My enthusiasm to join the broadcaster WNL has not increased after the latest reporting about Bert Huisjes, editor-in-chief of WNL. No fewer than 25 (former) employees have reported unpleasant experiences with him to the A.D. He was sorry to hear that, he responded, and he would even have liked to discuss a number of complaints earlier. “My door was and still is open to that.”
How would that work in practice? You knock on such a door, Bert meets you with a disarming smile. “Good to see you again,” he crows, “I heard something was bothering you. Tell!”
You gather all your courage and try to get started, but then suddenly Rick Nieman, one of Bert’s few TV celebrities, appears with his beaming head around the corner of the door and shouts: “You will definitely figure it out. I really didn’t recognize any of those complaints myself. Neither does Sven Kockelman, by the way. We think it’s really cool at WNL.”
There you are as a complainant. You start to doubt, very humanly. It can’t be your fault, can it? If big Rick and big Sven get along so well with big Bert, why not you? Maybe because you’re too small compared to those big men? Or would Bert piss on you for that reason and not on them?
If you, as a complainant, have a little more self-confidence, you could, while Bert is serving the coffee, pick up the voluminous report of the Van Rijn committee and read this pithy quote: “If we look at transgressive behavior, we see that WNL- respondents, as well as respondents elsewhere, report experiences with bullying, intimidation, sexism and discrimination, with similar (long-term) negative consequences for themselves and their environment. It is striking that experiences with bullying are reported here more often than in the rest of the public broadcaster (WNL 94 percent compared to 72 percent elsewhere).”
Bert will try to interrupt you by offering a delicious pastry from Holtkamp (“I got it for you this morning myself!”), but you pretend not to see that and continue unabated with the last part of the quote: “Also In conversations with WNL employees, most examples relate to bullying, including gossiping, sabotage, ignoring, belittling and ‘bullying’ employees away.”
And while Bert now starts to shove the pastry into your mouth rather roughly, you just manage to utter the last deadly sentence of the quote: “In about half of the conversations, these examples are specifically about the behavior of the managers.”
Bert has half of the deliciousness in his hand, the rest sticks to your mouth. “Gosh,” says Bert, “I find this very intense. I have to take this up with Rick and Sven, I always have such great conversations with them, but it just doesn’t work with you.”
You still have just enough presence of mind to object: “But it wouldn’t work with Eva Jinek, