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


You mean that because of the accident of their date of birth, they should be left to die in poverty?


You lost me there. What moustaches? Most people I know in PL are just trying to survive in the unfavourable conditions that they face. Some are quite well-off, others are really struggling, and have been for the last several years, with no relief in sight.


And what creates a black market economy in the first place? Why do people cheat and lie? Usually because they are being strangled by the loving hand of the State.


How can you tell what will or will not be used? Studying philosophy seems like a better option than studying marketing and management, at any rate; at least you learn something important and timeless.

There are literally hundreds of thousands of trained linguists out there, and many of them do work as translators, but they are not motivated financially or otherwise to make the extra effort and become sworn. It's not a question of training, but of status, career opportunities, and pay. So no, we can't really "train" people to become sworn translators.


No, I am definitely not an exit, whatever that means ;-) And what's wrong with spending a few years in England when English is my line of work? I'm investing in my future, wherever that might take me :-)

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


In England and probably the States as well - definitely. But Polish education used to be different, and hopefully still is at least in some places.

Language / DOES POLISH LACK A WORD FOR STEPSISTER & STEPBROTHER? [15]

pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodze%C5%84stwo#Rodze.C5.84stwo_przyrodnie

Hope this helps :-)

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


Don't be offended, but that's something Stalin could have said! The one lesson to be learnt from 20th century history is that a perfect system does not exist, and never will, unless people become angels first - alas, the only way to achieve that is to kill them.

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


No. That's not what I meant. I meant finally making it easier to run your own business (e.g. not having to pay so much ZUS if you don't have enough profit would be a great start), finally doing something real and practical about the money-eating monster that ZUS actually is, relaxing the labour laws a little to make life a bit easier for small employers, withdrawing some of the powers and rights that had been granted to the tax authorities recently; all in all, making it easier to breathe. Even going back to the way things were in the mid-nineties would be fine. Since then, hundreds of new very detailed laws had been passed on virtually every aspect of doing business in Poland, most of them restrictive.


Spot on.

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


My suggestion is that it's not a good idea to force graduates to pay back their "debt to society". Some will over time, some won't - that's the risk the state takes if it runs universities. How about trying to make Poland a more attractive place to live and work in, so that young people don't immediately move abroad once they graduate? The last few years seem like a festival of bad ideas to me - as if the government really wanted the average Pole to hate them deeply. It's death by pinpricks.

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


There are not enough jobs as it is. Again, how would you create all those extra jobs? And where would you employ graduates of philosophy, Mongolian studies, or fine arts, to name just a few problematic areas?

BTW, did you know a similar programme was in place in communist Poland? Graduates would get sent away to small towns and villages to work off their debt to society. The only difference is, once you have free market economy and private business, you can no longer force just any employer to participate. Also, by forcing all graduates to take up mandatory work for the state, you would make it impossible for young people to set up their own businesses or change career paths. Terribly heavy-handed and communist, all this.

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

Where would these jobs you speak of come from then?

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


well if it's so great you can keep it and welcome.

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


So it seems the 30+ population has cars and uses them? While the elderly and the youngest don't. Nothing extraordinary IMHO. ;-)

UK, Ireland / Western Europe is not Paradise after all (Polish doctors in the UK more popular) [75]

It's funny how I get better health-wise the older I get... usually it's the opposite ;-)
I do hope the trend continues!

UK, Ireland / Western Europe is not Paradise after all (Polish doctors in the UK more popular) [75]


I used to have bacterial bronchitis and strep throat and other assorted illnesses quite a lot... at some point I had a colony of bacteria living in my throat and flaring up any time I was feeling a little under the weather. You can function then (I attended my matura exams with strep throat, there was no way round it), but it's not fun. I didn't take any antibiotics for it for about 10 years. Then one doctor just told me to shut the f*k up about natural remedies and gave me a lethal dose of antibiotics. I haven't had a problem since then (another 10+ years and counting).

UK, Ireland / Western Europe is not Paradise after all (Polish doctors in the UK more popular) [75]


How do you know it was a cold / viral infection, and not strep throat / bacterial bronchitis?


yes, that's what you do - initially. what if there's no improvement after say 5 days?


2-month-old to be precise. I know it is conjecture but based on experience - I spent several years working as a community interpreter in London, and I have assisted with countless GP visits, including visits of parents with very sick babies (coughing, wheezing, feverish).

