As you may remember I was changing job exactly one year ago. I left big corporation in favor to a small company (Lunar Logic Polska) who do mainly startups. The whole “startup world” was new to me at the time but it quickly became a way more pleasurable environment than my previous job was.
So enjoyable that couple months ago I decided I want to taste it even more.
So that’s the bold move I want to talk about. I’m leaving my current job in the coming weeks to focus entirely on startups and contracting business. I will be leaving some great folks @ LLP, but it’s all about moving forward, and I feel it’s the right moment to do so.
No more details at the moment, but waaay more is coming!!
You may have been wondering why there were not as much post as usual in the past 2 months. The case is that I’m busy these days. So it’s time to catch up.
So the 2009 is going to end really soon and the only thing I can say is it has been a truly wonderful year! Most notably I got married and I’m really happy about it! I also changed job to a more satisfying one which is good as well. Thankfully everybody around me are in good health which is the main ingredient of happiness. We all know this, right?
In technical matters I had to learn a lot and there is still much ahead. I’m not surprised anymore as I got used to the fact that a big part of my life will be about learning. And that’s great. I wish you all such a job!
I also surprised myself couple of times – for example in November when I started using Twitter. Really. I’m not kidding… I found it really great in busy times. Feel free to read my tweets or follow my profile at @jakubpawlowicz.
The 2010 is coming and I already see some interesting challenges on the way. More about them in the new year!
I wish 2010 would be as good to you as 2009 has been to me!!!
As you know I don’t like media, be it newspapers, television or any other medium which existence relies on attracting masses with catchy slogans, or dumb programs just to make even-more-money.
According to Polish media a couple of days ago there was a large outbreak of so-called swine flu epidemic on Ukraine. The reports from there were hysteric: showing the flu great progress, one service reporting higher death toll than another, showing people queueing to pharmacists seeking flu vaccine, anti-flu drugs, garlic, lemons, honey, and God-only-knows-what-else.
As we share border with Ukraine government instructed our border service to take a closer look at who enters the country and started considering giving a flu vaccine to all health/public service workers. Some of the opposition politicians started arguing that we need to act quickly to stop the pandemic, Polish media suggested some countries already vaccinated 40%, 60% or even all country population. Panic is emerging thanks to people’s foolishness and to mass media.
The thing I want to point out is how much place are reserved for this hypothetical flu outbreak in Ukraine in western mass media. There is literally none. I checked BBC, CNN, and Reuters and the first two doesn’t even mention this fact on their health pages, Reuters being the only one referring to this outbreak in an article on flu season in northern hemisphere.
I can think of a few possible explanations of this fact but you are creative people and can figure it out on your own, don’t you?
A personal friend of mine just came back from Lviv, Ukraine. She says that she couldn’t spot a single man without a gauze bandage. Moreover, people there already avoid gathering into large groups, public transport such as buses is deserted etc.
http://www.president.gov.ua/news/15609.html – here the Ukrainian president Victor Yushchenko imposes a criminal responsibility for, quoting, ‘criminal caresslessness’ in fighting the epidemic.
And about the media reaction: contrary to the western ones, the ex-USSR media cover the events very closely. You can check it on the site of ‘Kommersant’: http://kommersant.ru/theme.aspx?ThemesID=422 – a well-known russian newspaper, which tracks back its history up to 1909.
Thanks for comment Mike. It’s really weird to me about this disproportion between the eastern and western media. For the past week the flu was the top news in all media here but Ukraine is no more.
Regarding the flu, it is well known that complications after seasonal flu can lead to deaths and each year the death toll is in thousands people, but up to this year it wasn’t a top news. I bet media doesn’t have anything better to do.
I know exactly what you feel I’ve been waiting for it too… Strange, but it seems I now appreciate spring, sun and good weather much more than I used to, when I didn’t have to go to work every day…
Heh, good point. It is more and more often that “mareketoids” adapt some catchy scientific terms for selling purpose. I’m sure you could find in this store a pair of “eco socks” as well
And I actually hate “marketoids” as you called them as they think of us (ad targets) as brainless buying machines, which is becoming more and more real. That’s sad…
As many of you already know I will be leaving Sabre on March 15th. It has been about 2,5 years of corporate life in the very best edition which taught me one thing: I’m not a corporate beast. Although I really liked the people I was working with (it’s past as I’ve already left Sabre taking the vacations for 2 weeks) the corporate reality with its distributed responsibility and deep-tree structure doesn’t work for me.
The time for retrospection will come soon, but for now I’m simply happy joining a small company!
Thanks Dexter! As you know, there is only one corporation I’d fancy working for, but living with this dream would be probably better than actually making it real.
Hi Jakub, I wish you all the best. It was good to have you with Sabre. People like you make the difference in a global player.
See that you keep your eyes open for the beauty in our universe. Don’t get attached to any company – be it small or big!
