Synopsis
The book describes the life of an inmate in a Gulag. More then that it tells us what the people are like, how they got there and how they live and have human connections.
Key Takeaways
Page 8 – D’you know who are the ones the camps finish off? Those who lick other left-overs, those who set store by the doctors, and those peach on their mates
The fakers don’t last on the inside. The way you hold yourself has an impact, an effects, it ripples.
Page 30 – Work was like a stick. It had two ends. When you worked for the knowing you gave them quality, when you worked for a fool you simply gave him eyewash. Otherwise, everybody would have croaked long ago. They all knew that.
The person who checks the work has a role in the quality of that work, maybe the most important.
Page 40 – In camp the team-leader is everything; a good one will give you a second life, a bad one will put you in your coffin. You can cheat anyone you like in camp, but not your team leader. Then you’ll live.
This is the same as at your job. Leaders have impact and can make all the difference.
Page 68 – He was a newcomer. He was unused to the hard life of the zeks. Though he didn’t know it, moments like this were particularly important to him, for they were transforming him from an eager, confident naval officer with a ringing voice into an inert, though wary, zek. And only in that inertness lay the chance of surviving the twenty-five years of imprisonment he’d been sentenced to.
These same changes take place in us when we take on something new and unknown, it slowly changes us without us even knowing, at least if we want to survive.
Page 77 – That’s what a team leader is. A guard can’t get people to budge even in working hours, but a team leader can tell his men to get on with the job even during the break and they’ll do it. Because he’s the one who feeds them. And he’d never make them work for nothing.
Motivation, how we work to impress our leaders the people we admire the people we know who would put in for us.
Page 88 – You could count on Alyosha. Did whatever was asked of him. If everybody in the world was like that, Shukhov would have done likewise. If a man asks for help why not help him? Those Baptists had got something there.
In service of our follow man are we our most useful and most at peace. Seek service.
Page 127 – People imagine that the parcel a man gets is a sort of nice tight sack he has only slit open and be happy. But if you work it out it’s a matter of easy come, easy go.
The burden of possesion is even present in the Gulag, envy, fear and stress are created by the parcel.
Final Thoughts
Life is so hard for some people it makes you wonder how they survived. Even in this life people were able to find small joys, a 2nd bowl of oats, abit of warmth, or even a Sunday off. Life is what you make it and even in hell you can find slices of heaven.
Stranger in Sydney 