UK, Ireland / Western Europe is not Paradise after all (Polish doctors in the UK more popular) [75]


yeah, very basic knowledge. the problem is if you let a a viral infection go on completely untreated for too long, you do tend to get something called secondary bacterial infections, and they are not fun, let me tell you. I've had them. and you do need antibiotics for those. also, if it's your tonsils that are acting up, you need a throat smear done because half the time the infection is bacterial and again, you need antibiotics. I used to suffer from tonsillitis so much as a child that I had to have my tonsils removed eventually. all in all, it's dumb to give patients antibiotics just because they feel unwell; on the other hand, many doctors go OTT in the opposite direction and prescribe nothing more than paracetamol for strep throat, pneumonia, or bronchitis (again, these can be both viral and bacterial). that's what diagnostic tests are for. my daughter would probably have died in England as a baby (2 months old), as one day she suddenly developed a cough and the very next day she already had full-blown pneumonia, high fever, horrible wheezing, you name it, she had it. as I lived in Poland, the doctor visited us at home and immediately started a course of treatment which an English GP would probably dither about for a week.

News / Swastika -- symbol of happiness according to Poland's anarchist group [16]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika

I'll just leave this here.

Love / Fresh, wholesome country lass in Poland - getting married and going back to the US [167]


So for you it's either virgin or total slut. Plus women are objects. When they have been "used" they are second-hand and worthless. I opt out of your universe.

Love / Fresh, wholesome country lass in Poland - getting married and going back to the US [167]


I wasn't giving advice, I was commenting on your objectifying statement. If you want my advice - look for a wife wherever you like going yourself. There are churches, chess clubs, gyms, museums, art galleries, crafts or cookery classes, and other places galore frequented by both men and women. And lose the virginity obsession. Non-virgin does not equal tart, and as long as you think it does, you'll only alienate the women who might have been interested in marrying an old bachelor.


"slightly used, second and third-hand females" - there you have it, right there. The snotty, patronising attitude which will never do you any favours. I find it revolting, yes. To me, when you fall in love it should be with a person, not with their sexual parameters. Dividing people into "wholesome" and "second-hand" is about as ugly as it gets.

Love / Fresh, wholesome country lass in Poland - getting married and going back to the US [167]


The whole sentence sounds sick, I'm afraid. It's like talking about the merits of picking out a goldfish at a particular pet shop, or buying electronic equipment of a particular brand. The women in your sentence are nothing more than "wholesome" objects to be used by men - like sticks of fresh butter ready to be used for sandwiches.

Love / Fresh, wholesome country lass in Poland - getting married and going back to the US [167]


Sounds like something a sexual predator / slave trader might say. Just sayin'. I guess you didn't mean it that way, but there you are.

Life / Etiquette in a Store and Market Queues in Poland [146]


I strive to please... ;-)

Life / Polish way of life? [34]

Pretty much spot on :-)

Life / Etiquette in a Store and Market Queues in Poland [146]

I tried to appreciate the effort you made, that's all ;-) And no, I didn't take it personally. Your compliments didn't make ME feel better (as I feel fine), they made YOU seem like a nicer person. That's a hell of a difference, don't you think?


That might well be :-)

Thank you for trying to follow my convoluted ramblings ;-)
I think this thread is not so much about Polish pedestrians any more as about the very different ways we experience stuff like space, time, the universe... ;-)

Life / Etiquette in a Store and Market Queues in Poland [146]

I'm sorry but whichever way I look at it, it's a blanket statement, but never mind, I understand you didn't mean it that way.


I never said that. I said there is about the same amount of dysfunction in Poland as in any other European society. I even mentioned London as a point of comparison.


I never said you said any kind words to ME.


OMG. I was just trying to be polite and thanked you for trying to say something positive - about Poland, not about me. Looking for common ground or whatever. Didn't work.


I thought we were having a conversation and for a moment I thought you might actually understand (this is spoken to you personally). But overall I did say:



Once more. It's not about any "attacks". I've tried to explain my point of view so many times I feel like crying from sheer frustration. I joined this thread because I found it ridiculous that the behaviour of a few isolated individuals could cause so much righteous indignation. I tried pointing out that such behaviour is not in any way typically Polish. And then it escalated.

Life / Etiquette in a Store and Market Queues in Poland [146]


Not me as such in this particular thread, but that's exactly what rozumiemnic told goofy and what I quoted above my last statement. In other threads, I've been told to shut up about stuff I don't like in the UK countless times, because they said that by complaining I was abusing the hospitality of my host country. Seems like it doesn't work both ways, does it? A Pole abroad should shut up because it's not their home to criticise or comment on, but an expat in Poland can and even should speak up because it's their home now and they live there, so have the right to change their surroundings (for the better, they usually say).


If other Poles said the stuff that's been said in this thread? For example:

"Poles, or at least a good many of them, seem to genuinely thrive on creating as much disorder and disarray as possible within any and all situations.

really unfit people for a healthy society imo.

