I once heard a couple of Swedish businessmen discuss the “slow south populations – rather sleeping than working half of the day. If they worked like we do they would not be so poor.”

Hello?

We are right now in the middle of the yearly Swedish 60-days siesta, stretching from mid June to mid August. I’m not against taking vacation, not at all! But the typical Swedish mentality is to close the shop all summer long. 3 weeks before going on vacations Swedes tend to “not start anything new, I’m soon going on vacation”. Then the typical leave is 5 weeks. Followed by at least 3 weeks of catching up, slow starts, late mornings and early afternoons…

To me this is incredibly annoying and in many ways, most ways actually, contra-productive. Sure, you’ll “recharge your batteries” taking that 60-days siesta. But what we really need to do in this country is to boost enthusiasm for work in the wast majority of workers. It’s a provocative thing to say, but I do anyway.

Who is really the slower, I wounder?

“Do something you love professionally – and you’ll never work a day in your life.”

Posted on July 18th, 2008 by Linus
Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Personal, Politics