Work / Education in Poland - system and structure [118]

Seanus wrote:


this is my impression of the polish school system as well. mindless memorization of things that you will either forget the day after you take the exam, or you remember it but have no practical use for it. obviously this is nothing more than an observation, i've never attended a polish school/uni but i'm always so surprised at what my students tell me they're studying.

USA, Canada / Canada Increasingly a Gateway for Undocumented Polish Immigrants Entering the U.S. [150]

convex wrote:


I know a Polish guy in Wroclaw who lived and worked illegally in the USA for years.

he came illegally as a teenager, managed to get a student visa while he was there and overstayed it for probably 7 years. he got his SS card at some point, worked like any other american, and when his visa was up, he just continued to work using the same SS #.

the INS and IRS are two seperate entities.

USA, Canada / Canada Increasingly a Gateway for Undocumented Polish Immigrants Entering the U.S. [150]

delphiandomine wrote:


one has to wonder how much Poland actually likes or dislikes it. I'm not talking about its people, I'm talking about its government officials. Visa free travel means a lot of educated poles, paid for by the state, jumping ship for a better life in the USA. In addition and as a result, lowering Poland's already abismal birth rate.

if the economic payoff isn't there, why should they do it? again, money trumps shame or in this case specifically, pride.

USA, Canada / Canada Increasingly a Gateway for Undocumented Polish Immigrants Entering the U.S. [150]

kosynier wks wrote:


yes, that is just what would happen in Poland as well. Only in Poland, if it happens once a day, it happens 1,000 times a day in America. apples and oranges.

kosynier wks wrote:


i think we can both agree now that it is, in fact, a good example.

jwojcie wrote:


funny you should mention that, it's probably exactly what my great grandfathers did when they were building my country.

delphiandomine wrote:


you know what though Delph, like always, money trumps shame. america loses very little (or possibly even gains some) by refusing a poor country like Poland visa free travel but the day strong EU countries start doing the same to America....well.....a slightly different result.

I'm not saying right or wrong but you know as well as I do, it's just how it is.

delphiandomine wrote:


also a great point. take a look at the USA.....it's enormous. 50 states to choose from.....and hide in. Imagine how easy it would be to "get lost" in the north west or better yet....Alaska. No such thing as "zameldowanie" in the USA.

USA, Canada / Canada Increasingly a Gateway for Undocumented Polish Immigrants Entering the U.S. [150]

jwojcie wrote:


that sounds more likely.

jwojcie wrote:


sorry, but you're contradicting yourself. you just wrote 70,000 illegals in 1996. you don't think that having 70,000 illegal polish immigrants justifies a 9.8% refusal rate? even if that number has fallen through the years and is now 50,000....hell, 40,000.....that should still support a 9.8% refusal rate.

If there are 50,000 illegal poles living in the USA right now, imagine if the USA opened its borders completely to Poland. Visa free travel. You don't think that number would double, triple, quadruple?

USA, Canada / Canada Increasingly a Gateway for Undocumented Polish Immigrants Entering the U.S. [150]

kosynier wks wrote:


because regardless of what your laws are, some costs are simply unavoidable. for example:

someone is in the USA illegally and gets pregnant. that person then goes into labor and is rushed to a hospital where they have no insurance, no passport, no papers whatsoever. what is that hospital supposed to do now? let the woman die, along with the child, in the front of the building? no, she gets taken care of, the baby gets several days of care and it costs tens of thousands of dollars to provide that service.

kosynier wks wrote:


I'm sorry. I just don't understand what that means.

kosynier wks wrote:


I'm not going to argue that the system isn't flawed. It certainly has its problems. What I will continue to argue though is either way, being illegal in America, no matter how you scramble it, is a crime.

USA, Canada / Canada Increasingly a Gateway for Undocumented Polish Immigrants Entering the U.S. [150]

jwojcie wrote:


I didn't read through those two links but I noticed something very off about this data you provided.

You're saying 216 "deportable aliens" in 2009. First and foremost, I'm curious as to the exact definition of "deportable" in regards to this specific data set. Reason being is that it simply makes no sense if the number of illegal immigrants from Poland was 70,000 in 1996 and now, it's 216??? If you are an illegal immigrant, my assumption is that you are "deportable", right?