I consider banks as the institutions who lie to us all the time. However these lies are not ones visible at the first sight but rather ones hidden deeply, like in the documents we are asked to sign, which are written in a very formal and not understandable manner.
I hate these situations when after signing the documents in a bank I check my bank account to find out I misread something and they “robbed” me out of my money. It is interesting to point out that I have never experienced a situation when bank gave me a bonus I didn’t expect. It is always the case they took as much as I have expected or more. The “more” being the more probable case.
Although I am used to banks not telling us the whole story about interest rates, mortgage costs, money transfer fees and so on, this time I found the polish Alior Bank TV ad to lie in a bit different way:
This ad tells us that with the Alior Bank card you can take your money from all the cashpoints in the world free of charge. First it shows Krakow’s main square and Floriańska street corner where someone takes money from a cashpoint. The problem is this cashpoint does not exist! I have never seen it there before so I deliberately took a walk to that place to find out a bare wall instead of a cashpoint. Computer generated scenes are popular these days to the extent they drive the reality…
In the subsequent scene there is another cashpoint presented near the Eiffel Tower in Paris. As I will be there this year I will take another walk to find out whether that one is real or fake!
I hope for a bank which doesn’t lie to me. I don’t know if I ever found one, but I will keep searching.
PS) Thanks goes to Hubert Gajewski who told me “post it on your blog” once he heard the story.
UPDATE) We were in Paris in September and didn’t find the cashpoint. Lame, Alior, very lame.
Hahah amazing! I really enjoy this kind of fake scenes.
Unfortunately I enjoy less bank silent actions. How was I surprised seeing yesterday that a “free of charge” action in Deutsche Bank can cost me 15 euros!
Nice advert though (even if it’s all based on a lie). I like his bowler hat (or coke hat, if you’re old school) and all the people wearing their hats lining up at the bottom at the end of the ad. Is it normal for bankers to wear bowler hats in Poland too then? Such hats are what, classically, bankers would wear in the City of London (not that you’d see anyone wearing them today, sadly).
Even that hats are not worn in real. I think the bank just pretend to be more experienced and long-established than it really is as it was founded in 2008
Yesterday one of the Polish biggest political parties came up with an idea that hanging the flag on May 1st, 3rd and November 11th (Polish national holidays) should be obligatory. What’s worse the politicians from other parties think that it is a good idea.
You know what? It is the worst idea I have ever heard of. Hanging the flag should be imposed by my internal will, by pride of my country not some silly regulations.
Give me a reason to be proud of Poland and I will hang a flag!
I’d be happy to live in a country, where people respect their national flag, like it is in the States. I’d be happy to live in a country, where people enjoy their tradition, are not ashamed of it and can make something cool about it, like it is in Bavaria. I’d happy to live in a country, where people are proud of their country goods, like it is in France. Finally, I’d like to live in a country, where the term “country” is not dimmed by stupid & selfish actions of “so called” political class, being sick only about the power. I wish it was Poland
Jakub, can you really define Poland? It’s not a mass of stupid people around us. It is not a collection of current, previous and future government actions. It is much more than the law hurting people, who believe in the Constitution. It is not only a place between the Baltic Sea and Tatry. It is not only last year, or ten, but the history, much longer then we can imagine. A country is quite virtual entity. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on-53-C9ITI
I think the problem when talking about Polish national identity starts in defining it. We, as a nation, were divided for the past 200 years, not only geographically but also mentally, so the definition is divided as well. Thanks to it polish people do not trust each other but what’s worse they cheat on each other. In the meanwhile 90% of them claim they are catholics where (ironically) cheating is a sin. And that’s fine for them to cheat on each other and then confess on Sunday making “some more room” for another sins.
I also think an assumption that Poland is (and have to be) a catholic country is genuinely wrong. It hurts me as I am not a catholic but everything I have is thanks to this country.
Another great example is polish national addiction to celebrate anniversaries. Two years ago we had 35th anniversary of a draw (!!!) with England on Wembley. That’s fu..ing nonsense! Next year there will be 600th anniversary of Polish win on Grunwald fields. What for? It would be better to focus on making some advancements in the future but celebrating past events makes us think that we were great once and now we are not. It’s hard to admit but probably nothing would bring us back these times.
The last thing is about politicians. They do not resemble Poland to me, but unfortunately they think they do. I don’t want Poland to be the 1st, 5th or 10th power in the Europe – I want Poland to be a part of Europe. I don’t want to see politicians vetoing EU reforms just to show everyone that we have the power to do it. Finally I don’t want people in the other countries to think about us as the ones who stopped Turkish army on the fields of Vienna in 1683 and we they have to respect us.
How this helps us escape from the label of “these who steal cars”? It doesn’t.
I would like others to think of us as joyful people, good workers, makers of the best vodka and ones who trust and can be trusted.
