Too Good To Go – application review

I am not really fond of installing and using applications in my smartphone. As I count, I use more or less frequently around a dozen of them, 40% of an average for a typical smartphone user in Poland. But from time to time out of curiosity I install a new one, usually prompted by a recommendation from another person.

The application mentioned in the post title was praised by one of my workmates during a business trip in September. Soon after hearing of it, I forgot about its existence and, truth be told, do not recall what refreshed my memory and made me try it out.

The idea behind the app is simple and commendable – it is meant to reduce food waste in shops and eateries. Produces saved from landing in a rubbish bin are sold for one-third of their regular price. Stuff from shops are near their expiry dates while restaurant food is not super-fresh and perfectly-looking to meet standards of an eatery, but surely edible.

If using the application was to be environment-friendly and cost-effective, if I lack a travelcard, I set the circle of 3 kilometres from home (i.e. a walking distance) to find places which wanted to get rid of some food. Each day I would find packages to be grabbed from Auchan Ursynów (PLN 8.49 – PLN 9.99), nearby BP stations (PLN 11.49), local Vegesushi restaurant (PLN 14.69), Costa Cofees (PLN 14.99). Some would wait hours for a buyer, other, such as packages from Blikle confectioneries (PLN 9.99) would be snatched within minutes or second.

The drawback of the application is that you reserve (and right away pay for) a pig in a poke. Some leftovers are guaranteed, but it is unpredictable what is left at the end of the day.

My first adventure was the regular food package from Auchan for PLN 9.99 on 10 February. I picked up a bag of food easily, but cannot say I was satisfied with its content. Inside I found a decent premium dry sausage (expiry date in 4 days), a cottage cheese (expiry date on the next day) and processed herring (expiry date on the same day) and this was the part which I ate. The remaining part of it (list on the receipt to the right) – too much of a whipped cream, yoghurt and other fat dairy products and a fat-made smoked beckon (all with expiry date on the pick-up day) sadly ended in the rubbish bin.

Admittedly, I have not saved the food properly, moreover I did not save money neither. What I consumed was worth PLN 10.29 at market prices, yet I while doing shopping would probably not buy all these products – fish I buy tinned or unprocessed to cook myself, cottage cheese would I buy, but less far, instead of a big premium sausage, I buy small packages of sliced meats. And look at the receipt from the application – the VAT receipt from Auchan contains 0% VAT for food, while the receipt from Too Good To Go included 23% VAT. Puzzling.

The second adventure was ordering a popular package from a nearby Blikle confectionery for PLN 9.99. I orderly picked it up on Friday (18 February) evening, brought it home, opened up and found a meringue cake. Again, it did not take my fancy, meringue is too sweet for me. Fortunately, I found a workmate who is fond of such sweets, bought a public transport 75-minute ticket for PLN 4.40 and took an underground train and a tram to drop it off to her place instead of committing it to the rubbish bin. All in all – PLN 14.39 spent, utility negative.

After the second experience, I do not feel like having a third attempt. The food is bought up anyway and does not go to waste. For somebody who, like me, plans shopping and strives not to waste food, the application is useless utility-wise and money-wise, but surely there might be people, especially large households, who might find the 67% discount attractive, provided they are luckier in terms of what the pig in a poke turns out to be.

I will not discourage you from using the app. It simply does not suit my needs, but someone else might find it a perfect tool for cutting their food shopping budget or saving the planet.

A farewell to old, good Nokia :(

1 December 2014 will go down in the history (of this blog) as the day when my Nokia 3110 Classic gave up the ghost. I bought the handset on 25 March 2008 and for six years and eights months it had served me almost beyond reproach. Much more reliable and much more durable than mobile phones produced these days, the Nokia would keep me company and had not been spared endurance tests. Over those years the Nokia survived being dropped several times (and went unharmed), withstood lying exposed to strong sunlight in temperatures exceeding +40C and unlike other phones remained totally indifferent when used in below –20C frost.

