One year into PiS in power

As the PiS government stages a splendid conference to boast of plentiful attainments of its first year in charge of Poland, I feel obliged to tack on some facts to remind of and underline the most recent success stories credited to this government and contributing to the outlook of blindingly bright future for Poland

Poland’s GDP grew by mere 2.5% in 3Q2016, falling short of economists’ consensus of 2.9% and being the worst readout since late 2013. The figure is just a preliminary estimate by stats office and has not been broken down into components, but judging by the trend observed in recent quarters, the drop in investments could have been the main factor behind the meagre expansion. Mr Morawiecki, Poland’s Development and Finance Minister (and deputy prime minister) claimed the slowdown was temporary and upheld his ministry’s forecasts of 3.4% GDP growth in 2016 (to make it happen, the Polish economy would need to expand by approximately 5% in 4Q2016 on simplifying assumption there is no seasonality, but by all accounts by more than 4%).

I have no idea why the former CEO of Santander-owned Bank Zachodni WBK belies reality. I only wonder whether he knows he is in the doghouse or so deeply believes the policies he pursues are appropriate. Whichever supposition is right, I am kind of sure with such figures budget deficit is likely to rise above 3% of GDP in 2016. Mr Morawiecki is somewhat right while assuring GDP is not the uppermost measure of economic well-being, but in the same interview he stresses importance of investments for the Polish economy. The problem is however that in the meantime investments are falling back.

Fortunately the bright spark of the Polish nation, an ordinary deputy Jarosław Kaczyński (balancing on the verge of paranoia) has found a scapegoat to take the blame for poor GDP growth – these are entrepreneurs linked to opposition who halt their business plans and give up on profits they could make just to spite the government.

Yields on Polish 10-year bonds have soared above 3.5%, meaning their price is the lowest since over 2 years. Partly to blame is the victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential election which led to more uncertainty on financial markets. The choice made by Americans is cherished by advocates of the PiS government. I hope they have noticed it has twofold impact of Poland’s debt service costs, via increased yields at which new government bonds are issued and via higher balance of debt denominated in foreign currencies (PLN has depreciated against major currencies recently).

This week the lower house of the Polish parliament passed a draft law reinstating pension age of 60 for women and 65 for men, thus reversing the retirement age increase brought into law by the previous PO-PSL government in 2012. While governments across the world raise the pension age and tackle inevitable demographic changes to sustain the proportion of labour force to those receiving benefits from the public purse, Poland takes a step back while the bill will be paid in the next decades. The only bright side I discern is that benefits for early retirees will be low enough to effectively discourage people from pensioning off.

When it comes to pursuit of PiS’ economic agenda, the fewer promises they keep, the better for the economy (not necessarily for social spending beneficiaries, especially multi-child poor families receiving the 500plus child allowance). Having the choice between two evils, I prefer they get busy with dead-end Smolensk religion whose cost (except for pain for families of crash fatalities) is thousands times lower than of “reforms” mentioned above. By the way, preliminary results of late president Kaczynski and his wife’s autopsy indicate a transport accident as death cause, the only thing in question is whether the plane capsized before hitting the ground.

Time passes by and level of absurdities around soars. The day before yesterday PiS politicians commemorated the 14th anniversary of Lech Kaczynski taking office of mayor of Warsaw. I hence put forward official celebrations of Lech Kaczynski:

- being born in 1949 (18 June),

- finishing studies in 1971, receiving PhD in 1979 and doctor habilitowany titles in 1990 (dates to be ascertained),

- getting married in 1978 (27 April),

- becoming a minister of justice in 2000 (12 June),

- being appointed the governor of Najwyższa Izba Kontroli in 2001 (14 February),

- being elected the president of PiS in 2001 (29 May),

- being sworn in as president of Poland in 2005 (23 December),

- telling a drunkard to go away in 2002 (spieprzaj dziadu) (4 November).

Also on Friday came to the light news of prosecutors from Gorzów Wielkopolski who have been chasing after Hanna Zdanowska, mayor of Łódź since February 2016 and accused her of loan frauds, allegedly committed in 2008 and 2009. Oddly enough a bank which granted a loan has not filed any charges against Mrs Zdanowska and the loan, as each and every fraudulent loan, has been repaid… This is one of first examples of PiS-controlled prosecutors clumsily attempting to sling mud at politicians of opposition.

On Friday I attended a conference during which one of renowned speakers told despite not just a flash in pan, populism will  wear down, as any other ideology. Neoliberalism and neokeynesianism have worn down and have had destructive influence on economies in last stages of their prevalence; the same path will be taken by populism. The only worry we should all have at the back of our heads is that damages inflicted to societies and economies by populists will be more painful.

But as the speaker said, we have to let things drift. Populism will not be eradicated by educated minorities. These must be masses, currently enchanted by populists that will have to realise they would have been double-crossed. It will take time and involve a price to pay, but after we persevere it, a better world might emerge. Or our civilisation might conceivably wind down irreversibly, a scenario which I have feared over the past months.

Sumienie mam czyste

I am proud on 24 May 2015 I voted for Mr Komorowski. Although my opinion on his (mediocre) presidency in the last months before his electoral defeat was not particularly high, with hindsight I have no doubt casting a vote for him was the best I could do then. Had Mr Komorowski been re-elected, he would have been a precious safety valve, an authentic guard of constitution and stumbling block for reckless economic decisions passed by PiS-dominated parliament. Today, when executive and legislative powers are wielded by nominees of one party, counter-balance can be struck only by judiciary power (attempted to be undermined,)and by private media (public one will soon be brought to a heel by PiS)…

I was not fond of the late president, Mr Kaczyński. We were worlds apart, his views of Poland were usually far cry from mine, yet he had principles he would abide by. Honestly admitting, I did not like him, but respected him as a head of state. When Mr Duda was taking the office, I wished him well. After he reprieved Mr Kamiński (in advance, since the court has not passed a legally binding sentence) and nominated five judges of constitutional tribunal elected by PiS, before it was been ruled three of them had been elected by PO-PSL government in line with constitutional order, I have lost respect for Mr Duda, who is more dependent on Jarosław Kaczyński than Lech Kaczyński was. Servile president is not a good president.

I am proud on 25 October 2015 I voted for Nowoczesna. PO, the most numerous oppositional party is, predictably, falling apart, picking up the pieces after the electoral calamity and struggling to find a new leader, while Nowoczesna stands out in terms of standing up to the mess PiS government and deputies are making. Nowoczesna has emerged as the only firm and substantive critic of the government. Thumbs up guys. No wonder in the recent polls Nowoczesna is the runner-up in terms of support, with 20% of the surveyed declaring to support them. In the meantime support for PiS dropped to 32% and for PO to 19%. For both parties this is a well-deserved outflow of voters…

Within the first weeks of holding the entire power, hollowness of economic agenda of PiS is slowly coming to the light. Out of the blue, PiS passed a new amendment to Personal Income Tax Law, levying 70% tax on sky-high severance package of executives departing from state-owned enterprises. Given the absurdly-high level of golden parachutes, the initiative is commendable and I would support it. But the ignorant authors of the law have forgotten that majority of executive work under managerial contracts, which means they are sole proprietors hired to run companies and hence are payers of Corporate Income (flat) Tax. Thus the new tax rate will beyond all doubt to a tiny minority of executives; those working under managerial contracts will be able leverage on the loophole to dispute the tax charges. On the other hand, if the government decreases the CIT rate for small companies to 15%, all the executive will pay even lower taxes. Here comes a good example how PiS helps the poorest!

The 500+ programme, the flagship project of PiS to give 500 PLN allowance for every second and next (and for poorer families also for the first) child, also lays bare declarations of ready draft laws were lies. Until now it is unclear who will be eligible for the allowance, whether it will be treated as taxable income and how many documents parents will need to submit to file for the allowance. In the meantime, the Labour and Social Policy minister admitted the allowance will make some poor families worse off, since if they receive the allowance, they will not be eligible for welfare aid. In the meantime, one of PiS politicians appealed to well-off people not to apply for the allowance, stating if they did so, it would be ignoble… The chap appeals to the rich not to take money they will be eligible for. Jaw drops open! Is Mr Karczewski just incompetent, or is he discrediting himself?

Financial sector and large-space shop taxes are to be introduced early next year. As for now, I am holding back from assessing the effects, however I still believe ruthless banks and retail chains with foreign capital will get the blow, but will not be hit the worst.

Now I am in a quandary, weighing up whether it is worse when PiS tampers with economy or with democracy. With slightly dismantled democracy Poland can still economically prosper if it not ill-run. With unwise economic agenda Poland might follow the path of Greece, yet civic liberties will be intact. As an economist, facing the choice of lesser of two evils, I would sooner let PiS tamper with the democracy rather than meddle into teh economy.

Having written all those bitter words, I must not forget to remind there are millions of Poles who genuinely support PiS in their pursuit of “reinstating law and order”. If I told the recent events are against the will of the nation, I would depart from the truth. The government has a (weak, yet any) mandate to pursue the changes, millions of Poles were waiting for the change which looms bleak and dangerous for me. We also must remember PiS can boast of the biggest stalwart electorate, estimated at 30%.

Waiting for the course of things to unfold, I witness the growing anger at how the government and the president are making use of power. Plus when it turns out points of economic agenda either are hollow promises, or do more harm that good, people who have voted for PiS with hopes for generous spending, will turn their back on them. The scenario of early elections if most people get fed up with PiS government is not as likely as in 2007, since now PiS hold an outright majority in the parliament, but if things go bad enough, people will topple the government. Nevertheless, because for such scenario to come to a pass, too much would need to be spoilt and I do not wish bad on Poland, I hope it does not materialize.

Each month I will be trying to dedicate one post to PiS in power, times are dreadful, but interesting…

The political mess has not brought me down. Clement weather (+10C and sunshine) and the fact this is the first weekend since the beginning of November I spend without company computer lift my spirit.

Taxpayer beware

Taxpayer, beware

Not that recently one of regional tax office branches boasted about soaring tax collection rates, as a result of simplifying the language in which letters to taxpayers are written. Plain Polish works miracles, yet workings of tax administration as a whole still could do with some improvements.

I have not expected to receive any letter from the tax office. Since I earned my first money in 2007 until last week, I had not got any, yet on Monday I found this in the letterbox…

In principle, you could argue whether it is written in plain Polish. For me the missive is generally comprehensive, although I had to read it twice to get the message. It could have been shortened, I suppose, cause brevity as a rule adds clarity.

Before filing the tax return I double-checked it, especially personal data and tax calculations, yet as it turned out, I missed one thing – after putting KRS (national register of legal entities) number I failed to write the amount of tax I wished to be transferred to a beneficiary (charity, foundation, etc). I don’t know why, I thought it was obvious, if I wish to donate 1%, it is 1%. The situation proves you might wish to donate less than 1% and must specify the exact amount even if the don’t wish to make any haircuts…

A quick glance at webpages dedicated to tax accounting does not give the answer how exactly to clear the issue, but the letter instructs clearly not to tamper with 1% donations. In order to find out how to get the amendment right I call the contact person in the tax office the next day. The lady informs me I need to submit: 1) an amended tax return, 2) a written justification why the amendment is being on made (on a special form) and lets me know I may not now write the correct amount to be donated to a beneficiary, since after 30 April it is too late, so the only way to straighten things out is to fill the two fields (KRS number and amount) blank.

OK, I screwed it up, lesson learnt, apologies to the ones not better off. Since I filed the tax returns in person, I need to make the correction personally as well. The tax office is opened from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., so has exactly the same opening hours as my “usual” working hours, hence the most reasonable way to visit it is to decide to turn up to work later. I pick up the documents and when in the office, I go exactly to the room of the person who sent me the letter to me. She checks the amendment forms, says it is OK, enters it into the system, I am about to leave and…

…I am stopped in my tracks. “Sir will not leave now, sir has not filed sir’s personal income tax return for 2013”. “What the f**k?”, I think. I turn back and argue this must be an error. The lady insists the computer sees all my tax returns, except the one for fiscal 2013… I kindly ask the lady not to write relevant summons (with threats of severe fines for shirking the duty of tax accounting) and promise to return in half an hours with relevant documents confirming I am clear with the tax office.

I rush to the car, at home I quickly find two documents which confirm I entitled the Employer do fill the tax return (PIT-12) on my behalf and the very return (PIT-40) sent to the tax office by the Employer. I copy the documents in case the tax officials want to keep it, grab them and drive back to the tax office.

The lady greets me with lovely smile on her face. “I found it”, she exclaims, “your accounts have been done by your employer, the Employer”, she says. “Indeed”, I sigh…

The whole story actual looks to have brought no benefits – wasted paper, waster time of clerks from the tax office, my wasted time, my unnecessary stress. Water to the mill of a ruthless bureaucratic machine… The tax office branch in Piaseczno has a splendid new building I had a chance to sightsee. The modernity of the edifice could however go together with smart work done inside it…

Oversized

Imagine an office (urząd) without petitioners (petenci). Imagine a school without pupils. Imagine a hospital without inpatients, or a health centre without the ill. A mind-boggling absurdity? From the times I was a student, I recall a conversation between two student office (dziekanat) workers both claiming their job would have been much nicer, if only they had not need to deal with students (ta nasza praca byłaby całkiem fajna, gdyby nie ci studenci). So much nicer would be a job of a clerk if only those obtrusive people did not come around. A work in a hospital would be much more rewarding, if personnel did not have to take care of those horrible patients. A work in school would be marvellous, if only teachers did not have to deliver classes to rowdy brats.

Smacks of absurdity? Not really. Each organisation, as it grows, goes through certain stages of development. With each consecutive one its structures are bigger, so they require more control, reporting, paperwork, etc. With time a profit-oriented organisation, i.e. a business no longer allocates all its resources towards attaining its core goal which should be making money. With time each company builds ancillary structures, which at first enhance specialisation and support front-line units, so that everyone can focus on doing their bit. As more time goes by, in order to keep the business together, companies set up more reporting / oversight / control functions. As the process carries on, fewer employees are focused on serving customers (i.e. looking after sources of revenues) and more employees are focused on dealing with internal affairs of an organisation. When the company is bigger, internal oversight structure are vital for keeping it going in line with a certain strategy, yet the question of proportions between so called front-office, middle-office and back-office is justified. The more of a company’s resources are directed towards back-office functions and the less towards front-office, the more mature the company is. But is it more efficient?

The term diseconomies of scale has not been coined without a reason. In an organisation’s development there is a point at which the organisation grows to unmanageable proportions, i.e. is too big to be run efficiently. This happens both in the government sector (which is more prone to such distortions) as well as in private sector, yet there probability of diseconomies of scale is strongly positively correlated with size. Overgrown bureaucratic structures no longer need customers to be have something to deal with. At the highest stage of this “internal focus” middle- and back-office staff can not see the forest through the trees. They no longer realise serving the customer who feeds them should be a top priority. The become so pre-occupied with processes, procedures, reporting and other self-oriented stuff that they forget those are the customers thanks to who they can earn a livelihood.

Oddly enough, such self-oriented organisations survive, albeit rarely thrive on the market. When an organisation reaches the highest stage of development (when it does not need customers to move on) it already has established a leading market position (often might be a monopolist) and superior reputation and switching costs for customers are high. These factors allow such company not to strive for many new clients and put little effort in retaining the existing ones. Moreover, front-office functions are never neglected. Employees who bring the company the bacon are property remunerated for securing revenues essential to cover costs of the bureaucratic structures. The inertia in such huge organisations can last years and such wicked corporations do not fall apart. Senior executives often realise what is wrong and launch initiatives aimed at reinstating customer focus in organisations they run. The frequent upshot is that an organisation focuses on pursuing the programme rather than on customers…

Some time ago I took part in a series of workshops aimed at streamlining and leaning process in my company. As the workshops developed and participants came up with new ideas, the picture which emerged showed clearly the customer is actually necessary to feed us with documents we could hand over from one to another, fill in to several systems, create reports, etc. The role of a customer is boiled down to a creature which sets the bureaucratic machine in motion. Once it gains momentum, it busy with document circulations, internal analyses and reports so that the customer drops to the bottom of its list of priorities. One day when the group of workshop participants was in top form and devised plenty of ideas how to improve workings of our company, I held back for a moment, examined what had been put forward and without second thought asked an inconvenient question “but where’s the room for customers in what we design?”. I poured cold water on my fellows, the silence came into the room. They all stared at me. I realised I could have overstepped boundaries, as dissenters are not flattered in corporate capitalism. To my surprise, no one denounced me, my remark turned out to be quite productive and changed the course of works during the next workshops.

After over three years of working in the same place, I am growing weary of my current job. Or to be precise, I have had enough of my employer and how my company is run. I do take pleasure in what I do and perform my duties zealously, so the symptoms do not signify burn-out, but I am frustrated with prospects my employer and I have, or rather do not have. My employer is a part of a huge corporation with operations in most countries in the world. My diagnosis of the problem they have with their Polish recalcitrant subsidiary is that the operating environment here differs from those in other CEE countries. The corporation refuses to compromise and adjust its doing-business guidelines to specifics of the Polish market. They fail to recognise the simple rule “shape up or ship out”. They neither shape up, as consistently they fail to discern the Polish market is not malleable and will not alter to meet their expectations, nor have the courage to divest of the defiant business which totally does not fit the rest of the corporation. Customers are lost, profits are shrinking and prospects of turnaround are miniscule, because the organisation is so big that the decisions as effect of which the company could get up from its knees would have to be taken by decision makers who could not point Poland at the map, not to mention basic understanding of peculiarities of the Polish market. Thus my job is dead-end, but owing to inertia of overgrown corporations I will hold it down for a while. In the meantime I keep looking for a better one, mindful of the risk of falling out of a frying pan into the fire. As long as I am not redundant, the pressure is limited. And if they decide to fire me, there is golden parachute waiting for me by the end of this year. If it accompanies the lay-off, putting me out of misery looks like an appealing option.

News review

It’s Easter, festive period then tradition should be nurtured. One of such “traditions” during my English classes when I was a third- or fourth-year student was delivering to the group a “news update” twice in each semester – five topical news items, preferably from world of business and politics. Let’s bring back those beautiful days and see what’s going in Poland on this silent, snowy Easter Monday.

Stooq, portal for speculators cites Information Radio Agency which, at behest of the Central Tax Office reminds restaurant-owners and waiters about their duty to pay tax on tips. Tips, received either directly by waiters serving clients, or collected by restaurant owners in jars, are nothing else but income which is subject to taxation and concealing such money from the tax office is a tax evasion. The case is serious, as tax rate on concealed, but eventually detected income is 75%. Waiters do not hold back their outrage at the obligation to pay the tax and declare collective disobedience.

Bankier.pl informs about a revolutionary idea hatched by the Polish Ministry of Finance. The guts-hated, country-wide network of speed cameras will be developed under public-private partnership. As early as in July 2013 every citizen will be allowed to put up their own speed camera and snap speeding motorists, provided they link it the police’s database. Each camera-owner will have a share in income from collected fines of 10% - 20%. This income, just as tips in restaurants, will be subject to taxation. An important remark is that income, thanks to advanced IT solutions creating links between database of camera-owners and fined drivers will be automatically offset with due fines, so speed-camera owners will not have to pay fines directly, they will be deducted from their income at they end of each year. Such venture is not a cheap one in terms of start-up costs though. A brand-new speed camera will set you back some 10,000 PLN, therefore the Ministry of Finance declares to run a new scheme of preferential loans called “speed camera for the poor”, allowing to purchase a camera on 0% instalments. Moreover, the unemployed who cannot afford to buy a camera might lease it…

Gazeta.pl provides with a link to a page containing a long-awaited recipe how to check who’s been viewing your profile on facebook. Check it out! Finally you’ll be able to find out who’s been stalking you, who’s interested in you, etc. There’s a loophole in Facebook page’s source code. One line added to a system file on a computer from which you log-on to the social networking site activates the much-desired facility…

In the meantime, Warsaw pages of Gazeta.pl notify of a new regulations concerting sorting rubbish. For the time being you had to segregate glass, paper and plastics, from July 2013 the list of types of litter will be extended to seven items: white glass, coloured glass, paper, tins, plastic, other litter and organic waste. The very last item is the most controversial, as the capital’s authorities put forward to encourage dwellers of detached, semi-detached and terraced house to recycle this kind of waste on their own and to give them compost bins and grant a 10 PLN reduction in litter collection charge. The idea brought about uproar among councillors. Probability of the new decree taking effect as of 1 July 2013 is kind of low, as there’s too little time to put out a tender for servicing such advanced system of sorting out rubbish…

One of the most popular portals, Onet.pl, disturbs peace of its readers with a horrific weather forecast. The ongoing winter spell will last by June. Sub-zero temperatures and abundant snow showers will linger for two months on. Ministry of economy encourages road-clearance companies and property administrators to stock up in salt, as salt depots are running low of stock, despite salt mines running at full capacity…

TVN24.pl brings great news for those longing to be invisible. Scientists publishing in “New Jurnal of Phisics” claim the coat they have invented is made out of the thinnest material ever used and they are just a step away from conjuring up the chemical substance letting a creature cloaked in it become invisible… This has not been the first attempt to come up with such an invention. I only wonder if moves of such an invisible man would be audible. If so, they would give them away, giving scientists another opportunity to improve their work.

Interia.pl covers the draft of a new EU directive aimed at disciplining car users. Each car, even used will have to be equipped in a display, put up above the rear-view mirror, showing if the passengers have fasten their belts. The device should be visible from outside and thus force passengers to obey the safety rules. Social pressure harnessed to reduce the death toll on the roads. How commendable and why so late? The worst thing is that obligatorily installed device will set back every car owner about 250 EUR. Was any lobbyist involved?

Wirtualna Polska sees the end of traditional tills. They will be superseded by small, mobile devices and space saved on this will be utilized to increase showroom areas. The solution is now being implemented in the United States, if you happen to prove successful and increase profits of merchants, they are likely to take root around the world.

And for the very end, a quick look at gullet press website. I stare at Fakt.pl (Polish daily for the least demanding readership) and have absolutely no idea what is true and where authors could have played prank. Absurdities overwhelm me…

And the weather outside the window… funnily enough is not a joke… 0C and it keeps snowing…

Offline

Went through an involuntary Internet-rehab over the last week. The extent of the therapy wasn’t actually full, as I had access to most websites at work, but access to private e-mail, blogs, bank and brokerage accounts, allegro or facebook is blocked there, hence I was devoid of some entertainments offered by the Web. Truth be told I didn’t miss surfing the Net much, so it seems I’m not addicted to it(yet), but having no access to the Internet is inconvenient. I couldn’t read nor comment on any blogs, I couldn’t speculate in stocks, paying bills on-line was impossible, I didn’t know how my friends were keeping. Maybe the reason why I didn’t miss it much was that I had to work overtime over the week and back at home I wouldn’t have found much time to turn the computer on anyway. In fact my notebook was switched off for five days (antivirus software warnings of outdated protection popped up immediately), for the first time since September 2009…

The reason for being cut off the rest of the world was a defective Huawei (pron. ch**owy) modem delivered by Cyfrowy Polsat (hereinafter: CP). Buying their services was a memorable rough ride, but using it was all downhill since then. Until it worked…

The Chinese modem (piece of sh*t) began to spin out of control in November. It developed a despicable habit of disconnecting and reconnecting whenever it felt like doing so. This was a bit annoying, but I put up with this, as it didn’t impede much using the Internet. On 5 December it also began to transfer data at its discretion. Over the previous week most of time it didn’t upload nor download any data, but at times it roused up and did its job, until it went into a stand-by mode again. Last Saturday I went with it to several shops of CP, but none had any other modem to lend to us for the time of the repair. Finally an assistant recommended us to skip the intermediation of CP’s customer service and turn directly to Huawei repair centre, located in Piaseczno, who should check the modem off-hand and fix it overnight.

On Sunday, just after publishing the post on the blog, my modem gave up the ghost for good. My father took the modem to the repair centre on Monday. They promised to check it overnight and get in touch as soon as possible. They hung back on contacting us, so my father called them on Tuesday. They replied the modem was broken down beyond repair and under warranty would be replaced for a new one, free of charge. Unfortunately they had just run out of the devices and waited for the delivery of new ones. We called them for a few consecutive days and asked them when they expected the delivery. Finally on Friday they blatantly declared Christmas was coming and the new supply wouldn’t come in by the end of the year. The sods there didn’t give a shit about the fact that their customer would have to stay offline for some four weeks and pay the monthly fee for the Internet connection as usual. Shocked by the insolence of the repair centre I demanded my modem back, but it turned out it wasn’t an easy task for the sods to reverse the order which was being effected. I saw red, but despite having my blood pressure sent rising, I quickly realised they couldn’t do it to me. I was the owner of the modem and the sods could not seize my belongings, so I threatened to sue them for stealing my stuff. It worked. I called my father and he picked it up, together with the repair report, in the meantime I arranged borrowing another modem from CP shop in Piaseczno. My father did me a favour, handled the complaint procedure again and brought the lent modem home.

On Friday evening (or night) I returned home late from a corporate X-mas booze-up, additionally I looked like a drowned rat, as the pouring down rain left me totally sodden. Sodden and moderately befuddled, I didn’t feel capable of operating technical devices, so I decided to plug in the borrowed modem on Saturday. On Saturday I made an attempt to use the device, but it also turned out defective. The modem from CP shop lacked drivers and software and my computer couldn’t detect the content of its internal disk. I drove (no hangover so I assumed alcohol level in my blood was negligibly low) to CP’s shop and asked there to transfer modem drivers and CP software to my pendrive. I had to go there twice because for the first time they had given me the wrong software (from a different modem) and at last I needed to call CP customer service helpline to get the support in installing it…

Now it works, but things haven’t straightened out yet. I don’t how long my modem will be under repair, I don’t know if the opinion of the repair centre will be the same and if the new one will work properly. Right now I’m thinking how to get back on CP for the quality of their customer service. I’m not vindictive towards people, but powerful corporations that mistreat their customers must not go unpunished and their sins won’t be absolved. What sort of compensation should I demand? I don’t need apologies, they’re duty bound to provide me with a new modem under warranty, but how about claiming exemption from monthly Internet connection charges? Am I entitled?

Two readers marked my previous post as “well-argued / clear”, so a quick follow up – I’m still emotionally unstable and the magnitude of instability is very volatile.

Maybe due to what I described last week I’ve become disturbingly indifferent to current political and economic issues. I wasn’t focused the outcomes of EU summit held on 8 and 9 December, sovereignty marches staged on 30th anniversary of declaring martial law haven’t impressed me (my take on the martial law hasn’t changed since two years), nor did the end of Polish presidency to the EU. Yesterday in the evening, back online I found out stock markets are poised for a very bearish Christmas period (technical analysis and macro factors back this scenario) and may hit this year’s new low by the end of the year. Cesaria Evora and Vaclav Havel passed away - happens

I let things drift, every destiny should be fulfilled.

What no man can own, no man can take.
(U2, Yahweh)

You miss too much these days if you stop to think
(U2, Until the end of the world)

The two quotations reverberate in my mind and emerge from an enormous tangle occupying my head and giving way to clear thinking only when I concentrate at work or drive a car.

I let things drift, let the destiny fulfil itself.

Next week – another follow up to the story of my ex-classmate.

In praise of free speech.

Six o'clock in the morning. Functionaries of Internal Security Agency break down the door and trespass onto a flat inhabited by 25-year-old chap. Are we back in 2006 or 2007 when various people were arrested in the spotlight (some of them have never been proven guilty and acquited)? No, we are in luminuous times when enlighted Civic Platform is in power and civic freedoms are thriving. This statement was borne out on Tuesday when a guy who ran antykomor.pl site had his computer forfeited by secret services, just because he had run a website on which he had ridiculed president Komorowski.

From 2005 several websites were set up with just one goal - to make laugh of late president Kaczynski and his brother who wielded power as prime minister. Politicians of PiS and believers of the sturdy party expressed their outrage at the fact ordinary people wanted to make fun of clunky twins. Usually the key explanation was that all those people couldn't do it off their own bat and must have been inspired by an overarching, invisible force, called the System.

Times have changed. Since the Smolensk disaster it is no longer passe to admit to support Jaroslaw Kaczynski and his party. A group of people who declare they used to be drowned out for years can easily have their say. Antykomor was created in that time, in the surge of anti-PO movement. He did what many people had done during president Kaczynski's term. Let's face it - the current and the previous president have both been mediocre and no wonder such websites spring up. It is quite natural in the civic society, in which people have to have a right to give vent to their emotions.

I first heard about the site after its closure, so google cache memory was my only source of information on the content of antykomor.pl. I have to say I didn't find anything what would justify stepping into Antykomor's author's flat early in the morning, maybe except one photomontage on which the president appears to be compelling a drunk girl to do him a blow job.

This one was below the belt, but the guy should be wise enough to know there are boundaries that must not be overstepped. This still doesn't justify the forfeiture of computer, he could only be requested to delete offensive content and materials he hadn't had copyrights to.

Officiousness is worse than fascism. After the hapless action PiS scores another point and PO slides down on a slippery slope it has been for months of its feckless rule. Who the hell hatched the idea of detaining author of such website? It is absolutely normal in mature democracies that some people are dissatisfied with the politicians in charge of their countries and ridicule them. Think about all mockery at Nicholas Sarkozy, George W. Bush or Barack Obama. I think the article 135, paragraph 2 of Polish penal code which defines punishment for insulting the president (up to 3 years of imprisonment) should be overruled. Why should a president enjoy any special protection? He indeed is a symbol and deserves respect, but other people also deserve respect. So what's the difference between liability for insulting a president and insulting a prime minister. Should only the former be punished? Wasn't the legislator a bit ticklish? Isn't the situation in Poland ludicrous - people who accuse state officials of high treason and felonies go unpunished and the guy who pokes fun at president's numerous missteps has to play host to Internal Security Agents?

I was okay with making fun of president Kaczynski and I am okay with ridiculing president Komorowski (he gives us ample reasons for doing so) and I will be okay if any other president is mocked at, of course within reason, what means with offensive remarks, insults and lies. I was counting down days till the end of Lech Kaczynski's presidency, so why not do same with Komorowski?

Judgement day coming soon

An odd posting on a working day, prompted by the news about the upcoming worldwide disaster due this Saturday. We have survived many ends of the world, for the past few years there haven't been many such events. The most popular until now was the Mayan date of the last day, 21 December 2012, but recently it has been superseded by the closer one, 21 May 2011, as predicted by weird broadcaster and preacher Harold Camping, aged 89. The Family Radio he runs unremittingly spreads the news about the imminent judgement day and those prophecies have also reached Poland. The nearest billboard informing about the event can be found in Warszawa Jeziorki, near ul. Karczunkowska.

