World of Jop

Sometimes, especially when you are open towards it, life can bring some unexpected and nice surprises; opportunities to do something new, never done before, giving thrills never felt earlier. When my good friend Michel called me Monday, I definitely did not realise one of these valuable moments of life was about to come!

Michel started the conversation with a kind of puzzling remark: ‘I don’t have a blond beauty at my disposal - Lucky you!!!!’. Surely I wished Michel had such a girl to his disposal, knowing his passion for girls with blond hairs, but I did not realise right away why I should be happy about it. For one second, the though crossed my mind that he might have become homosexual and was about to ask me to marry me, which is, as we of course all know, is a legal thing to do in the Netherlands. But, there was no need for me to worry (it would be a very sudden change in Michels attitude, as a matter of fact): Michel was invited by his insurance agent for air ballooning, and also could bring a partner. Considering his status of being bachelor, he asked if I would like to join instead. Of course I would like to!

The ballooning was in Brabant, one of the more southern provinces of the Netherlands. It is always nice to be there: the people there love to enyoy their life fully, and many great restaurants and bistros can be found there. The people are more kind-hearted than the Dutch in the north and especially west in a way; the spend a lot of time talking to each other, and personal contacts seem to be a little bit more important. They also have their own way of speaking; it is kind of funny that even in our small country, some -yet small- cultural differences can be found.

We met with the account manager of the insurance company, who originally came from the city of Arnhem (like Michel and I), and loved to talk a lot. His father had his own company giving commercial trainings, and it seemed he also used to give his son private trainings all the time! Because the guy was extremely talkative and commercial, allthough he also was nice and fun. Besides, also an older gentleman and his wife were there. The gentleman was a truly ‘ Barbander’, who seemed to like to eat a lot and spoke with that fantastic, Brabant dialect. His wife was more silent, but nice nontheless. The group was completed by the guy who would pilot our balloon, a former soldier, and Helmut, an older man orginally from Germany who had an extreme dry sense of humour.

Before going to fly, we first had an excellent diner, as is ussual in Brabant restaurants. To tell the truth, I felt a little bit intimidated, coming from a big family where little attention used to be paid on dining manners. My parents never liked all these etiquettes and learned us other things in life are so much more important. However, I managed quite well by following the others and orderign for instance red and white wine at the right moment. I even overdid the etiquettes when I offered the older lady next to me a chocolate during the dessert before taking one myself, as noone else seemed to have thougt about this. Maybe because of that, the older lady was extremely nice the rest of the evening to me.

After the splendid diner, we went outside to the balloon. The all of us helped setting it up, and I was quite amazed by the really small basked the six of us were supposed to go in…Helmut did not join, he was supposed to following us by car. First gas was put in the balloon, than it was made hot…and the balloon started to climb. We all went in the basket…and there we went!!!! What a feeling, to see the earth slowly getting away….people all around had gathered to see us going up, and we were waving to them like were some sort of royal family. Quite funny.

We went slowly through the air, and I was completely overwhelmed by all the new impressions. How quite it is in the air…how great to see all activites on the ground small like scale models…It was quite funny to see, by the way, that all dogs started to bark against our balloon! All of them, without exception…Also, horses run away  and sheeps started to run in circles…And also rabbits behaved like we were a big predator. Well, maybe ancient instincts, when big flying dinosaurs were there after small and tasty mammals…

After a great flight through the air, we slowly went down looking for a field to land. It was not that easy; it turned out corns were in one field, making it too dangerous to land their, and in the next field all kind of animals were there including some donkeys. It meant we needed to get up again in order to avoid to crash in some threes, and than to go down very fast for the next field, hitting the top branches of these trees…The landing was quite spectaculair and our basket fell, which did not please the older man a lot, by the way. It also turned out there were some nervous big cows in the field, but luckily there were no bulls ;-).

It is tradition that the owner of the field get a present from the balloon pilot, but this owner was too annoyed and refused any cooperation / present. We managed to put the balloon away and than had to kneel on the ground, being officially ennobeled to barons and baronesses! First we get some grass on our heads, the grass where we had landed, and than some champaing was thrown over our head while we had to answer the question ‘ who are you?’ with: "I am the baron from Helmond (where our tip had started) till Someren (where we had landed)!". It was a nice end of our balloon trip.

We drove back and the four of us went for a drink to end the day, in some strange bar trying to combine the ancient Egypt with modern lounge-style. It was nice and we also got an official certificate, but we all missed the charming Brabant Beauties who waved us goodbye when our balloon went up heroically :-).

Next time more about my first working day, which was today!

