Tips and Guide for Linkoping, Sweden– part 2

Note: I have moved this blog to http://desiswede.com where the content is more updated as compared to here. Request you to kindly visit this link to get the same updated information mentioned on this page.

This part continues from my earlier post on Tips and Guide for Linkoping part 1. In due course of time from last year, we (I and my wife) come to know about other information and things which one may be willing to know about. I am continuing this post from the last point of my earlier post.

17. Jobs:

As mentioned earlier this could be one of the hardest part being in Sweden as you need to speak, understand and write Swedish language to get yourself qualified for any open job opportunity. Joining SFI course to learn language Swedish will help you to get acquainted with the language but still it is not something which will lead you to speak, understand and write this language in six months.
Swedish government has established an employment agency named as Arbetsformedlingen. As they say, this agency helps you to find the job in Sweden and they have a very good database of job openings as by law employers have to have post job opening on www.arbetsformedlingen.se. So, what you have to do is to visit the Arbetsformedlingen office at Storgatan 6 (across the big Hemkop) in downtown and register yourself there.
Once you get registered there you will be assigned to an employment officer/case officer who will help you in following ways:-

1. Plan activities for you.

2. They will ask you to verify your educational certificates through UHR ( more details in the next point) and prepares an activity plan for you.

3. They will ask you to search and apply for the suitable jobs through their website and also to submit your activity report for each month.

4. If you have already joined SFI then they may enrol you for additional Swedish classes (sprak praktik) where you will learn other aspects of Swedish language apart from your SFI classes. The social insurance agency Forsakringkassan pays you some stipend for going to Sprak praktik.

5. They may also enroll you for a job praktik in which you will learn technical Swedish related to your job. Finding a job praktik is as tricky as finding a job but still chances to get a job praktik are higher as compared to job. Forsakringkassan pays you the same stipend for the job praktik as well.

Job praktik is a three months training program in which candidate go to a company of his field, do work for them and learn the work culture and technical aspect of Swedish language. The deal here is that Companies don’t have to pay anything to the trainee from their account, its the Arbetsformedlingen/Social Insurance agency who pays the stipend. If company feels satisfied with your work and performance then they may hire you as an employee but in most of the cases they hire a new trainee for next three months and like this way they get their job done without paying anything.

Note: Once you get registered at Arbetsformedlingen it is required for you to login to your account frequently to have your account active. Also, try to be in touch with your case officer (handlagare) over the email or ask them to schedule a meeting with you.

18. Getting your documents verified through UHR:

UHR is a Swedish government agency which works to verify the foreign educational qualifications of the candidates and also assess the level of foreign education as per the Swedish education level. Employment agency asks you to get your educational qualifications verified from them so that employer can know about your educational qualifications and equivalent Swedish education level.

Getting your documents verified through them can take up to 4 months to 6 months as they will send verification of your documents to the country from where you obtained your degree.

All you need to do is to follow this page "Application form for Recognition of Foreign Qualifications".

19. Sending documents or post in cheapest way:

The cheapest way is to use Swepost (www.posten.se). For first 20 gms only 12 SEK is charged and then 2 SEK/gm is charged, this rate is without tracking. If you ask them to add tracking then it may cost you additional 50-60 SEK. So, its only 12 kr for sending a 20 gm post in any part of the world.
When I sent my package to India it got delivered with in one week.

20. EU Health card from Forsakringkassan:

With the European Health Insurance Card, you can get compensation for necessary care if you get sick or have an accident when you travel within the EU/EEA and Switzerland.

The European Health Insurance Card gives you the right to necessary care at a hospital or doctor's office that is affiliated with that country's national health care system. It is the care provider that determines what is considered to be necessary care. You pay the patient fees that the country's own residents pay. In some countries, you must first pay the entire care cost yourself and then request compensation from that country's equivalent of Försäkringskassan.

Immediately present the card together with your ID to the care provider. Everyone in the family, including children regardless of age, must have their own health insurance card. The card is free of charge.

The European Health Insurance Card is valid in:
Belgium, Bulgaria, Cypress, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Iceland, Italy, Croatia, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, the UK and Northern Ireland, Switzerland, Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Austria.

You can apply for this card from this link. You just have to enter your personal number on the website, the card is sent to the address that is registered in Försäkringskassan's customer register. The card is valid for three years.

For more information visit this link.

21. Free course for people in Sweden:

Ostergotland county provides a social orientation course for people who have recently arrived in Sweden. This course is about your right and obligations, Swedish democracy and how the society is organised. This course provides the important information to ensure a good start in Sweden.

