DREAM JOBS IN STOCKHOLM

After his degree, Marcel Gruninger took a big risk. He decided against a job in his homeland, Germany, and chose one in Stockholm instead. He worked there for a year as a Controller for H&M. He has since moved on from this job, but he has remained in Stockholm.

I studied Business at the European School of Business in Reutlingen. Already during my degree it was clear to me that I'd like to use my qualifications to go into the fashion industry later on. So after I graduated in the summer of 2007, I applied for all sorts of jobs in fashion. H&M, Björn Borg, Agnès B - that kind of thing. I was interested in working in Germany or Sweden.

Photo: Marcel Gruninger

Marcel and his colleagues in the American Field Service.

I already knew Sweden quite well after my year as an exchange student there. In 1997-8 I lived with a family in Malmö. I came to Malmö by chance: I had funding which was only valid in Europe. And because I couldn't go to the USA, as I would have liked, I went to Sweden. At the time, it could have been pretty much any other European country. I really liked it there. So much so, that I thought: this is where you'd like to live one day. After my degree, the thought was there - I said to myself, "now everything's up in the air anyway. So you could dare to take a really big step and go to Sweden..."

The letter of acceptance from H&M Stockholm came in November 2007. In January 2008 I moved to Stockholm. I was unbelievably nervous about the move. When I was 16, going to Sweden was just a big adventure. Out into the world, out to experience something! This time I was almost ten years older and my main feeling was worry. What if I don't like it there? What if the job's not so awesome after all? It was a sickening feeling.

My living situation was also not ideal at the beginning. I lived with an older man who sublet part of his flat to me. That's common in Sweden; there's hardly any culture of young people sharing flats. Either you have a flat of your own or you sublet from someone. Somehow in that flat I always had the feeling that it wasn't my own, that I was in the way.

I could speak Swedish already because of the exchange year. But at the beginning it was very difficult after all, because I had forgotten a lot of the language. At work, they only spoke Swedish.

Photo: Marcel Gruninger

Marcel does not regret his decision to stay in Stockholm, his work at American Field Service he can do with his whole heart.

But other than that, work was brilliant. As a Controller, I was responsible for the whole H&M men's collection. My task was to think about how many of which item we needed, and for what budget. The exciting part of it was that I could sit together at the same table with designers and buyers. Even as someone who's studied Business, you're incredibly close to the creative process, you sit in a room which is full of clothes and sometimes you're asked by a designer: "Do you think people will want to wear this?" And then you sometimes ask the designer: "What d'you think - how many of these ties will people buy?" The creative types and the business people are nowhere near as clearly separated from each other as they are in Germany.

The working culture is actually different in many ways. For example, in Sweden the family just comes first. People do work overtime, but they're more likely to go home. It's also a lot more democratic. There are hierarchies, but the boss' task is to lead discussions rather than give orders. From the assistants to the boss, everyone can have their say and in the end it's always a decision taken by everyone together. As a German I often noticed that I hadn't grown up with this culture. Then I'd think at a meeting: "My God, can't we just stop and let the boss tell us what to do?" As a German, you quickly become impatient.

The role of women at work is different, too. Women do earn less than their male colleagues in Sweden. But that doesn't change the fact that they are paid substantially better than women in Germany. They also often work in managerial positions. And because most of the women work full-time, they also earn just as much. That has repercussions for maternity and paternity leave in particular. Mothers and fathers get almost the same length of time there.

Although things were going so well at work, I did sometimes feel lost in Stockholm at the beginning. It was extremely difficult to build up a private life in Sweden. I did get to know other international colleagues at H&M, but it was important to me not to become part of the international community which is replaced with new people every 1-2 years. I wanted to build a Swedish life for myself. And it did work out in the end, it just took a long time. I got to know Swedish people mainly through a Swedish internet forum, an off-shoot of a gay magazine. I don't feel uprooted. I still know that I have my roots in Germany. My family and my friends from school and university are mostly still in Germany, after all. But my German friends are accessible to me over Skype. Of course it's more difficult some days, knowing that I can't collect all my friends together in one place. On the other hand, even someone who lives in Munich and has friends in Hamburg can't do that every day either.

Nowadays, I don't work at H&M anymore. As exciting as the fashion world was, in the end as a Controller you just fiddle around with Excel tables all day. At some point I stopped seeing the point of that. Making calculations for some tie or other - the added value of that seemed to be missing. Since September 2009 I've been working for the American Field Service (AFS), a non profit NGO which organises school exchanges, host family programmes and voluntary services in the whole world. It is the same NGO through which I went to Sweden originally. Mainly I coordinate the voluntary workers there. That's something I can really do with my whole heart.

Do I want to stay here in Stockholm? Yes, that's how it looks at the moment. My life is here now. My job is here, my partner and I live here together and I also have the feeling that I want to stay. The first time I had this feeling was last summer. I was coming back from a holiday and arrived at the airport. And suddenly I thought: I'm coming home.

Text written by Kristin Kruthaup.

Teaser photo: Saskia Hallback / www.youthphotos.eu