In the last two months the phone began to give first warning signs of the forthcoming end of its service. It crashed after being switched on and I had to wait some ten minutes before the phone returned to life, from time to time it also tended to lose network coverage and I had to shake it to help aerial catch the signal again. Despite those flaws I admit to have been too attached to the phone to think of replacing it with a less obsolete one. I am not fond of gadgets and the Nokia offered me everything I expect from a phone…

Then the fateful day came. On Monday evening I hooked in the phone to charge it up and after two hours I noticed it did not draw electricity from the charger. I grabbed the phone, but it did not react when I pressed any button. I called my number from the company phone, but it turned out my number was unavailable. I took off and put in the battery and turned it on again, waited until ten minutes when the phone is not responsive elapsed. The phone reacted only to numerical keys and had its menu accessible via navigation keys. I took the opportunity to recover all the notes I kept in it. Pressing menu and dialling keys resulted in the phone crashing for good. I tried to work out whether it was not the SIM card and sought many causes of the breakdown, but eventually gave up. Life of the phone naturally came to an end. Unexpectedly and swiftly, the Nokia let me down once, but properly.

Corpo smartphone unfortunately does not offer dual-SIM functionality, so I had to resort to the only unused handset I have in my drawer, namely Sony CMD-J70, “vintage” 2001. In 2007 I urged my friend not to throw out the phone his just then departed mother had used for six years and for seven years it has served as substitute phone when my parents’ phones (both low-end Nokias) were under warranty repairs or to me as a second phone, before I moved my number to Play. Sony had been idle for many months, so the battery perked up after some ten minutes since being plugged in to the charger. I have used the phone for six days and although the handset offers excellent quality of calls, writing messages on it (it traces back to times when T9 dictionaries were unknown) is a veritable nuisance and the phone does not read messages sent from newer traditional phones (oddly enough those sent from smartphones come through).

My first choice on what to buy was Sony Xperia E Black. At first glance it was not the newest model (it premiered in March 2013), but reasonably priced, seemingly durable and with lots of functionalities. The other day in the office it turned out my team-mate has that model and he complains about it. He handed me the handset and allowed to play with it for a while. When I took it into hand and saw how crappy devices it indeed was and then ran a thorough search on its quality on forums, I cancelled my order placed in the Internet shop I use to buy consumer electronics. I always choose cash payment when I pick up ordered stuff in collection point, so the resignation did not involve claiming back money, yet it has left me without a decent, normal phone (it lacks keypad locking feature which means it can initiate a call while kept in a pocket!) before a three-day business trip.

Actually reading Internet forums on handsets (one should make allowances for their contents, since many of the grumbles are written by people with exorbitant expectations) prompted me to revise my needs and expectations towards the new phone. I use the corpo smartphone, but actually am not fond of it, nor impressed by it. The corpo-phone has some limitations in scope of usage (restrictions on multimedia messages, downloading applications, private e-mails and social media), but apart from it I can have 1GB monthly data transfer to use up when I need to check something or to read some news or article and has built-in, though slow, GPS. I will gladly make do without a touchscreen and prefer a traditional QWERTY keyboard. I will appreciate reliable and durable, decently assembled phone with solid battery. It does not have to be fancy, I do not need it to swank about, it has to serve me well and meet my modest needs.

Finally I have made up my mind for Nokia Asha 302. The model was released in February 2012 and for this reason is not readily available in every bigger shop with consumer electronics, but garners excellent opinions from its users. Nokia Asha 302 was also the main company phone back at the Employer (I did not have one on account of not being eligible for company phone) and my colleagues, counting out those who expected too much, were satisfied with it. The only problem with it is that it takes some trouble to purchase it. I learnt it was available in Nokia shop in Żoliborz, but yesterday I could not afford to spend two hours to drive there to pick it up in person. Tomorrow I will check out whether any of the other two Nokia shops, in Śródmieście and in Ursynów, has any Asha 302 in stock. I sincerely hope they have some and price does not diverge from 248 PLN (superb price-quality trade-off) I was quoted by the Żoliborz outpost.

The thoughts on the phone could be put into broader perspective of critical assessment of unbridled consumerism and how most people relish on fancy stuff. Hard to deny, pursuit of only newer and more swanky goods also underlies economic growth and gives jobs to people, but when staring into the screen of the posh smartphone, it is important not to lose sight of other people…

Szajsung

Never ever before, during almost six years of blogging, hasn’t my temptation to commit my thoughts to the blog had to be suppressed by auto-censorship. No matter how preposterously it sounds, self-imposed constraints are the price to pay to stay in the charmed circle. The heading of his post could have contained idioms such as “to throw in the towel”, “put oneself out of misery”. Some of you are able to read between the lines, however haphazard visitors are quite likely to be kept guessing and may it stay so.

It is Scatts who excels at writing rants over crappy customer service, breaking down brand new cars or defective electronic devices. He has a gift of depicting his tribulations in amusing and quaint way. I do not wish to take away the primacy in grumbling he undoubtedly deserves. I need to get off my chest how irritating Szajsung Galaksi Srent might be.

