Student's diary

Sunday, 18 November

Yesterday Janusz Piechociński was elected, by a tiny majority of votes, to a position of president of PSL. Thus he deposed Waldemar Pawlak who had been clinging to his office for too long, and, let’s face it, impeded many of the government’s plans to move the Poland forward. He steps down in disgrace, taking umbrage with rules of democracy and proving lack of manners by not congratulating the newly elected leader. Mr Piechociński’s headship should be a breath of fresh air for Platforma’s coalitional partner; his style at first impressed me, but on second thoughts, his hyperactivity begins to appear feigned…

Monday, 19 November

I have foregone the idea of turning off the phone and have to face the music. Half past nine, first call from the guy whose car I damaged a few weeks ago. Renault’s insurer needs another statement signed by me to pay a compensation to the garage which repaired the car. I drop everything, take the car and drive to Konstancin to write out a statement in which I admit at the time of the accident I was not intoxicated. Nobody bothered to check it right after the prang – does it mean Poland is no longer a land of mistrust? Half past two in the afternoon. My boss calls me. He cannot work out how I calculated one of parameters of our potential new credit exposure. I drop everything, start calculating everything from scratch, then send him an e-mail. Exchange of e-mails and discussion over correctness of calculation drags on for an hour… And I am on holiday!

Tuesday, 20 November

Woke up to the news Polish secret services have foiled an assassination attempt. A lecturer from one of universities in Kraków had planned to either outright kill several of the country’s officials or to park a booby trapped car under the houses of parliament and detonate the bomb. The size of averted tragedy is mind-boggling, despite this several laymen criticise secret services for bringing their success to the public either too early or too late…

Wednesday, 21 November

A quarter before ten. My boss calls me and asks whether everything is alright, as I am almost an hour late and this has not happened before. I gently put him right by referring him to our HR management system in which his approval of my two-weeks’ absence is recorded. Much than disenchanted, he puts down the receiver. My colleague predicted this would happen, but thought he would have been astonished not to see my on Monday. I send her a text message and learn she is on a sick leave. If my boss has half of his team absent and work piles up, no wonder he is discontent. Tough luck, his problem, I don’t give a damn!

Thursday, 22 November

An important news item for today is that a member of PiS from Oleśnica was ousted from the party for calling on referendum whether to kill the prime minister Tusk on his blog. The very idea hatched by the Kaczyński’s party activist does not surprise me, yet my jaw drops open, when Mr Kaczyński says his membership has been suspended so that the media do not attack PiS authorities

Friday, 23 November

Today the world revolves around the debacle of EU summit on the new budget for 2014-2020. In times of austerity several politicians (the biggest advocate of EU financial downsizing is the British Prime Minister, Mr Cameron) attempt to cut back on the budget, which would have adverse consequences for Poland, which is a net beneficiary of EU funds. Much of the stride my country has made over the last years is owed to the inflow of EU funds. The summit should be completed next year and if the agreement is not reached, EU will be operating year by year on temporary budgets…

Saturday, 24 November

A day to take a break from studying. In the morning to the swimming pool, then to my grandparents to clean up their flat, after early lunch I take my father, we catch a bus to ul. Ludwinowska and take a walk to Lotnisko Junction and then walk back through new roads of Southern Bypass of Warsaw to ul. Puławska. There is still much work ahead for the builders of the Bypass and it will take at least half a year to complete it, provided winter is mild. There is much to be documented, but I have not bothered to buy a new camera. Some seven kilometres covered on foot spent indulging in sights of Zielony Ursynów and watching the new infrastructure are a great way to recharge batteries. In the meantime a graduation ceremony is held at my university. Had I known that, I would have gone there to take an opportunity to meet schoolmates…

Sunday, 25 November

Doing well in terms of exam preparation and feeling more confident. May it only not lead to overconfidence…

Home straight

For a good beginning – a linguistic puzzle. What’s the English for wyjęty z życiorysu? No dictionary can help translating this concept of busy period in which one cannot lead a normal life. So what? Subtracted from life? Taken out of lifetime? Written off? Simply lost or wasted?

