There are a lot a lousy jobs in Russia, but it is hard to get lousier than public restroom attendant. Nearly all public restrooms cost money (somewhere between 10 and 30 rubles--from 30 cents to a dollar), and the attendant is the grumpy woman who makes sure you pay your money. Public restrooms are very important, especially when you are traveling, and they are are frequently located near bus and train stations, big parks, and other attractions.
But these restrooms are almost always really disgusting. America does bathrooms really well; American Standard is the name of a toilet brand, after all. I don't know what this implies, but Russian Standard is a vodka brand (and a damn good one, too). Anyway, it is common to encounter the hole-in-the-floor style toilets, and toilet paper is fairly rare in public bathrooms (sometimes the attendant has a roll or two sitting on her desk). The thing that is really rare, though, is paper towel or a working hand dryer, so most people don't wash their hands. And even if they did, the only soap is usually a really grimy bar of basic old white soap sitting in a filthy soap dish.
This whole grubby kingdom is the domain of the restroom attendant. Every time I use one of these bathrooms, I realize how awful jobs can be. Imagine that you are the attendant at Kurski Train Station in Moscow. There is a constant stream of people who all need to satisfy nature's callings before boarding trains, and many of them have been traveling for a long time and haven't bathed in a while. And these public bathrooms almost always smell incredibly awful, like a combination of festering urine and a whole menagerie of other nasty people smells. The bathroom at that train station was so smelly that I actually had to fight my gag reflex while I was in there. So you sit in your little cubicle near the door--but still definitely inside the bathroom--and collect money from people. And you do that for eight hours. Five days a week.
The smell must impregnate your clothes and get caught in your hair, and you deal with all sorts of rude people, clueless foreigners, drunks, and all manner of society's dregs. Also, it's a completely thankless job; you're an annoying barrier that stands in the way of man and nature, not letting man unload his two Baltikas and a cup of coffee before boarding the 7:18 train to Zheleznodrozhnii. As far as I know, there is no day of the restroom attendant in Russia, and this is a country where nearly every profession has its own little holiday (day of the customs inspector, for example, is coming up later this week).
So, the next time you think your jobs sucks, and you're contemplating your place in post-industrial society, think of the Russian restroom attendant. To really drive the point home, here's a picture of a nasty bathroom. I've seen worse, although this one is pretty bad.
But these restrooms are almost always really disgusting. America does bathrooms really well; American Standard is the name of a toilet brand, after all. I don't know what this implies, but Russian Standard is a vodka brand (and a damn good one, too). Anyway, it is common to encounter the hole-in-the-floor style toilets, and toilet paper is fairly rare in public bathrooms (sometimes the attendant has a roll or two sitting on her desk). The thing that is really rare, though, is paper towel or a working hand dryer, so most people don't wash their hands. And even if they did, the only soap is usually a really grimy bar of basic old white soap sitting in a filthy soap dish.
This whole grubby kingdom is the domain of the restroom attendant. Every time I use one of these bathrooms, I realize how awful jobs can be. Imagine that you are the attendant at Kurski Train Station in Moscow. There is a constant stream of people who all need to satisfy nature's callings before boarding trains, and many of them have been traveling for a long time and haven't bathed in a while. And these public bathrooms almost always smell incredibly awful, like a combination of festering urine and a whole menagerie of other nasty people smells. The bathroom at that train station was so smelly that I actually had to fight my gag reflex while I was in there. So you sit in your little cubicle near the door--but still definitely inside the bathroom--and collect money from people. And you do that for eight hours. Five days a week.
The smell must impregnate your clothes and get caught in your hair, and you deal with all sorts of rude people, clueless foreigners, drunks, and all manner of society's dregs. Also, it's a completely thankless job; you're an annoying barrier that stands in the way of man and nature, not letting man unload his two Baltikas and a cup of coffee before boarding the 7:18 train to Zheleznodrozhnii. As far as I know, there is no day of the restroom attendant in Russia, and this is a country where nearly every profession has its own little holiday (day of the customs inspector, for example, is coming up later this week).
So, the next time you think your jobs sucks, and you're contemplating your place in post-industrial society, think of the Russian restroom attendant. To really drive the point home, here's a picture of a nasty bathroom. I've seen worse, although this one is pretty bad.
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