(edit title) How to avoid typical Swedish jealousy at work? Any advice? Options

[Coolrunnings]

Yeah I'm the foreign guy at work. When I got a promotion the natives got jealous and pissed off that I just came in and advanced above them.

Question is, how do I keep a low profile and avoid bullying tactics while keeping my sanity?

From what I understand, swedish jealousy is deeply ingrained in their culture and mindset and you can never trust or confide in a swede, especially when a foreigner seems better than them.

Any advice?

[gplusa]

yup, stop talking crap. There you go.

[*Trowbridge H. Ford*]

You really have your work cut out for yourself.

While I have never worked here, I have worked many places in America in various positions, and I believe that its zero-sum-attitude, now in a shrinking world, about work can give some insights about getting along with jealous co-workers here.

Don't volunteer anything when it comes to knowledge about the outside world, changes at work or doing extra work. Don't seek them out as a friendly, interested co-worker. Let them come to you, and if they don't, forget about it.

Of course, never mention any kind of recognition or outside assistance. Just stay focused on what you do. And, of course, never mention or ask anything about money, especially how much one gets and how it is spent. Don't make any expenditure which is quite obvious and expensive.

And if you decide to break the ice with some entertainment, be sure to include as many as you can stomach, and make it simple.

And be most patient about any signs of improvement.

Lycka till.

[sometimesinsweden]

Office politics happens in all countries, it's not just a Swedish trait. Some companies are worse than others.

Best thing is to man up, ignore it, don't be a prick in your promoted position and you'll be fine.

[skogsbo]

Yeah I'm the foreign guy at work. When I got a promotion the natives got jealous and pissed off that I just came in and advanced above them.Question is, how do I keep a lo ... (show full quote)

Yeah I'm the foreign guy at work. When I got a promotion the natives got jealous and pissed off that I just came in and advanced above them.

Question is, how do I keep a low profile and avoid bullying tactics while keeping my sanity? ... (hide full quote)

perhaps you were under hand, perhaps you are the boss's creep, perhaps you deliberately made other employees look worse than you... now your promoted and they don't like it?

OR

Every company has some tools working for it, but they are rarely the majority. If you are a honest and genuine person, who was promoted on merit, then I'm sure things will settle in time and if you deserved the promotion, your ability at the new level will prove the justification in its own right.

[Gamla Hälsingebock]

"From what I understand, swedish jealousy is deeply ingrained in their culture and mindset and you can never trust or confide in a swede, especially when a foreigner seems better than them."

I never knew there was a special type of jealousy named after Swedes!

You could move...perhaps to a place where you are not foreign. After all, why live in such a society when you could be among your own and enjoy a life free of petty jealousy and office politics.

[gplusa]

Geez, are we going to have to go through 5 pages of posts before someone recognises a wind up troll thread when they see one ? Read the opening post and ask yourselves. It's deliberately designed to get one response and one response only.

[johnjohn]

I might suggest a specialty cake to be shared with your co-workers during fika. They will love it!

 

 

[cogito]

"From what I understand, swedish jealousy is deeply ingrained in their culture and mindset . I never knew there was a special type of jealousy named after Swedes!

Actually there is a special and, sadly, wide-spread type of jealousy, known as "kungliga svenskavunsjukan" (royal Swedish envy). It is astonishing that all the Super Swedes here are unfamiliar with this term describing a common Swedish trait.

[johnjohn]

Related to ¨kungliga penisavund¨?

[Gamla Hälsingebock]

I would suggest that all here, that are interested in the meanings of envy and jealousy, take the time to look them up..

Quite different you know...so the Swedes envy royalty, and there is a name for it, however jealousy is not descriptive of this emotion, and the exclusive, "Swedish" name.

[byke]

Jante ?

[AW1]

Jante

Indeed,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante

Mind you, that list of rules could easily apply to departments in a company. I say this because it's scarily like the marketing department in the company I work for.

[*Trowbridge H. Ford*]

Actually, the Law of Jante aka Jantelag was described by Dane Aksel Sandemose, who so hated Denmark that he emigrated to Norway, only to come to hate ít too, that he elaborated upon it in a novel, a secular reinterpretation of the Ten Commandments.

It's a set of rules whereby no one is expected to become anything in a most parochial, claustrophobic society. "The Jantelag," Chris Mosey wrote in Cruel Awakening: Sweden and the Killing of Olof Palme, "has moulded Swedes into the docile, easily-led people they are today, a hook upon which they are impaled and wriggle ineffectually." (p. 22)

And,yes, Mosey, went on to make it the cause of his assassination after he and others failed to pin it on the Soviets.

Mosey was listrening to Mozart in his flat when the Palmes were returning home from a flick about the Austrian composer, and became so impatient about hearing of Olof's killing that he called police, asking if the PM has been shot, and the police hadn't yet heard a word!

Little wonder when it couldn't be pinned on Soviet spy Stig Bergling that the security people tried to fit it to all kinds of misfits because of Jantelag - Pettersson, Gunnarsson and 'The Shadow'.

[AW1]

Sigh... not again...