Inconvenience

I have a friend the other day who pointed out something that I found very interesting. I was saying that it takes a special person to appreciate and enjoy living abroad. That they are common traits of ex-pats that are shared regardless of nationality. She said it takes a special person to bear living in a foreign country as well as appreciate. Without offending anyone, here is what any American I think would have to agree, one has to bear when abroad. This is not just limited to Sweden....American's have to bear inconvenience. Maybe it is just my perspective, but America is built on convenience. It is absolutely annoying to me to go to the grocery and stand in line and wait. I waited behind 12 people today. I had 4 behind me. I understand why. Sweden has a 52% tax rate I read the other day in the newspaper. Higher than any of the other European countries on the list. In talking to an aquaintance who runs a business in Lund, the taxes that you pay to have an employee are so high that it is hurting his business. He said he can't affort to hire the number of people to service his customer properly. This is SO OBVIOUS everywhere you go in Sweden. At the grocery there were 4 lines open and each had 10 (at least) people in it. This is the norm. At the mall there were 8 people in line and 1 checker. The only other employees in the store were stocking. Nobody was helping. I read this article last year about how that is the whole concept of IKEA and why it has been so successful. It doesn't use expensive employees. You do it all yourself. But at least IKEA is smart enough to know that if there isn't anyone there to take your money that you will lose business. But not so in Sweden. So I wait. Nobody seems to be bothered except for me. I wait some more. My kids are getting antsy and people are looking at me with that disdainful look. I wait some more. This isn't the end of the world I realize but I won't be sad to be less inconvenienced. I guess in the mean time I will just grin and bear it.