From a societal and psychological perspective, I find the phenomenon fascinating from a perspective of "How-much-dysfunction can a society tolerate?""

I'd tell them, not too kindly, that they were talking through their hats, and that they should stop taking their superiority supplements because the've clearly overdosed.


I don't have an inferiority complex, you see. So yes, I generally feel pretty much OK. Thanks for the kind words though, it's always nice to read something positive for a change.

Nevertheless, I really cannot stand aside when I see the double standards which are commonplace here. I think you for one genuinely don't see it and don't understand what I am going on about. I never believed in stuff like "white privilege" but here I could almost call it a case of "Western privilege", where you don't even realise you're thinking in certain ways and making assumptions which are not really true (and by "you" I don't only mean yourself, rather all the expats in this thread).

1) When a Polish person makes a critical or unfavourable comment about another country, and especially if it's an Anglo-Saxon country, and especially if they are living there, the general reaction is "Eff off if you don't like it, you ungrateful immigrant from a poverty-stricken hellhole, you have no right to say these things because you are a guest, not a member of this society; also, even though you live here, you know nothing about this country (e.g. the London Is Not England answer I get whenever I say anything remotely critical about London)."

2) When expats start threads like this one though, and someone pipes up that perhaps they don't understand how things work in Poland or don't understand the culture, or God forbid that they should leave Poland if they don't like it, the answer is "I am a full member of Polish society now, I live and work here, I pay my taxes, and my comments and criticisms are valuable input for the improvement of Polish society."

Do you understand what I am on about? I honestly don't know how to make myself more clear.

Life / Etiquette in a Store and Market Queues in Poland [146]

Well this pretty much sums up the double standards I see on this forum, in many threads, this one included. Because to me, it seems that either we can both whine (i.e. the Pole abroad and the expat in Poland) or none should be allowed to. Stands to reason? Or are some of us more equal than others? Seriously.

Life / Etiquette in a Store and Market Queues in Poland [146]


You make it sound like an extreme sport! ;-)


The funny thing is I would probably have walked around her, unless we were both running and/or in a huge crowd. One somehow manages to steer clear. Maybe we're born with this skill.


Well, you could say the same to him ;-) He "watched" where he was going, yet did not change direction. Out of principle. I just don't buy it.


There's lots of ways you can say that, and most mothers badger their children about it all the time. Along with "say please", "sit straight" and "have you done your homework". ;-)

Life / Etiquette in a Store and Market Queues in Poland [146]


I never said that.


Yes they are rude, and no, they are not typically Polish. As I said, I've experienced them in the London as well. And before you bring up the "London is not England" defence - yes, many such encounters were initiated by people who were - or at least seemed - white British.


And to me, and presumably to Grzegorz as well, that is rude. The other person was oblivious to her surroundings, so a well-behaved person would walk around her instead of trying to "teach her a lesson." What if the telephone conversation were life-changing? Someone just died? She got fired? Or maybe she got the job she was dreaming of? No empathy there?

Also, as I think Grzegorz pointed out earlier, the fact that someone else is rude is no excuse to be rude in turn. A truly well-mannered person would try to improve the situation, not make it worse. Like, in this case, step aside. It's as simple as that. The woman was not aggressive or deliberately walking into BLS. In fact, it was him who deliberately walked into her. That's rude in my book.


A truly funny story and I wonder how it ended. It's either a question of him trying to give you space at the same time, with both of you moving in the same direction (if the movement was simultaneous). Or maybe he really wanted to walk right into you, which I doubt, but who knows?

How did the encounter end then?

Life / Etiquette in a Store and Market Queues in Poland [146]


My thoughts exactly.

Life / Etiquette in a Store and Market Queues in Poland [146]


Which means that maybe he was communicating the pleases and thank-yous non-verbally? Because if he were really and truly rude, I bet you would have noticed at once. That's the problem. Different cultures tend to place emphasis on different areas of etiquette. Most Poles would probably tell you that English people use too many "polite" words all the time, so much so that they lose value. More often than not in informal Polish, it's the intonation, the gestures, the actual word choice or word order that do the thanking or asking for you. BTW, how does you MIL "bark"? And does she bark in Polish or in English? If in English, it might be a problem relating to her insufficient knowledge of the language.

BLS - I have quoted some remarks I found rather patronising (understatement!) on the previous page. Maybe they "weren't meant that way". Then they shouldn't have been phrased the way they were. And yes, I did read them as rather black and white. A feeling of superiority just drips off of them.

Life / Etiquette in a Store and Market Queues in Poland [146]


It's my experience that English speaking people (though especially the British) tend to use a lot of understatements, which doesn't mean that they don't feel very strongly about a subject. Knowing this, I in turn tend to ignore the polite fluff they stuff their sentences with.