Zoran
11 Jul 2011
Work / No Stay Permit This Year in Poland [10]
I have worked in Poland legally for 4 years, getting my temporary stay permit yearly. Actually, when I began teaching I also had to have a work permit or a special lecturer permit (1st year).
Then I decided to move to Warsaw on a promise from a school to teach Business English for a particular wage and specific number of hours. Well, I took the promise at face value and spent a lot of energy and money making the move. It set me back most of what I had left in my account.
When I started working the company paid me 60% of the wages promised and gave me a little less than half the hours agreed upon. As it turned out, I was just getting by from month to month. I did not have enough money to apply for a new stay permit. The year got worse with that company until I quit when they were simply not paying me my wages over 6 weeks. I quickly and cheaply shuffled my things back to the smaller town I had been living in, to move back in with my fiance.
We were at the bottom of the barrel during the Summer and had to beg my family for help, hers hates me (it's a race thing mentioned elsewhere on the forum about non-Poles [search for "family hates my American girlfriend" or something like that). So we survived until October, when my teaching jobs here in this smaller city started.
We realized we were in a worse situation with the legal status, since I couldn't just apply for permission to stay. I was here illegally. We'd have to get me out of the Schengen (Hitler) Zone and back in. That meant NOT crossing the Polish border into Ukrainia. I'd have to take a bus to Romania or Zagreb. When we checked the prices it was more expensive than the stay permit and we'd have to come up with the money for the stay permit on top of that. So it was an impossibility syndrome.
I worked all year under the table and now am in exactly the same boat. Pay here and hours in this smaller city are small. I am struggling with Internet work to get together the finances and am faced with asking for money from the family again in order to make the bus trip to Romania or Zagreb, cross my fingers on the border patrol, and then pay for the permission to stay.
We also are ready to get married here in Poland in the Church, but that adds to the problem as well. I must be legal. We must have money for the wedding and reception, i.t.d...
So these last 2 years have been messed up royally, due to trusting a Polish company. It isn't my first experience with the Polish version of "trust me". There is no sense of self-honor about one's word here, or it is quite rare to find it.
Anyway, I want to get this all cleared up. So I will take a bus to Romania or Zagreb, praying to be invisible to the guards. Then I'll come back in on a tourist visa ticking away the 90 days. I must then apply for the permission to stay, which I may get refused anyway. There is the discrepancy between the stamps (or lack of them) in my passport and my Permissions to Stay - the missing two years. I am engaged to my Polish fiance, but then again, I am taking her for her word. Who knows how good that is.
I doubt indicating that I am engaged to be married will help the situation at all.
What are your thoughts on the matter? Any other ideas?
[I realize the hypocrisy between the generalization that there is a tendency for Poles to not keep their word and the criticism about racial bias against non-Poles by Poles. My complaint is an extremely practical one, though, whereas the racial bias is simply an impulse against what is not similar to you. Promise and don't do what you promise, then no one can do business with you without getting hurt. This makes them angry and unwilling to do business with you in the future. It applies to other aspects of life, like engagement as well.]
I have worked in Poland legally for 4 years, getting my temporary stay permit yearly. Actually, when I began teaching I also had to have a work permit or a special lecturer permit (1st year).
Then I decided to move to Warsaw on a promise from a school to teach Business English for a particular wage and specific number of hours. Well, I took the promise at face value and spent a lot of energy and money making the move. It set me back most of what I had left in my account.
When I started working the company paid me 60% of the wages promised and gave me a little less than half the hours agreed upon. As it turned out, I was just getting by from month to month. I did not have enough money to apply for a new stay permit. The year got worse with that company until I quit when they were simply not paying me my wages over 6 weeks. I quickly and cheaply shuffled my things back to the smaller town I had been living in, to move back in with my fiance.
We were at the bottom of the barrel during the Summer and had to beg my family for help, hers hates me (it's a race thing mentioned elsewhere on the forum about non-Poles [search for "family hates my American girlfriend" or something like that). So we survived until October, when my teaching jobs here in this smaller city started.
We realized we were in a worse situation with the legal status, since I couldn't just apply for permission to stay. I was here illegally. We'd have to get me out of the Schengen (Hitler) Zone and back in. That meant NOT crossing the Polish border into Ukrainia. I'd have to take a bus to Romania or Zagreb. When we checked the prices it was more expensive than the stay permit and we'd have to come up with the money for the stay permit on top of that. So it was an impossibility syndrome.
I worked all year under the table and now am in exactly the same boat. Pay here and hours in this smaller city are small. I am struggling with Internet work to get together the finances and am faced with asking for money from the family again in order to make the bus trip to Romania or Zagreb, cross my fingers on the border patrol, and then pay for the permission to stay.
We also are ready to get married here in Poland in the Church, but that adds to the problem as well. I must be legal. We must have money for the wedding and reception, i.t.d...
So these last 2 years have been messed up royally, due to trusting a Polish company. It isn't my first experience with the Polish version of "trust me". There is no sense of self-honor about one's word here, or it is quite rare to find it.
Anyway, I want to get this all cleared up. So I will take a bus to Romania or Zagreb, praying to be invisible to the guards. Then I'll come back in on a tourist visa ticking away the 90 days. I must then apply for the permission to stay, which I may get refused anyway. There is the discrepancy between the stamps (or lack of them) in my passport and my Permissions to Stay - the missing two years. I am engaged to my Polish fiance, but then again, I am taking her for her word. Who knows how good that is.
I doubt indicating that I am engaged to be married will help the situation at all.
What are your thoughts on the matter? Any other ideas?
[I realize the hypocrisy between the generalization that there is a tendency for Poles to not keep their word and the criticism about racial bias against non-Poles by Poles. My complaint is an extremely practical one, though, whereas the racial bias is simply an impulse against what is not similar to you. Promise and don't do what you promise, then no one can do business with you without getting hurt. This makes them angry and unwilling to do business with you in the future. It applies to other aspects of life, like engagement as well.]