Outdoor gym

The first outdoor gym I spotted was the set of equipment next to Multikino Ursynów, in mid-2014. The second, which I not only glanced at, but also I tried out was the one in Ursus, on Easter Sunday this year (despite the chill). The third, which I grew fond of, was on a hill in Szczawno-Zdrój (back at times when the area was not famous).

The fourth one, I have been doing my best to use at least once a week, is next to the pond in Mysiadło. Photo by Kurier Południowy.

It has been here for almost a year. Locals were urging a very active councillor from Mysiadło to lobby for some exercising facilities near the pond. The very area, though located in the vicinity of lots of dwelling, has been infamous for being a hangout for local fans of alcoholic beverages, including those under age. With the appearance of some infrastructure, i.e. new benches, rubbish bins, the gym; after cleaning up the pond and tidying up the surrounding area, better days have come for the place. Local drunkards still sometimes hang around there, but the place is now often full of young parents walking or playing with their offspring, local pensioners and anglers.

The cost of the gym has not burnt a hole in gmina Lesznowola’s budget – for mere 25 thousand zlotys a few machines have been installed and to my surprise, they have not been vandalised. The facilities are in fact solid and have been solidly attached to the ground, so it would take months of workout to build up muscles strong enough to wreck or spoil them.

I typically go there each Sunday morning. Saturday mornings are reserved for swimming pool, so Sunday is ideal. I prefer the early hours, i.e. around 8 a.m., since odds of not having to wait until another community member gets off a piece of equipment are lower. Plus in the very hot August as we have experienced this year, 9 a.m. was often the last hour when temperature was bearable. Despite the small hour, however, I usually was not the only one to use it. The  morning-time users are generally older than me (from their 30s up to their approximately 70s), both females and males. Some stop over here during the morning jogging, some get off their bikes, take a few minutes of exercise and continue the ride, some come with their dogs and while a dog runs around, they work out. I don’t know how about later hours, but maybe youngsters also attend it.

Advantages, apart from the most obvious, namely that one works out – proximity, free usage and being in the open air, meaning one can also catch precious sunrays.

Drawbacks – scarcity of equipment (less than ten pieces) and no possibility to set the “heaviness” of the machines – either you strain too little or too much.

The outdoor gyms falls into the general trend of local authorities encouraging residents to keep fit. Cycling paths, sport fields (not only football pitches), swimming pools, outdoor gyms – having all of this around mobilises at least some sofa-ridden layabouts to move their arses and do something about their body. Just like investment in education theoretically should prevent structural unemployment, investments in citizens’ fitness should yield savings on health-care and elderly-care spending. The progress in medicine has already lengthened our lives considerably, now is the time to fend for the comfort of living, or to make it precise, to defer the moment it decreases as a result of ageing.

A little more comfort in the neighbourhood

Ul. Mleczarska, whose reconstruction has been tracked on PES since late 2014 (most recently in late May 2015) has finally been opened. The completion deadline of 30 June 2015 has actually been met, since in the last days of June the street was virtually ready (and passable), but the official opening on 6 August was for no apparent reason outshined by another ceremony.

Looking north from the intersection of ul. Mleczarska, ul. Słoneczna and ul. Sękocińska. All photos taken on 20 August around 7 p.m. Holiday period this year reached its peak in August and traffic remains sparse. Sun illuminates the road and fields in Stara Iwiczna, turned yellow due to shortage of precipitation…

The railway crossing with the Siekierki single-track line was built in June, as one of the last parts of the whole development. Looking west, towards the sun, about to set in an hour. In the distance, left to the track, a playing field in Stara Iwiczna, built under the high-voltage electricity wires…

As part of the reconstruc- tion, slopes up to the level crossing have been flattened and lengthened. In July the terrain west to ul. Mleczarska occupied for months by huge earth-mounds, was also levelled. Finally one also knows the plots are a private property (though not fenced off). The owner of this land virtually sleeps on money. I have not checked the zoning plans for the area, yet location-wise the spot is perfect both for residential development and for services. The only drawback is the vicinity of the rail track. Although trains do not run here often, but while heavy sets of wagons with coal trundle, folks in the nearby dwellings presumably experience a little earthquake.

The roundabout at the intersection with ul. Energetyczna. Sizeable, splendid, yet lanes are narrow enough to force drivers to slow down to no more than 30 kmph. Nevertheless, the traffic solutions applied, namely separate lanes for right-turns, smooth the traffic out, especially if we bear in mind Poles still tend to get confused when they approach a roundabout.

Civilisation has crept in. Compare the pics to the right to a series of snaps from roughly the same places taken in June 2011. Everything has fallen into place. Motorists have a decent road (I would argue speed bumps could be flatter), pedestrians a safe pavement, cyclists their riding path.

Once ul. Mleczarska was officially opened, another roadworks crew stepped in to revamp ul. Raszyńska in Piaseczno. Works kicked off all of the sudden on 8 August and 12 calendar days after that the street changed beyond recognition. New asphalt, no potholes, decent pavement. The intensity of infrastructure works could imply local elections are to be held this autumn…

Some finishing works will be done next weeks, lanes will need to be marked out, water drainage roadside ditches will need to be reinforced with concrete panels and I wonder whether speed bumps will be put in here. The signage reminds of the previous ones. I drove there 40 kmph and despite flat tarmack and considerable width of the road, the speed did not seem safe. Too many cars coming in and out of properties by the street, too many reckless cyclists and pedestrians trespassing onto the road without taking a trouble to look whether a vehicle is coming to make the customary urban area speed limit of 50 kmph suitable here. We could do with more discipline among all groups of traffic participants…

I only fear four years will not be enough for the government of PiS to lift my neighbourhood out of ruins.

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…

A trip to Lower Silesia

Probably each region of Poland has its unique climate, yet only the Lower Silesia can boast about unrepeatable style, architecture, landscape and… has something that beckons. One of the reasons why I find the region so compelling is that it contains lots of intact (or destructed, yet recently splendidly restored) heritage of the Germans who’d ruled it for centuries, until 1945. Part of Lower Silesia, including capital of the region, Wroclove, have been destroyed during the march of the Soviet Army towards Berlin at the end of WW2, yet the areas south-west of Strzegom and Legnica shunned the fate of becoming battlefields. Most residents of those areas were driven away to Germany shortly after the war, leaving the whole cities and villages to flowing in settlers from central Poland and pre-WW2 eastern lands incorporated into the Soviet Union.