If the number was 70,000 14 years ago, there's simply no way that number is now 216.

Ironside wrote:


news to me. how long did you "live" there Ironside? Where did you live? What did you do there?

Ironside wrote:


such as?

Ironside wrote:


I think we can all agree that criminal activity goes on in Washington.

Ironside wrote:


YES IT IS.

I'll tell you what Ironside, how would you feel if millions of immigrants started pouring into Poland starting next year? OH, and you know what else they're going to do? None of them are going to pay taxes, yet they're all going to use billions and billions of zlotych in government services. Still sound "uncriminal"?

As I said before, if you are Polish, you simply have no concept of illegal immigration. People don't move here and even when they do, they generally leave within a couple years or at the very least, do not stick around long enough to retire here and collect government pension.

Ironside wrote:


So if I steal say 100,000zl from Urzad Skarbowy and the police don't catch me, as long as enough time goes by after I do it, it's OK? After 10 years, it's no longer a crime?

Oh, right right. What I did was only "not nice and fair".

USA, Canada / Canada Increasingly a Gateway for Undocumented Polish Immigrants Entering the U.S. [150]

guesswho wrote:


hmmm. that's about 25 more than I've met.

convex wrote:


In 4 years, I've run into 3 in the ESL industry. Of the other Americans, they were at least management level in corporations.

I have always wondered to myself if it would have been much different while living in say Warsaw or Krakow. There certainly must be more Americans there. Even still, I'd guess not many.

USA, Canada / Canada Increasingly a Gateway for Undocumented Polish Immigrants Entering the U.S. [150]

ShortHairThug wrote:


it in fact is a fine example of American justice. break the law, go to jail. why should poles be exempt from that?

ShortHairThug wrote:


interesting.....and incredibly self serving criteria. so tell me, if you go to a country to have a better life and you do it illegally, should "the future of my country is unclear" hold up in court?

honestly, put down the White/Red flag you've been so blindly and erratically waving thus far, and think about what you're saying.

USA, Canada / Canada Increasingly a Gateway for Undocumented Polish Immigrants Entering the U.S. [150]

Ironside wrote:


You're now talking about something else. I am not saying that this should require more attention than any other matter, I'm simply saying that there are many Poles living in America illegally and it's a big reason for why Poland is not part of the VWP. That's it.

jwojcie wrote:


first of all, this number is based only on the number of poles that were actually caught.

second, this is one very very small piece of the pie. by FAR, the largest number of illegals entered the USA legally and then simply never returned to Poland. "I want to visit my grandma" and it turns into a 10 year vacation.

jwojcie wrote:


good luck with that.

convex wrote:


I heard just the opposite. The refusal rate was drastically lowered to 3% recently in order to qualify.

USA, Canada / Canada Increasingly a Gateway for Undocumented Polish Immigrants Entering the U.S. [150]

Wroclaw Boy wrote:


whether they tell me that or not, it doesn't change the fact that they know people who went to america and live and work there illegally. that's what we're discussing and that's what people tend to deny.

USA, Canada / Canada Increasingly a Gateway for Undocumented Polish Immigrants Entering the U.S. [150]

stallion wrote:


WAAAAAAAHHHH WAAAAAHHH WUH WUH WWWWAAAAHHHH!!!!!!

what a ridiculous thing to say. but don't let me stop you. go ahead, keep on whining and crying about your nation's history alongside your fellow countrymen every chance you get and continue to insist that America somehow owes you something. this last comment you made stallion is such an obvious and desperate attempt to drag yet another thread into your own private agendas. this one being, "woe is me" because I was born in Poland.

it's the same old attitude that slows your country down.

peterweg wrote:


we obviously live in different countries.

USA, Canada / Canada Increasingly a Gateway for Undocumented Polish Immigrants Entering the U.S. [150]

guesswho wrote:

"USA is no more attractive for Poles to go to"

"why would any Pole want to go to the US if he can legally work in UK etc."

well, that didn't take long.

USA, Canada / Canada Increasingly a Gateway for Undocumented Polish Immigrants Entering the U.S. [150]

someone's gotta say it, it might as well be me.....

for all of those b!tchin' about how poland STILL isn't part of the VWP, here's evidence as to why. also, keep in mind, this article discusses just one state when there are several along the USA/Canada border.

i constantly read:

"America's just not as attractive as it used to be, there wouldn't be a problem"

"We'd rather go to the UK anyhow, it's closer and in the EU"

"We help out the USA with their war(s), we should get VWP privileges"

"I WANT to go to the USA for vacation but they STILL won't let me, it's BS!"

