Hooligans!

Haarlem's most wanted!

Security cameras captured this image of an Ajax hooligan "marking" their territory in North Haarlem. "God, they urinate everywhere" said one distraught homeowner who just decorated the sidewalk with these new spring planters. These hooligans are known to be very territorial and should be approached only with extreme caution...especially if you are not wearing any orange on voetball day. Anyone with information on the whereabouts of this particular hooligan, please alert the authorities immediately.

The Fabled Dutch Contract

Congratulations to Beth! She has taken a new job at a huge software application provider founded in Germany. Living as we do in Holland, Beth has joined as a Dutch employee … and Dutch employees are entitled to a “classic” Dutch contract. While all of the EU country contracts have their own special touches, I thought that you might enjoy some of the highlights from a Dutch perspective. These items probably seem both trivial and bizarre to us Americans. We tend to go into a job with the attitude that we are sooooo lucky that the company has granted us the privilege to work for them and any bits and scraps that they happen to throw to us are all icing on the cake. Some will say that these little items are perfect illustrations of the socialistic attitudes of Europe and how their labor practices undermine their capitalist way of life. I would ask that you step back and take a look from a different perspective. I propose that these niceties are more reflective of a balanced life culture – including big business culture. And in the case of Holland they are a perfect example of the striving for “gezellig” in all aspects of society (see discussion under blog posting of Feb. 25).

Basic employment provisions – all employees

• 30 days of vacation (goes up based upon age…not tenure or position…i.e. the secretary and CEO get the same # of days if they are the same age)
• 8% vacation salary allowance (effectively a 13th month of pay to enjoy her holidays with)
• Annual allowance for bicycle
• Annual allowance for bicycle accessories
• Free lunch or lunch allowance if working off site (this is a German thing that is carried over…lunches are a BIG deal to German companies)
• Monthly allowance for fresh flowers
• Monthly allowance for fruit baskets
• Full reimbursement for use of public transportation to/from work
• Use of company properties (chalets) across Europe
• All employees – 1st two airline trips in coach….any company trips above 2 are automatically in business class
  
  Special provisions outlined in the contract – all employees:
• Employee Marriage – flowers + 1 month extra gross salary
• Employee Birthday – flowers + fruit basket
• Birth in family – flowers
• New house – plant + fruit basket
• Illness – hospital admission – flowers, sick at home (after 2 weeks flowers)
• Leaving employment – flowers + vvv vouchers
  

All other discussions aside, this is a big deal for Beth. At only 39, she is now a member of the executive team in a fortune 100 global company. Please send her a congratulations!

Smell the flowers

Too many pictures of snow on our blog! In reality, the snow lasted only about 4 days. This is the same field that we took the snow pictures in about 1 week later covered in flowers. It's so bad that I can't even take Beth there now because she gets upset when Sage and Seb go ripping through the field and knock over some flowers.

Encounter with (gasp!) non Americans!

Somewhere in the untamed wilderness of Europe, where they have just discovered the wheel and 220V electricity (110V won't be invented for another 100 years), we came across this primitive tribe of real Dutch people! And they almost look like us "normal" American's - except maybe skinnier and better dressed than your average Joe cheesburger (sorry Joe). ;-)

But how did Beth manage to talk them into pelting me with snowballs? Must have been that "lazy woman post" on our blog.

It's a good thing that you can't kick snowballs. Instead of throwing the ball for Seb and Sage, Patrick kicks it...with amazing accuracy and distance. With Soccer as the national sport, the Dutch don't have very good throwing arms. It seemed really odd at first...watching them throw is kind of comical. But after realizing that they are not raised on baseball or football, it kind of makes sense. Although of all our freinds in Holland, Sheila here has the best throwing arm that we've seen.

Winter (Spring) wonderland!

We got hammered with snow over the past 2 days. This storm was enough to even impress us "Garrett Countian's"...close to 10 inches (25 cm). It is apparently pretty rare to get this kind of snow here in Haarlem. But oddly enough, everyone brought out sleds and started dragging their little ones around the streets ... remember, this is pancake flat Holland ... the closest sledding hill is in the dunes and the roads were atrocious.

Gangs of "snowball hooligans" were all through the streets and the bikers never seemed to even flinch at pedaling on the icy, snowpacked roads....very impressive.

These views are from our third floor bedroom - front and back. Pretty close quarters...about as different as you can get from our place back in the mountains of Maryland!