Comment by mjn | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mjn | Hacker News Reader

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In the US, when I go to a restaurant, I am being 'served', but after the waiter gets off work he's a full and equal neighbor of mine under both law and custom.

That's definitely true. An interesting cultural difference even further in that direction, that I noticed as an American who moved to Denmark, is that in Scandinavia the equality extends even into the restaurant. I'm not really being "served" at a restaurant, but rather the expectation is that we're interacting in a professional setting as equals. Perhaps partly due to culture, partly due to the lack of tipping, and partly due to the fact that the waiter likely has the same socioeconomic position as their customers, there isn't really an obsequious service-oriented relationship, and it's definitely not the case that the customer is always right. It's more like, their job is to take care of business at the restaurant, and they'll aim to do it well but expect respectful treatment in return, like any other professional employee in any other job.

(It's possible things are different at really high-end places that aim to impress international customers, like the $200/plate restaurants and $500/night hotels, but I don't have any personal experience patronizing such establishments.)

Heh...as a Danish person, I think part of that distinction also is that Denmark has a really bad service culture compared to the US. It does seem to be changing. But I feel like Danes are a pretty proud (and/or headstrong) folk with very strong (and sometimes misguided, see Janteloven) notions around class and equality.

I feel like many Danes who work in the service sector project this attitude that they're really above the work and that the customers are a complete imposition on their time and energy. That's why I'm always so impressed when I get a really nice waiter in CPH or just shopping at a grocery store like Irma.

I think you're right about the high-end places -- I've only been to one fancy place one (cause, yikes! the prices) and they did act very differently because it was so expensive. But by and large, yes, I agree, they tend to see it more as a "job" than "service."

It could just be because I tend to find American customers really over-bearing and unreasonable (the "customer is always right" thing makes some people feel entitled to be jerks towards staff), but to me the Danish non-service feels refreshing, though I've definitely heard other people describe it as "bad service". I don't feel it's particularly bad service myself; stuff generally gets done fine, and it's not like I'm waiting hours for my food or they're dumping things on me or anything. They treat me the same way I'd treat someone at work at my own job: well and professionally, but not as if I'm their servant and must please them at all costs.

Under Janteloven:

The ten rules state:

  You're not to think you are anything special.
  You're not to think you are as good as us.
  You're not to think you are smarter than us.
  You're not to convince yourself that you are better than
  us.
  You're not to think you know more than us.
  You're not to think you are better than us.
  You're not to think you are good at anything.
  You're not to laugh at us.
  You're not to think anyone cares about you.
  You're not to think you can teach us anything.*

Wow. Just wow. Needless to say, a lot of American go-getters and super-achievers would find that bitterly stultifying.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante#Definition

Do keep in mind that those were never written down as rules to be followed, but postulated in a work that criticized such social norms.

They don't even seem that strange as an American. It's just (a parody of) typical conservative Protestant small-town mentality. Much of Scandinavia at the time was made up of religious, Protestant small towns, with most of the population engaged in farming or fishing (and the novel in question was set in such a town). People in small-town and rural America don't like big-city, degree-and-money-having people who "think they're better", either. Sinclair Lewis's 1920 novel Main Street, about small-town American attitudes, has some loose parallels.

I think the same is true even today in the US. Some of the people who're lionized in Palo Alto or NYC would be shunned in much of the "heartland", if they flaunted their wealth or education and came across as thinking they were a "super-achiever". You're allowed to be rich, but you're expected to act somewhat humble and "down-to-earth" about it and not see yourself as better than other kinds of people (especially farmers, who have their own mythos). Warren Buffet, a lifelong midwesterner, is an example of being rich but still sort of pulling that off.

Hope you understand that this is not an actual law, but a piece of satire describing social norms in a smaller provincial town in the beginning of the twentieth century. This was a very different and much more traditional and hierarchical society, and the attitudes bitops describe more stem from the reaction against these norms which happened in the 60ies and 70ies.

Nonetheless, these statutes even if only adhered by a small population of Denmark and Scandinavia are repulsive and eminently worthy of disparage.

This is not what a technologically progressive society would want more of.

Totally agree! Interesting though that Denmark has better social mobility than the US, even though Denmark has historical attitudes like the Law of Jante, while the US have "The American Dream."

Very similar to tall poppy syndrome in Australia. As an American it's always bewildering to see these attitudes play out.

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