Work

In the interviews, Smit and Twisk talk about their work and their experience of it. The interviews were conducted on behalf of a series of articles by Martin Schouten in the Haagse Post in which people talk about their experience of work. Later, most of these pieces were collected, in modified form, in Schouten’s book Work. Fifty People about what they actually do for a living and how they feel about it.

Incidentally, several people appear in the book under pseudonyms.

Jan Smit is a house painter with the Buildings Department of Netherlands Railways. He recounts his experiences at work in a sometimes hilarious manner. Kees Twisk (74), a retired ‘greenkeeper’, talks about maintaining the golf courses in Zandvoort, which he did all his life. The interview with Faber was not conducted directly in the context of the above-mentioned topic but for the benefit of a project on people living on the financial minimum. The results of this were also supposed to be contained in a book.
However, it is unclear whether this ever materialised.

Interviewees:

• Jan Smit
• Kees Twisk
• Mr Faber

The book Werk is also relevant for those interested. In Werk, Hague Post journalist Martin Schouten interviews 50 people about what they actually do for a living and what they think about it. For a year, Schouten listened to people talk about their work: about their profession, their boss, their colleagues, their life – what they had imagined and how it turned out. From the barge skipper (“the romance has sailed away”) to the real estate agent (“your private life gets a bit involved, three years ago I got divorced”). He has strolled across a golf course with the man whose job it was to keep the grass green (greenkeeper), sat hoisting lager with a letter carrier (‘they sometimes think it’s some imbicile professionie’) and sagged with the bouncer of a nightclub. In short: everyday work life. Wonderful.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)