Back in May, prior to boarding my flight to Stockholm and making small talk with relatives at a family function, I was asked the perfectly normal question of, “What are you going to be doing in Stockholm for two months?”. This was easy. I knew this one. “Well, it’s an internship program, so probably coffee runs and 12 hour days”. They liked this response. Unfortunately, the next question will ask me what company I work for. I knew Comintelli was some kind of data company, but that kind of response can conjure up memories of asking permission to store Cookies and having your information sold to advertisers for pennies. I didn’t like that response, nor the idea of working for a company that takes advantage of others for profit, so I did some more research.
In reality, Comintelli is a SaaS based company that transforms unstructured “big data” into more digestible intelligence through their software “Intelligence2day”. It collects external data such as news, social media, and patent filings, and combines it with internal data such as SharePoint, Teams, and Slack. They allow companies to easily monitor supply chain risks, emerging technologies, and competitor moves.
My first day went so much better than I could have expected. My coworkers were excited to have me there, and were happy to answer any questions I had about Sweden, city life, and stuff to do. However, my supervisor stands out as a person that I am thrilled to be a student of. To be a successful salesperson in an industry that is being heavily disrupted by AI is an incredibly difficult position to be in, and her ability to handle clients, work on marketing, and even help customers settle into their software purchases really impresses me. As she says, she “wears a lot of hats”. She was born and raised in Florida, and when she isn’t having me work on a new marketing campaign or emailing prospective clients, we talk about whatever is on our mind.
That openness is a trait I’ve seen a lot of in Stockholm so far (or at least among my coworkers). Even though my only two jobs consisted of being a Panera cashier and a receptionist for a tennis club, I am quite used to the facade of Corporate Memphis that can be put up in the workplace. While it’s not as casual as hanging out with my friends, my early conversations with my coworkers were based around our personal philosophies, how professional and personal disappointment can blend, and the regret of not having children. These are topics that anyone can struggle to have, even with people that we care about and know well. I was surprised and glad that the workplace could be real. I can see that these people genuinely care about each other, to the point that they feel comfortable sharing extremely personal feelings to the intern they met that same week.
Aside from her wearing a lot of hats, the actual daily rhythm she introduced me to was a massive shift from what I expected. In the US, there’s this weird badge of honor around staring at a laptop until your eyes blur, fearing that if you stand up too often, people will think you’re slacking. Here, every hour or so, my supervisor would just look up and say it was time for a quick break. At first, my American corporate anxiety kicked in—I kept thinking we should be grinding out more emails. But these five-minute resets were entirely intentional. We’d grab a coffee, talk about whatever, and head back to it. Oddly enough, it actually worked. I didn’t hit that usual 2 PM wall, and a lot of our better marketing ideas came up while standing around the espresso machine rather than forcing it at a desk. They call it fika over here, but seeing the philosophy applied directly to the hourly grind was a relief.
Experiencing a workplace that values psychological safety and real human connection has made me wonder about my future place of work back in the United States. I really worry about how I would function at a traditional, hyper-transactional corporate job. Moving forward, I don’t just want a job that looks good on a resume; I want to find an environment back home that replicates this Swedish openness- a place where people can bring their whole, authentic selves to the office every day.