Cost of the course: Free, no charge.

How to register: Send an e-mail to so@ostam.se with your personal number, name, address, telephone number and with the copy of your resident permit from Migration board.

Visit www.nyiostergotland.se and www.informationsverige.se for more information.

You can also find more details of this course in below pictures.

22. Studying, training, extra curricular activities in Linkoping:

There are many things to do in Linkoping once you arrive here. For example: You can join a basic swimming course or become a professional swimmer by joining the swimming school (Sim skola) or you can join a photography course on a minimal fees.

You can find more details on below mentioned websites for many things:-

1. www.lass.se: Website for events, training and new courses related to water sports.

2. www.studentum.se: You can find higher education in Sweden and abroad. Each training presents the most important information you need to compare different programs with each other such as eligibility requirements, admission points, housing situation, possible costs, etc. Once you find a course you can easily get in touch with the school and ask questions by leaving an interest.

3. www.folkuniversitetet.se: Folkuniversitetet is an adult educational association that offers a wide range of adult education all over Sweden.Folkuniversitetet runs numerous internationally oriented activities such as language courses, courses abroad and projects with an international emphasis.

Their brochure in English is available here.

4. www.linkoping.se: Its Linkoping Municpality website on which you can find information about various things.

5. www.studyinsweden.se: This link contains details about free and paid Swedish e-courses.

23. Finding an apartment in Linkoping:

This is a tricky part, finding an apartment here in Linkoping is a bit of hassle especially if you need it in the vicinity of downtown.

1. The best way is to register yourself on the website which I mentioned in part 1 of my blog (available here)as soon as you get your papers to come to Sweden so that you earn some queue points.

2. Other way is to ask your employer/University or concerned person for help.

3. Check with Sky hotel apartments, Sky Hotel apartments provides two type of accomodation, one is the Hotel and the other one is an apartment in the town. There are some apartments in town from Sky which you can rent for 1 month from the rent of 7000 - 10000 SEK/month.


Hotel apartments:

These are the furnished apartments with most of the basic facilities like kitchen, bed etc provided.

Check out their page for more information:
http://www.skyhotelapartments.se/Linkoping/Hotel_apartments/default_en.aspx

Town apartments:

Minimum rental period one month, Fully Furnished

Check out their page for more information:

http://www.skyhotelapartments.se/Linkoping/Town_apartments/default_en.aspx

4. There is a article from LiU (Linkoping University) on "101 ways to find accommodation" which is available here

24. Remitting money to India or abroad:

There are many money remitting websites available in the market for this purpose and also you can send your money through your Swedish bank, but, generally sending money through bank will cost you more as bank charge their own fee for wire transfer and they have different conversion rate as compared to these money remitting websites. I know/used about following websites for this purpose :-

1. www.transferwise.com: They provide mid market conversion rate and also gives you the option to fix your conversion rate,so, you may get good conversion rate during the rate fluctuations.

2. www.worldremit.com: They have a bit low charges as compared to Transferwise but not good forex rates.

3. www.money2india.com: This service is provided by ICIC Bank and I believe you don't want to go with this option as they don't provide complete Power transfer (Online transfer) option. You  have to do half online and half offline transfer i.e. you need to generate the remittance request and transaction reference number from the website and then they will provide you a wire transfer form. You have to wire transfer your money according to the details mentioned in the wire transfer form.

If you have bank account with Nordea bank then you can remit money very easily through it.

4. https://remit.onlinesbi.com

25. Find the right health care:

You are new in Linkoping and unfortunately you fall ill, what you should do to find the right health care is explained here.

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PS: I will keep updating this page with more information which I get in due course of time. I will also appreciate any correction or any new thing which you may want here or should you find any.

I am a vegetarian… but you are not vegetarian.

If in India you say that you are vegetarian then any one can understand what do you mean by it but it is difficult to stick to the vegetarian’s Indian definition once you go out of India. You have to change the term.

In my Swedish office I am the only one who is Vegetarian but actually I am not. Why? Because I consume dairy products. It was hard for me to explain our vegetarian definition in which we include dairy products by default (as all Indians love dairy products) and exclude any kind of animal flesh.

Once in my office we were having cake with ice-cream and there were two variants of ice-cream, lactose free and with lactose, I scooped the regular one on my cake and one of my colleague intervened to make me aware that I have taken the wrong one.

He asked me: “you are vegetarian right ?”

I said: “Yes”.

He: “You have taken the wrong ice-cream, its the one made from dairy products, you must take the lactose free.”

Me: “No, its fine with me. I love dairy products so I have the right one.”

