Working Like Mad

I'm looking for a job, which in Sweden puts me in the loony bin. No, I'm serious.

Jessica Pettersson has a high school degree in economics and has worked in a post office and in a grocery store, among other jobs. After being out of work for a while, her supervisor at the unemployment agency told her that she ought to meet with a work-psychologist since "it is so hard to be without a job".

Petterson told the Swedish daily paper Expressen that she had no desire to go to a psychologist but was persuaded to do so by the unemployment agency. The psychologist gave her a number of tests that she found stressful and humiliating, such as building objects with wooden blocks. To her surprise the psychologist said that Petterson should be classified as disabled since she wasn't good enough at mathematics. Jessica was shocked to hear this: "I might not be a math genius, but I know how to count," she told the paper.

The unemployment agency explained that it was simply a matter of changing a code in her status as unemployed. If she agreed to be classified as mentally disabled she would be entitled to a range of government subsidies and programs. In fact, she could begin working at "Samhall" - a government project aimed at providing employment for the disabled. There she could get a job cleaning and building wheelchairs.

Wow. Hey some people are just crazy about socialism.

But more importantly, no one seems to have picked up on the bigger issue...how many Swedes are named Jessica? Hmmm? Curiouser and curiouser.