Work

You generally face less hierarchic structures at work in Denmark than in central or southern Europe - at least at the place where I worked. This is probably a heritage of the socialist society. The working atmosphere is very pleasant, less aggressive but more focused on finding a good compromise. Apart from a lot of desktop work I spent numerous hours in the lab and our modern cleanroom facilities. The cleanroom was the place I fabricated the microsystems for my projects. The high demands on cleanliness in these rooms forced me to wear a blue suit to protect the room (and not me!) from my dust and slobber.

The institute set high value on socializing as can be seen on the picture below. During one of our team building days we ventured into fencing. Don't be confused about the fact that we used an individual martial arts sport for team building. It was fun though!

One remark here: what ever the Danes do they want to do it better than their big Scandinavian brother Sweden. This holds for business but also most passionately for sports. This reminds me much about home. Swiss people spend a lot of efforts in making a VERY clear distinction work-wise and in everyday life between themselves and their huge northern neighbor Germany. Like the Scandinavians the Swiss, Austrians and Germans share some common cultural heritage but they want to make sure: We're not the same! This holds, of course, especially for the small partners Austria and Switzerland...