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Some thoughts after 40 years in Sweden

Some thoughts after 40 years in Sweden

Old Jun 26th 2012, 9:56 am
  #31  
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Default Re: Some thoughts after 40 years in Sweden

Hi Extreme, thanks for the links. I don't really want to spend money on learning a language of a country I'm about 90% sure i don't want to live in. First off, I don't want to spend my life being infuriated and complaining about Sweden - if you don't like something, change it. I can't change Sweden. I thought that Sweden was an open-minded place, plonked myself in a smallish town, thought that the community might be open to some outside intervention but this just isn't the case. Sweden doesn't want new ideas. They want to keep things as they are and change as little as possible. I can see the rationale in this, they think 'if it aint broke, why fix it'. Unfortunately, Sweden is part of a larger European and global community and Im not sure that this view point or course of action is sustainable. Maybe. Its a policy of ensuring that all non-Swedes adhere to the Swedish framework - ideologically, culturally, socially. When you see obviously foreign people in Sweden, they behave like Swedes. One assumes that they have been here some while. Downtrodden, bereft of spirit. I'm in a fix here, I'm virtually begging for work. I am a post-graduate with 10 years professional experience in IT. I'm not saying that entitles me to work anywhere but my head has dropped with the mountain I have to climb to keep my head above water. Sweden has made it very clear to me that it doesn't really want me - on all sorts of levels - until I pay my dues to Swedish society, I just don't think I am prepared to do it. Life in Sweden is about giving yourself to the state and be grateful for what it gives you back. If you look at Swedish 'propaganda' for foreigners, you would think it was the land of plenty and opportunity. They show a list of skills shortages but they won't employ you. I have tried to find training here so that I can do something. Its not possible, I could do a masters taught in English here but noone will employ you afterwards. I want to learn to do something practical so that I can find work but there is nothing - i get pointed in this direction and that direction and someone closes the door - usually with reference to SFI - which i can't do because i can't get a personal number. I can't even work for free, noone is interested, its too much trouble.
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Old Jun 26th 2012, 4:53 pm
  #32  
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Default Re: Some thoughts after 40 years in Sweden

Edp, I hear you. I guess I wouldn't be trying to learn Spanish if Mexicans/Mexico (I live in San Diego) had treated me badly or were acting weird to strangers.

I'm curious about your issues with getting a personal number. I assume we're talking about the four digits attached to your date of birth. I briefly looked over Migrationsverket's web page and it seems as there is a Catch 22, where you need the number to get employed, but they won't give it to you unless you already have employment.

I have no clue how SFI comes into the picture, but I've read articles about how immigrants can't start looking for jobs until they have passed a certain criteria. Or something along those lines...

I'm not 100% sure that this is what was intended with the EU membership and all that. I think it would make a great news article or case in the Swedish/EU courts. Maybe not your battle, but someone should dig into that...

How about getting a fairly menial job, like bartending or something in the tourist industry? Where speaking English could be favorable. Just to get your hands on the personal number and then quickly move into the IT industry.

Thanks for sharing your experience!
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Old Jun 26th 2012, 6:34 pm
  #33  
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Default Re: Some thoughts after 40 years in Sweden

Hi edp

Try this.

http://www.skatteverket.se/privat/bl...680008017.html

Page 5
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Old Jun 26th 2012, 11:13 pm
  #34  
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Default Re: Some thoughts after 40 years in Sweden

thanks david but migrationsverket refused my right of residence. I went to the office and said i have some work here, produced proof of employment (a short term contract) and i live with my sambo (not a racist slur! - it means partner). They gave me a form to fill in, 3 months later - no reply. So i went in to be told that my application had been rejected because i didn't have enough work and would i like to apply as someone living with a Swedish sambo? This involved a lot more paperwork and assume that i wasn't told to do this in the first place because of this. I first went into a tax office here in October last year. Its taken me until now to get what i hope to be the correct sequence of events in order. At no point has anyone been able to tell me how this is to be done. If you read that document it all looks very straightforward - go to tax office, go to migrationsverket both of which i have done. Ive been turned down at both offices and only got a 1-year micky mouse coordination number because my employers pushed it through because they needed to have some way of paying the tax. Also in that document it says 'all people registered in Sweden get issued with a personal number'. On one of my first visits to migrationsverket i was told very clearly that skatteverket may or may not look to migrationsverket when deciding if i can have a personal number. As i say, it looks straightforward but i have been told in no uncertain terms that i now need to get private health insurance and a letter from sambo with proof of funds. All this is most definitely not:

Go to migrationsverket and register your right to residence as an EU citizen.
Go to tax office and get personal number based on above criteria.

Thanks for chipping in though!

