Life, the universe and everything - Technical Ambitions

Dedication
To Claude William Weber, my 4 and a half year
old Dutch son. He suggested that I write books to
help other people understand various subjects.
Without his suggestion I most likely would
not have started writing any books.

To my wife Thea who supports me fully
through every mission I choose to embark on.
On this particular mission she was less
receptive as she enjoyed most of her
stay there.

To those individuals in Europe who made
our stay there less painful. To those
who became family to us in order to
lighten our load. Laurence, Patricia, Floor,
Aram, Pauline, our neighbours,Jeroen,
Marnix Jan, Peter, Richard and the
hundreds of other South Africans who we
could go to when things got too much for us.
These people really pulled us through
our European experience.

To God who allowed us to go to Europe to
see what it was really all about. Without it
we would still be the same people we were six
years ago when we left SA. Through this all we
saw good as well. So although this book
has a really negative title, we as a family
did grow. We are blessed with a lovely young
son now, which we would not have had
were it not for this experience.

Living in Europe sucks!

Cover design by
John K Weber

First published 2003
Viable Solution Books – VSB

Copyright, John K Weber, 2003

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or means – graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or information retrieval systems – without prior permission in writing from Viable Solution Books.




Introduction
Why would any person in their right mind, write a book with such a negative title?

Well there are a few reasons and one of them is the fact that I have seen so many people in South Africa, now that I am back from Europe that will give their eye teeth to go and live in Europe, Australia, USA and any other country other than South Africa.

This troubles me deeply as I have been there, done that, got the matching cap and T-shirt as well as all the emotional scars that go with it. I think that people don’t fully realise the implications and ramifications of leaving their home town or country where they were born in.
I hope that it will not deter you in doing what you feel you have to do in life however, I do hope that you will think a bit further than what the day is long before making a rash decision and going to live elsewhere in the world.

I hope that you enjoy reading this book as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

John K Weber



About the author
John K Weber has been a programmer for around 20 years and has learned the easy way, through reading countless books on various subjects, mostly in his spare time. Due to his intense passion learning so many things in life, he got to a stage where what he knew, was able to take him places.

Also due to his intense desire to learn new things, get to know new people, he thought it would be bliss to go to a new country and learn the ways and customs of others not of his culture. This proved correct to a certain degree however, nothing is ever as easy in practice as it is in theory.

Now he has come back from Europe a changed person after living there for only 5 years. What does one attribute these changes to? In this book he will tell you what he thinks contributed to his changed life.

He is two meters tall and felt quite at home in the Netherlands. This was unfortunately the only aspect which left him feeling comfortable. The rest, as described in this book is his intense journey through an uneasy world where everything that he knows is not enough. His whole character is put to the test and in the end starts changing due to outside influences which he can’t control.



Prologue
In writing this book, I find myself between a rock and a hard place. The first draft of the book contained the title, EUROPE SUCKS! The only problem with the title as it was is that apart from being really negative, there were times whilst we were living in Europe when we had immense fun.

So along with the criticism I got from all the people, friends and family that have actually been to Europe for a holiday and enjoyed it immensely and the notion that it would be really unfair to say that Europe sucks entirely, I decided to change the title to what it is now. Living in Europe sucks!

Now being a realist I am sure there are a gazillion other citizens out there who differ with my point of view however I have decided that this title stays. Period. So although I have had good as well as bad periods whilst living overseas, due to the majority of the experiences being of such a nature that I had to take them with my pride in my pocket, the title still means a lot to me.

My wife hated the idea of moving back to South Africa due to everything running so smoothly and being so certain over there versus everything in South Africa being so uncertain. Well unfortunately she was forced in the end to come home with me as she was not allowed to stay without me there, as our conditions for staying in Holland, were of such a nature that she would not be allowed to stay there on her own.
That being said, I also mentioned in my dedication in the beginning of this book that she supports me and my whimsical decisions fully. Even though she does not always approve of what I do, she has supported me so far. So she supported my decision and moved back home, with me. For this I am truly thankful as she adds a something meaningful to my life which I have learnt to value and respect.

Moving onto another subject, I know that the Dutch people hate it when ignorant people refer to their country as Holland. It is not Holland. It is the Netherlands and it consists out of North and South Holland with Hollanders and not Netherlanders inhabiting the country. As far as my small mind remembers, when I was at school, I learnt about Holland, not the Netherlands, Holland. Anyway this did not deter me from going there and finding out for myself. I can promise you that what I learnt at school could never ever have prepared me for what I was about to experience.

As I mentioned there were a few places and people which I distinctly recall did not suck. I would like to make mention of these people, as I would hate them to think that this book was written because of them. It is a fact though, that, were it not for these good people, this book would not have been written by myself. It was these people that made me survive the tough and lonely times which I am about to describe to you. Without them, we as a family would never have been able to survive. So in a way this book is dedicated to the people of Europe that did not suck!
Who is John?
I am a two meter tall male. Not one day goes by without someone making an extremely funny comment about my length which really lifts me out of the doldrums and lightens up my life. Yeah right. This is maybe the only redeeming factor which Holland had going for it (and ADSL). Not once did anyone make a remark or comment on it. In actual fact for the first time in my life I thought nobody really cared.

This was not the reason I chose to accept the unreal offer that came our way but in hindsight, maybe the only factor that gave me the feeling that I had moved on to a better place and not sacrificed my entire lifestyle for nothing.

The reason I am elaborating a bit on the uneasy subject of being tall, is that this built in defect as others seem to see it, is probably the reason I am who I am today. Since high school I have always been the tallest person in the group. My one brother now is taller than myself and I am sure he has the same or maybe even stronger reactions when people see him as he is quite a bit taller than me.

I read a letter the other day about some really tall girl that had just got tired of being the brunt of every ones jokes that she wrote a letter to all the short people out there. It may have been a joke as it was emailed to me along with the other hundred or so jokes I receive from all my well doing friends and colleagues. They know me as someone who can appreciate a joke. In actual fact, in most of the cases it will be me who will provide them with a good laugh when the conversation gets stiff.

Anyway, I digress. This person had her character owing to the fact that she was so tall. So therefore I know that were I a shorter version of myself, I would have been an entirely different person. In many ways I am glad that I am who I am as it has given me the opportunity to rise up above the rest and actually stand out.