Regardless of what correct translation is, the fortnight which started yesterday enjoys such status. I’ve just entered the final stage of my CFA level I exam preparation which has lasted since late March this year. The exam in its substance is not very difficult, but the size of curriculum a candidate has to master and time frame allotted to answer all tricky questions make it a challenge. I sacrificed an equivalent of my monthly salary to sign up for the programme and buy the books and spent several hundred hours sitting for it (if paid for which as for doing overtime I would have earned more than my car’s market value today), so a failure would be a considerable pity. Nevertheless I am prepared for the worst scenario and if it materialises, the world is not going to end, yet I’ve taken precautions to prevent it. I don’t fail to prepare, but this doesn’t mean I don’t have to be mentally prepared to fail.

I’m going to spend the coming days going over mock exams and revising the whole curriculum (3,000 pages, over a hundred formulas…). I initially planned to train before the exam by emulating the exam day schedule, i.e. cracking two exam sheets a day, as I’ll have to do on the exam day. This would require six hours spent doing tests plus additional time spent checking and reviewing answers and would terribly wear me down. The first day of exercising proved I should divide this by two, unless I want to come to the actual exam totally exhausted. So the revision schedule has been reset, so that I don’t end up weary and burnt-out on 1 December.

The coming time will be an experience of seclusion. I’ve taken ten days off work (paid), my phone will be switched off during working hours to preclude anyone from the office from nagging me with calls, the car will sit in the garage and won’t congest ul. Puławska during rush hours. Apart from down-to-earth activities I’ll focus on studying and taking physical exercise (a visit to the swimming pool in Piaseczno every second morning is a must) to give my brain enough oxygen to work at full steam and prevent me from putting on weight, while being fed by my mother (although it wouldn’t hurt to make up for at least one of these three kilograms lost in October and putting my on the verge of being underweight).

The experience of solitude confirms, again, I’m not cut out for working, nor spending time totally on my own, nor for academic work consisting in poring over books and taking details into pieces. Not a wonderful time, yet anyone who wants to achieve something in life must go through such phases.

Apologies in advance if I don’t post next Sunday and keep your fingers crossed on 1 December.

Prudent Student ;)

A secular funeral

Attended such ceremony for the first time on Wednesday. In Poland it is customary to stage traditional church funerals even if the deceased were not deeply religious and ceremonies held not in a church and not administered by a priest are still a rarity. This time the deceased, my friend’s father, was a type of a hard-line atheist and had expressed a wish to have a secular funeral.

While a typical Polish funeral consists of a mass in a church and a burial ritual, a secular funeral has a sort of “last farewell” instead of a mass. On Wednesday the farewell was divided into two parts. The first one was a commemorative speech, being a brief biography and characteristics of the deceased, the second was a classical music concert.

I liked the form of the ceremony and part of the content, in terms of concert (the deceased was an opera-goer), but was disgusted by the eulogy… Delivering eulogies during funerals has become a widespread tradition in Poland. I heard it in 2009, 2010and in 2011, so if 2012 is drawing to a close I couldn’t miss the doubtful pleasure of listening to another one.

Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against speaking highly about dead people, but every time I listened to such speeches, I felt these were description of people other than those being buried. In Poland there is a custom that you either speak highly about the dead, or don’t speak at all, everyone accepts it, the best example is how the picture of late president Lech Kaczyński was distorted afterhis tragic death. Few had guts to tell the truth… I generally detest hypocrisy and maybe wouldn’t be so distasted if such eulogies were only biased. Every man has a bright and a dark side, highlighting only the bright one is forgivable, while telling lies about a deceased is overstepping the boundary of decency. Last year my parents made a blunder at our neighbour’s funeral when they broke out laughing having heard the neighbour, who, truth be told, was a despicable layabout and drunkard, in the eulogy was characterised as ‘exceptionally responsible man and caring father and husband’.

Damn it, if there is little good to say about the dead, conform to the principle and don’t speak at all! I can’t stand it!

