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A Simple Dutch Cure for Stress

nautil.us

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Re: A Simple Dutch Cure for Stress

#41

Post by newswasboring »

stevesimmons wrote: post #9

Nonsense! The actual Dutch cure for stress is to claim you have "burnout" (they use the English word), and then take 6 months off work while being paid 80% of your salary. Honestly, after working for 6 years in the Netherlands, I don't know of another country that has such good working conditions [1], while having so many people in low stress professional jobs taking time off for burnout. There seems zero social or p…

I work in Netherlands since the beginning of this year. Previous to this I worked in one of the biggest south east Asian companies. The culture shock was real. But over the year I realized how they get the same amount of work done as my previous colleagues. Another argument for "time is bullshit measure for knowledge industry". And from what I understand the burnout argument is valid and actually helps a team. I'm in a industry where small mistakes can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. I would rather someone stop working rather than mess other people's work up.

Re: A Simple Dutch Cure for Stress

#42

Post by the-dude »

stevesimmons wrote: post #9

Nonsense! The actual Dutch cure for stress is to claim you have "burnout" (they use the English word), and then take 6 months off work while being paid 80% of your salary. Honestly, after working for 6 years in the Netherlands, I don't know of another country that has such good working conditions [1], while having so many people in low stress professional jobs taking time off for burnout. There seems zero social or p…

And that is why you had a very nice tax relief.

Re: A Simple Dutch Cure for Stress

#43

Post by Aeolun »

bouk wrote: post #26

This is another one in a series of articles (like https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/29/smarter-living/the-case-f... ) about Americans finding out that there's a word for something in Dutch and making a big deal out of it. It's just so hilarious to me as someone from The Netherlands. Not like we're niksen and uitwaaien every day. The Dutch version of The Onion made fun of it too: https://speld.nl/2019/01/25/kwakkelen-th…

I concur. We may do it potentially every day, but nobody ‘sets out’ to do that. They set oit for a walk, and a side effect of that is ‘uitwaaien’.

It’s definitely not “a popular pastime”...

Re: A Simple Dutch Cure for Stress

#44

Post by Fnoord »

jypepin wrote: post #18
stevesimmons wrote: post #9

Nonsense! The actual Dutch cure for stress is to claim you have "burnout" (they use the English word), and then take 6 months off work while being paid 80% of your salary. Honestly, after working for 6 years in the Netherlands, I don't know of another country that has such good working conditions [1], while having so many people in low stress professional jobs taking time off for burnout. There seems zero social or p…

This. I worked in the NL for 3 years and this was the hardest thing to accept / adapt to when I arrived. The Dutch have a completely different approach to work, which to us American, could seem like they just don't care. I still remember dealing with a real estate agent (known to usually be hustling in US) who wouldn't work weekends or after hours to have us visit a house we wanted to buy. Nonsense! :) And I also kno…

> And I also know a lot of people who had burnouts - while working in conditions that seemed... very good and not stressful.

Yeah, it is always other people who seem to have great working conditions. It is strange that other people even get stress.

The book "Bullshit Jobs" sings a different narrative, and these are seemingly everywhere. Real estate agent, is one of these (FIRE sector).

Re: A Simple Dutch Cure for Stress

#45

Post by [deleted] »

stevesimmons wrote: post #9

Nonsense! The actual Dutch cure for stress is to claim you have "burnout" (they use the English word), and then take 6 months off work while being paid 80% of your salary. Honestly, after working for 6 years in the Netherlands, I don't know of another country that has such good working conditions [1], while having so many people in low stress professional jobs taking time off for burnout. There seems zero social or p…

[deleted]

Re: A Simple Dutch Cure for Stress

#46

Post by ta091119 »

stevesimmons wrote: post #9

Nonsense! The actual Dutch cure for stress is to claim you have "burnout" (they use the English word), and then take 6 months off work while being paid 80% of your salary. Honestly, after working for 6 years in the Netherlands, I don't know of another country that has such good working conditions [1], while having so many people in low stress professional jobs taking time off for burnout. There seems zero social or p…

Yep. I'm an expat in the Netherlands and I've never seen a more relaxed working environment. It's great, and I have great respect for the Dutch for how they look after their well being, the beauty of their cities and their nature.

On the other hand, I have a feeling that most of the jobs here are proper bullshit jobs: from office jobs, where you'll find deluges of junior designers and copywriters and customer journey experts; to cafes, where 4 waiters are hardly doing the work of one; to supermarkets where there seem to be constantly more employees moving stuff around than customers.

