Tilting at Windmills

So…we’ve been in the Netherlands for more than five months now.  We’re almost halfway through our planned stay.  It seems like a good time to discuss some of the things we’ve learned.  FYI - this post is a mishmash of unrelated thoughts.

The result of the election was fairly interesting here.  This is how one Dutch person put it, “The person who wins the Dutch Prime Minister role has almost no influence on my life.  The person who wins the US presidency has a big influence on my life.  I would gladly trade my ability to vote in the Dutch elections to be able to vote in the US presidential elections.”  Lots of people feel this way.  It is interesting to think about these people who feel like the US election has a big impact on them and yet they aren’t allowed to participate in it.

This article is fairly interesting and accurate about the “microstressors” that are part of living in the US that are not part of living in Europe.  One thing we realized recently - while it is nice to not depend on cars as much, it isn’t about this being a bike culture.  It’s much more about variety.  A lot of times we bike somewhere.  A lot of times we take the train,  Sometimes we drive.  It’s just nice to have it not be driving (or taking a bike or taking the train) every time. For those curious, we seem to average driving about once a week.

The biggest struggle Mike and I have had is trying to work with startups here.  We’ve experienced a trend that is a bit confusing to us.  In four separate cases we have been told “We decided to not work with you because we’d prefer to work with someone more junior.”  In every case we said we’d take the same salary as the more junior person.   Also - it isn’t the case that they are worried they would hire us and then we’d get another job where we are more qualified.  One of the jobs Mike applied for was a 6 week gig and one I applied for was a 6 month interim position to fill in for someone on maternity leave.  The other two were just to advise startups.  We think “we decided to go with someone more junior” would be a very strange response in Silicon Valley or the US. As it stands, we work with a single Dutch startup, and five others in surrounding countries. We’ve heard from a few people, “This is a Dutch thing… and don’t get me started on the French!”

Another thing that is strange here is the way emergency medical care works.  When you call your doctor, one of the options is “If this is an emergency press 4” where in the US my doctor’s message said “If this is an emergency, hang up and dial 911”.  Apparently, unless you are unconscious and can’t tell someone who your doctor is, ALL of your medical decisions go through your general practitioner.  They have someone on call 24/7 to triage every issue that might come up.  

We heard a story about someone who was an hour’s drive from home.  He had broken his ankle.  He called his doctor.  They arranged for him to go to the hospital near his house.  He told them he couldn’t drive to that hospital, he needed to go to a hospital near where he was.  Apparently it took four phone calls to arrange for him to go to a hospital that was not near his house.

Recently I had another experience that reminded us of our first few weeks in the Netherlands.  Because of the way emergency medicine works here, I went to register Alex and I with the doctor (Mike had already registered himself).  It was a matter of going to the doctor’s office (you can’t do it online or over the phone) and filling out a paper form.  The form had about 10 fields on it.  We did that Thursday morning.  I needed to see the doctor for something minor, but important, so I called Friday morning to try to get an appointment.  They said “You can’t have an appointment.  You have to wait five business days to get registered in our system.”  I explained what was going on and they said “We will try to get you registered today.  Call back Monday.”  So…I called back on Monday.  When I mentioned I wasn’t sure if I was registered or not, they said it takes a week, so I couldn’t have an appointment.  They seemed shocked that I had actually called back.  The good news is that I was eventually able to get an appointment.

It just seemed strange that 1) we weren’t able to register online and 2) that it would take so long to enter 10 fields from a paper into a computer.  Especially since when we went to register, the receptionist (I'm guessing this is the person who enters our information into the computer) did not seem busy at all.  It just seems like there is a lack of urgency here compared to the US.

Having said this, see the paragraph above about the “microstressors” in the US that aren’t here.  Maybe this lack of urgency is what removes the microstressors?

As engineers, Mike and I look at the issue of “it takes 5 days to make this happen” from a logistical standpoint.  If it always takes 5 days for something to happen, it means that you are always 5 days behind.  If you could magically catch up on those 5 days, then no one would have to wait the 5 days.  It’s possible there is something we are missing with this.  We’ll try to ask someone and see how the Dutch view it.

Also - they don’t do many vaccinations here.  Once a year, every doctor goes through their list of patients and decides who should get a flu shot and who should get a COVID vaccine.  It is usually only people over 60 or who are immunocompromised.  Once the doctor decides who should have the vaccine, they call you and you can go get it.  There is no concept of dropping by CVS and getting a flu shot.  They do encourage kids to get the usual vaccinations (they’ve sent several letters about Alex getting vaccinated - luckily they do it at his school, so it will be easy to get him caught up except for flu and COVID), but not for adults.

I finally had an experience that seemed like the “Dutch bluntness” that everyone talks about.  I was at a party and talking to a Dutch woman I had just met.  The party was about an hour drive from our house.  She asked where I lived and when I told her she said “That is the notpretty part of the Netherlands.  Where I live is the pretty part.  And Amsterdam is the pretty part.  But where you live is the not pretty part.”  It was good to experience what I had heard so much about.  If you are interested, a Dutch friend sent me this tiktok (talks about sex, so the audio is a little NSFW) which gives an explanation of how the Dutch are very blunt. 

Dutch traffic lights are some of the most complicated machines on Earth. They control the flow of cars, buses, bikers and walkers individually. You learn very quickly living here that if you decide to walk on a green light for anything other than walkers, there’s a good chance you will be hit by something with wheels. As such, even when there’s no traffic, it’s rare to see bikers or walkers crossing an intersection without their specific part of the signal being green. Our assumption is that this only works because Dutch culture promotes rule following.  We’re still struggling to understand why bikes and walkers go at different times.  It seems like if they are going in the same direction they should be able to both go at the same time.  BTW - bikes and walkers have different “lanes”, so they wouldn’t get in each other’s way.

Construction workers are all exceptionally specialized here.  We had to have our boiler replaced.  This happened in three separate appointments.  First, the boiler people came and tore a hole in the ceiling to get the boiler into the attic.  When they were done we had to schedule a drywall company to come replace the drywall.  Of course, that was a month later.  Replacing a 3ft x 4ft piece of drywall took two people 9 hours.  We aren’t sure why.  Then we had to schedule a painting company to come paint the drywall.  Which, of course, couldn’t happen for another month.  In the US, the HVAC people have workers who can replace drywall, paint, tidy, and take care of everything.  The replacing of a boiler might have taken one and half days in the US, not three full days three months apart with three different teams.