Replies

"This goes right along with everything I've read about how things really worked over there."
Well, here is 'how things really worked over there.", with a minimum of poetic license [Venedikt Erofeev, "Moskva-Petushki"]:
...It started much simpler. Before me our work process looked like this: in the morning we sat down and played poker for money (do you know how to play poker?). Well. Then we got up, unwound the cable from the spool and put that cable underground. After that - we sat down again and everyone killed his leisure time after his own manner, for, after all, everyone has one's own dream and character: one drank vermouth, another, who was simpler, drank cologne "Freshness", and the pretentious one drank cognac in international airport Sheremetyevo. And then we went to sleep.
The next morning we at first sat down and drank vermouth. Then we got up, pulled out the yesterday cable and threw it away, because it was all wet, naturally. And then - what? - then we sat down to play poker, for money. And then we went to sleep, not finishing playing.
Early next morning we woke one another: "Alex! Get up to play poker!" "Stasik, get up to finish yesterday's poker!" We got up, finished poker. After that, even before daylight, having not drunk either "Freshness" or vermouth, we grasped the cable spool and started unwinding it, so that the cable would get wet and useless by tomorrow. After that – everyone to his leisure, because everyone has one's own ideals. And - see the beginning.
Having become a foreman, I simplified this process to the limit. Now one day we played poker, another day we drank vermouth, the next day - again poker, and then - again vermouth. The one with intellect completely disappeared in Sheremetyevo airport: he was sitting there drinking cognac. Of course, we didn't touch the cable spool - and if I ever suggested it, they’d laugh like gods and then beat me in the face, and after that they'd go - some to play poker, some to drink vermouth, and some to drink "Freshness".
And for a while everything was OK: once a month we sent our socialist obligations to head office, and they sent us salary twice a month. We, for example, wrote: on the occasion of coming centenary we undertake to do away with work accidents. Or: on the occasion of glorious centenary we undertake that each sixth of us is enrolled in correspondence college studies. What work accidents and studies can be there if we do not see the daylight due to poker, and if there are only five of us!...