| Kommentar | Guten Tag. Ich kann leider gar kein Polnisch, bin aber über diese amerikanische Zeitungskolumne gestolpert und dachte, es könnte jemand von euch interessieren. (-: _____________________ Memories of a Social Security Trip to Poland ...
Sometime in early 1994, while I was working at the SSA's headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland, where I was the chief editor of all the publications the agency produced for the public, I was asked to make a presentation to a group of visiting Social Security officials from Poland. ...
Almost every country on the planet has a social insurance system in place for its citizens. And many of those countries, especially in Europe, had such programs long before we ever got around to setting up our Social Security system in 1935. In fact, the first Polish Social Security laws were established in 1927. ...
When lunchtime rolled around, I got to chatting with one of the Polish visitors. On a whim, I asked him if he'd like to take a drive to see the "Little Poland" neighborhood of Baltimore. ...
The first place that caught our eye was a small neighborhood meat market. We went in.
The butcher and my Polish Social Security official (his name was Jan) were talking to each other in Polish. After a minute or two, they were hugging each other and crying. It was very emotional. Jan explained to me that it turned out both of them came from the same small town in Poland — and they had so many memories to share. (I mean, how serendipitous was that?)
Well, the butcher closed up the shop and got in my car with Jan and me and took us on a tour of the Little Poland area. We stopped at a couple homes, a Polish church and a few other small businesses. And most memorably, we ended up at the neighborhood meeting place — a Polish bar. Jan and all his newfound friends started doing some serious drinking of Polish vodka!
Jan was having a really good time. I kept telling him that we had to get back to the Social Security headquarters complex and to our meetings. But Jan and his friends just kept on drinking and talking (all in Polish) and hugging each other. Eventually, about 3 p.m. or so, I finally talked a rather tipsy Jan into going back to work.
When we got there, I was pulled aside by some of my superiors and got chewed out. "Where the heck were you?" they asked. "Do you know who you were with?" I had just assumed Jan was some midlevel management type like me. But it turns out he was the head of the Polish Social Security system, and actually was a top official in the Polish government. And I brought him back to the conference drunk!
Long story short, for a while, I thought I was going to be in some serious trouble. But a few months later, the SSA got an invitation from the Polish government to send a representative to Poland to conduct training. Because of my friendship with Jan, they specifically asked for me. So, my trip to Poland came about all because I took a guy out drinking in Baltimore!
Anyway, a few months later I was in a small town outside of Warsaw at a Zakład Ubezpieczen Spolecznych training facility. ZUS is the name of their Social Security agency. I was there to teach their public affairs officials about how we promoted our Social Security system to American citizens. This was new stuff to ZUS staff because Poland was just coming out from under decades of Soviet domination. They had to teach Polish citizens how their recently revamped social insurance system would work. ...
... because at the time, the Polish banking system was essentially non-existent, Polish seniors didn't get checks. They got cash. So once each month, Polish mail carriers, with armed guards accompanying them, would walk around cities and towns throughout Poland with literally trillions of złoty notes in their mailbags. They would knock on doors and hand seniors their ZUS benefits in cash! I'm sure that today, all these decades later, the Polish economy is back to normal and Polish seniors probably get their ZUS benefits via direct deposit just as we get Social Security benefits in our country.Tom Margenau worked for 32 years in a variety of positions for the Social Security Administration before retiring in 2005. For many years, he was the director of SSA's public information office at the agency’s headquarters in Baltimore, Md. thomas.margenau (at) comcast.net https://www.creators.com/read/your-social-sec... |
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