Wow, so nice….just spoke with my good friend Ruth from Malaysia after a long time. We spend more than 1 hour talking, like always we had a lot to share. Ruth I met during my stay in India during AIESECs International Development Congress in 2003, in Jamshedpur, India. Since than we remained good friends and she also was the one to bring me forward to the HIV/AIDS project in Malaysia. I believe it is very special are friendship maintained time and distance so well, making her one of my most special friends.

Today, for the first time since weeks I had a really busy working day. It started with a meeting with my account manager, with whome I discussed my targets of this year. I will be judged on those, and if I will do well I will get a bonus….Afterwards i was busy preparing my interview tomorrow at ministry of Defence, where I might get my first assigment. Than an experienced interim professional dropped by, who will be my coach…so we spend one hour of talking and learning to know each other. And than, I also got a personal training from an idle human resource management employee for tomorrows meeting! How well could I be prepared, hehe….

Yesterday, it was Holland Argentina but before the match I went to play football with some friends. We love it, doing that in the summer….the warm weather should drive us towards Brasilian Samba football impressing the girls, but unfortunately we hardly have the skills for that ;-). After our game we saw Holland draw Argentina…thus being number 2 in the group. But, that is not so bad, some claim they did it on purpose….being number 2 means  Holland will stay in the same, trusted hotel, play on Sunday instead of Saterday, and would avoid Germany in the quarter finals. Instead we would play England, which in our opinion is weaker than Germany by far…

If Holland will win from Portugal, I might go to Germany with some friends to see that match in Gelsenkirchen! Of course not in the stadium but outside on big screens…the atmosphere should be great, allthough I hope the English hoolies after their lads being elimanted by the orange machine…Hehe…Keep on dreaming ;-).

Gonna do the last preparations for my interview tommorrow…

Mmmm, boring days nowadays…As I am still waiting to get on assigment for my work! Of course it sounds good, working only 3 hours a day, and yet being paid fully…But without true work, the days pass by slow and my motivation decreases. Luckily, there are some prospects for assigments: Friday I will have an interview at the ministery of Defence, and the week after at Creamy Creations, the liquor company mentioned earlier in a blog. I hope one of those will lead to my first assigment for Yacht…If not, I might seriously consider to quit. After all, I never expected I would be for 2 months idle while taking that job, and in one way it would show the accountmanager who took me fails in her responsibility of matching me…But let’s see how these interviews go first. I try to prepare myself as good as possible, to make sure they simply will take me! Hehe…

Otherwisely, things are ok. Holland went through to the second round of the World Cup last Friday, by beating Ivory Coast 2-1. They really had to fight for it and were not unlucky, but it is good to see that finally the Dutch can be effective and also defend a lead. Traditionally, Holland plays attractive football without a lot of result and spirit…But nowadays, a trend can be seen where Holland also shows a lot of team spirit and truly fights to get a result. In that way, the under 21 squad won the European Championship earlier this month, while PSV was quite succssfull in the Championsleague…it gives some hope for this tournament.

What else? Weather is rainy here and tonite going to play some football with friends, before the match Argentina-Holland. Otherwisely, learnt to know some Filipino’s here in Holland! It turns out there are quite some in Holland, often working as au-pair in the west of the country. The ones I met so far are really nice not to mention charming :-). It is interesting to learn a little bit more about that country for sure. It must be nice there, maybe I should put it on my list of  ‘ countries to visit’  too….Or, considering its location, combine it with a visit to Indonesia and Malaysia in the future! Well, before that better earn some more money….

Mmm, also got a call from the Bahai community in the Netherlands…My Malaysian friend Naveen had mentioned my interest in that religion when I was in Malaysia, which comes from my general interest in religions…they tell a lot about people and ussually contain a lot of wisdom. Bahai interested me quite, as it seems to reconcile different religions in one…Something fitting closely to my conviction that there is not something like a superior religions, and that in the end most religions have a lot in common. I got invited for a meeting next wednesday…still considering…One way it would be interesting but other way, never I am a big fan of ‘ obliged groups’…Well, let’s see. Surely I should have a look, what is the fun of life when not trying new things…

So far from Holland!

