Headquarters

My final day in Denmark was more relaxed than the two previous days had been.  While there was one more meeting to attend, not everyone was present and our agenda wasn't very strict.  The meeting was also short, at least for Ritt and I, because we went on a tour of the main Danfoss office.

 

Danfoss is the second largest company in all of Denmark and is recognized through out the country.  I mention this as set up for the fact that there are multiple employees whose sole responsibility is to give guided tours.  Summertime is the busy season, but they have guest year-round.

 

Our tour began in the Mads Clausen museum, which is also the childhood home of Danfoss' founder.  The walls were covered with pictures and other interesting things.

 

Mads and his wife Bitten.



 

This ceiling was custom built by Russian POWs as part of a work-release program.

 

 



A cool looking clock.

 

After we walked around the house for a bit, we walked outside through the gardens.  Danfoss grows food and flowers that are available to all guests, free of charge.

 

The tour guide told us that this herb was a "Coca-Cola" plant. I don't know what it really is, but it did taste like Coke.

 

We then went into the original production facility, built in 1935, which focused less on the Clausen family and more on Danfoss.  (By the way, "Dan" means Danish and "foss" means river, because the first product made by the company, an expansion valve, sounded like running water.)

 

The original work clock.

 

A young Mads Clausen.

 

An original schematic for an expansion valve.

 

After quite a bit of history, we moved onto the main office, which is still use today.

 

 

While pretty to look at, the water feature and wall of living, growing plants help to regulate the building's temperature and filter the air, as well as block the smell from the fully-staffed kitchen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was one of the scariest things I've ever seen: a constantly moving elevator with no doors. You step on when the car is lined up and step off when you arrive at your floor. It's been in the building since 1955 and there have never been any accidents, but I was still nervous taking it up.

 

At the top floor is Mads Clausen's original office.  It's currently being used by his Son, Jorge, but since he wasn't using the office when we were there, we got to go inside.  There is only one way to describe it: opulent.  While the rest of the building is clearly fancy and expensive, it's to be used by everyone.  This office was built for one man.  I didn't take a picture, but the desk was made out of green, Italian marble and was heated.  Also, there was a second, smaller desk that had a chair upholstered with Zebra fur.

 

This leopard was shot by Bitten while on safari. 

 

This baby giraffe died of natural causes. 

 

 

This lion was shot by Mads while on safari.

 

After looking at what is probably the most expensive room I've ever seen, we go to look down from the top floor.

 

Don't worry: the glass I'm standing on is strong enough to support over 50 tons.

 

 

Danfoss has an impressive solar farm. 

 

As we walked down the fifteen flights of stairs, we saw several pieces of original art. This was one of them. 

 



I didn't take that many pictures of the art, but I liked this one. 

 

 Looking back up.



 

 The tour of the main office and the museum at Danfoss was really interesting.  I got to learn a lot about the company and I saw some things that really surprised me.  It was a lovely cap to the trip and enlightening experience.

The Big Meeting

So as you probably already know, the purpose of my trip to Denmark was work related.  I've been writing a document to help standardize all of the company's installation guides since the beginning of the year and this trip was my chance to present it to the rest of the Technical Communications (or TechCom) team.  Speaking of the team, let me introduce them:

Back row (L-R): Me, Brian, Dan (who is mostly hidden), and Steen.

Middle row (L-R): Henning, Joanna, Berit, and Marianne.

Front row (L-R): Irene, Ritt, Angela, and Mia.

Brian is from the UK and lives in Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of William Shakespeare.  Dan (which is not short for anything) and Steen are in an organization that builds and sails viking replica ships.  I didn't learn much about Henning, but he offered more helpful feedback than anyone else.  Joanna is from Poland and lives there with her German husband.  Berit has traveled all over the world and loves to talk about her experiences.  Marianne smokes electronic cigarettes (she and I didn't interact a lot, but she seemed nice enough).  Irene likes Danish-style licorice candy, which she claims is stronger than any other kind of licorice -- based on what she shared with the group, she may be right.  Ritt likes to go for runs on the beach with her husband when the weather permits.  Angela is from Italy and had the poorest English skills of anyone in the group, but she was the only one to point out to me that a dessert we were eating contained alcohol, which I really appreciated.  Mia, the manager that coordinated the meeting, told me that when she and her family visited the US a couple of years ago, they enjoyed the National Parks and "all the nature" more than anything else.

