Founder of professional networking group, Worktrotter, and author of recently published, “The Worktrotter’s Guide to Denmark”, Dagmar Fink talks about how, after a shaky start, she has now found her feet in Denmark

Past experience of meeting social networking organisers is that they tend to be frightfully enthusiastic and cloyingly over-familiar.  In that respect, Dagmar Fink does not fit the mould.  She’s down-to-earth, considered, and sweetly stoic.

Speaking seven languages and having lived in four other countries before Denmark, when Dagmar first moved here from her native Germany to be with her “Danish prince”, Lars, she still suffered from culture shock.

‘I felt really helpless at the beginning and I’m a very independent person.  I’d been used to having my life under control for so long, and then I came here and I felt totally lost.’

Petite and bespectacled, with straw blonde hair, Fink speaks softly yet decisively, and comes across as very competent but the true level of her drive and determination surfaces after spending more time with her.

Having only arrived in 2006, Fink’s Danish is nearly fluent, albeit with an accent.  Pretty impressive considering that she only took three tiers of Danish study. Only later does it transpire that she had in fact ‘at one point learnt Swedish’ giving her a significant head start.  Not only that, she’d actually set up her own Danish language study group (the precursor to Worktrotter, which now boasts 1200 members) before she’d even started taking lessons. Her delivery is so matter-of-fact, it’s hard to say whether Fink is just being incredibly modest or unaware that she is unusually proactive.

It’s no surprise then that what challenged Fink most as she tried to get settled here was being made to feel incompetent or put in her place, for instance being approached and scolded when she had unwittingly broken some cycling rule.

‘I think that was really treading on my space.  Up to the point when I realised that it was nothing personal but people just explaining the rules, I felt like I was being attacked.’

In fact, one of her first impressions of Danes was: ‘Wow! More rules and more organisation than the Germans!’  It was a shock because she’d expected Danes to be laid-back.

On being asked if these challenges led to frustration, she replies: ‘If there’s a problem, it’s not going to throw me off track.  It’s just not been approached the right way yet.’

Even in her social life, she’s a multi-tasker:

‘I’m always into doing things with people.  I’m not really into going into a bar and just chatting.  I like doing exercise, more focused things - inline skating, biking, going to the ballet.’

She describes her decision to write her book for expats as almost accidental:

‘I’m a software engineer, and used to writing documentation and handbooks, and sharing knowledge. It’s in my blood.  I started collecting information right from the beginning.  Then it just grew and grew. I felt that there were so many surprises when I first arrived, and I thought “Why do other people have to go through it?”.’

She also wanted to help others find their feet faster:

‘When you come here, you start at zero with no expectations. Then you experience hindrances and become negative. It can take a while to get back to zero, and longer again to enjoy the country.  And that’s one of the hopes I have for the book; people don’t need to get to minus 20, just minus 1.’

Researching and writing the book wasn’t all plain sailing though.

A surprising discovery for her was that speaking Danish could actually be a disadvantage:

‘As soon as people heard me speak with an accent, they couldn’t grasp the fact that I already knew the basic stuff and just needed this one piece of information. It was a bit patronising’.

Her assertiveness and self-motivation does not immediately categorise Dagmar as an ‘ordinary’ expat.  Little seems to faze her and it’s hard to believe that she struggled here, yet Fink demonstrates a genuinely empathetic quality which has enabled her to really get to grips with the issues that face foreigners who move here.

When I ask about her future plans, she barely stops to draw breath:  ‘I don’t know yet. I constantly think of new challenges and what can be done so I want to get some of those things going, for instance the CV and application course, and I started another group for people who want to start up their own business.’

She adds: ‘I hope to build stronger co-operation with Danish-led companies around foreigners.  Then, of course, once you’ve written a book, it needs to be updated.  I think the thing that is interesting and most on my mind now are the mixed (nationality) couples. They are the low-hanging fruit.  People who move here for love have a high motivation for learning the language, a high motivation for staying here, many are well-educated and they face a whole set of different challenges.’