The­re are pro­jects that you do not for­get for many years. The­re are tho­se that you pre­fer to put out of your mind. Yet the­re are also tho­se to which we recall with a big smi­le. One of them was the near­ly 3‑year pro­ject for Codelab’s new HQ office. Befo­re we made this move, when the buil­ding still did not have all its win­dows, an unu­su­al object appeared abo­ve the Szc­ze­cin sky.

But befo­re we tell the sto­ry of our small car, it’s worth men­tio­ning what the big office is all about. In kee­ping with the Code­lab spi­rit, we arran­ged our own „home“ with a demo­cra­tic com­pro­mi­se, having many dis­cus­sions bet­ween archi­tects and seve­ral employee repre­sen­ta­ti­ves. Howe­ver, one topic fired our ima­gi­na­ti­on, and we quick­ly agreed – we must have it. Yes, abso­lut­e­ly! But let’s start from the beginning.

One of first visua­liza­ti­ons have alre­a­dy acti­va­ted our imagination

The sto­ry beg­ins with a pho­to of a small, white, retro Fiat 500 Ber­li­na from 1970. The long jour­ney from the midd­le of Pol­and (Pio­tr­kow Try­bu­nal­ski) to our recep­ti­on took a lot of time, count­less slee­p­less nights, and mul­ti­ple nego­tia­ti­ons. To final­ly make me proud.

Fiat 500 from 1970 is even smal­ler than Fiat 500 from 2020. Despi­te the age, the car was ful­ly func­tion­al. Still, the risk of dri­ving it to Szc­ze­cin (around 600km) in the midd­le of win­ter was just too signi­fi­cant. So we have deci­ded to send a tow truck to bring us our Fiat.

After the car has arri­ved, it appeared to us that having a car as a part of the office inte­ri­or might not be as easy as we thought. Polish law does not defi­ne how to tre­at the vehic­le insi­de the buil­ding. Can it be trea­ted as fur­ni­tu­re? Or should it have valid motor insu­rance and regu­lar tech­ni­cal reviews (as the cars on the street are requi­red)? The secu­ri­ty aspect does not allow a vehic­le con­tai­ning vehic­le liquids (e.g., oil, bra­ke flu­id, petrol, etc.) insi­de the buil­ding. For­t­u­na­te­ly, somehow, we mana­ged to jump the­se hoops.

When we were rea­dy with all the „paper­work“ (from a law and buil­ding secu­ri­ty per­spec­ti­ve), a new pro­blem show­ed up. How does one put a car on the 4th flo­or of the office buil­ding? Cut­ting our Fiat 500 into pie­ces was not an opti­on, and even though it is a small car, it is still too big for a modern ele­va­tor. Good, that my mot­to is: „if the doors are clo­sed, use the window ;).“

The solu­ti­on to our pro­blem was a „fly­ing car,“ of cour­se (you could obser­ve the „flight“ on the nati­on­wi­de TVN24 news chan­nel). You pro­ba­b­ly won­der how we could make the car land soft­ly on the earth, as it had to be lifted 38 meters high. Well, we used a 60-meter cra­ne and a lot of pil­lows (no, real­ly). And the cra­ne lifted our Fiat 500 and put it through the office window.

Even the best thril­ler would not be asha­med of such emotions 🙂

Suc­cess, right? Yes, but it’s not the end of the sto­ry. After safe­ly put­ting our small car on the 4th flo­or, we still had near­ly a year befo­re moving to this new office. And that meant the office was just con­cre­te; the­re were no win­dows, no doors, no tech­ni­cal flo­ors – just a dir­ty con­s­truc­tion site and a lot of work ahead of us. That’s why we had to cover our car with many quilts and blan­kets (for safe­ty and warmth). And we also had to con­sider our car during con­s­truc­tion work (e.g., when the con­s­truc­tion team laid the tech­ni­cal flo­o­ring, car­pets, etc.).

At the end of the sto­ry, I can­not for­get about an essen­ti­al aspect of one’s occu­pa­ti­on – fun at work :). And as I found out, also con­trac­tors from Posej­don have a gre­at sen­se of humor. When our Fiat final­ly stood on the new car­pet, they put a fake oil stain under the car. A few peo­p­le almost had a heart attack after pho­tos with oil stain had been seen by the Posej­don and Code­lab manage­ment teams. 

Spea­king Hal­lo­ween-ish, „trick or tre­at“ ;).

Ps. I am sure that you are curious what the who­le of this ama­zing office looks like? Befo­re we can invi­te you for a cof­fee, check out the­se few pho­tos – we miss our office a lot 🙁 🙁 🙁 May­be you would like to work the­re with us someday?