Officespotter

Our visit to Kürt Ltd went as usual: we arranged a time beforehand, arrived at the reception, met with Petra Kapitány and began to map out the building, and of course take good pictures of it.

We began our tour on the topmost floor, where Petra started off by showing us the view, which emphasized the first-class location. The views are gorgeous, and are well worth taking some photos. I shoot a few, enough for a panorama picture, then check them on my camera. Or at least try to check them. ‘Format Card’ is blinking on the screen. Oh great. The card is full of previous materials photographed, and so I have to decide whether I dispose of those ones, or resign to letting my spotting associate take all the photos.

I decide on the second option, even though I was at the best possible location to try a third alternative. This is because Kürt Zrt is renowned as one of the best professional data recovery companies there is. The success story is similar to that of Graphisoft’s; it was created in the late 80s, and its data recovery methods instantly became world famous.

The rapidly growing company decided 4 years ago to erect an office building for themselves, and as they were already at the edge of the city, Budaörs wasn’t a large leap away. Here they had a chance to create a so-called ‘built-to-suit’ building, in other words a tailor-made office building.

The location proved to be a good one, thanks to the numerous sports facilities immediately adjacent. The materials used are of very high quality, with no frilly design, but rather made to stand the test of time. The exterior of the building is more daring than inside, as the interiors concentrate more on functionality.

As we walk along the sublevels, we see a myriad of appreciative letters on the wall. This is understandable, as both people and companies who forgot to create safety copies of their data owe a lot of gratitude for their hard drives being brought back from beyond all hope. This is a kind of modern day lost and found.

By now the company has grown by such proportions that they have a dispatch center in Germany, from where they post hard drives to Hungary for processing and data recovery. At the same the main profile of the company – a requisite of modern times – is not this, but rather information management.

The lunchroom functions as a recreational too, at least that’s what the pinball machine, fussball table and boxing bag lead us to believe. The employees are not provided with a very wide range of choices regarding places to eat, and so besides ordering, any other option requires them to drive. This doesn’t pose a big problem, as each employee has their own car.

The company was very smart when determining the size of the building, ensuring they would have room to expand when the time comes. Meanwhile, until they reach the maximum size possible in the building, they lease out the additional empty areas.

The walls are mostly decorated by plaques commemorating the company’s proud past. We rarely see a painting or decoration, and the employees have to bring color to the office themselves, usually in the form of knick-knacks of their own.

Employees do not take this lightly, and there is an abundance of knick-knacks throughout the building. A mini arcade version of Donkey Kong, numerous Star Wars memorabilia, and so on. It’s as though employees implement (data) recovery on stoneage IT items, and feel they have the responsibility to preserve the past as well.

Kürt seems like a good place to work. As Petra tells us, fluctuation of employees is very low, and even when moving to their new HQ, they only lost one person due to the distance change. And if the staff follows the company blindly to a location 10 kms from Budapest, they must really be doing something well there.
 

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