The country has always had the sayings “Doe maar gewoon, dan doe je al gek genoeg” en “wie met zijn kop boven het maaiveld uitsteekt, wordt genadeloos afgehakt”.
In the Netherlands wanting to excel was not done. There’s so much joy in excelling in something. In order to fit in in the Netherlands, you had to be average and strive to be only average, however. You had to do exactly what everyone else did and at the same age/time.
- You weren’t supposed to go to university later in life, for example.
- You weren’t supposed to want to be in the lab on a Saturday or Sunday.
- You are not supposed to have a flexible convenient source of income like doing deliveries for Uber Eats when it suits you – for example working around the schedule of your children – or any of the other chains that wanted to offer this. No, you must be in the 9-to-5 treadmill that puts money into a company’s pockets or put up with the abuse and human rights erosion that come with basic social security benefits nowadays (if you can access them, that is).
- If you are over 45, you are not welcome in jobs and areas that are for people of all ages in other countries but only for younger people (preferably aged 18 to 21 because they are cheaper) in the Netherlands. You’re still required to enter your DOB in most job applications in the Netherlands, even though it’s against the law. (Did you know that a Dutch leftwing party that I once liked recently came up with the horrifying idea of voluntary euthanasia for the over-75s?)
Just like many others, I never fitted in here. I and many others, we found America to be the country where we were allowed to thrive and lead joyful lives.
So the Dutch police have a communication system that sucks. But you’re not allowed to say that, are you? You’re supposed to put up with the mediocrity that is now definitely sliding into the abyss. It’s endangering lives.
(Confusingly, the system bears the name of a supermarket chain, but I don’t think that these supermarkets still exist: C2000.)
Is it a symptom or an isolated occurrence? I fear that it’s the former.
I wasn’t supposed to say out loud that many of the country’s civil servants currently communicate as follows “I want to suck my thumb. Because I like sucking my thumb.” Citizens who receive these communications are not surprisingly often baffled. I later read a Dutch newspaper article from which I gather that this how Gen Z communicates. But why does this only appear to be the case in the Netherlands? Because it’s cool to be mediocre here and because wanting to excel and wanting to make things better are increasingly frowned upon, apparently.
“Shut up, or else.” I’m not putting up with it.
The Dutch civil servant apparatus is huge. And very expensive because it’s so dysfunctional. Something similar goes for the medical/care apparatus in the Netherlands.
If medical care in the UK is free (albeit in a bit of a pickle because of the Tories’ underfunding) and taxes are much lower, then how come medical care in the Netherlands requires a system of obligatory health insurance premiums that are as high as premiums for private insurance in the UK and the medical and care systems in the Netherlands reportedly are on the verge of collapse? In addition, the Dutch care system is reportedly riddled with crime. According to the Dutch police, this includes organised crime, not just petty theft.
I too am now caught up in the Dutch bonkers tax credits system. I now owe the Dutch state and it hasn’t explained to me how it came up with the amount. Toeslagen. Just like many others in this country, I want nothing further to do with them. This is not because I don’t know how to go online and apply for them. It’s because these toeslagen have a habit of turning around and biting your behind. It appears to be much better to be able to support yourself and not rely on any of the state’s tax credits no matter what. You can really get mangled in this system because you tend to become so dependent on those tax credits once you apply for them and start receiving them. If you get them, put them in a savings account. Do not touch them. Do not use them. But can you afford to do that? (Yes, I am exaggerating a little now. Because I am really angry with the kind of crap that I have been getting. It’s a long story.)
