Tag: facts

Norwegian logic

Blonde hair

Rebeccmi

Welcome back to Norwegian Logic!

Have you ever asked yourself why the people of one of the blondest countries in the world bleach their hair? I have. And I do it myself…

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….So why is this?

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I could begin to explain why I do it myself, of course, but there isn’t really any good answer to that other than the fact that I love blonde hair. And mine isn’t as blonde as it used to be naturally. But if we were to dig deeper? ..I can think of two reasons:

  1. The perception of how we think Norwegians are supposed to look.
  2. Youth. Youth. Youth.

We are proud to be a blonde nation, but isn’t sort of fake when we know that most people aren’t as blonde as they set out to be? Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of fair haired people, but I’m not gonna lie about the fact that most people enhance it a bit, myself included. We all know that Norwegians are supposed to be blonde, but reality is a little different – and bleached. Sorry.. (not sorry).

Second reason is a cultural one we share with a large part of the world: the strive for youth. We might not want to admit it and we might not even know it ourselves, but I think one of the reasons we bleach might be to look younger. You see, as children (not all of us of course) we were very, very, very blonde. Very blonde. I was anyway. And isn’t it obvious that it might be in connection with the wish to look younger?

Either way we are one of the blondest nations in the world, naturally.,even if it’s not platinum blonde. And we bleach. And that’s Norwegian logic.

På gjensyn!

 

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How does it work

Norwegian Work life

Rebeccmi

Good day people of the world,

There has been expressed some curiosity towards how the Norwegian job scene works and I will happily share with you. Norwegians are spoiled beyond recognition when it comes to work, let’s be clear about that. Even if we do complain, it’s just because we don’t understand the outside world or we haven’t had a moment to appreciate how lucky we are. The Swedes do though, which is why they come to Norway to work – like many other Europeans. Here are three reasons:

  1. Great pay.
  2. Excellent work conditions.
  3. Fabulous pay.

Norwegians are payed very well compared to other countries. We don’t have any rules for minimum payment, but we do have different organisations that work for different branches to make sure workers interests are safeguarded. For instant, if you work in the local supermarket your minimum hourly pay would be 157,- kr (approximately 21 dollars/17 Euros) and it goes up if you work after 16:00 in the afternoon. A full workweek is 37,5 hours and we have very strict rules for overtime. Actually, if you work in the public sector you are not allowed in to the office the next morning if you’ve spent to many hours the night before, it’s an enforced rest time. Not so much in the private sector, but they also have to follow the rules. There is also a limit to overtime during a year and rules for what percentage you are to be payed on top of your normal salary. There will of course always be employers who tries to take advantage, but if found out that will really sting. All in all, Norwegian work life is good!

The question I got prior to this post was “Does a place of work tend to be pretty quiet?” and the answer is: it depends on the workplace. Personally I’ve worked in both a calm environment and in a stressful one. Usually the stressful one – I’ve worked a lot of projects and they never create a clam and quiet environment due to all the deadlines and the organizational changes they bring both on the supplier and the client side. On the bright side I do have the freedom to work from home in peace and quiet when I need to. In which I am very grateful for. Now, as I have mentioned before Norwegians are trend followers and the trend is a mobile office, so unless you work within a specific branch that requires you to be in place, most employers provide this freedom.

With that said, here are some simple facts about the Norwegian work scene:

If you have any other questions related to this, I will be happy to answer.

På gjensyn!