Job Discussion Forums

[brigittestardust]

Firstly, let me say thank you to this site and its frequenters for this amazing collection of knowledge and advice that I have been anonymously siphoning during my last 3 months of nonstop CELTA training, dreaming, and job searching... I'm glad to share your incurable wanderlust.

I just got offered a job in Tarnobrzeg at a private language school called WORD. I am 21 years old, just graduated university with a BS in biopsychology, have lived abroad before but that was France and I speak French.. so, slightly different. This is also the first time I'm going to be this far away from "home" for more than 5 months.

Honestly guys, I'm scared shitless. I am also flooded to the gills with all manner of other emotions, among them relief, SO much happiness, and enough electrifying excitement to power my future tiny apartment in Tarnobrzeg. Sorry if I'm gushing...

Anyway, I think i'm going to accept the job. It pays 2350zl a month net plus free single accommodation plus paid vacation plus 400 dollar travel stipend at the end. Is this reasonable for 20 hour weeks? Is traveling out of the budget? If necessary I'll eat top ramen (or cheap polish equivalent) all month if it means I can explore my beeeautiful surroundings... Does anyone live in the area of Tarnobrzeg, or know anything about WORD school? I've done my homework but there's only so much I can glean from the Polish website and the very very few people who have anything to say about the school.

ANY info or advice or just a push over the cliff that I'm dawdling about on the edge of would be very much appreciated...

[simon_porter00]

on the gushometer i think your post scores a 10!
Seriously though I'm glad to see you're excited.

For the area that you're in - 2350zl net, free accommodation, travel stipend etc etc seems like a pretty good deal. Check the contract thoroughly and make sure you get a version in English. If there's any dodgy clauses then ask them to be striked off. i.e.
any clause about relationship between attendees and your wages. - You get 80% of your wages if less than 75% of the class attends
cancellation of contract clauses - legally you have to give 3 months notice max, in your case maybe 1, so any clause that says you have to pay a hundred billion zł per student if you do a runner halfway through the contract in unenforceable on their side.

Tarnobrzeg isn't much of a city to look at but it's a good base to do some pretty thorough exploration of the south and south east part of Poland which is really quite beautiful. Also if you like ski-ing it's a great place to be.

Money wise, Tarnobrzeg is quite cheap and so you'll get a lot of mileage out of 2000 a month as long as you're fairly sensible. Because it's small common side effects may include boredom as you're the only/one of a few native speakers in town. Boredom v2 because Polish people are a difficult group to infiltrate and make good friends with, so really get to your fellow teachers and admin staff at the school and see if they'll take you under their wings. Boredom v3 there may not be THAT much to do in town. I know Stalowa Wola (which is down the road from you) quite well and you can exhuast it's endless opportunities for fun in about 5 days. To make life a success therefore you really have to throw yourself out there and fully embrace life. If you need lots of company and friends you could become quite disillusioned.

Being your first job, I'd accept it just for the experience and as a native in a small town you'll be inundated with work - plenty of privates after work hours.

Finally you haven't mentioned if you're a girl or guy, black or white etc etc. I know you think it shouldn't make a difference but in small town Poland you will be exposed to some 'backward' views and thinking.

[dynow]

this is a girl.

i think the offer, assuming the contract doesn't contain any landmines, is a good one. In a small town like that you should have no problem making ends meet.

Mr. Porter is giving you good advice regarding the boredom meter. I'd go as far as to say you're going to be bored out of your skull as soon as the "wow, I'm in Poland" thing wears off. Tarnobrzeg is not an exciting town. Sure, you can make trips around Poland by bus/train, but you will soon find out what travelling by train/bus is like in Poland.

IMHO, a 21 year old girl saying she's scared shitless, this is looking to me like the all too familiar story about the young expat coming to Poland, landing in some random town, sticking it out till they simply can't take it anymore and then jumping on the next flight out of town (breaching their work contract as a result).

It's possible that being scared shitless could make this quite the opposite experience, one that will toughen you up, help you mature, and all that grown up stuff, but I will never understand why people decide to do that here when they have the option of so many other countries.

Are you Polish? Half Polish? Where are you from?

[brigittestardust]

Thank you both for the responding. The contract advice is useful, Mr porter, I will keep an eye out when the time comes to sign. I thought it was pretty obvious by my tone that I'm a girl, when I wrote that yesterday I had just received the offer and was practically jumping out of my skin with girlyness, so.. yea.
I'm white and nondescript looking, plain old American. People in europe have told me I look Russian, Polish, and all kinds of european, so I don't anticipate any direct racism problems. I do readily expect to be alienated as a foreigner in a small town, not speaking Polish. I expect to be lonely, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing for me. I know this is going to be difficult, and I'm not in it to make a bunch of friends. I'm not in it for a glamorous experience either. I'm used to living on very tight means. Why then..? Well, because I've only been back in the US for 8 months since my semester abroad and it feels like a damned eternity. I am not the person who's going to spook and jump at the chance to come home. What I'm more than likely to want to do is jump on a train/bus (why the ominous tone dynow, please explain) and wander around the more interesting parts of Poland by myself for a weekend, or visit various friends in Lithuania and Slovakia. Simply put, will 2350zl/mo allow me to do this?
From all I read on this site, people spend a LOT of time complaining about Poland and everyone always wants to know why others want to go there. For me, its a combination of wanting to explore eastern europe (because its beautiful and wild and sometimes ravaged and interesting) and the demand for teachers being higher in Poland than other countries I tried. The market is hard to break into right now. Why did you guys decide to go there, anyway? Do you have anything good to say about it?

