Don’t eat a can while swimming. Do not wear a bathing suit in the sauna. Do not keep long hair open in the pool. Don’t go swimming in your underwear. Do not use a cell phone in the changing rooms. And at least don’t dye your hair or shave your hair.
Already the spirit of the game is clear at the outer doors: The opening hours of the swimming hall are announced on the door with four different labels. In the locker, one note resembles a parking disc, and the two notes have different rules.
When you enter the lobby of Hakunila’s swimming hall, things start completely out of hand.
There are so many tickets at the ticket office that it’s hard to count them. Based on a quick count, there are maybe 12 notes and five more on the bulletin board. In addition, there is a large stand next to it, which advises with pictures what kind of swimwear is suitable for polski in the hall.
But that’s not all! When a pool employee Ritva Mäkelä pulls up the roller blind of the info point, more notes are revealed underneath.
The notices state, among other things, that filming in the swimming hall is only allowed with the permission of the staff. And the fact that the hall has camera surveillance. And if someone has already managed to forget, the opening hours on the front door are listed on the notices.
Shorts are fine, but leggy underpants are not. Thank you. Thanks Thank you.
In the shower rooms, instructions are given on more than ten pieces of paper. There are three instructions related to hair alone: hair must not be dyed, long hair must be tied back and hair must be wet before entering the pool. And you don’t shave your hair in the swimming pool.
Is it is clear that in this swimming hall no one can say that something has not been reported. It most certainly is. But does anyone read the notes?
During the journalist’s visit, no one stops to read the notes, instead people rush forward purposefully. If they have any questions, they ask them at the information desk when buying a ticket.
Why are there so many notes, swimming pool employee Ritva Mäkelä?
“Good question! Maybe because if something is said about the instructions, it is easy to rely on the fact that the matter has been announced when there is a note on the wall.”
According to Mäkelä, there is feedback from customers that there are too many notes. But that will also happen if some of the information the customer is looking for cannot be found on the wall.
Although some slips could be dispensed with, there is one that no pool employee should take off. It is a sign prohibiting swimwear in the sauna. This issue infuriates people year after year.
It is clear that you must always wash before the sauna, but opinions are divided as to whether you can put on a bathing suit after washing and go to the sauna. Older people, in particular, have a very reserved attitude towards swimsuits.
“They don’t necessarily understand that, for example, nudity can be a really sensitive thing for a young person. They don’t know how to put themselves in the position of a young person,” says Mäkelä.
Those who go to the gym are instructed by four pieces of paper.
HS asked the cleaning manager of the Sports Halls about sauna in a swimsuit in February and the expert’s answer was quite unequivocal:
The bathing suit must be taken off in the sauna for hygiene reasons, because sweat sticks to it during the sauna. The shower doesn’t remove all the sweat from the swimsuit, and it gets carried into the pool. Finnish swimming pools use less chlorine than in many other countries, and therefore the water gets dirty more easily.
Hilly is of the opinion that going to the sauna in a towel could be allowed, as long as you have taken a shower before.
“Someone may experience body shame and therefore not want to be naked.”
In some cultures, nudity is also viewed more cautiously than in Finland.
Hakunilan there are quite a few foreigners who visit the swimming hall, and for that reason Mäkelä would like the rule sheets to have more only pictorial instructions.
“Not everyone understands the instructions in Finnish and it can become slang.”
Although Mäkelä admits that there are a lot of instructions and rules on the walls of the hall, there has not been much discussion about reducing them.
“We live in rule-Finland, don’t we?” says Mäkelä and smiles.
When the note is on the wall, Finns feel safe: The boundaries have been drawn and we act according to them. You’re out of the loop. And put the phone in the closet, because:
In the Hakunila swimming hall, you may not use phones in the changing or washing rooms.
Correction 21.3. 7:21 a.m.: The title of the article mistakenly spoke of a swimming pool in Helsinki. Hakunila is in Vantaa.
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