Whenever an opportunity to visit these places crops up, I do my utmost to seize it. Last such occasion was during the last weekend, which I extended by two days to make the trip economical time-wise and petrol-wise. Incidentally it must not pass unnoticed since the new S8 expressway linking Łódź and Wrocław was opened in November 2014, duration of a door-to-door journey by car has shortened to some 5 hours (including 15-minutes stopover and assuming driving at reasonable speed).

I had my lodgings in Szczawno-Zdrój, a Post-German sanatorium resort, which fulfils the role same role in Poland. To the right, a cure-water drinking house, in its Post-Prussian character, decently renovated.

Two types of tourist can generally be run across in Szczawno-Zdrój: either elderly inpatients from numerous sanatoria or young couples with small children. For both groups the town might be appealing, since those not fond of crowds, a plague of many Polish holiday resorts will find here peace of mind and few fellow tourists roaming around. To the right – a pedestrian precinct on early Saturday afternoon.

To the right – a snap from a nearby look-out tower erected on a small, yet steep hill. At first glance the panorama of Szczawno-Zdrój reveals its post-German history. I’m fond of this architecture. Note also the contrast between refurbished streets and how run-down some houses are. Although it’s not that bad here…

To the right – Dom Zdrojowy, the former Grand Hotel, luxurious spa built by Germans more than 100 years ago. Sadly, the standard of the edifice has little changed since then. The ground floor of the building serves as canteen for roughly 1,500 inpatients of this and other nearby sanatoria (two shifts for each meal), three upper floors offer accommodation for inpatients sent here under health insurance scheme. Standard room – 10 sqm for three persons, common bathroom for several rooms. Standard up-to-the-mark for young travellers searching for cheap hostel, not for people in their 60s or 70s coming here for three weeks to recharge batteries.

Wałbrzych, the core city of this part of Lower Silesia. Once seven black coal mines have been the key employers in the city. Today all mines have been closed, one fulfils a role of mining museum, and Special Economic Zones brining in foreign investors are meant to stem the migration out of the city and reduce unemployment. To the right, the town hall square in the very centre of the city. Sunday, before midday. Not a living soul around.

The beautifully renovated market square also is desolated. Area near the fountains is the hangout for local drunkards and for rowdy under-age hooligans. Searching for an open café in the vicinity on Sunday? I asked some locals strolling with their child in a pram, if there was any opened. They stared at me with disbelief and replied there was none, since no one would come there so there was no point in opening.

A peek from the market square between the buildings lays bare the penury of what is hidden between splendidly restored façades on the market square. A perfect illustration to the conflict whether Poland is in ruins or not. You can selectively pick out several examples of places which definitely are not in ruins and places which are in ruins; sometimes worlds apart means less than 100 metres away, as in this example.

And actually most parts of old Wałbrzych (I have not visited the areas where the city sprawled after 1945) look like this. An empty, depressing place, and to boot not the one in which one feels safe in broad daylight. I was slightly afraid to leave my car on Mazovian plates on the street in the centre of Wałbrzych, not because keeping the car there was genuinely dangerous, but because number plates revealed where its owner came from, a region which could be disliked by locals.

Świdnica, unknown even to most Poles, home to notable sights. The market square in the shape typical for Post-German areas, rectangle-shaped and with town hall building in the middle of it. The character of the place brings to mind Gdansk, Poznan and Berlin, while you stay in small town in Lower Silesia in which a famous flea market is held once a year.

Kościół Pokoju, put on Unesco list of heritage buildings, is a must-see destination in Świdnica. Erected in the seventeenth century has undergone thorough renovation in the last 10 years. There a few such places in Europe, hence it is particularly worth preserving.

Inside the church is even more breath-taking. Oddly enough, most visitors inside were Germans, who happen to visit the lost fatherland and appreciate the heritage left here much more by Poles. Or maybe are just more eager to fork out 10 PLN for the entrance fee.

Historically the evangelic church “competed” with the cathedral located within a walking distance from it. The church is open to visitors and nearby facilities are the head office of Kuria Świdnicka. What immediately catches one’s sight are expensive cars (they could be parked next to corporate fleet of the New Factory and you would not distinguish between the two) and anti-abortion posters.

In terms of timing, I was fortunate to venture there when weather was perfect – except for the last day, temperature barely above +20C and sunny or slightly overcast. What ensued later was the heat wave which will definitely go down in the history of meteorology in Poland as one of the longest and most intense. August 2015 stands a chance of being the warmest month in the history of Poland, beating July 2006 (average temperature in Warsaw: +23.5C). The heat wave will deserve a separate posting, due when it draws to a close (I hope it comes to an end soon, but weather forecasts leave little hope for day-time highs below +30C until 20 August).

Worlds apart

The girl

When I joined the New Factory she was already there. I passed her by each day several times while walking past the reception desk on our floor. She looked twenty and I thought she was a weekend-mode student working as an assistant to earn money for her university tuition fee.

Normally the occupation of a receptionist is treated as temporary. Usually students take up such mundane jobs to earn a livelihood, sometimes to fill their CVs and then they move on to more ambitious positions. This is not the case here.

She is quite sociable. Easily hits it off with everyone, yet her come-and-go attitude does not help her build true friendships. With time it turns out she is 45 days younger than me, yet since I was born in December and she in January the next year, she finished her studies a year later (in 2012). As a child she was an actress, in her career she had some impressive roles in films and TV series. If you tap her name into google, you will find her more-or-less up-to-date photos and learn in 2012 she graduated from the Faculty of Law and Administration of the Warsaw University (full-time studies). Tens of fans are wonder what she’s doing.

The job with a New Factory is the first one she has held on to for more than one year and the first one in which she has a regular job contract, involving all rights, privileges and pension contributions, rather than a junk contract. Actually she only cares about the type of contract for only one reason: with a regular labour-code-governed contract she is entitled to 20 days of paid holidays a year. Until now when she felt like going somewhere, she’d quit her job and upon return looked out for a new one. None of her jobs was anyhow related to what she had studied, comparing to what her studies should have prepared her for, all her previous jobs (and the current one) seemed actually well below her competencies.

