Vibrator

Panu's entry about electrical measurement devices spam reminded me of the old times working at a factory named Vibrator. The factory did not produce what you think it produced, but various electrical measurement devices. It was in St. Peterburg, and my classmate Sveta and I worked there for a month right after the 9th grade because we had to - working in some nasty place was an obligatory part of the school program for that year. Of course we got paid only half of what real people were paid, but that was a great improvement in comparison to our two weeks in a kolkhoz the year before that, where I actually managed to earn a negative salary (0.98 rubles salary - 50% for food which was almost worth the price - 0.5 rubles of an obligatory contribution to Chernobyl fund = -0.01 rubles, or 1 kopeika).

Vibrator was a lovely place in comparison. The first day we came there the boss read us a long lecture about not coming near the conveyor belt. She stressed it many, many times. When we asked where the conveyor belt is, so that we can avoid it, she said "well, actually we don't have one, but we had to warn you about it anyway".

We spent a month running various errands (basically shopping) for various employees of that department. Earned about 50 rubles each. I'd rather have had that time to myself, but it was definitely better than kolkhoz.

I wanted to pinch a voltmeter from there on general principle, but forgot.