Obviously there is a lot of money in the country. I wonder what will happen in case of a downturn: I have a feeling that if the money stops flowing, a lot of people will discover that their jobs weren't necessary at all.

Re: A Simple Dutch Cure for Stress

#47

Post by Scarblac »

sailfast wrote: post #23
mettamage wrote: post #10

If you know the term "uitwaaien" I'd say this rings pretty much true: "Meyer has lived in the Netherlands for more than 20 years and has come to specialize in the language, despite being a non-native speaker." In all fairness, I haven't heard or used the word for a couple of years now, so not sure to what extent this is true: "She says uitwaaien is a popular activity where she lives—one believed to have important psy…

Yeah this is not something that I’ve ever heard referenced but I’m not totally fluent. Also I doubt that the cold and wind part of uitwaaien as described by this non-native speaker is relevant vs. the fact that NL is just often cold and windy and that’s the only way you can get outside? :) I’m sure that the Dutch would do this on a sunny day as well if they could find more of them! This article was junk, but yes Tota…

I mean, it is true that a walk out in the wind (say on a beach or wide open nature) can be enjoyable, and you feel refreshed when you go inside again afterwards.

And we do sometimes set out to go for a walk in windy conditions -- because the alternative is to stay inside during all of autumn.

I just don't believe that's an especially Dutch thing.

Re: A Simple Dutch Cure for Stress

#48

Post by Fnoord »

stevesimmons wrote: post #9

Nonsense! The actual Dutch cure for stress is to claim you have "burnout" (they use the English word), and then take 6 months off work while being paid 80% of your salary. Honestly, after working for 6 years in the Netherlands, I don't know of another country that has such good working conditions [1], while having so many people in low stress professional jobs taking time off for burnout. There seems zero social or p…

> Nonsense! The actual Dutch cure for stress is to claim you have "burnout" (they use the English word), and then take 6 months off work while being paid 80% of your salary.

Which does not work very well if you don't earn much. Expats who come to The Netherlands generally earn a lot. If you earn a lot, you'll easier work hard. It is much easier, as your downtime (leisure time) involves less stress.

The whole system where you could work a while and then go "uitkering trekken" got on retour after it was indeed abused in the 70s/80s. It is extremely tricky to have a fair system without false positives and false negatives. Slowly but surely, the right wing governments have indeed drawn your narrative which hurt those who are in need.

> There seems zero social or professional stigma about it.

As my (Dutch) partner had a burnout, and I witnessed this first-hand, this statement quite frankly angers me. There absolutely is social stigma and professional stigma around burnout. Nobody, in fact, understood her. They all thought she "had to man up", including her best friends, her mother, her sister, etc.

You know what causes stress? Emotional overload from work. Working in the night instead of the day. Being bullied. Being poor (including inkomensnivellering).

The thing is, that in your country, when people fail they are just regarded as weak or "not trying hard enough" (queue American Dream). No empathy, whatsoever. Here it is called for what it is: burnout.

Re: A Simple Dutch Cure for Stress

#49

Post by ianai »

openstep wrote: post #25
stevesimmons wrote: post #9

Nonsense! The actual Dutch cure for stress is to claim you have "burnout" (they use the English word), and then take 6 months off work while being paid 80% of your salary. Honestly, after working for 6 years in the Netherlands, I don't know of another country that has such good working conditions [1], while having so many people in low stress professional jobs taking time off for burnout. There seems zero social or p…

American here living in the Netherlands for the past seven years. The one thing I've noticed about folks taking these burnout sessions is that some absolutely take advantage of the system. Multiple people have told me firsthand that they're on burnout just because they want to be. Not because they're burned out. It goes so far that they lie during the mandatory therapy session provided by their employer in order to s…

A reason I support things like that is, in part, the same reason Congress sanctioned OT above 40 hours of work. It incentivizes hiring more people.

Re: A Simple Dutch Cure for Stress

#50

Post by Udik »

rnentjes wrote: post #28
stevesimmons wrote: post #9

Nonsense! The actual Dutch cure for stress is to claim you have "burnout" (they use the English word), and then take 6 months off work while being paid 80% of your salary. Honestly, after working for 6 years in the Netherlands, I don't know of another country that has such good working conditions [1], while having so many people in low stress professional jobs taking time off for burnout. There seems zero social or p…

This must mean nothing gets done right? Guess again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)... Netherlands is number 5.

That's the wrong measure, though: it's probable that productivity lowers with each further working hour, but you do still produce something. Americans still produce 10% more per hour and work 25% more hours.
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