1st day of March/Spring

I wrote previously about how they don’t celebrate anything on the 1st of March.

I wonder if it has to do with the geographical positioning, because in Romania, from the day we’re born we celebrate the 1st day of March as the 1st day of Spring.

Here, they celebrate Spring on the 21st of March, as its astronomical separation happens now. It is today that kids don’t go to school, and go to some movie or museum, etc. And it is in their tradition to make natural-size people from cereal straws and let them flow on the rivers, as it symbolizes winter.

I still hang on to my idea that it is more beautiful in Romania, where you give flowers to young girls and small red-white threads. Much more soul-related, as we are Latin people ;)

POST SCRIPTUM

Iżabela has Polish Windows Vista!!!

Non-Human Resources Management

Funny. Of course, during courses we have been taking an interest to learn about how life goes on in Poland.

Just a couple of minutes ago, I have finished the class and we were still talking about the wages in Poland, and a French guy was so into the matter. “How can you live with these wages? And with the prices as well! I have been to Manufaktura and bought this t-shirt at the same price as in France! It’s totally unacceptable!”

And he started to express his opinion that the government has to do something about, if not it’s a shitty government and all.

On the other hand, I keep to my opinion/”theory” that has 3 components: hierarchy + “conspiracy theory”/manipulation + individualism.

Telekomunikacja Polska

Today I found out from Izabela (my Human Resources Management teacher) about the neat situation in fixed telecommunication in Poland. Some years ago, we had a monopoly on the fixed-line telecommunication in Romania. On the 1st of January 2003 that monopoly dissolved.

The result is needless to be commented. That’s why according to the OTE Group 2006 1st Quarter Results Press Release, Romtelecom has 3,835,647 fixed telephony lines, down from 4,279,038 at the end of 1st quarter 2005.

Romtelecom is owned by OTE (the Greek national telecommunication company).
Telekomunikacja Polska is owned by France Telecom and Kulczyk Holding.

Difference? Well you could as well say that the Polish state has only around 5% shares, while the Romanian state has 45%, but I guess that a drop in 500 thousand users does mean something.

And watch out for this: Telekomunikacja Polska has around 11 millions of users, while Romtelecom has 3.8 millions and dropping.

I can’t help but to wonder - of course the number of users has to be related with the telecommunication development, costs, services’ prices. But why aren’t the Polish users going to other companies? I don’t know if they have better prices, but I think not.

So… maybe in a way it was somewhat nice to have a monopoly. When it dissolved, we were a bit more courageous into diving in new services like cable telecommunications, or even VoIP.

Still… tell me Polish people - why do you like Telekomunikacja Polska? Is it that Tele2 AB (Swedish operator) is so bad?

My final list of courses at WSHE

OK. Today I decided on my final list of courses. It is going to be perfect! I even have two days free!

So, here it goes:

Wednesday
10.15-12.00/K307 - Human Resources Management, with Izabela
14.00-15.30/K307 - Conflicts and International Negotiations, with Michał

Thursday
12.15-14.00/K317 - Corporate Finance Management, with Piotr

Friday
12.15-14.00/K322 - Social Role of Media, with Monika
14.15-16.00/K322 - Public Discourse, with Monika