It was requested so now I shall blog it. There are no major cultural difference in the relatively short England to Sweden move as there would have been with a move to the Far East for example. The differences are more subtle and are only seen once you have scratched the surface a little

In the beginning…

Work and the opportunity to work has been the biggest change. A trip to the job centre results in the yellow pages being opened at the C for cleaners section and the advice given to ring around a few of these. Maybe I just came across a bad advisor while they were having 2 bad days, but several other immigrate friends received the same professional advice. Being restricted the hours I could work due to attending the local college didn’t help matter either.

My first step into the employment market in Sweden was a humble one to say the least. The kind of job young teenagers start and then give up as it just isn’t worth the effort. Delivering junk mail, or to give it its official title the lowest of the low. The deal was that on a Friday a section of leaflets, usually around 7 or 8 kinds, would be dumped on your doorstep. These would then have to be packaged into neat little boxes for each household before being delivered on a Sunday. The typical spotty Swedish kid would post to 300 letterboxes before being pushed home in their delivery cart by a friend. Being a monkey in desperate need of some peanuts I would typically do 3 or 4 of these rounds. All in all a nightmare which I stuck with for a year but am now glad to see the back of. It used to eat up the whole weekend and the Swedish folk who if myths are to be believed are supposed to be too timid to complain about anything complained about everything. They either recieved the leaflets and didn’t want them or vice versa, or didn’t like the way they were landing on their doormats.

I used to help cook the books, now I help print cook books…

There have been other titbits along the way, 3 days gardening and 5 or 6 stocktakes at the local supermarket, but nothing substantial. Then my first main break came along, my current job in the book factory. It's a long way from what I would prefer to work as and even further from the basic accountancy work I used to do back in England. Nevertheless its work. In the beginning it was just sick cover which would result in the phone ringing at 6am and asking if I could come and work. With time this has occurred more and more and now I have full time work over the summer at least.

I miss the regular hours of how I used to work in England, working within the shift system produces some very unsociable working hours. I am not sure my bodyclock will ever get used to working the nightshifts from 11.30 to 6 but at least the work isn’t that stressful. The brain cells are rarely called upon, which can be wonderful at times but can also be mind numbingly dull.

To be continued...