She likes the job with the New Factory. It involves meeting lots of people and chatting to them, keeping them company during lunches, making a morning coffee to a management board member. She appreciates the fact her job involves no strain and no stress. Office workers around her have hectic days, face pressures, get irate easily. She doesn’t understand their quandaries and is glad her job is so carefree, despite the fact she earns just a fraction of what her stressed-out workmates get paid. Her salary is just enough to meet her basic needs: cosmetics, clothes, weekend clubbing, holidays; a very decent pocket money. Her parents with who she lives seem to put up with her lifestyle and her grandpa whose car she uses (and once a month she leaves the vehicle, grandpa fills it up and then she picks it up with full tank of petrol) also seems to be quite tolerant.

While we lunched last week, she told me to look at her and asked what I thought she should be doing in life. After turning down several ideas she had come up with, I suggested she should search for a job in which she could make use of the knowledge accumulated during five years of law studies. She nodded her head, pulled a face, nearly burst into tears and said it would need to involve some strain.

She backs PO. She believes PiS is backward and would bring nothing good for Poland. She tells Mrs Szydło should return to the sack (Szydło wróć do worka, a pun stemming from a Polish idiom, when reversed meaning bad things should come out of light).

The neighbours

They have lived in NI since ever, their parents as well. They were on this land years before building houses on this suburb became all-the-rage in the 1990s. They sold little of the land they had had, since the family was big and a sizeable plot was needed to put up houses for all the children.

The neighbour is the local, his wife comes from eastern Poland. They met the time he was breeding foxes in late 1970s. They got married and prospered well until 1989 when exports of fox furs to the former Soviet Union came to a halt and consequently their business went bust. In the new reality they engaged in some trade with the former Soviet Republics, yet as they were shuttling between NI and the borders, four children they had at the time began to be brought up on the street. Then they switched to local trade and opened a stall on the former biggest bazaar of the CEE, where today the National Stadium is. Golden times have gone by and for more than a decade the neighbour and his wife have been jobless. They do not need to. Their properties are large enough to sublet rooms for construction workers (20 PLN per person a day, yet in black economy) and officially let a larger hall for a company (here already a registered business, generating a recurring stream of income of a few thousand per month).

Their older son (32) is a successful graduate of a technical university. While he was approaching graduation, his professors had a high opinion of him and recommended him for a few positions which could give him prospects of brilliant career. Eventually he has not taken up any of those jobs. I have no idea, whether potential employers have rejected his candidacy or whether he turned down all those jobs, because they would have interfered with his academic career, namely the doctoral studies he began eight years ago and in the meantime suspended for a year; his PhD is still pending.

Their younger son (29) according his parents’ ambition was meant to firstly finish studies and then to find a job with a town hall. Unfortunately, so far there was no job offered to him there, while the family’s ambitions are put on hold, the son takes up temporary jobs on construction sites (he indeed is a dab hand).

Two daughters (27 and 25) have finished studies and work as shop assistants in one of clothing retail chains’ shops, most probably also on junk contracts. The youngest daughter (14) keeps learning and watches her parents and older siblings staying at home or dabbing in dead-end job. What are the chances she pursues a career ambitious people want to make?

Despite the fact the family consists of seven people they easily make ends meet. They have a variety of sources of income: rent from their corporate tenant, some cash from construction crews renting rooms, the neighbour’s sickness benefits, the older son’s assistant salary, the younger son’s wages from construction sites, the daughters’ salaries from the retailer. Except for the office rent proceeds, these are most probably peanuts, yet add up to a sum which allows the family to meet their basic meets. Fair enough.

The neighbour and his family hankers after PRL, yet votes for PiS, despite not being totally fond of all points of the party’s agenda. Yet PiS passes muster, it will restore law and order in Poland, take away the wealth from the elites to give it to ordinary people and put behind bars all thieves and cons who currently run the country.

In the descriptions above I did my utmost to include only facts and avoid expressing any opinions on how other people choose to live. Yet there must be a reason why I have decided to post the two stories. Every time I read in a newspaper or in the Internet about my peers as a “lost generation” (stracone pokolenie) I wonder whether it is the system or the people (the ever-lasting question) that should be blamed for the failures of many of the youngsters…

Next weekend I’m off, next post in two weeks.

Company cars

My job, though my position should be categorised as middle-office rather that front-office, involves more or less frequent meetings with clients and site visits at clients’ premises. Also not all clients have their offices / facilities in major cities which can boast about decent rail links with Warsaw. The less convenient to reach a client’s location is and the more numerous a group of the New Factory’s representatives is, the more reasonable and economical it is to travel by (company) car.

In my position I am not and will never be eligible to have a company car at my own disposal, but I am entitled to drive any company car while taking a business trip. I also don’t have access to corporate mailbox in my company smartphone, hence my front-office colleagues happen to ask to drive if they are busy responding to e-mails or need to be in touch with clients, or simply if the trip is so tiresome that it is wise someone else takes over the steering wheel. For this reasons over the recent weeks I had a chance to compare some vehicles against one another and to my 12-year-old, yet still holding up well, Megane.

So far I have counted five cars I had had the opportunity to try out.

1. Open Corsa D, 1.0 litre. The general impression is that what proves sufficient in city driving does not have to be up to the mark for longer trips and especially in motorway driving. The tiny engine allows the car to reach the speed of 100 kmph in 18 seconds if only the driver seat is occupied. If three of four people are on board (don’t even try squeezing five adults into this vehicle!), it takes a lot of time and revving up the engine to 5-6k to reach the target speed of let’s say 120 kmph at which you don’t feel safe anyway.

2. Volkswagen Passat B7, 1.4 litre, 150 hp. Actually a very decent car, offering respectable combination of dynamics, fuel efficiency and comfort for the driver and passengers. Turbo-charged engine is more than enough to speed up the car perkily and offers decent elasticity (from the passenger seat I observed another person pushing the accelerator pedal to the floor at the speed of 45 kmph and on fifth gear and the car obediently picked up speed without lurching or whining, yet I felt sorry for the engine being a victim of such horrific driving technique). Maybe the only drawback is not a very intuitive dashboard, but there’s no accounting for taste, as the saying goes. A nice car, but why the hell should one fork out some 100,000 PLN to get a brand-new one (currently it’s impossible, since VW has rolled out Passat B8), for a private purchase, a waste of money.