I am always ready with some witty comment just in case some one actually manages to make a remark about my length which I have not heard before. This seldom happens as around the world the same remarks actually keep resurfacing as though they have been so carefully selected and have stood the test of time. I always welcome a new comment as it shows that the person actually can think for themselves and not just regurgitate what others regurgitate.

Anyway, it may sound as though I am bitter about my disposition. I am not. Since school days I have actually become quite happy with the way I am built. School is really a very bad place for most kids. Only the really average kids manage to get through it without some sort of emotional scars. Dare to stand out or be different in any way and you run the risk of being thrown to the wolves and being eaten alive. This is what it seemed like at the time anyway.

I wonder why it is that people won’t accept someone at face value and not judge them by their outer appearances before actually getting to know them. Even I tend to judge people on their outer appearances even though I know what emotional damage you can cause to someone by doing this. I do try however to be cordial and not too judgmental to anybody I meet even though most of them are about half my size. At least I have learned to conceal my surprise at the shortness of some people.

Due to the fact that I hated school with such a passion I decided to teach myself what ever I could without having to actually interface with people. I managed quite well actually but there were still some parts of my life in which I had to interact with individuals or groups. This was unavoidable and I dreaded each situation anew.

Having always had an affinity to electronic devices which did not argue, talk back or belittle me in any way, I got quite fond of the humble computer. As a kid I pottered away like a mad man and virtually destroyed any mechanical device in my search of knowledge. I had to know how everything worked and this left a wake of destruction behind and of course many unsatisfied owners of broken electronic or mechanical goods.

It was only on my sixteenth birthday that I finally realised that I could put things back together and that I could do it in such a way that they actually worked again. This led me to believe that I could achieve anything. I had stumbled on to a power which also contributed to the type of person I am today. I feel that there is nothing I can’t do as long as I am willing to try. So far I have not been wrong in this belief.
In a way the past actually dictates what your future is going to be unless something happens which drastically alters your way of thinking or you decide to make a conscious effort to change the way you are living your life.

Together with this idea that I could do anything I set about teaching myself how to program and work with computers and even went as far as building my own computers. This was all in a days work for me and I took everything in my stride.

If I did not know something I would get a good book and sit down and finish it in a few hours time and take the knowledge imparted to me by the author, I would feel and actually become a stronger person with new found knowledge and it is extremely difficult to stop someone from doing anything if they totally are convinced that they can do it. So my attitude took me places.

This attitude of being able to do it all must not be confused with the attitude of thinking that you know it all and that you are invincible. This could lead to trouble. Just know that you can do things and you will find that they are actually quite easy to do, a step at a time.

If man could make it I could also make it as I am of the same species. It would of course take some time getting hold of the same information than the man who first made it had. It is all very easy with books, provided that you can read of course. Apparently as a kid I struggled to read, I finally managed to get it right and my life started.

Having studied on my own for a long time, I found it extremely difficult to land a job in the IT world. Without diplomas or certificates it was almost impossible to get a job. When you are young, people do not comprehend that even though you are young you may have experience. They assume that it only comes with age. Of course I will not dare to differ in total with them but it is possible that a young person can do a job without having papers and degrees.

So after having many jobs ranging from builder, air conditioning technician, handy man, foreman and a host of other jobs, I finally managed to land the big one. Actually at that stage I was quite cocky as well and I actually felt quite assured that the company hiring me had caught the big one.

It was a fantastic time in my life. For the first time I was being treated as an equal in a group of people who actually had the necessary papers and degrees but did not ram it down my throat and make me feel bad for not having papers of my own? They accepted me as I was and watched as I made a difference with mainly my attitude and my willingness to learn.

Having had the disadvantages as pointed out in the last few paragraphs, one could imagine that I was not always the easiest of people to work with or put up with. I was constantly on my guard and extremely sensitive to any discussions about degrees etc. I immediately felt that it was a direct referral to me not having any. However we managed to get along really nicely, even for a number of years before the unthinkable happened.

So, now that you have a bit more information about me and my life, it is probably a good time to start the real story.


How it all started
A friend of mine was offered a job in the Netherlands and he was actually considering taking the job. I wondered what it would be like to actually work in another country and just left it at that. As it turns out he did not take up the offer immediately and handed the chance to me. I took it with my usual reservations and decided to try it out.

I went for the interviews and thought that due to my lack of sufficient documentation as to my career choice that I would never get the job. Was I in for a major surprise though? It was only a matter of a day or two and the company that was hiring, let me know that I had the position if I wanted it.

How on earth could this happen to a guy in my position I wondered? It sounds too good to be true. Where is the catch? As in most cases when something seems too good to be true, be careful because it probably is. Not heeding my own good advice though and seeing it as a wonderful adventure and chance to go see the world.

I took my wife for an interview with them as you know how sober woman are when making decisions. She wanted to know everything, and after they had managed to convince her that everything from the bed linen to crockery was arranged and waiting for us, we both snapped at the opportunity to go see the new world.

We started packing up our lives and settling everything that needed to be settled. It was actually amazing how easy it all went. It all had a lot to do with the fact that we were extremely excited about our new life that had been thrown our way. Upon reflection it was not that easy but it had to be done and we were not taking no for an answer. This sort of eases the way a lot when two people have made one decision to do something.

Well in a jiffy we had our lives neatly wrapped up here in SA and we were about to head towards uncharted territory. This really felt like the case as we could not even find any decent books that could tell you about life in Holland. The only books we could find were the wonderful brochures and literature which tells you how to be a good tourist in a foreign environment. This did not help us in any way and our adventure therefore was all the more fulfilling as we were not even forewarned of anything.

The big task of saying goodbye to the family members started. They of course in their turn really excited that we were able to get this deal of a lifetime. Imagine going to have a major holiday and somebody else was going to pay for it. My wife and I had of course also thought that this would be the case.

Having never been outside of South African borders before of course also did not help us in any way. We did not know what to expect as neither of us had traveled much before and if we had it had been within our own country and never to another country let alone another continent.

Each and every person that was recruited by this firm to go live and work in Holland had the same misgivings about why they of all people had been lucky enough to be chosen for this fantastic working sort of holiday. It was more than apparent once we were there that there was not much effort put into the selection criteria of the foreign staff.

