Russian Website Editor Sacked For Being Too Popular

We'll be honest, we can't ever see this happening to us.

But one poor soul in Russia has suffered the consequences of simply being too damned good at her job.

Galina Timchenko was formerly editor of the news website Lenta.ru, but when she reported that the site had hit three million unique users a day, she was met with an unexpectedly negative reaction from the owner; a month later she was sacked.

"I understood that this is the end, because there cannot be such an influential resource that is not controlled by the Kremlin," said Timchenko.

Vladimir Putin has previously described the internet as a "CIA project" and brought in new laws last year to strengthen its control over the content that the Russian people can access. The Kremlin had previously concentrated on controlling the mass media of TV and newspapers, but now it's increasingly looking online.

Most of Timchenko's staff walked out in March 2014 in solidarity to join her at Meduza, a site based in Latvia and outside the control of the Kremlin.

So if there's any lesson to learn here, it's that you should slack off a bit and take it easy while you're in work (in Russia); after all, you wouldn't want to be too productive - it might be bad for your career.