Jop

Yesterday I suddenly saw something funny…I got comments on my last posting! After 14 postings I already thought that would never happen, perhaps because the function does not work or perhaps because my are not that interesting to read, but suddenly there they were, three postings…

It was especially good to read that we have some support for el mechanica orange as our national Dutch football team supposingly is called in South America (meaning ‘ the orange machine, not bad at all) in Malaysia too, from my most talented chess opponent Rubern. Last weekend, finally the Dutch played their first match; and we (when Holland lose it is ‘they’) managed to beat Serbia and Montenegro by 1 to nil. Allthough we all agreed the play was not superb yet, it was great too see that the time spirit was excellent, and that Robben is in a superb form. Considering the fact that teamspirit often was a problem during past tournaments, we Dutch feel we could come far in this tournament now…So does the team itself, as it has put ‘ on the road to gold’  on the players buss, by the way. Our next game will be Friday against Ivory Coast and if we win, we should be through to next round, which is not bad in a group characterised as ‘ the group of death’ on before hand…But of course, Ivory Coast - playing in Orange too by the way-  has some great players, Drogba of Chelsea being the most famous.

Otherwisely, things go well these days. Finally, there are some options for my first assigment of Yacht. The first one will be at a company called Creamy Creations. The name is quite kinky (actually they had to pay a lot to buy the website domain which was quite kinky indeed), but the company is making all kind of liquors for marketing purposes. Another option would a project for the Tax Department. Well, that perhaps would go at expense of my overall popularity but ok, looks nice on my resumé….and the third option perhaps it would be the most funny, that one is at the Ministry of Defence. The funny thing is that a far family member, Mr. Joris Voorhoeve, used to be minister of Defence several years ago. I guess he did quite well, until an incident in Kosovo where a Dutch United Nations team failed to protect the local population during fights in the Balkan war. The poor performance of the Dutch was heavily critisized and ‘ uncle Joris’  reputation was quite harmed. By the way, my father always jokes that ‘ uncle Joris could not learn a profession and thus became minister’ . Traditionally, Dutch like to be sceptic towards politicians…

Anyways, I might be in steps of uncle Joris now, allthough my profession would be mainly administrative. Today I needed to fill out a hughe form of 16 pages, as a security check will be conducted on me being a potential candidate…They will check out if I have not contacts with terroristic organisations, or are some spy of some country planning to invade the Netherlands the coming years.

Well, sounds interesting enough to me…but of course we will have to wait all developments. Options means they might take me…but they also might very well choose another candidate. Let’s see!!

Well, not so much more is there to mention…Needing to clean my room, actually!

Hallo from Holland, where the summer really starting now. In three days the Dutch Team will play its first match against Servie Montengro for the World-Cup. This matches always bring a lot of social activities; friends will gather in houses or pubs and watch the match together while drinking some beers. Victory will result in euphoric, collective, orange-coloured utterances of hapiness as described in a previous posting.

My personal day was less euphoric, I must admit, as I managed to fail second time for my driving test. As such it is no disgrace at all, as these tests here (like all kind of tests where you can get licenses and stuff) are among world-widest hardest, but of course I am quite sick of it. Would it be yesterday, I would have blamed the date (06-06-06 is supposed to be a day of evil, I heard, as six is the number of the devil; I heard some even expected the apocalyps yesterday), but 07-06-06 should be fine I guess.

The last time I started so cautious that my engine turned off right away, so this time I had planned to start more eager. Actually, I was a little bit too eager; I almost drove into a ‘ trolleybuss’ , which are a symbol of Arnhem (only Dutch city where you can find them). Luckily, my examinator did not really pay attention to it, obviously because nerves can be quite there during the start of a test.

Actually he was quite a nice man, but also had a sadistic route in mind. He told me to drive to some country-side roads, the ones where I probaly never would come, and where one needs to go half of the road to let opposing cars pass by. Of course I did that, but he had the annoying talents to tell me to move aside just one micro-second before I was planning to do it. Of course, he mentioned that he had to tell me to move aside all the time after the test…

I was delighted to have to do a ‘ hill-test’  this time, as I practiced a lot on it after my last traumatic experience with it (see previous post). it went perfect and moral increased. It increased even more after some well executed parking and drving away backwards excercise. Than, some things went wrong.

The man lead me into a part of Arnhem I never had seen before. After leaving a small street I missed a ‘ not allowed to enter’  sign, which forced him to interrupt. Major misstake…Followed by another one, when I gave priority to a car where I was supposed to take it while driving on a main road. Of course that would be better tahn the other way around (tkaing it when not having it) and I tried to save the day by joking that one always should let such a charming girl first (she was, I myst say ;-)), but of course this showed that I had missed some roadsigns. Indeed, I was more focused on the technical part at that time…

Well, it would not be that bad if all these friends, collegues anf familymembers asking me if I made it…the reaction ‘ well, there are worse things than not passing your driving exam’  of course is very true but gets annoying after a while ;-). Than, we should remain to be positive…Things went far better than the last exam and as we say in Holland: ‘ drie keer is scheepsrecht’ . Which means something like ‘ third time you will get it’ .

