Marieke Elsinga returns after a month and a half in the morning show of Qmusic. She has avoided a burnout and now feels energetic enough to play records on the radio again.
Just after the rumors of a transfer to Radio 538, Marieke Elsinga announced a month and a half ago that she will stop her morning show on Qmusic for the time being. The reason? She was very tired and didn’t enjoy it anymore. Now, after a month and a half of doing nothing, Marieke has enough strength to play pictures again.
‘I’m almost stressed!’
Marieke announced it by telephone this morning in the morning show she is making with Mattie Valk. From his biggest announcement, she almost immediately had a breakdown. “I almost get stressed from the way you announce me. So much pressure and it went so well.”
How are you now? “It goes well. Yesterday and the day before yesterday I had two very nice working days in the television studios of RTL. I was on the phone with you a week or two ago and I already said, “Well, I’m just really excited to pick things up and get to work.” I’ll start with TV, that was a hard blow for you.”
‘Goes very well’
Mattie Valk cynically: “Yes, nothing has changed in that regard. Television always first.”
Marieke jokingly: “Exactly, and I also thought a bit: if I stumble there and it goes wrong, then I won’t disappoint you either, but then it’s RTL, huh? Of course you can run it that way too! But it was great fun. I’ve had so much fun, I’ve had so much fun, so no, it’s going really well.”
What has she been up to lately? “The last few weeks that I really took a break from work were really good and really necessary. In all honesty, I could have done it a year earlier or something.”
spinning in circles
Why didn’t Marieke do that? “Do you know what it is also a bit with this nice job that we have, making radio and in my case also making TV?”
She continues: “It’s a bit like being allowed to go round in a carousel and then it’s so much fun that you want to go round every round, until at a certain point you think: I’m nauseous, maybe I also had a round or two can sit next to the merry-go-round. I have now done that and I feel like doing laps again.”
A day off
Marieke returns on Monday, but with an extra day off during the week. “I have decided not to be there on Wednesday for a while. I’m really looking forward to it, but I also want to have a kind of soft landing. I didn’t think it would be such a good idea to go full into that express train right away.”
The presenter continues: “I found it quite difficult to choose to take that Wednesday out, but once I had decided I thought: it’s a good idea.”
After all that endless thinking about suitable work rhythms and appropriate metaphors, it does indeed sound as if Marieke is ready to roll up her sleeves again.