It says the Bible certifies it and we should cry out to God for mercy. For some of us it's too late...

I actually thought the news about such rare events as ends of the world are niche products for bored to death geeks, but the reality has taken me aback. Not only tabloids such as Fakt and Super Express informed about the event, but the sensation was also picked up up by System-controlled TVN24 and Gazeta Wyborcza... Moreover I heard people discussing the issue at work (another upside of open plans) and in a train. Two days ago I logged in to facebook and was hit by a question...


Finding myself totally unable to plump for any option I didn't tick any way of spending the time left until the end of the world.

Whenever I hear about such self-styled prophets, I ask myself what will they say, if nothing happens. Family Radio provides me with the answer...

What if May 21 ends and nothing occurs?

The Biblical evidence is too overwhelming and specific to be wrong. Christ's people can look with great confidence to this date because God promises His "beloved" He will not come upon them as a thief in the night.

God in His mercy has revealed the vital information needed to know the day. Judgment Day on May 21, 2011 will occur because the bible declares it. Anyone whom God has not saved will arrive at that day with no hope for salvation. God warns simply the "door will be shut."

I'm looking forward to seeing what they say when indeed nothing occurs. I've come up with a few versions:

a) someone tampered with the calendar and 21 May 2011 was not 21 May 2011,

b) the God gave us another chance,

c) we have made a minor error in our calculations, but beware, because the end is nigh.

Now a simple explanation why there should be no end of the world on Saturday. The end of the world will hit out of the blue, not when people expect it.

At the end of the day, whenever I hear such prophecies I'm afraid one day the mechanism of self-fulfilling prophecy may work. An idiot may try to fulfil the destiny, press some red button, launch a nuclear missile or do something equally dangerous...

Beware... of false prophets...

Student SGH vs. omnipotent bureaucracy – three short stories.

All presented in a bit weird way – as timelines…

Case 1 – Master’s thesis

September 2009 – I took a decision to complete all courses on Master’s studies within three semesters, rather than within four, as it is was set out in curriculum of studies.

July 2010 – To achieve the goal I began writing my Master’s thesis, with a view to submit it as early as possible and part company with my ignoble school.

12 October 2010 – I submitted a Master’s seminar application in the student office (dziekanat). I had a choice either to take two seminars in one semester (technically feasible) or do the first part of the seminar over the third semester and the second over the fourth semester. I opted for the latter to give myself a safety buffer in case I couldn’t make it in the allotted time, having in mind that it would put back a date of my Master’s exam.

5 January 2011 – I made it. Master’s thesis was prepared and approved by the supervisor.

16 February 2011 – I visited the student office to submit the Master’s seminar application for the second semester. Rules and regulations of studying clearly stipulate a student is obliged to do this within first two weeks of each semester. Despite this I was rebuffed and told not to show up there before I got the credit for the previous semester… Procedures clashed with the overwhelming system…

11 March 2011 – Having logged in to my account in SGH’s IT system I found out I had become a fourth semester student…

16 March 2011 – I finally submitted the hapless application, but was instructed not to put my thesis through an anti-plagiarism system, as, according to student office worker, the system was not ready to deal with theses uploaded by last semester student. I was also told to do this next week. Slightly bemused I postponed the process of checking if I wasn’t a copycat.

23 March 2011 – Same old story. Again I was ordered to wait for one more week.

30 March 2011 – I couldn’t leave the office earlier, so around midday I simply called the student office. I talked with another worker who told me I had been misinformed and the system had always been operational. Delay was then two weeks (or six weeks, if I was to count in the delay in accepting Master’s seminar applications)

31 April 2011 – I waded through all regulations concerning submitting Master’s thesis. One of quite bizarre ones was that it was not the student whose duty was to submit the thesis and several attachments by the supervisor in the flesh. I contacted the supervisor and asked him when he could go with me to the student office and handle all formalities. The only possible date was next Monday, around midday.

1 April 2011 – I took a day off at work (tapping my paid holidays) to wrangle with my beloved school.

2 April 2011 – I put the thesis through anti-plagiarism system, printed out the thesis and dozens of attachments, had my thesis bound, arranged a meeting with my supervisor.

4 April 2011 – I went to my supervisor’s work, where he were supposed to meet, unfortunately he couldn’t go out of the office, so he signed all documents and wrote at the back of an envelope a power of attorney for me to submit the thesis and attachments on his behalf. He pointed out the requirement that the supervisor was to do the job was virtually dead. Half an hour later, at school, he was proved wrong. The school followed all procedures… The whole day went down the drain.

13 April 2011 – My supervisor and I finally made it to the student office together and submitted the thesis and all documents. A student office worker, the one who had misinformed me, refused to confirm the receipt of the thesis and attachments and told us not to change workings of her always perfect office. I was also rebuked for reproaching the office over being open only three hours a day in hours inconvenient for working students – I was told to choose either to work and study on weekends or to quit the job and study in day-time mode.

Since then I have received credit for my Master’s seminar and my thesis has been handed over to a reviewer. According to the regulations, he has one month to review the thesis. If he doesn’t he won’t be penalised in any way. And this is the worst – for such misconduct or neglect of duties people should be fined. A fine of 1,000 PLN would make them meet deadlines… Of course now I don’t know when the reviewed thesis will be returned to student office and when the date of final exam will be set, but somehow I don’t hope for the best…

Cases 2 – Driving licence

9 May 2006 – My first medical check-up. A doctor came to a driving school, charged 100 PLN, asked if I was healthy and checked my eyesight. My glasses then weren’t powerful enough and I was prescribed a temporary driving licence, valid five years.

January 2011 – my driving licence was to expire on 9 May 2011 so I took first steps to find out what to do to have it prolonged. I had to do a medical check-up and obtain a doctor’s certificate with no counter-indications for driving. In a health centre I was told to wait until I got a health-care package from my employer to bring down the costs…

14 April 2011 – a real struggle began. I made several call to several health centres. In each I was told to do a different check-up, to visit different doctors, some even wanted to send me to a psychiatrist. I tried to do the whole thing at work and one colleague from different department, who overheard to whole conversation (another ‘advantage’ of open plans) told me to go to a doctor from a chain of health centres at which my bank purchased packages for employees. She said that doctor did the whole job even in transport department of my gmina, so what she said sounded like rubbish. Eventually, after find it out which examination I needed to have done, I was left with the choice either to go to a private health centre 500 metres near my house or to have the check-up in Warsaw. In both centres prices were prohibitive and nothing was included in my package. The case was, however, that according to new transport law I had to have level of glucose in my blood checked and this had to be done on empty stomach. The health centre in Warsaw did it only in the afternoon, so I plumped for early hours on Thursday, 21 April and took another paid day off.

21 April 2011 – I reported to the nearby health centre. On the door I saw the sticker advertising medical services provided in partnership with the chain of health centres I have my health care package with. To my surprise two out of three check-ups were covered by my employer and I only had to pay 70 PLN instead of 149 PLN. One nice surprise. I had my driving licence prolonged by ten years. In the transport department things went on quite smoothly, after queuing up for some forty minutes. After forking out 154 PLN and tapping a day off I wait for a new driving licence, which I won’t probably pick up before my old one expires, but this is really a minor issue.

Case 3 – Cyfrowy Polsat (this one dedicated to Scatts)

1 October 2009 – after terminating the contract on Neostrada we bought a subscription to Play Online Mobile Internet and wished it delivered a better service than Tepsa…

2010 – Play Online sucked… Couldn’t wait to the end of the contract. They declared the maximum connection speed would be 1 Mbps. Actual speed reached in peak hours around 60 kbps, as much as on my first dial-up modem in 2001…

March 2011 – I researched mobile operators’ mobile internet offers. I ruled out Play out of hand, then what three main mobile operators offered didn’t seem interesting and in the light of the fact their networks were already congested even off-putting. Once I found a leaflet advertising Cyfrowy Polsat, checked their page in the internet and settled on their plan 3 GB + 9 GB for 50 PLN. I told about it my parents and my father, after he heard the name of our new provider, immediately hatched the idea of buying the internet connection bundled with satellite television.

