Hard work

On the website of Swedish business daily Dagens Industri this week is an article (in Swedish only, I'm afraid) entitled "Drygt arbete att få jobb i Sverige", which (very) roughly translates as "Hard work to get a job in Sweden".

It quotes three highly qualified Europeans who came to Sweden for varying reasons and attempted to find work.

One of the three, an English woman who spent two years seeking a job to suit her IT consulting background, makes what I believe is a valid point when she says that she believes even Swedish companies whose business language is English would rather employ a Swede who speaks English than an English person who speaks Swedish.

A second says that, in her view, Swedish firms mistakenly say that they want people who think differently and think outside the box, but that when it comes down to it they don't, and I can see that this is an area where any people from outside Sweden can lose out on jobs. I think that often our cultural differences are most apparent in the way in which we work and how we handle situations that arise in our working lives.

I am glad to see a widely read newspaper (at least in Sweden) taking up a story like this and I only hope that things begin to change.

Technorati tags: cultural differences work business stockholm sweden

Cultural imperalism?

A Danish newspaper has - with its tongue stuck firmly in its cheek - accused Ikea of bullying Denmark and committing "cultural imperalism" by naming its low-value products after Danish towns. The story has been picked up by Business Week in the US and by the UK's Independent newspaper.

Interestingly, this seems to have kicked off a comments debate on Swedish daily Aftonbladet's website about returning the Skåne region to Denmark, 350 years after Sweden took control of it.

Beating the laundry room blues

Tonight is washing night, an event that I struggle with - it's not so much that I mind doing the laundry, but what I do have a problem with is booking the three-hour slot to do it and then going back up and downstairs, backwards and forwards, between the washes, moving the clothes from one machine to another until they are finally dry.

I guess that means that I am lazy. Most probably. However, there is one thing here that makes laundry day that little bit easier - and that is the drying cupboard. I think they must be particular to Sweden (I have certainly not seen them used in either England or Denmark), but I want to spread the word of the drying cupboard.

Rather than bundling as many items as possible into a tumble dryer and then retrieving small crinkled little parcels of cloth, you can lay them out flat on the shelves of the cupboard or hang shirts up to dry. Then you just switch the machine to the correct temperature and it gently blows warm air on your clothes until they dry. Bliss!

"The advantage of living abroad..."

"The advantage of living abroad is that, coming in contact with the manners and customs of the people along whom you live, you observe them from the outside and see that they have not the necessity which those who practise them believe. You cannot fail to discover that the beliefs which to you are self-evident to the foreigner are absurd."

Of Human Bondage - W. Somerset Maugham

The Danish language

Norwegian comedy series "Uti vår hage" has its own take on the Danish language, which should be appreciated by anyone who has lived in Denmark and tried to learn the language - hilarious, imho...

You know you've been in Denmark too long, when...

• You think there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.
• You understand why not every type of meat can be put together on top of bread.
• You think it's impolite to sit next to someone in a bus if there is a bench where you can sit on your own.
• You can open a beer bottle with almost anything.
• You honestly believe that the distance between Copenhagen and Aalborg is long.
• You can tell the difference between a Grøn Tuborg and a Carlsberg beer
• The first thing you do on entering a bank/post office/pharmacy etc is to look for the queue number machine.
• You accept that you will have to queue to take a queue number.
• Silence is fun.
• It no longer seems excessive to spend 800 kr. on alcohol in a single night.
• You know that "religious holiday" means "let's get pissed".
• You use "Mmmm" as conversation filler.
• The word "yes" is an intake of breath.
• You don't mind paying the same for a 200-metre bus ride as you do for going 10 kms.
• You start to believe that if it weren't for Denmark's efforts, the world would probably collapse pretty soon.
• It feels natural to wear sport clothes and a backpack everywhere.
• You know the meaning of life has something to do with the word "hyggelig".
• You don't think it strange that no one ever comes by to visit without being invited and you never show up at any one's place unannounced either.
• You wouldn't dream of coming even 10 minutes early to a party. (Once around the block is always an alternative.)
• You find yourself lighting candles when you have guests - even if it is brightly sunny outside and 20 degrees.
• You offer people strange-tasting brown alcoholic liquids with their coffee in the morning...
  

I was sent this little gem today. And it's too true...

"Happiness is... being Danish"

An article in The Times this week takes a look at why, even though the Danish tax is so high, the Danes have consistently come out with top scores on life satisfaction in surveys over the past 30 years.

Not only is the article - which concludes that despite Danish society's slightly homogeneous nature ("Friendliness to outsiders stops short of real friendship"), Danes are so happy because of a lack of competitive consumption - an interesting read, but the comments below (8 and counting...) make some good additional points.

Having just returned from the long-awaited long weekend in the UK, I can agree with the points about over-consumption of everything and anything. I spent 20 minutes in the local supermarket in England trying to find a packet of Oxo cubes, wandering up and down the myriad aisles before finally discovering them on a shelf above the ice cream (yes, apparently, that is the obvious place for stock cubes... why did I not realise that straight away?). I did not expect this of myself, but I actually started to praise the narrower range of goods in supermarkets in Scandinavia - now, that really is a turn-up for the books.

Book review – Modern-Day Vikings

I recently finished reading Modern-Day Vikings: A Practical Guide to Interacting with the Swedes by Christina Johansson Robinowitz and Lisa Werner Carr. The book provides a brief history of the country and sets out to explain Swedish social democracy (‘cradle to the grave’ system) and cultural concepts such as lagom and jantelagen.

The book is aimed mainly at people moving to and doing business in Sweden from the USA, so perhaps they would see the cultural differences as more extreme than someone from elsewhere in Europe. Nonetheless, it seems to be a very useful guide that offers some insight into the country and its culture.

For me, reading it was a positive experience too after all the depressing statistics I had seen in previous weeks, as it suggested that maybe things will not be as complicated as I have made them to be in my head: my protection mechanism of always thinking through what the worst case scenario could be, so there is always upside – I guess I am a ‘glass is half empty’ girl then…

Back to the book: in one way I cannot say how useful the book actually is until I come to rely on what it is told me and put it to practical use next year but it was an interesting read. I would recommend it anyway, just for its descriptions of lagom and jantelagen – two rather complicated concepts for those who have not grown up in Scandinavia – and of the Swedish social system and culture.