In addition to different personalities, everyone has different roles within the company --  I believe I'm the only one with a background in writing.  So when we went over the Installation Guide Standard, there were a lot of opinions about what to keep, what to remove, and what to change.  In fact, I was genuinely surprised the first time everyone agreed with what I had written and had no comments to make.  The document that I presented is only twenty pages long, but it took us over four hours to finish reviewing it.  One thing I can say for this team is that they're thorough.  I took meticulous notes and I'm in the process of editing the Standard to send out for everyone's approval.  Ultimately, most of the Standard survived without any change: I'd estimate that only about a third of the text will be changed from the first draft.

This was my first important meeting with people that do the same kind of work for Danfoss as I do and I think it went well.  While we took a long time to review what I had written, the impression I had was that everyone respected what I had done and was taking it seriously.  I felt intimidated when I found out that I was going to Denmark, but it all worked out as well and I'm really glad I got to go.

Traveling

For my trip to Denmark, I flew out of Baltimore, Maryland, had one layover in Newark, New Jersey, another in Frankfurt, Germany, arrived in Hamburg, Germany, before taking a two hour shuttle ride north to Nordborg, Denmark.  I knew it would be a long trip, so I planned to sleep while we flew over the Atlantic.

That was the plan, anyway.

For whatever reason, I was unable to sleep the whole flight.  Once I arrived in Hamburg, it was morning (Denmark and Germany are in the same time zone), so to avoid having my jet-lag be exacerbated, I stayed awake until about 8:30 that evening.  Taking into account that I had to wake up early to so Ian could drop me off before he had to be at work, I was awake for 35 hours straight.  That's a record for me, and one that I hope I never break.

The hotel I stayed at offered minimal accommodations.  This was the bed I slept on:

Two twin beds, which I was expecting from the description on the hotel's website.  What you can't see from the picture is that the blanket that's laid across the top is not folded over, it's laid sideways.  The blankets that were provided were barely as wide as the bed.  That means that if you roll over in the night, you'll end up uncovered.  Luckily there was another source of heat:

For the uninitiated, that's a radiator, a device that pumps hot water into a zigzag of pipes.  The heat from the pipes radiates into the room, hence the name.  This is a common source of heat in Denmark, despite being inefficient and outdated.

A closer look at the controls. Something looks familiar...

The bathroom was also not what I expected:

In case it's not clear from the picture, the shower was just a drain in the floor.  To be fair, the floor on the shower side of the curtain drops down by about an inch, but it was still weird not having more of a barrier.

Even with the strangeness of the hotel, it was still a nice enough place to stay, though the wifi was spotty.

Going back to the beginning of the trip, while I was waiting for my first plane in Baltimore, I mostly spent my time reading a book.  Once it was time to line up to board the plane, I noticed that the woman who had been sitting next to me gathered up her stuff at the same time I did.  I looked at her and politely asked, "Going to Newark?"  She was, and we ended up having a very nice conversation for the ten minutes it took for us to board the plane.  She was headed home to Los Angeles after visiting friends in Baltimore.  When I told her where I was going and what I did for a living, she was genuinely interested and asked a lot of questions.  I hadn't expected to have such a nice exchange with a stranger, but I'm glad that I spoke up.

Once I found my seat, I asked the older woman sitting next to me if Newark was her final destination.  It wasn't; she was headed to Oslo, Norway to visit her daughter.  I thought that it was kind of amazing that we, two random people, were both headed to Scandinavia.  We ended up talking the whole of the admittedly short flight.  She was worried that she would miss her connecting flight due to a delay from Baltimore; when we arrived I wished her luck and went to find the gate I needed for my connecting flight.  When I sat down after finding the right gate, my flight neighbor walked up to me to let me know that her connecting flight had been delayed as well and she wasn't going to miss it.  Apparently I had made enough of an impression that she sought me out so that I wouldn't worry.

The trip was long, but I got to visit Europe for the first time and I brightened the day of two strangers that I'll probably never see again.  I'd say that's worth the fatigue.

Tuesdays with Media: A Whole Mess of Pictures

I was able to borrow the office camera, so I made sure that I took full advantage of it and took lots of pictures.

Flying over the Chesapeake.

I don't know what kind of berries these are, I was just trying to be artistic.

I saw many houses that had thatch roofs.

A closer look.

About a third of what passed for the "downtown" of the town in which I stayed.

"Apotek" translates to "drugstore," though I think "apothecary" is probably closer.

According to the sign, this boarding school has four main emphases: science, art, extreme, and performance.

I liked the look of the flower in focus in the foreground and the spire out of focus in the background.

A closer look at the school's spire.

A plaque just inside the school -- I didn't know that it was a high school up to this point. After reading this, I left.

"Bibliotekshaven" translates to "library garden." Must be some Latin influence on the language...

The hotel at which I stayed.

