In this second part of my personal experiences living in Switzerland as a foreigner, I describe social rules, social control, and everyday norms around work, communication, traffic, and interpersonal distance. The text is deliberately subjective and satirical – not a guide or legal assessment.
Life in Switzerland – social control in everyday life
This is the second part of How To Switzerland – Part 1 of 2.
5) Undeclared work – Public enemy number 1
In Tunisia, the concept of ‘undeclared work’ hardly exists:
‘Can you help quickly? Here’s 10 dinars.’ = everyday life.
In Switzerland, undeclared work means:
‘We need the cantonal criminal police immediately, an audit report, and a crisis intervention team.’
Because:
Mowing the neighbor’s lawn for 20 francs?
Illegal.
Actually, for that you would need:
- Social security statement
- Accident insurance
- Pay slip
- Tax form
- Employment contract
- Audit protocol
Tip? Highly dangerous.
- If you give a social welfare recipient a tenner and they don’t declare it, that’s social welfare fraud.
- And YOU are officially responsible for 0.0087% of the annual fraud statistics.
Congratulations.
Switzerland sees you. Always.
6) Phone calls – only during selected time zones
If you call someone before 8 a.m., you’re a psychopath.
Between 12 and 1:30 p.m., a war criminal.
After 6 p.m., a nuisance.
On Sunday, the antichrist.
Unless you are:
- Fire department
- Police
- Emergency services
- or the mother.
7) Traffic – the Helvetic safety cult
Everything, really everything is regulated:
- Seatbelt requirement: front, back, across the car – everyone, always.
- Motorcycle helmet: riding without a helmet is about as reckless as running through the supermarket with a chainsaw.
- Bike helmet for children: no law, but socially equivalent to saying ‘I let my children play with knives.’
Additionally:
- Running a red light = a minor invasion of the norms, often fined.
- Using a phone while driving = public court of shame.
- Smoking in the car = complete social exclusion.
8) Small talk – please don’t
Asking strangers ‘How are you?’ is as intimate as a marriage proposal.
The Swiss only ask this:
- if they are related to you
- or if you are dying
Interpersonal interaction is strictly limited.
No one talks to each other on the bus.
Not in the elevator either.
Not in the bakery either.
Switzerland is a quiet country.
Conclusion – Why I left Switzerland
Switzerland has everything: money, cleanliness, order, rules, even more rules, and rules about rules.
A perfectly polished clockwork in which every little cog knows when it can turn – and when not.
And eventually you realize:
You are the little cog.
You may not smoke.
Not laugh loudly.
Not live spontaneously.
Not flirt.
Not breathe if the neighbor is sleeping.
Not sleep if the dog barks once.
Not exist without the house rules’ approval.
Switzerland is a beauty queen with zero humor and 800 regulations that it shoves in your face daily.
Tunisia, on the other hand, is:
warm, loud, chaotic, human, imperfect
– and full of people who get closer to you in two minutes than a Swiss person does in ten years.
And if someone asks me:
‘Why did you leave the beautiful, wealthy Switzerland for Tunisia?’
Then I smile and say:
‘Because I do not voluntarily live in a perfectly cleaned glass display case.’
- The text describes societal rules and social control in everyday Swiss life.
- Topics include work, communication, traffic, and interpersonal distance.
- The article is deliberately exaggerated, subjective, and satirical.
- It is intended as a continuation of Part 1.
- The text explains why I increasingly felt confined in Switzerland.