Could be. Actually I could argue that Sweden is just one big inefficient company. :) But I’ve worked in a couple of other countries and Sweden is by far the wor

Could be. Actually I could argue that Sweden is just one big inefficient company. :) But I’ve worked in a couple of other countries and Sweden is by far the worst in this aspect. Competition and merits mean very little here because jobs are extremely safe (once you get one), salaries differ very little, and even when you’re not working you get so many benefits many people don’t even care too much. So, what happens is that the system optimises not for those who actually get things done, because that doesn’t matter too much, but for those who know how to build an interesting, believable façade. Let me exemplify with a common interaction from my daily work. Suppose I’m working on a project proposal. Before I do anything, I need to have a meeting with 5 different people from various administrative positions in order to make sure they “allow” me to write my proposal (i.e. if it aligns with the institution’s goals, if it meets all the hundreds of rules that are in place at any given time, if there are other people that “should” be involved, etc.) After that 1h meeting, they’ll all say “ok, great! We’ve done our job. No go and invest the 50h needed to write the proposal, and don’t forget to include our names in it because we’ve helped you so much. This is your part of the job!” So I go and write the goddamned thing and put everyone’s names in it. Then the project gets accepted, these 5 people are posting this thing everywhere, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. as if they actually had anything to do with its content. They get promoted, invited for committees, and the whole shebang. Now don’t get me wrong, I also get recognition, but my salary is almost the same as theirs. Sometimes smaller. And because it’s so obvious they got a lot of rewards with very little work, it just makes more and more people seek administrative jobs and less seek jobs where you actually get shit done. I understand; why would you care? If I was born here I sure as hell wouldn’t. Edit: I realize maybe “very little” work is misleading. Maybe they are doing the same thing many times a day. But it’s for absolutely sure much “easier” work than actually getting the research done. It’s the kind of work that you can completely turn off at the end of the day or weekend, for example.