Is it normal for companies/schools in Poland to be rude?

Why does who think what, easybabe? Read above for starters but who are you addressing?

Mafketis, just out of interest, what is the situation for special needs or "learning difficulities" as it is now called.

Is there still such a stigma attached to disabilities, or is it changing gradually. Are there provisions made for autistic children and an inclusion in the schools, or are they ignored.

This is something I have been thinking about for a while. I am sure there was a large autism research centre in Gdnask, I read about it somewhere, but cannot find any information on the internet.

As regards the OP, have faith and stick with it. You may well come to find that you will be in a super team that you enjoy working in. Yes, first impressions last but remember that management anywhere tends to be impersonal at times.

Flawed logic...
We're not rude, it's just that our language sounds like it.
Explanation:
Language is a means of expressing the thoughts and feelings of the people who speak it. If a language sounds crass and lacks the vocabulary for pleasantries with a surplus of vulgarities, surely it is because it has evolved over centuries to reflect the true characteristics of the people.

So, NewBrit, Israelis by your definition are charactaristically "rude", aggressive etc... because of their evolution this way over centuries???!

Afraid, I must roundly disagree. People once said the same of the English, the Americans and other groups whose cultural development was considered behind that of various other countries, e.g. France, Italy, The Ottoman Empire etc... But give 'em time.

Sure, America during the mid-19th century was a "rude" country; the wild West and all.... But look at us now?

Same for example with the Israelis. Look at them a century or two from now.

There is a certain level of acceptable abruptness here. This aspect of the culture irritates me as I don't want the irritation of others around me. They are just out to make money and they should try and mask that more.

What has it got to do with Israelis, Americans, etc? Poles are rude, kropka! It seems that they are also so retarded they can read messages properly.

Anyway, I'm not interested anymore. 2 years in this hell hole, another 8 days and I'll be back into civilization.

Many aren't, newbrit. It just depends who you compare them to.

It isn't just language schools.

I was there for a year with a huge international engineering company.

First, I had a phone interview, which I was successful.

Then, we arranged a real interview in Krakow, and I booked flights.

But, apparently, the secretary totally forgot about my interview and the big bosses had to go to a meeting elsewhere in Europe on the same day.

Well, I was anyway planning to stay there for several days to drink with my local Polish mates, so it wasn't a bit issue, but it was somewhat surprising for a big company to make such a mistake.

The rudeness lies in the fact that nobody admitted any mistakes about it.

Worse still is when they make it out to be your fault. I had that at my school when the secretaries tried to blame me for time wasting when preparing materials. They arrived far too late (25 mins), which meant that I had virtually no time to photocopy and look over the notes for my morning classes. Those twisted and sick minds tried to lay the blame on me. Also, many Poles have told me that cliping/dobbing just doesn't exist in their culture, being foreign to their mentality. BS!! They have done it to me 3 times now, all without reasonable cause. Some ill people around who deserve to be used as punchbags.

This is the polish dream?

No, actually this is:

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-510873/Polish-migrants-living-Britain-cla iming-21m-child-benefits-children-left-behind.html

They are just exposing the weaknesses in the system and what does that say about the system of checking?

I've spent the last two years hoping to meet a Pole not tarred with the same brush. I have failed. Unfortunately, I am not willing to waste any more time or effort on that front. A random stab on a world map would definite point to a better place than this!

If you were denied a proper life for 43 years through imposed communism, how would you feel? How would it feel to see the West developing exponentially whilst your country floundered? Poles, rightly or wrongly, feel aggrieved and cheated after WWII and that isn't going to disappear any time soon.

Thanks for the comment, Seanus. You need to spend some time in the former Indochina especially Cambodia and Vietnam. They have put up with much more. One in ten people in Cambodia have no traceable or living relative. They suffering is very real, personal and not merely material. Yet the people have come out of it the better. It is difficult to find a more open and generous people. In Poland, they have gone the opposite way. The blame culture, as pointed out in the last few posts is not just historical but very much current and I think it will permeate into the forseeable future.

Well, I live here and I see it too. It is pervasive. I hate how some older Poles think they are so different, like an island unto themselves.

Rudeness is all relative, you guys-:)) NewBrit's experience oughtn't to sour any future encounters with Poles anymore than the roasting over the coals I received my first summer in Germany soiled my love and eventual apprecation of the German culture. We Anglos are so used to sugar-coated words, we often can't handle the truth when it's dished out to us.

We're used to automatic compliments, at least in the US, and most other cultures value honesty above polite, if superficial, falseness masquerading as friendliness-:))

good point:)

Interesting. Do you really think that the success of an education system is measured purely by its ability to 'teach numeracy and literacy'? There's nothing more? Well, not if all you want are graduates able to work machines in factories I suppose.

Anyway, the big problem with being a teacher in Poland is that the system is geared towards passing exams. When you teach a language, you are only training students to pass an exam and anyone with a coursebook and a working knowledge of the target language can do this. The profession has become so dumbed down that I'm not surprised that teachers have no respect from management, students or indeed, other teachers.

Walk into any state sector teachers' room and you will see it filled with people smoking ciggies and moaning about how unfair it is they earn so little and only get 4 months' holiday a year to spend in their second house in the country (paid for by hubby). They keep their jobs because the system makes it impossible for natives who invest in their own development (CELTA, DELTA etc) to compete with them on equal terms.

It would be interesting to see if this ties in with other people's experience of other sectors.

And this can be traced directly to the Ministry and their idiotic over-proscribing of absolutely everything.


No native would waste their time teaching full time in a State school - what's the point, when the salary is pathetic, even for so-called diploma teachers? The requirements to teach a foreign language in a State school are also hysterically amusing in terms of being pathetically low.

The Polish education system needs a radical overhaul - starting with getting people in a position to be employable after finishing high school, instead of the ridiculous situation where people need letters after their name to open the post and make tea.

True. I guess the degree functions as a gatekeeper though - keeping the 'undesirables' out of certain professions - more than actually training people to do jobs. It'll take a fundamental shift in public perception to acknowledge that many jobs that graduates now do could be done by a school leaver with some life experience and a bit of common sense.

Still, with the expansion of the private sector, who knows?

So - what are they? I want to laugh along.

What do you think they are, Magda? I don't know, really.

Well, I guess I do know, as I'd taught English at a state school myself, but I'd like to get some specifics from Delphi - it's easy to say things like "laughably low standards" without actually having the foggiest.

In Greece it is the same.I had noticed when I was learning english that english teachers had a different approach(they emphasized vocal training and working in groups) but greek teachers insisted on learning grammar and writing without mistakes.Greeks prepared you best for the exams.But it was a teacher from US who impressed me because he gave you as much work to do as you could,you reached maximum and felt improvement,no limit and no laid back.

US have this approach of no limit.