ABSTRACT
The Soviet urban workplace can be divided into three basic categories: the factory, with managerial, technical, clerical, and blue-collar staff; the service establishment, from restaurant to shoe repair shop, dealing directly with the customer; the office, with managerial and clerical staff; a bureaucratic establishment, it has no direct contacts with customers in the sense of selling, serving, or repairing. Soviet workers are not known for trying harder than their office counterparts, the low level of material incentive and the rarity of dismissals being the primary reasons for this lack of enthusiasm. Being employed in trade or service is considered best among average jobs and certainly, materially, the most advantageous. It offers direct access to scarce goods and services, without subjecting the employee to pressures under which his counterpart in a capitalist country is forced to perform. Work relations in trades and services are very much colored by the desirability of the position involved.
