Dear reader,
People get burnout everywhere, but what has always intrigued me is the way the Dutch deal with it in the context of employment.
Burnout, and even its less-severe precursor, overspannenheid, which loosely translates as over-stress, is treated as a medical condition here. If you have symptoms of being stressed – sleeping poorly, for example, fatigue, crying easily, oversensitivity to noise, difficulty concentrating, feelings of being out of control, difficulty dealing with daily tasks, and physical symptoms arising from these issues – you can be diagnosed and rest at home while you get treatment.
Burnout in the US
What surprised me when I first heard of this is that, while I’d heard of burnout in the US and it may also be considered a medical condition there, I’d never heard of anyone who’d actually been allowed to deal with it by staying home and getting help. My assumption when I lived there was always that if you did that, you’d soon lose your job. After all, every job I ever had in the US only allowed a certain number of sick days per year, and generally you didn’t take them unless it was absolutely necessary. And if you lost your job, you’d lose health care, so your stress levels would go up instead of down!
Readers in the US, please correct me if I’m wrong about this by adding a comment below. I haven’t lived there since 1997, so things might have changed!
Now, this might have been because I was a teacher, and if I missed a class, some substitute would essentially babysit, but that’s all. The kids would fall behind, and I would feel guilty. I rarely stayed home, even with a cold or flu. And believe me, I suffered several of the symptoms of burnout pretty constantly as a teacher.
Burnout in the Netherlands
Here in the Netherlands if a person is diagnosed as overspannen or has a burnout, they stay home and get treatment. For two years, they cannot be fired unless they have an employment contract that ends sooner than that. They’ll likely, as part of their treatment, start working again in a few weeks or months as part of a reintegration plan, but just part-time at first, taking on responsibility gradually, with supervision to help them learn to cope with the stress.
It is all part and parcel of the general Dutch attitude toward work: work is not what makes us who we are. I remember in my first year in the Netherlands noticing that no one asked me what I did for a living, normally one of the first questions new acquaintances asked in the US. Instead, they would ask me what my hobbies are!
The general idea here is that work has to be balanced with other parts of our lives. The Dutch, for example, generally don’t work overtime. It’s not only not expected; it’s discouraged. Work-life balance is key.
Stress is a definite problem for schoolteachers here, who have more trouble than most in maintaining that work-life balance. Additionally, in my limited experience of colleagues going out overspannen, it tends to create extra work for colleagues who take on that person’s tasks. The problem is that the business (or school, in my case) is reluctant to hire anyone to take over the job. They’re already paying the person who has the burnout, so they don’t want to pay an additional person, even if it’s only temporary. Teachers who are clearly over-stressed will keep working just to avoid over-burdening their colleagues.
Burnout in the Dutch government
Anyway, I’m bringing this up for a reason: ministers in the Dutch parliament and the lame-duck cabinet are suffering burnout.
This isn’t particularly surprising, given the pressures they’ve been dealing with: all of the normal tasks of running the government plus the extra demands caused by the pandemic. Some of them are also involved in the negotiations to form a new government. (See my earlier letter about this.)
Minister Pieter Omtzigt of the CDA party is one of the members of Parliament suffering a burnout. He was the second name on his party’s list in the election this year. The CDA is one of the biggest parties, and I assume that he was closely involved in the negotiations to be part of the new government coalition. The pressure must be fierce. He announced his leave of absence to deal with burnout in February. This week he announced that he’ll be out for a further 16 weeks.
Also this week, the Cabinet Minister of Economic Affairs and Climate, Bas van ‘t Wout, announced his burnout. He says he’ll be out for three months. As a member of the VVD, he’s part of the ruling lame-duck government and is responsible, as the title indicates, for an enormous range of issues.
And a third official, member of Parliament Harry van der Molen of the CDA, is home with a burnout as well, expected to last at least until August.
In all three cases, their duties will be distributed among other officials who are members of their parties.
Can you imagine this happening in the US? Sure, people get burnt out. And that’s not surprising either, given the shorter vacation times, pressure to work overtime and generally competitive work environments there. Perhaps some companies even treat burnout as paid sick days.
But a Senator or Representative or Cabinet secretary announcing that they’re over-stressed so they’re going to stay home for a few months to rest and regain some balance? Somehow I don’t think that would go over very well!
A note for my subscribers
I’ve decided to stop writing weekly letters and just allow myself to post whenever I feel like it and have time. I have a lot of work to do on my blog - updating old posts is a never-ending task - and on top of that I’m hoping to start traveling again soon. That not only means less time to write but also, when it’s sponsored travel, means I have to prioritize the writing I promise to sponsors. Something has to give, or I might get burnt out as well!
Nevertheless, if you have any particular topics related to life in the Netherlands that you’d like to read about, please don’t hesitate to add a comment below or hit reply to email me.
Met vriendelijke groeten (and kind regards),
Rachel
P.S. I write about independent travel at Rachel’s Ruminations. Please join me there!