He: “What!!! but you said you are Vegetarian ?”

Me: “Yes, I am a vegetarian,  I just don’t eat animal products.”

He: “In that case, you are not Vegetarian. If you consume dairy products then you are not vegetarian because dairy products are also animal products.”

Me: “Okay!! Look, by animal products I meant to say any kind of animal flesh but I consume dairy products. In India, if somebody is saying that he is a vegetarian then this term includes consumption of dairy product with out any kind of animal flesh. ”

He: “That’s strange!! You guys are fooling the world by saying that you are vegetarian while you are not.”

Me: “No, we are not. The type of diet you are talking about is a vegan or strict vegetarian which excludes all animal products and animal flesh  including eggs, dairy, honey etc. We are or I should say I am lacto-vegetarian or Ovo-lacto-vegetarian. It’s just like we don’t feel to say Ovo-lacto-vegetarian or lacto-vegetarian every time.”

He: “Hmm! What is Ovo-lacto-vegetarian ?”

Me: “Ovo-lacto-vegetarian diet includes eggs and dairy products.”

He: “Oh!! this is damn confusing. How one can survive with out eating meat ? What do you eat in your Vegetarian meal ? Do you eat salad all the time ?”

Me: “It’s confusing for you because you are totally  non-vegetarian and we can survive in the same manner as you are surviving with our eating vegetarian food. We don’t eat salad all the time, there are many things to eat in vegetarian food, come to my home sometime for dinner or lunch if in case you want to have vegetarian food sometime.”

He: “I must say, you have a very typical of diet.”

Me: “I know, I am not alone in the world having such diet.”

So, this actually turned out in a discussion. Now, I have to specifically say that I am a Ovo-lacto-vegetarian. Btw, being here , for the first time I see a separate section of lactose free products and soya milk in the stores. I never saw such things in India.

Women in my life.

I am late by one day  to write on Women's day but still better late then never.
I  believe that there is always a special role of a woman in everyone’s life. The first woman comes in the role of mother and the other comes in the role of sister, girlfriend or wife. There can be other roles of woman as well but one is attached more closely to these two.
I have two women in my life, one is my mother and the other one is my wife. When I opened my eyes in this world it was her from the beginning, she was my very first friend who played with me, who took care of me, who carried me all the time, who taught me to stand on my own and who also scolded me for my all the wrong actions and shaitanis. Being the elder son out of two I remember that she was the only women in my life for the first 28 years of my life (well, I can not count my infatuations, crushes and attractions in that, right!) with whom I have such an emotional rapport where I felt so comfortable in sharing things with her or sometimes making her understand the things about life from the younger generation perspective. She was/is always there for me and was/is ready to be in a role in which I want/ed her to be. Being it in a role of sister where I used to tease her and bully her all the time or being in a role of friend who gets angry with you and wait for you to console her or say sorry to her.
I feel that every men's inner child comes out in front of the women with whom he is very emotionally attached. This women can be a mother, a girl friend or a wife. I think we men need them more for ourselves as they need us for their selves.
You might have read about the joke where a girl complains to her mother-in-law that she is living with a child not a grown up man and that child is yours. Well, I second that, most of the time I behave like that small kid and keep bullying my wife with all my pranks which generally happens between brother and sister. I know  it is not supposed to be like this but I can’t help it. This is may be due to the fact that I don’t have a real sister and now the girl I have who is my wife I find a friend and lover in her who gets annoyed and sometimes angry on all of these my nick nacks. She often says to me that sometimes I act like a elder brother where I show her that elder brother bossy nature and sometimes I act like a child which leds her to get angry or pasture me with her love.
We often think that women are dependent on the man of the house but I think its us who becomes dependent on them whenever they are around not always but most of the time.
I wish Happy Women’s day to the two women of my life.
PS: Waise, ye Men’s day kab he ?  :)
PSS: Came back after a long time. (Finally, got in some mood to write down something).

Absenteeism!

Absenteeism from a meaning full post is not appreciated.

A midst of my vacations in India there are some things to write about and I am looking forward for the time when I come out of my pause mode to write something here.

Till then I wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year.

The disgust for the disgusting ones..!!

There are some people that you meet in your life for whom the only emotion that you can have is a sorry.

People who cannot think above themselves.

People who can see someone else even die just for the sake of keeping them irritated.

People who see negativity in all the positive things.

People who always LIE.

People who curse everybody else and never even bother about their sins.

People who are always illogical and they call it their stand.

People who showoff every time even for smallest things.

People who always give their ideology but don't follow it themselves when time comes.

People who believe that whatever they know is right and if they don't know any particular thing then that thing does not exist. 

