Typical Norwegian Workday
Punctual starts, an unhurried middle, and a hard stop at the end
After spending enough time in Norway you might start to feel like time moves just a little slower here.
Everyone and everything from planes to trains are on time, almost exactly on time in fact.
Work is always delivered on time or as agreed upon. To not follow through on your word can cause you to lose trust in Norway — and trust is the currency that matters most here.
However, everything else just seems to take a little bit longer. The pace is noticeably subdued, and that’s exactly how Norwegians like it.
To rush something or haphazardly finish work is not the norm. To take an unnecessary shortcut to speed things up doesn’t really happen here. Things get done when they get done. This doesn’t help much when trying to do business deals with Norwegians. I soon learned how to operate on a whole new time scale: Norwegian time.
The day itself has a recognisable shape. It starts early, often before eight, and the first stop is coffee — see the morning at a Norwegian office. Lunch is short, cold and frequently a matpakke eaten at a shared table rather than a restaurant. And the end of the day is genuinely the end of the day: at four the office empties, because the standard week is 37.5 hours and nobody earns credit for stretching it.
About the Author
Sean Percival is an American venture capitalist and author living in Norway. After failing spectacularly to expand a Silicon Valley venture fund into the Norwegian market, he collected his lessons learned into this guide to help others succeed where he initially stumbled.
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