{"id":117715,"date":"2020-09-16T13:53:49","date_gmt":"2020-09-16T11:53:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=117715"},"modified":"2026-02-10T16:35:35","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T15:35:35","slug":"wout-den-hollander-celebrated-50-years-on-the-job-the-main-thing-is-that-im-enjoying-myself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2020\/09\/16\/wout-den-hollander-celebrated-50-years-on-the-job-the-main-thing-is-that-im-enjoying-myself\/","title":{"rendered":"Wout den Hollander celebrated 50 years on the job: \u2018The main thing is that I\u2019m enjoying myself\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every morning, Wout den Hollander cycles to the Woudestein campus, crossing the Van Brienenoord Bridge as he does so. He thinks that in his entire career, he has only been absent from work due to sickness one day every year. \u201cOf course, there was some luck involved in that\u201d, he admits. But the point he is trying to make is that he never hated his work enough to call in sick. He never threw a sickie in those fifty years \u2013 not once.<\/p>\n

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On 1 September, Wout den Hollander celebrated his 50th anniversary in the university\u2019s employ.<\/span><\/p>

\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAmber Leijen<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Wout has worked at the university for exactly fifty years. Although technically, you can\u2019t say he worked at Erasmus University all that time, because that name did not yet exist when he became a mailroom clerk at the Faculty of Medicine at age fifteen.<\/p>\n

How were things done at the time? Well, at age twelve you\u2019d go to a vocational school, and at age thirteen, you\u2019d decide what you wanted to be: a painter, a baker or a carpenter. But who knows that sort of thing when they are that age? By the autumn of 1970, Wout had finished training as a painter. But when his parents asked him if he actually wanted to be a painter, he had to admit that, no, he didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Young Wout<\/h2>

One day he read an advertisement for a job as a mailroom clerk at the Faculty of Medicine, which had been established just four years earlier. Maybe he\u2019d like that? Because he was not yet sixteen, his mother had to accompany him to the job interview, much to young Wout\u2019s chagrin.<\/p>\n

Wout grew up in a working-class family close to the Feijenoord stadium in the Zuid neighbourhood of Rotterdam. His father worked as a shipbuilder at Piet Smit\u2019s shipyard. He knew next to nothing about academia. True, he did know the Dijkzigt Hospital (now called the Erasmus Medical Centre), but other than that, it was all new to him.<\/p>\n

Only the first six floors of the tall building that made up the faculty had been completed at the time, but the building was already being used. \u201cWe took a builders\u2019 hoist to the next floor.\u201d He found it quite exciting as a teenager to go to the professors (one of whom regularly appeared on TV) to get them to sign for the receipt of a letter or parcel.<\/p>\n\n\t

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\n\t\t\u2018My family and I have always led a comfortable life. I don\u2019t need a bigger car\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

Back in those days, many departments focusing on mail and archiving were run by \u2018men who had fought in the East\u2019 and who were spending their final years before retirement as heads of departments. They were colonels and rear admirals \u2013 people like that. Whenever the young Wout said something like \u2018I thought I might\u2026\u2019 to his boss, he\u2019d be told, \u2018There\u2019s no need for you to think. Kindly leave that to us.\u2019 And Wout didn\u2019t particularly mind that.<\/p>\n

Not many people will admit to it these days, but Wout is not afraid to say it: \u201cI\u2019ve never been the ambitious type. The main thing is that I\u2019m enjoying myself, and I always have. My family and I have always led a comfortable life. I don\u2019t need a bigger car. If I were to win the lottery, my life would hardly change.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the basement<\/h2>

After seven years at the mailroom and archiving department of the Faculty of Medicine, which had by now merged with the Netherlands School of Economics and been rechristened Erasmus University in 1973, Wout switched to the Woudestein campus in 1977. To be exact, he started working in the basement of the Board Building (which now houses the Erasmus School of Economics \u2013 eds.), where, until 2018, he performed his duties amidst filing cabinets full of personnel files and minutes of the Executive Board\u2019s meetings.<\/p>\n