3. Opel Insignia (before 2013 face-lift), 1.6 litre, 182 hp. Since Renault Laguna is hardly ever purchased as fleet car, the notorious title of the queen of the trailers (królowa lawet) has been given over to Opel’s D segment car. Reliability of Opel cars produced over the recent decade has received a lot of bad publicity and opinions I heard from friends, parents’ friends and from Opel’s users from the Employer and the New Factory only confirm it. The one I drove did not break down on the road, but was so neglected that driving required a lot of caution. I drove it in June but the car was still on winter tyres. As it turned out, since the car was due for replacement in July (last Wednesday it indeed change hands, I feel sorry for the hapless new owner), the fleet manager decided it would have cost too much to buy a new set of summer tyres (old ones went astray). Condition of brakes also left a lot to be desired. Actually my key impression is that it’s not difficult to find a car with lower mileage than my Megane’s and much younger than my Megane, whose condition is inferior to my Megane. The new owner probably thought he had chased a bargain by buying a six-year old Insignia with mere 70,000 kilometres on the clock (odometer not rolled back). In fact the car had oil changed only twice and the first user drove mostly short distances and though the engine was not warmed up, her feet pressed the accelerator pedal heavily. I’m glad I won’t have to sit behind the wheel of that car any more, yet on the basis of it I can’t form an unbiased opinion on it.

4. Toyota Corolla, 1.6 litre, 132 hp. This car is used by a guy who drives very well and cares after the car a lot and has taken effort to run it in properly. Compared to turbocharged engines the impression should not be extraordinarily good, yet it is. The well-maintained vehicles runs smoothly, gearbox is precise, engine is nearly silent and dynamics between 2k and 3k revolutions is more than decent and better than in my Megane. Toyota, like many Japanese carmakers, holds back from embracing downsized, turbocharged petrol-fuelled engine and claims it will beat European competitors by offering superior reliability. I can say nothing of it, yet the engine has one drawback – fuel consumption is some 0.5 litre per 100 km higher than in my Megane (8.8 litres per 100 kilometres in trip consisting of 50% city, 50% motorway).

5. Mazda 6, 2.0 litre, 140 hp. Not a part of corporate fleet, yet given for a test drive for some reason by Mazda distributor in Poland. Mazda’s two-litre Skyactiv technology engine, a pride and joy of the carmaker and wonderful alternative to all-the-rage downsized engines, after a 200-kilometre trip turned out to be just a no-frill motor. The car looks well (albeit chunkily) and such limousine could make a good part of remuneration package for a senior manager in a pre-retirement age. When revolutions are low, the car runs smoothly and silently, yet to squeeze dynamics out of it, you need to rev it up above 4k and the engine is then unbearably loud. My impressions from driving can be distorted by the fact the car had tens of drivers before me and has not been run in properly. Key drawbacks I would list are: gear lever whose precision leaves a lot to be desired, low elasticity of the engine (if at the speed of 20 kmph you downshift to second gear, the engine chokes) and high fuel consumption, typical for old-times 2.0 litres engines (nearly 10 litres per 100 kilometres in motorway driving at steady speed of 140 – 150 kmph).

And recently I also took my father’s Megane III 1.4 litre, 130 hp for a longer run. The car is well-maintained, after 4 years of sparing usage has only 23,000 kilometres mileage (including five several-hundred-kilometre trips) and is well run-in and must say is no worse than any of the cars I reviewed above.

So what really matters?

Size? Compact car is more than enough for any purpose, yet for people travelling long distances and on motorway, B-segment cars are not the most recommendable.

Engine? Maybe you have noticed none of the cars had a diesel engine. I also prefer petrol-fuelled ones, especially those turbocharged which offer really decent dynamics and low fuel consumption. Diesels, although consume even less fuel, are more expensive to maintain (more defects possible and repairs are more costly), plus in winter they can be the pain in the arse.

But what really matters the most is how the car is driven and cared for. Most post-fleet cars are used by people who care little because it’s not their own vehicle and it will be replaced after a specified period or mileage. Buying such car, unless you know who and how used it, is a purchase of a pig in a poke. Usually buying a used car due to negative selection (why my Megane’s not for sale?) involves high risk of unpleasant surprises, therefore I keep my car going reliable and in two or three years, I will replace it with a brand-new one.

It’s the economy, stupid

Thorough economic debate is a phenomenon so seldom witnessed in the public discourse in Poland that any reason seems justified to spark it off. Recently the widespread discussion has been triggered by Mrs Beata Szydło, candidate for the prime minister if PiS wins the autumn parliamentary election, who unfolded key points of her party’s economic agenda. As it often happens ahead of the election, politicians tend to be open-handed in their promises, but this time the generosity might have gone too far, since both politicians and economic pundits have taken the trouble to quantify the promises and check whether the figures hold water…

Politicians of PiS claim their ideas are absolutely feasible and the spending spree they propose will be matched by new sources of budget revenues. Their opponents from the Civic Platform and most experts point out the calculations of PiS are flawed and reckless inclination to throw about money would head Poland towards where Greece is now. Let’s have a look then on how much happiness the Lawful and the Just wish to give Poles if they get hold of power.

1)      Raising tax allowance to PLN 8,000 from current PLN 3,091.

- Truth be told, tax allowance in Poland is one of the lowest in Europe and well below the poverty line, plus it has not been increased along with inflation since 2009. But if are to compare ourselves against other European countries, we also need to take notice of the fact tax rates are higher there than in Poland.

- My proposal is then to simplify the tax system and bring in more effective progression by introducing an even higher tax allowance, let’s say PLN 16,000 and introduce a flat personal income tax rate of 32% (the current highest rate). Thus we would achieve effective tax progression, since the tax rate for an individual would be somewhere between 0% and 32% and increase linearly along with earnings.

