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Monthly archives: January 2012

Contract Work in Sweden

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Stockholm crowds

Maybe coming to Sweden for contract work is very rare... Photo by: Ola Ericson/imagebank.sweden.se

 

I have gained an important, important piece of information. It very difficult to get all the pieces of documentation you need to participate fully in Swedish society if you come to Sweden on a contract that is less than one year. My hard-learned advice to those of you trying to move to Sweden on a work permit is to make sure you get a contract that is over one year.

I had a very challenging day last week when I took the subway around Stockholm, going from one Tax Board office (Skatteverket) to another (they kept referring me to different offices), trying to get a Swedish ID card. The ID card is used as proof of age and proof of identity, for example when collecting prescription medication from pharmacies, paying by credit card in stores and in banking transactions.

Obtaining a Swedish ID card was to be my next step after getting assigned a Coordination Number (samordningsnummer). You will recall I wanted a Personal Number (personnummer) but instead I could only obtain a Coordination Number.

The Personal Number means a person is in the Swedish Register. In order for me to get a Personal Number, I must have permission from the Migration Board to stay (and work) in Sweden for at least one year. I came to Sweden on a six-month work permit because my job contract was for six months. So, since the work permit is six months, I do not qualify for a Personal Number. Instead I qualify for the Coordination Number.

After receiving the Coordination Number, I went to the Tax Board to get a Swedish ID. First I had to follow a complicated set of instructions which included getting a co-worker to pay 400 Swedish kronor in advance of my visit online (ironically the very thing I can’t do since my bank requires a Swedish ID card in order to have online banking services).

What I did not understand was that that I was not “registered.” I thought I was registered because I had been assigned a Coordination Number. But this does not count as registration. Here’s what the Tax Board says:

Swedish ID card and information

The Tax Board would not give me an ID card. To make matters worse, they informed me that I was not covered by the national health insurance (försäkringskassan). I argued with them that this did not make any sense since I am paying over 30% of my paycheck in taxes and, in addition to this, my employer pays another (roughly) 31% for health, disability, and other services for me.

I have since been assured by the insurance office that I am, in fact, covered. The next step is for me to send the insurance office my registration form along with various work documents and then I hope they will send me a piece of paper telling me I am covered. I have received so many different opinions that now I want some hard proof. I have not, since I came to Sweden, needed any health care but, should the need arise, I don’t want there to be confusion for obvious reasons.

Believe me, it was upsetting for the woman at the Tax Board to tell me that. There were tears involved. The problem is that I get a different answer depending on who I talk to and I don’t know which person to believe.

Up until very recently, I resisted the idea that this job process could be so challenging. I thought that there must be lots of people who go through this so there must be a logical process. But it has dawned on me that perhaps there aren’t many people going through this. Most people who come to Sweden to work probably come as employees and so they have no end-date on their application. Therefore they get the Personal Number, therefore they get the ID card, therefore the insurance, and it all falls into place. It would be the same thing for the “relationship visa” in which you come to Sweden to live with someone. The assumption in those cases is that you will be in Sweden forever.

Even though I have moved here permanently (assuming I find lasting work), my situation does not look that way on paper.

That is why I recommend you make sure your contract is more than one year if you plan to come to Sweden for contract work. The best thing would be to come as an employee but this is hard to arrange when you are in another country. Like me, you may have to come as a contractor and then try to parley that into longer-term work. (There is also the possibility that my current contract may be extended.)

To that end, I have recently re-done my CV in a more Swedish-friendly style (more on that in future posts) and you will soon learn about my adventures looking for work in Sweden.

Kristin Lund

January 31, 2012

Getting Down to Business

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Water Closet sign

The Water Closet

 

Okay, here goes. I love bathrooms in Europe. There, it’s out there. I’ve said it.

This, I am thinking, will be a difficult subject to blog about.

The thing is, most bathrooms in Sweden (and in the other parts of Europe I have been in) offer you your own little room where you can get your business done in complete privacy. There’s often a tiny little sink and a commode, and all the supplies you need. It’s quite civilized. (Although it must be said that charging nearly a dollar for the privilege in a public place such as a mall or a bus station seems a little over-priced.)

These unisex, private little Swedish bathrooms also exist in the workplace. At my current job in Stockholm, for example, there are four of them plus a fifth larger one that houses handicap-accessible amenities.

