The chapter offers practical guidance for newcomers to Danish workplaces. It begins with the customary welcome bouquet of flowers and the assignment of a workplace buddy who shows the office layout. It stresses the importance of shaking hands, using first names, and avoiding formal titles. A major focus is the high respect owed to administrative staff, who are few and expected to teach self‑service tools, and to any staff who provide refreshments. The narrative highlights Danish egalitarianism: bosses interact casually with cleaners, and everyone is expected to keep the workspace tidy, wash personal dishes, and help with shared kitchen duties. Leaving the office during the day is discouraged except for urgent reasons; lunch is usually taken in the company canteen, and personal errands are frowned upon. Meeting times should consider parents’ childcare pickups, generally avoiding scheduling after 3 PM. Finally, the chapter explains Danish greetings—godmorgen (until ~10 AM), goddag, godaften, and godnat—and their nuanced social meanings. Throughout, the author uses a conversational, instructional tone, encouraging respect for Danish norms while warning against assumptions based on other cultures.
Chapters
Chapter 9, Your First Day on the Job. On your first day at work in Denmark, you are likely to find a pretty bouquet of flowers on your desk to welcome you. It's just a way to say hello and to add some sunshine to an arduous day that is sure to include many handshakes and computer passwords. But the bouquet terrified an Asian acquaintance of mine who was accustomed to receiving flowers, on her last day at work. She thought she'd been fired before she ever sat down. Someone will probably be appointed as your buddy on the first day of the job, and that person will take you around to meet the people you'll be working with, as well as showing you practical parts of the office, like the printer room and the toilets. Shake hands with everyone you meet and try to remember their first names. Although you'll probably get a lot of duplicates. Depending on the size of the company, you can expect to meet at least 2 or 3 people named Mette, Søren, Pia, Rasmus, or Lars. Last names aren't important, at least until you have to find these people on an email list. Mr. and Ms., or their Danish equivalents, herre and fru, are almost never used in Denmark. Don't act overly impressed when you meet the top bosses. This will embarrass them. The people you really need to be deferential to are the administrative staff. If you come from a country with a large population and a great deal of unemployment, you may be accustomed to a large staff of secretaries who help you with filling out forms, tracking expenses, setting up meetings, and other small tasks. Such helpful people are rare in Denmark, where most professionals are expected to do these things themselves using online tools. Often an entire department will be expected to make do with one administrative assistant who officially reports to the top dog. This administrator might be able to help you with the online tools once or twice, but only to teach you how to use them yourself. Treat these administrative people with the extreme respect they deserve. You'll need their help now, with all the complications of getting started on the job, and you'll need them sometime in the future when you least expect it. Also, be kind to employees who help with coffee or other refreshments. A hospital head of staff once told me about a foreign doctor who began his tenure by being rude and dismissive to the coffee lady. He soon found himself as the only man in a meeting with no coffee. Sloppiness is not considered charming in Denmark, which is located just north of order-loving Germany. You'll be expected to leave your desk tidy at the end of your first workday and any other workday. And to remove any leftover food or drinks. Many companies also expect you to wash out your coffee or teacup, or to place it in the shared dishwasher. Some teams eat Friday breakfast together, and staff take turns putting away the bread and cheese and juice afterwards. It may seem a little odd as a trained professional to occasionally be doing the work of a kitchen lady, but This is how the Danes do it, and they won't be pleased if you suggest it's beneath you. Full-time cleaning staff take care of sweeping floors and other large tasks. It's considered good manners in Denmark to greet them when you see them and even chat a bit. One employee from India told me he was shocked to see his department head sharing a joke with the cleaner. That would never happen in his country, he said. It happens in Denmark because it's considered good style for the boss to show that she sees herself as the equal of everyone else on the team, no more or less important than the cleaner. Actually, if the boss was away for a few days, business would probably run as usual. If the cleaner didn't show up, the result would be chaos. Generally, you don't leave your Danish workplace during the workday, Unless you have a very good reason, such as a client meeting, or if you or your child suddenly becomes ill. Lunch out is unusual in most companies. The team eats together in the company canteen, and leaving the office for personal errands is frowned upon. If you need to see a doctor on a workday, try to schedule it very early or very late in the day so you don't miss much work. If that's not possible, or if you need the entire afternoon for a particularly grueling dentist appointment, it's usually okay to take time off work. Try not to schedule meetings later than 3 PM or so. Your colleagues, male and female, who have young children will begin leaving about this time to make the pickup from daycare. These loving parents will either end up missing the meeting or get annoyed at having to move their schedules around in order to attend. Greeting your colleagues when you arrive and saying goodbye when you leave is always good practice, in particular if you work in an open-plan office. That said, the Danish expression godmorgen doesn't correspond directly to good morning in English. Well, good morning can be said until 11:59 AM in most English-speaking countries, followed by good afternoon and good evening. The time limit on the Danish godmorgen runs out at about 10 AM. Saying godmorgen after that time has a slightly sarcastic tone, along the lines of, well, it took you a while to get here. Thanks for showing up. The correct greeting after 10 AM is goddag, good day, followed by godaften, good evening, at, you know, around 5 PM, godnat, Or good night is only said when someone is getting ready to put on their pajamas.
