Give us a math problem, I dare you. You will be amazed by what we can come up with. We are like Will Hunting and John Nash all rolled into one (well, one country that is). It’s like all we have ever done in life is gymnastics and math over here (ok, there was that whole incident with that guy and some blood sucking up in Transylvania, but that’s a different story).

And what a life it was… Things were indeed awesome for a long time. True, there were times not so long ago when food was scarce, freedom and individual property were exotic concepts… But that just meant we had more time for our math and stuff. And we were happy, oh boy, those were the times!

And then, around the Christmas of ‘89, out of nowhere and for no obvious reason (except, you know, those 50 years or so of political and social oppression), there were these dudes that started booing our beloved leader. Seriously, what kind of people would do such a thing?! I am pretty sure they were those idiot & bored business majors (I mean really, how stupid can you be to study business living under communism?!). Anyway, things kind of escalated from there. And yada yada yada, Romania was a free nation.

So there we were, a 23 million strong nation, looking to redefine ourselves. We thought about it for a very long time, like for an entire week I think, and we decided we had no idea what to do. Not sure if this was because we were lazy or because the previous regime managed to kill all free-thinking people for, you know… thinking freely — but I'm pretty sure it was the lazy thing though.

Ok, so then we just did what came natural to us: math. This kind of went hand in hand with engineering, which then led to software development, which coupled with our overwhelming desire to please foreigners (more on this and other national complexes later), turned Romania into one of the top countries for software development outsourcing.

By 2000, we were up there with the big guys (India & Russia) as the top destinations for IT outsourcing. Us, the country that is 48 times smaller than India, were going head to head for the title! We were like David, like Rudy, like Po (the Panda), like that boxer played by Russell Crowe! We were like the Nadia Comaneci of IT outsourcing!

And it was even more amazing because most of the outsourcing companies were Romanian-owned, small and agile. We were in the very early stages of a healthy growth, at least in the IT industry.

But time has passed since then. McDonald’s opened its 65th store, hypermarkets are posting record sales, comforts of a normal daily life are no longer exotic concepts. We have successfully replaced the cold nights of the iron curtain with the warm glow of consumerism.

You see, once the word got out that we are good at this programming thing, more and more foreign companies opened up shop over here. And I am talking about the big guys, Fortune 500 companies. And they came with money, they came with benefits and job security (yes, we now know it was the illusion of job security — but come on, give us a break, some of you think the world is 6000 years old…).

And the once little proud Romanian development shops started closing down one by one. Some made it, most didn’t. They couldn’t match the sometimes 4 or 5 times larger salary offers and so their best people left.

And I get it, I really do. And you would as well, if you’d have grown up here. These people were the children of 70s and 80s and access to the most basic needs, like food or hot water, were in most cases luxuries. And they all swore that their children would be better off. And so they went to the streets for a better life. And a better life was the dream. And so, of course, when an opportunity came along that promised a better life, they took it.

So there we are, a 19 million strong nation (yep, we lost a few million to the condition known as emigrationus feverus), looking around at what the hell just happened. But now we’re taking our time, since we don’t want to repeat past mistakes, I assume. We still have the talent, but we no longer own it. And our new overlords turned out to be not so special, not so safe after all. The glamour-induced blindness is starting to wear off.