Petr Pospěch

“One time in the mine, they came up with the idea that we’d make a record. The extraction stage was set up like never before, and as soon as everything was ready fifty people charged into the shaft. The engineers, head engineer, and others fed into the record breaking as well, they went to the conveyor belts to get to their cut of reward. And they mined. The record breaking resulted in a total mess. Under normal circumstances everything had to be tidied up, moved, secured, but when they were making a record, they kept going and just measured how much they’d extracted. But it’s clear that you can’t keep working like that, and I still don’t get how anyone can work at 140%. Working at 140%, that nonsense! I can do my work perfectly, but I don’t what it means to work at 140%. Going at 140% means either the workplace standards are shoddy, or it’s a swindle.”

“I had to attend the May Day parade with the apprentices. First, I decorated the whole school, I made up and write my own slogans, and I’m surprised I never slipped up. We made banners, there was a parade, and because the rule was that if you stood on the pavement, you didn’t love the republic, we listened to some big cheese making a speech, and we marched off in line through the whole city for two and a half hours. When it finished, I got hold of two dull-witted apprentices, who stayed with me, and together we took all the things and tidied them away.”