The South Africans were known by all as people who could do virtually anything if they set their minds to it. On the other hand the fact that each person was wondering why they should have been selected was also due to a certain sort of humbleness or maybe even modesty. This was also one of our major problems within the Dutch communities, modesty does not seem to appear in their vocabulary.

Within the year a few hundred people were recruited to go the flat side of Europe and to work for the Dutchies, each one in their turn not knowing what to expect but having their fears allayed by the more than enthusiastic recruitment staff. It was done so professionally in my mind that no one really bothered to question it all. Also there was the fact of it being seen as your one big opportunity to see the world at some company’s expense.

We were told that everything would be prepared for us when we arrived in the Netherlands and that we would have this magnificent house in Hoevelaken. Well it turns out that nearly all the other people had been told the same story and it actually ended up in a number of people sharing this one house in Hoevelaken.

In retrospect I still feel a bit of an idiot that I actually fell for the whole deal. I should have been more sober in my thoughts and actions and maybe challenged it all a bit more thoroughly. I know that I would do it all over now. I know for a fact though that my experience in Holland has much to do with the fact that I would do things differently now.

After having neatly sorted out our lives in SA, it was time to go and start our new lives. We said our goodbyes and set out on our adventure which would turn out to be half a nightmare but one full adventure.

I remember sitting at the airport in Cape Town and having a last round of drinks with all our friends. They all insanely jealous and we convinced of the fact that we had hit the jackpot. As my wife and I set out to the plane I remember looking back and thinking that it may be the last time we ever saw SA. I had never been anywhere far on an airplane and I was still not entirely convinced that they could really fly that far without a hitch.

Once on the plane my wife and I sat looking at each other grinning from ear to ear. We were finally starting our much anticipated adventure. It had been exactly two months since our recruitment and it was at last time to leave SA. What a relief that everything had worked out so grandly for us. The only item we had kept was our apartment. This was the one thing we had hoped to keep and it had also worked out that way. We would pay it off from Holland with my massive salary. The rest of the goods had found homes so fast that it looked as though we had been robbed by a team of thieves in one foul swoop. It is amazing how much junk one also tends to gather in a short space of time.

The engines started and so did our journey into the unknown. It was less than one hour before we were rudely broken into the Dutch way of doing things. We had been placed on an airline that had Dutch staff and they were obviously quite practised in the art of being Dutch. It was not long before I had been reprimanded by one such flight attendant for some silly question. I do not recall what it was but I remember being rather put out by it all. Us South Africans are such a friendly bunch of people and we at least try and make other people feel welcome and at ease in our presence.

This was rule number one for us in a list of things that the Dutch do a lot differently to us. Especially the Capetonians are renowned for their laid back manner of doing business and virtually anything else as well. The Dutch have an extremely organised way of doing things and if it were not for this I think they would fall apart at the seams. They are also extremely forward in the way that they communicate with other people. It is actually almost rude at times.

A Dutch person will also walk all over you with their bombastic nature if you are not wary or do not at least fight them off with an equally forthright manner. This was another extremely bad situation waiting to happen as the average South African citizen is polite and well mannered. We are not used to being told in no uncertain terms what people think of us or how stupid we are because we do not think exactly as another person wants us to think.

We are a lot more tactful and would probably moan and groan about someone behind their back than to their face, also not an extremely nice way of doing things but you do manage to avoid confrontation that way. I think we excel at avoiding confrontations. The Dutch people will invite confrontation but will back down when there is aggression involved.

The Dutch are also a passive nation. More about this later though, as it actually is a major problem now due to certain outside influences which are not passive, such as the average South African. We tend to have a lot of aggression in our dealings. It is not intentional or even malicious aggression but an underlying tension which is quite visible to me now that I know what to look for.

So it not surprising then that the little tiff with the air hostess put me totally out of joint. For the rest of the nearly eleven hour’s flight I sat and brooded about the rudeness of certain characters. Little did I know that this was to become the bain of my existence whilst in Holland?

The rest of the flight went down without a hitch and although it was extremely long, we even managed to sleep a little. Not much though as we were still very excited at the opportunity of making acquintance with this new culture.

After having tossed and turned in the rather small and unaccomodating seats we finally started our decent into the tiny country of Holland. It had just started to get light and as we came lower and lower to the ground we saw vast expanses of water and canals all over the place. All over the place there was greenery and water. The canals are so beautiful from the air.

If I may be allowed to take your attention away from all this beauty I would like to mention that you should never watch a film like Deep Impact where the country gets hit by a meteor and floods the whole place due to its impact. Holland is for a large part built under the sea level and this was the most frightening thought to me. What if we were flooded like in the movie? The thought of drowning is one of the scariest thoughts I have ever had.

So here we were descending into this glorious country with the greenest pastures I have ever seen and the water all around. We even saw a windmill or two from the air but they were very tiny and actually looked different to the ones we had been shown at school. This would be one of the other interesting features of Holland.

Although the world has been sold a picture of windmills, cheese and tulips, one rarely ever sees any of the above in large portions. You really have to go out and look for any of the above mentioned trademarks to find them. Mainly in the smaller villages these things are to be found in abundance.

Here we are, ready or not
Having finally landed and having fetched our bags we started hearing a most peculiar hum. It was not the sort of hum that we were used to but an uncomfortable sound which I later figured out to be a mixture of a number of different languages being spoken around us. It was German, French, English, Turkish, Afrikaans and more Afrikaans but with an extremely different sound to it.

The one reason I though we would survive in Holland was that we could both speak and understand Afrikaans very well. My wife is Afrikaans so we expected to fit in nicely. My mother and her family are Dutch and I had been hearin git since I was a child at various occasions when we went to visit my grandparents. Little did I know that they had already had so many changes to their language that what they spoke was an extremely impure Dutch. There was now a vast difference between the Dutch I was hearing and that I had been hearing as a child.

My wife and I just looked around us in amazement and realised that we were totally unequipped for this adventure. We could not even make head or tails out of what the officer at the passport control was trying to tell us, lucky for us though he switched over into English with a rather thick accent. It was understandable though and we managed to find our way through to the rest of the crowd that we knew had also come on the same flight and whom were all congregating outside of the arrival hall with a woman that had come to pick us up and take us to our new homes.

