A useful joke

I can't find it now, but years ago I posted about the hilarious Russian textbook published many years ago by Slavica and which I finally got my own copy of due to the generosity of keyne. At one point, I'd shown it to a coworker who grew up in the Soviet Union. She showed it to her family and they laughed themselves senseless.

Today, she came by and asked, "What was the name of that Russian textbook with the ударники?" I knew immediately what she was referring to, but couldn't remember title or author. First I tried rifling through this journal and came up empty. Then I essayed a few Google searches, finally hitting paydirt in the form of a ten year-old LanguageHat entry.

I took my bibliographical information back to her, assuming that she simply wanted to check out the book again to show someone else. Instead I discovered that she had a very practical goal in mind, one related to a cataloging project she's working on. We have a cache of Soviet-era propaganda posters in special collections and she's finding herself stuck for translations of specialised terminology like ударник ("shock-worker" or "strike-worker", a Soviet ideal) which the Lipson's book makes extensive use of.

That's another great thing about my job: It's all fun and games until suddenly a source you mocked becomes just the thing for the task at hand.