2 April 2011 – my father and I set off to the nearest shop of Cyfrowy Polsat in Piaseczno. It was supposed to be open on Saturday from 9:00 am. We arrived there at five past nine and it was closed. We hung around for 40 minutes and the owner failed to turn up. I called CP’s customer service and heard they couldn’t help it as this was an outlet run under franchise contract and the closure was its owner’s business… Back home I found the old leaflet which contained the number of CP’s sales representative. He agreed to visit us at home and came around some two hours later. A man in his 50’s seemed to have had problems finding a better job and was forced to foist CP upon people. Clunky but honest, he didn’t persuade us to buy a mobile phone with CP, nor to order extra TV packages. Having acquainted with offer we plumped for internet + sat TV bundle and placed an order. The rep was to hand over the order to a technician who would be supposed to contact us and deliver a satellite dish, a decoder and internet devices.

14 April 2011 – till then nobody got in touch with us. My father called the rep, who said he had forgotten about the order, but promised to mend his ways.

15 April 2011 – the technician called and said he would turn up with equipment and contracts the other day. He told us to wait all day long for him because he didn’t knew when he would be able to come…

16 April 2011 – a quarter before nine the technician called to let us know he would be in ten minutes. My father told firmly the technician and his assistant would start installing the dish only after he finished reading the contract. Ten minutes upon their arrival technician were drilling holes in the wall of our house and my father handed me the contract and attachments to read it, as he didn’t… The contract included two factual errors (wrong prices), three understatements and lacked all attachments. I called the customer service of CP, learnt they have three lines, one for TV subscribers, one for internet and mobile phone subscribers and one for potential clients. Having talked to seven consultants after forty minutes I established I was right to have deemed the contract flawed. In the meantime the technician mistook the cardinal points and drilled four holes in the western wall of our house, which turned out not to be the southern wall. The holes remained but Mr technician did not give up and decided to fix the satellite dish to the existing aerial mast with terrestrial TV and radio aerials. He accidentally dismantled my FM aerial which provided excellent signal to my Hi-fi system, my father didn’t bother because the thought this aerial was totally superfluous. Finally we ended up with not signed contracts, satellite dish hung and wires attached to the outer wall and pulled into the drawing room. An hour after the technician left wires came off the wall. The rest of the day was spent on fixing the wire back to the wall and laying it under baseboards in the drawing room.

21 April 2011 – they came again, installed everything and now it even works.

Internet connection, compared to Play Online works like a miracle, TV is OK, hope further dealings with customer service will not be a pain in the neck…

Who couldn’t care less...

Apologies for not posting last weekend. The profound reason for that negligence was coming down with some undiagnosed illness. It came to me as a surprise. The last time I had been ill in March 2001 and from then on I managed to forget how to feels to have fever or sore throat. Luckily, I’ve almost recuperated (still suffering from some irksome irritation in the throat), so it’s time to catch up…

Prior to coming down with no one knows what, I finally saw the (in)famous public debt meter installed in the very hub of Warsaw. I took the photo to the right on 13 October, so the outstanding debt of the Polish state has risen within ten days by probably some few hundred million PLN. “It’s not the matter how much you owe, the point is how much you earn”, some economist argue. Indeed if you earn one million PLN a year and have to repay a loan of 100,000 PLN you are better off than an unemployed couple with five children who can’t make ends meet and have 1,000 PLN to repay. When it comes to a state an indicator of relative indebtness is debt-to-GDP ratio. In Poland it runs at around 54%. Is it a lot? Japan’s debt has almost reached 200% of its GDP, the country’s economy is stagnating, but nothing heralds an imminent collapse of Japanese public finances. Greek debt-to-GDP ration exceeds 110% and in May 2010 Greece faced serious problems rolling over it. At the same time the same ratio in Italy was five percentage points higher, but financial markets perceived default of Greece as much more probable than Italy’s. In United States public debt accounts for around 80% of its gross domestic product and US bonds are still rated AAA. German public debt has reached record-high levels, but yields on German bonds are the lowest in the history (what makes borrowing very cheap for German taxpayers). Is there any logic in it?

So is 54% a lot? Much depends not only on how much revenues the state collects, but also on how much it spends structure the spending. In Poland rigid government expenses determine the growth of public debt.

Is 54% a reason to worry? Thousands of people pass the display with the meter by every day and they don’t care. Who’s going to pay it off? They? Their children? The state? If the state then who? Who is the state? The prime minister Tusk? The finance minister Rostowski? Do they realise majority of them are Polish state’s creditors? Most of them obligatorily put aside money in pension funds, which are obliged to hold at least 60% of their portfolio in Polish gilts. Some of them put their savings into bond funds (which hold mostly government bonds), some buy government bonds directly. Have they ever thought Polish state could one day go default? Do they realise interest they earn is nothing else but taxes paid by their relatives, friends, neighbours and by… themselves?

Does the government care about the meter? They say in comparison to other, wealthier states, our relative indebtness is negligible and there is no reason to worry. If the European Commission gives consent for not counting government bonds bought by pension funds into public debt, our debt-to-GDP ratio will plunge by around ten percentage points. I dread to see the complacency of minister Rostowski’s face when this creative-accounting decision is passed.

Does the opposition care about the meter? No, they have other stuff to gripe about. Besides, the thoughtless economic policy PiS-led government pursued when they were in power only exacerbated out debt problem. When the economy was thriving, instead of amassing a budget surplus, not only did they fail to reduce the public debt, but they cut revenues and raised spending. Thanks to that pro-cyclical move we are where we are and we wasted the chance to carry through some unpopular reforms when their negative effects could have been mitigated. Minister Rostowski was right to say someone from PiS should apologise to Poles for what their misconduct.

And ordinary people don’t care even if they see the “debt per capita”. Every Pole, including infants, disabled, pupils, senile old men owes 19,267 PLN. Whom do they owe? Partly themselves (individual bondholders), partly banks and investment funds from Poland and abroad. What if there was an initiative to crack down on the problem, chip in and pay it all off? I would join it. I would fork out 19,267 PLN of my savings if it could only help solve the problem. But let’s face it, the idea is completely unfeasible. Many Poles don’t even have so much money put aside, the stats include millions of people who don’t earn any money because they can’t. Most people wouldn’t agree to chip in and pay off our debts. Debts can’t be paid right away because bond holders wouldn’t agree to be paid off before bonds mature. Money would have to be collected and invested somehow, the whole process of paying off would last decades. And finally this one-off move wouldn’t solve structural problems, the debt spiral would just start over, after a few years with no incentives to cut spending the problem would relapse.

I wonder how financial markets would react to the decision of Polish government not to refinance its debt. In practice it wouldn’t be a decision not to issue new bonds, but the bonds would be issued on terms set by the government. It would be them who would beg us for issuing bonds, not us begging them to finance our debt. Interesting!

This burning issue could be addressed by some academics from my school, but I don’t believe it will ever happen. Students are believed to be have in innate tendency to bunk off, but from what I’ve noticed that affliction is rubbing off on lecturers. The fact that students are lazy is commonly known, but the fact scholars are lazy and don’t even bother to pretend they aren’t becomes embarrassing. I observe how laziness and ignorance are becoming a virtue. This is how the Polish higher education system is going downhill. Students want to put as little effort as possible and lecturers simply play along with them, because they find it convenient. Soon no classes will be held, students won’t have to attend them, lecturers will be paid anyway, in the exam period easy exams on which everyone cheats will be held. Happy students will get their diplomas, a bunch of wankers will get paid and thus will also be happy, nobody will get tired and that’s the point!

