We didn’t have our summer party that was supposed to be this week. It has been a nice tradition to gather together before everyone starts their well-deserved summer holiday. This year is different. Although Corona restrictions were eased here in Finland, we decided to postpone the party to August.
I can’t tell you what we were supposed to do at this year’s party, because team Summer party Linda, Liam, Panu and Topias have kept plans in secret. But to get in the mood, we can look back at previous summer parties.
2016
In 2016 Norkappians were having fun in typical Finnish summer weather.
2017
In 2017 we had wall climbing at Salmisaari, Love boat cruising with the house band and sauna & Dinner at Lonna.
2018
Teppo described 2018 party in his weeknote:
The best day in the Nordkapp year is always the summer party day. Chilling out together in a summer cottage-like setting with your lovely, brilliant, and funny colleagues is a life well used. I just couldn’t be happier than I am on a day like this. We had excellent food, drinks, kayaking, sup boarding, swimming, and hot sauna and an all-around good time.
2019
In 2019 we arranged the Amazing race through Helsinki. Based on clues, teams traveled all over Helsinki to complete challenges. After the race, we gathered on a boat near Kauppatori for dinner and after-party. Surprisingly we had perfect sunny and warm weather at the beginning of June.
2020
I think all of us are already waiting for this year’s party in August. Party team has given us a hint of the theme, it’s togetherness. We really need it after this isolated spring. At least I miss my colleagues!
The summer party didn’t happen — What else didn’t happen this week?
Matti didn’t have most of his meetings at the normal home office, but summer cottage and car office instead. Remote work definitely gives you flexibility on location, as long as connections work! He also hasn’t watched TV or shaved his beard!
Sami didn’t translate a bunch of documents manually (Google Translate is awesome, 99% fluency nowadays!), lose an opportunity to ride a bike when it was sunny and didn’t hold back when envisioning new strategic opportunities.
Heikki has not been cutting his beard, but he is constantly thinking of doing that, since it has been growing now for over three months, and is looking terrible. Also he hasn’t been sitting in dull meetings or wasting time traveling in public transportation. He hasn’t been in gym either and feel that in his body terrible well.
Topias hasn’t been eating greasy lunches at chinese buffets, since it’s much more fun to cook something lighter and healthier at home. He hasn’t been able to avoid the gym either for the past weeks. Those are almost empty anyways.
Shakti didn’t work from home and didn’t eat home-made lunch at least once — which has been very very refreshing. Also, he has been less lazy thanks to biking more along with a bike-trailer that his toddler loves to sit in, as long as he has snacks & drinks. Kids these days …
Liam hasn’t been riding his bike to the office at all this summer. He hasn’t planned any travel inside or out of Finland. He hasn’t been stuck at home and hasn’t missed out on seeing some nice sunsets. And, thankfully, it hasn’t snowed at all this week.
Monika did not procrastinate this week and used her time really efficiently. She also hasn’t been disappointed in the team she is working with which has done an excellent job on prototype and final report.
Kenneth didn’t go for a run this week as he was finally able to get back to his old squash routine!
Sari has not been drinking as much coffee as in usual office days — she’s simply too lazy to make it.
Virpi didn’t do anything special this week, business as usual, or arki as usual. Though she couldn’t stop herself watching TikTok.
And me Elisa, I no longer walked 12–15 thousand steps a day like I did during isolation.
Five things we read this week:
- The Italian artist imagining eerie futuristic cities from CNN — some images of how futuristic cities could look like.
- IBM will no longer offer, develop or research facial recognition technology from The Verge — another bold move from a big company in the midst of recent events.
- Coronavirus spread by people with no symptoms appears to be rare, WHO official says from CNN — it’s quite seldom that people without any symptoms or in a mild condition spread the disease to others around them.
- Welcome to Team #Imaginable! It’s time to start the conversation from Medium — 20 conversations on our post-pandemic and post-protest future.
- Inside Nextdoor’s “Karen problem” from The Verge — can Nextdoor fix the problems thriving on their platform and outgrow their reputation?
Weeknotes are what happened at our studio this week. This week’s weeknote was curated by Elisa Lipponen.
Elisa is a Finance & Operations Specialist at Nordkapp, who is missing the time when there were people at the office.