Caio from Holland..

Jop   

This week, my company introduction started; 5 days of training at different locations of Yacht, together with the other ‘newbees’. The name of the trainingweek is, how well-chosen, ‘ Yacht on-boarding’. Part of our training was to be able to explain anyone what Yacht is in the time it takes an elevator to go from the first to the fourth floor, so I guess this will be a good place to practice:

Yacht is a professional company with 3.000 employees and 14 offices throughout all of the Netherlands, and part of Randstad. We are market-leader in the Netherlands in secondment, and also are specialised in interim management, and recruitment & selection. We offer interims in almost any business-administration oriented area, from legal to finance and from ICT to marketing. Our interim professionals are flexbile, result-oriented, organisational sensitive, and have excellent project skills. They will bring your company solutions and a fresh approach!

Alternatively, our coach also told about a guy who used to give his potiental customer a euro while saying ‘ you see this Euro? What Yacht does, is showing your company how to make two euro’s out of it’, but I guess that would be too much for us newbees right away.

The training started in the main office of Randstad, of which Yacht is part, in Diemen, close to Amsterdam. Randstad is a very big organisation, specialised in secondment, which has international aspirations; recently, majorities where taken in secondment companies in China and India. Yacht is more specialised in placing higher educated interims for secondment. After a situation where one of the newbees some months ago had come in short pants and colourful shirt, thereby insulting a passing board-member, it has been made very clear in the letter we all had to look formal! So, I came once more in my nice dark suit.

No less than 110 new people had joined Yacht this month, so it was quite crowded. Yacht expects to grow rapidly the coming years, and therefore is recruiting like a madman. The day started with some very superficial presentations about Yacht, it’s strategy and the importantce of the ‘ brand’ Yacht. After that we were supposed to make some remarks about the competence which fitted best to us. Of course, I ran to ‘ organisational sensitivity’ right way, and put the very deep words ‘ no organisation is the same’. Yet, I think it is essential in this job to realise; like as working in another culture, it is essential to fit in the organisation culture as soon as possible to be fully successful on a project. Sharp observing and flexibility therefore I required.

After a superb lunch (of course with loads of bread, this is Holland!!!), where we had the chance to learn to know some of our new collegues (which all were extremely nice, I must say), we got a presentation from an external, who had been a marketing teacher at university and nowadays wrote some books and advised companies. That was REALLY good fun!! The man, Jos, come from Brabant, and had a typical Brabant slang. Last years some comedians from Brabant really made it in the Netherlands, with there typical way of saying things, and Jos really could be one that!! He spoke for 2 hours without any break, and in such a funny way that all listened full of concentration. Besides of many good jokes, he also had a very clear and good message. Summarised, in business it is not about the product your sell really…It is much more about giving what the custoemr needs. Sounds simply, but in practice many companies forget this…Therefore, it is so important to speak with customers continiously and give them a lot of personal attention, and extra’s they want…that concluded day 1.

The second day was more regio-oriented. We met in Utrecht, Hollands fourth city after Amsterdam, Rotterdam and the Hague, and all new people in this region, 13 in total were there. Because of the lower amount of people, the sessions now of course were much more interactive, while we really could learn to know each other well. As an introduction we spoke about our ‘ passions’, the things that make our eyes twinkle, which in my case obviously is interacting with people from other cultures. After that, the company strategy and the role we played in it was explained in great detail by the local manager.

After another great lunch with loads of breath, the commercial manager told us about the important role we can play for Yacht. We are not just some people being put on secondment, oh nooo….We can help Yacht a lot by telling about it shortly during parties, marriages, that kind of stuff (weblogs were not mentioned by the way). All these small contact can lead into great things…And we will benefit from it too, because of a bonus-system (for instance, for any new employee we recruit, or any new assigments we would get). Well, I must say the people were really proud about Yacht…and managed to let us feel proud too!

It is funny for me to see the simularities with AIESEC, by the way….Like AIESEC, it is al about recruiting suitable candidates on the one hand, and finding organisations to put them on the other hand. And than to match them, as a third step. In that sense, I might have some advantage of course…While AIESEC definitely could learn some from the extremely professional way things go at Yacht (for instance, the way the brand is put forward, the ‘ funneling’  strategy used to get new assigments and candidates (use all interims for that, put a lot of seeds and than harvest…). So, for free advices….;-)

Enyoying a long weekend now because of ‘ Pinkesteren’, a Christian holy day this Monday.