Within last two weeks I found out that:
1. If a lecture starts ten minutes later, it is a sufficient reason to finish it ten minutes earlier and have a fifteen minutes long break. Ninety minutes shrink to sixty five. And everyone is happy.
2. The blue chip index of Paris Stock Exchange is CACK 40. And Mr Lecturer thought it very clever of him to hit students with such an English-language joke.
3. And last but not least during the workshop I found out I even can’t lie so I don’t deserve to be called a student. („pan oszukiwać nie umie, co z pana za student?”)

I’ve felt like a sucker many times in life, given that I’m generally straightforward this feeling will be haunting me, but this time it wasn’t just an insult to me (I couldn’t be even assertive enough to respond to it without striking back), but it bore testimony to what set of values is instilled in students. Appalling. And, to make it worse, no one will stand up to it!

Alright, the school is bringing me down, but I’ve got just three months left there. And what after I graduate? I should look out for a job…

It’s not an easy task, some people have more luck than others. For instance, this year’s graduate, daughter of current finance minister, aged 23, was fixed up with a cushy job in Polish Foreign Ministry. According to the Ministry’s spokesman, previous translators did their job poorly and minister Sikorski was dissatisfied with them (here I do believe it, after seeing korpus dyplomatyczny translated as “diplomatic corpse” and dziękujemy za gościnność as “we thank for your hostility” I know anything’s possible) and decided to fire them and take on his fellow minister’s daughter. Since then, all minister’s speeches and official writings have been edited by Ms Rostowska who ensures they are all written in impeccable English.

Ms Rostowska is not well-known public figure, so journalist paid by hostile media had to go an extra mile to find any photo of her. The only one they procured was her profile picture from facebook (right) which proves her impeccable credentials, high qualifications and fondness for modern art. This photo disappeared from all main news sites after Ms Rostowska filed several request to remove it and now it can be found on some niche sites only. For no apparent reason the news item also has been removed from most main sites, but what has once been put into Internet will remain there forever and info about Ms Rostowska career circulates around the Net.

I screwed it all up and can’t boast about no prior experience as Mr Rostowska (if she hadn’t worked during her studies, what they hell do they do in England?), but if it happens that I have to look for a job next year, I’ll have to set a new photo as a profile picture on facebook. In the foreground: me, wielding a bottle of plonk, in the background, a board saying “I feel like shagging a young piece of arse” (mam ochotę przelecieć jakąś młodą dupę). Will it boost my chances on labour market? If a recruiter from the company I worked for this summer had found my blog (I try to keep it rather anonymous, but I didn’t do so at the beginning), would it make a problem to find my profile on facebook?

Yes, I admit, I am nasty and malicious, but that’s the way of coping with absurdities.

Next week I’ll post a book review – will be nicer!

Entrapped by the freedom

This is one of few postings that really fits the title of the blog. Prompted by Adthelad I finally found three hours to watch “The Trap” – a documentary by Adam Curtis, broadcast by BBC in March 2007. Instead of reviewing the film, I’ll have a try on commenting on most of the concepts outlined in it. Sorry for a bit chaotic post, high temperature combined with high air humidity is not conducive to writing, believe me…

1. Is the freedom we experience true or is it just an illusion?

2. Human nature – the authors of the documentary quote many theories, according to which humans are self-serving, dishonest, pursue their own advantages at the expense of others. It seems that a goal of an average man is to outwit his fellow man. No matter how true that notion is, the question which is still hard to answer is whether those bad traits are inborn or are they shaped over the course of upbringing? Some research carried out both in developed societies and in pristine communes prove the heart of human selfishness and cruelty lies in our genes. If those behavioural patterns are instinctive and all attempts to root them out are doomed to fail, the rational conclusion is to learn to get on with them and to harness them to make our lives easier. The answer according to some thinkers is to design a society based on natural leanings – if humans pursue their own interests, the most efficient system is such giving room for unleashing our obscure instincts and behaving rationally, on the basis of cool calculations. In such an environment, clever creatures surely are aware that their fellow men will try to outwit them, what results in social interaction based on mistrust and suspicions. Other people are your rivals, life becomes a race, the goal is to hit your enemy before he hits you…

3. Game theory – maybe this concept does not answer one of basic questions – whether people are good or bad by nature, but rather puts emphasis on readiness to cooperate. As some scientists point out, all our moves have to be in line with strategising – anticipating what other people will do or think. Game theory was put into practice on a large scale during the cold war and actually it founded the moves of both enemies on fear – but is fear bad? In finance – yes, in life – just take a look… Social and legal sanctions prevent us from committing crimes, not our conscience – the authors argue. So is it true that we don’t kill one another, don’t steal goods from one another mostly because punishments hold us back from doing it?

4. Politics – post-WW2 notions of the state stressed the importance of strong administration which would protect people from blows dealt by the invisible hand of free market (which, as said in the third episode of the film, doesn’t exist). A lean state can’t cope with all problems and control everything so an overgrown bureaucratic apparatus has to be created. With time, bureaucracy becomes an independent structure which pursues its own advantages and no longer focuses on helping people. Instead, a maze of procedures, regulations, laws, documents begins to hinder actions taken by the humans. In economics, some individuals get discouraged and have no more patience for striving for anything, what translates into lower economic growth rates. The way to overcome that tendency was introducing mechanisms which would make use of the dark side of human nature – so if state officials are indeed self-serving, their stance ought to pay off!

5. Performance targets – was a crucial tool harnessed to achieve the goal described above. Unfortunately, the creators of that solution probably failed to predict wicked humans would always find was to circumvent the rules of the system. Bank salespeople were walking around cemeteries and taking down names of the deceased to sell them credit cards. Hospital managers removed the wheels from wheelchairs to cut down on the number of patients on wheelchairs. In communism there were plans, przodownicy pracy and some other absurdities, figures in the plans were deliberately lowered to exceed it, now the race towards efficiency makes workers focus on the targets. The pressure to reach inflated goals creates temptation to tamper with figures. Thank God my job is assessed on the basis of quality, not quantity. A system of targets was meant to encourage individuals and teams to compete (like on constructions sites of socialism), in turn the outcome was often opposite as in the case of school rankings – rich children go to better schools, clever, but poor go to worse one and so the gap is growing!

6. Having touched upon the schooling, the film raises also the issue of social mobility, limited in the culture of freedom. Here what comes to mind is a question about the role of government in fighting inequality. In my view, governments should target inequality and keep it on optimum level, that is not so big that it hampers development (the poor stand no chance of social advancement, so there is no incentive to even try) and not so low that there is no incentive for striving any goals. On optimum level, the state offers opportunities for those who are too poor to receive proper education but have potential to grow and then leaves them alone as grown-ups. A sustainable development is in long-term impossible with high inequalities – those disadvantaged will sooner or later vote for populists who will point at the guilty of their misery and the effects of toppling the old system will be piteous.

7. Maths and numbers generally have become a new deity for the advocates of the new system. But think if everything can be measured and calculated – quality, satisfaction, happiness, freedom? Can we use complex mathematical models to describe economy? Would they prove useful on stock markets where prices are driven by decisions of millions of investors, which in turn are driven by thousands of more or less rational premises? My take on the issue is that psychological phenomena generally are very hard to measure and sometimes bringing in numbers might bring more harm than good.

8. Who the hell has the right to adjudicate what is normal and what not? Human character and psyche are too complex to be described with numbers and even if someone does so, it would mean unification – the same model for all people, when people are so different. Who wants to kill humanity by killing diversity, when beauty of mankind consists in diversity. Who created a culture of happiness, ideal traits, perfect people, etc? The pursuit of the ideal pushes millions of people into mental disorders every year. Young, ambitious, creative, flexible, clever, slim, brave, dynamic, enthusiastic, open-minded, sun-tanned, well-travelled, well-dressed, go on for hours… There is an image of ideal woman / man, but when the pursuit of ideals contributes to our development and when it leads up to obsessions? If you don’t fit in, should you feel worse off? Are those who want to break away from the rigid codes of happiness labelled mad?