From the word go… I actually don’t need a company mobile phone. Back at the Employer’s I didn’t have one and held dear being deprived of such perk. Many times I had to use my private phone to handle work-related stuff and my private number was spread around the company, but I always had the right (hardly ever exercised) not to pick up the phone when I was off work. At the New Factory everyone can theoretically expect to reach me at any time and it’s a nuisance.

I actually should be contented. The limit for private calls and text messages and 2GB data transfer package could easily allow me to give up on the private phone (something I won’t do since private stuff and work need to be separated) and actually the opportunity to check something online, such as timetable or tram route, is immensely useful. I also appreciate built-in GPS which consumes little data transfer. It all comes in handy and is convenient, but…

1/ GPS can locate you well, but before the phone finds your location, it needs to spend between two and five minutes searching, not very practical when you’re short of time.

2/ Despite running on 4G/LTE Internet connection, pages in the web browser load more slowly than with my shitty 3G Cyfrowy Polsat modem plugged to my laptop.

3/ The cell phone switches between “silent”, “vibration” and “sound” modes at its own discretion. Consequently either I do not know the phone is ringing or the ringtone, resembling flushing a toilet (called ‘waterfall’), resounds at least appropriate moments.

4/ Whenever I shake the phone (and screen is unlocked), it asks me to set up the starting display. It is quite bothersome and if I put the handset to the pocket or lay it somewhere, I need to do it gently, otherwise the request pops up.

5/ I have absolutely no idea why it randomly chooses what to display after unlocking or after entering the menu.

6/ The prediction mode does more harm than good in assisting writing. I eventually turned it off, since after the phone guessed a word, making the handset change its mind required too much effort.

7/ Due to restrictions, I haven’t downloaded any applications, so memory and operating system of the phone are nearly empty and despite this the phone tends to think very slowly and sometimes simply crashes and I need to wait a few minutes before the device comes back to life.

Besides, it’s a quite fancy device. Everyone in the office has the same model of Szajsung and almost everyone whines about its ample shortcomings. There is a rule that you should not look gift horse in a mouth, therefore maybe the rant is out of place. I don’t wish to blame the corporation which has equipped its staff in such devices, as they’ve done it in good faith and it was probably the best model they’ve negotiated with the telecom operator at reasonable price. It’s rather about the producer, opinions on whose products vary considerably, but the term “Szajsung” repeats disturbingly often.

The other story is that myself I can do nothing about faults of the phone, because it is not my property. I can of course report defects to the sourcing department, setting a huge bureaucratic machine in motion and embarking on more trouble than it’s worth. One workmate’s Szajsung totally broke down and he went through veritable hell to have it repaired… Shit happens, but the future seems bright anyway ;-)

For the record – today temperature topped over +19C, one could bask in the rays of autumnal sun in the afternoon. Although the weather is to break soon, October 2014 stands a chance of going down as one of the warmest in history of measurements. Until yesterday, average temperature was +12.7C. It eventually will be lower, but so far it beats October 2000 when temperature over the whole month averaged out +11.6C, but falls short of October 1907, the warmest since records began, when average temperature stood at +12.9C. May the warmth stay with us long!

Markets and analysts go insane...

For three consecutive days the indices of stock exchanges were taking on red colour. Analysts finally started arguing whether what we saw was the beginning of the correction and tried to foresee the scale of it. Today the markets around the world turned green and as it’s said in the stockbrokers’ slang, are heading north.

This has something to do with the psychology, to be precise with the phenomenon of self-delusion. Just look at what the investors have just believed in (probably for a short time and to take profits quickly). The US Trade Department trumpeted today the end of the recession in the United States. The growth domestic product of the country rose by 3,5 per cent year-on-year. Taking into account the doom and gloom we had been looking forward to experiencing over a year ago the figure is excellent, no wonder that markets shot up. But wait… Why has the US economy grown by 3,5 per cent? The plan I dubbed a few months ago “resuscitating the corpse” must have worked out. Patient was brought back to life, but at the expense of zillions of dollars and running up huge debts. The subsidies granted under the “Cash for clunkers” scheme and depreciation of dollar also contributed to it. They even seemed to worked a miracle – the inflation rate hasn’t gone up… Yet…!

