A Pause between Prompts: ​If Deloitte Had Stopped for Fika

I’m still getting used to how slow things move here in Sweden - in a good way. Meetings end on time, people actually pause before they speak, and no one seems to be in a race to outwork the clock.

Then there’s Fika, the mid-morning or mid-afternoon ritual where everyone drops what they’re doing for coffee and something sweet. It’s not “coffee break.” It’s culture. A collective exhale.

So imagine my surprise this week when I read about Deloitte having to refund the Australian government $440,000 for a report that turns out was mostly written by AI.

Somewhere between the corporate buzzwords and the prompts, it feels like someone forgot to stop for a breath.

It’s not even about AI, really. It’s about pace, how fast everything moves when we’re trying to look productive.

Sweden, on the other hand, moves at a different rhythm. Emails arrive days later. Processes stretch into weeks. The system wasn’t broken; it was marinating. There’s this quiet national faith that things, if given enough time, will sort themselves out.

And then there are the queues. Swedes queue for everything meticulously, silently, and with what looks like spiritual discipline. There’s usually a ticket machine involved, handing out little numbered slips that dictate the rhythm of society. You wait your turn, no sighing, no shuffling, no glancing at the person ahead. The queue is sacred. It’s democracy in motion.

Sometimes it drives me mad. I want to move, to do. But then my number flashes, my turn comes, and somehow everything works. No confusion, no chaos. Just quiet order.

As the writer Haruki Murakami once said,

No matter how slow you go, you’re still lapping everyone on the couch

I think about that line a lot here, how slowness isn’t the enemy of progress, just its quieter twin. It’s not about delay for delay’s sake, but about doing things with attention, the kind of pace that leaves fewer mistakes and fewer refunds.

The Deloitte story isn’t shocking, it’s familiar. It’s what happens when efficiency becomes a virtue and reflection an afterthought.

And maybe that’s why Fika works. Not as a productivity hack, but as an antidote to panic.

So yes, I’m still learning to slow down - even as the world automates itself into overdrive.

One cinnamon bun (and one queue ticket) at a time.

Thought to share

If you’re a nerd like me, you might find this interesting:

​Sebastian Raschka wrote a clear, well-structured piece comparing the different architectures of large language models. The kind of article that makes you feel smarter halfway through your coffee.

→ The Big LLM Architecture Comparison​

Have a good day ahead and don’t forget to slow down sometimes for a Fika.