For comparison purposes—in case you’re thinking, what’s the big deal?—most companies in the US offer mens’ and womens’ restrooms that consist of a large room with a varying amount of stalls.

The Swedish version offers a really nice level of privacy. It’s one thing to be out in public and sharing a large public bathroom but when you’re at work, there are certain things you don’t want to share with your co-workers.

At my previous work in San Francisco, the stall doors were just long enough so that it was difficult to tell if the stall was occupied or not (but they didn’t reach the floor). The lock gave no indication from the outside whether someone was in there. So people could get into uncomfortable little scenarios where they rattled a stall door lock to see if it was occupied, it would be, and then they would come face to face a few minutes later with their boss. Or their boss’ boss…Oops, didn’t mean to disturb you.

And that bathroom was quiet. I mean, dead quiet! They needed to rig up some sort of artificial, ambient noise or something. Everyone noticed it. You could hear a cotton ball drop on the floor, for goodness’ sake.

Once a co-worker commented to me that the bathroom stalls were so narrow that the bathroom felt like a “veal farm.” I was never able to get that out of my mind again.

And let’s face it, there are certain things you don’t want to find out about your co-workers, such as whether they use soap to wash their hands. (Maybe you’re thinking that you do want that information. Not me. Ignorance is bliss. I prefer to assume my co-workers are making good choices.)

These Swedish bathrooms are extra nice to have in the workplace. Privacy is maintained and there’s no danger of  TMI -“too much information.”

bathroom interior

What's not to love?

Kristin Lund

January 29, 2012

The Drying Closet

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Drying cupboard

Drying Closet. Photo by Riggwelter. (CC BY 2.0)

According to Wikipedia, which, let’s face it, has an article on everything, a drying cabinet is

…an electronic machine designed to expedite the drying of items – usually clothing – that are unsuitable for a traditional clothes dryer. Such items may include delicate clothing designated as “hang dry, “dry flat”, or “do not tumble dry” on their wash instructions, as well as items such as comforters, boots, and coats.

This is the most useful of machines and I had never seen one before I came to Sweden. When my company moved to its new location around six months ago, they purchased a new one and put it in one of the bathrooms. The friends I live with in Uppsala do not have one but they have a small laundry room in which you can hang wet clothes. They have a conventional dryer which they only use for bedding–never clothes. The air in the room is very dry so things dry very fast even without the help of a drying closet. In other words, the whole room is a little like a drying closet.

But for people who don’t have a laundry room, the drying closet is a nifty invention. It’s a fabulous thing to have at work because you can hang up your sweaty gym clothes and not have a soggy mess in your bag.

I’m told some apartment buildings have the equivalent of a walk-in version of the drying closet—essentially a large dry room in which you hang up your wet clothing on laundry lines.

When I lived in the US, I was not a big dryer user. Since I am morally opposed to ironing (ha ha), I am very strategic in how I hang wet clothes up so that they don’t need to be ironed. These drying rooms really speed that process along.

My understanding is that many Swedes aren’t too fond of conventional dryers because of the high energy they require and also because they are hard on clothes.

Hard on clothes?

Have you seen these European washing machines? I am used to the washing cycle taking around a half hour, maybe 45 minutes. This is scoffed at in Sweden. This, they tell me, is only the equivalent of getting my clothes wet and then swishing them around for a minute or two. Who knew I was wearing such dirty clothes?

When I wash my clothes in Sweden, the cycle takes something like two hours and I get the feeling my clothes are getting beaten up. Then there’s all these pesky questions about the temperature of the water. Whah? I must say, I am used to the whole chore being dumbed down for me so that the question is “cold, warm, or hot?” It makes me sound sound kind of dumb, right? But the thing is, washing my clothes is not my favorite chore (um, do I have a favorite chore?) so I don’t want to pay a lot of attention to it. It feels like washing my clothes in Sweden takes a degree in Science.

The drying closet at work. It's really handy for drying wet gym towels and clothes.

The drying closet at work. It's really handy for drying wet gym towels and clothes.

Kristin Lund

January 26, 2012

Working Out at Lunch Time

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empty gym

The empty gym...

 

Well, it’s January, the month in which everyone makes New Year’s promises about improving their health, their lives, their…whatever you can think of.

