Life in Poland

Cleaning house czyli dobra zmiana

Things are changing here in Poland after the latest elections, most notably in recent days, journalists of public television and radio are losing their jobs. In a nutshell, the ruling party (called PiS, the Law and Justice party) believes that the role of the public media in a democracy is to support the narrative of the government; criticism is unacceptable. Democracy inaczej.

Regardless of who’s in power, unceremonious cleaning house is wasteful in my opinion. Knowlege, know-how, and experience are laid to waste. Hopefully, the free market will scoop up those folks who are worth it.
Believe it or not, even I got house-cleaned once. It was a few years ago while teaching in a large, public company. I was teaching some gentlemen that I had met years before in another company, not public, that had been bankrupted by the tax office. (The tax office was later found to be in the wrong and had to pay compensation, small justice for all the people who lost their jobs including me). Anyhow, I arrived for my first meeting only to discover that my “boys” were board members and now wore suits to work and had assistants and drivers and the like. These guys were educated and qualified. They had strategies and plans. And then there was the election.
I came to work just as any other day. I was invited to talk to the new president. That was a surprise. He informed me that my “boys” didn’t work there anymore and that my services were no longer needed. I explained that we had a contract. They promised to fulfill their obligations under the contract, but we were finished. I’ve been hired and fired many times. It’s part of the job. I suggested the new board continue the contract, you know if that Prezes needed English so does this one. The new president explained that I had to go because of the elections. I finally got it and blurted out, “Grzegorz was in PiS!?” So very diplomatic of me, nie? I reminded him that I’m American and not involved in Polish politics, but he apologized once again explaining that their policy is to end all contracts signed by the old guard. Bad for me. I guess I should give that Grzegorz a call now, nie?
On a side note, with all that is going on in politics I decided to give my Twitter account a look. If you use Twitter, Kielbasa Stories is there 🙂 I’m not very active there. Instagram is more my thing. Anyhow, Twitter informed me that controversial Polish politician Krystyna Pawłowicz had recently opened an account. I decided to follow her as her 8th follower only to unfollow her two days later. I gave a look through her posts and although they were rude and abrasive just as the real lady is, I suspected the profile was fake. Even as her popularity on Twitter rose, I still felt the profile couldn’t be hers. Why? The person behind the Krystyna Pawłowicz Twitter profile did their best to mimic the notorious MP. Insults and accusations flew, but this faker could in no way match the amount of poison which spills each day from the original source, her real Facebook page serves as an amazing record of her creativity and stamina in attacking her opponents, real and imagined. I don’t follow her, and I don’t recommend following her either. 
Kielbasa Stories, on the other hand, I recommend following. Join us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter 🙂

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5 Comments

  • Reply
    bitowo
    January 14, 2016 at 9:51 pm

    i follow Krystyna Pawlowicz(fallow niesiołowski,tusk too) almost year and she said many times that she doesnt have twitter and won't have(in my opinion she doesnt lie). Trolls made some fake accounts after presidential election. Before presidential election i didnt see any "her" account in twitter. She is known as a loud politician and sometimes its used against her. meybe following people like pawlowicz, tusk, niesiołowski etc isn't a pleasure, but it give some pieces of information from two sides of conflict(mean PiS vs PO). Find truth, think yourself nothing is worth to trust in these days

  • Reply
    Chris
    January 15, 2016 at 8:45 am

    Yes, she announced that it isn't her Twitter a few days after the account was started. My point was that I figured it was fake because even though it was full of hate, it still wasn't as hateful as the actual person if you can imagine that. I use Twitter for news and to practice my Polish so I follow a wide variety of folks too, even Radio Maria 😉

  • Reply
    Izabelka
    January 15, 2016 at 8:51 am

    Oh my God! 😉

  • Reply
    bitowo
    January 16, 2016 at 2:29 am

    we can complain about Pawłowicz but if we compare all guys in our parliament, we'll see that she isn't the bad. Our culture(or lack of them) often depict negative/aggresive attitute because people was fighting all time, and their future wasnt sure. I meant especially old generation that survived communism. Most of them are in parliament. younger generation dont spread(or spread little)this kind of behavior. politics i describe as a net of hate. I give an example of our family. Dad almost always gets angry when he hears about politics. Some changes were made and politics has gone forever.

  • Reply
    bitowo
    January 16, 2016 at 2:47 am

    in first sentence should be that*

    Generally bad thinking determines see only negative person's traits. Even niesiołowski isn't worst.

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