The only "selfie" I took.

While I was there for business, my colleagues and I did go on a walk through the woods.

"Vej" (pronounced "vay") means "road" or "way."

This variety of rose was created specifically for Bitten Clausen, the wife of the founder of Danfoss, who recently celebrated her 103rd birthday.

There are more pictures that I took, but I want to sprinkle some of them into other posts, so you'll have to wait before you get to see some more.

I mostly took pictures of stuff that I thought was cool or pretty, but there were a few that I tried to experiment a little.  I hope you enjoyed the first look of Denmark; come back tomorrow for more.

Back from Denmark

... and boy are my arms tired!  (Pause for involuntary eye-rolling.)

I spent all of last week either traveling to or staying in Denmark.  And "all of last week" is no exaggeration: my journey began at 6 AM on Monday and didn't end until around midnight the following Saturday.  I had a great time, though I'm happy to be back home.

Since there's so much to write about, I'll just use this post as an introduction -- the rest of the week will focus on a different aspect of my travels, with a bonus post on Thursday because there's just so much for me to write about.  I'm still jet-lagged from the trip, so please excuse the brevity in this post as I just need to go to bed.  Even so, I look forward to detailing the ins and outs of my trip.  Please join me.

Surprise Pie

Remember last week when I made mini pumpkin pies to share with my coworkers?  Well, my original plan was to make a double batch and save a few mini pies to share with the Larsens.  When I had my panic attack, I decided to change gears and make a full pie in addition to the miniature ones.  I only have one muffin pan and I wanted to be done as quickly as possible and by using a pie tin I was able to bake both batches at once.  Once everything was out of the oven and cooling on the counter, one question remained: to whom do I give the pie?  A full pie would be too much for Ian and the kids (he's watching everyone's sugar intake), but I still needed to find it a good home.

After mulling it over, I decided to take it to the family from church that wanted me to tutor their son, Jonathan.  I still hadn't heard from the kid, so I thought I might add some motivation in the form of a large pumpkin pie (using my very popular "Double Sweet" recipe).  On Saturday morning, I arrived to the family's home with the pie -- I said I knew I would be in the area, so I might as well drop off a pie.  The mom was absolutely shocked that a man would bake something, let alone a pie.  I met Jonathan, who seemed a little uncomfortable at first, perhaps because he wasn't ready for my help and felt awkward about it, but he warmed up a little while we chatted for a few minutes.  After about ten minutes, I said my goodbyes and went my way.

Since I'm friends with the family's oldest daughter, Erin, I was able to hear from her the response that everyone had to the pie: they loved it.  On top of that, both the mom and dad came up to me the following Sunday to personally thank me for the pie I brought them.

It's kind of amazing: you see someone at church and you're just "some guy"; you drop off a homemade dessert and suddenly you're "Jordan the Baker."

Nicer Than I Have to Be

Last week I went to my local pharmacy to pick up my anti-epilepsy medication refill (early this time!) when I was told by the cashier that there was no prescription with my name ready to be picked up.  I had spelled my name for her, as I do with everyone, to ensure that she was looking for my name, yet she said there nothing that matched.  I asked her politely to look up my prescription to see when it would be ready -- I figured that since I was physically there, I might as well find out when I should come back.  She must be new because she leaned over the to the back to talk to the assistant pharmacist to ask the question rather than use the computer.  The assistant pharmacist recognized me and assured the girl working the counter that it was ready because she (the assist. pharm.) had filled it herself.

During this whole exchange, I could see a bag sitting on one of the "filled" shelves with the letters LAR written across the front of it.  I even suggested that it could be mine (again, spelling out LAR for Larsen), but I was assured that it was not for me.  Finally, the assistant pharmacist walked around to the front counter and pulled out the bag I had ask about and told the cashier that it was for me.  The cashier's response was: "Larsen?  I thought you said Lawson."  She never apologized, she never admitted fault, she just rang me up.  When the transaction was done, I said some words I wasn't expecting:

"Thank you."

I realized as I was walking away that it wasn't that long ago that I would have chewed this girl out for refusing to listen to me -- because you can't simply mishear someone three separate times unless you're actively not listening.  And while she would have deserved it, I took the better path and just let it go.  I don't mean for this to come off as me patting myself on the back.  Rather, I want to illustrate that being nice to people, even those who don't deserve it, really is the better for everyone.  I didn't riled up unnecessarily and she was able to more quickly help the next customer in line.

I don't know why I've struggled with being nice to strangers, but I'm glad I'm seeing a positive difference.

Tuesdays with Media: Teaser for next week...

 

What could this be about...?