Poland's expats' colonial mentality?

That's quite a remarkable feat for the man to get the two of us to agree on anything.

I seem to have developed a delph obsession.

He appears to live in some sort of bizarre alternative-reality Poland. I'm fascinated to know what kind of psychedelic drugs would be required to achieve the desired effect. Whatever he's on it would have to be really powerful stuff with some pretty groovy side-effects.

We are a family of four the cost of our weekly shop in the UK at Asda is less than the weekly shop at Carrefour (Warsaw) Like for Like !!

I see you're still avoiding the question as to whether you actually pay Polish people a living wage with a proper contract.

Oh, and a source for your claim that 90% of people are living in communal properties would also be nice.

As I thought.

Because (a) it's none of your business and (b) has nothing to do with what we are discussing.

We don't actually 'employ' anyone anyway because this makes no practical sense.

You probably won't find much support with that theory among Poles, but I think there is definitely an element of it. For example : look at the trains whenever there's a long weekend - they're packed full of students going home. There are so many other things, but it is my opinion that the family culture hurts the employability of many people. It's even as simple as students going home every weekend rather than staying to gain experience in their field - or treating holidays as holidays, not as time to get that experience.

Like you say, the word "free" being used is almost certainly a reference to being able to do what they want rather than being obliged to return home.


I think - in all fairness - Poland would win in the raw ingredients stakes, but would lose badly in other respects. For example - a dish involving chicken, rice and vegetables would be cheaper here. But if you wanted to make an Indian using pre-prepared things, then it would probably cost more - anything 'speciality' tends to come at a premium. On the good side, it encourages you to learn how to cook - but it's still frustrating that some ordinary things in the UK cost so much in Poland. And some things are just marketed differently - in the UK, for instance, lentils are ridiculously cheap. But in Poland, they're seen as an "eko" product with the price tag to match. Same with chickpeas. On the flip side, I don't think anyone in the UK thinks in terms of kilograms for meat.

And there are no ridiculously cheap jars of curry sauce here :(


Now - this is something. Poland is absolutely unforgiving if life does go pear shaped - I think it does encourage personal responsibility, although I guess the standard procedure is for the family to help if something goes wrong. What always seemed strange to me was that the Polish culture seems to think that it is cruel to put an elderly relative in care, even if the person needs it - instead, family members are supposed to give up their lives to care for the person instead. I don't get it, and I think it's a form of imprisonment for the family.


Were these in the city centre by any chance? What usually seems to happen is that these places are recovered by the original owners, but they don't have the money to renovate nor the means to get those people out. And of course, who is going to renovate a building if the tenants don't have the means of paying anyway?


So for all your posturing, you actually admit to employing people on junk contracts with no job security? :)

For what it's worth, good schools can and do offer umowa o prace.

I concur Mr Warszawski.

Just about the only people working on such contracts (if you are talking about language schools) are naive natives in their first jobs who are happy to work for peanuts.

People such as yourself, perhaps?

Honestly, I'm more surprised that you've got the nerve to come on here and tell everyone how poor Poland is and how big your flat is, all the while employing people on junk contracts with no job security. A quick look at your website shows some young people as well - so it's even worse.


Try again, I don't work for a language school. But I do have a proper contract and don't have to worry about how I'm going to feed myself in the summer because my foreign boss keeps me on a junk contract that benefits him and not me.

As I don't actually employ anyone at all I don't know what you are talking about.

I'd love to know what you're taking to achieve that alternative state of consciousness that leads you to make quite bizarre, random accusations about people you know literally nothing about and have never met.

I saw an expat today. He was cleaning cars' windows in front of Biedronka.

So your wife runs the company, not you. No real difference.


I'd love to know why you and your wife run a business that screws over young Poles by hiring them on junk contracts.

And for that matter, I'd also like to know why you made racist posts towards members of this forum.


Nothing wrong with that.

She doesn't employ anyone either other than a (part-time) accountant and secretary.

Please explain what any of this has to do with yourself.

As I keep saying, junk contracts. It doesn't matter how you phrase it - the fact remains that there are people doing work for you who are employed on junk contracts that you can terminate at any time. They might not be "employed" in the strict sense of the word, but that only makes it worse.

As for what it has to do with me - it's very curious that a foreigner, who has so much to say about the lives of Poles, would choose to contribute to the problem rather than fixing it.

I didnt actually ifor, i was just amused at your use of the language - very pretentious.

To the best of my knowledge, she doesn't have any 'contracts' with anyone. Perhaps she secretly does and you know about it but I don't. From where have you mysteriously acquired such in depth knowledge of the spouse of an anonymous internet poster. I am genuinely intrigued.


By doing what exactly? Wasting his time arguing with loonies on internet sites?

To be fair to ifor, I've met one of the people who worked at his school (briefly by all accounts): that chap was a walking demonstration of why schools here tend to use the umowa o dzielo. I understand that somebody else here had a similar experience to ifor's with the chap in question.

The word on the grapevine is that there is the beginnings of a major crackdown on using these - haven't had it verified though. It seems that they've finally started to wise up to this scam - and with it, the entire "industry" will probably go down the toilet.

In one respect though, there's no reason not to use umowa o prace - there's a 12 week probation period, so any clearly incompetent teacher can be found out quite quickly.

The use of the language was ironic. Sorry if this goes over your head, TB.

More probably schools will simply tell all potential teachers that if the teacher doesn't have their own company, the school isn't interested. Personally I'd hate to work for a language school that gives umowa o praca: the amount of risk that the owner is taking is far higher than with freelancers and the owner will therefore want a much bigger cut of the profits to cover that extra risk.

This is what the British Council have done, and it wouldn't surprise me if others follow. But would it really work in schools paying far less than the BC?


This is the other thing : there really needs to be some sort of reform of employment law to allow employers to have less risk yet providing some job security for employees. The amount of danger in giving someone umowa o prace is just ridiculous.

I do wish that Polish organisations, especially language schools who of all people should know a lot better, would stop translating działaność gospodarcze as 'company'.

I'm stuck in the habit too :(

But even the Governmental organisations seem to use "firma" for those.

Indeed. Firm would be better, though obviously far from ideal. Next time I hear someone describing a person registered as self-employed as having a company, I'll ask who the shareholders are.

Wrong again, but no worries Warren.

Business activity is the best translation. Economic activity sounds weird in English.

However not every company is a stock company with shareholders. There are a slew of companies under Polish law: akcyjna, cywilna, jawna, z o.o., komandytowa, partnerska...maybe a few others as well.