People who are always eager to know about others life but don't disclose anything about themselves.

People who hide behind excuses to prove themselves like- society, status, honor...and all other blah blah blah!!

One question... What do you get from all this??!!

Maybe a feeling of utter satisfaction for a day, a month or an year? But after that? Do you even realize that you lost all your loved ones in this ego of yours? Do you realize that the society (which was your excuse once) is now mocking at you? Do you know that there is no one who trusts you now because all you ever did was a lie?!!

What did you get by showing off all the time or by lying for every small thing? Don't you know that the person to whom you are lying is not stupid/dumb and one day that person will come to know about the truth for those small things? Why do you take those people for granted who do not cross question you because they are just so irritated with you that they even don't want to correct you?

Pity on you..!! Really...from the bottom of my heart.

Life might have been tough for you once but you are carrying the venom of it. Hate, disgust,bitching and cursing are your reasons to live but probably you don't know that these are not even worth the reasons to die.

I pity you for your disgusting attitude towards everyone else. I pity you when you see yourself in a mirror. And in case you don't know..

What goes around comes around...

Note: I read this post on one of my fellow blogger and felt that she has written this post as if she has read my feelings. So, I took this post from her blog and have added few things from my side in it.

Help others to help yourself.

If you help someone then you don't have to feel great about it, neither you should expect thank you thank you  or that generosity from that person every time you meet him/her nor you should expect help in return from him/her. If you are helping some one then you are not helping him/her, actually, you are helping yourself. Help others to help yourself.

I am a believer of above lines which are given to me as a gyaan by one of my uncle. If you do good things then good things will come to you, its kind of law of attraction, it depends on you what you want to attract to yourself. 
Well, not going in to deep of this philosophy I personally believe that we should help others in whatever way we can, some times people feels that others are taking advantage of your help or may be your friends or dear ones may say to you that other people asks for your help because they don't want to do things by themselves. Well, this is true sometimes, I think it depends on every individual i.e. how to identify/sense that who is taking advantage or who is actually taking help, but you are not gonna loose anything to offer your help.

As I said, I am a believer of this philosophy and this belief turns into reality this year. I can never forget those series of event that took place in the month of Jan 13. As I have to move to Sweden in the month of Feb 13 I was specifically looking for a Swedish currency (SEK) travel card and I had two options, either to take it from HDFC bank or from Axis bank. Having a good experience with HDFC bank I decided to take this card from them and that was the time when my trust with HDFC bank broke and built again. What happened that day is mentioned in my below email which I sent later on to the manager of that HDFC bank employee as a token of appreciation.

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Dear Sir,

With due respect I would like to grab a chance to share my recent experience with HDFC bank executive's in concern to the Foreign exchange department.

This whole experience is from date 10-Jan-2013, I had to travel to Sweden and I was looking a Visa based SEK Travel card which HDFC bank provides. I did a lot of research on SEK travel card and compared travel card provided by other banks with HDFC but I found HDFC SEK Travel card more cheaper so I made my  mind to go with HDFC.

Although, I am not a HDFC bank user but as my father is I have always seen him more then satisfied with the extensive good quality of services provided by HDFC bank to him. Moreover, my father is an extremely satisfied customer so the same trust passed on to me which made me to choose HDFC bank with blind faith.

As I am talking about my trust, this was broken on 10-Jan-2013 but later saved by Mr. Vipul Awasthi.  

I went to the HDFC bank's Indirapuram (Ghaziabad) branch and the customer service executive told me that this branch does not deal in Forex so I should go to the HDFC bank's Vaishali branch. I went to HDFC's Vaishali (GZB) branch, there the lady in the Foreign exchange department told me that I should go to the HDFC's Noida Sector 18 branch to have the SEK card. I asked the lady executive that why should I go to sec-18 branch as this product (SEK travel card) is on the shelf product and as www.hdfcbank.com says that I can purchase this card from any branch by just walkin to it then she told me that HDFC's Vaishali branch is not the Forex branch and sector 18 branch is specialized Forex branch for this purpose.

To my aggression that lady executive asked to me to leave my number so that I can be contacted by an HDFC executive for this matter. I was contacted by Mr. Vineet and I was astonished and disappointed  when he told me that any kind of Travel card can not be issued to a customer who is not having any account with HDFC bank. When I asked Mr. Vineet to cross check this information he talked to me rudely and said that whatever information he is giving to me is correct and the HDFC bank website is not updated. When I told him that whatever he is telling me is not true then he gave me the number of Mr. Vipul Awasthi and asked me to contact him.

