Russians and Work
“They pretend to pay us,
and we pretend to work.”
–Folk joke
Practically no one worked during the broadcasts of the Supreme Soviet meetings. People didn't want to miss a single word. Next day at work, they spent time in heated discussions. It hardly mattered that no one worked, because salaries almost never depended on performance, nor did bonuses! Every time we had idle time at work, I thought of our children. What was the point to leave my daughter at the Day Care if there was no work, just an appearance of it? I would rather do all my work in four hours and then go home, even though I would be paid only half of what others in our company were getting for sitting idle all day.
"If we have nothing to do," I used to urge other women, "why don't we better go home and take our children from state 'incubators’?”–that was how we called our overloaded state kindergartens.
"Of course, it would be nice," replied one of my colleagues. "But then my husband will make me do all the housework. And now I'm at my job, just as he is, and earning just as much." Yes, there was a deep feminine wisdom in that reasoning. Another side of it was that not every woman could afford working part-time.
“Sure, Lydia, easy to say when your parents help you. We can’t afford to go to the Black Sea every summer as you do.”
Earning some extra money by taking a second job was prohibited in those times. No one was allowed to hold two jobs at the same time. (Many people did, however.) Only teachers could legally have several jobs. I knew that, not merely by hearsay; my sister and I grew up with our parents seldom at home. Both of them–as teachers–worked in two or three places to break away from paycheck-to-paycheck misery and to live a little better than others. Every summer, instead of taking a usual vacation, they went to work in children's camps so they would have enough money to take us to the Black Sea at the end of each summer.
My parents never learned how to take a rest. Mother planned carefully for her summer "vacation," so she wouldn't have a single free day at home! She came to this practice by trial and error, after having several breakdowns on her days of doing nothing. The nervous stress that she thought would have burnt itself out in the whirlpool of regular teaching in several places overtook her on vacation. Because she couldn't afford the time for being sick, she found a way out–substituting one stress for another. Those who worked as my parents did–and there were many–were apparently thinking about their careers and promotions. But there was another reason to help us, their children. Somehow, grown-up adults in Russia could not make it on without help. That’s why instead of paying for the Day Care, it was much easier for my parents to have me working part-time.
Trying to help their children, parents were also concerned about their pensions. That's why they attempted to work in the same place for a long time, setting a high value on the notes on their employment records. To lose this document was worse than losing a passport. Without either of these documents, a person is nobody and nothing.
A registration record is in the passport. If a person isn't registered, he or she will not be given employment. If a person has no employment, he or she will not be registered! Many people tried to solve this puzzle in one way or another. But anyone caught in such a situation was regarded with suspicion.
Public opinion was cruel and intolerant: "Decent people don't find themselves in such circumstances. Decent people have a registration, a passport, and a job." Any deviation, even a half-step to one or the other side, met with disapproval. We Russians can't see ourselves outside of column formation. Marching makes people feel solidarity.
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