Browsing Tag

money

Rich in Denmark

Denmark is a rich country, but does it have rich people?

It does, but Denmark’s wealthy tend to keep a low profile, due to the informal Jante Law that prohibits too much showing off.

That said, spring and summer is great time to see Danish rich people in their natural habitat.

That’s when they put the roof down on their expensive German cars and drive through the medieval old towns, drink rosé chilled in silver buckets at fancy outdoor cafés, or sail through the harbor on their personal boats of various sizes.

In the summer, Denmark’s rich come out to play.

Two types of wealth

There are two types of wealth in Denmark, old wealth and new wealth.

Old wealth is the leftovers of Denmark’s nobility, Dukes and Counts and Barons, even though noble privileges were officially abolished in 1849.

Many of these families still own their old castles and country houses, some of which have been turned into hotels or fancy restaurants. You can stay there for a weekend with your sweetheart. Very romantic.

And then there’s new wealth. Denmark’s richest man owns Bestseller, a fast fashion chain that owns names like Vero Moda and Jack & Jones.

The heirs to LEGO, which is less than 100 years old, are also quite well off, and so are the heirs to the Ecco shoe fortune.

May 25, 2023 by Kay Xander Mellish

Denmark’s big and wonderful second-hand economy

I missed a gala opening last week. It wasn’t of an opera or a nightclub, but of Copenhagen’s big new Genbrug Center, a place set up by the local government where people can leave stuff they don’t want and other people can take it for free.

The party seems to have been a hit. I saw photos of people leaving with chic leather chairs, kitchenware, lumber for building, even an electric guitar.

There is a network of these “genbrug” (recycling) stations all over all over the country, 13 in Copenhagen alone, full of lovely things that people simply can’t use any more.

Maybe they bought a new one, maybe they’re cleaning out the basement or a storage locker, maybe they’ve fallen in love and are moving in with someone who already has a toaster.

October 17, 2021 by Kay Xander Mellish

Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

Saving money on food in Denmark

Anyone who has spent time living in Denmark knows that it’s one of the most expensive countries around. That’s true when it comes to food shopping in Denmark, too.

One Dane who had lived in the US explained it this way: “In Denmark, every supermarket is priced like Whole Foods.”

For those of you who haven’t visited the States, Whole Foods is a high-end grocery chain nicknamed “Whole Wallet” or “Whole Paycheck.”

One reason is that unlike most Western countries, Denmark imposes a full sales tax on food items, adding 25% to the price of almost everything.

March 21, 2021 by Kay Xander Mellish

Books, Denmark and the USA, Working in Denmark: Danish Business Culture

Working with Americans: Tips for Danes – Get the book!

Working with Americans: Tips for Danes, my new book, is now available!

Many Danes work for companies that are US-owned or have US divisions. Others deal with American colleagues on the telephone or online every day. Some even travel to the US to meet customers, suppliers or colleagues.

Because Danes speak great English and are exposed to so much American TV, movies, and radio, they tend to think that they have a handle on the American culture and way of doing business.

As the great American composer George Gershwin once wrote, “It ain’t necessarily so.”

Working with Americans: Tips for Danes covers aspects like:

What should you expect in meetings and negotiations with Americans?

How can you make small talk with your American colleagues – and which topics should you avoid?

What do American employees really want from a manager?

Why do your US customers expect you to be available all the time?

Why won’t American employees go outside their job descriptions?

Book an event
If you represent a company or organization and would like to have an American keynote speaker in Denmark make a presentation to your group, contact Kay via this site’s contact form for more information.

Alternately, you can read more about all of Kay’s events on the How to Live in Denmark events page.

Buy Kay Xander Mellish’s new book, Working with Danes: Tips for Americans/Working with Americans: Tips for Danes on our webshop, or at Amazon, Saxo, Google Books, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble Nook, or via our webshop.

Or follow Kay on LinkedIn.

July 1, 2020 by Kay Xander Mellish

Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

Drinking in Denmark

Earlier this year, my daughter and I visited several Danish high schools to help her decide where she’ll continue her education. We looked at the classrooms, and at the laboratories – my daughter likes science. We looked at the athletic faculties, and we looked at the bars.

Yes, most of the high schools we visited had a bar, or at least a café where they serve the students beer on tap, or hard cider in cans, or alco-pops in bottles when they want to relax after class.

Now, high school students are usually 16 to 19 years old, and the legal purchase age for wine and beer in Denmark is 16, so it’s all totally legal.

It’s just a bit surprising when you come from anyplace where teenagers are encouraged not to drink alcohol to find a bar conveniently located next to the school gym.