- Cost of the proposal estimated by me: 24,400,000 * 18% * (PLN 8,000 – PLN 3,091) = PLN 21,560,328,000

- assumptions: 1) number of personal income tax payers: 24,400,000, 2) marginal tax rate: 18%,

- shortcomings of my assumptions: 1) multiplier effects from higher tax income and GDP growth on account of higher consumption are not taken into account, 2) other tax credits, e.g. child allowance also have been neglected.

2) Giving a child benefit for every second and next child of PLN 500 per month.

- My only question here is how to define the second and next children. Calculations are impeded by unclear definition of a child (until what age your offspring is a child and whether this depends on whether they learn or earn?, on the basis of what criteria the children would be counted – what if a woman has three children with three different men, or the other way round, i.e. a man has children with three different women?)

- I find the very concept ludicrous and see nothing else in it but pure giving away money from the public purse rather than encouraging people to have children.

- Cost of the proposal estimated by me: 10,879,729 * 40% * PLN 500 * 12 months = PLN 26,111,349,600

- assumptions: 1) a child is person aged less than 18 (if students are taken into account the cost would shoot up well above 30 billion PLN), 2) population of Poland is 38,580,600, 28.2% of which are not adults, 3) 40% of children would be eligible for the benefit – this is only an educated guess,

- shortcomings of my assumptions: 1) it is not clear, whether parents of students would also be entitled to benefits, 2) it is not clear when a child is “second and next”, 3) it is very hard to determine how many children would be “co-financed” with this benefit, 4) potential taxation of the benefit (or lack of it, of effects of tax deductions associated with it) is unknown, 5) multiplier effects have been neglected as well.

According to my estimations, only the two proposals would cost the budget around 48 billion  PLN yearly (vs. 29 billion PLN yearly according to calculations by PiS). If you look at the number of assumptions I have made and number of shortcomings I have listed, no wonder figures given by experts vary so much. To be fair, unless you reveal your (simplifying) assumptions and maths behind your calculations, you cannot hope to sound credible to me in the public discourse.

I do not dare to come up with a ballpark figure for the shortfall caused by reversing the pension age increase. The deficit in the government budget (which subsidises the social security system) by 2020 would probably not be substantial, yet thereafter (bear in mind in 2019 Poles either kick PiS out of the politics or it will be as entrenched as Mr Orban’s party in Hungary) outcomes of tampering with the pension age would be disastrous (also because tap with EU money will run dry in 2020).

On the other side of the budget, authors of PiS’ economic agenda point at three core funding sources for the merry expenditure programme.

1) The bank tax, to be levied on banks’ assets.

- My comment (disclaimer: I am a banking sector employee and my financial well-being might be jeopardised by the bank tax): such tax should penalise banks and other financial institutions for being involved in operations that do not contribute to well-being of a society, predominantly those which stray from the concept of traditional commercial banking (taking deposits and granting loans). I also wonder what the tax base would be: would those be total assets (including cash, treasury bonds, PPE, etc.), only financial assets, or maybe the tax base would be limited to the loan portfolio and whether there would be any risk weights on assets. Since the banking sector does not enjoy good publicity in Poland (banks have given ample reasons for being held in disregard), the idea of cutting back their mammoth profits with yet another tax should take fancy of many voters. On the other hands, most banks in Poland are controlled by foreign financial groups which have come to terms with the fact banking in Poland is no longer such great gold mine as it used to be. They will pass on the tax onto customers and since they will in unison have to bear the new burden, in unison they will raise fees and commissions for their customers, so in this very particular situation the arguments of PiS that free market and forces of competition will not let banks’ clients feel the impact of the new tax, are a daydream.

- Revenues from the proposal estimated by me: 1,500,000,000,000 * 0.39% = 5,850,000,000 PLN

- Assumptions: 1) total assets of the Polish banking sector: 1.5 trillion PLN (total financial sector’s assets in 2013 of PLN 2.1 trillion * 68% share of banks * 1.05 growth dynamics), 2) tax rate of 0.39% yearly, most often mentioned.

- shortcomings of my assumptions: 1) tax base and scope of entities subject to taxation have not been defined, 2) lower tax rates have been already mentioned by politicians of PiS since they slowly being to realise the bank tax proposal, compounded with relief for CHF-mortgage borrowers, could knock down some of the banks and necessitate a state-funded bail-out for depositors if their foreign owners decide to wash their hands clean of the Polish businesses.

2) Supermarket tax, being a turnover tax levied on retail chains with yearly sales above PLN 1 billion.

- My comments: the big chains of hyper-, supermarkets and discount shops, omnipresent in Poland and by dint of their economies of scale, offering less wealthy Poles an opportunity to buy stuff cheaply, also have become a scapegoat. A frequent argument in the debate on those shops is that taxes they pay are miniscule in relation to their revenues. Indeed, this is true, since most of those chains operate on very thin margins, yet their earnings are high due to scale of activity. For some of those chains, net margin is 1%, i.e. net profit of a company makes up 1% of total sales. Shareholders of such retail chains will have a choice either to increase prices of goods and pass on the tax to clients (more probable) or to wind down their businesses (impracticable). The former option is even more likely to materialise for the same reason as with banks – all big chains will be affected in the same way and therefore will react in the same way.

- Revenues from the proposal estimated by me: 150,000,000,000 * 1% = 1,500,000,000

- Assumptions: 1) total sales revenues of all big retail chains in Poland: 150 billion PLN, 2) tax rate of 1%

- Shortcomings of my assumptions: 1) publicly available data I cite are outdated (and thus biased downward) and may not cover all stores, since many companies decide not to disclose how much they earn (also resulting in downward bias), 2) the tax rate is unknown, but might vary from 0.5% to 2.0% according to some proposals.

3) The third and the broadest proposal is to increase the efficiency of tax collection system, curb tax evasion, crack down on illegitimate VAT reclaims. All the ideas are commendable and I wish well anyone who would take up doing so, yet I am sceptical about the effect and also would not dare to estimate the resultant additional budget revenues, nevertheless the figure of 50 billion PLN seems over-optimistic.