9. And finally, let’s ask what the freedom actually is. There is a distinction between positive and negative liberties. The former is identified with leftist concept of freedom, the latter with the rightist. This has not been mentioned in the film, but notice that right-wing and left-wing politicians define freedom in different ways. Lefts will say you’re free to have an abortion, rights will tell you should be free from tax burdens… The most absurd thing is that freedom can be imposed – as no one can be forced to be happy, no one can be forced to be free. Freedom is not built in to many cultures and people have been getting on with it for centuries, as in Muslim societies, now somebody wants to step in and say he knows better. Attempts of imposition of freedom ended up with violence and cruelty. I also think military interventions were not launched to liberate suppressed nations but for other ends. And end justifies the means…

WARNING - The passage above is quite obnoxious.

Imagine dear reader you and I sit in a bar, sip beer, but you’re despondent, have some problems and can’t really enjoy the meeting. Your face shows sadness, but I want you to have fun because it’s good for you. You can’t overcome the sadness so I shout at you and tell you I want to see a f**king smile on your f**king face. When you don’t smile I grow impatient and beat you to a pulp and finally you smile, out of pure fear that in the next bout of anger I may break your limbs, crunch your ribs, scoop out your eyes. Is what is written above normal?

So what the word ‘freedom’ means? For me – RESPONSIBILITY, readiness to be bear consequences of my deeds and decisions, not the right to do whatever I want and not pursuit of my happiness. And the role of a government is to protect me, but not from myself, but from other self-serving people.

Many threads are deliberately unfinished just to trigger a discussion.

How (not) to apply for a job in English

This blog would have been deficient in valuable postings if there hadn’t been a month without bad-English rant. In the next episode of the series your favourite blogger is cracking down on a letter of application he has found somewhere in the Polish Internet.

At the beginning of the week I had to face a challenge of writing a letter of application in English. Whenever I speak about list motywacyjny with my Polish friends, we end up coming to a conclusion that applicants usually write there so-called pierdoły (hard to translate Polish phrases, in this context meaning “everything and nothing”). We all prefer filling in application form, where we provide the company with all information it wants to have about us and answer specific questions – any both parties are happy.

This time, although I know general rules and layout of this sort of letters, I felt slightly insecure and decided to look for some examples of letters of application in the Net. Out of a habit, I visited the most popular Polish portal for job-seekers to find this baffling example of use of English. (Needless to say I eventually wrote the letter myself)

The author of the guide snows her readers with several priceless advice, such as:

W angielskim liście również w innym miejscu umieszcza się dane nadawcy i firmy – data i dane firmy są po lewej stronie, a twoje nieco wyżej, po prawej. W angielskich standardach obowiązuje również system blokowy – nowy akapit od nowej linijki, bez wcięcia.

As far as I’m concerned there are two layouts:
1. British (also called semi-blocked), where addresser appears at the top, to the right, below, also to the right you put date and further down, to the left you place addressee, new paragraphs start with indentions.
2. American (also called fully-blocked), where everything is aligned to the left, paragraphs have no indentions, but are separated by a gap.

Nie wygłupiaj się! Jeśli nie znasz języka na tyle, żeby samodzielnie napisać list motywacyjny po angielsku, to nawet nie zaczynaj!

Scroll down to check if the author of this sentence practises what she preaches.

Przeczytaj, ale nie przepisuj! Każdy list powinien być unikalny, a wzory są tylko po to, aby czerpać inspirację!

Rewrite the masterpiece below? Who’s so determined to have their application rejected right away? That would be a shot in a foot! But this letter definitely filled me with inspiration – to compile this post.

LIST MOTYWACYJNY

For sure every recruiter who doesn’t know Polish well will understand this title.

Mateusz Wiśniewski

Tel. 505 000 000

mateusz.wisniewski@email.pl

Mr. Karol Napiórkowski

ABCD Company

HR Department

I still can’t make out to which layout the author sticks. The very content suggests it’s the American one, but the addresses made me stumped – left to the right, right to the left, the other way round, coincidental lack of punctuation, maybe some other features (Mr. Karol?) leave a more experienced reader devastated.

Now let’s tear the content into pieces…

Dear Mr. Napiórkowski,

I am writing in regards to your current Human Resources Development Project Manager opening of which I got to know from "XYZ newspaper", August 23, 2005.

With regard to the first sentence of your letter I would like to remind you that regards are at the end of a letter, a rather private one. Why does it seem to me that “XYZ newspaper” is Mr Wiśniewski’s buddy?

Having worked in this profession, I am strongly convinced that my former experience and competence will be of great value for your organization.

Has the experience been given the sack? How about words such as past or previous?

As a this year graduate of Psychology, I present a high level of human resources academic knowledge as my major course was "Psychology in HR Management".

This year’s series of nasty posts labelled ‘translation’ presents a high level of spitefulness of the author of this blog, as he specialises in seeking out absurdities.

During my studies I was involved in many HR projects e.g. preparing recruitment tests for temporary employment agencies. I also did a research of corporate recruiting strategies concerning my MA thesis.

Or was it your MA thesis that concerned recruitment strategies?

I was also given an opportunity to work as a chief career counselor in the University Career Office. Over the last year I have completed more than 30 recruitment campaigns, none of which turned out to be a failure (reference upon request).

Passive voice sounds a tad bombastic but let’s brush it aside and focus on the content. The applicant must be a born optimist. For a pessimist all campaigns (or rather projects) would prove successful, an optimist will write żadna z nich nie okazała się porażką. I like the Polish word porażka, it carries such a huge variety of meanings.

Irrespective of my age and short experience, I am able to contribute in the same matter to the success of your organization.

Irrespective (who cares if words like ‘despite’ exist at all) of my efforts to grasp the meaning of “in the same matter” part I still find myself unable to decipher author’s intentions…

HR projects lie in the sphere of my strong interest. Bearing a challenge of managing a group of people is a motivation itself for me.

Projekty z zakresu zarządzania zasobami ludzkimi leżą w sferze mojego mocnego zainteresowania. Poniesienie wyzwania jakim jest kierowanie grupą ludzi jest dla mnie motywacją samą w sobie. Maybe if I translate it into Polish someone realises what kind of drivel we are facing.

Moreover my professional experience allows me to motivate subordinates effectively. I am not afraid of confronting problems and have skills of solving them – thanks to my academic competence as well as my high level interpersonal skills.

Experience is short but professional… I am running out of bright ideas on how to confront the problem of subprime translations and my high level ridiculing skills are declining…

I am a responsible and at the same time spontaneous person and have been recognized as one who embraces creativity and new ideas.

I am writing this post and at the same time I am laughing out loud and wondering, in which context the verb ‘to embrace’ was used. Probably in none of three ones (to accept, to hug, to include) I know.

For more detailed information please refer to my enclosed resume. I am eager to further discuss my qualifications during the interview. Thank you in advance for your generous consideration.

The word chętnie is indeed not one those which translate easily into English, but English has a few fixed expressions which may be used in the final paragraph, for instance: I would be glad to…

I anyone wants to comment on the last sentence, please feel free to snow me with your generous considerations. Thank you from the mountain for your contribution.

Sincerely,

Mateusz Wiśniewski

(it’s not my real name, just a signature copied from the letter) By not adding ‘Yours’ the author shows he is quite thrifty – this shrewd move helps someone save on ink.

And today’s final part is an old chestnut – use of English by SGH staff.

Dear readers! Posting next post is canceled at 23 and 24 of April. Additional posting will be postponed from 26 of April to 25 of April.