Yesterday, I went to print out some posters and invites.
The plan was to be in and out in 15 minutes. I only needed 6 of each, I had already prepped all my files, and I knew which paper I wanted. Should be quick and easy.
But of course, like all things print, it’s never quick and easy.
The print shop was family-owned and started in the 60s. A local Tampere establishment. Helping me out was the owner, a 50-something man who clearly knew all the ins-and-outs of his machines.
He was patient and meticulous too.
“This is 0.5mm off,” he said as he held a test copy up against the ceiling light to check for alignment, somehow measuring fractions of a millimeter with his eyeballs, before going off to add some vertical offset. Or later, “the cut is wrong, this side is larger” and off he went again, making more adjustments and more test prints.
“The sheet is not straight — it must be the paper bed, I will use the other one.” And when it still came out crooked, “I will try a different printer,” he said to me, and partly to himself, “it will look better too.”
We went on like this for almost an hour and a half. Printing, checking, and re-printing. Occasionally, I would point out some issues. But mostly, it was him. He wanted to do things right. He wanted to be happy about the quality of his work.
Somewhere in the middle of all this, I saw the store sign and realized I had made a terrible mistake.
I knew they had different hours in the summer, closing at 4:30pm, so I arrived early at 2pm. But that was for weekdays. On Saturdays, they close at 2.
The store should’ve been closed an hour and a half ago.
Instead, the owner kept it open, and had been patiently helping me, trying to get my posters perfect, without any hint of annoyance.
We had amassed something like 20 test prints. For context, I was only printing 6. At this point, any profit he was going to make was probably eaten up by all the material costs.
Plus, I had inadvertently stolen this man’s Saturday afternoon. Maybe he had plans to grill sausage with his family. Or maybe he planned to drink beers by the lake with his buddies. But here he was, adding vertical offsets and wrestling with printers.
I’m telling you all this out of admiration.
Where else are going to find someone who cares this much about doing things right? And on top of that, he was doing it after the store had already closed.
If you ever need to print something in Tampere, visit Tamkopio. You’ll get great prints, and you’ll be supporting a local business full of people who care.
There is a Japanese word shokunin, meaning craftsman. But as people who love Japan will tell you, it means so much more.
It means a culture of people who are dedicated to their craft. Not just traditional craftsmen like sculptors, or swords makers, or sushi chefs who dress like monks.
But also “normal” people like taxi drivers, waitresses, or the guy making ramen at your local shop.
Shokunin means they care. They’ll want to make sure everything is done well and done right, even if the customer won’t ever notice. Because it’s not just about making money, it’s a matter of personal pride — knowing that everything they did, they did correctly.
While the word shokunin is Japanese, shokunin culture definitely isn’t exclusive to Japan.
I’ve found that Finns (to the extent that we can/should generalize) have a very similar culture. They too, care a lot about doing things right.
That shouldn’t be a surprise though. Japan and Finland have a lot in common historically and culturally.
They’re both young countries. Modern Japan was only built after WWII. A country built atop atrocities and bloodshed, yearning for peace, to ultimately finding itself a new national identity. Finland has a similar story. From a poor country, never really independent, and without a national identity, to now a distinct, modern, and well-functioning society.
The one notable difference, however, is Japan rebuilt itself with a lot of American help: politically and financially. Meanwhile, Finland admirably climbed out of the hole on its own.
I remember talking to a Finnish friend and he asked me why I liked Finland.
Back then, I gave a pretty incoherent answer. Something about the Finnish calm and quiet, and then recited an Alvar Aalto quote about how design gives a gentler structure for life. He was probably thought I was babbling nonsense.
That answer was true. But today, I’d have a much clearer answer:
Finns care about the things they do, and they want to do things the right way. If you could choose, wouldn’t you want to live in that kind of society too?