Next lesson came as even a bigger shock to us. A South African living too long in Holland can be extremely rude, probably even ruder than the average Dutch person. I guess the fact that she had woken up at 5h30 to come and fetch us probably made her cranky. Man she was a real scary character. Shouting and screaming at everyone to please hurry up as we were now in a first world civilisation and not in the backwoods of SA anymore. What a wake up call.

One of the guys was an avid sportsman and he had brought some ammo with him for spear fishing and he was having an incredible time trying to get the few handgun shells out of security as there is a strict no weapons policy in Holland. After having tried a number of tactics he finally gave up trying.

I know he actually did get his ammunition, but it was a number of days later after he had slept in a decent bed and not in the small uncomfortable chair in the plane. He was obviously in a much better mood and more receptive to the abuse dished out to him by the security in charge.

So here we were in a strange country with a real welcoming committee which I feel they could have left out. You have to remember that some of the people had come with children and they had not slept a wink the previous night, the kids or the parents. I know because we had some kid shouting all night in our ears, extremely irritating.

We made our way to the cars and crammed ourselves and our luggage into the lovely vehicles. I had never seen a car like it before. It had a few rows and each row had at least three seats. It was a really snazzy vehicle.

Oh yes, there is one other thing that you do not know about me yet. I can not ride with other people as I do not trust anyone but myself behind the wheel. Well it was as though the whole world was laughing at me on this trip. I was placed in the front seat with the driver. Obviously, it was due to my length. (As I said before I never win.) She was most definitely the worst driver I have ever driven with. I was not the only one to comment on this fact though either, because at some stage she heard us moaning and told us to get used to it as this was the way they all drove in Holland.

She weaved in and out of the traffic. With me pressing brakes on my side but to no avail. The harder I pressed my feet into the floorboard in front, the more she seemed to weave and cut in front of the other vehicles on the road. Here I was trying to get a glimpse of my new homeland and I was too scared to take a peep out of the corner of my eye. It was truly a ride from hell.

She pulled over at a gas station, got out and started pumping the gas herself. Typical I thought. She has finally gone over the edge and topped all rudeness by not even giving the poor pump attendant time to get to us. Well it turns out that you pump your own gas in Holland, throughout the most of Europe in actual fact. Even after living there for some time I still would go to the gas station and wait for an attendant, all in vain of course.

So here we were sitting in a car with a lady that drove like the proverbial bat out of hell, and to crown it all she did this all on the wrong side of the road, the right side to be exact. Through the whole of Europe the cars drive on the right side of the road.

Apparently the reason for this was due to Napoleon. In the old days knights and their steeds would ride on the left side of the road in order to pass each other with their swords on the right hand side of them. Of course you could never know before actually getting alongside some other knight whether he was friendly or not. So to be on your guard it was safer to have your sword at the ready as it were.

Napoleon had set up new laws and one of them was that in order to create some sort of truce or peace, the riders would now ride on the other side of the road so as to have their sword out of the way so as not to cause conflict. Of course the average South African would probably just have learned to swing the sword with their other arm. The law stuck and it is now only in Great Britain where they still ride on the same side of the road as we do.

We were taken by our captor, I mean welcoming committee to our new homes. Now as I mentioned before we were all told of this magnificent house in Hoevelaken. Well this is where the pawpaw hit the fan. It turned out that at least two people were already living there and that another two of our crowd would join them. The others were there for a month or two already and as luck would have it, the new people moving in were a relatively newly wed couple. They were not charmed to say the least. Later on we heard that the poor girl ended up doing most of the washing and cooking for the other guys, typical South African of course. She was not too pleased with the arrangements.

My wife and I were sitting watching this all and we thought this was not going too well. If we had to end up with another couple in a small house as most of the houses in Holland are, it would have put us in a really bad spot as we were too new in the country to make waves and tell the new employers that we did not approve of their accomodation they had arranged for us.

It was actually sad really because this was just one of the first in a row of really bad situations which we found ourselves in during our stay there. Our employers knew that they had us over a barrel and that we could not really go to far out of line as we were sort of at their mercy. They really abused this power over us and it made the group we were working with really miserable.

Our welcoming committee dropped my wife and I off in a small town called Bussum. This was a few kilometers from Hoevelaken and the rest of the group obviously had to come up and see what we were getting. I guess it was maybe a way of preparing themselves for what they would have to live in.

We were extremely lucky, as they had placed my wife and me alone in a fully furnished apartment and we left the rest of the group feeling quite satisfied that they would probably get similar places. It was not to be. Our apartment was definitely the best of the lot.

Then she and the rest of the group left us. It was the first silence after a long night in the plane and the trip over to the apartment and it was a real eerie sort of silence. It was so out of place. We felt glad to be placed in such a nice home and we had all the conveniences immediately at our disposal. That was it. We were totally on our own.

I think it was at this stage that we finally realised that we were in a new country on our own with absolutely no one to go to if we ran into trouble. We did not understand the language and they certainly did not understand us. It was at this moment that my wife and I became totally useless. We were so unsure of ourselves about everything.

It is amazing that when you get out of the familiar territory and into some new situation one becomes either totally efficient or you become a moron without the foggiest notion as to how to even catch the trains, we became the latter. We were totally useless. The very thought of catching a bus or train sent shivers down my spine. It sounds funny but I can assure you that it was not.

Another very important lesson was learned that day. We were pretty sure that we could have landed up in hospital with the lesson we learned. When in Holland, please remember that the most exquisitely paved red roads are for the bicycles and scooters only. Not for pedestrians as we had assumed. The scooters and bicycles ride on the roads as fast as they can and if you are in the way they will just ring their bells and hit you if you happen to get a fright and jump in their way.

It does not seem to happen too often but I can assure you that once you have been shouted at by a rude Dutchman on his or her bicycle, you will never again walk on the red paved roads. You will stick to the road where the cars drive or the walkway if there is one. The cars at least have to watch out for pedestrians and cyclists as if they should happen to hit on they would be prosecuted whether in the right or the wrong. That is the way the cookie crumbles over there.

One other thing that our welcoming banshee had failed to mention to us was that it was some sort of public holiday. So we spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around and got totally lost while looking for some shop to buy something to eat. Back in SA you could basically walk a kilometer or two in virtually any direction and you would find a seven eleven supermarket or a corner store of some sort. Holland does not have this. They only have large chain stores and the gas station would double up as their sort of café.