As regards to getting casual work, I've found a bit of farm work through a friend but i really don't think its easy at all administratively to do anything - Swedes don't have casual work. Nothing is casual unless its the attitude to work once your in it.
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Old Jun 28th 2012, 12:49 pm
  #35  
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Default Re: Some thoughts after 40 years in Sweden

Nothing is casual unless it's the attitude to work once you're in it
I remember the then American CEO of the then SAAB being totally mystified by the work absenteeism at the plant - 'surely the Swedes can't be the sickest people in Europe?' was his query. In fact the main police office in Malmö is underdimensioned by 30% to allow for this automatic laziness - if everyone turned up for work at the same time there wouldn't be enough desks!
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Old Jul 23rd 2012, 1:09 am
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Default Re: Some thoughts after 40 years in Sweden

Originally Posted by Blackladder
Nothing is casual unless it's the attitude to work once you're in it
I remember the then American CEO of the then SAAB being totally mystified by the work absenteeism at the plant - 'surely the Swedes can't be the sickest people in Europe?' was his query. In fact the main police office in Malmö is underdimensioned by 30% to allow for this automatic laziness - if everyone turned up for work at the same time there wouldn't be enough desks!
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http://www.thelocal.no/page/view/sic...-flight-delays

It's a way of life, very casual and comfortable.
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Old Aug 8th 2012, 9:43 pm
  #37  
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Default Re: Some thoughts after 40 years in Sweden

Originally Posted by Blackladder
Hi all,
I first came to Sweden in 1968 - year of the Prague Spring. Moved here in 1969 and have now only 10 months to go before retiring after a lifetime as a freelance translator and interpreter. I'm moving south-west (love the sound of that!) to warmer climes and here are some thoughts after more than 40 years' experience here. BTW I'm British born and bred.

1) The Swedes are best in the world at everything, especially humility.
2) On crime, apart from the southern city of Malmö, not far from where I am, you are pretty safe here. The biggest danger is of being hit on the head by a Swede who's jumped from the 7th floor of his/her ridiculously expensive flat cram-packed with *kea tat.
3) On taxes, the tax form is quite simple, only three sentences: 'How much did you earn last year? What've you got left? Send it in!
4) The climate, you are likely to die of pneumonia, unless frostbite gets you first, while waiting for the ambulance that never arrives.
5) On food. I quote Bill Bryson from his highly illuminative Chapter on Stockholm in his book 'Neither Here Nor There' "Every meal is another heart-break".
6) The Swedes are a finger-wagging nation of moralists, for ever seeking out the moral high ground where they can clamber up and preach to the rest of us about how to run our lives. But there is hope, another quote, this time from Leo McKistry giving the best description of the Swedes I have ever read: 'Sanctimoniousness tempered by cowardice'
7) From personal experience, those employed (?) in the public health care sector can be sorted into two categories: 'worthless' and 'utterly worthless'.
8) On communications and social skills: The Swedes own more cell (mobile) phones than any other nation on earth. Which is surprising since they never speak to anybody. In fact it must be hell being a paramedic in this country, never sure how to tell a dead Swede from a live one (the dead ones usually have a faint smile).

If it is at all humanly possible, do have a good time here and, by the way, when are you leaving?
Blackie
Nice one and fairly accurate, though I don't imagine it took you all of forty years to come to those conclusions.

Not intending to be offensive in any way, but do you not think you've missed out on life quite a lot, by mainly existing rather than living life to the full, or do you feel content and fulfilled from all those years in Sweden ?
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Old Aug 9th 2012, 8:54 am
  #38  
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Default Re: Some thoughts after 40 years in Sweden

I was driving the other day and saw this guy collapsed by the side of the road, i pulled in and me, my gf and her brother ran to his aide. Later they said to me that noone does that in Sweden. While we were standing by his side some other people stopped to have a look though. Which was helpful! they are a funny lot. well not funny haha obviously.
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Old Aug 9th 2012, 1:24 pm
  #39  
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Default Re: Some thoughts after 40 years in Sweden