February 2, 2020 by Kay Xander Mellish

Books, Working in Denmark: Danish Business Culture

Get the How to Work in Denmark book

The “How to Work in Denmark” book is now available!

Working in Denmark comes with a lot of benefits – but a lot of unwritten rules, too.

Why is it so important to take a break and eat cake with your colleagues?
How can you promote your skills in a job interview without breaking “The Jante Law”?
Is learning to speak Danish necessary? Can you succeed in your career without it?
What’s the secret to understanding Danish humor at the office?

With its high salaries and good work-life balance, Denmark is an attractive place to work for professionals from all over the world. But the Danish workplace, like Danish culture is a whole, is built on unwritten rules and unspoken expectations.

“How to Work in Denmark”, the book, explains some of the rules of the road in the Danish workplace as well as how to find and keep a job in Denmark.

How to buy the book
You can buy the paperback book from Arnold Busck on Strøget in Copenhagen or from Bog og Ide in Frederiksberg Center.

Or order the paperback from our webshop, or from any bookshop using the ISBN 978-743-000-80-8.

You can download the “How to Work in Denmark” eBook from Amazon, from Saxo, from iTunes, or from Google Play.

February 2, 2018 by Kay Xander Mellish

Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark, Working in Denmark: Danish Business Culture

Job Search in Denmark Part 3: Your Danish cover letter, plus LinkedIn, plus two magic words

In the era of online applications, face-to-face networking, and LinkedIn profiles, the Danish cover letter is a bit of a lost art.

Probably your future employer will ‘meet’ you via one of these other channels before they ever read the letter that is supposedly introducing you.

But it’s still worth writing, because it’s a chance to set the experience on your cv in the context of the job on offer.

March 13, 2016 by Kay Xander Mellish

Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

Private-equity pastry and the decline of bodegas: How Denmark is changing

I help out at a flea market sometimes near Copenhagen, a flea market that’s held a few times a year to benefit my daughter’s marching band. We sell things people have sent for recycling – at the local recycling center, you can put things that are still useful in a special room, and then community groups sort through those things and sell them to raise money.

We have one persistent problem: too many shotglasses. Each new week brings dozens of beautiful crystal shotglasses, prized for a lifetime by someone from the older generation, perhaps now the dead generation. These people to used to drink clear snaps before fancy Easter lunches, and or a dark bitter alcohol called Gammel Dansk before breakfast.

People in Denmark don’t do that much any more. They go jogging before breakfast and drink wine for holiday lunches, if they drink anything.

And most young people already have a set of grandpa’s old shotglasses gathering dust somewhere at the back of a cabinet, and they don’t need any more.

So week after week, these lovely little etched crystal glasses line up like fragile soldiers on the storage shelves at the flea market. Nobody needs them, nobody buys them, but we just don’t have the heart to throw them out.

May 26, 2015 by Kay Xander Mellish

Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

Cat Bites and Dental Vacations: The Ups and Downs of the Danish Health Care System

I’ve just arrived back in Denmark after a couple of weeks in the U.S., and the night I got back, my cat bit me. This was not just a little affectionate peck – Fluffy used her sharp teeth, her fangs, to create four bleeding puncture wounds in my leg. I suppose it was partly my fault – I put a call on speakerphone. Fluffy doesn’t like speakerphone, because she can hear a person but she can’t see one, so she assumes I’m some evil magician who has put a person inside a little glowing box. And she bites me.

So I was bleeding, and I did what I did the last time she bit me – which was a couple of months ago, the last time I used speakerphone. I called 1813, the Danish government’s non-emergency line for off-hour medical situations.

I waited about five minutes for a nurse to take the call, and she asked me some questions about the size and location of the bite, and whether or not I’d had a tetanus shot recently. I hadn’t, so she made an appointment for me at the local emergency room for about an hour later.

January 11, 2015 by Kay Xander Mellish

Older Posts

Kay Xander Mellish is a US-DK dual citizen. She grew up in Wisconsin, USA, but has lived in Denmark for more than a decade. Kay is a popular keynote speaker on Danish working culture and offers practical advice to international professionals navigating Danish work environments.

In addition, she helps Americans and Danes avoid misunderstandings and improve their cross-cultural teamwork.

Kay is the author of "How to Work in Denmark" (2022 and 2018), "How to Live in Denmark" (2017 and 2014), "Top 35 Mistakes Danes Make in English" (2016), "Working with Americans: Tips for Danes" (2019), and "Working with Danes: Tips for Americans" (2020). All of her books are also available in audio format.