The building where I work has a new gym in it. In an embarrassment of riches, my company bought everyone a gym membership. Only about half of our approximately 75 on-site workers have taken advantage of the offer. Perhaps they find it easier to work out at home, or at another gym, or not at all.

At first, I thought I could not join because I did not have the personal number required by the online application. (I have a number now but I didn’t then.) But I called up the gym’s representative and he said it wasn’t a problem since it was my workplace that was paying for it and therefore they were the responsible party.

I haven’t been to the gym nearly as many lunchtimes as I should. There, it’s out there. I admit it. Now that you know of my deficiencies, I will be compelled to go to the gym every day. Just like Kate knows she must work on her novel because she has announced it to the world.

empty gym

Hallooo...anyone home?

 

The thing I find amazing about this particular gym is that there is rarely someone there. I don’t mean they aren’t people working out—although there aren’t too many of those either—but I mean someone in charge. There is a locked door to get in and members have a keycard with their picture on it. But this particular gym has no supervisor 99% of the time. I am amazed there is no worry about anyone carrying off equipment—small weights, medicine balls, that kind of thing. I think there are probably video cameras but still, this surprises me.

The gym has a nearly all-glass front that faces the street. It’s the sort of set-up you often see where passers-by can look in and see all the sweaty people. I suppose, like a noisy restaurant, it’s designed to make you want to join the crowd. We are herd animals, after all.

The glass front is less enchanting if you’re the one working out. I don’t particularly want to be an advertisement in the window. (Of course, this is not such a problem since I, uh, haven’t been going to the gym.) In any case, there are two bands of frosted glass at eye height that somewhat obscure the view into the gym. You can see that someone is in there working out but you can’t quite see who it is.

The women’s changing room is a little unusual. It’s a medium-sized room with two open showers and the strange thing is that when the door to the changing room opens, the whole gym and by extension the street, can see into the changing room. So if you’re in there alone changing and someone suddenly opens the door…hello, Stockholm!

empty gym and street view

I removed the gym name from the frosted window in this picture so that we are not advertising them...but you get the general idea of how people can look in from the street...

Kristin Lund

January 23, 2012

I Feel Like a Number

48 comments

tea cups

I feel like a Swedish number. Photo by: Clyde Robinson (CC BY 2.0)

 

I apologize. This is not the most interesting of subjects. In this post I will write about my newly acquired coordination number (“samordningsnummer”) from the Swedish Tax Bureau (“Skatteverket”).

Hurrah! I can pay taxes!

No, actually I celebrate this big event because I have lived in Sweden exactly two months and I have waited approximately seven of those weeks to get a coordination number. I need the number to obtain a Swedish identity card. And I need the card in order to fully use my bank account and various other privileges. I also need the coordination number in order to get paid for my work.

Wikipedia defines a country’s national identification number this way:

…[It] is used by the governments of many countries as a means of tracking their citizens, permanent residents, and temporary residents for the purposes of work, taxation, government benefits, health care, and other governmentally-related functions…However, due to function creep, the number has become utilized for other purposes to the point where it is almost essential to have one to, among other things, open a bank account, obtain a credit card, or drive a car.

Love that phrase…function creep.

According to the Tax Bureau, “a coordination number is a uniform identification number for physical persons who are not or have not been registered in the Swedish population records.”

As I have mentioned before, I think of the coordination number as a sort of personal number (“personnumer”) with training wheels. A person who is registered in the Swedish population records is given a personal identity number. Coordination numbers were first given out in January 2000.

Just like a personal identity number, a co-ordination number has ten digits. The first six digits are composed of a person’s date of birth (year, month, day). Next comes a three-digit individual number, which is odd for men and even for women. 60 is added to the number for the date of birth and then a final “check digit” is on the end. “Through a combination of the digits for the date of birth (plus 60 ) and random individual numbers from the series 001–999 for everyone born on the same day, no two people have the same identification number.”

The Tax Bureau gives the following example:

The coordination number for a man born on 3 October 1970 who has the individual number 239 can be: 70 10 63 – 2391.

If you’re super into math like me (not!), you’ll find the following screen cap, direct from the Tax Bureau, fascinating. What? Huh?

 

calculations

The math needed to determine the check digit in a coordination number...

 

Random trivia…If the person is later registered in the Swedish population records, the co-ordination number is replaced by a personal identity number. I guess I have that to look forward to!

 

Kristin Lund

January 20, 2012