A Rabinovich gets up early and goes to the factory

A Rabinovich gets up early and goes to the factory!

My dear reader, once again I want to ask you a question. Why does a person named Rabinovich need a college degree? You might say it’s because a person must be intelligent and erudite. And with such a surname, it is simply inevitable! For example, my husband’s mother would always say, whenever my husband was being lazy: “It will take you one day longer to become an engineer!” He became an engineer, having graduated studied communications at a technical school and then engineering in college before entering the army. Two diplomas… wow! We are proud.
Our hero got married and had two sons. He hoped that his children would grow up and also get higher education; otherwise they would have to work manual labor jobs, like turner or a welder, or God forbid a blacksmith!
After getting a diploma, Rabinovich settled in quite quickly and happily. The engineer loved doing creative, rewarding work. He made friends. His superiors treated him well. The employees spent off days together; they played chess and checkers together, participated in a competitions in sports and shooting. Everything was fine. Suddenly, the Rabinovich family got lucky: they were offered to live in a subsidized apartment in a distant neighborhood. The four family members lived in the same room, and even often received guests from the wonderful town of Bobryusk! They soon got tired of such a cramped space! Anyway, the family eventually moved to a new house, a beautiful apartment of three rooms! How lucky and beautiful!
The two children grew up. The eldest was sent to the nearest school, but the youngest had to be transported to public kindergarten via public transport—and then our Rabinovich still had to be in time for his work by the beginning of the workday. The wife was busy; she worked as a teacher and could not miss classes. So our Rabinovich worked has hard as he could. He decided to change jobs to have time to pick up his son from daycare and prepare dinner for his family at home, as his wife would arrive from home even later than he.
He found another job repairing equipment and managed this for a while. But one day everything went wrong! Rabinovich had left for lunch, and when he returned to the workplace, he saw that his employees were agitated. It turned out that there had been an audit from the Soviet Committee (the year was 1982). The comrades had found extraneous materials being coped on the printing presses. The workers explained that had been done by the mechanic named Rabinovich. He tried to explain that his wife had asked him to make copies to better educate her students. The boss was afraid that he would be fired and suggested that Rabinovich resign. What did the poor Jew have to do? And from that moment, the worker began to look for a new job. Remember the jokes about how Jews got jobs?
 
Do you think finding a new job was easy?! Wherever our Rabinovich turned, there was no vacant post. Often he’d hear: “OK, you’re hired—come tomorrow!” And the next day, the job had already turned out to be taken.
A friend, who had held the high position of deputy director, promised that he would help arrange Rabinovich at his factory. But alas! The position was already taken…

Finally, one of Rabinovich’s former bosses invited him to work in a cast-iron foundry; Rabinovich agreed and took on the night shift.
 
The other works asked Rabinovich in surprise: “Why did they send you here? What did you do to deserve this?” The others who were there were alcoholics or had served time in jail. Rabinovich explained that he was working there temporarily; he would surely look for other engineering positions in the meantime. The working conditions were difficult; there was dirt and dust everywhere, and the workers needed to repair electrical appliances and fix broken parts. Most of the brigade members were former prisoners and alcoholics, but Rabinovich was treated with respect and understanding. And thus Rabinovich worked there for about six months, until his friend recommended that he be hired as an electrical engineer in the government’s engineering department. He spent several years there before leaving for America. His engineering diploma came in handy after all!