Dear politicians. If you want to stimulate the economy of your country, print money, blow up the budget deficit, keep the interest rates down. Keynes said: In the long run we are all dead, but why should we die on our knees?

A day earlier the season of announcing the quarterly results began in Poland. The first big company to report its key figures was the TP Group. In general they were worse than expected, to boot some figures topped out for the first time since many quarters. The price of TP shares reacted quickly and plummeted by over five per cent during Wednesday trading session. In an evening commentary analysts put the poor results down to the crisis. How come? The telecommunication industry is not prone to fluctuate during downturns – firstly cause people still need to communicate, secondly many clients are under contracts so they can’t just give up on their phones whenever they wish to. It’s the business model they had adapted and consistently implemented. Lots of trade unions standing up to their privileges, splendid salons, and deplorable infrastructure combined with unreasonable prices (fifty zlotys for the cheapest monthly plan with 60 minutes to landlines included in the charge) only bring people of getting read of the fixed line – the thing of the past in the era of prevalent mobility. Its branch accountable for mobile services – Orange also needs to change its strategy – the rates in post-paid plan are, to put it mildly, unattractive, pre-paid offer doesn’t stand out, but TP managers are presumptively plotting to hammer another nail to its coffin. Prices and transfer limits of mobile internet connections can’t stack up against the ones offered by competitors. Not only by Play, Era and Plus are also much forward. Under such circumstances the outflow of clients is only a matter of time, just like the death of the ailing cash cow. And for this fundamental reason I would never, ever buy the shares of TP…

Goodbye Tepsa... :)

What Bartek and his family have been waiting for almost four years will come to a pass tomorrow. We’ll finally part company with the biggest national provider of internet access and landline phone services. Like many Poles we’ll confine to using mobile phones only. Our new internet provider will be… I’ve endorsed that company too many times so the careful readers will surely guess what the choice was. The new connection will be a bit faster, wireless, partly mobile (the coverage is not nationwide, but limited to 500 cities as the operator declares) and much cheaper. The drawback will be transfer limit imposed by the provider – although five gigabytes allows one to surf the web conveniently, downloading more than one or two films a months is up in the air.

A decade ago having a mobile phone in Poland was an extravagance. Since then the call charges have fallen by 85 per cent, handsets have become much more affordable so the penetration (number of mobile phones per citizen) of the market exceeded 100 per cent – everyone has a mobile these days, including pensioners, children from nursery school, drunkards, even the homeless. Meanwhile the landline, still regarded as a basic form of providing telecommunication services tends to be luxurious and maintenance costs are unreasonable. Currently the cheapest monthly plan of Telekompromitacja Polska S.A. costs 50 zł (unless you can submit the slip from local social welfare centre (Ośrodek pomocy społecznej) – then you’ll get the cheaper one, for 18,30 zł) and includes 60 minutes to national landlines. Ludicrous – for sixty minutes of calls to the landlines from my mobile phone I’d pay 3 zł. TP S.A. will charge you round seventeen times more for such doubtful pleasure. Doubtful for sake of the quality of calls, cracking, humming and other noises are what you should expect to hear in your receiver.

Below: the “infrastructure” of TP along my street…


Infrastructure is the official term for those strings tied up together and hanging on the concrete posts. To the left – white box attached to the post – a makeshift device used in 2005 to connect my house to the line, the wires run downwards to the white pipe, also fixed to the post. In the middle, just in front of the lamppost one can notice a beautiful hook-shaped object and one of the wires hanging down – this is the trace of the breakdown caused by Kiryll hurricane in January 2007. To the right – the rusty pipe through which the wire to my neighbours’ house runs. Makeshift all the way, don’t pay too much attention to the stonemason’s plant at the opposite side of the street. They’ll never tidy up there, it’s a matter of mentality, they don’t mind the squalor ('dziadostwo' in the “rightest” context)…

When inquired about the lack of investments in infrastructure in our locality, TP representatives replied according to their calculations it wouldn’t be cost-effective to put the wires underground, so it will stay like this until it falls apart. Such stance means that locals will be deprived of the access to the fast Internet for years – the capacity of such infrastructure is 700 – 800 kbps, what in two or three years will not be classified as broadband connection. In the West 10 to 20 Mbps becomes a standard, in Poland UPC is the provider which develops its infrastructure to provide its clients with such speed of connection, TP does nothing to improve its services. Moreover – its representatives claim their activity is barely profitable, only the price for the end-user is exorbitant. It’s the main reason why so many people turn them away. Assuming that customers’ decisions are based on cool calculation and common sense, the number of TP individual clients should drop drastically within the next five or ten years. French owners milk their cash cow to the limits, but one day the cow will die…

