2022 in a nutshell

Christmas, finally the time of rest, serenity, days of carefree mind, but also the end of year, customarily the time of summaries, drawing in.

2022 was a quite memorable year for me. In Poland it started off with a huge mess around the tax system reform, called Polski Ład (the Polish deal or the Polish order, or actually disorder). The modification turned out to be a spectacular botch-up making the headlines for a few weeks, until 23 February 2022, when some of us still hoped the military conflict could be averted.

On 24 February 2022 Russia invaded Ukraine. I saved first ten days of the war to posterity. I believe such notes make up the biggest value of blogging. Now, as I am writing the post, I can bring back the shock and commotion of those days. The war keeps going on and most Poles seem to have come to terms with it, which is sad, yet natural response to a critical situation.

Economy-wise, the topic of the year was inflation, predicted well in advance, materialising harshly and affecting mostly the poorest, for who dwelling upkeep and nutrition expenses make up the biggest portions of their budgets. The price level spike has been handled quite leniently by the Polish central bank, consequently we enjoy the lowest real interest world in the civilised world, somewhat below -10% (NBP benchmark rate is 6.75%, which CPI stood at 17.4% in November 2022).

As virtually all pandemic-related restrictions were lifted, I holidayed three times in 2022 – I went to the seaside on my own with my bike in May, then flew with my friends to Sardinia in late August / early September and in early November I visited Budapest with my girlfriend.

Besides, I drove twice to Wisła, where my girlfriend has her second flat, in August and then in October. I am also setting off there on Wednesday for nearly two weeks (next post due on 8 January).

In early summer I experienced the toughest depression episode in my lifetime. At first I thought it was an autistic burnout and just the effect of being somewhat overwhelmed by excessive workload, my parents’ problems with health, ups and downs in romantic relationship issues and war-related fatigue. I thought I would cope with the burnout, yet things were getting worse and lousy mood evolved into a full-blown depression. The “happiness pills” began to work around September, but in July I decided to take up therapy sessions which I should finish in January. The therapy has set me back a lot, but it was worth it, although it might not prevent another relapse of the disease.

Love-wise, I installed Tinder in March 2022, to go out with one girl for a month, give up on her. Then, upon deleting the account on the app and the very app, in June I met a girl with who I had paired up on Tinder. I thought we were anything, but a perfect match, but she carried on trying to pick me up. We met for the second and third time and it clicked. We have already had some crises, we have overcome them moved forward. Surprisingly, after being on a verge of a break-up a month ago, out relationship is stronger than before.

I keep fingers crossed for a better tomorrow. May 2023 bring us all health and joy and keep troubles at bay!

Szlachetna Paczka - the experience and a summary

022 edition was my third one as a volunteer, but for the first time I have taken up the role of an area leader. Due to influx of refugees and rising costs of living (and actually quite decent management on local level) this year’s Paczka in Ursynów was a record-breaking one. Volunteers from the area visited 84 families and took on 53 of them.

The ending was particularly tough, since the large number of families in need was not matched by a supply of donators. First 40 families found their donators easily, then it went uphill. I had to use my business relationships to find some of the donators and eventually my volunteers ended up compiling gift packages for 2 families from money collected at my girlfriend’s and mine workplaces.

In the run-up to the final weekend and during it, everything ran like a clockwork. Credits for this should go to my volunteers, carefully recruited and with a bunch of core experienced volunteers to whom I could delegate some of my responsibilities.

As the area leader I was closer to the structures of Stowarzyszenie Wiosna, which runs Szlachetna Paczka. Its backstage workings are not as dire as in times when priest Jacek Stryczek was its CEO, but still, it works like a corporation worse than my employer. As a leader I had my KPIs, deadlines and targets and had superiors checking up on my area’s progress in meeting them.

A week past the culmination of the programme, the time to slow it down comes at last. Sadly, a lot of stuff to handle was put back until after the final weekend, so now I am catching up.

In January I will take part in workshops held in order to improve the course of the Paczka in the next edition. I wonder whether Stowarzyszenie Wiosna learns from its mistakes or even whether it actually admits them. I have found some practices distasteful, but still believe the mądra pomoc (wise aid) does much more harm than good. And being a charity volunteer is immensely addictive and somehow could not imagine spending last months of the year not participating in it.

Besides, by being in charge of 26 volunteers, I have had a chance to develop my nascent managerial skills. Being a leader is not as horrible as I used to imagine and being a manager in a corporation no longer looms as a nightmare to me.

Pandemic diary – November 2022

Wednesday, 2 November 2022
Austria becomes the first country in the EU where 60.00% of population have been officially tested positive. Further rank: Slovenia (59.39% of population) and France (56.19% of population)

Saturday, 5 November 2022
Conspiracy theorist keep holding strong, though COVID-19 is nearly forgotten in the public discourse. The article about increased risk of myocarditis after vaccination against COVID-19 with patients aged below 40 is heavily cited by anti-vaxxers in Poland. They forgot to mention the risk is miniscule anyway and that risk of myocarditis as complication after the coronavirus disease is much higher

Sunday, 6 November 2022
The 7-day average number of new infections in Poland declines below 500, for the first time since 4 July 2022. Positivity rate in turn has fallen below 10%.

Thursday, 10 November 2022
Oddly enough, the number of daily death worldwide has not fallen below 1,500 for a month. This implies infections do not decrease, but more and more countries give up on testing.

Friday, 18 November 2022
The 7-day average of new infections in Poland bottoms out at 318, with positivity rate somewhat below 10%.

Saturday, 19 November 2022
I go through the most severe cold since 2012. This is not COVID-19 (tested twice), but it turns out two years of masking up, isolation and averting germs have taken their toll on immunity.

Wednesday, 23 November 2022
The number of tests carried out per 1 million citizens in Poland reaches… 1,000,000. Poland remains at the bottom of the ranking of EU27 countries which best test their citizens, although truth be told testing has been abandoned in several civilised countries.

Wednesday, 30 November 2022
The next wave apparently has begun, with week-ok-week increases in new cases above 20%. The winter is coming.

Next week comes the final weekend of Szlachetna Paczka, so the next post will appear in two weeks.