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Comment by cpach | Hacker News Reader

As someone born and raised here, may I ask what it was you didn’t like?

Not OP but I worked in Sweden for about 9 months before moving on, here's my take:

Maybe related to the local culture, AFAICT Swedes in general avoid conflict and whenever I questioned something at a meeting I was acknowledged and then the issue was quietly dismissed, no one wants to change anything, review processes or engage in a discussion to make things better, people will hear you, not argue back, and quietly move on, I much preferred environments where people were respectful but ultimately entered open discussions where it feels like you can learn more from each other.

Similarly, everyone in Sweden is very nice, up to a point where it's way too impolite not to be nice, everyone was very nice to me and I felt very welcomed and integrated and then I saw everyone was playing corporate chess in the background and complaining about me to my managers for reasons I'm yet to comprehend.

Ultimately I left Sweden because I didn't find it the right fit for me for several reasons combined, climate is of course not the best, salaries are not high compared to the cost of living you get in other European cities. The fact that I didn't enjoy my working environment there was just extra.

I only had one short lived working experience in the city so it might have been an odd case.

> then I saw everyone was playing corporate chess in the background and complaining about me to my managers for reasons I'm yet to comprehend.

Exactly! and with safety net they have, they're able to afford to play political games without the risk of losing their job. I put years of effort into building products only to be discredited because I didn't pay attention on politics & just focused on building stuff.

Then there is also favoritism. They tend to stick with each other. They sometimes openly hire their past-colleagues/friends.

reference; I worked at a couple corporations here, some of the biggest ones.

There are so many things. I am re-writing this answer for 3rd time in hopes of expressing myself in a succinct manner.

I can write pages about it, but I will intentionally cut it short here. Because a lot of the experiences I had are very emotional & vulnerable to me. I wouldn't feel comfortable some random commenter coming and justifying it in all different angles.

There is a HUGE segregation problem in Sweden. Instead of sharing personal anecdotes, I would like to give you an idea how you can observe it. Look around within your Swedish circles, how many expats/immigrants do you have? how many English-speaking ones? Go to a park or a pub, and look around; how many English-speaking tables do you see? Do you observe some ethnical barrier between the tables?

I can barely say I have Swedish friends. I throw parties all the time, I get people from all different nationalities; spanish, italian, french, german. Yet, living in Sweden, I always ask myself "where are the Swedes?". We are not invited to their parties, but they're not even showing up to nomad/expat communities.

Swedish acquaintances (friends) I have; I only see them 2-3 times a year. In the time, I have been here for 7 years, number of times I have been invited to Swedish homes is less than 5.

I indirectly heard; one friend excluded me from a dinner that was to introduce me to their cousin who is also nerdy. Because his girlfriend was uncomfortable with speaking English.

Again, I repeat, these are only some examples. Because once you get anecdotal, people tend to get stuck on specifics and act pedantic.

I have lived in the Netherlands and in Germany and experienced the same issues. The natives will tell you that it is due to the language. The language is surely a huge part of the problem but the cultures are also themselves insular. And in any case having to achieve fluency in the local language just to have some semblance of a normal life is too much to ask, imo; not a good deal for expats. The EU really oversold the who freedom of movement thing. It's never really going to be like the US.

%100 agreed. It has been really challenging figuring this out myself over years when reality contradicts mainstream opinion. Scandinavia, Amsterdam, Berlin etc.; are doing a huge PR campaign to attract foreign talent with "we speak English here, it's fine"... It is all BS. They're slowly becoming more transparent about it, not out of honesty, but because of the rising push from right-wing/populist politics.

Would you say that the advertising is the primary issue? I would be curious about whether there are many places in the world where you don't face these types of issues while not speaking the local language.

It muddies the decision-making for said expats who are taking the decision to relocate.

For some reason most people, including swedes themselves, seem to think that Sweden is the relatively carefree egalitarian welfare state it was 20 years ago. It isn't. Between gentrification, privatization and the rising housing it is all about status these days. Even the middle class in Stockholm have millions in privileged windfall from the housing market they need to protect at all cost. So fundamentally you will always be looked down upon for having to work for it as the prospects are comparatively bad. Most everyone else it no longer part of the main narrative.

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