To Powsin – by bike and on foot

It was nice to experience one of the last moment of permitting weather and visit the Entertainment and Culture Park in the sunny afternoon, when most of people sit in their offices. I set off at 13:30 to Julianów, where my friend lives, left the bike at his garage and on foot we strolled (or rather marched) six kilometres to Powsin. The route is so short only when covered on foot or cycled – the path runs along the coal line, (below – the level crossing in Kierszek, to my surprise this section of the track has been modernised – old wooden sleepers have been replaced with the concrete ones).


Then in the village Kierszek one has to turn left and walk, ride along the east verge of Las Kabacki. (below – east to the path there are lots of fences of big plots bought by the new-rich. Many of them are dilapidated, here the example of the compatriots’ artistic activity).


Entertainment and Culture Park itself brings to mind the holiday resort. For a moment I feel like in a typical resort. People sunbathing, cycling, pensioner playing chess, some drunkards sipping “sparkling wine”. The quiet was interrupted only by the integration party held by one of the construction companies. Below – a snack bar where we took a rest.


Heading back home I noticed the new landmark of Piaseczno in the distance. The photo below was taken somewhere around Kierszek and shows the “flagship building” of the town – “Sand City Tower” – sixteen storey high building put up just next to Piaseczno’s bypass. Its main asset was meant to be picturesque view splaying out from Landscape Park to the south up to the Warsaw’s skyline to the north. Indeed, it is visible from the distance of seven kilometres, but the view won’t beat the Warsaw skyscrapers’ panorama seen from Lesznowola.


The last snap, from bike in Józefosław – this is a new bus service which links the new estates built south of Las Kabacki with Warsaw. It runs each twenty minutes in the rush hour, to ride it one needs a ticket valid in a suburban zone. Locals already complain about high prices of tickets, bad route and frequency of shuttling…


Late afternoon at home I find – two Polish absurdities.

First from my university – the whole description (in Polish – here). Phone conversation between a student and a lady from the dean’s office.

Student: Kiedy dostaniemy dyplomy? (When will we get our diplomas?)
Lady from the dean’s office: Żle pan trafił bo dziś mamy rekrutację na uzupełniające i nikt panu nie pomoże. (You’re out of luck, today we’re dealing with the enrolment on post-grad studies and no one’s going to help you.)
Student: Chodzi mi tylko o dzień (I would only like to ask which day will it happen?)
Lady from the dean’s office: Proszę pana nie chce mi się przestawiać myślenia na to pytanie bo mam zajęcia związane z rekrutacją które wymagają skupienia (Dear sir, I don’t feel like shifting my thinking into your question, cause I’m busy with the enrolment and this requires a lot of concentration.)

The second one – the news that Play Mobile’s shareholders might wish to shove up its capital brought about a swift reaction the competitors. Jeśli Play znowu dostanie pieniądze, będzie mógł dalej psuć rynek – komentowała anonimowo osoba zbliżona do jednej z sieci stacjonarnych. (If Play gets money once again, it will be able to keep on spoiling the market – commented a person affiliated with one of landline operators). I don’t know whether that landline operator has close capital tie-ups with one of mobile operators and I have absolutely no idea if companies like Telekompromitacja Polska S.A. and Orżnąć have something in common with that statement, but I can come up with one conclusion. It shows what is the attitude towards customer among the old operator. Within last two and a half year the prices dropped by sixty percent (figures for pre-paid plans). The market from oligopoly evolved into customer’s market. All changes which took place were to the benefit of ordinary people who could pay less and use their phone more often. But maybe I should understand the anger of the company which took lower revenues, lost some clients, but one the other hand they deserved it. Serves them right, I suppose the cash injection will be earmarked for investments in infrastructure, but I hope Play will continue to spoil the market, to the benefit of customers and to the detriment of other operators.

The newer ways of stigmatising

Browsing through the forum for the dissatisfied with the quality of the telecom services, I stumbled upon a comment from a man dividing his friends into callable and not callable… “I mark the people who have their numbers in Play with a star, so that I know who I shouldn’t call if I don’t want to go bankrupt”.

The fourth operator, as it was entering the market in 2007 was granted quite favourable decisions on MTR from the regulator. The discrepancy in inter-operator settlements was justified by the fact Play would have to build its own infrastructure from scratch and by the undeniable truth its offer would boost the competition on the market of mobile services.

