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You have seen the attitude and mentality, Poland has been in the EU now for about 7 - 8 Years
Not much has changed at all toward foreigners and the west in this time.
It really worries me this, Poland is not growing fast enough, I am not talking about the cities and building the EU is pumping billions into Poland but the mentality of the people and now they are part of the west. Like it or not.

It worries me they have signed a deal with the devil (EU) and just plain out think its all going to be OK, its just like some kind of fleecing money out a foreigner.

We know very well what happens when you don't pay back your compounding interest to the west or deals. You only need to look East to see how the devil works. Poland to me seems a very young country but the self serving mentality is holding it back. They don't seem to be growing fast enough and when the elite call in their loans DEBT I have a feeling they going to do what they always do. Duck and dive or try and switch sides to avoid paying back.

I seriously advise people to think of what you getting into. If that mentality and attitude what sees many locals abroad, avoid coming back does not change , it can only all end in tears. It really difficult here, I noted a friend saying, a foreign team leader here, its difficult, the gossiping, the attitude, questioning why here and still suggesting to go teach language .... never ends.

Its a shame as I really like the place, its people but the mentality will keep holding it back, really is a shame.
But is more worrying considering the years its had to change, the last thing one wants to do is get caught up in things when it all goes Pear shape.

How much longer will the EU pump money into Poland before their loans are called in

I did not join in the other debate as it was just so bizarre even by PF standards.

as i understand the main symptoms of this bad self serving Polish attitude are

- real estate deals gone bad rather than providing guaranteed upside for you
- not giving work to people who dont speak the language

- not paying back the loans to EU ( potentially)
- serious attitude and mentality problems
- not enough changes since joined EU
I am sure there is more where that came from , clearly LL has a problem with living in PL . Cant wait to hear more ...

Not being smart is a hindrance to your employment and investment returns.

A lot has changed...But they will still prefer to hire a Polish person with less education then an skilled and professional foreigner.

Just tell you an story..,
Some time back i had plenty of free time and bored to hell plus i needed some extra cash so i taught about temporarily jobs and when i opened local job search sites like gumtree, it wass full of fast food jobs like MacDonald and KFC. I went to almost all of them and the moment i would tell them i saw the advertisement and i want to work here...they would look at me as if i told them something very unbelivebaly strange. I didn't receive even 1 call after giving resumes in so many places. that's why you would hardly find any foreigners working in even international companies like Carrefour, Starbucks, KFC etc...

Yes comparing to other western countries, Poland is still 100 years backward when it comes to mentality. But i want to be honest...alot has changed and its changing. but it will take a long time before a foreigner can call this place home...or feel home!!!

"Polactwo" by Rafał Ziemkiewicz talks about this attitude.

A synopsis from wikipedia:
"Author tries to explain what happened with Poles after fall of communism and the toxic influence of tens of years of communism and destruction it brought to Poland. He tells about destructive force of people gathered around Adam Michnik - a thesis which he follows in Michnikowszczyzna. Zapis choroby book. He tries to describe the reasons and effects of low self-esteem of Poles as a nation, who regard themeself low in sociological studies.

According to Ziemkiewicz, the reason are processes that shaped the society through the years of partitions and communism. He says the social situation is similar to that of other post-communist countries, and also post-slavery societies."

I think (I hope) this attitude will change, but it will take time. I do see a huge difference in attitude between most young people and most people of older generations, so that's good. The complaints about this kind of attitude don't seem to hold much water if you're hanging out with a bunch of 20-30 year olds. The younger people also seem to have more pride about Poland and being Polish than many of the older people do, too, so that's promising as well.

This why I LOATHE communism/socialism - not just as political/economic system, but as a psychological and mental system that entraps an entire society into feelings of helplessness, hate, jealousy, bitterness, and victimhood - thereby leading to lack of integrity, ambition, creativity, and pursuit of excellence. And with the EU, the idea is always that *something* or *someone* else will make things better for you, when the truth is only you can pull yourself up by your own britches. And in order to do that, you first have to value yourself and have pride in your achievements and in your heritage. Communism fell in Poland in 1989, but the mentality doesn't change over night.

I don't know if not giving work to people who don't speak the language is that bad... I mean, how would they communicate with clients and with their bosses and team members if they can't speak the language? If someone wants to emigrate to another country and get a job there, the least they can do is show their host country a nominal level of respect and learn its language!

Anybody applying for those sort of jobs would need to be fluent in Polish though, and it's not a commonly spoken language outside of Poland.

