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," re...