The first argument could be disproved – not every entity starting up can get the special terms for conducting the business (apart from tax relieves, etc.), if somebody decides to take the chance and puts a lot of money into a dicey undertaking, they must analyse the competitors’ potential and costs of underselling to convince the clients of the competitor to vote with their feet. The most effective way of drawing new customers is bringing down the prices – so the onset of its activity was marked with the cheap rates and simple pre-paid and post-paid plans, meant to signify its advantage over the “big three”. The bigger price war was sparked off by Play in March 2009, as the operator marked its second birthday with a new pre-paid offer. The new service is not rendered below the costs, but the home truth is that the revenues of the operator come mostly from inflated termination rates. The other operators have thus reason to detest Play. Not only for the sake that more and more of the aware clients ditch them and take their numbers away to Play, causing the operators’ yields to drop. Those are not the termination rates, that’s the crippling price war, in case of three settled mobile providers hitting their balance sheets, in case of the fourth one not letting it break even. From the theory of economics we should know in the long run the price war doesn’t have to be advantageous, even for the customers. The initiator of the fight might be unable to carry the burden of dumping prices and go bust, the other firms on the market may follow suit, so the situation that only the stronger businesses won’t pull out of the market is likely to take place. Moreover, this may lead to a monopolisation of a market. In Poland Play successfully broke the oligopoly set up by “big three” to keep up a fictional competition.

The second argument is backed up by the welfare of the customers. On the market with the barriers to entry the external regulation is often essential to ensure the consumer protection. Play did manage to change the mobile telecom market in Poland. It still has the lead in the stats concerning number transfers and the number of new clients. The price to pay for the rest who stayed with the older operators comes out on their bills or accounts whenever they decide to call a Play user. The rates range currently from 0,72 to 0,80 zloty. In many networks the basic flat rate is currently 0,29 zloty. When looking at termination rates one could see a certain disparity. If the TR for all old operators is 0,1677 zloty and for Play 0,4047 zloty, how big should the rate for calls to Play be? A short calculation tells us it should be 0,70 zloty, so the operators get the extra margin for calls to Play. Many people, conscious of it, were put off by the exorbitant costs of chats with the Play-using fellows.

When taking a decision to transfer my number to Play I deliberately chose to fork out 50 zloty at the time and retain the prefix 608 belonging to another operator. Aside from avoiding the chaos of notifying everyone about the new number I could also avoid comments like “I’ll be paying more for calls to you”. I told those of my friends whose calls to me tend to last more than a quarter, but it never became to them an obstacle to call me if they wanted to talk. I sometimes offered calling back and they took up on it, as the costs of the same call was for me three times lower than for my interlocutor.

The crucial factor for me is the huge amount of perks, special offers, minutes and messages for free, bonuses I get from Play, thanks to which I can spend around twenty five zloty monthly on my phone, instead of over sixty a year ago with the previous operator. I sometimes mind the fact someone pays over the odds, but its their decision to flounder in the clutches of an operator which rips them off. But if you really are so petty to divide your friends into cheap-to-call and expensive-to-call you’re a penny-pitcher! If you don’t feel like paying, ask to call back, you’ll save on your phone bill, but first you’ll have to overcome the embarrassment…

Freaks of the dicts – linguistic confusion all the way!

Equipped in three-volume Polish monolingual dictionary (Słownik Języka Polskiego), a bit outdated, published in the middle 80’s and my beloved English monolingual dictionary (Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary), 2006 edition, I set out to track down the words, which “wipe the smile off translators’ faces”. I’ve compiled the list of 11 words or phrases and two “industry supplement” – an analysis of the English versions of the websites of Polish mobile telecom operators and banks.
Disclaimer: I’d like to stipulate that all my ideas below might not be correct, might need amendment or consultation and should be treated as constructive criticism.

