University students "ho-hum" on Sunday shopping
"The pension funds are doing a reasonable job preparing for their chunk of work: signing up people, managing the money. But the government has poorly executed its side of it - information, the PR campaigns."
Not to mention getting caught short on money when employers didn't pay ZUS as fast as the ZUS chief apparently would have expected. The fact that he had to take out an emergency loan of more than $200 million on the eve of the program means "the government has poorly thought it out," Bledowski said.
"It's obviously in the interest of companies to delay paying ZUS as long as possible," Bledowski said. After all, he continued, this is no longer a "command" economy. He also said that blaming the Finance Ministry for inadequately estimating ZUS contributions in the new system won't help.
"It's another example of the 'grand project' which hasn't been mastered, from the purely logistical point of view," Bledowski said.
Despite the glitches, and some prickly outstanding issues such as who pays the interest on ZUS loans from Pekao and Powszechna Kasa Oszczednosci Bank Panstwowy (PKO BP), Bledowski said pension reform "is a good thing for Poland. It could be one of the early European examples which, 10 years later, will be studied like Chile's program is studied today."
• • •
So what do today's university students think of the proposed ban on Sunday shopping? Not much. They're tomorrow's professionals and are expert jugglers today. That means squeezing in shopping, in addition to a heavy learning load.
Judging by a snap survey of a dozen university high-fliers active in international student organization AIESEC, many are appalled that Solidarity Election Action (AWS) politicians would try to outlaw Sunday shopping. Poland has leapfrogged over many other countries in retail shopping practices, creating a U.S. or U.K. free market-style practice with extended-hours shopping. This has propelled the country's retail economy into high gear. And it is a sharp contrast to, say, Germany where the government requires stores to close by early evening, by mid-afternoon on Saturday and to stay closed on Sunday.
In the past eight years, Poles have gotten used to shopping in both neighborhood small shops and in the mushrooming number of hypermarts. "I'm a Catholic and I practice my religion but I don't consider shopping on Sunday to be a wrong thing," said Marek Czerniewski, an economics major at Warsaw University. He often shops on weekends at French supermarket Geant, sometimes by car, sometimes by bus, to buy for his mother and sister. Sometimes they go together. "People have the time during weekends to go shopping together and they don't have to hurry."
"I don't like it at all," said Aleksander Zurek, an economics major (and weekend disc jockey at the AIESEC "Target English Weekend" in Wisla).
"We've got freedom. It's a democratic country so owners should decide when they will be open. A lot of people nowadays do a lot of buying on the weekends so closing shops on Sunday would make Saturday shopping horrible," Zurek said.
Zurek frequents one of the three hypermarts around Katowice because of cheap prices, one-stop shopping "and because I usually find all the stuff I need. It's not like going into a small store and finding they don't have my kind of bread this week." His parents still shop daily at the neighborhood shops but he buys in bulk for the family at the hypermarts about twice a month. "The church says you shouldn't do anything on Sunday but lie down and rest after hard work. But the church also says that making money is ugly, and that all those who are getting rich are criminals, which means they are not connected with reality," Zurek said.
Kasia Matyja, international economic relations major at the Academy of Economics, said she occasionally shops on Sundays at the hypermarts but they are a real lifesaver for "the people who work 12-hour days during the week; those older than I am but in my generation - the Polish yuppies."
Katarzyna Wilczynska, a Kielce native studying in Warsaw, may not yet be a yuppie but "often I'm shopping very late and also on Sunday" she said.
Her friend, however, Modulor bartender Eryk Adamczyk, surprised her by saying that he liked the idea of forcing stores to close on Sundays. "Everyone should have a day of rest," he said.
• • •
Modulor (where someone forgot the key to open up for breakfast last Thursday) is a hopping place most nights. So much so that the owners had to put in a tougher industrial-grade ventilation system to cope with the chain smokers. The other super-popular student hangout, Cafe Brama, meanwhile, has become a non-smoking cafe.
• • •
Jolanta Grygorczyk worked for PepsiCo for more than seven years, starting as the firm's translator in the initial negotiations to buy E. Wedel, handling Stoneybrook fellows from New York during her time at the American Studies Center. The British -born Grygorczyk later worked full time for PepsiCo, handling media and then learning the ropes of marketing at Wedel, then moving up to do media at parent PepsiCo. In her spare time she earned an MBA, and was one of the first graduates of the joint venture between the University of Calgary and the Warsaw School of Economics (SGH).
Now she has made a double-barreled change: She leaves PepsiCo to go with a greenfield operation by U.S. insurer Prudential and also leaves behind PR for human resources. She says she was "ready for a new challenge."
• • •
In the aftermath of the merger between accounting firms Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand, some high-potential folks left to pursue their own agendas. That was the case with Marzena Ambroziak, who had worked in PWC's financial advisory services. She had been working on an MBA on a part-time basis, and she bailed out of PWC to finish it faster.