Thanks for telling us though. By the time we got home we were bushed. We settled in for a light nap and awoke to a still very much sunny day. It was about the middle of summer when we got to Holland and the same people who failed to mention the absence of the café situation also failed to mention to us that the sun only sets at about 22h30.

So there was John sitting watching the weird television programmes waiting for a certain programme that had been advertised earlier that same day. I waited till the sun set and then thought I had probably missed it while sleeping. As I was flipping through the channels I was also quite amazed to see the some of the channels showed 04h30 in the marning and others showed 03h30 in the morning. How on earth had that happened?

I was utterly shocked and it was only the next night when I realised how late the sun set that I figured out what had happened. The different TV channels were Dutch and British. The British are an hour behind the Dutch. (The Dutch think the British are about a century behind but that is typical of the Dutch, they think everyone is way behind them.)

It was only a few days later that we also realised that the first day that we had arrived there was not a holiday but that the Dutch only opened their shops at 12h00 or later on a Monday afternoon due to the fact that they stay open all of Saturday and for Friday night till 21h00 for “Koop Avond” This meant that everyone that had been too busy during the week could shop at their own pace on Friday nights. This works well I may add. But it also meant that Monday was a total write off for the rest of the business world.

This pretty much sets the standard for how the Dutch do things. Everything is different. It would also only work in Holland where everybody expects the government to do everything for them. The rest of the world at least realises that the government is only capable of doing so much damage. The Dutch let them go the whole nine yards.

This is visible throughout their whole society. One may only go to the doctors in your area. If the doctor does not want to take you on as a patient then you may find another doctor. Everything has a structure to it and the culture is one major shock to the average foreigner.

Trust me when I say that it is a culture shock for a South African, gentle or macho, pleasant or not to suddenly be surrounded by hundreds of people doing things that we were told as kids are not socially acceptable. The kinds of situations I found myself in daily were terribly daunting and in the whole time that I lived there I could never get used to some of the mannerisms.

It was quite strange to be living in an apartment building and not having ever met our neighbors. Only after six months, we actually had a small chat with our direct neighbor. She was an extremely friendly old lady and we actually really enjoyed chatting to her. The fact that we were actually moving out of our flat in the next few days seemed to really disturb her and she said we should try keep in touch somehow.


Life sucks
Bussum was a grand old snobbish place, where many of the rich actors from around the world buy houses to live in during certain periods of the year. I can imagine that being a world celebrity would be great if you lived in Holland. You could be anonymous whilst living there. Nobody would really care that you played in one of the best movies of the century or something as spectacular. You could go on doing just what you want to do and never bother about all the “nuchter” sober people who never really care about anything that could make you excited or over enthusiastic in anyway.

Strange though that when soccer matches are being played throughout Europe for some important title or other, the Dutch go entirely MAD. They paint everything orange, from their bicycles till their cars. If they win the match then they celebrate till dawn and even a few days later if they really won big. If they lose then heaven help you if you get on the wrong side of them then. They will make life miserable for you.

By the way, never go shopping for any large items like fridges, stoves, motorcycles, cars or anything that needs the sales person’s full attention. It is impossible to pry their eyes away from the television set when the soccer is on. It is most irritating that the whole world comes to a standstill during soccer season. Don’t moan about the service either as you are being extremely unpatriotic to not support the soccer in every way possible.
Well as I was saying Bussum was great but after one week we were paid a visit by the welcoming banshee and this time a small dog accompanied her. The beer which I had mistakenly purchased was crap and did not live up to their expectations. How was I to know that only Heineken was the beer to drink now that we were in Holland? Later on we realised that Grolsch and one or two other beers were also allowed. It is quite rude by the way to go into a pub where they do not serve Heineken or Grolsch and ask for the beer not being served. Some sort of feud I would think as most places served one or the other plus a few of the others.

So after the little dog had done a number in our house, in the passage (what a relief), we were asked whether we had found another apartment yet. I was extremely angry to say the least. Nothing had been communicated to us during the previous week, in actual fact we had wondered when they would contact us to tell us what we would be doing for the rest of our stay in Holland. So I politely told them to please convey our heartfelt apology for what I was about to do to them and that we would not be vacating the apartment for anybody, director or not.

The message was duly passed on after we were told not to make waves as we were in a foreign country now and that things were done differently than where we came from. This set the pattern for the relationship between me and the company that I worked for in the next year. They would tell us one thing and we would communicate a deep disgust for their total disregard for us foreigners and we would then be told to shut up or buzz off. The fact that we had temporary residency permits in Holland meant that every year we would have to renew them and that if we made waves we would be sent back home.

I of course already hated any form of dictatorship and this was the worst that I could imagine. I felt as though they held us at ransom. It was one of the times in my life in which I felt as though I did not control my destiny anymore and that some arrogant person on the other side of the phone played the grand puppet master and I just danced to his tune. It really was demoralising.

The end of the matter was that we were grudgingly allowed to stay in the apartment as I threatened to make a big scene if they did not let us stay there. I was in touch with most of the South Africans that the company had brought over and I promised to make the rest of the people more agitated than what they already were if we were not allowed to stay in the apartment. Of course this was a really bad way to start off a relationship with any new employer and it proved later to be a major disadvantage to me.

Now that we had established that we would be staying in Bussum, I decided to go out and get myself set up with the necessary hardware to work from home if the contract allowed it. I bought a computer and went to the hardware store to buy a desk. This proved to be quite a mission. Firstly, due to there being so little space in Holland, the shops are rather small and they tend to keep the minimum in the shops to keep them from being over crowded. So it was quite a mission to find the desk that I needed. We walked from place to place to find as well that the prices differed so much from one store to the next that you had to check them all out or you felt really done in after you had purchased something from the one store only to find it cheaper next door. We managed to finally find one and we told the shop attendant that we wanted that specific one and we were told that we could pay at the front counter.

After having paid cash for the desk we waited around for someone to bring it to us and we were asked at quite a later stage what we were waiting for. We were extremely disgusted to find out that there would be a three week wait for the desk. After having tried everything in my power to get the one on the floor, I gave up and said that I would wait after all.

