Survey for Immigrants

Last week I received a survey from the Swedish Department of Statistics. They wanted the opinion of foreigners with higher education on the job market in Sweden. I have opinions on just about everything, and I certainly have plenty to say about this.

To start with, I was pleased that they sent a copy of the survey in English. Unfortunately it was so badly translated that I needed the Swedish one to figure it out. For example, it had questions like "I would have gotten between work details if I had Swedish nationality." Huh? I would have translated that to "I would have had better work duties if I had Swedish nationality." But what do they mean by nationality? Do they mean citizenship? Ethnic background? Frankly I think that makes a huge difference.

During the first three years that I lived here, I applied for about 50 jobs in my field (chemist, biochemist, analytical chemist, etc) , and I got a total of three interviews. All of these were first interviews. The official language for each of these three companies was English, yet the interviews were conducted at least partially in Swedish. It turns out that the official language only means that they occasionally have to write reports in English. All day-to-day activities require one to speak Swedish.

Now I had nothing against learning to speak Swedish. Two weeks after arriving in Sweden, I started Swedish for Immigrants at the local adult school. I've got plenty to say about the quality of this class, but I'll save that for another time. The following year, I switched to taking Swedish with Swedes. This turned out to be Swedes who needed to retake the equivalent of seventh grade in their own language, but that also, is another story. The following semester, I moved up to eighth grade. At this point I could converse fairly well in Swedish.

Not having a job or anything better to do, I started my third year in "high school" taking not only Swedish but science, social studies, religion, and even a class in web design. Now I have a bachelor's degree from UCSD which is valid in Sweden, so I didn't need to retake high school. I only did it to improve my Swedish. By the end of the semester I was really sick of school. My only friends were other immigrants.

I found an ad for an administrative position at Akzo Nobel, a huge international chemical company, in their paint department. I knew nothing about paint, but I could do admin in English. I asked a friend's husband who worked at the same company if he knew anything about this position, and he ended up hiring me as a temp to help with his department's year end bookkeeping crunch time. This eventually lead to me getting the job in the paint department. The title of R&D Coordinator was misleadingly interesting. I liked having co-workers and especially missed the company of other adults, but the work was rather dull, and my salary (1/3 of what I'd been making in the pharmaceutical industry in the US) hardly made it worth the hour-long commute. I worked there for over a year until Lina was born. Since then, I have not bothered looking for a job here. Instead, I started my own business as a photographer.

But back to the survey. Was I discriminated against at work? No. I was paid pathetic secretary wages because that was my job. I'm quite sure that the reason I got the job was because I'm American. My boss was Danish, and he worked long hours both at the facility in Copenhagen and in Malmo. He said he was looking for somebody who could write about chemistry in English, but that turned out to be only a very small part of the job. I think what he really wanted was somebody who would work as needed regardless of the time. When there was something that needed doing, I stayed and did it, even if it was time for coffee, or lunch, or time to go home. I knew he did not like my predecessor, and I heard that he didn't like my successor either. Both were Swedes. Unfortunately the survey didn't ask anything about work ethic.

It did ask a lot about my education and work history, both in Sweden and abroad. There was one question about what I was doing specifically last week where I was able to answer that I was working for my own business, but otherwise starting your own business had not been treated as a normal activity (such as being employed, being unemployed, or going back to school). Because of the way the Swedish Employment Office works, I was never technically unemployed during the three years that I was looking for work because I went to school at the same time. Another thing that I wish I could have said in the survey was that I would have better off had the local employment office not existed. I realize now that it was not their goal to help me find a job. They got their funding for enrolling me in one of their retraining programs; I would have been much better off without their so called assistance. First of all, they had no idea what I did as a biochemist/analytical chemist in the pharmaceutical industry, and honestly I don't think they cared. They did not consider my skills in English as anything noteworthy. Every now and then they would send me a tip on a job (something like manufacturing hair care products) but never anything for which I was remotely qualified or interested. Mostly they tried to get me enrolled in a training program to be a network technician. Mind you I had no interest in that, and my aptitude test certainly didn't point in that direction (it said I should be a judge). They also said my bachelor's degree was only valid for 10 years, so I'd have to retake all the background requirements including math. I think that was the last time I talked to them.

