Travel / Just visited Poland - here is my random rant [154]


If Scotland goes, the UK will have to radically reform how it exists politically. Even with a no vote next year, the UK will have to adopt a genuine federal structure within 20-30 years - we're already well on the path with devolution, and even England is showing that politically, she wants to adopt a different path than the rest of the UK. The education reforms are one example - England is walking a completely different path to the rest of the UK on that one.

Life / Planning to relocate to Wroclaw, Poland [17]

Could you perhaps tell us how that cost breaks down?

News / Poland's John Paul the Great canonisation this year [177]


Gumishu...?

Work / Is there a market for teaching Dutch in Poland [22]


Poles are really keen on learning languages in general, but what you'll find is that most of them will be poor students who won't have the means to pay for a teacher.


Doesn't really mean anything then. You should put an advertisement offering classes and you'll see the response then.


60zl/hour is unlikely to happen in the current environment with someone who has no experience as a teacher and no knowledge of Dutch philology. 40zl/hour would be more realistic, and even then, it's going to be unreliable.


Not really. Polish people are somewhat unreliable and they won't hesitate to cancel at short notice or simply stop showing up. Relying on private lessons for income is - usually - a bad idea.

Work / Is there a market for teaching Dutch in Poland [22]


Not really. Perhaps some small amount of interest, but you'd be looking at 4 hours a week at the most.


Depends on the market where you live.

Work / Dutch speaker (native) experienced in Finance: job opportunities in Poland [63]


It's very possible provided you have something they want. Getting 4000-5000 for a starter job won't be possible unless the language is really in demand and a language that is spoken in a country with significantly higher salaries. That's why Danish and Norwegian gets rewarded here.


When everyone on this forum is telling you that your expectations are too high, perhaps it is? You're only earning 7000zl net in Brussels - why would you get anything anything close to that in a country where salaries are far lower?


In Warsaw? Not a chance. You'll be able to live, but don't expect to save anything.


I think he is struggling to understand how big the salary gap actually is for those at the beginning of a career. In a society where tens of thousands of graduates are churned out each year driving down salaries, there's really no need to pay the kind of money that he talks about.


What you think is "fair" really has nothing to do with it. What matters is what they're willing to pay - and if they don't have to pay more than 3000zl net + benefits, why would they?

All in all, Poland can be summed up like this -

- If you want adventure? Come to Poland.
- If you want girls? Come to Poland.
- If you want to start a career in an international company? Come to Poland.
- If you want money? Don't come to Poland.

Work / Dutch speaker (native) experienced in Finance: job opportunities in Poland [63]


Actually, he's already said above that careers in international companies are far more likely in Poland than in Belgium.

Travel / Just visited Poland - here is my random rant [154]


Perhaps, but then they could also look at what they have. If someone was truly destitute with no family that could take care of them, then the State could consider helping them if they were above the age of retirement.

If someone managed to buy a flat for peanuts in a good location - then they could always sell it and move to a cheaper location. I have absolutely no social conscience in this respect - if you have assets, then you should use those assets to live.


Do you think people would agree? Solidarity would almost certainly call a general strike, many others would cry and whine (especially those planning a baby who know exactly how much they can abuse the Labour Code) and so on...


Those complaining about it are the same ones who would dump their rubbish in the forests anyway. The new system completely removes the need to dump trash - which is a good thing, right?

Does society really need to have 125 graduates of history every year from Adam Mickiewicz in Poznan alone - graduates who have little hope? Multiply this by hundreds of people in hundreds of courses across the land, and you soon see why money should be pulled out of universities and invested in technical education instead...

But when education (as a whole) is lacking in money, does it make sense to fund someone to do something just because they find it interesting? If they find it interesting, they can pay from their own pocket. It would certainly make far more sense to spend money on paying great school teachers more than in funding random professors who don't live in the real world, wouldn't it?


There was year zero for many people, especially those who were unfortunate enough to end up in the 20-50 generation that's now getting robbed blind in Poland...


That's an interesting comparison.

However, I'd argue that in the specific Polish example, someone studying pedagogics isn't going to move particularly far in terms of mobility regardless.

UK, Ireland / Estimated number of Poles in Ireland thought to exceed 200,000 OR over 5% of population. [200]


The future is steady growth - faster than Western Europe as Poland continues to catch up. Works for me.

Work / Dutch speaker (native) experienced in Finance: job opportunities in Poland [63]


I see they've completely failed to mention the social security deductions which will take another chunk out of those gross salaries.


They've got that wrong too - it's 1600zl and due to climb to 1680zl.


