How To Live In Denmark » Podcasts

Networking in Denmark is tough, even for Danes. This is a culture where it’s considered bad manners to talk to someone you don’t know, unless you’re drunk, in which case all bets are off. That said, most jobs in Denmark are found via networks. Somebody mentions on their LinkedIn profile that they’re looking for a new team member and the cv’s from friends of friends and old classmates start flowing in. And since “fitting in” is such an important part of the Danish work culture, someone from the network is more likely to seem like a known quantity when it comes to being a “good fit.” “Flexicurity” means you can be laid off at any time So what does this mean to you as a foreigner? It means you’re going to have to figure out how to network in Denmark. And you can’t stop once you already have a job. The famous “flexicurity” economic system in Denmark means it’s very easy for an employer to get rid of you, and then you’ll be back in the job market again.

When you work in a Danish office, you’ll often find yourself invited to impromptu in-office social events with your Danish colleagues. Somebody’s birthday, someone’s having a baby, somebody has been with the company for 10 years, someone is going on vacation the next day. And they almost all involve cake. Cake is very important in Denmark. Cake builds bridges. Cake makes friends. And when there’s cake on offer, as a foreigner, it’s a good idea to show up and accept it. When I first started working in a Danish office, I made a big mistake. I said no to cake.

When I first began working in Denmark, people used to start saying around April or May, “So – are you taking three or four?” What they meant was, are you taking three or four weeks off for your summer vacation?  Now, in the United States, where I come from, even taking two weeks off is extravagant. You always have the feeling that if you’re gone too long, there may not be a job waiting for you when you get back. In Denmark, a long summer vacation is legally required. If you have a full-time job, you get six weeks annual vacation, and you are legally required to take three of those six weeks sometime between May 1 and September 30. Even if you’re unemployed, you get paid time off from looking for a job so you can enjoy time off in the summer. And there’s been a lot of controversy this year about whether the newly arrived refugees in Denmark should also get paid vacation from their required Danish language lessons. Many Danes consider vacation to be a human right. Any discussion of poverty in Denmark is likely

If you’ve been asked for a job interview at a Danish company, congratulations. Danish companies don’t like to waste time, so they wouldn’t be setting aside time to meet you if they didn’t think there was a solid chance they might hire you. Job interviewing in Denmark is a difficult balance, because the Jantelov makes all forms of bragging or self-promotion distasteful to the Danes. You’ve got to convince the person interviewing you that you’re skilled and capable without sounding like a used car salesman.

I often give presentations to job hunters in Denmark, and I tell them there are two words you can add to your cover letter that will virtually guarantee that it will be carefully read. What are those two words? The name of someone you know who already works at the company. Of course, you should only use a current employee’s name with his or her permission, and ask each time you use it. There’s always the chance that your contact and this particular hiring manager may be bitter enemies, or that a company is so vast (say, Novo Nordisk) that a recommendation from a scientist won’t have much impact on the hiring of an accountant.

When you're putting together a cv for Denmark, titles and grades and long descriptions of examinations (unless they’re required for the job, as they are for accountants, architects and engineers) aren’t a golden ticket to employment, even if you’ve attended an excellent school.   Your Danish cv should focus on projects you've worked on, and how your contributions to those projects relate to the job at hand.

Foreigners in general are often trying to look for a job in a way that works well in their home country, not Denmark. Basically, this works as about as well as trying to tell your new girlfriend the same jokes that made your old girlfriend laugh. If the setting is Denmark, the approach has to be Danish. Danish jobs are all about independence and teamwork. It’s not like they need a red Lego brick and you have to convince them you’re a red Lego brick to get the job. The employer has a problem that needs solving and you have to convince them that you have the brains and the experience to solve it, and the drive to make it happen.

In Denmark, romance is like a two-speed bike. Speed one is casual sexual affairs with someone you may never see again: speed two is a serious relationship where you’ll be expected to go to all your partner’s dull family events. There’s not much of a middle. And what there definitely is not is dating.

If you really want to get a Dane all hot and bothered, start talking about some thing that is beautifully designed. In Denmark, beauty is usually found in something practical that has been very well designed. Housewares, particularly kitchenwares, are a Danish design favorite. They don’t have to be from expensive materials, but they have to be simple, streamlined, and work flawlessly. The beauty is in the usefulness.