The one piece of advice that I got from the employment office was that I should use my husband's last name when applying for jobs. When they found out that I was already doing this (my husband's last name is Swedish, but very unusual), they mentioned that I may consider changing my name. This was mentioned only once, sort of hush-hush as an aside, but I'm pretty sure they were on to something here. I suspect that many of the resumes and cover letters I sent out were read no further than my name.

In short, are immigrants discriminated against here? Absolutely! Are employers racists? I doubt it. I think the problem lies in the labor unions, and the labor laws. But again, they didn't ask those questions.

inspiration from the garden

It's so beautiful here this time of year that I just couldn't resist taking some pictures.

First, the forests are full of white anemones.

These blue flowers also grow wild. I don't know what they are, but I think they're my husband's favorite.

Even the trees are blooming. Luckily I'm not bothered by pollen.

In our back yard are old fashioned daffodils. We heard from a former owner that in the 1970's when her aging parents were tiring of all the work that goes into running a farm, they decided to give up on the garden in the back yard and put the bull there instead. They tried to rescue their favorite daffodils by planting them in the forest. After them, other tenants have kept horses in the back yard. In the meanwhile, the daffodils have thrived in the forest, and they're even starting to make a comeback in the back yard.

This clump of daffodils has come up in the middle of the lawn. I've been mowing around it very carefully for the last couple of years, and it seems to have paid off.

We also have a patch of modern daffodils in the back yard, and every year there come more and more.

Tulips are my favorite flower. In California, you can make tulips grow, but you have to dig them up every year and keep them in the refrigerator to simulate winter. Needless to say, I never bothered to plant tulips. Since coming here, I have made several efforts to plant tulips. Unfortunately, it seems like wherever I plant something, my husband ends up digging it up for one of his drainage or electrical projects or such. His mother is a landscape architect and is always trying to make me more interested in gardening by giving me plants. Sometimes she surprises us by planting stuff for us. This would be great, but she does this with no consideration for what has been planted in that spot previously, so the result is often not what anyone intended.

After one of his digging projects, he arranged for a load of fill dirt which turned out to be from someone's yard in Lund. This has resulted in a section of our lawn that is full of randomly distributed tulips, daffodils, crocus, and other bulbs.

a good weekend after all

Yesterday was pretty much a wasted day. We'd been preparing for weeks for a "commerce day" in a nearby town where among many other things, the network for female small business owners that I'm in was to be represented. 17 of us had tables at the bank where we were prepared to sell our wares and/or talk about our services. I do bridal shows regularly, so this wasn't so new for me, but it was the first time for many of the others. I was impressed how nice it looked and how well everyone used their space. Most had very nice table cloths and decorations which created a very nice atmosphere. Unfortunately hardly anyone came to see it. The theory is that the weather was too nice and that people were either working in their gardens or out doing other stuff. It was rather unfortunate that there was quite a bit going on this weekend for people to choose from: a carnival, a 1950's themed day in another town, and an antique tractor show (yup, tractors are big around here in more than one way).

The up side of the day was that the 17 of us got to know each other a lot better. We had plenty of time to talk to each other both about business and other stuff. I suppose I did better than most since a couple of my colleagues bought some of my greeting cards. In general, I'd say that we were our own best customers.

Yesterday was also my 16th wedding anniversary. We didn't celebrate in any way, but at least my husband remembered. Had I been thinking, I should have suggested that we go out for dinner. That's something that we pretty much never do since it's so expensive here. Instead, I did my best to make a nice dinner even though I was really tired after being on my feet all day.