1) W RAMACH – an expression overused in Polish these days. Poles love putting everything they can into a “framework” – w ramach projektu, w ramach organizacji, w ramach programu, w ramach funduszy, w ramach tradycji, w ramach działania, w ramach odchudzania, w ramach umowy, w ramach kontraktu, one can enumerate endlessly. In the terms and conditions / terms of use (regulaminy) on the website of my mobile operator the phrase “w ramach” can be find almost in every clause. The Polish dictionary defines it as “ograniczony zakres, zasięg czegoś ustalonego, przyjętego, granice” – this definition (I left out other meaning, e.g. frames of the painting, etc.) which surely does not cover the current use of the phrase “w ramach”, but justifies the phrase that can be found in older dictionaries “within the confines of” – it squares with the definition from Polish dictionary! Current use of the phrase should, in my opinion be translated as “within”, “under”, or “in”, depending on the context – because in some cases compiler used “w ramach” when they had had no better idea of formulating their thoughts…

2) RUCH WAHADŁOWY – referring to the temporary traffic arrangement. There are probably so many translations as many translators tackled the phrase. “Contraflow” doesn’t fully fit, with both its meanings from BrE and AmE. Shuttle run / traffic? Any other ideas?

3) REALIZOWAĆ – just like “w ramach” strays from its dictionary definition. In many cases might be translated into “realise”, but depending on the context words that can be used to render the meaning are: implement (if we refer to the future), execute, carry out (present), accomplish (past), and possibly a few more. Watch out folks, realise in English means also “upłynniać”. My jaw dropped a few weeks ago when I beheld a phase “liquidate the assets” as the translation of “upłynniać aktywa” (realise the assets) – liquidate makes sense, but means something different…

4) AKTUALNY – in many poor (Net) dictionaries still translated as actual (horrific!), depending on the context – present, current, up-to-date, but how should I ask in English “czy to ogłoszenie / oferta, itd. jest nadal aktualne”?

5) OBOWIĄZUJĄCY – most often translated as “in force”, “binding”, these phrases are not out of place, although for mean something slightly different, but why does almost every dictionary omit the word “effective”?

6) GROZIĆ – in a legal language – how to translate “mordercy grozi 25 lat więzieni”? “Twenty five years of imprisonment are threatening the murderer” – sounds more than awkwardly, “The murderer is under threat of twenty five years of imprisonment” denotes something different once again. Maybe transform it into: “murder carries a sentence of twenty five years of imprisonment”? Who’s to dispel my doubts?

7) PGR (abbreviation for “Państwowe Gospodarstwo Rolne”). Why does nobody use the term „collective farm”, but several other phrases, including “state owned farm”, “state land farm”, “state agricultural farm”? The English surely new the crazy ideas of collectivisation in the countries of communist bloc, so they must have come up with their own name for PGRs or could also used original names…

8) PAKIET – confuses translators hired by mobile telecom operators, mostly translated as “bundle”, I’d suggest “package”, or “pack”, “pakiet” is an invention of Polish operators trying to rip-off customers by offering them “bundles of 3700 minutes to Orange and landlines valid for nine days, seventeen hours and eight minutes for only 16,99 zł + VAT, to activate the bundle dial *123*88*11*2#, to check the balance dial *106*5#, bundle can’t be combined with bundles “500,000 messages within Orange”, “free weekends calls (between 1 a.m. and 2 p.m.)” and can not be activated from your top-up benefits. Orange – take a hike!

9) EKSPERTYZA – why do so many dictionaries translate it as “expertise” – the next false friend or am I so poorly educated no to know that “expertise” has another meaning than “proficiency”, “experience”, etc.? I don’t know which of the alternative equiavalents (expert’s report / opinion, evaluation, assessment) is the most appropriate, depends on the context once again I’d say.

10) REWALORYZACJA – the most common translation is “revaluation”, which for me, economist, stands for “ponowna wycena”, so shouldn’t the phrase “coroczna rewaloryzacja emerytur” be translated as “annual pension increment”?

11) AGD (abbreviation for “Artykuły Gospodarstwa Domowego”), dictionaries don’t include the phrase “white goods”, it seems to be more suitable than “household appliances / commodities (!)) – I don’t know, I got lost in the maze I had built with my own hands…

Undoubtedly languages permanently evolve, their users continually create new expressions, change meanings of the words, apply them in new contexts, etc. Dictionaries should keep up with this evolution, that evolution requires constant upgrades, revisions, adjustments.

People often poke fun at the infamous Great Dictionary by professor Jan Stanisławski, infamous for its literal translations of collocations and lack of upgrade. I’ve never seen it on my own, but my most knowledgeable English teacher would say: “On no account should you buy Stanisławski’s dictionary, unless you have some money to throw around”…

Is there any recommendable PL->EN dictionary at all? The ideal one should be compiled by the clued-up natives, whereas editorial teams of the dictionaries published hitherto consisted mostly of Poles, a Pole has always been a chief editor…

To my bewilderment I discovered that out of 4 Polish mobile operators only one has a well-developed English version of its website. Play doesn’t have any, Orange has some information for visitors who use its network as a roaming one, Plus provides extract of its website’s content. Only PTC got it right (partly). The English version of Heyah website is impressing, but the section “for visitors” of Era website has let me down – are the strange phrases like “fixed line” (landline), “promotion” (bargain, special offers, perks – false friend), “recharges” (top-ups).