Hi Dick,
I'm assuming you've lived in Sweden at some time, for how long?
Anyway, the answer to your question would take longer than I have left on the planet, but basically a sense of duty to my own kids, to pay for their maintenance and so on, and this I could not have done if I had left, since there was no way I could have earnt the cash. I had (still have) my own little business and this helped to keep me going, plus my non-Swedish friends, and a love of Scandinavian nature and wildlife. So I have managed to keep sane and do plenty of things here (lots of photography, some of which has been published). But to some extent I do feel that I have quite a lot of catching up to do on the social front, and that life in France will go some way to doing just that!
Hi edp! Still in there pitching? Yea, that story rings a bell
Still, we're off to la Douce F in a few weeks time again!
Take care
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Old Aug 24th 2012, 3:03 pm
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Wow, it's like you guys are talking about a totally different country to the one I live in
The only issues I have found in this wonderful country is the Skatteverket run-around, and the extremes of daylight/dark. While people can be somewhat reserved, they have taken the crown of politeness from the English and everyone I've met is warm, tolerant and friendly. Every staff member I've dealt with has been helpful - even when they obviously don't have the right information, I'm looking at you Skatteverket workers... - I don't know a government in the world that doesn't have it's frustrations, and this one is nowhere near the worst.
Moving here from Poland (where I lived in Warsaw and had a horrific time with racism and various other prejudices) has certainly painted Sweden with a rosy glow, but I haven't met any Swedes who offered intolerance, or were overly serious - their sense of humour is sarcastic, which blends well with an English person like myself! - Just little things like neighbours saying 'hej' when you pass them on the stairs, to which I'm very unused; I always feel welcome.
I must assume that certain dispositions lend themselves to living in certain societies, and what is one person's hell is another's paradise, to use an obvious metaphor. During the year and eight months I spent in 'exile' in Warsaw, I learned to keep to myself and that can become a rut you get stuck in. I can't imagine living somewhere like that for forty years, I'm not surprised it's resulted in such bitterness and a yearning for somewhere like France. Incidentally, the three times I've visited France, the people I met were dour and dismissive, but that was the north so maybe the sunshine cheers them up in the south. I hope so.
I guess I felt I had to post on this thread so people don't read and assume Sweden would be a bad place to live - it really is down to personal preference, you can be aware of the experiences of others but should definitely not use them to decide for yourself.
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Old Aug 24th 2012, 3:39 pm
  #41  
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Default Re: Some thoughts after 40 years in Sweden

Hi SilveryRow! Welcome to the forum.

It sounds like you live in the same Sweden I live in! As you have probably read in the previous posts in this thread we all have a slightly different perspective on our lives here.

Blackladder is soon off to French sunnier climes and hopefully a more happier social existence, we wish him all the best.

Blackladder: You have to promise you'll be popping in from time to time and not go completely French on us when you do move! Listening to the other end of the spectrum of opinion is always refreshing!

Blackladder, when is the "Big Day"?
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Old Sep 13th 2012, 9:05 pm
  #42  
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Default Re: Some thoughts after 40 years in Sweden

Thought i would revisit this thread. I think the outsider suffers from a system that is very rigid. Swedes understand the way that things work and have a zen like acceptance of that. they are not into change but more into organic development if anything at all. I think it is very normal for a British person to change jobs several times in a career and even change career a few times. Swedish people seem to keep their jobs forever and get cosy. If you don't live to work then why not? i think there is a lot of logic in the way Swedes do things but it is quite infuriating. Sweden is not going to collapse like we have seen in other EU states and some of that is to do with an 'effective', slow and steady bureaucracy that keeps a tight reign on everything that happens within its country. Its bl**dy boring but effective. It puts me in mind of an accountant neighbor that never talks to anyone but has an immaculately kept lawn and well polished Mercedes. 'Yes well done, but you do realize we are only here once?'
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Old Sep 14th 2012, 3:05 am
  #43  
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Default Re: Some thoughts after 40 years in Sweden

Originally Posted by edp
that is to do with an 'effective', slow and steady bureaucracy that keeps a tight reign on everything that happens within its country.
Didn't Stockholm have some of the worst house price inflation in recent years though?
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Old Sep 16th 2012, 9:47 pm
  #44  
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Default Re: Some thoughts after 40 years in Sweden

Originally Posted by Zen10
Didn't Stockholm have some of the worst house price inflation in recent years though?
I bought a condo right outside of Stockholm in October 2000, sold it in Mars 2007. The selling price was 45% higher than what I bought it for. I would have kept it if it wasn't for the fact that the ownership association needs to approve it every time you want to rent it out and they only approve it one year at a time.

Another thing that bugs me about Sweden. You don't own the condo, only the right to live in it. So, you have to get down on your knees to get them to approve a tenant. And the politicians wonder why there are no available apartments for rental... I read somewhere that this might change in 2014, probably not though, I'm not holding my breath... Like someone said earlier slow and steady progress with a rigid system...
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Old Feb 21st 2013, 8:49 am
  #45  
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Default Re: Some thoughts after 40 years in Sweden

This thread reminds me of the Japanese guy I knew who was an Arabic interpreter. He confided in me (after a bottle of Johnny Walker) that he loathed, hated and despised Arabs but had not discovered that until he had invested 10 years of his life in becoming fluent in Arabic !
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