6 Days!!

A couple days after arriving we went to the local Tax Office to apply for our Personnummers (shockingly it translates to "Person Numbers").   You can't do anything of any real significance in Sweden without one, so once we sorted out the apartment it was job one.

We met our relocation Agent, Åsa, that morning outside the tax office and prepared ourselves for bureaucratic hell.  It's not that we've actually experienced any during any of our dealings with the Swedish government, but it was really a conditioned response after a few years of dealing with the French immigration system.

Immediately we were struck by the differences in styles.  Nowhere to be found was the line hundreds long and three or four wide waiting to get in.  Instead it was like entering a bank, if it were the most helpful bank in the world.

Immediately upon entering the lobby of the office we are greeted by a kiosk staffed by 4 different people, all of whom speak different languages and are there to help and direct you to where you need to be and get you the paperwork you'll need when you get there.  It was like walking into bizarro world... on opposite day: everything made perfect sense and was super easy and orderly.

We took a number an started to fill out the paperwork while we waited.  Before we could even finish the few pages of question-boxes our number had been called.  Åsa took us over to the both and began explaining to the woman on the other side of the desk (a desk, mind you, with chairs for everyone to sit down at, and without 2-inch security glass between us...  again, so un-bizarre!) Anna, our situation.

Anna was calm, courteous and smiled while she happily walked us through the process, in English, about what she needed from us, and even helped us look up the exact apartment number for our new place (as Sweden has recently implemented a new address system, so it's not easy to know what the exact address for an old place like ours would be).    It took her all of five minutes to find this information using her computer, a task that would have likely been impossible in France and would have had us turned away abrupty, and she was happy to help us with it. 

Within 20 minutes of having first set foot in the Tax Office, our application was registered and we were back out on the street, minds still reeling from the simplicity and ease of it all.   But it didn't stop there.

As we wrapped up in the Tax Office Anna informed the three of us that it would likely take two to four weeks to receive our Person Numbers.  We received ours in 6 days.

SIX DAYS.

In six days we have made more process than we did in two years with the French Immigration service (if you can even be so generous as to call it a "service").   We had registered as residents with the government and were officially recognized as such, along with all the benefits that come alone with the status.

Mind.  Blown.   Great work Sweden!  :)

... oh, and to top it off, a Person Number is largely composed of your birthday, in a YYMMDD-XXXX format.  So all you really have to learn to remember is a four digit code and the rest comes naturally.  What a shockingly good system.    After having my Person Number for just a little over 24 hours I already have it memorized.