I hope the youngest generation will not follow their ancestors’ path and in 50 years we will have a really trustful and cooperative society proud of the Polish soil. Believe me or not but I would like to be proud of Poland.
There are two hot “global” topics still present in the news: global crisis and global warming. Although we know what caused the former one, there are only clues about the latter one.
I intentionally used word “clues” because there is no more than that. I read a newspaper a few weeks ago and there were 2 articles claiming completely opposite view on the future. One said there will be a global warming and polar capes will melt, while the other was saying we should prepare for another ice age as due to polar caps melting the sea currents will change causing Europe and Asia to freeze.
I think there are probably as many theories as the environmental scientists and nobody knows who is right, but many claim finding the right answer.
But after all the answer is not meaningful but the way we live and interact with the environment really is. So living more ecologically would definitely help us, but eventually the Earth too. But I’m really worried about this approach as unfortunately we are pretty dumb species…
On the other hand, as I found the topic interesting I started to read a lot about it on Wikipedia. There are many interesting articles about past ice ages, sea level rises, human migrations, etc, which in general tells a message – global warming is nothing special. Since 20000 years ago the global sea level rose about 140 meters, global temperatures rose about 5 Celcius degrees, humans decided to leave Africa and settle all around the world, etc. As you can see – the current global warming is nothing special. It happened before, and it is meant to happen in the future.
As always life will find a way. But what about us?
I was inspired & pointed out to write this post by my friend from Sabre, Hubert Gajewski. Hubert is an extraordinary person: works as QA in Sabre, in his spare time is a leader of Aviary – a company which localizes software to Polish language (the whole Mozilla suite most notably), and has a knowledge of technical stuff often embarrassing to many developers.
What Hubert did is he wrote an article about 7 things people may not know about him. I was surprised by many of them and I hope you will be surprised by some of mine too. So here goes the list:
I’m a big fan of comic books, particularly Thorgal series. I have the complete series (31 parts) issued up to date and have read some of them 50 or more times thus I know most of them by heart. My super favorite parts are #5 - Beyond the Land of Shadows, #8 - Alinoë, #15 - The Lord of the Mountains, and #21 - The Crown of Ogotaï. I also used to read a lot of Asterix series comic books, but Thorgal is definitely my number 1.
I got MSc in Physics but had started studying on Astronomy faculty and eventually had changed it to Physics after the first semester. My addiction to astronomy is ongoing as I read popular science books, study websites or chat with other astronomy enthusiasts not to mention looking at the night sky when possible.
I like getting up early. I find it pleasing to start my day at 5-6 AM (apart from winter when I usually get up at 7 AM), then do some exercises, buy a bread & butter for the breakfast, or watch the sun rising. I like it as the world seems to be a different place at early morning hours – sleepy, innocent and predictable, and it reminds me of my childhood.
Although I come from Wisla (a small town in Polish Beskidy mountains) I spent a big part of my childhood (up to when I was 5) living with my parents in Krakow where I currently live and work.
My education in primary school lasted for 7 years instead of standard 8 years. I did 2nd and 3rd class in one year as my parents found me bored with the 2nd class teaching program.
I dont’ have any favorite music band, maybe except Roxette as it was the first I really liked listening to. However I’m not a devotee of particular music type: I fancy listening to dance, pop, pop-rock, rock, metal, and classical music (listening to Turisas, a great folk metal band from Finland, while writing this).
I was at the opening of the first european Apple Store. It took place in London on November 20th 2004 and we were actually queueing for couple of hours to be one of the first people inside. It was a great adventure thanks to my dearest wife-to-be Ewelina.
Now be honest – who knew all of these? Probably nobody
As the tradition suggest I should name others to do the same:
Radek “Dexter” Orszewski – former Sabre guy, a mobile world maniac who currently works for Nokia in Berlin;
Łukasz Milewski – excellent software developer from Sabre and an XBox addict;
Radek Urbaś – another excellent developer, Łukasz’s teammate and “the guy who laughs loudly”
Jeremy Johnson – Sabre UX team manager and UX designer – my boss
I remember good old times when my parents were buying comic books, “Kajko i Kokosz”, “Kajtek i Koko”, “Asteriks i Obelix”, “Tytus, Romek i Atomek”. I’ve also had small collection of “Thorgal” comic books. But it was long time ago and I’ve lost interest in it. Although, recently I’ve bought Sin City 1st episode and 300 by Frank Miller.
solnic 12:20 am on March 5, 2010 Permalink |
Good luck mate! It was a pleasure working with you
Jakub Pawlowicz 12:27 am on March 5, 2010 Permalink |
Thanks Piotr! It’s still a pleasure!
psi 12:50 am on March 5, 2010 Permalink |
Good luck, we’re going to miss you… I wonder what bold move you will be making a year from now
Jakub Pawlowicz 12:53 am on March 5, 2010 Permalink |
I don’t even want to think about it – let’s not make it a “March rule”