A few weeks later we got a buzz downstairs at the apartment and we were told that our desk had arrived. Well that is what we managed to understand through the whole conversation that took place over the speaker phone. I was told to come down and help with the desk and chair that had been ordered. I went down and buzzed open the door, and the driver asked me to please help him with the goods. He had opened the delivery van and when I looked inside I nearly had a cadenza. The desk and chair were nowhere in sight and I felt really upset with the driver. I started moaning with him and he started laughing, telling me that it was a DIY kit. I took the two flat boxes with the help of the driver up to the apartment. Of course I had no tools so it meant me going for a long walk to the nearest hardware store to buy some tools to help me with the assembly of the desk and chair, which I still could not believe was in the flat box in the apartment.

The whole of that day saw me building the fantastic desk which I had waited so patiently for. This was not the last piece of furniture I had to assemble either whilst living in the Netherlands. It was quite amazing to see some of the kits that one could get. They really knew how to make them. They would be so precise that it was really easy to build once you had the right tools and a lot of patience. I was surprised that my first car was not a DIY kit.

It seems that due to the small apartments and all the stairs in Holland it was virtually impossible to get anything that was already assembled up the stairs. So you had to cart the kit upstairs and built it on site. You would also then be discouraged from moving it around too much as it would creak and moan if you tried to move it. We did make the fatal mistake of moving a cupboard for a friend of ours; against my better judgment may I add. We spent the whole night trying to salvage the cupboard and make something of all the broken pieces. It was worth the beer though, Heineken to be exact.

I am sure I drank more beer in six months in Holland, than in my entire life in SA. Beers were served at all events. You knew the company you were in, by the liquor that was being served. If it was beer then it could be Dutch or SA, if it was hard liquor such as Brandy and Coke then it would be only South Africans. I have never really seen a Dutch person drinking a brandy, I am sure they do but I have just never seen it. They do drink Jenever though which is made from grain. This stuff is vile and only the Dutch could drink it and still stand up afterwards. Two beers was also the limit for any driver and it was really adhered to by nearly every Dutch person I knew, not all of them but most.

This two beer limit was also the reason I stopped going to work functions. After two beers, I would be virtually the only one left at the function. The others would have left already and I would be standing there with no one to talk to. If there were others we would only talk about the weather and lease cars, so it was pretty boring stuff anyway. The weather sucks most of the time and the lease cars were a bone of contention anyway as only the Dutch employees were allowed to get them. When I changed to the next company though, it was different. I also had leased cars then. I then also understood the value of talking about them as well.

Apparently if you get caught driving while under the influence of alcohol then there is a certain percentage above which the police will immediately suspend your license. This is a real bad thing in Holland as it happens time and again. I had one or two colleagues that had their licenses suspended. It is quite tragic actually because then you are at the mercy of the public transport.

The public transport used to be good a few years ago when we first got to Holland. You could set you watch as the trains arrived as they were on time without a doubt. As the years went by the services got worse. Maybe we just started noticing it but my general feeling was that the public were also beginning to notice it. They started various campaigns in order to better the service and the more they tried the worse it seemed to get. At some stage I remember them wanting to implement an arrangement whereby your money would be reimbursed if the train was over a certain number of minutes late. I never heard much of that one though.

The train taxi could be caught at the station and the driver would take you anywhere within that specific town for seven guilders. This was great if you new where you knew where you wanted to be. It was also great if you took the taxi to the far end of the town you wanted to see as a tourist and then made your way back to the station to catch the train back home again. It was also possible to call get a train taxi to pick you up at your house and drop you off at the station for the same price.

Nearly all of the taxis were BMW or Mercedes Benz. The real smart makes. It was quite sad though as one of my dreams was to have a nice Mercedes and this went out the window when I saw that every taxi was a Mercedes. Oh well I soon got over that and still got my first BMW 520 I in my life. Wow that was a ride I really loved. The car was really cheap. The only problem was that the road tax was very high for the car. It weighed a few tons and as the road tax was worked out on the weight of the car, every three months saw me taking out a substantial amount of money for road taxes.

The petrol price was also extremely high at that stage. It has not gotten any better mind you, but I felt it was too high. Half the price per liter consisted out of taxes. Each cabinet when they came into power seemed to up the price of petrol in order to get more funds. Even stranger though was the fact that the Dutch government wanted the average Joe out of his car and onto the train. They did not think however of lowering the price of the train fare in order to make everyone stream onto the trains.

The car is what the Dutch term “De heilige koe” which means their sacred cow. Every Dutch man and woman wanted one or two of them. It was nothing strange to see every adult member of the family living together each with their own car. Now this sounds normal, but consider it this way, the roads were already packed and the number of cars was increasing rapidly. The government wanted the people in the same areas to drive together and they spent millions advertising this fact.

They set up parking spaces on nearly every main intersection in order to accommodate the people. The funniest thing about the adverts though was the fact that they actually were trying to train the people to be cordial about it all. Basically saying, you have made the arrangement, now stick to it. I mean phone if you are not going to make it please phone the other members and tell them. Imagine having to show people over TV how to be civil.

There were a number of radical schemes proposed in order to get the people out of their cars and into modes of transport which would not mess up the environment, but none as radical as the one gentleman who proposed a working model of using hang gliders in order to get to work. This is rather funny as in Holland there are no mountains. This meant that they would have to erect high structures in order to let the people jump off them and get to work. On the other side they would then have some sort of system to park the gliders. A bit far fetched but nonetheless brilliant. That idea obviously also went nowhere really fast.

Now bear in mind that although Holland is only an area of around two hundred by three hundred kilometers, and the average distance of each town between seven to ten kilometers away from each other, this meant that without the car you were virtually stranded, unless you liked riding the bicycle. The bicycle roads were well set up and you could virtually ride from one town till another town, eighty kilometers away by just using the bicycle roads. I knew one old man that would just ride his bike around all day. He would ride for a few hundred kilometers in the day, getting home relatively late at night, only to start again next morning. It made me tired just to listen to him talking about all the riding that he did in a day. I am not an avid cyclist. No sire, I would take my car any day to a smart bicycle.

Riding a bicycle though was probably the safest method of transport. The drivers of the vehicles really had to watch out for the cyclists. Knocking one of them over was the worst that could happen to you. No matter how right you were, you would be in the wrong.

A change is as good as a holiday
I was a contractor in the IT field so I was posted all over Holland. However owing to the fact that I was not fluent in Dutch, it was not surprising that the jobs I got were really pathetic. This happened to all the South Africans and we were used to getting the jobs where you ended up riding train for two hours there and another two hours back. Of course the Dutch contractors would not stand for it so we had to do it. This pretty much went for many other types of jobs as well. If it was not to their liking then they would let some South African do it.

