SPA

For sacrifice comes the reward. Early this week the New Factory took us to a SPA resort for a two-day rest (officially to discuss execution of strategy for 2015 and talk over strategy for 2016; a purpose justified by tax reasons), so instead of minding the shop, my colleagues and I enjoyed ourselves in a resort somewhere 200 kilometres from Warsaw.

This was my first trip to SPA in my life and given cost of such pleasure, the next one will also be paid by someone else ;-). The very massages and other relaxing treatments were for me, as a male, tedious. Lying back for more than an hour does not square with my notion of perfect leisure, which should involve some physical exercise. Anyway, apart from boring doing-nothing we could enjoy other facilities: outdoor cycling (debatable how much pleasure it gives when the temperature is near freezing), swimming pool, jacuzzi, etc.

The biggest drawback of the trip is that I could not cut myself off work as I would have loved to, but had to turn on computer four times during two days to push some stuff forward. Besides, a stay in SPA is good for a weekend rest, but not for a week or two.

Plus even for a well-off banker the price of such enjoyment is steep. A week-long stay for a couple would set you back five thousand zlotys, money which could buy you decent holidaying several thousand kilometres from Poland, not in a four-star resort at the back of beyond. Nevertheless, the facility seems to be targeted at corporations with generous integration budgets and private individuals with lots of dough to throw about. To my surprise, the only guests apart from us, corpo-folks, were some Russians (I’d thought economic misery out there would lead to dramatic drop in Russian tourists visiting Poland). The next day folks from a renowned pharmaceutical company were due to show up. One could argue, whether spending on average 800 PLN per person for such trip is the most reasonable way of managing a company’s profit and loss account, yet since if the integration budget is not used in one year, next year it is be reduced, temptation to spend someone else’s money is strong…

On our way back we popped over to a museum of Mazovian countryside in Sierpc. Well-maintained, yet on late-November weekday desolated. A guide showed us around large and well-groomed sites. This is the essence of Mazovian landscape. One would love to submerge in this stillness, yet Warsaw inescapably beckons…