August in Denmark brings the first signs of fall: a crisp chill in the air, the changing color of the leaves, the annual posters warning drivers to be aware of small children riding their bikes to school for the first time. And foreign university students in the local 7-11, asking that their buns be warmed up. I saw a newly-arrived young American student in my local 7-11 this morning, asking that her newly-purchased bun be warmed. The 7-11 clerk told her sorry, but there were no bun-warming services available at that branch. She wasn’t too pleased, but it’s always a mistake to expect U.S., U.K., or Asian-level concepts of customer service in Denmark: in this egalitarian country, nobody serves anybody, and if they do they are frequently grumpy about it. You and the store clerk are equals, and nobody’s going to warm anybody’s buns unless it was agreed to in the original deal.   While I didn’t dare approach the angry American bun-woman, I thought it might be useful to her and to others list a few tips for arrivi

Denmark is a small country, and Danish people tend to think small things are good. Small cars. Small homes. Small ambitions when it comes to international team sports. But one thing in Denmark is never small – a baby carriage. Danes seem to believe that a carriage (or pram) for a new baby should be roughly the size of a hotel room on wheels. Inside, baby will be wrapped up warm with a fat feather blanket – even in the summer. There will also be room for pillows, books, toys, snacks, diapers and extra clothes in the giant baby carriage. Danish babies are like rolling royalty. Everything they need is at their tiny fingertips.

Every country changes, and so does Denmark. When I hold How to Live in Denmark events, people often ask me how Denmark is changing, or has changed since I got here fifteen years ago. I could name a hundred things, but the first one that always comes to mind is food and drink. Shotglasses are out, snaps and Gammel Dansk is out, fine wine (almost always bought on sale at the supermarket) is in. The small food stores that used to be on every corner in Denmark – the ‘pålæg’ or sausage shop, the fish shop, the dairy shop – are out. There used to be an odd type of Danish store called a kolonial, which sold canned goods and dry goods, basically stuff from the old Danish colonies in Africa, India and the Caribbean. That’s out too. Supermarkets are in.

In general, Denmark is not a fearful country.  You could argue, what is there to be afraid of in Denmark?  It seems like a safe little corner of the world.  Tax-funded social programs make it unlikely you’ll go hungry or homeless, as long as you have that little yellow social service card that shows you're here legally. Your medical care and education is paid for by taxes – yours or somebody else’s.  Even if you lose your job – and it’s very easy in Denmark for companies to get rid of workers they don’t want – there is the social safety net to catch you. I’ve often thought that the social safety net is one of the reasons has so little interest in religion.  When there’s so little to worry about, there’s not much to pray for.  Denmark also has is little of the open competition that can make life so stressful in competitive nations like China or India or the United States. Danish culture prizes consensus, not competition, and Danish children don’t get any formal grades in school until they’re in their teens.  A

It’s spring in Denmark, and spring is by far my favorite season here. The wonderful white Scandinavian sunlight is back after the dark days of the winter, the flowers are coming out on the trees, and everybody’s in a good mood. The outdoor cafés are full of people again – sometimes draped in blankets to keep warm, but outside all the same. April and May are often the best months for weather in Denmark, along with September. Summers can be rainy. And April is when Tivoli opens in Copenhagen. (Side note: when you see a man in Denmark with his trousers accidentally unzipped, you say “Tivoli is open!”) Tivoli is one of the world’s great non-disappointing tourist attractions – it’s constantly updated, with new shops, new rides, fresh flowers and fresh restaurants. And in the spring, it’s not as crowded as it is in the summer. You can hang out all day, have a picnic, ride the rollercoaster, even hear some bands play.

It has been said that Danish birthdays are the most important in the world. Adults, children, even the Queen of Denmark make a big deal about birthdays. And there is specific set of birthday rules and traditions for every age and role you play in life. Let’s face it, Danish birthday traditions are a minefield for foreigners. Get it wrong and you could make some serious birthday faux pas. For example, if the sun is shining on your birthday, you may find Danish people thanking you. ‘Thanks for the sunshine’ they’ll say. This is because in Danish tradition, the weather on your birthday reflects your behavior over the past year. If you’ve been good, the weather is good. If you’ve been bad….well, then. You get depressing, grey, Danish rain.