During a burial ceremony there was also a moment when I didn’t know how to behave. I stood surrounded probably by former colleagues of the deceased, sturdy men, tall as I, but unlike me, well-built, and while urn was being put into the grave, they all burst into tears and kept on weeping like small children. I felt unnaturally. I saw people crying during funerals many times, but these always were family members or close friends…

Secular funerals are said to grow in popularity in Poland, as Polish society is turning less and less religious. I wouldn’t dare to say the same is true about weddings. Virtually all weddings I attended during last two years were church ones, I’m attending a secular one next month and this will be the odd one. It has to be underlined, however, if someone gets married in a church, if doesn’t mean they are religious. It’s all about the setting. Wedding in a registry office lacks the memorable character the one, traditional, in a church, has. Wedding is in principle a one-in-a-lifetime event which deserves a unique setting, but whether it is justified to spend on it an equivalent of new compact car’s price (alternatively even 10 metres of a new flat might be purchased for that money) to put on a triumph of form over substance is a topic for a separate posting…

And my advice for anyone going to Cmentarz Północny on a business day – set off from home early or check the timetable carefully. I set off from home at 8:45 to turn up for a ceremony starting at 10:30 in time and ended up stuck in a traffic jam beginning at the border or Warsaw, which I detoured through Jeziorki and having covered 25% of the distance within 40% of allotted time on a rainy day (rain snarls up traffic) I decided to forsake my car near underground station and take the public transport. Finding a space to park a car around 9:30 was difficult, yet doable, then I somehow managed to get to my destination by underground (33 minutes ride to the northern end of the line is boring) and from the beautiful Metro Młociny terminus, by 701 bus. Returning home was a bigger nuisance. I had to wait for a bus in a rain for 25 minutes (they run once in half an hour), getting from the cemetery to Ursynów took me an hour and a quarter. Cemeteries, as places visited often by elderly people, should certainly have much better public transport links to city centres…

Energising song

Ever wonder about what she's doing

How it all turned to lies

Sometimes I think that it's better to never ask why

Where there is desire

There is gonna be a flame

Where there is a flame

Someone's bound to get burned

But just because it burns

Doesn't mean you're gonna die

You've gotta get up and try try try

Gotta get up and try try try

You gotta get up and try try try

Eh, eh, eh

Funny how the heart can be deceiving

More than just a couple times

Why do we fall in love so easy

Even when it's not right

Where there is desire

There is gonna be a flame

Where there is a flame

Someone's bound to get burned

But just because it burns

Doesn't mean you're gonna die

You've gotta get up and try try try

Gotta get up and try try try

You gotta get up and try try try

Ever worried that it might be ruined

And does it make you wanna cry?

When you're out there doing what you're doing

Are you just getting by?

Tell me are you just getting by by by

Where there is desire

There is gonna be a flame

Where there is a flame

Someone's bound to get burned

But just because it burns

Doesn't mean you're gonna die

You've gotta get up and try try try

Gotta get up and try try try

You gotta get up and try try try

Gotta get up and try try try

Gotta get up and try try try

You gotta get up and try try try

Gotta get up and try try try

Heard this on Monday evening while driving home for the first time. The catchy tune (I'm not particularly fond of that kind of music, but this is the second Pink's single released over the last months that impresses me) immediately lifted my spirits. What the song conveys is akin to the message from my Guardian Angel. Even if once something doesn't turn out the way you expect (this is an indispensable part of every human's life), even if you stumble and fall, don't give up, don't lose heart, start over and hope for the best.

A month has elapsed since that conversation. I think I've made progress in getting over, although I'm still at the stage of 'just getting by', emotionally numb, yet intelectually bright!

See the difference – follow-up

… to one of my first posts which I published as a third-year student. After two years of working for a huge capitalist corporation, I see more semblances between capitalism and socialism and some similarities are disturbingly striking. The post would not have appeared here today, if it had not been for the violent crackdown on some of my fellow colleagues that took place in the third last days of October. Accidentally the ruthless moves in personnel policy coincided with an e-mail reminding about renewing the commitment to follow the social media use policy guidelines, observance of which prohibits me from revealing my identity and name of my more and more often hated employer…

I have taken the trouble to compare some workings of the political system of 1945-1989 socialist Poland and features of American-style corporate capitalism and within five minutes I managed to discern (and put down on a piece of paper) the following similarities (in random order)…

Brain-washing – in both systems you are told is more or less thinly-veiled way what you should think. Your mindset is shaped by someone who has interest in controlling how you perceive the world, what your hierarchy of values is…

Because efforts to wash brains of employees / citizens go in vain, omnipresent duplicity emerges. Officially people declare one thing, while unofficially they speak their mind and do their bit. In both systems they have to watch their tongues though! Self-censorship is natural in such circumstances. You weigh up every word you say, before something politically incorrect comes out of your mouth You never know who the sneak, waiting to tell on you to their principal, is.

