"Aamun torkku, illan virkku, se tapa talon hävittää."
"Asleep in the morning, awake in the evening; this way will destroy a house."
I’ve been fighting a loosing battle my entire life: Sleep.
Ever since being born around 01:15 in a hospital located in Ploesti, Romania I’ve been a night owl. I can function very well during the day, but when the sun sets my mind instantly goes in to a hyperactive sense of reality. My parents always told me I never slept at night as a child, and growing up I would always get yelled at for not going to bed at a regular hour.
This problem has only exacerbated due to college. The real world functions from dawn till dusk and not being apart of that schedule has caused me great grief. From missing classes early in the morning, to not having anyone to communicate with during the late hours of the night, being nocturnal isn’t fun.
It is something that makes me who I am however, and something that will never leave my system. I can’t quite put my finger on the reason I like being awake so late, but I do know one thing. I enjoy silence. I live for it, that tiny moment of complete auditory bliss where you start questioning if you’ve gone deaf.
The irony of that statement is I greatly enjoy content. Audio, video, and human interactions are my preferred methods of learning and entertainment. I usually spend nights enjoying another new film, or out just driving. That may seem solitary and depressing to you, but if you knew the kind of person I was you wouldn’t say that. I have quite a healthy social life, often going out for periods of 12 hours or more. You will also see a smile on my face often, no matter how difficult the hardship I’m facing is.
I have modified my lifestyle around this behavior. If you’re the type of person who can’t adapt to such a time frame then you will start having problems. Getting to work on time, hanging out with your friends, proper rest of the body, these are all necessary in today’s world otherwise you will loose your house. More importantly you might loose your health.
Finnish people have it rough. While the majority of us have a sun to gage when we should and shouldn’t be awake, around a quarter of Finland is in the Arctic Circle region. They experience a phenomenon known as midnight sun. In some areas the sun doesn’t rise for 51 days in the winter, and doesn’t set for 73 days during the summer. The human body wasn’t meant for these extremes and because of that serotonin deficiencies in the brain due to lack of light cause problems: disruptance of the sleep cycle and depression being the most notable.
How does this relate to Nokia? A little research shows that Finnish people have a 40 hour work week and can not be forced to work over time. I’ve been employed at some places where we had to stay until everything was done, even if that required another 4+ hours. At first it was a once a month thing, then it got progressively worse to the point where I was working 12 hour days twice a week. My productivity obviously went down because I would show up to work literally exhausted. The body isn’t well rested so its immune functions aren’t working to their full potential and you get sick easier.
It wasn’t pretty.
People in Finland understand that work is work and private time is important. You can’t do your job to your maximum potential if you’re not enjoying the other aspects of your life to their maximum as well. It shows in their products that these are phones meant for people who live life.
They need a lot of talk time, stand by time, and it has to survive getting dropped off the family dining table, or splashed at the local pub while hanging out with your mates. Finnish people don’t need technological masterpieces that they have to treat like a newborn child so it doesn’t get scratched or dropped. They need something that is the sheer definition of a tool:
Something that makes your job, your life, easier.