I am a Russki. I know all of you know what that is. I know it because every Russian person has heard the Russian accent imitated by someone who is not Russian at least 500 times in his or her life. Russki has become a slang term, used and then overused, like a dirty prostitute (say it in a Russian accent). I thank Borat for the recent influx of mimicry of the Slavic languages.

Russki people have a certain ideology. They live to work. My parents are even bigger immigrant Russkis than I am. They eat herring for breakfast and boiled potatoes with sour cream for dinner. And no wonder! That shit is good. My parents have worked all their lives, like dogs—like furry, Siberian dogs. My father is a mechanic and my mother is a bookkeeper, both relics of formerly thriving careers in Mother Russia (to be read with Russian inflection). They came to the United States with little baby girl Elina to “find good job,” “give Elina opportunities,” and, “eat more boiled potatoes.” I was raised to think that money is happiness. My Russki family drilled the importance of success and climbing the ladder into my little Russki head.

High school was super awkward for me (big surprise). I tried to fit in and reject my native Russki-ness. My parents wanted me to work, but no one would hire me. I was too pimply and small, and not believable as an employee. My mom would ask me, “What you want? You want live in poverty all life?” No, I thought. I guess I don’t. I was almost a straight-A student, the pride and joy of all my pickled cabbage-eating relatives. The pressure was pretty intense.

My parents constantly reminded me where we came from and, as a young adult in college, I began to embrace my responsibilities and my Russian background and heritage. I started looking for a job and trying to pay for my own expenses, because let’s face it, as a born-again Russki, I needed a pair of $300 Gucci sunglasses, and that stuff doesn’t just fall from the sky.

My first job in college was in the dining hall. I wouldn’t call it so much a job, as an extremely valuable life experience. I had no car and frankly, no money to use the limited public transportation Buffalo offers. Forced into on-campus employment—which, for freshmen, is almost monopolized by FSA—I was tired all the time and I smelled like the dining hall. My roommate would close her nose as I walked into our room (as if the way I smelled could really overpower her B.O.). My friends would heckle me as I stood behind the glass, or at the card-swiping station. The worst station to work was the salad bar, placed right in the middle of the seating area where a milieu of my peers could lazily watch me wipe and mop spilled food as they gorged on more scalloped potatoes. Picture being an animal in the zoo, everyone’s probing eyes stripping off layer after layer of self-respect. The managers were nosy and strict, and even worse, petty. They paid us no respect, though we did most of the dirty work. Although FSA offered free meals, there was limited time to eat before your shift, and rather than praise and encouragement, I heard sexist remarks from the older male cooks.

There is a “Chemical Room” in the back of the dining hall. I bet you didn’t know that. That is because you are not a smart Russki like me. Anyway, this chemical room, situated practically in the middle of the kitchen, contained all kinds of liquid poisons that could have found their way, airborne, into the food of the students. Inside this chemical room was also a sink (breeding ground for all kinds of bacteria poured out of garbage pails and stuck in the drain on their way to trash heaven). We had to clean this sink daily.

I was totally fed up with the maltreatment. I called my parents and screamed, “I don’t want to scrub the floors anymore!” They were silent on the two cordless phones they were holding at the same time, probably in the same room. Then, my mother’s voice: “What? You scrub floors? No! My daughter no scrub nothing!” I quit immediately.

My parents would probably rather send me on a one-way flight back to Russia than see me scrubbing floors. Being on my own 400 miles away from my parents forced me to use their advice on a different level. It just took working a job like that to put my college career in perspective; I learned that one doesn’t work just for the sake of working. Instead, I can use my education to ascend the ranks and do what I really want while still being a hard worker. That’s why my parents made sacrifices for me. As my folks always say, “You no work hard, we no love you. No pressure.”