Interestingly, none of the critics of the PiS-designed giving-away scheme has noticed a crucial causation, namely the more money citizens have in their pockets, the higher the money supply. Growth in money supply, if not accompanied by proportionate growth in output, results in increased inflation. This in turn, assuming the central bank is independent, leads to higher interest rates with all consequences…

And interestingly, hypocrites from PiS, who allegedly care so much about the poorest, do little to redistribute wealth from those well-off. The proposal to reinstate the third tax bracket has been declined, probably to appease Mr Gowin (who has finally fallen into place and does not bring discredit on PO), yet this decision does not matter much, since those who potentially could be affected by signing the third tax bracket into law do not pay the personal income tax at all. 32% marginal tax rate affects in Poland the upper-middle class, around 2% of all personal income tax payers, those are usually senior managers at corporations, whose positions are too low to make them eligible for a managerial contract. Most of the people who really earn a lot (above 300,000 PLN before tax per year) are not employed under regular job contracts, but are sole proprietors who perform a contract for their employer. Outcomes for the state budget – marginal tax rate is 19% rather than 32%, social security contributions they pay are miniscule (in return they will receive a tiny pension benefit, but with such earnings would who cares?), same as health service system contributions. Taxes might be low for actual entrepreneurs, but the practice of paying corporate income taxes by corporate executives who are not entrepreneurs and do not risk their own money to develop their business ought to be finally put to an end!

My grandfather’s neighbour gives him outdated issues of Fakt, the leading Polish tabloid. Yesterday, while at my grandpa’s I grabbed one such paper and found this article… Maybe what Mr Sienkiewicz (cynically) says is the key to the door:

Przeciętny Kowalski patrzy na te autostrady, estakady, na ten dworzec, na cokolwiek innego… Jego podstawowe pytanie jest: a co ja z tego kurwa mam?! Gdzie jest ten pieniądz u mnie w portfelu? A nie że ma wypierdolonego orlika przed oknami, bo on ma w dupie tego orlika, podobnie ma tę autostradę w dupie! Bo dla niego jest pytanie o efekt rozbudzonych aspiracji, jak się rozbudziło aspiracje, to są pewne konsekwencje. Najpierw są takie aspiracje, aby państwo było bardziej umyte i bardziej przypominało to, co ma na Zachodzie albo co sobie wyobraża. A potem się aspiracje przesuwają do własnego portfela. I jest pytanie, co ja z tego mam.

Yes, Poland has remarkably moved ahead in terms of infrastructure. I travel a lot around the country these days and appreciate the possibility to get to Gdansk or Krakow by train within 3 hours, enjoy driving new motorways and expressways, but the progress has little impact on the standard of living of an average Pole. I follow the “Decrepit Poland” page on facebook. Authors of the page publish several photos a day to give lie to the propaganda story Poland has been ruined and needs to be rebuilt from scratch. Photos show progress, but are selective; round the corner beautiful market square gives way to dilapidated houses and inhabitants of provincial towns now care more how much they can buy in a shop for money they earn than whether the centre of the town has been refurbished.

Recent travels make me also wonder whether I also live in an ivory tower, how much I have in common with ordinary people living in Zgierz where I was on Friday. How much do I have in common with inhabitants of Wałbrzych where I’m heading tomorrow. Origins of PiS recent surge in support and PO’s waning popularity is the former’s ability to at least pretend they are close to ordinary people.

Greece on decline

Today citizens of Greece are about to decide in a referendum whether to agree on conditions of yet another bail-out package and fend off looming full-blown bankruptcy or reject austerity measures that on one hand keep Greeks on their knees, but on the other prevent the country from falling off the edge of chaos. In the previous sentence I have mentioned a full-blown bankruptcy, by which I mean the government would be unable of meeting its basic obligations towards the citizens. If effecting payments of pension benefits and other allowances ceases and the whole public sector would grinds to a halt, Greece will plunge into total chaos. In fact, since a few days Greece is formally insolvent, but in economic terms it has been bankrupt for more than five years, though much work has been put in to cover it up.

Looking back in time, the Greek crisis has been in overdrive since April 2010. To make a good comparison, recall how much time has elapsed since the Smolensk plane crash. For such long period of time Greece functions only thanks to drip of money from creditors.

Two questions which ought to naturally come to mind are:

1) why has the ordeal lasted for half a decade and no one bothered to put Greece out of misery, while creditors of Greece patiently pump in more and more money to the effectively bankrupt country?

2) why over five years, despite generous aid from creditors, Greece has not managed to turn itself around?

You could mention political backdrop of the whole situation, willingness of key actors of the European politics to keep the eurozone together, since letting one country go would give others a free rein to walk away from the common currency. You could mention other reasons, such as fear of knock-on effect, etc., yet the story which deserves to be brought to your attention is about how the Greek debt changed hands. In 2010 and 2011 key creditors of Greece were German and French banks, through which Greek sovereign default would spill over onto the whole financial system of the EU. In the spring of 2012 Greece's bondholders agreed to lose 53.5% of face value of what they had lent to the Greek government (look at this, had Poland been written down 53.5% of its sovereign debt, its debt-to-GDP ratio would have stood well below 30% and Poland would have been one of the least indebted countries in the world). Thus most of the Greece’s debt was relieved and in the meantime transferred from the banking sector to the EBC and to the IMF. Private banks thus had to swallow some losses, yet recovered nearly 50% of what they had recklessly invested in Greek gilts and got rid of the junky securities.

Over five years of keeping head above water only thanks to continuously rolled over lending from international institutions, Greece has not gone ahead with structural reforms that would eradicate all the roots of their misery. Instead, it whiled away. It also has to be underlined austerity measures slowed economic growth in Greece and impaired the country’s ability to service debt. The cure has nearly killed the patient and made (lazy and economically illiterate) Greeks fed up with the fact their lenders have been dictating them what to do. The disgruntlement brought populists to power and after a few months of their rule, stance of Greece in negotiations with creditors has somewhat hardened.

The result of today’s referendum is anything but predictable. Greeks are strongly divided regarding the government’s refusal to further accept conditions set by lenders. The more rational part of society fears a scenario of banking sector’s collapse, which would mean loss of savings for those who have it and downfall of public finance system, which would mean public sector employees would not get their salaries and pensioners would not receive their benefits. I have no idea, what the other half think they will achieve by showing the middle finger to creditors and whether they realise how dire the consequences of being cut off from IMF’s and EBC’s money are.

