When the sun is setting, between dusk and darkness, there is a moment when the light turns blue. And the world stops for a heartbeat.
There are five “ghost metro stations” beneath Helsinki. They were excavated at various points over the years, only for plans for new metro lines to change. Most remain unused. One has been used for squash courts.
I could also tell you that the Helsinki (and Espoo) metro is the northernmost metro system in the world. And that it has the world’s only undersea metro station.
None of this changes the fact that the daily commute by metro is a very boring affair.
A good night out is a good night out.
Not much more needs to be said.
A city is always better with some element of water, be it the sea, a lake or a river. There are some cities that are nice despite not having any. But not many.
Considering I don’t want a boat, and very rarely even swim in the sea, I really can’t tell you why I find it so important.
It just is.
Company meet-ups can be a great place to pull your head out of the daily rat race and deal with things you never have time to solve.
This year we tested “speed dating” – two teams at a time, 30 minutes. Task: solve one problem in every meeting.
Surprisingly useful.
It’s a pity how rarely you actually go to any of the cool spots in Helsinki in your day-to-day life.
Foreign visitors are always a great excuse.
Since its founding, our company has been pretty diverse, even for a startup. I remember when we hit 45 employees, we had people of 19 nationalities living in 14 countries (and 49% women).
I love it, but it comes with its challenges. And, to be fair, any company culture benefits when colleagues occassionally meet face-to-face.
So once a year, we bring managers and a few experts together. We still keep it casual.
Good for business, tough on photography projects!
The older I get, the less likely I am to order a steak in a restaurant. It’s heavy. And often quite boring.
But a really, really good steak?
Still the food of gods.
The only thing fire drills really teach us is to finish our lunch and pack our bags before evacuating.
Walking meetings are the best kind of meetings. You end up having very different 1:1s while walking around the neighborhood than you do sitting in front of your laptop.
Every time I do one, I decide to do them more often.
Then I don’t.
We are in the process of building a separate little building at the summer cottage that, for now, will house a few rooms with proper desks and office chairs. At least for the time being, it is affectionately known as the “Teams Pavilion”.
It’s not quite finished yet, so this week I was still working from the boathouse. It may look rustic and cosy, but after a few hours your back starts complaining. Even so, I think it is a much better place for meetings than the main house, with the girls running around and Stuart workshopping in the next room.
Little back pain is a small price to pay for spending the evenings at the summer cottage. And the girls love spending the days with their mummi.