Well, yeah, if you're a law abiding citizen with good intentions and your visa application gets refused, sure, tough luck....just don't complain that the process still exists when you KNOW the facts.

Travel / The World's Sexiest Cities: San Francisco, Paris, Warsaw... [28]

i was in warsaw last thursday/friday. it was -12 outside, snow and mud everywhere and the trains were backed up for hours.

that's not sexy.

USA, Canada / Moved back from Canada to Poland:). Here are the reasons why. [868]

aphro wrote:


Uhhhmmmm....I guess if I was going to live in Buffalo.

Where I'm headed, there is no winter. Literally.

aphro wrote:


i know where you're going with this (and i see it's half tongue and cheek) but for what it's worth, it's simply not the case.

if I had decided to live in a state in the USA with 4 seasons, like where I grew up, you simply experience a different winter, even if it's colder and with more snow. it's just a completely different infrastructure out there and you always have a car to take you everywhere without hassle. case and point, when i lived in new jersey, i would go an entire winter (and winters in NJ are just as cold as in Wroclaw, with much more snow) without wearing a jacket all but maybe a handful of times. you simply don't need a jacket, regardless how cold it is, when your car is parked 10 meters from your home, the place you're driving to has a parking lot right next to the door you'll be walking into and in general I don't like to drive with my jacket on so it simply wasn't even worth putting a jacket on if you're going to take it right back off again.

it's hard to explain the subtle.....or not subtle differences between here and there but honestly, it would have nothing to do with patriotism, rather, it would have to do with not having to deal with winter elements nearly as much, even though outside it's the same low temperatures and just as much, if not more snow.

tak czy siak, i decided to move to a nice warm city because i simply could not see spending half my life dealing with cold crappy weather and everything that goes along with it. it makes me cringe every time i see a young mother pushing a stroller with an infant inside over a sidewalk covered in snow and slop in -10 degree weather, one hand pushing the stroller, the other holding a bag of groceries.

USA, Canada / Moved back from Canada to Poland:). Here are the reasons why. [868]

aphro wrote:


last week was simply a disaster for people using trains. IC can kiss my a$$. my wife and I had a horrible travel experience thursday/friday going from Wroclaw to Warsaw back to Wroclaw.

the scene at the warsaw train station was so ugly people were literally taking photos of the crowds of people standing on the platforms waiting for trains. just a horrid scene.

i leave poland in 1 month and i can only hope that last week was my last experience on polish trains. certainly something i will not miss about this place.

on to weather, it was -18 in Wroclaw saturday night. good times.

Life / How many Americans live in Poland? [13]

convex wrote:


make that 1.

USA, Canada / CULTURE SHOCK! (of my Polish finance who visited the US) [210]

zetigrek wrote:


geeze, i didn't expect this to go so long.

let's try this:

would you agree that people in china have different mentalities than people in poland? what about people in india? people in france? people in mexico? people in japan? people in Africa? people in Italy?

now, picture millions of people from all those countries including many others, all living in one big powerful country together........and that's the USA. compare that to a country (Poland) that is 98% polish, and 99.99% white.

if that doesn't make it clear how the USA's mentality is different from Poland's, I don't know what else to say.

USA, Canada / CULTURE SHOCK! (of my Polish finance who visited the US) [210]

zetigrek wrote:


ok. regardless, they're huge differences, whether they "work here" or not. I answered your question.

zetigrek wrote:


again, regardless. it's a difference between "here and there". I answered your question.

zetigrek wrote:


i think you misunderstood. there's no denying the fact, regardless of how social you are or aren't, that america offers a far wider range of mentalities than poland. poland is 98% polish. what more do we need to say.

zetigrek wrote:


same in english. "to pour the baby out with the bath water."