Now she is exploring all sorts of new options, including financial aspects of the restaurant industry. That's a sure-fire growth industry, especially in Warsaw, where more catering companies and restaurants and cafes are springing up almost daily.
Not to mention getting caught short on money when employers didn't pay ZUS as fast as the ZUS chief apparently would have expected. The fact that he had to take out an emergency loan of more than $200 million on the eve of the program means "the government has poorly thought it out," Bledowski said.
"It's obviously in the interest of companies to delay paying ZUS as long as possible," Bledowski said. After all, he continued, this is no longer a "command" economy. He also said that blaming the Finance Ministry for inadequately estimating ZUS contributions in the new system won't help.
"It's another example of the 'grand project' which hasn't been mastered, from the purely logistical point of view," Bledowski said.
Despite the glitches, and some prickly outstanding issues such as who pays the interest on ZUS loans from Pekao and Powszechna Kasa Oszczednosci Bank Panstwowy (PKO BP), Bledowski said pension reform "is a good thing for Poland. It could be one of the early European examples which, 10 years later, will be studied like Chile's program is studied today."
• • •
So what do today's university students think of the proposed ban on Sunday shopping? Not much. They're tomorrow's professionals and are expert jugglers today. That means squeezing in shopping, in addition to a heavy learning load.
Judging by a snap survey of a dozen university high-fliers active in international student organization AIESEC, many are appalled that Solidarity Election Action (AWS) politicians would try to outlaw Sunday shopping. Poland has leapfrogged over many other countries in retail shopping practices, creating a U.S. or U.K. free market-style practice with extended-hours shopping. This has propelled the country's retail economy into high gear. And it is a sharp contrast to, say, Germany where the government requires stores to close by early evening, by mid-afternoon on Saturday and to stay closed on Sunday.
In the past eight years, Poles have gotten used to shopping in both neighborhood small shops and in the mushrooming number of hypermarts. "I'm a Catholic and I practice my religion but I don't consider shopping on Sunday to be a wrong thing," said Marek Czerniewski, an economics major at Warsaw University. He often shops on weekends at French supermarket Geant, sometimes by car, sometimes by bus, to buy for his mother and sister. Sometimes they go together. "People have the time during weekends to go shopping together and they don't have to hurry."
"I don't like it at all," said Aleksander Zurek, an economics major (and weekend disc jockey at the AIESEC "Target English Weekend" in Wisla).
"We've got freedom. It's a democratic country so owners should decide when they will be open. A lot of people nowadays do a lot of buying on the weekends so closing shops on Sunday would make Saturday shopping horrible," Zurek said.
Zurek frequents one of the three hypermarts around Katowice because of cheap prices, one-stop shopping "and because I usually find all the stuff I need. It's not like going into a small store and finding they don't have my kind of bread this week." His parents still shop daily at the neighborhood shops but he buys in bulk for the family at the hypermarts about twice a month. "The church says you shouldn't do anything on Sunday but lie down and rest after hard work. But the church also says that making money is ugly, and that all those who are getting rich are criminals, which means they are not connected with reality," Zurek said.
Kasia Matyja, international economic relations major at the Academy of Economics, said she occasionally shops on Sundays at the hypermarts but they are a real lifesaver for "the people who work 12-hour days during the week; those older than I am but in my generation - the Polish yuppies."
Katarzyna Wilczynska, a Kielce native studying in Warsaw, may not yet be a yuppie but "often I'm shopping very late and also on Sunday" she said.
Her friend, however, Modulor bartender Eryk Adamczyk, surprised her by saying that he liked the idea of forcing stores to close on Sundays. "Everyone should have a day of rest," he said.
• • •
Modulor (where someone forgot the key to open up for breakfast last Thursday) is a hopping place most nights. So much so that the owners had to put in a tougher industrial-grade ventilation system to cope with the chain smokers. The other super-popular student hangout, Cafe Brama, meanwhile, has become a non-smoking cafe.
• • •
Jolanta Grygorczyk worked for PepsiCo for more than seven years, starting as the firm's translator in the initial negotiations to buy E. Wedel, handling Stoneybrook fellows from New York during her time at the American Studies Center. The British -born Grygorczyk later worked full time for PepsiCo, handling media and then learning the ropes of marketing at Wedel, then moving up to do media at parent PepsiCo. In her spare time she earned an MBA, and was one of the first graduates of the joint venture between the University of Calgary and the Warsaw School of Economics (SGH).
Now she has made a double-barreled change: She leaves PepsiCo to go with a greenfield operation by U.S. insurer Prudential and also leaves behind PR for human resources. She says she was "ready for a new challenge."
• • •
In the aftermath of the merger between accounting firms Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand, some high-potential folks left to pursue their own agendas. That was the case with Marzena Ambroziak, who had worked in PWC's financial advisory services. She had been working on an MBA on a part-time basis, and she bailed out of PWC to finish it faster.
Now she is exploring all sorts of new options, including financial aspects of the restaurant industry. That's a sure-fire growth industry, especially in Warsaw, where more catering companies and restaurants and cafes are springing up almost daily.
