Helsinki, Finland
In general, business operation is the United States is similar across the board in terms of goals/objectives. Businesses want to provide the best customer service and be profitable. While in Scandinavia, what we noticed from companies and businesses around the city is that employees are more relaxed and are enjoying work. In comparison, the work force in the U.S is primarily stress out day to day due to long workweek’s and high work demands.
One of the major differences that was apparent to us was the fact that businesses and employees are paying higher taxes but at the same time Scandinavian government’s provide more social and health benefits to people such as free health care, free education and six week’s paid vacations.
One could say that Scandinavians just work enough to be comfortable and to support their life style. They shouldn’t be worried about their retirement because their government will support them. In contrast people in US should work more and save more for their golden age. However, American’s have more opportunity to grow.
While in Finland, we were in a group with 7 other classmates walking around the city trying to find a restaurant to have dinner. We were all surprised when 3 restaurants turned us down because we were a big group. Since the restaurants did not have big enough tables for 8, they would have needed to put tables together in order to serve us. We all determined that this would have been an inconvenience for the restaurants and therefore decided to say no. WOW! This is not the American culture. Any restaurant in the U.S would do anything to take in business. One thing came to mind while overseas. As a customer, we are catered too and are given much more to make sure our experience is the best.
