Work / Are you teaching English in Poland? [120]

I only have a handful left at the moment. I stopped taking new students in order to make one last attempt to land a technical job (training/coding/whatever) - and I got lucky. I'm working from the house which is both good and bad. It would be very good if the MIL wasn't living with us (she had a stroke and requires full time care) as I need to schedule my work hours around her schedule.

Situation should improve next month when she goes on vacation to our other property outside of Płonsk. I can't wait!

Work / Are you teaching English in Poland? [120]


About 40km west of Warsaw. Village with less than 100 people. Sochaczew is about 12km away. If I walk out my back door, I am in Kampinos National Park.

Work / Are you teaching English in Poland? [120]


Sounds like the best advice. My wife, as smart as she is, is already overwhelmed taking care of her mother. Money well spent in my opinion. Now, I just need to find a good accountant...

Work / Are you teaching English in Poland? [120]

Been reading this thread very carefully as I am now going through the same process with a slightly different twist. The company that recently hired me, advised me to get my own company registered (Dzial. Gosp) so that I could issues them invoices each month and the company paying me could avoid paying VAT. The parent company is based in London. I issued my first invoice last month with 0% VAT specified.

At the moment, I have my NIP, PESEL, REGON and a Permanent Resident card. I am scheduled to make my first payment to ZUS tomorrow. This morning, I went down to Urząd Skarbowy in an attempt to close the loop, and of course they told me I was doing everything all wrong! They wanted me to fill-out another form and pay some money downstairs. I opted for a second opinion!

The company I am working for has quite a few people operating under the same scenario, so I know it can be done. I was told that I need to get some kind of EU VAT number in order to send invoices to other EU companies. Then I can specify that VAT is 0 for selling services abroad within EU when I issue the invoice. I have asked to speak with someone else at the company who has already been thru the process that could give me some advice.

Anyone else in a similar situation?

Work / Poland is headhunting seriously in IT, Finance and HR. [41]


My bad. You are correct. Actually, the more I think about it, that is not so horrible a salary for an entry level position (assuming that there was a real possibility for the brightest to move up the food chain). And yes, I have 20 years of SW Development under my belt.

Law / Staying in Schengen - are American exempt from the 90-days-in/90-days-out rule? [23]

Good thing I now have my Permanent Residence card. One day soon, I will go to Warsaw to pick it up!

Does anyone know if I can work anywhere in the EU with this or do I need to be an actual citizen of an EU country?

Work / Poland is headhunting seriously in IT, Finance and HR. [41]

4000 PLN/month? Working 40-50 hours/week? I'd like to get back into IT/SW Dev, but I can make that much teaching English as a Native Speaker doing 20 hours/week. The rest of the week is mine - on the farm! I doubt anyone around Warsaw or any other major city is going to bite. If you are outsourcing to an underdeveloped rural area - good for you, good for them!

Genealogy / Missing/unknown letter in my great-grandmother's last name. Any ideas? [34]

Thanks Asik.

I don't have a credit card though, so I can't register for the 2 weeks free trial. I don't insist that the name should fit orthographically, I just wanted to use that word in a sentence one time in my life! :)

Genealogy / Missing/unknown letter in my great-grandmother's last name. Any ideas? [34]

My wife is leaning toward a 'd' even though it doesn't 'fit' orthographically. It does appear that there is a bump to the left similar to an 'a'. But there is also something higher than the top of the 'a' next to it. Unfortunately, there are no other occurences of the letter 'd' typed on the application to compare it to.

I think that it was probably 'ł' originally. As for the first name: I'm sure it was modified also. I have even seen her listed as 'Susie' in the 1900 US Census report and 'Susan' in the 1910 report. This makes me suspect that her name was probably not even Zofia but rather the Polish equivalent of Susan (Żosia?).

Thanks for all the other suggestions. I will contact someone back in the states to look into the Naturalization records. My greatgranfather is listed as 'NA' in the earliest census reports I could find (Code for Naturalized).

Genealogy / Missing/unknown letter in my great-grandmother's last name. Any ideas? [34]

The first 'y' is not a 'u'. In other places where 'u' appears (June) it is very obviously the letter 'u' On the other hand - 'y' is right next to 'u' on the qwerty system layout!

Genealogy / Missing/unknown letter in my great-grandmother's last name. Any ideas? [34]

Here is part of the application with the missing letter.

• 
  SS application
  

Genealogy / Missing/unknown letter in my great-grandmother's last name. Any ideas? [34]

@strzyga - it looks like only space for 1 letter looking at the other spacing. It almost looks like another 'a' only lighter.

@trevek - could have been a character that doesn't appear in english alphabet (as nicompoop_not pointed out. Probably just misread or misunderstood if info was taken verbally.

everyone else: thanks for the ideas...

Since 100k is the limit for attachments, I'll just scan in that area or as much around it as possible for anyone that wants to take a look. Give me a bit and I'll post it.

Genealogy / Missing/unknown letter in my great-grandmother's last name. Any ideas? [34]

Wroclaw - It is a typed (although poorly) application. It appears from some of the errors on the application that accuracy was not that important for the job. There are spelling errors and it looks like the typewriter was old or hadn't been cleaned in a while. The small letters 'a', 'e', and 's' are often indistinguishable. I am assuming that the final 'a' on her last name is accurate as that seems to reflect common spelling for a Polish woman's last name.

I have been over the entire document with a magnifying glass comparing all the available letters. Is there a size limit for attachments? I will try to scan it in, if you or anyone else wants to play detective with me. Thanks...

Work / Why is Polish workmanship so bad? [52]

Just learn how to do it yourself. If it is your house, you will make sure it is done right. Once you know how to do it correctly, you can help your neighbor. Strange concept, I'm sure, but give it a try. You might actually enjoy it...

Work / I'm interested in teaching in Poland and I need some help. [33]

From my own experience in the Warsaw area (4 years now) it doesn't hurt to have CELTA but it is not entirely necessary. Having said that though, I wish that I had it! Most of the school Directors that I have spoken with have told me that it would open up more possibilities - specifically with regard to In-Company Training. Generally, they will throw you a few individual students and if they are desparate, ask you to do some groups.

If you are good though (not in your own mind, but get lots of positive feedback) the schools will put you to work. Even if 90% of the teachers must be certified, if you are in the top 10% of the Native language speakers in the area, you will be in demand.

To be fair, I would not call myself a teacher of the English language. I now realize that there is a lot more to teaching than meets the eye (especially a foreign language). I have actually learned more about English in the past few years here in Poland than in my prior 40+ years in the US of A. Harry's remark about conditionals brought a smile to my face.

I make it clear from the start of my lessons that I am there for conversational practice and that I will help them out where I can with grammar, pronunciation, etc... I mention that if they have any specific grammar point that they want to review, I will be glad to help them out. One of my students mentioned that he always had a probelm with conditionals and would appreciate a brief review. I told him that as soon as I knew what he was talking about, I'd get back to him! We had a good laugh. After I found out what they were, (oh, so thats what these are called!) I told him that quite honestly, most motivated Polish students had a better command of English grammar than 99% of the American population.

Most of my students are Advanced level, so your mileage may vary. I would find it very difficult to teach anything below Intermediate level, even if I did speak fluent Polish. I just don't have the training/skills required. I'm sure the kind of training you would pick up with an intensive short-term CELTA course would be invaluable and well worth the time and moeny. Of course, it would also help if you actually liked to do this kind of thing. If you are just looking for a way to pay the bills, but you really dislike it (and there is a lot not to like) you will not do well...

Just my 2 cents - Shawn