You could, but like people have told you - you're not going to get in the 6-7k range. If you set your sights at getting 4000zl net, then you might just get it.

Travel / Just visited Poland - here is my random rant [154]


It would have forced society to help - but don't forget that many of those people also managed to obtain properties at a great price, or managed to get municipal housing with far lower rents than would be expected in the private sector. The situation now where there are many elderly people living in subsidised municipal housing while also being subsidised with their pensions is an economic disaster for our generation.

I've said it many times on this forum - the current generation aged 50-70 will more or less bleed the next generations dry.


The problem is that the labour laws also keep people in such conditions. I know several female small business owners who openly admit that they will never, ever, ever give another female "umowa o prace" for fear of what can happen to their business if the women start mucking about. And this comes from women, not men!

(as for moustaches - I use that to describe anyone working in a highly unionised job)

The whole thing is a rotten circle - the laws protect employees, so employes don't want to give them the rights for fear of being abused by employees, and so it continues.


At least in my humble opinion, Poles quite like that strangling. They may complain about it, but when you consider the vast amount of idiotic comments about how the PRL was better because of x, y and z - you start to see that Poles quite enjoy such an approach to life.

As for what creates it? The robbing of people to pay for pensions today.


Simple : look at what the economy needs and fund it. Anything that isn't needed (such as all those things mentioned) can be paid for via tuition fees. Voila.

(I was stunned recently to discover that the university here has a Polish expert in the Scots language. Why?)


Can you explain more?


In your line of work, spending time in England is the best thing you can do :)

Love / Polish Farm Women [34]

PF has links to - polishwomen.com

Travel / Just visited Poland - here is my random rant [154]


I agree, but I think we all know that there are hordes of pensioners out there who never paid a thing into the "convertible" Zloty - so their contributions were more or less completely destroyed by the economic policies of the PRL and the inflation of the early 1990's. They all now need to be paid in hard Zloty - so small business owners end up getting robbed to pay for them. It's a controversial view, but I believe that pension contributions pre-1990 should have been written off. That generation was massively subsidised by the State to a certain extent - and they continue to be subsidised.


I'd love to hear a practical suggestion in this regard. About the only thing I can think of is waiting until the deficit shrinks, then paying off the debts of ZUS and radically reforming the whole institution at the same time.


To be fair, small business owners can simply refuse to give proper contracts. I've always thought that the nonsense that is umowa zlecenie/umowa o prace should be abolished and replaced with something in the middle. But to do that, you also have to contend with the masses of moustaches who believe that it's their right to do as little as possible for as much money as possible.


It's probably necessary in the long run - the black market economy here is big by all accounts.


But can Poland afford to pay people to do frivolous things that they won't use afterwards anyway? Is there really any need to have so many professors employed who are experts in some area when Poland has barely any connections with that area anyway?

For instance - there is a distinct lack of sworn translators for many languages. Shouldn't we focus on training them, rather than on educating people to understand philosophy?

Life / Right or wrong, Polish controversies [11]


That's a direct consequence of the relaxed attitude in Poland towards investigating who works with children.

Life / Poland's Environment, recycling [79]

1700-2000zl net for an unskilled physical job sounds very fair to me. Yes, it's hard work with some terrible hours, but it is what it is.

Perhaps "patrik" would like to show us some evidence of his claims that they are a terrible company?

Law / Which bank in Poland offers the best interest for savings in Euro? [13]


Do you think that insurance is actually worth anything?

By non-private bank, I mean any bank that has publicly available shares (or owners that have publicly available shares).

Travel / (Sleeping cars) wagony sypialne on overnight trains in Poland [4]


It is possible on different days - it was probably just the train had no empty compartments left. I've just checked now and the "whole compartment" option is offered.

Best to go to the station and buy the tickets there in a situation like this.

Law / Which bank in Poland offers the best interest for savings in Euro? [13]

Stay away from any private bank full stop. A quick look of the chart on money.pl tells you that there must be something wrong if these banks are able to offer a significant premium over the Euribor rate.

Travel / (Sleeping cars) wagony sypialne on overnight trains in Poland [4]


It's not a problem if you have sole occupancy of the cabin, or if you travel by couchette. Done it many times, and it's not a problem at all. You just have to make sure that you don't (for instance) book two places in a 3-bed cabin. If you're buying online, you can just say that it's two men travelling - no-one will care if you have the aforementioned sole occupancy of the cabin.

Real Estate / Day of exchange of contracts with property sellers in Poland [12]


It's not abnormal in Poland - what normally happens is that they use the time to find a temporary property to move to. If you're not comfortable with it, simply tell them that you want a reduction in the selling price by x% to compensate for their usage of the property during that time. Or offer to rent it back to them for two weeks, or simply tell them that you'll delay the purchase by another two weeks.


