air and time and space and light

Today I was in a meeting all day long.. From 9 am to 4pm. That’s a whole working day in Denmark Not too bad! I used to say whole day meeting for 8.30am-8pm. Big improvement!

We were separated in groups and we did presentations. I felt very good when I represented our team and I really like being there doing a presentation for 30-35 people. Being the only non-Danish, it was a challenge to get understood clearly or appreciated. I think I made it. It was an important step because I am new and I don’t speak Danish. So it was cool to be there and do my presentation the way I am used to. The way I did in Japan, in England, in Turkey.. I like the spotlights

I am working with really nice people. That’s cool. I especially like my manager’s attitude. He is very pro, young and has no ego. He has a very nice tone when talking to people. Serious but not annoying. Just the opposite. There is only one problem with him though, he is expecting me to speak Danish in meetings. Imagine today we were 35 people in the meeting and they spoke English just because of me. I think it is good for the business because we deal with the customer in English&French etc. Never in Danish. So it is a good way of pulling people off from their comfort zones. It is good that they feel obliged to speak English. But it is also inevitable for them to adress each other in their mother language. If same thing happened in Turkey, I am sure many people would say things in Turkish. But it is just impossible for meto be ready by January 1st, 2009. Business Danish, following a meeting, expressing myself in Danish; best case could be in June-July. Not earlier.. Let’s see how I will deal with it. In any case, it was a good opportunity today that I did a good presentation, now people at least know that I can do things. So maybe they won’t mind speaking in English anymore.. Maybe they’ll find it worth for my sake to go on English..

That’s the cool thing about Danish work culture, nobody takes himself too seriously. People see it as just a job and they don’t have this “i am the boss here” attitude. Although I find many side effects of the Jantelov, in many cases there are advantages related to it.

People here could be more oriented to self promoting or entertaining themselves/other more, I mean be less boring.. Jantelov makes them limited. How can they be competitive or ambitious if the law functions so well? In any case, in the work life, between people, there is a good balance. It is nice to work in this kind of environment. Maybe, from the  company’s point of  view, it is not that good. They could have exploited people more like they do in Turkey, this way they would generate more money. But here, they prefer to have nice, easy, comfortable work environment. It has good sides for me, because I am an employee. But if i had established my own business I would have second thoughts about Jantelov and Danish work environment. I think my business would be like Maersk, which has the worst reputation in Denmark because of its Vestel-like attitude. Just close though, can never never be that bad! It was the China in Izmir!