r/Norway • u/[deleted] • 6d ago

Working in Norway Etiquette? Common courtesy?

This may offend people and get down voted. It is what it is. Do Norwegians not learn common courtesy or street etiquette when they are kids? For real. So sick of this. Always stopping and standing in the middle of an aisle or sidewalk to talk, fix a bag, etc. Don't care about the people behind you. When they're walking down a sidewalk, they just walk in the middle, on the wrong side, walk 2 or 3 abreast, not caring about people walking towards you. Don't let other people off public transport before you push your way on. The last straw was tonight when I was at Meny, and a lady didn't even let me finish my order before she was pushing her way into my self checkout. I go to grab my receipt with my barcode to get out, she looks at me and goes "Ja". You guys don't give a shit about anyone but yourself, for real. This needs to be said

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235

u/BattledroidE 6d ago

The one thing I notice is that we never adopted the "keep right" system that is widely used. Sidewalks, shopping malls, escalators, they're all designed with that in mind. Yet, you have to zigzag around people coming in both directions all over the place. There was a little bit of order during covid, but as soon as the signs were taken down, it collapsed again.

73

u/T1sofun 6d ago

This one! It does my head in. It’s such an orderly society otherwise, why not just “keep right” everywhere?

76

u/therealvahlte 5d ago

Because what we’re actually taught quite strictly is to keep to the left when sharing a road with cars, while most are never taught to walk on a sidewalk.

8

u/ThinkbigShrinktofit 5d ago

And the advice during the pandemic was to keep right so now we’re all more confused than ever.

1

u/Snoxee 5d ago

Doors and escalators are made to keep right. The keep left rule only makes sense in traffic. If you go to the UK, you'll notice that all malls and escalators are made to keep left, and they do. If you keep left here, you'll always have to meander when going up stairs. Keeping right makes much more sense. The korona advice should just have been kept.

2

u/Jimbobbly-ici 4d ago

Actually, on the London Unground, the etiquette is to stand on the right.

1

u/Snoxee 4d ago

Yes, but the one you need to step on is on the left. In the rest of europe its opposite.

1

u/ThinkbigShrinktofit 5d ago

Escalators are the only thing we've figured out. Mostly.