Two years ago, following the most recent restructuring, he switched to the P Building. Once again he is working in a basement, where his job is to get rid of the university\u2019s hard-copy archive. He either transfers archival documents to an external party who will store them, or gets them digitised, or draws up \u2018declarations of data destruction\u2019. Those documents that must be preserved in hard copy are passed on to either the National Archive or Rotterdam\u2019s Municipal Archive. \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone else will take my position once I retire\u201d, Den Hollander says, resigned to this idea.<\/p>\n

He is not likely to lose sleep over it, because \u2018only about 10 percent of the stuff held in archives is actually genuinely worth preserving\u2019. But what is strange to him is how fast those fifty years have gone by, and how close the ending is drawing. In four months\u2019 time he will be allowed to retire.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAmber Leijen<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Last few years have been tough<\/h2>

Has he been looking forward to that day? Not necessarily, although he is looking forward to being able to devote more time to his hobby (collecting music), and obviously to his three grandchildren, as well.<\/p>\n

He never thought he\u2019d actually spend the full fifty years in the university\u2019s employ. However, all the early-retirement schemes he was counting on \u2018were cancelled just when it was about to be my turn\u2019. As far as that is concerned, he was unlucky until last year, when the retirement age of 67 was reduced to 66 years and four months. He thinks it\u2019s a pity that the university did not allow him to retire early after completing his fifty years in the university\u2019s employ, but he is not going to whinge about it.<\/p>\n

He will admit that the last few years have been tough. There was yet another restructuring, and several of his long-time colleagues left for various reasons, and the way in which people interact with each other at the university has changed.<\/p>\n

\u2018Times have changed\u2019<\/h2>

\u201cI used to know practically everyone. I knew the names of the people who served on the Executive Board, and we interacted more with each other. Now you need to ask questions by e-mail, and sometimes you have to wait several days before receiving a reply.\u201d Sometimes he misses the good old days when people had coffee together whenever someone was celebrating a birthday, and when files were closed and fridges opened at 4pm on Fridays, for the weekly Friday afternoon drinks. Many people working at the Board Building would then show up to discuss life, the universe and everything. For instance, a former secretary of the Executive Board was in the habit of showing up at precisely that time.<\/p>\n

Wout played on the university\u2019s football team for years and was also involved in the organisation of the O&W sports tournament (which ceased to be organised in 2004), where all the Dutch universities and the Ministry of Education would compete against each other to win the trophy. \u201cThings were a little more congenial, a little more engaged then\u201d, he says, without wishing to sound like he is complaining. \u201cTimes have changed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greatest years<\/h2>

The greatest years of his fifty-year career were when Wout was working with Marco, an intellectually disabled man he was asked to supervise. \u201cI was mostly working on my own and was doing a lot of manual work, and I\u2019m a quiet kind of person, so I guess that\u2019s probably why they asked me\u201d, he now says about that.<\/p>\n

He supervised Marco in his duties for about thirteen or fourteen years. It was more than just telling him what small jobs to perform. \u201cHe had incredibly thick glasses and was barely able to see anything when he was typing. So we took him to an optometrist, one of whose employees was the daughter of one my colleagues, and they tested him and gave him contacts. After that, he was 50 per cent better able to read things, and as a result, his performance improved considerably! Those were the kind of things we did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marco suddenly passed away over twelve years ago. A week after his death, Wout was asked whether he wanted to supervise a new intellectually disabled employee. He is still angry that they asked him so soon. He was quite put off by the whole thing.<\/p>\n

Erasmus wearing a travelling cap<\/h2>

Due to the coronavirus crisis, Wout\u2019s fifty-year anniversary celebration was a relatively small affair. \u201cIn the morning we had cake and coffee, and in the afternoon my supervisors addressed me outside, near the Erasmus statue, in the presence of my wife and colleagues. I was awarded the statuette of Erasmus wearing a travelling cap. I believe that\u2019s kind of a big deal. Then we had another cup of coffee, and then I resumed work, as usual.\u201d<\/p>\n

That evening, after crossing the bridge on his way back home in IJsselmonde, he went to a restaurant with his wife and children. Because working for the same employer for fifty years may not be a huge achievement, but it is<\/em> special.<\/p>\n\n\t

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De redactie<\/h2>\n\t\t\n\t\t
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