In case of banks I noticed that translators were probably attempting to convert the content word for word. The English versions were perhaps prepared by either linguists with little notion of banking, or by bankers over-relying on dictionaries.

My piece of advice for the ones translating specialised text – your task is much easier than twenty years ago – in the era of Internet the best and most simple way to get the English equivalent of specialised terms is to refer to the websites of enterprises operating in the same industry. If I were to translate (I almost certainly never will – maybe it’s even better – I’m just an economist!) the website of a mobile operator or a bank the first thing I’d do would be studying thoroughly the web pages of as many mobile telecom operators or banks from English-speaking countries as possible.
The next my piece of advice would be to avoid intricate translations. We, Poles, by using too many words, building complex sentences, are trying to prove our wisdom – the more convoluted the text is, the more educated the reader is. The most eye-popping it is in academic textbook, which are generally full of “viel gesprochen, nichts gesagt” (literally – spoken a lot, but nothing said), as the German say – in case of books authors write a lot, but from my experience I can say that the content of 600 pages long wordy book could be fit into 200 pages long, concise book. But academic workers are verbose, or just the publisher pay them depending on the number of pages they’ve produced…

The conclusion “too few natives around” seems to be painfully true. With our rehearsed English we (Poles) will never match up to them.

To conclude, there are too few people who can eat the humble pie. If I’m wrong – challenge me, I’ll concede my mistake…

And a short press review

Today I take a glimpse at deceptive, calumniating, Jewish anti-Law(lesness)-and-(in)Justice press tube – Gazeta Wyborcza, by some called also “Koszerna”. I’m a regular reader of the newspaper, chiefly because it’s fully available in the Internet. Today’s issue turns out to be particularly attractive as it dwells on the topic I find worth touching upon.

1) The crackdown on con men (as I call akwizytorzy) of pension funds trying to dissuade the “fugitives” from transferring their money into a competitor’s fund, resorting to numerous malpractices and misguiding the clients. The business is still lucrative, which proves an e-mail which I received from my schoolmate two days ago:

Witam.
Jak zapewne wiecie zajmuje się między innymi pracą w grupie *** jako agent funduszu emerytalnego. Moim głównym zadaniem jest podpisywanie wniosków z osobami, które chcą do funduszu przystąpić lub go zmienić. Z tym związany jest oczywiście konkretny zarobek i moja propozycja.
Od każdej umowy otrzymuję prowizję w zależności od dochodów klienta. To, co oferuję, to 30% kwoty mojej prowizji za każdą umowę, którą dzięki waszemu poleceniu podpiszę. Oznacza to, że jednym telefonem możecie zarobić od 10 zł do 100 zł. Wszystkimi formalnościami zajmuję się ja. Oczekuję jedynie podania telefonu zainteresowanej osoby i waszego numeru konta :)
Pozdrawiam
******

Left without response, I’m not going to drag anybody into the shady business of the company accused of the aforementioned malpractices…

2) About salespeople (sometimes, God knows why, called also advisors) in one of the most known banks. How to fall into paranoia trying to reach the sales targets and how to torment employees. Dear client – beware!

3) An outcry on the practices of mobile operators, still focusing on ripping off the customers. It’s only our fault – millions of people keep their numbers in Orżnąć, although its rates are prohibitive, call prices two times higher than competitors, but as long as the clients stay with them they get no incentive to cut the rates.

4) According to one of IPN’s historians, former president Lech Wałęsa was unlawfully granted the status of victim of communist regime, Mr. Żaryn called him also an ulcer on institute’s body.

5) Mgr Zyzak, whom I mentioned a few days ago made an appearance in TV show by Jan Pospieszalski. Two henchmen brought together in room, in the second part of the broadcast historians and journalists debated over his book. It transpired that nobody, including prof. Nowak took pains to go through the entire, six hundred pages long book, but everybody compares people attacking the libel as the advocates of totalitarian order. Freedom of the speech is limited by the dignity of fellow members of society…

Zdrowych, spokojnych, wiosennych Świąt Wielkanocy!