As I was in urgent need of HDFC SEK card I contacted Mr. Vipul with the hope that he may help and trust me Sir, Mr. Vipul came to help me as a savior that day. He told me that I have been misguided and any HDFC branch should arrange the card from other branch if they are out of stock of any Travel card. He asked me to wait at HDFC Vaishali branch and promised me to call back with in half an hour. 

Since, I don't have time to wait I went to the HDFC's Noida sector 18 branch and there also the lady executive told me that SEK card is not available with the branch and she don't know which other branch might have it, in fact she told me that HDFC bank do not provide any SEK card, the bank has never launched such card, she provided me the contact details of some Money exchanger from where HDFC's Noida sector 18 branch get its currency conversion.

I again contacted Mr. Vipul and explained him the whole scenario, he asked me to wait for 5 minutes and he talked to Mr. Ajay Tiwari at Noida sector 18 branch to help me out. There after, the SEK card was issued to me in the same branch whose executive was denying the existence of such card in the market.

I was even more impressed with the customer service of Mr. Vipul Awasthi when he himself took out little time from his busy schedule to keep following up the status. He contacted me to confirm whether the card has been issued to me or not, by that time it was not issued and he again followed up the whole issue and scolded some other executive keeping me in the conference call.

I must say employees like Mr. Vipul Awasthi can never let faith of bank's customer down and sets example for other employees for delivering highest customer satisfaction.

If Mr. Vipul has not come in to the picture that day then I surely have loosed my trust and faith with HDFC bank and have purchased the SEK travel card from AXIS Bank.

I am sorry to write such a long mail but the intention was to let you know how customers are misguided by the bank executives and how helpless they can feel in the era of competitive banking. Such small things and misguiding results in lose of customer which is not good for a premier bank like HDFC.

I hope some sort action can be taken against those executives.

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Well, this whole experience left me with few questions:-

1. Who was Mr. Vipul Awasthi?
2. Why did he helped me as a unknown person?
3. What he is benefiting from all this?

I only had answer of question 2, may be because I have helped some one known/unknown some time and I got the return that day. 

All I could have given to Mr. Vipul is my sincere thanks and the above appreciation mail to his manager. I don't know if there was any action taken against those executives who were misguiding me but my purpose was solved by a unknown man.

Don't be so formal.

You may have noticed that most of the time we say in formality "come'on yaar don't be so formal" but we sometimes mind if one does not say things formally or considers that person as rude if they say things directly which they actually mean to say instead of saying it in other way around with a nice wrapping of words so that the recipient don't feel bad.

There may be culture difference, since we adopted all these mannerism and formal words like sorry, thank you, excuse me from British we expect the same things from others, at least from those who are just acquaintances. 

What I mean by saying all these, about what and whom I am saying these? May be those are the questions in your mind, so, I am talking about some of my work culture experience which I gained by working with my Swedish colleagues. 

 I have observed following things which they say and I will compare these with our way of saying (with all my so called learned Indian corporate ethics of never saying no directly).


Situation 1: When you want some information from a colleague who is doing some other work.

Me: Hey!! Did you get a chance to look at that mail which I sent to you?

Colleague: I don't have time for it and I am very busy right now.

How I would have said this 

Me: Hey! Yes, I looked at it from the very top level but to answer your question I need to collect some more information. Do you mind if I come back to you on this before EOD today as I am occupied in this task?


Situation 2: When you go to a colleagues desk to ask some thing and they are working on something.

Colleague: (After they sense that you are coming towards them or you are sneaking around) Give me a minute. (They say it and continue doing their work with out looking at you).

What I would have done in this situation

Me: (After sensing that somebody is around to say something and before they say something, look at them) Hey!! (and listen to them/their question, reply it quickly if you know the answer already and get back to the screen or if you don't know the answer, say) do you mind if  I come back to your desk with the answer .


Situation 3: In a meeting, you are explaining to your boss about your plan to do a particular task.

Boss: I don't care how you do it. Do whatever you want.

How I would have replied if I were a boss

Me: Hmm!! that sounds like a plan, let me know if you  need any information or assistance from me and keep me posted.

Initially I felt rude but then I come to know that in Swedish language there is not much formality like English and may be what they are trying to say in English is completely different from what they are trying to meant in Swedish.

I guess I will come to know about this later part when I will be proficient in Swedish but the thing to note is that you can really reduce the amount of words to say if you don't care how the receptor may feel :D 

***Disclaimer:By this post, I am not implying that Swedish work culture is like what I am representing here but it is from my so far work experience while working with Swedish colleagues in an Swedish software firm. ***