All those tips are gathered from my own experience, and someone else’s experience could be exactly the opposite, so take that into consideration. Anyway, enjoy reading!
non-Norwegian employment agencies and businesses
There’s a thing known well among Polish immigrants in Norway, which is basically that it’s good to avoid being employed by Polish people here if you’re Polish yourself. You’re most likely to get a much lower amount of money. Why? Well, those who employ are assuming you don’t know Norwegian standards, so you will be happy to earn a little bit more than in your motherland. Actually recently there was a big case about Polish people being “work slaves” for a polish employment agency in Norway. I couldn’t find the Norwegian version of that news, unfortunately. But well, those things happen.
private companies
Public companies, I mean workplaces “known everywhere”, like McDonald’s, Starbucks, Shell or Clas Ohlson have much safer and more well-considered work environment than those private ones. Of course, it’s not a rule, but if a company is “public” it can’t hide anything and have to have acceptable work conditions. When it comes to private companies, you can sometimes find scams, f.ex. no breaks at work, low payment, or even working without a contract. When you’re employed by private business, make sure all those things are legal and on a level that will not make your everyday worse (because we spend most of our life at work, aren’t we?).
Anyway, here’s a picture of bunch of cows to end the post. I wrote it at the end of august, when my working situation was beginning to look very bad, so you could say I wrote it out of frustration. At least I hope it was helpful to someone.
againorway 