i guess mr rogers wasn't joking when he said things were going to get a lot worse in russia.
Talk about crummy pay
By Bill Mann, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 12:02 PM ET June 4, 2001
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW)-- Here's a pay proposal that really stinks:
In Vacha, Russia, doctors and medical professionals were recently offered
manure to pay their back salaries owed by the city government.
Talk about working for s--- wages.
"It's insulting; what are we working for, manure now?" said one hypertensive
paramedic. Maybe, but do have to give these former Soviet-era officials high
marx for ingenuity.
During the last few years, workers at Vacha's hospitals have been paid with
tools, livestock, washing machines, sausages, bicycles, Wayne Newton 8-track
tapes, and Boris Yeltsin dance videos. (OK, I made up those last two).
But the city proposal failed to trigger "manure mania." Doctors thought it was
offal. The town's mayor, obviously a veteran spinmeister, told the Moscow Times
brightly, "Everyone is looking for manure these days."
If this is so, he should seek out anyone reading this. We can tell him where to
find plenty of it in our own workplace.
At 500 rubles, or $18 a truckload, a truckload of manure isn't a bad deal for folks
who earn about $35 a month. But here's the catch: It costs 500 rubles to ship
this "cow currency." A wash, so to speak.
It's the latest twist in the bizarre world of the Russian barter economy in which a
factory may ship 20 Soviet-era tanks/scrap metal to a factory 1200 miles away
for a load of paper clips and Lada tires, which then transships the tires to
another factory two time zones away for machine tools and nutmeg.
Vacha officials did backtrack, however, after doctors complained of their "s----y"
pay proposal, finally offering the medical workers rubles instead of manure.
At last report, the doctors couldn't decide which one to take. |
