One of the most glaring contrasts I've noticed between Swedish and American cultures is the difference in attitudes many Swedes seem to have about the relationship between work, vacation, and (in the case of restaurants and other businesses) the balance between customer service and employee welfare.
Back in the good ol' U-S-of-A, weekends were frequently a time where stores had extended hours, even on Sundays (well, except maybe in the Deep South). In every place I'd ever lived, there was always a big grocery store open 24 hours a day, and there was almost always a
Denny's or an
IHoP (or, as we used to joke in French class, a
Je Saute) nearby. This was especially great if you'd had a late evening in the lab or spent all night hanging out with friends. And given the
Starbuckification of American city life over the past few years, you could pretty much always get a strong (if overpriced) cup of coffee damn near any time you might care to be awake.
But here in Sweden, as I find myself thinking more and more often... not
så mycket.
For starters, I know of no full-sized grocery store anywhere in Stockholm that is open past 10 or 11 in the evening, and in fact some smaller stores actually
shorten their hours during the summer. The same goes for many restaurants and other businesses, too.
Nor is it limited to supermarkets. Banks? Yeah, those close at 3pm. Having opened at 10am. On odd-numbered Wednesdays in June. When Jupiter is in the House of Aquarius. If you ask nicely.
And it's not just about what time places open. I've literally lost track of how many times I have walked into a restaurant a good hour before closing time (as posted on the door), only to be told that
of course the kitchen is closed. (Often this is delivered with an incredulous, you're-not-from-around-here-are-you smirk, as if I'd walked into some
three-star Michelin joint and ordered a burger.)
All of this fits hand-in-hand, I suppose, with the generous paid vacation every employee gets (a federally-mandated
five weeks, at a minimum)... but naturally such largesse comes at a price. I guess I'd been vaguely aware of it before, but today I encountered the concept of "Swedish summer hours" head-on.
This morning, on my way to work, I decided to go a few stops past my office to a little bakery I had discovered shortly after arriving in Stockholm. I figured it was worth going a bit out of my way, since they make the absolute best bread I've found in the whole city. But when I got there, I was disappointed to find the windows dark and a sign on the door saying they were closed. I thought I understood the note to say they'd be closed
for the entire month of July and part of August, but I figured I was probably misunderstanding the Swedish somehow. So I turned around and started walking back toward my office.
But along the way, I started to realize that perhaps I'd understood the sign correctly after all. I passed at least a dozen cafés and coffee shops,
not one of which was open for business. The ones with the most generous sommartider (summer hours) would be only open at 11am; others, like the bakery, were closed for the entire month, or longer. Can you imagine what would happen if the local neighboorhood Starbucks suddenly decided to do the same thing, especially in some place where the locals take their caffeine seriously, like Seattle or New York? There would be
riots.
And as I said, it's not just the cafés. In early May, I needed to buy a couple of uniforms and related gear for the upcoming soccer season. I decided to go with a reputable
merchant in Göteborg that had been recommended to me by several fellow referees. After going back and forth several times with them on the phone—perhaps half a dozen conversations, in broken Swenglish, to make sure I was getting the right stuff—I placed an order. They promised delivery in 2–3 weeks, and money was taken out of my bank account the same day. I waited patiently for an entire month, checking my mailbox in vain every day for the delivery slip. Each day it was the same thing: no stuff. Eventually, I got sick of waiting and called the customer service line. The agent dutifully pulled up my order on the computer and said, "Oh, sorry, our supplier is on summer holiday until next week. We'll start getting items for our customers then."
What is this, a fucking hot dog stand on Martha's Vineyard?
When I was contemplating coming to Sweden to work for my company, I sought the advice of a friend of mine who'd had a fair bit of experience working for VC-funded technology startups. During the very first conversation we had on the subject, he asked me one very insightful question:
How hard do they work? He understood that the company I was thinking about joining would be going up against competitors operating in other cultures and in other parts of the world, where the work ethic might be very different, and 70- or 80-hour work weeks the norm. If we were only competing within Sweden, that would be one thing—but the high-tech industry is unquestionably a
global market.
Well, now that I've been here a while, I can see that the answer to my friend's question is,
not as hard as they could. This worries me more than a little. Given the attitude that appears to be prevalent in Swedish business culture, it's not surprising that there have been relatively few really successful prominent high-tech companies founded in Sweden in the past 25 years. (And no,
IKEA does not count as high-tech. Nor do companies like Saab and Volvo—charter members of the
They're-Boxy-But-They're-Good Society, but not really high-tech, either. Only
Ericsson truly stands out.) So while it's certainly nice to have a ton of vacation and plenty of time for family and non-work stuff, there are drawbacks, too. The flip side is that in your everyday life, you lose some of those little conveniences you might otherwise expect when standing on the other side of the "counter," both literally and figuratively, if you lived in the States.
All in all, this experience has put some things into perspective. I've heard it said that the best way to really appreciate some place is to move far away from it for a while. It's certainly true for these examples. Of course, none of it is a catastrophe, and I've learned to deal pretty well. But I see now that the Swedish way of doing things has consequences to go along with its vaunted benefits.
I also see just how much I'd been taking for granted.
Inexplicably Angry, Unnecessarily Naked Dancing Baby
Human Downhill Cricket
Inexplicably Angry, Unnecessarily Naked Dancing Baby
Human Downhill Cricket
