Official website of denmark
Not long ago, I have written a blog post with title, ‘Help is always given to those in Denmark, who ask for it’. This current post is also similar to the previous one, albeit in slightly different way.
This goes also for asking the help. Asking for help in the need also a criterion for DIY(Do It yourself), because no one else is going to ask if things are going fine. Everyone is happy and busy with their lives. It is not just about taking initiative, but also doing it yourself.
There can be many other ways too to look on it. Starting from stated goals in the meeting, coming on time, and preparing for the meeting in advance, it can be the culture of DIY (Do it yourself). In meetings, once the goals are stated and you agreed for things. It is more or less DIY. Of course, you can always gets the help from the other people.
If you look around, most of the people in Denmark learn to do many things themselves. It is not surprising that many small things, people do it for themselves and it enables a sense of independence in most of the people. I seems to like this idea without any reason.
I am not sure, how it is like that, but lack of human resources can be the reason for many of the automation. From the time you enter into Copenhagen Airport, you starts to feel that there is hardly the need of anyone do manual tasks. Artificial intelligence or lack of manpower? I am not sure, what to say on this. But, many processes are automated and procedures have been simplified to reduce the need of human power.
This also goes for other activities. For example, processed food is very expensive in Denmark. But, if you buy raw material from the market and cook your own, you will find a huge difference. I am not suggesting you to avoid going out, just trying to make a comparison to validate my point.
I was living in a dormitory during the duration of my studies at Technical University of Denmark. Instead of hiring an expert; we cleaned, painted and even re-furnished entire dormitory kitchen ourselves. For the first time, I realized that there is no need to hire expert for such small thing. Normally, in my country, we pay some amount and ask someone else to do this. Coming from a very big country, I could always find someone to do such tasks. That does not apply so well in Denmark.
So, why it is like this in Denmark? Lack of manpower is definitely one reason. That is also one reason that hiring someone for small tasks is quiet expensive too. Some other reasons in my view:
– The work-life balance in Denmark allow anyone to have sufficient time for himself/herself. Why not use it to do small things on their own?
– Income inequality is very low in Denmark as well as in other countries of Scandinavia. Therefore, no-one is above or below in the income scale.There is no way you can hire endless amount of people to do small things, unlike many other countries.
– Feeling of independent is very high among the Danish people. This can also be the reason for doing so many such tasks on their own.
– From self-assembling chairs at IKEA store or automated queue system at the post, there is hardly much room left, where you need someone to do small tasks.
– Not just being independent, it also goes about sense of empowering everyone about individual responsibilities and freedom. I experienced it, when computer center of my university was open 24*7 for the study purpose.
Hope, you understood and give prime consideration to the culture of DIY(Do It Yourself), before and after arriving in Denmark.
This blog post was first appeared at Denmark.Dk on 21.07.2016
(Based entirely on my personal experiences, it may not reflect opinions of everyone)
Ankit Khandelwal 