[hrvatski]

Les femmes et l'alcool.

[brigittestardust]

mdr. malheureusement jsuis h�t�ro.. mais l'alcool c'est un avantage.

[scottie1113]

Read my posts on a thread called farewell and you'll find some answers to your questions. Granted, I love this place so my answers may seem biased to most posters here, but that's the way out west in the spring of the year.

[dynow]

[justflyingin]

I'd like to extend a hand of welcome also from another American but one who lives near Warsaw. If you need a helping hand, or advice about this area, just ask. Email me at Becky at solidrockpl.org and I'll help out if I can.

I have a son who will be 21 this year, and have 4 other kids down to 11 years old. My oldest will be finishing college this year (in the states).

I'm excited that you are happy.

If you can manage to save your money, or at least some of it, you can do a little travel. You should be able to add to your salary with extra private students. Since you know no Polish, my advice would be to gently refuse children who don't know anything. This is to save you frustration. Those are long, long hours (45 minutes) when you don't know any Polish and they don't know any English.

We have a man here who teaches in two different English schools, in order to make ends meet. One wasn't enough. Of course, he's trying to pay heating bills, and everything since he and his wife live in a house.

I'd wonder if their free room also includes utilities. I hope that they don't try to cheat you. If you need a listening ear, just holler.

I'm from FL, so flying in to Poland in Oct. the first time, was quite a shock. I flew from small town, mostly rural, quiet FL, and sunny, hot weather to dreary, cool (40's), clouds, noisy, car alarms going off, drunks lying in the open, Warsaw. What a shock for my system. I struggled. (And I had kids to think about!). Expect "jet lag" to hit and realize it's normal. Anything 3-6 months, if it hasn't hit before. Of course, if you re only going to stay 1 or 2 years, it is possible it doesn't hit like someone who is going to stay 'long term". If you have any hobbies, like crafts, esp., bring it to do in the winter time. The dark days are long, but I suppose not quite as long the farther south you are.

Be suspicious of Polish guys showing interest in you. You're an American girl and possibly their "ticket" to the US. Be VERY suspicious. Of course you don't have to heed this advice! Just be aware that this is often the mentality (and the reverse is true as well--for the foreign guy--the Polish girl is often attracted simply because the guy is "foreign"--and how much better if to an exotic place like the US.) I can't tell you how many times I've been asked by a Polish person, "And why would you want to live here, when you could be in the states?"

[brigittestardust]

In fact, I am from one of the most temperate states... California. Personally I love cold weather, I'm a snowboarder and I'm happiest in the mountains of Canada or Montana, all bundled up in winter gear. But I know you Poland veterans will roll your eyes, I have no idea what long miserable winters I'm in for, and you're probably right. dynow, I appreciate the details regarding trains and buses. Really though, thats all I was expecting. Even if there was an option to take some magnificent train line with reclining seats and butlers with gold plated trays of hot drinks... I'd probably take the crammed bus full of soccer hooligans just cause its less expensive. As a very poor college student I've been riding Greyhound buses around the country for 8-10 hours at a time and I don't think anything could be much worse than being stuffed into the seat that isnt really a seat next to the bathroom door between two extremely smelly homeless crackheads who seem to think I will be interested in their demented attempts at romantic poetry and slurred declarations of love ("I'll miss your existence") at 4 in the morning. If nothing else, I'll have interesting stories. I suppose I'll save any prospective trips to Lithuania for when I have a bit longer break, and I'm glad to hear it will be relatively affordable.
justflyingin, my free accommodation does NOT include utilities, and that was going to be my next question. I've heard heating can cost an arm and a leg in winter, what should I reasonably expect to pay per month? Looking around on this site I've seen anything from 50zl to 600 (i think that was a large house though).
Coming from a bigger city (San Francisco) to a tiny Polish town is probably going to be a huge shock to the system as well. For the winters I have crafts, I have my MCAT books that need to be studied, I have yoga and pilates to practice, but I might go bonkers indoors for so long. I'm bracing myself for anything, really.. I might hate it. I am really glad to be getting all these warnings from people who know what they're talking about, but my heart is still saying "Do it!!" and I will.

[hrvatski]

Justflyingin, I really think there's no need to make her paranoid about being used for her Americaness, the USA is not that attractive to Poles anymore and out of all the foreigners I've known here I'm pretty sure none of them feel like they were tricked in this way.

[scottie1113]

Don't worry about Polish winters. True, they're long, dark and cold but I'm from San Diego and they don't bother me at all. Weather is a state of mind.

[justflyingin]

[justflyingin]

[scottie1113]

I live in a flat in Gdansk so it may be different elsewhere, but my expenses for heating don't change throughout the year. I pay for gas and electricity and my bills only vary by a few zl per month. No big deal.