It was only after the first few months of being shunted around from pillar to post that I realised that I could also object to this treatment, which I promptly did. I suddenly became one very unpopular South African. No more was I to be shunted around. Holland had dealt its last bad card to me. Well so I thought. This new attitude that I had acquired only meant that I ended up doing all the really stressful and unwanted jobs close to home.

It got worse and after being in the company for one year, I finally got sick and tired of this treatment and decided to look for another job. This did not take long as the South Africans had gotten quite a reputation as being hard workers and ready to do all the yucky stuff that the Dutchies did not want to do. So within a few days I had found another task master. I was convinced that this company would be greatest I had ever worked for. They really wanted me and I really wanted to work there.

My resignation letter was fours pages long and I have written it without any embellishment or exaggeration. I sent it to all the staff as they had much the same problems as me. For the first time in a year, the director phoned me and asked me to retract it. He said that it was bad for morale etc. I of course knew that he could not fire me as I had just quit so I said that I would not consider it at all.

We spent a few minutes arguing and then I put the phone down and was effectively off work for the next two months which was the required resignation period. They still paid me in full but now suddenly there were all sorts of amounts owing by me to the company. I think that for the next four months in total we lived on virtually nothing. The reason for this is that I was waiting for my new work permit. It did not arrive and after waiting two or three months I realised that I would have to go back to SA if I did not get the permit ASAP.

I phoned the government agency that handled the work permits and they said that I had messed up a perfectly good chance and that they were not going to give me another one. I immediately faxed them my resignation letter shown below and they gave me my work permit within five minutes. They even asked me to help them with a case against the employer that I was resigning from.

This is the resignation letter that I faxed the government agency as well as all the staff members of my job where I resigned.
Dear Director
CC : All staff

It is with great regret that I find myself writing this letter of resignation. I am giving two months notice in writing and will be working my last day on the 22nd of April 1999. Given below is a short summary for my reasons and by giving them I am hoping that your company can react on these comments and sort them out once and for all. The reason I am sending this letter to the rest of the staff is that I feel they need to be able to see that you have responded to these comments in a constructive way, and that we can look forward to a better future and forget the past. I must also add that some of these issues must be sorted out with all the South Africans that came over to the promise of a better future.

I joined your company after having an interview with the Cape Town branch. In this interview it was told to me above other things that you would give my wife an aptitude test to see if she could fit into the IT world. If she qualified, she would receive training and that your company would try and place her in contracts in Holland. Based on this certainty and the promise of a better future, my wife and I liquidated our whole life in SA and moved to a country full of prospects to work for a company with even better potential.

The first impression I got of Holland was negative. We were dropped off at our house which needless to say was not what we had been told we would be getting. We were given absolutely no information of our whereabouts and because it was a holiday we also did not encounter any open shops for at least two days.

So here we were in a country where nobody really understood us and we understood even less. Enough said about that. Every South African went through the same experience with greater or lesser feelings of anxiety.

The next great shock came when I realised that the amount of money that I had brought with me was not even enough to last me a month. In Cape Town we were told that we need not bring money as we would be given everything to start off with. This was a lie.

My contract that I signed stated that in the unlikely event of me not having a contract that I would earn a basic salary. I was also told at my interview that I would never be without a contract for longer than two weeks. This of course was once again not the case. Five months after arriving in Holland I finally got my first contract. This was a great relief because now I had totally depleted all my sources of money and the basic salary was not good enough to live on. I spoke to the resource manageress and she broke my trust in your company and in her after asking me what sort of company I thought I had joined. You would not help us financially in any way, even after having lied about the six thousand guilders “voorschot” She finally gave in and gave me three thousand guilders.

So now we are sitting with a situation that is not only dangerous for me but for my wife as well. Now this is where I get mad. I guess I have joined a company that not only breaks their promises but also will not help me when I desperately need it. Being in a foreign country and totally on my own, I need to know that I can rely on your company to back me to the fullest when I need it.

At this point your company has already lost me. Everything that comes after this is just water under the bridge. It does not mean much because I do not consider myself as an employee anymore. Now I am a hostage in a foreign country with an extremely bad company as my captors.

I was given a Personal Computer as a prive allowance. For this computer I still have not received any sort of invoice. I feel that this is totally irresponsible and detest the fact that I have to put up with treatment like this.

At a meeting that was held to introduce the newest director (they change so often) it was mentioned that there was to be an enquette (survey) to judge the feelings of the employees. We were also told that we would receive copies of our contracts when we got contracts with outside firms. I am still waiting for the enquette as well as any sort of contract.

The fact that these are not forthcoming breaks down all trust that I have for any company that I work for. Your company is not transparent or honest in their dealings with their staff or their customers. The very fact that we have not had an alternative to the spouse training program bears witness to this fact. All you managed to come up with was “The laws of the country have changed and it is no longer possible.” I really don’t think that it is a fair solution to the reason many of us South Africans came here in the first place.

I had a meeting with one of the directors about one month ago in which I spoke my heart out to him and he made notes at a furious pace. That day I thought that we had established some sort of truce again. But I am still waiting for a response to the questions I posed to him. What about the study allowance of two thousand guilders per employee per year. I was told by my account manager before applying for one contract, to tell the company recruiting me that I was trained in Delphi 4.0 and had been using it for some time now, so that they would consider me for the contract. I said to him that I would not lie to any prospective employer and that I would need training in Delphi 4.0 before even considering such an interview. This did not happen once but several times with various contract interviews. The first few contracts were way out of my field but I was still taken on the interviews and made to look like an idiot. I am still waiting for an explanation or apology.

There is only one thing worse than going to parties and hearing South African people moaning about the company I work for. That is hearing the customer we contract out to airing their negative views about your company. In my search for a new career I have had to listen to the worst kinds of ridicule about your company. This is sad as it has mostly South Africans bearing the brunt of your stupidity. This is the last thing I need to hear when on an interview for a new career. If you are interested then we can still get together and talk about the comments and see where we can salvage something. Make an appointment and I will get back to you. This is the same response I have gotten on countless occasions from you. I have on most o9ccasions never received a response or even an acknowledgement that says “We know you called and action will be taken on such and such date or time.” It is pathetic to say the least.