Quite easily - the purchase agreement is binding. If they don't go after two weeks, then you can throw the book at them. It should also be possible to note in the purchase agreement an address that they agree to be 'evicted' to if they remain after those two weeks.


Doesn't seem a problem for me - I can understand why sellers might not be happy to move out straight away if they're waiting for a bank transfer.


It's not unreasonable, but you should make it clear that you don't agree to such a condition. It's a buyer's market right now in Poland, so you can easily negotiate this point away.

Life / Poland's Environment, recycling [79]

Plenty of Polish companies have done that too elsewhere.

I know of one story where a Polish pizza maker managed to put several pizza shops out of business on the border. Nothing new or special in today's Europe.

Law / Which bank in Poland offers the best interest for savings in Euro? [13]


You won't get much better for instant-access EUR accounts. PKO is offering 0.30% for instant access which is pretty decent - it's not far off the Euribor 6m rate.

Travel / Just visited Poland - here is my random rant [154]

What's planned about refusing to subsidise such courses? If people want them, the universities can provide them at market cost. No-one is stopping them competing on the open market for such courses - it's the current system of opening many "directions" and then expecting the State to pay up that I object to.

Poland doesn't need thousands of history graduates.

Travel / Just visited Poland - here is my random rant [154]


Perhaps. But it may also be a badly, badly needed wake-up call for a hugely bloated State university sector that is increasing rapidly.

Tuition fees are still the easiest option - and they would certainly discourage the take-up of unemployment factory subjects.

For what it's worth, at least one of the universities here requires students to do work experience within the university-owned properties. That usually translates into "slave labour in the fields" - but if they can do it, anyone can.


But why should the country pay for stuff just for the fancy of the student? It makes no sense to subsidise people who want to learn something just because it's 'trendy' or because they don't want to enter the real world. Poland needs money to plug the pensions gap, needs money to keep reconstructing the country and so on. They've had 12 years of free education to that point - a university education isn't going to make a huge difference.


Perhaps the situation is far worse because of the university sector producing so many worthless graduates?

The whole university sector is rotten to the core.

Work / Dutch speaker (native) experienced in Finance: job opportunities in Poland [63]

No, not really - look at his posts above, he's looking at it from a financial perspective. Brussels is an expensive place, so he's hoping to earn the same salary in Poland while having much lower costs of living.

Travel / Just visited Poland - here is my random rant [154]


I mentioned above that if universities are forced to find such jobs for people, then you'll see a dramatic reduction in the number of students.

For what it's worth, in regards to "lack of jobs" - I'm struggling to find a capable German teacher. I've advertised the position in all the usual places and still can't find one that is actually worth employing.

Travel / Just visited Poland - here is my random rant [154]

It's worth pointing out that Poles have really got the bug for travelling - it's nothing to do with salaries in many cases, but rather a desire to see the world. I know so many people who have gone to poorer countries to live - so it's not just about money, but rather something else too. The way that Poland really went for Erasmus and Comenius in a huge way too is also significant.

It's also worth pointing out that "making Poland more attractive" usually involves financial bribes.

I think the best option is to give them a choice - they can either serve their time or pay their way. Either works - philosophy graduates might be happy to have a job for those two years, whereas someone studying computer science might prefer to simply pay the State back. Either way, the current model is unsustainable.

Work / Dutch speaker (native) experienced in Finance: job opportunities in Poland [63]


No. Your cost of living will always be higher than you expect due to various factors (no family ties) - and one reason that these salaries are low is that they can get away with it due to the Polish family culture.

If you're looking at Poland as a means to make more money or at least the same, forget it.

Life / Poland's Environment, recycling [79]

It's worth pointing out that where the tender was rigged in favour of the local incumbent operator - there has been a scandal as a result. Warsaw, anyone?

Travel / Just visited Poland - here is my random rant [154]


In a sense, this might actually work - universities would have to find them placements, so if they can't find placements, they can't graduate - which would almost certainly cut down many of the more ridiculous and worthless specialisations and force universities to concentrate on what is employable. They could offer tuition fees as an alternative to such a programme - so if you want to study Fine Arts or Philosophy, you pay.


I think it actually makes a lot of sense in certain fields such as medicine and teaching. But it could also be replaced by volunteer work too - someone spending their summers helping disadvantaged kids could be exempt from post graduate experience. I could certainly arrange such experience for anyone interested - it's a struggle to find volunteers as it is!

There's no easy fix - any solution to the current problem is going to involve pain.