Sweden’s siren call lures local layabouts
by Kate Zimmerman for the North Shore News
SO that’s it, I guess -- we’re moving to Sweden.
Maybe you are, too. One story on the front page of Tuesday’s National Post is certain to prompt a tidal wave of immigration to that country, much of it from our very own neighbourhood.
Never mind that until now, West Coasters have ignored every single Swedish invention except the massage and the bargain tea-light. (Oh, and ginger biscuits. Mmm.) That country’s latest brainstorm is much more delicious than cardboard-thin cookies or tin-lined votives. It’s guaranteed to appeal to those of us who try to personify the “West Coast lifestyle” by doing as little work as we can.
We-the-shiftless know who we are, and we aren’t ashamed. Frankly, we pity the fools who put in a full day at the office, at the same time as we puzzle over why they own three cars and we have to use a skateboard to get around. Call us “slackers” if you will -- pretty soon you’ll be calling us Swedish.
Here’s why — Sweden has a groundbreaking new strategy. It’s a program that offers the nominally employed — picture wholesome, Pippi Longstocking versions of our layabout selves — a year off with 70 per cent pay. The scheme is meant to clear the decks for newcomers to the workforce to get 12 months’ training in their fields. (What they’re supposed to do afterwards is anybody’s guess. My suggestion? Retire.)
This novel idea, already tested regionally, should certainly be welcomed by the less enterprising members of the country’s populace when it is offered nation-wide next year. The government’s main stipulation is that participants cannot take a salaried job elsewhere in Sweden. Which is why West Coast slugs like myself would be a perfect fit — with us, they wouldn’t have to worry. We would insist on not working anywhere in the world.
According to the newspaper, it’s possible that some people who opt out of their low-salary jobs won’t be able to take their pay cut and then, say, embark on an exciting trip. Still, the more slothful will surely relinquish a few thousand dollars a year in order to stay home and improve their Lingonberry jam-making technique.
Of course, there are bound to be unworthy participants. According to the Post’s story, one over-achieving Scandinavian has used his year off to expand his business offshore and get patents on three Internet accounting improvements. This is a move that a future Swede such as myself must vehemently condemn as a waste of perfectly good wall-watching time.
I suppose that in notoriously hardworking cultures, such as the Japanese, to be seen to take a year off at 3⁄4 pay would be embarrassing. Thankfully, you and I don’t live in one of those cultures.
In this part of the world, if the sole cab driver on the Gulf Island you’re visiting gets called for a trip he doesn’t feel like taking, he just says he’s “kinda too tired.” And if you phone a certain restaurant to order food on a Saturday night at 7 on that selfsame island, the staff will say the place is about to close “because it’s Saturday night” and they want to have fun, too.
That’s okay. We understand. They have stones to skip, bread to watch rise, pot seedlings for whom they must play Hendrix.
“See you on the plane to Sweden, dudes,” we mumble before dropping the cellphone between the couch cushions and drifting off into yet another unearned sleep.
The province of B.C. would do well to finance the northern export of all of us layabouts. We’re not good optics, for one. What’s a visitor to Vancouver to make of the fact that the traffic on the Lions Gate Bridge never lets up, no matter what the hour, suggesting that most locals are either unemployed, taking a mental health week, or showing up half a day late for work? Is it a sign of economic health that even vegetarian restaurants like The Naam are packed at 2:30 on weekday afternoons? If any potential investor in B.C. products should wander downtown, are there any suggestions whatsoever of a bustling economy?
Not that I care, of course — I’m just saying. Actually, having that thought has wiped me out. I’ll get back to you after a few zeds.
Here I am. Now, where was I? Oh, yes … let’s think of others besides ourselves, for once, shall we? Picture all those Swedes on pseudo-sabbatical, getting gloomier and gloomier over their glogg. Why not open the gates to B.C. and bring them here for their 12-month break? Nobody has ever objected to the presence of a Swede — at least, not in recent memory. We would have to insist that they leave the Ingmar Bergman movies behind, but they could definitely bring the meatballs.
Meanwhile, after filling in for them in Sweden, we transplanted Canadians would take our own one-year leave from pickling herring (or whatever) at 70 per cent of the previous year’s pay, and come back here to make trenchant observations about Scandinavian life. “There’s much more to them than you’d ever guess from the IKEA catalogue,” we’d be sure to point out.
The other option for us slobs is to move to England. Its latest fad is encouraging people to burst into dance while waiting for their subway trains. You could be standing there innocently at 8 a.m. waiting for the tube, reading the newspaper and, like any good Canadian, cursing man’s inhumanity to Kyle Shewfelt, when the person next to you would start “mobile clubbing.” Propelled by his or her Walkman, literally dancing to the beat of a different drummer, this individual would continue to writhe waifishly, eyes closed, possibly until he or she fell over.
There’s no need to fear these people. They are not anarchists, spontaneously combusting into movement. Rather, a couple of inventive Brits came up with the concept. Once a month, they announce a particular subway location and a time on their website, and then area groovemeisters show up, packing their own tunes.
They do not gather together, as in a rave, because that would incur the wrath of the police. They simply start bobbing up and down beside Sir Charles in his bowler hat and Gerald in his grubby construction togs. As a fellow commuter, you may ignore their gyrations or you may be amused or you may join in, your fleece bouncing wildly as you do the Funky Loon, or whatever you call your own particular dance.
It’s up to you: the status quo or the Swedish dole or the dance of the bopping British prole. Or, I guess, you could work hard for a living. I hear some people do that, too.
Writing > Humour
|
