkin, having lost over $1 billion, is now having fun selling wine in London.

Taking on a new career… in London