Preference would obviously be given to native speakers.

I was applying for positions that didn't require language at all. like work in the kitchen. And i can speak Polish too.

There is nothing like 'work in the kitchen' only jobs in kfc or mc. You may start there but you are supposed to be trained in all departements in the end. And believe me- you need fluent language and be able to understand and speak in a very quick pace and in lot of noise. Drive at mc is even worse.

Unskilled jobs like kitchen assistant have a lot of people chasing them - as well as being very badly paid with restaurateurs using every trick in the book to get arounfd the minimum wage requirements.

And here is the problem. If these people are badly payed - minimum salary, then foreigners speaking less fluent Polish cannot compete with them. Employer perhaps would employ foreigner if could pay less, but because of minimum salary cannot. I've heard that quite many Ukrainians work during summer season on Baltic Sea. And it happens mostly, because they agree to work illegally (so employers save on taxes) and often for more than 8h per day.

Monitor I think you are right there, most jobs don't even show what the salary is and you only find out when a offer is put on the table during the interview, I have heard allot of people expressing how this is has a very negative impact on company moral when you find out the guy next to you is getting 1000 more to do the same job.

This also gives the employer the impression people are willing to work for less, hence permanent contracts are less available, so when it comes to renewing part time contracts. guess what happens next

Your replaced or renegotiated. Its a terrible system driving down wages, the same seems to be happening now in the UK too, redundancies like me, I got replaced by a recruitment agency. The CEO called in a agency, gave them our details and asked were cuts can be made, of course all our jobs were undercut and positions renamed.

Bye bye too half the company staff.

I advertised a job and stated the salary in the advert. I was getting people sending CVs and saying they were prepared to work for less than that :-(

You can not even the most simple of researches, yet you wonder why you have been taken to the cleaners.

Poland joined the EU on 1.05.2004. By my calculation that means that Poland has been a member of the EU for over 10 years.

But keep blaming others for your situation......

That's not even the worst
The way things work now is really bad, not just here but globally I have noticed a lack in older people getting jobs and who are in the work place.

38 to 67 is the new disposable age it seems in companies, with so many people willing to work for less and many having degrees and masters extra

Its now becoming the norm to ditch employees when they come to THE AGE
They think once you get to the age your slowing down and becoming to savvy to the tricks of getting the most out of you.

There is risk of getting sued or taken to employment tribunal. So its more favorable to employ young people out of uni
Young and dumb, most process in companies are now so well documented its easy to ditch them and later get the next sucker in. Full of energy and easy too fool. You hardly see old people now on company photos.

Take notes people when under this age, be sure to have a back up business or something planned for later. Else you will be flipping burgers, picking strawberries or driving a white van or cashier shelf packer will be your future regardless of your degrees or experience.

I remember my father only had high school and had a great job and career, then in my school years I started to see it changing, later it was bachelor, now its a master with 2 or 3 languages next its going to be what Doctorate? I know people already studying this to stay ahead of the curve and to have job security.

Its totally insane there are people with degrees packing shelf's in the super markets. A degree in my time was something people looked up too. Now its standard entry toilet paper.

Nothing works anymore, even the economies, no longer function correctly with all the funny money. I really think back to may father years and how easy they had it. Yes hard work but you got something out of it, these day hard work leads to burnt out employee who is replaced with the next willing person able to work for less and do more.

totally nuts world we live in.

This happens across all industries and countries. So is nothing new or surprising, the only surprising thing is that people tell co-workers what they earn... I get the feeling this happens more with younger inexperienced employees...


This has been happening for years in the UK and is not a new thing.

I am really not sure why this surprises anyone. As a business you are looking to get the best value for owners/share holders, all that happened to your old company was you position was outsourced. The above situations have been happening since I started work in Financial servies over 15 years ago and in my view is a standard part of business to try and get best value for the company.

Many employees talk, companies try and stamp it out in the contracts but there is no loyalty towards company's as said they know they get replaces later.

When I was working I knew just about what everyone earned in the company manly from gossip, and if someone got a new car something of value of Xmas

Everyone knew who got a nice bonus. It was a dead giveaway

We even caught the boss paying some employees holiday expenses. Everyone knows everything, office politics ... oh the drama :D

These were the questions i started asking back in 2010 and which consequently lead to me taking on a completely new/updated view of life as we know it. Its not nuts Lodz its capitalism.

Watch this film:

youtu.be/EewGMBOB4Gg]