A day with Oskar (Unicorn Workspaces)

September 1, 2021

Oskar about Unicorn: Unicorn makes it easy to get a fully-serviced office for you or your team. An efficient working space with lots included: free barista service, 24/7 access control, chairs, desks and cleaning support and… Secure and stable internet and flexible contracts. Phew. Basically, a better deal until you own a space for more than five years. Was that two sentences?

Oskar is our CTO, and we are excited to share his day with you. Early 2019 Oskar started freelancing for Unicorn to help with the website and development. We got along really well, the tasks and ideas grew from there. Since November 2019 he officially joined as CTO of Unicorn.

We have a brand new five-story workspace at Moritzplatz (Berlin).

8 AM: Are you wide awake or still in deep sleep?

At 8 AM I’m usually awake for an hour or two, did my meditation and had a chia bowl. No, just kidding, sorry. You can remove that part. But I am awake for 1-2 hours because we have a happy little kid with great vigour. So we play and have porridge or make eggs. As long as you manage to be present, he is the secret to a good morning. I delay my coffee until I’m in the office around 9 where it’s served. That being said, I wouldn’t mind sleeping an extra hour.

11 AM: It’s time for the first meeting of the day. Today it’s a job interview with a potential new team member. What do you look for in a team member? How does a good meeting look for you?

My team handles a lot of different topics: IT administration, software design and development across all the platforms, hardware management, networks, security, access controls, support, and communications. Because of this, a good candidate has a broad interest and knowledge. Someone social and curious. Someone with hobbies. With a rapidly changing (digital) world, years of experience won’t cut it. Fresh eyes and the ability to communicate and especially learn new things is important. I’m learning every day, and this is one of the reasons I’m here. To me, a good leader finds the way and clears the path for the team to have just the right amount of challenge. The goal is to build new leaders and let them relieve you, and the cycle repeats.

1 PM: You are hungry. What do you do now? Do you check the latest analytics with your business partner? Do you grab a cereal bar and go for a run? Are you a couch potato or fresh air fanatic?

Around the corner, there’s a nice Shakshuka dish, which is kind of a classic now. But I have to admit, I usually pray a friendly colleague takes the lead for lunch. Soup, pad tai or bread and cheese. If it can be combined with a walk or bike trip, even better.

4 PM: You have a press appointment. It’s about your person. Who has particularly influenced you here? Do you have a role model?

Because I’ve spent so much, too much, of my life with computers, I believe one of my strengths to be that I have love/hate relationship with them. I want Unicorn to be a great workplace with as little technology as possible. With the risk of sounding cheesy: how my parents live and have lived their lives — along with my Heimat in Thy, Denmark — is still a big influence for me.

6 PM: Is it time to stop working, or are you just getting started?

I usually leave the office around 5 PM, and then it’s time for play and cooking. Before we turned into three, I’d enjoy working way past midnight and thought sleep was for later in life. Now I’m albeit very slowly starting to see the attraction.

10 PM: Time to have a break, time to read, to listen and to think. What book/podcast/series/music are you recommending?

Late-night I listen and collect music, play video games like Starcraft and do programming to have fun. It’s wild. If I can recommend a classic album, it’d be Joni Mitchell’s “Hejira”. Or some Outkast, Ahmad Jamal or Azymuth and more on https://radio4000.com/oskar where I collect songs I like.