Even assuming Greece is ousted from the Eurozone and all its debts are written off, the problems will not disappear. Greece would not be perceived credible by anyone (maybe except for Russia, which could lend to Greece to extend its sphere of influences), so no one would lend them (a liar) money. Greece would have make ends meet on its own, something the country accustomed to living beyond its means is not capable of. The situation is hence tragic enough that even pressing ‘reset’ button and letting Greece begin from scratch would not help.

Nevertheless, cognisant of consequences of Greece going insolvent, I do not commend of extending the misery of the country. Moreover, I believe far too much money has been injected into Greece, money that will never be recovered, therefore checking out and putting Greece out of misery in a controlled way would be the most reasonable solution.

What is going to happen tomorrow when results of the referendum unfold? If majority of voters back continuation of austerity program, the populist government will lose credibility and should step down. If majority of voters support showing the middle fingers to creditors, we will be watching history in the making.

Any lessons to learn?

Firstly – a common currency does not prove to be a good idea if area where it functions is insufficiently economically uniform (do not confuse with integrated). The benefits of one currency do not make up for lack of flexibility offered by having a domestic currency.

Secondly – letting populists grow into power does not seem to be the way to heal the ailing country…

Decency

Decency, a down-to-earth, yet vague concept; a dimension of human morality, a backbone of civilised society. So understandable, yet enough intricate to give you a hard time in coming up with a comprehensive (decent) definition of it. Oddly enough, on the blog before today I posted seven other posts tagged decency; their content could help bring us closer to what the concept of decency may revolve around:

- watching one’s tongue,

- not shunning responsibility for one’s missteps,

- not duping fellow men,

- paying somebody for work they do for you,

- laying off staff “gently”,

­- workings of rotten financial sector,

- giving back money you have been lent.

The list above contains some odd criteria scattered and picked out from the universe of standards of decency.

So what makes you a decent man?

- They way you treat other people?

- Whether you follow ethical principles, either those universal, or those set by the religious beliefs, e.g. ten commandments?

- Whether you obey the law?

- Whether you sympathise with other people and ask yourself how would you feel, if you were in that skin?

- Whether you simply can look yourself in the eyes in the mirror and admit you have not hurt anyone?

What instils decency in you?

- Parents and immediate relatives over the course of upbringing? Definitely in the formative years a human can be shaped, the older one grows, the harder to eradicate bad habits and seed good ones.

- Or maybe it runs in the genes? Examples of children of evil people adopted by decent families and whose new parents’ effort to bring them up failed bear this out?

- Is it inculcated by other institutions that shape humans, with primary credit here to schooling and the Church?

- Or maybe the so-called “moral spine”, for some less, for some more supple, has some other origins?

Decency is indispensably linked and interlaced with other concepts, such as…

- Conscience, something I would define has a black box which stores a memory of all misdeeds of a human. The misdeeds are to be a burden for a human, one is meant to feel bad after a wrong-doing; conscience’s role is to ensure it?

- Embarrassment, a state of feeling uncomfortably with a situation or one’s own or someone else’s behaviour. Embarrassment reminds us falling out of generally accepted norms in several cases should cause us discomfort and would not help us win respect from other people. Fear of embarrassment might preclude humans from doing things they would be ashamed of.

- So also the shame, a strong feeling, causing not just discomfort, but a strong desire to curl up and die, to erase a situation from one’s own and other people’s memory. Shame works after the fact, is an unpleasant feeling, yet it proves if after with hindsight a human realises they had done something bad, shame might work as a stabiliser of a human psyche.

- Remorse, having it means feeling guilty for one’s misdeeds, wanting to make up for the wrong, atone for it, apologise to those hurt by one’s behaviour.

Virtually all humans are familiar with the concepts attempted to be described above, even if they would struggle to verbalise them. Yet not all humans are equally bestowed with decency, sensitivity of human consciences varies from person to person, different situations evoke feelings of embarrassment or shame, some people don’t even have remorse, no matter what evil they do. The most extreme examples are psychopathic murderers who can be involved in manslaughter without being conscience-stricken, nor feeling remorse and a straightforward child who sincerely shows their emotions. All of us are somewhere in between and as long as we fit into “norm”, whenever we behave indecently, we should feel shame and have remorse, yet intensity of those feelings varies. For some people the burden might be quite heave, for some easily bearable…

Incidentally, a quite peculiar distinctive way of dealing with murky affairs by indecent people is pretending nothing has happened, in situations when in my opinion they should react to a situation which has taken place (e.g. apologise for their misbehaviour, etc.)

End justifies the means. This memorable adage raises the question how far a human can go, how many rules and limits can break to achieve what they want.

A penny drops. While I write a (decent) definition comes to my mind. A decent man never pursues their goals at the expense of other people. Nail hit in the head?

Now I have forgotten what I had intended to cover in the previous paragraph, yet I carry on!

I somehow envy people who don’t care, who see fewer problems, who are more bold, have no inhibitions. But is it true indecent people, on account of not being held back by conscience, etc., have easier lives? Aren’t the indecent disposed to be privileged, i.e. if they do not have to overcome inhibitions and deal with potential remorse, their pursuit of goals is less uphill? If they don’t care whether they hurt (in any facet) other people, if they don’t feel guilty of living off other people’s back, does it make such persons more likely to climb ladders of career faster? If it a coincidence most executives in the corporate world are ruthless beasts?

Finally, is it possible to switch between levels of decency when you switch between social roles you perform. I have asked myself this questions repeatedly when I looked at and listed to my workmates. I suppose they are caring and loving husbands and fathers, so why the hell at the doorstep of the office they turn into callous sons of the bitches? I fully appreciate the principle of separating family and professional lives but does it mean behind the gates to the corporate shitty world different ethical principles apply and you have green light to turn into a swine? Do your colleagues deserve less decency than your family? Your family should be given love and care, while the people you work with should be given decency, a bare minimum that in the workplace is much enough! From birth until death we are humans, all social roles only come and go.

