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Anna Piasecka

Anna Piasecka was born in Słupsk in northern Poland. “She grew up on the Baltic Sea coast in the post-communist era and completed her education with the school-leaving certificate,” so reads the blurb in her début book “BIGOS, ZOB und JOB. Eine Polin in Deutschland” [“BIGOS, ZOB and JOB. A Pole in Germany”]: “Her modest and difficult childhood was filled with lots of dreams. In spite of all the adversities, she managed to start a degree in neighbouring Germany which had been “forbidden” until recently. With great discipline and enthusiasm, she studied business administration, majoring in personnel management and organisation, before going on to set up a company in her homeland for a German group of companies.” Her book is not just a memoir, it is also a work of non-fiction which gives a clear and easy-to-read account of a career in International Management. But many of the experiences the young Pole had could also come across as satire, if only they were not so true. The author gave readings in German-Polish Societies in Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg. A review in the Westfälische Nachrichten stated that she now lives near Münster.

Anna Piasecka, author of the book “BIGOS, ZOB und JOB. Eine Polin in Deutschland”, [“BIGOS, ZOB and JOB. A Pole in Germany”], published in 2017.

Photo: © Studio Wiegel, Münster, 2018

The naive student who came to Germany without any previous experience, became a manager with four mobile phones, one hundred and fifty telephone calls to be dealt with every day, and a 16-hour day. She acquired a lot of her knowledge by learning by doing and can now hold her own in all areas of international management. Back in Germany, she supported subsidiaries and affiliates in operational, personnel, strategic, commercial and organisational issues. Piasecka’s book has reached the present day.

But the author now has a different goal in life because this exploitation of her own self has not simply passed her by. With the aim of finding herself again, she handed in her notice and left for South Africa to teach children. With a wealth of new experiences under her belt, she returned to Germany to face the grind of German bureaucracy in the job centre and looking for a job. These experiences are also so typical and strange that they can be seen as a satire of our modern society without the author having to exaggerate even slightly. She has yet to find a new professional career.

Tough and likeable, there is no other way to describe the author, even on the evening of her reading in our town in the far north of Germany. She brought slides of her project in South Africa for the members of the German Polish Association to see because many of those attending have given donations and can now see what their money has been used for. Her next book is going to be called, “Teacher Anna. Eine Polin in Südafrika”. [“Teacher Anna. A Pole in South Africa”] It can be assumed that, like the previous book, it will be full of personal experiences, detailed information and humorous incidents.

Axel Feuß, June 2018

Anna Piasecka: BIGOS, ZOB und JOB. Eine Polin in Deutschland, Oberhausen/Oberbayern: NOEL-Verlag, paperback, 126 pages, ISBN: 978-395493-184-2, €13.90