Thursday, July 10, 2003
Efficiency.
I’ve been getting used to my new, more “slim-lined” life, and decided to look for an additional way to make some money. Western societies traditionally reserve this secondary income for investments or a part-time teaching job and only then as a casual interest separated from one’s more respectable non-nametag wearing main employment, but these aren’t traditional times and this place is a lot more East than West. This search was going to require some creative thinking, and quite a bit of spoken Russian, both of which seemed to have declined sharply since high-school.
It must have been my lucky day. As though the position was divinely advertised, I discovered my second job while doing what Russians do best: waiting in line. You see, here in the St. Petersburg Metro system there are four or five sales windows at each station for the purchase of your tokens which you then put into a machine a few meters away to go down an escalator to the subway platform. One token gets you anywhere in the city. But only one or two sales windows are ever open, even during peak times, and the transaction times are less than inspiring. This creates some pretty long lines which “New [post-soviet] Russians” are accepting less and less. I had noticed a few weeks before that you could get a one ruble discount off of the standard seven ruble subway coin price if you bought forty-one or more. But who does that? These tokens are bulky and dirty and you definitely don’t want dozens of them floating around in your pocket for two weeks. Ah, but what if you bought forty-one each time you went to the window at peak hour and then sold the other forty tokens back at the end of the line for the rather convenient ten ruble price, the most widely used denomination in bill form; A smooth, easy transaction for all. It blows my mind, but some days I make more money selling subway tokens than teaching English.
But, after a week into the token trading business I’ve noticed that there are some rather subtle challenges associated with this job. First, the mileetseeya (local police) are always looking for a convenient way to “help” a foreigner who has inadvertently violated a number of actual or fictional regulations. For a poor American (a complete oxy-moron here) who can’t afford another bribe and who also has a number other quite normal visa violations (not including the illegal selling of Metro tokens) already racked up, I keep one eye on the line of potential clients and one eye for a cheesy blue uniform. And, don’t forget the Tiny (but Tennacious) Tims. The few homeless or begging children begin to fade into the background after the first few days here and so I was surprised to see them again last week selling tokens to people in my station. Ok, obviously I can not claim to be the first person to do this, but why hadn’t I noticed them before? I would have been their best customer in my more well-financed first month, thinking, “Ten rubles, what is that… like thirty-three cents?” Little did I know that when making a “creative” living in Russia day-to-day one can see the value in thirty-three cents: (a) a really big loaf of bread or two smaller ones, a big can of juice, chai s-malakum ee sakarum (tea with milk and sugar), or (b) a small bag of fruit (an apple, banana, orange, and a clump of grapes).
But, even though it’s quick money, I’m constantly dogged by the thought that it’s just too strange that a young(ish), budget conscience, perpetually employed, fast-talking American with a graduate degree, should derive a significant portion of his income from hawking handfuls of twenty cent subway tokens for a thirteen cent profit. Other people have mixed opinions too. The Russians say I’m “pomeshatsaya” (crazy), while my American and Western friends see it as “a great can-do attitude” or “cute,” but last Tuesday, while running from a small gang of vicious ten year-olds who felt that this new start-up was capturing too much of their market-share, the job felt a lot like “ludicrous.”
A block or two away from the Mayakovskaya Metro station, mindful that those smudge-faced rabble-rousers could still be looking for me, I crouched behind a series of old-women along the street who were selling various home wares, and pondered my situation. For a minute or two I was bemused by it all. I wondered what I could call this job on my resume: An “East-European Local-Transport-Securities Reseller” perhaps. And, seeing the state of health of the children chasing me, I thanked God that I followed the advice of my various guide books and got my immunizations before leaving Sydney. But, at the same time, I was suddenly quite disappointed that these guide books didn’t have the foresight to include a chapter entitled “Wallet Stolen? Overspent Your Budget? – The Dos-and-Don’ts of underground employment in St. Petersburg.”
I’ve been getting used to my new, more “slim-lined” life, and decided to look for an additional way to make some money. Western societies traditionally reserve this secondary income for investments or a part-time teaching job and only then as a casual interest separated from one’s more respectable non-nametag wearing main employment, but these aren’t traditional times and this place is a lot more East than West. This search was going to require some creative thinking, and quite a bit of spoken Russian, both of which seemed to have declined sharply since high-school.
It must have been my lucky day. As though the position was divinely advertised, I discovered my second job while doing what Russians do best: waiting in line. You see, here in the St. Petersburg Metro system there are four or five sales windows at each station for the purchase of your tokens which you then put into a machine a few meters away to go down an escalator to the subway platform. One token gets you anywhere in the city. But only one or two sales windows are ever open, even during peak times, and the transaction times are less than inspiring. This creates some pretty long lines which “New [post-soviet] Russians” are accepting less and less. I had noticed a few weeks before that you could get a one ruble discount off of the standard seven ruble subway coin price if you bought forty-one or more. But who does that? These tokens are bulky and dirty and you definitely don’t want dozens of them floating around in your pocket for two weeks. Ah, but what if you bought forty-one each time you went to the window at peak hour and then sold the other forty tokens back at the end of the line for the rather convenient ten ruble price, the most widely used denomination in bill form; A smooth, easy transaction for all. It blows my mind, but some days I make more money selling subway tokens than teaching English.
But, after a week into the token trading business I’ve noticed that there are some rather subtle challenges associated with this job. First, the mileetseeya (local police) are always looking for a convenient way to “help” a foreigner who has inadvertently violated a number of actual or fictional regulations. For a poor American (a complete oxy-moron here) who can’t afford another bribe and who also has a number other quite normal visa violations (not including the illegal selling of Metro tokens) already racked up, I keep one eye on the line of potential clients and one eye for a cheesy blue uniform. And, don’t forget the Tiny (but Tennacious) Tims. The few homeless or begging children begin to fade into the background after the first few days here and so I was surprised to see them again last week selling tokens to people in my station. Ok, obviously I can not claim to be the first person to do this, but why hadn’t I noticed them before? I would have been their best customer in my more well-financed first month, thinking, “Ten rubles, what is that… like thirty-three cents?” Little did I know that when making a “creative” living in Russia day-to-day one can see the value in thirty-three cents: (a) a really big loaf of bread or two smaller ones, a big can of juice, chai s-malakum ee sakarum (tea with milk and sugar), or (b) a small bag of fruit (an apple, banana, orange, and a clump of grapes).
But, even though it’s quick money, I’m constantly dogged by the thought that it’s just too strange that a young(ish), budget conscience, perpetually employed, fast-talking American with a graduate degree, should derive a significant portion of his income from hawking handfuls of twenty cent subway tokens for a thirteen cent profit. Other people have mixed opinions too. The Russians say I’m “pomeshatsaya” (crazy), while my American and Western friends see it as “a great can-do attitude” or “cute,” but last Tuesday, while running from a small gang of vicious ten year-olds who felt that this new start-up was capturing too much of their market-share, the job felt a lot like “ludicrous.”
A block or two away from the Mayakovskaya Metro station, mindful that those smudge-faced rabble-rousers could still be looking for me, I crouched behind a series of old-women along the street who were selling various home wares, and pondered my situation. For a minute or two I was bemused by it all. I wondered what I could call this job on my resume: An “East-European Local-Transport-Securities Reseller” perhaps. And, seeing the state of health of the children chasing me, I thanked God that I followed the advice of my various guide books and got my immunizations before leaving Sydney. But, at the same time, I was suddenly quite disappointed that these guide books didn’t have the foresight to include a chapter entitled “Wallet Stolen? Overspent Your Budget? – The Dos-and-Don’ts of underground employment in St. Petersburg.”