I didn't have high expectations for today, but it turned out well. Once again the weather was fantastic. It was jeans and a t-shirt weather for the first time this year. I spent the morning scraping off all the bad putty and flaking paint from the windows on the side of my gallery/the little barn. I was expecting to spend the afternoon at the dress rehearsal for my daughter's gymnastics show, but my mother in law took her, so I got to oil and replace the putty on the windows. Some of the windows are relatively modern, so I got to use the plastic putty in a tube instead of the old fashioned linseed oil based putty that is appropriate for the antique windows. Admittedly I've had a lot of practice with the old fashioned stuff, but I was surprised to discover that I didn't find the modern stuff any easier to use. If anything, it was stickier. I'm kind of proud of myself that I got so much done. Usually my perfectionist tendencies make tasks like this take a very long time, but today I kept telling myself, "It's just a barn, and nobody's going to wade through the nettles to look closely at my handiwork."

This evening, I made homemade spaghetti sauce, one of my personal favorites. While it was simmering, we went for a walk in the forest. The trees are just starting to get their leaves, and the forest floor is still covered with the lush green foliage and white flowers of the wild anemones. A neighboring property is for sale, so just out of curiosity, we went to check that out. Amazingly, this was the first time in the 10 years that we've lived here that I've gone for a walk and left our own property. This place was really beautiful too, and slightly different than ours in that it has lakes.

Nice weekends

I previously touched on the visit on the Saturday before Easter by our friends from Denmark. They have a son the same age as our daughter. We met them at a playground in San Diego, and we both moved back to this area around the same time, and we try to get together about once per month.

It's been a while since they've been to our place, so I was especially glad that we had good weather and beautiful spring flowers for their visit. Since I was having my exhibit, I didn't want to leave the gallery for long, so I stayed behind when my husband took them around to see some of the local artists. In between our few visitors that afternoon, I made chili for dinner and hid Easter eggs for the kids. They didn't seem to have as much fun looking for the eggs as I had hoped. They seemed very competitive and obsessed about who had found more eggs, so we had to pool all the eggs and divide the loot evenly between them. After that, tensions eased and they played well for the rest of the evening.

The following weekend we spent working in the garden. Our main project was to clean up where my husband had taken down a clump of ash trees last year. I liked the trees, but he thought they blocked the view and dropped leaves on the house, clogging the rain gutters.

He cut down the trees with the chainsaw last summer, and we cleaned up the branches and most of the wood, but several large pieces remained all summer. A few months ago, he took the back hoe to the stump and removed most of it leaving a big hole and an unsightly mess. This time he continued with the back hoe, breaking up the rest of the stump then leveling the dirt. Unfortunately, previous occupants of this house had used that section of the stone wall as a trash pile, so when he spread the dirt around over low spots in the lawn, it glittered with broken glass and other debris. We cleaned up all the debris from this undertaking and rebuilt the stone wall, then I spent the rest of my weekend picking glass and such from the dirt. I got a lot, but I worry that I didn't get all of it. We'll have to be very careful when going barefoot in this part of the lawn--something that we don't usually do because of the nettles and thistles.

Easter Wrap-up

I survived Easter weekend. It was a bit disappointing, but not nearly as bad as last year, and it did pick up a bit at the end. On the last day, I reserved two small pictures which will hopefully be paid for and picked up next weekend, until that, I'd only sold some greeting cards. At least it went better for me than the woman I was sharing my gallery with; she didn't sell a thing. That really surprised me, since her stuff is all one-of-a-kind and very artistic.

The weather was beautiful the entire weekend, though the breeze was cold, especially in the afternoons and on Sunday. The white anemones and daffodils started blooming just in thie, and the whole area looked beautiful. I also thought the gallery looked great. I only wish more people had come to see it. We had 52 visitors on the first day, and that is usually the busiest day. Based on previous years, 50 is about average for a good day, but I'd been hoping for more (or at least people who were a little more inclined to spend money).

Saturday was really disappointing with only 12 visitors. Luckily our friends from Denmark came in the afternoon, so the day wasn't a complete loss. In fact, this part was really fun, but more on that later. The Saturday before Easter is the day that Swedes celebrate Easter together with family (it's Easter eve, like Christmas eve or midsummer eve). So that's probably why it was a slow day, but my husband took our friends out to check out some other artists, and it wasn't nearly as slow anywhere they went.

Things improved a bit on Sunday with 36 visitors, but still not much for sales. The most frustrating thing with Sunday was that we'd had 10 cars that came and turned around without stopping. That after we'd strategically parked the back hoe in the woods to prevent people from turning around there where they could turn around without really noticing that they were almost here.

