When a cleaner finds 5 euros at a Finnish office
finland.fi
finland.fi
I speculate that it may be part of a PR campaign from the government to draw skilled people from the US. It seems to coincide with recent comments about the American Dream by the Finnish PM.
At lease my interpretation of the article was correct, I guess.
But I can't blame you for your cynicism.
If you lose something, you can expect to get it back, unlike what I've found to be the case in my home country (UK). People just tend to look out for each other here.
I love Finland. You can tell from the moment you arrive that the entire country cares about the welfare of everyone there.
It started when we got on the train from the airport. We were told that not only do kids ride public transit for free, but anyone pushing their stroller does too. Talk about supporting families!
And then when we got off the train in downtown Helsinki, what I didn't see anywhere were homeless people or beggars. I only saw one person who talked as if he had mental issues, but even he looked well cared for -- he had decent clothes and looked like he had a healthy diet. My guess was that he was living in a shelter and had competent mental health care.
Not having to tip servers was great, especially knowing they were making a living wage.
Overall 10/10 for their society. If it weren't for the weather and winter darkness, I'd totally live there if they'd take me.
In some countries, you see individual greed being pushed to crazy extremes. Notwithstanding dictatorships, some politicians are willingly and wittingly sacrificing millions of people for a single individual objective. But I think the latter is the default position of humanity. The opposite is also a problem: When you justify every action as "for the millions".
The vikings were particularly murderous people and have become particularly peaceful. (But I guess the Finns are not vikings for that matter.)
What I also like about this is that it makes leadership a more natural progression where you might say: "I know this person, they are taking my concerns seriously and have our interests at heart." With Trump for example, I would be skeptical of anyone who thinks that he can possibly have all of their individual concerns at heart. And this is not just about Trump himself, but about inherent properties of the US in general. But I guess the question of whether Trump is there because of the US being a big country with inherent populist risks is a good question. One could ask the same question of many presidents before him and so too of presidents of other large countries.
The lat few days of our trip the sun never set. Blackout shades are all I need to solve that.
It’s the lack of sun in winter I couldn’t handle.
EDIT: I now realize most people won't get the tongue-in-cheek nature of my comment, as over here 10:30 is considered quite early and most people go out at midnight, with the peak being around 2am.
We met a guy who was hitchhiking, so had to stick out his arm. Afterwards he counted 168 bites on a single arm.
Maybe the key difference is that poverty is better hidden in Finland with more available shelters?
It looks like, to economists, poverty is more about being unable to have a bigger place for yourself, newish car, newish electronics, rich variety in food etc. - but it's hardly end of the world if people don't have those things, so why should the public care?
That is, poverty is relative to the environment in which one finds oneself. And we should care if only because someone without a reliable car, a mobile capable of doing the things that need to be done like banking, tolerable accommodation, etc., eventually becomes a burden for the rest of us, disaffected, disenfranchised, unable to participate in society. And that goes double for their children.
And of course we should care because they are humans too.
The public should care about relative poverty, since social mobility and social stigma hinge almost solely on that and not on absolute poverty (for which the threshold is usually set in whatever lowest possible way that pleases politicians). Children of the poorest families have almost no chances of breaking out of that life, leading to ghettos, social unrest, criminal gangs, drug abuse, etc. You just have to go to Skid Row in L.A. to see the effects of poverty in action. There is a photographer who currently documents poverty and other problems in the US on Youtube, it's a very interesting watch.[1]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCvcd0FYi58LwyTQP9LITpA
Finnish poor has an apartment paid by government etc.
There are shelters too, as our system cannot handle those who drink their rent money well.
Romanian beggars are a common sight during warmer months.
Perhaps the OP intended Romany (or the alternative Romani). [0]
It's a Wikipedia source, but it is of reasonable quality, differentiating between Romanian and Romany in matters of religion and music.
Obviously I’m not discounting the notion than certain societies can treat people better than other societies. I’m only trying to point out that given good treatment to members of a society is a pretty useless measure to judge a society unless you also analyze how people an become members of that society.
The reason we are not overrun with people moving to Norway is simply that people don't actually know Norway is fairly easy to move to. I have spoken to many foreign professionals here and while most of them originally had positive attitudes to Norway, pretty much none of them had believed moving to Norway was even an option.
It was often entirely random reasons why they ended up in Norway, such as getting hired by a Norwegian company at a foreign branch.
To most people contemplating emigrating the only countries that exist in their heads are the US, Canada and Australia.
Also especially people from poorer countries who decide to emigrate are extremely ambitious. They want to make a lot of money and shoot for the stars. Nordic countries are not really a place for such people. Ambition and making lots of money is not central value in Nordic societies. Nordics is all about work-life balance, moderation etc.
While Norway e.g. is one of the worlds richest countries you will not find any Rolls Royce, Bentley's or 200m tall luxury hotels. The wealth is sort of hidden in child-care facilities, humane prisons and stuff that isn't very glitzy. If you want to show off that you made it, then you are in the wrong place if you aim for the Nordics ;-)
I'm an EU citizen, and I believe EU citizens can live in Finland if they have employment.
If you are not, it is still not that hard (comparing to some other EU country). I actually had some member of my step family immigrating to Finland, and ultimately getting the citizenship. The administration is very helpful and provide a lot of help for people who immigrating to Finland (like full time language classes, which a lot of country don't do).
Finland is a small country, so they are usually very open to qualified immigration because they usually have more position than what they can provide nationwide. Having company where the official work language is English says a lot about that.
> If it’s easy, then I wonder why more people don’t do it.
Why everybody is not moving to Finland is usually the weather and the language which is considered difficult (but very interesting) for people who don't know a ural/altaic language. Also, not everybody want to move out of their country and leave their friends and familly.
> If it’s difficult, then it feels a little disingenuous to praise a society for privileging the people who just so happen to be born there.
Well, this is a concept of nation. I would like to live in a world without border but this is not reality. You cannot criticize a country for treating their citizen good.
Not sure about the preplanning though?
Found the American. Just as a heads up. We don't tip the cleaner. Or anyone else. And while Finland doesn't have minimum wage, collective agreements specify minimum pay rates so the cleaner will always be paid a liveable wage.
In Denmark, I'm much more likely to have the card payment machine prompt for a tip if the waiter thinks the group is foreign. Otherwise, they often press "Nej" themselves.
Specifically American tourists get confused if there is no tip possibility offered with carding machines.
Am I doing it wrong?
Exceptions are when you spend a long time and things (service, ambiance, whatever) stand out to you and your party: then feel welcome to tip whatever you like.
But an important observation is that here money is respected. 0,10 0,50 1,00 it is all treated with respect. This is why "overtipping" is frowned upon.
Its... weird.
I wonder if it is not some form of US cultural influence. We see people tipping in series, films and such and start to do it to.
Same is happening with Halloween now.
But if somebody finds money and nobody accepts it, "that's your tip now" is not un-Finnish at all.
Not her normal behavior. She is usually much too trusting. Apparently people are territorial.
Because it is a marketing campaign.
More like "only in a corporate environment with CCTV"
Maybe on the entrance and exit, but not in the office itself.