A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend a reunion drink at the National Audit Office, where my career once began. That was also immediately the best time I experienced. Tax officials do not sufficiently realise the protected status they have. With law in hand, they roam the country, St Nicholas would say. But they don't play Santa Claus.
The commotion focused on the Zuyderland hospitals in Heerlen and Geleen. But surely it must be symptomatic of all regional hospitals. Financial compulsiveness prevails. Hospital administrators are primarily CFOs, so focused on cost and efficiency.
In this edition of the Tripost, we reflect on the freshly installed cabinet's tax plans announced last week. Handsome work, given the short time frame. Content-wise, it is not very exciting yet. There is some twisting of knobs from left to right, but no landslides. That makes sense. We are getting some limited vistas into the further future, but no one is committing to that. There are some simplifications in the plans that give me goose bumps.
In mijn vorige blog keek ik met u uit naar de vakantie. Inmiddels heb ik de werkzaamheden hervat en leef ik weer in het ritme van voor de vakantie. Het voelt goed, ik kan de ontspanning van de zomerpauze nog even meenemen. Het valt me wel op hoe druk wij zijn als je dat afzet tegen de landen in Europa die we afgelopen periode bezochten. Je bent zelf natuurlijk als toerist onderweg, dus is het de vraag of je een objectieve waarneming doet.
The vacation season dawns, office stress peaks. Sometimes you wonder what vacation is actually good for. You work your ass off to get everything done before you leave, and when you return there is a pile waiting for you that immediately ruins all vacation fun. Moreover, it is not out of the question that breakdowns occur during the vacation itself.
Joost Klein performs again after the failure in Malmö. As one of the founding fathers of the Eurovision Song Contest, the Netherlands has been barred from participating. We still don't know what really happened. Surely it does not seem so difficult for the Swedish Public Prosecutor's Office to investigate this. Despite the firm intention not to watch I did. A non-binary winner with a lousy song and a recital that makes me feel ashamed. But that's Europe today.
As a young employee in the National Audit Office, I got to know colleagues from the FIOD as they moved into our building for an investigation. I remember piles of files and months, sometimes years, of investigations. The alternation between paperwork and interrogations was very important. Findings from both sources were compared, and the results of those comparisons in turn gave rise to further and more focused interrogation.
MPs Van Nispen (SP) and Mohandis (GL-PvdA) have introduced a bill to reintroduce school swimming. For all younger readers: you used to get swimming lessons at school. Yours truly got his A and B diplomas during school hours. Parents didn't have to drive back and forth with us; the bus came to pick us up and take us back to school. I don't even remember any parent interfering with this whole process.