Monday was nice in that it wasn't windy and thus warmer than the previous days. We had 32 visitors and both one of the first and one of the last customers of the day wanted to buy one of my pictures. Of course, neither had much money with them, so they'll have to come back next weekend to pick it up. This still doesn't come close to even covering my costs for this exhibit, but it's better than nothing. I admit that I wasn't really expecting to turn a profit from this, but breaking even on expenses (not counting my time) would have been nice. Two years ago one of the visitors who happened to come by my exhibit was the father of a the groom who was helping to plan the wedding. He loved my photobooks, and I ended up booking them for my deluxe wedding package. Last year, I booked a family portrait session as the result of the exhibit. Thus marketing of my services is the reason that I continue to dedicate so much effort to the Easter art show thing.

Easter Art Show

In this part of Sweden, artists open their homes or galleries to the public every Easter, and people drive around and look at art. When we first moved here, we spent a phenomenal amount of time creating a gallery specifically for this occasion in one of our barns. This building was originally a machine hall, but in later years it was used for ducks, doves, and horses. By the time we got it, all but one of the windows was broken and boarded up, and the interior was filled with years worth of mostly horse shit. We tore down the horse boxes, used shovels to scrape shit off the walls and floors, pressure washed the walls and floors, and whitewashed or painted the walls white. It took an average of 7 coats, more where it had been painted black or brown. We redid the electrics (bare copper wire wasn't our thing) and installed halogen track lighting. Eventually the place looked really good.

The first year, I think it was 2000, I shared the gallery with a good friend from Holland who did mostly sculpture with natural materials. I showed mostly local nature photos and some greeting cards where I'd glued on a photo. We hardly sold anything, but it looked really good, and we enjoyed a lot of positive feedback from the few people who found their way to us.

The next year, my friend was pregnant, so I used my only contact in the art industry who paired me up with a couple of "real" artists from Malmö who were looking for a place to show their stuff. One did brightly colored abstract oil paintings, the other did small sculptures of torsos. They were both complete jerks who resented being exiled to the middle of nowhere. The best thing about these shows for me is talking to the guests. They made a point of ignoring people to the extent that they didn't even say hi. I was also so far beneath them that I wasn't worth speaking too. Needless to say, I didn't have much fun that year, and I didn't sell much either.

The following years, I was pregnant and then busy with a small child, then in California at this time of year. In 2007 I started doing the Easter shows again. I shared the gallery with a photographer who was at least really good company. I showed pictures with a desert theme, the naked landscape. The year after that, he was busy having just started his own framing business, so I shared with my friend from Holland again. Instead of art, she moved in stuff from her new interior decorating shop. I showed pictures with a local theme. The gallery looked fantastic, but we had this major snow storm, so pretty much nobody came.

This year I'm sharing the gallery with a photographer who specializes in a couple of techniques from the very early days of photography, and makes one-of-a-kind very arty pieces. I'm showing more modern stuff, often in collage form, printed on canvas for very dramatic effect and saturated colors. Some of the pictures are from Hong Kong and Guilin, others from Montreal. Yesterday the weather was fantastic, and it's predicted to be sunny for the entire long weekend. We had over 50 guests, many of whom are people that I know, which made it extra nice. Unfortunately, they didn't buy much, just a few cards and a few of my daughter's creations with melted plastic beads. We've got three more days of this, so I hope we continue to have a lot of visitors, and that they're in the art buying mood.

A day of firsts

Today was the first time this year that I went out without wearing long underwear or a coat. Unlike the teenager I saw in shorts and a t-shirt, I had a turtleneck and a wool sweater, but still, that's amazing progress for me. Today I also swatted the first fly of the season. We finished dinner considerably before sunset, so all three of us piled on the ATV and went for a ride in the forest. It was some nice family time.

On a note completely unrelated to spring, I did my first load of laundry in my new washing machine. It completed it's task in only one hour (half the time of the old one, even when it was working properly), and the clothes appear to be clean. This machine also has a "steam" function that I'm looking forward to trying.