horsey
30 Jun 2011
Life / I was cursing Poland daily, then returned home, but now thinking of going back.. [39]
delphiandomine - you're completely wrong about what I was doing there. Running 2 companies actually, lucklily I did not lock myself into an impossible contract, and got out as soon as the novelty wore off.
magdalena - grizzly details huh? How about parents being told their 2-year olds eyelids were going to be sewn shut because staff had no time to apply artificial tears at night and hospital policy was not to allow parents to stay with their children at night. Or the parents of a child facing years of rehabilitation following an accident (and ventilated for several hours each day to relieve the lungs) being told that they should consider making themselves another child and forgetting about this one - the problem wasn't excessive as power shortages often happened at the hospital and generators don't always kick in on time... Another set of parents unable to keep watch over their premmie at night (again not allowed) returned in the morning to find that a cardiac arrest wasn't noticed by the staff for 20 minutes and their child is now a vegetable. Away from health and into a Warsaw customs office: an small importer who used several years savings to bring in a container of stock to turn his life around brings his carefully compiled and faultless documents and is told that unless he pays 25,000PLN to share amongst 5 officers he will not have his stock released. He does not have the money but struggles to beg and borrow it, which takes him 2 weeks. When he returns with it it has become 40,000. He cannot pay and customs send the container to the Czech Republic for 'utilization' (to be destroyed, Poland does not have a plant for destruction of the stock in question). He is sent a bill for 96,000PLN and hangs himself a week later. Shall I go on?
Don't get me wrong - I met my share of great people in Poland, including great doctors, dentists. My kids used the public school system which was much better than a private school we first tried there (though the program is light years behind what they now enjoy in Australia, not so much in terms of content but in method), and they certainly benefited from experiencing another culture first hand. I certainly have good examples of life there also. The problem is that the bad examples are so bad that they shouldn't have any place in 21st century society. And that is what I said NO to by moving out. Unfortunatelly it won't be a completely closed chapter until I can sell my property there - another 2 year wait for taxation purposes.
delphiandomine - you're completely wrong about what I was doing there. Running 2 companies actually, lucklily I did not lock myself into an impossible contract, and got out as soon as the novelty wore off.
magdalena - grizzly details huh? How about parents being told their 2-year olds eyelids were going to be sewn shut because staff had no time to apply artificial tears at night and hospital policy was not to allow parents to stay with their children at night. Or the parents of a child facing years of rehabilitation following an accident (and ventilated for several hours each day to relieve the lungs) being told that they should consider making themselves another child and forgetting about this one - the problem wasn't excessive as power shortages often happened at the hospital and generators don't always kick in on time... Another set of parents unable to keep watch over their premmie at night (again not allowed) returned in the morning to find that a cardiac arrest wasn't noticed by the staff for 20 minutes and their child is now a vegetable. Away from health and into a Warsaw customs office: an small importer who used several years savings to bring in a container of stock to turn his life around brings his carefully compiled and faultless documents and is told that unless he pays 25,000PLN to share amongst 5 officers he will not have his stock released. He does not have the money but struggles to beg and borrow it, which takes him 2 weeks. When he returns with it it has become 40,000. He cannot pay and customs send the container to the Czech Republic for 'utilization' (to be destroyed, Poland does not have a plant for destruction of the stock in question). He is sent a bill for 96,000PLN and hangs himself a week later. Shall I go on?
Don't get me wrong - I met my share of great people in Poland, including great doctors, dentists. My kids used the public school system which was much better than a private school we first tried there (though the program is light years behind what they now enjoy in Australia, not so much in terms of content but in method), and they certainly benefited from experiencing another culture first hand. I certainly have good examples of life there also. The problem is that the bad examples are so bad that they shouldn't have any place in 21st century society. And that is what I said NO to by moving out. Unfortunatelly it won't be a completely closed chapter until I can sell my property there - another 2 year wait for taxation purposes.