Cheeseheads, I salute you

My day started pretty well. I was taking care of the children of my sister, I was looking for job offers online, sending applications. I checked Facebook, just like everybody else does. And then I noticed a post form a page called ''Frustraties van kassamedewerkers'' ( frustrations of clerks) which quoted ''how do you recognize a polish customer?''. First I joined the conversation and said that you don't want to begin with describing dutch customers, but for what it's worth I would say: socks and sandals + no knowledge of how to use the pin machine (because in Poland it works a bit differently).

And it was funny at the beginning. I mean I love this page, they have seriosuly amusing memes and a lot of stories are just incredible. But this one turned out to be more about polish men, building Dutch streets etc. than about Polish people customers in general.

I love to make fun of life, also of myself but somehow some comments hurt me.

To explain myself good I will begin with describing how I myself recognize Polish people when I'm on the streets of Amsterdam, or doing shopping.

First of all, a lot of them dress themselves very strange. I hate to say that but you can pick a polish tourist out of the crowd by the dress code. I don't know how to decsribe it, it's something that we call ''Fashion from Raszyn'' (check out the pictures on this site http://faszynfromraszyn.pl/ ). In shops they act very insecure mostly because not all of the Polish people can speak good english. I have to say, this is frustrating because whether you come for holidays only or to work here, it's very helpful for you and people around you, that you can speak a bit english. Also I understand that all the physical workers wear an uniform and come directly after the shift or during their breaks to buy the cheapest beer (which is also very light, that's why they buy a lot of cans at one time).

But then I looked on the comments and I have to say that for such a small country you have a lot of cheesheads who never put their feet outside the borderline, but somehow they have strong opinions about the polish nation. I can quote that polish people:

-have square/flat heads (you're an anthropologist or what?)

-we stink and are dirty

-we don't speak any foreign language

-we pay only with big paper notes or small coins

-we buy potatoes (like Dutch people don't)

-we don't react when you ask us in Dutch do we want a receipt (strange)

-girls wear shit loads of make up

etc. etc.

Well, yeah, you got me going with comments like that. I can tell you a little story of a Dutch family who came to Poland for a wedding of their relatives. Not only were they afraid to rent a hotel room, so they rented a whole house outside of the city. They were also afraid that in Poland we still ride horses on the streets and have no supermarkets, so they took their own food for the whole stay. Incredible amounts of soft bread, cheese, peanut butter, chocolate sprinkles, soft drinks and so on.

I mean, are you stupid or what? 

I try not to take it personally but come on. I am from Poland, I speak fluently 3 languages, I don't stink, I use a pin pas and last but not least- I always react to what the clerks are asking me. So shove your opinions up your ass. 

Teenagers on that page, probably working at Lidl as a weekend help and they get to put tags on other nationalities? 

We don't react when you ask us things in Dutch? Well think about it, maybe we are ashamed that we had enough money to go on holidays to the Netherlands but we didn't learn a single word in any language to communicate. And the people burn from shame when they have to go and buy something. I agree, this is a big minus point, I do.

But if you put a general question like ''how do you recognize Polish customers'' don't expect me to shut up when some blond fat bitch (I'm getting less professional, sorry) says that Polish people stink.

People are people. I worked in a supermarket in Poland, I worked at the front desk in a hotel in Amsterdam. I dealed with a lot of nationalities, sure some of them are famous for particular behaviour but you just can't say ''English people are like this, Canadians like this, Germans like that..'', every person is different, every human being is an individual. And if you don't stop with your racism I will call Sinterklaas and you will not get a shit from him. Or from Zwarte Pieten. Not a single pepernoot.

Here you have an amazing gif we created together with Mattia. It's from our trip to Rotterdam, more precise- from the Euromast. Mattia took the pictures, I put them together, enjoy!

Euromast