c*mm*n*c*t**n

We had the State of the Union yesterday. The so called Prinsjesdag
On this day the queen had her speech from the Throne.
In this speech the plans of the Cabinet were unfolded. Sad news because the Netherlands has to cut expenses drastically. It will hurt people's spending power. Some more, others less. Of course they take the easy targets first and that are the public spending on health-care, children care, inurement in our society of foreigners, people care, civil services and civil servants. In the next 4 years the expenses have to be cut with 18 trillion Euro!

The new cabinet isn't installed yet. The parties are still negotiating. Maybe the orthodox Christian right wing with 2 seats in parliament will support the new cabinet. It's a rumor. I thought of it and wrote about earlier.

As I am in the civil service I'm supposed not to like it. Do I? No not really. I like a better leaner civil service. That means a smaller one. We need to do the same with less means, meaning a more effective service.
Management has to monitor work-processes more closely. Management has to be on the job when real important decisions have to be made. A unit-manager has more decision-power than just an advisor and the team-leader. In my unit they talk for more than a year about adjustment of the system - work on the department I worked for. Now it comes to an halt? Why didn't management intervene? Seems to be a case of bad communication.
In fact I once said in this blog that I don't like the word c*mm*n*c*t**n.

Public service: don't go to far

Our social securities are really good here in the Netherlands. Disabled people get their wheelchairs if they need one from the local Public Service (PS) and if applied for. When the chair is stolen they get a new one immediately. It's a need for living for some disabled people. Some disabled people don't depend on a wheelchair, but that's often forgotten.
PS also pays for housing adjustments, such as stairs-, toilet- and kitchen-adjustments. The ownership belongs to the owner/user of the house. When there is damage to the adjustment due to burglary it's an insurance problem. It can't be that the invoice for reparation is for the municipality.

Such an invoice was offered to me with the subject burglary damage. I immediately informed my co-worker of the reason. I think it belongs to the owner/user of the house who should have an insurance. Let him (it's a he) pay for it. It doesn't matter weather he is handicapped, he just an ordinary citizen who should insure himself the way or citizens do. The reaction of the colleague who wanted me to pay the bill was that the client would cause a lot of trouble. Communication seems to be very difficult. It would take him 3 hours to solve the matter. Probably he would go to the local Ombudsman. The simpliest thing to do is paying the bill.

I think it's showing weakness of the PS to walk away for these possible difficulties. Also PS doesn't take it's client serious and you can ask yourself if in similar cases the same procedure will be followed.

Well, this was the last thing at work which made me a little bit angry. 3 Weeks no work.
When I leave for Paris is the question, the weather you see and maybe not only that.

A day at the office

What a day, for the 1st time this year 31C .... I took a day off on recommendation of my co worker. I had time for cycling and I did. After changing the old brakes for new ones on the bicycle I could fly again after 2 weeks having no racing bike.

Racing 40k/hr on a light bike with small wheels, the shoes are connected via a click-on system with the bike's pedals, wearing a helmet as protection in case of a fall, short and shirt made of ultra light fabric. These statistics make the rider one with the bike. If the bike flies, the rider flies too.
This is what I did at noon and after exactly 1 hour, no second more, I was back home. I did a short trip to try the new prepared bike. A trip of 31.2 kilometer.


I cycled fast, maybe because of yesterday when I had a short clash with a colleague S. I don´t know how I should interprete the (re)action of my colleague S.

It was about coffee. I asked if my co worker wanted coffee. S. answered that he should have one, but he's not my co worker. After numerous times that my co worker and I served coffee for our room (the 2 of us and for 3 other colleagues including S.) I decided to get coffee for my co worker and myself and walked out of the room. S. ran after me, took another route and stood at the coffee machine with a pokerface waiting for another colleague (who didn't know anything what has happened). I asked him if I could get my coffee right after him. He said yes of course. Leaving colleague S. behind me.
S. and I had a short coffee mug fight, clinging with the mugs. S. won, he got his expresso.
I porred him and some coffee was wasted on the floor. Maybe that made S. angry. In his eyes I saw anger and I was astonished as well as anxious. I was in a defense mode. Standing a few metres away from him, he kicked me with his feet. At least he tried and that doesn't feel okay.

Bird-box and other stuff

Today: weekend.
Last night: went to bed on time
seen: I saw some World championships ice speed-skating in Salt Lake City
didn't see: World record 500 meter (in 34.25 seconds equals 52.554k/hr!)

Today is also a beautiful day with lots of sunshine. Spring has come. It's in the air. I got to renew the birth-house where the singers can nest. When I looked at the birdhouse of my neighbors in front of my house I saw a robin inspecting the nestingbox adjusted to the wall of the house.
I had a perfect sight on it and saw the bird was critical on it. I think he or she will take it. Isn't it a very, very fine house really hard to get these day's? (especially for birds in the Netherlands) Got to do some cleaning of my balcony. Got to cycle, buy grocery stuff, do all the weekend things.

I read something about sharing cars, the greenwheels-project, maybe that triggered my thought.
Some day I need a car. That's why I bought -a statement of my own-.
Let me explain. Everyone who gets a drivers licence or has a health-change has to answer a few questions concerned the ability to drive a car. If one question is answered with -no- than you need a medical receipt that you can drive a car. In my case I made an appointment with a neurology doctor to have a registration or mentioning in my drivers licence that I have had an epileptic attack (grand mal) 5 years ago and that I'm doing great now.
I don't know what the outcome will be.

About communication on the workfloor, our manager has a problem with not being informed about the talks my co-worker and I've had about possible transfer to another department. We didn't have anything on paper yet. If we have (next week) than we'll inform him. How I don't know but the interim manager knew that we had talks with the department.
My co-worker is criticised on this, but now while I write this down I consider it as criticism on me aswell. Okay, this is something to explain to the interim manager. Maybe he can tell us who informed him about our interdepartmental talks :-)

I almost forgot to mention, we had elections last week. It's the election for a governmental body which members also choose the Senate. Instead of being a region election which it supposed to be, it was an election to test the Government. If the ruling parties don't rule the Senate they have more difficulties to rule the Netherlands. (It's like America where Bush has major problems now the Senate is democratic.)

I voted for the opposition, partly green in the province and partly for Govermental change, dynamics in the Senate.
This is politics and I think that a lot got to change, the public isn't interested anymore.
Not in governing the nation (80% of the laws are based on European laws, or say decrets), not in governing the EU (influence is very low and Bruxelles is far away in people's mind)
Neither in governing the province, because we don't know what they do.
The only governing body of some interest is the Municipality because the Government is delegating tasks to the Municipality. They become more powerful.

I was member of a political party but I resigned after the new cabinet was installed. The party I chose is governing with the same prime minister as head. They digusted his ideas. He has support of Bush, he supports Bush. I don't and my party didn't too much.

busy

This weekend I've had a long one. I had a day off last Friday. That means cycling every day. Training for the summer holiday in July.
The winter isn't that cold here in Holland, especially this year. That means a lot of training possibilities.

At work I got a lot to do and a lot of things at work keep me busy.
Last week I had with about 10 other employees a short discussion about changes in work...should we work with more (or less) entrepreneurship in our work. The pilots my department works on (2 levels) was relatively new for the discussion-leader and he is the big boss.
I tried to make clear that my department already creates a higher service level towards the citizens. I guess that I partly succeeded in making my point. Hopefully management wakes up.

Here is an example of a problem of communicating with management. They don't really know what's happening on the workfloor