>>I am not sure about English idiom for this expression "rabotat' v stol"... How would you say it?
>
>We were probably talking about different things, because I am not at all familiar with the your expression.

Really? In the prior to perestrojka (?sp) period, some authors wrote their manuscripts without any hope of publishing. This would be called "rabotat' v stol". Probably not a good comparision from my part...