There have been very few international singing stars from Denmark, and that’s a surprise, because Danish people love to sing. Joining choirs is very popular, and Danish schoolchildren often start the week with a song – in my daughter’s school, all the grades get together and sing something from the school’s common songbook.  There’s actually a kind of common songbook for all the children of Denmark, called ‘Det Små Synger’, where you can find classics like ‘Se Min Kjole’  (See my dress), Lille Peter Edderkop (Little Peter Spider) orOles Nye Autobil, Ole’s new car.  Ole’s new car is actually a toy car that he uses to run into things, like his sister’s dollhouse. In general, the Small Songs are a throwback to an older Denmark, a quieter Denmark where most people lived in the countryside.  Many of the songs refer to green hilltops, or forests, or baby pigs or horses, or happy frogs that live in a swamp.  And of course, all the humans in the Small Songs are entirely Danish – or ‘Pear Danish,’ as the local express

I was on Danish morning TV recently, which isn’t really something to boast about.  In a country of 5 million, 10 guests a show, 365 days a year – you do the math.  Just about everyone gets on TV sooner or later.   Some of my friends and colleagues mentioned that they had seen me, stumbling through with my imperfect Danish, trying to promote my book, How to Live in Denmark.  But just SOME of my friends and colleagues, not all.  Specifically, it was my friends and colleagues who work in trendy creative industries - advertising, app designers, actors.   That’s because I was on TV at 8:45 in the morning, when people in those industries are just getting out of bed in preparation to roll into the office around 10.     My friends who have more conventional office jobs, like working in a bank, have to be their desk at 9am, so some of them had seen teasers – you know, coming up next, someone who doesn’t speak Danish properly, trying to promote a book – but they hadn’t seen the show itself.    And my friends who do re

I've just arrived back in Denmark after a couple of weeks in the US and the night I got back, my cat bit me. This was not just a little affectionate peck - Fluffy used her sharp teeth, her fangs, to create four bleeding puncture wounds in my leg. I suppose it was partly my fault – I put a call on speakerphone. Fluffy doesn't like speakerphone, because she can hear a person, but she can’t see one, so she assumes I’m some evil magician who has put a person inside a little glowing box, and she bites me. So I was bleeding, and I did what I did the last time she bit me....which was a couple of months ago, the last time I used speakerphone: I called 1813, the Danish government's non-emergency line for off-hour medical situations.

I’ve been living in Denmark so long I sometimes lose perspective. I forget what it’s like not to live in Denmark. Specifically, I forget that in most countries, adult men and women don’t want to walk around in an elf hat, even if it is Christmastime.   In Denmark, the red and white elf hat is part of any Christmas activity where alcohol is involved, and a few where when alcohol isn’t involved. Children occasionally wear elf hats, which are called nissehue in Danish. But you’re more likely to see an elf hat on an adult, quite possibly on your boss or your professor or somebody else you’re supposed to respect. Wearing an elf hat as a grown-up in Denmark is the way to show you’ve got a sense of humor about yourself, that you’re up for a party, that you see the fun in Christmas. Or, that you can see any fun in life at all after four weeks of nonstop grey skies and rain during Danish November.

There was no How to Live in Denmark podcast last week, and I apologize for that.  I have been busy studying for my Danish citizenship exam.  As some of you may know, Denmark is allowing double citizenship as of next year.    That means you're are allowed to keep your home country passport  - in my case, USA - while also becoming a Danish citizen.  Personally, I'm a little concerned that this may be overturned if a right wing government takes power next year. Danske Folkeparti, which is now the biggest party in Denmark, is passionately opposed to it.   So like supermarket prices, this offer may be for a limited time only.  So, I decided to get my Danish citizenship at the first opportunity.   To become a Danish citizen, you have to take a Danish language test and a citizenship test that's tests your knowledge of Denmark and Danish culture.   That's the test I will take on Tuesday.  It's only given twice a year, and it costs 700 crowns to take, so you might as well get it right the first time.   So I have been