Your workplace, as well as a totalitarian country, is not a place where you should make friends. Individuals are to co-operate with each other to serve the corporation / the system and should be discouraged from any closer interactions. Of course integration (after-work meetings) is encouraged, but its extent is attempted to be controlled. In the corporation one of crucial unwritten rules tells you to pursue your private life outside work. Having committed a sin of violating this rule, I admit there is a profound rationale behind it, but people should be free to pursue happiness their own way.

The two worlds, one real, dejecting and murky, the other full of bright prospects, exist thanks to wide-spread success propaganda, aimed to make you believe how well your company / country is doing. Poland is 1970s was catching up with mid-African developing economies, while official e-mail from the CEO of your corporation will inform you that the company has gained 50 clients, passing over the fact in the meantime it has lost 150 accounts. Censorship is thus not confined to individuals who muffle most of their thoughts, but is applied on much wider scale on the level of corporation.

Hollow words, spread far and wide, are distinguishing features of both corporate capitalism and communism. In pre-1989 you formally had democracy, free speech and other stuff guaranteed by constitution. Your employer promises you work-life-balance if you work eleven hours a day and do not get paid for overtime, instils integrity in you, while senior executive have no qualms lying through their teeth…

Once socialism was described as a system that bravely fights problems unknown in other political systems. The same applies to some big corporations where processes cannot run smoothly, but are impeded by self-created obstacles. This probably has an economic explanation is diseconomies of scale – a corporation which grows in size become too big to manage and turns marginally inefficient. Socialism fell apart because socialist economies had to reach frontiers of development and could not grow any further due to built-in inefficiencies. Big corporations are doomed to fall apart because they focus on themselves rather than on clients.

Dissent… is a crime (not on this blog, comments are highly appreciated). If you think free-market corporations foster ingeniousness, you are under the same delusion I used to be. Firstly, only selected individuals are allowed to come up with innovative ideas, secondly, if their innovations does not turn out to fetch expected enhancements, they are bound to bear the brunt of it. And do not hope for the second chance. In corporate capitalism it is safer to swim with the tide and not to stand out.

Targets are what socialist economy planners and corporate productivity managers are obsessed with. In the socialism there were five-year plans, always exceeded, in a corporations, you have sales target or other targets, depending on your position. Try not meeting them…

A human for a corporation has little value, just as in totalitarian systems. It is just a cog in a machine, an item on, respectively, a payroll or census list. It can be easily swapped for another one, if there is a need, or liquidated, if no longer necessary. A human is subjugated to the overriding goal which is, either the bottom line of profit and loss account, or interest of the system. And end justifies the means.

Recent goings-on at work reminded me of leitmotiv of disappearing people from ‘Master and Margarita’. During the big purge in 1930s people did not know the day nor hours when some ominous men knock on their door and make them disappear without the trace. In an American corporation you come to the office and never know if this is not the last day in your office. On Tuesday I saw head of one of department talking about lay-offs, glad he was not affected by this. A few hours later his job contract was terminated. On Wednesday morning I shook hands with one of the best (meaning having a portfolio of profitable accounts) corporate dealers, the previous day he had agreed on 20% salary cut and hence was sure he would not be given the notice. An hour later he was proved wrong…

Not to make this post one-sided, let’s highlight some differences between the two systems. Socialism offered job security, while in corporate capitalism you can be fired every day and if you corporation claims to be “socially responsible” (what a twaddle!) it can give you a generous severance package. Corporations, unlike socialist enterprises focus on work efficiency and can appreciate those who do the good job. Beware though, if one day you receive accolades, the next day you may be given the sack. I am in two minds about the distribution of income. I lean towards more pointing at bigger gaps between salaries of rank and files and key executives, but in the socialism there also were ‘equal and more equal’ comrades…

Plus note the fundamental difference between firing people and murdering them. In a corporation you are just given the severance pay and are free to pursue your career somewhere else. In a totalitarian system, there is no such things as freedom.

Having written this, I will return to my office tomorrow, with smile put on my face and hoping my position will not come under restructuring, at least this month. Once I heard people living in socialist have experienced so many humiliations, but what about staff of big corporations, exposed to so many similar disgraceful treatments?