To this I must add that any company who takes 55% of the money I earn needs to do a lot more than just talk and give me a ticket to their country. In my eyes this is the only thing you have done to entitle you to any money. The rest I feel is highway robbery. Your threats that you have done so much for me and will therefore not give me a good recommendation to any new company where I look for work is pathetic and ill founded. This was told to me by one of the directors last Friday when I told him as a gentleman that I had other offers and that when considering any t\new contracts with my current contract to take into consideration that I would be gone in two months time. I did this all out of respect for the consequences you would have to face if I left the current contract immediately and left you in the lurch. I feel that by giving you a fair warning I put myself and my further life in Holland at risk due to the way you play the game. I know it is a hard world out there and that you are prepared to fight dirty to keep me here. Just remember: The only way to win is to be prepared to lose. I already have lost everything so now I can only win.

At every stage of the game I have had my “werks vergunning” work permit flashed at me in a way that makes me feel like a hostage in a hopeless situation. May I remind you and if I am wrong then I will retract this, but I am currently working for a company under a “werks vergunning” bearing another companies name. This is illegal in Holland. It is quite ironic really as I have never even been to the company mentioned on the “werks vergunning.”

By the way it is this very passage that had been my tactical savior when faxing it to the department working with the work permits. (This is for the benefit of the reader and not the director)

I have been on countless occasions to Enschede for meetings where the agenda was discussed and absolutely no action taken. If action was taken I was not informed. I have better ways to spend my precious time thank you.

I came to the Netherlands to build a brighter future for myself and my family. Up until now I did not feel that my future has brightened up by even one Candella. There are still lots of issues that I feel will remain unsolved but I have one final thing to say. I will not be taken hostage by any company, I resign. I have my future as well as my wife’s to think of. I also demand a letter of apology for all the broken promises and threats that I have had to endure whilst in your employ. With respect to this last statement, I am extremely serious and hope to receive a response ASAP. The original of this letter will follow shortly by post.

As you can see I have sent this letter to all the staff members and I am sure that they will read it with relish. HOWEVER, deal with these issues in a visible and constructive manner and I will send a retraction letter to the same staff members as each issue gets sorted out.

Yours truly

John Weber

As I was typing in this resignation letter in to this book now, I can feel again the intense dissatisfaction with the way we were treated. It was not fair and I was right not to endure anymore.

Well the director phoned me up as I said and you can imagine that he was livid that I had sent the letter to al the staff. He had a lot of fires to put out after that week. In actual fact he resigned shortly afterwards and a new guy took over. They also renamed the company due to its extremely bad publicity out in the IT field.

A lot of my fellow South Africans still worked there for a few years taking the abuse dished out to them. Shortly after I left Holland I was told by some of my friends that the company had closed down leaving them with no salary for two months. The nerve of it all was that they were not even told of the closure of the company. They heard it via the grapevine. Well, so much for that company.

A new company, a new life
So it was that I started at the new company. They had branches situated all over the world with an estimated 55 000 employees. They treated us a lot better and although I was still a foreigner the prospects looked better. It was only a matter of time though before I realised that being a foreigner in Holland would keep me humble. I would never be involved in really interesting projects or do anything really important for them.

I am not bitter about the time I spent with them as I had a lot of my colleagues that really looked after me and tried their level best to accommodate my culture. I was invited to many functions and parties with them which is actually unusual as they do not mix well really. As an employee you meet your colleagues and you never get to see them on a social level.

One of my colleagues actually became a good friend. He was also extremely technical and he did some very weird projects of his own. Recently he sent me some photos of his latest project, inviting me over for a drink. It would be an expensive drink to say the least as I would have to fly to the Netherlands to enjoy it.

There were good times and bad times but the bad outweighed the good by far. I always say that when the bad outweighs the good times then it is time to get a movin’ along. It is usually very difficult though due to one of natures law which states that a body in rest will try to remain that way and unless a force is applied externally it is difficult to start the motion.


ADSL rules
This was truly one of the things in Europe which did not suck. ISDN was good but ADSL was king. In South Africa ISDN is expensive but still the better choice when it comes to running a business. This of course is only due to the way ADSL is being offered here in SA. In Europe it is fast. It is always on and it is cheap. You do not have a cap on what you can download. Instead they make services which allow you to fully utilize ADSL. Try that here in SA and there just would not be enough bandwidth to go around.

Very strange though that they have managed to get it right in Europe. I wonder what or who is actually boycotting the growth of such a wonderful alternative to 56 K or ISDN bandwidth here in SA. ADSL in Europe makes the information super highway take on a new meaning. Here in SA you still are bumping into each other on the super highway. Yeah right. If only the normal guys weren’t being penalised for all the other people downloading movies etc.

What a load of rubbish, this is exactly what the internet is about, being able to freely move in and out of worlds without actually having to go there. This book would probably never have been written if I could surf over the internet at the speed of light and visit all the places in Europe that I now physically went to. Not being the touristy type, touring using the internet really makes sense until you land up in SA where you are throttled to death even on the internet.

Anyway, if there was one redeeming factor in Holland for me, then it was the super lightning fast internet. It was of such a nature that one could use it to make phone calls using your computer and if your computer was fast enough to keep up the pace, you could play games while talking and never realise that you were on the internet and not a phone line.

Due to the fact that I had ADSL in Holland, I was able to make an incredible website running from inside my home. It was made using a rather small web chip that had a lot of things such as a web server and serial ports integrated into it. I used it to control an online paint ball gun and at that stage it was called pelletcam, the reason being that the gun was pointing at a few targets and the targets were being viewed by a camera. The gun could be moved in all directions and actually shot from anywhere in the world via any internet browser.

I had to remove it after a week or so though as the people from all over the world were shooting it to pieces. It cost a fortune to set up and a few days to shoot to pieces. Due to the paintball gun being really powerful and shooting range only being three meters it was devastating. The balls were made up for me in England and the paintball gun was semi automatic and only needed to be primed once. It could shoot more than a thousand five hundred rounds using a special canister filled with CO2. You would not like to stand in the way of this thing when it went off. Unfortunately it also made aloud noise even after all the padding was in place and every attempt was made to silence it. It was fun though and was made possible through having an ADSL connection that was always on.