USA, Canada / CULTURE SHOCK! (of my Polish finance who visited the US) [210]

zetigrek wrote:


hmmmm.....mentality differences, yeah? ok. i'll give it a shot.

for one, america is a country with a looooong history of capitalism and democracy, successful business, ingenuity, invention, manufacturing, entertainment.....it goes on and on. Poland cannot claim the same. that, if anything, means a country full of people with entirely different ways of thinking.

secondly, poland is just polish. america is a huge melting pot so the country's "mentality" is made up of people from all over the world. in poland, often times one pole doesn't vary from the next.

thirdly, as previously mentioned, communism took a big bite out of poland and it's aftermath regarding the country's "mentality" still looms today.

4th, the socialistic attitude. you're more likely to find people that support such a system here than in the USA. this was very evident during the last presidential race in the USA and is still a huge issue today. Obama wants to socialize medicine a bit and the next thing you know, FOX news is screaming "he's a communist!"

it honestly goes on and on. maybe some other americans or people with extensive time spent "here and there" can continue. curious how others see it.

USA, Canada / CULTURE SHOCK! (of my Polish finance who visited the US) [210]

convex wrote:


i mean, that is certainly part of it, but it ranks towards the bottom. before I left america to come here, i lived in a pretty run down city. it had money in certain neighborhoods like any other city but it had plenty of poverty....crime as well.

-general infrastructure differences was a big shock to me.

-without a doubt, the mentality of Poland. it's night and day compared to america.

-the work ethic here was also an adjustment. how often convex do you remember, in America, someone coming to work and telling their boss that they have a ''note from their doctor" and then not showing up to the office for 2 weeks because they were on sick leave? for the record, I'm not saying that's good or bad.....just different.

convex wrote:


haha, i know what you mean.

USA, Canada / CULTURE SHOCK! (of my Polish finance who visited the US) [210]

convex wrote:


I'd say the difference between Germany and the USA is far less than Poland and the USA but then again, I've never lived in Germany so it's hard to say. Poland is the only European country I've lived in.

USA, Canada / CULTURE SHOCK! (of my Polish finance who visited the US) [210]

convex wrote:


never.

what does that have to do with comparing Poland to America? that's all we're comparing here.

USA, Canada / CULTURE SHOCK! (of my Polish finance who visited the US) [210]

convex wrote:


I'm being completely honest.

Life / Expats in Poland - would you fight for your new country? [105]

warszawski wrote:


I have a similar feeling.

it's also worth mentioning the amount of money we pay into Poland's pathetic social medicine/security system and how we will never see a dime of it.

Zbigniew Kowalski has been collecting checks every month for kielbasa and bread all while living in a government paid flat for many many years......when I leave Poland, Zbigniew won't even bother to call me to say thanks.

Poland loves foreigners like me. I come, work and provide a service in Poland, all the while paying taxes and pumping money into a socialized system that will never pay me back.

just in ZUS, I pump 9600zl into the system every year.

USA, Canada / Moved back from Canada to Poland:). Here are the reasons why. [868]

aphrodisiac wrote:


tickled pink.

Just got back from my morning run, today went like most days. Not one runner in sight.

BTW, does poland like snow on their roads and sidewalks? I mean.....they must prefer it over clean safe roads.

USA, Canada / Moved back from Canada to Poland:). Here are the reasons why. [868]

delphiandomine wrote:


they came to Poland to further their career? what was their previous career in ESL like?

delphiandomine wrote:


I'm going to Warsaw for the FIRST time tonight so I'll have to get back to you on that one.

USA, Canada / Moved back from Canada to Poland:). Here are the reasons why. [868]

southern wrote:


another interesting point about Poland.

regarding expats, i think we can all agree that it's almost entirely men. as for the women, yeah, it's not the place for them.

i've met a few women in wroclaw who were here just to teach ESL or to work a short contract with their company and each and every one of them were unhappy here. the other women i met were mostly students, wives of successful businessmen, and they were just as unhappy. nothing to do, lousy weather, always complained that the food was too heavy and greasy and took every opportunity possible to fly back home.

if you're a polish woman and decided to move back to poland, totally different.

USA, Canada / CULTURE SHOCK! (of my Polish finance who visited the US) [210]

grubas wrote:


you are lucky then. Flying from Poland to America is like stepping into a time machine and popping out into a world you never even knew existed. The two countries are so incredibly different that after flying America - Poland - America - Poland a few times, I started feeling like I had two completely different lives and that they were on totally seperate planets.