I stare at my face in the mirror. After twenty seven years in this lousy planet I cannot pledge not regret any of my deeds, I cannot pledge I have not hurt anyone, I cannot pledge no one has ever suffered on account of my behaviour, yet as long as my offences are not serious, I hope as long as I recognise my wrongdoing, regret it, strive to make up for it and have remorse, people can tell I’m a decent man.

Crisis?

We were on the other side of Vistula, Warsaw…

Girl: So which level are you taking?

Me: The third one.

Girl: The first attempt?

Me: Yes, and hopefully the last. I come to think regardless of the outcome…

Girl: Will keep my fingers crossed. I wonder why haven’t I got my act together to pursue it…

Me: Because it’s a waste of life…

It was the first time when I (spontaneously) indirectly admitted kind of regretting to sacrifice between 1,000 and 1,200 hours of my life poring over the curriculum and practice exams, while this time could have been spent more productively, I mean enhancing those realms of life which I neglected to study duly. To answer whether it was worth it, I would need to know what would have happened differently, hadn’t I stuck to the self-enforced study regime.

Truth be told, after the candid conversation quoted above which took place two weeks before the exam, I felt I was totally running out of fuel. It wasn’t just about pure laziness or learning fatigue. The crisis involved a question about a profound rationale for what the life had revolved around. Despite losing heart for a moment, I didn’t falter and resolved to drown out questions prompted by one casual talk and do my best to carry the day.

Now it doesn’t take IQ of 150 to hazard a guess love-life-wise there’s been no progress over the recent year…

It never ceases to fuck me up when people tell me what I know, i.e. “find yourself a girl(friend)”. The sentence sounds as if girls were lying on the streets and I were refusing to bow down to pick one up. The key reason why such comments incense me is that I see lots of fantastic girls around, yet they have one (let’s call it this way) drawback in common – they have boyfriends or husbands. I may be wrong, but I don’t blame the fate of bad lack, but perceive it as example of natural selection taking place in the nature. While I was climbing up the education and career ladders, other males have been chasing the most valuable females (not in terms of skin-deep beauty, but in terms of traits, character and other things that are sought and considered when choosing a lifetime companion), now I see single leftovers which broadly fall into three categories:

1) wacky girls scaring most men (including me) off – such as those which I tried to date in 2013 (oddly enough, girl 5 turned out to be really OK and until today we are good friends, while I have even no idea whether the other five girls are still alive),

2) single, far too independent women leading lifestyle totally different than mine, so for parties any relationship is a no-go-area, since both parties realise this would be a perfect mismatch,

3) valuable girls or women, however unsociable, shy, too often to clammed up in their shells to break out of many years of loneliness.

The very last group gives a glimmer of hope, yet approaching the unapproachable requires some determination, patience and care… Hope the hopes have not been dashed.

The question which quite naturally comes up in this reasoning is where to find that girl, if girls don’t lie on the street.

1. Accosting girls which catch a boy’s eye on the street, although some lads dare to do this, is, as I believe, not the advisable suggestion. It takes a lot of courage plus you risk being taken as a pervert or a desperate.

2. Getting to know friends of friends during parties has limited chances of success for two reasons: 1) number of people who are single declines as they age, 2) the people you meet are most often same people you have met via your friends along the way.

3. At work – I’d spare a thought on this one, might come into play only if your duties absolutely do not overlap, i.e. you don’t interact professionally. Otherwise don’t go there (tried out)…

4. Signing up for a language or other course with a purpose not to learn something, but to meet someone – saw some examples of people around 30 doing this and I don’t want to follow that path…

Plus there are many other occasions when you may run across that person out of the blue. One such incidence was the nuptials ceremony I attended three weekends ago. Outside the church I ran across a girl I’d known by sight. I felt like talking to somebody… Three hours later I was driving her home… After the dialogue quoted at the top of this post her telephone rang. Her boyfriend was calling to make sure she was alright, since she’d been supposed to get home some time earlier. Well, par for the course, to good to be single. Of course, some of you would argue this situation was not as straightforward as it should have been and you’d be right. I could also come up with a few comments on the whole situation, but if silence is golden, let it glitter.

I’ve heard advice to wait. Some relationships fall apart and this fact could be viewed as an opportunity. For some reason I see around very few pairs breaking up, so waiting for such miracle looms as dead-end street.

Only life-wise…

With friends I’ve learnt to keep my distance. Overwhelming majority of them are with their partners for a long time, some have got married, some even have offspring. Their privacy deserves respect; what was allowed some time ago no longer applies now. Upshot – loosened friendships, less frequent meetings and on top some ambiguous situations along the way I wish I had avoided…

At work – I’m sick of my closest colleagues being from a different planet. I can’t put up with people who are unsociable and treat fellow people with disdain. Spending 40+ hours per week with guys who you (reciprocally) dislike is unsustainable in the long term, no matter how much you enjoy what you do at your job.

Oddly enough, there is one person who I don’t feel affinity with, yet who has given me food for thought how not to end up. The boss of my boss, woman in her early 40s. Well-travelled, well-read, intelligent, good-looking, single, with no exorbitant expectations and off-putting attitude towards men, which decrease her tiny prospects of finding a partner to near zero. Obsessive working during evenings, weekends and days off are a hideout from emptiness and prospects of solitary old age. A serious warning to me, do anything not to end up like this…

Recently it occurred to me nothing I have is truly mine and there is no place where I actually belong. The missing piece is a sense of stability, a feeling somebody cares, a little confidence if something good happens, it will last longer than a moment. Since I finished studies I lived through several moments of happiness, the only problem they came and went, happiness virtually lacked sustainability. I could reach and grab it, I could make the most it, yet could not hold on to it…

Whoever thinks these are signs of depression, dead wrong you are. Depression is when it seems to you there’s no point in rolling out of bed. In turn I want to get up from bed and have more energy and lust for life, yet I miss making use of it in a way which makes sense, not jumping into the flames out of rush of adrenaline.

Hope the weather turns for the better. With this heat and humid air we had in Warsaw last Sunday and this weekend even a bike ride doesn’t give pleasure. This year my tolerance for heat severely dropped (yesterday and today I broke sweat even when sitting idle).

Next post in two weeks (off to Mazury for the next, for me longer, weekend).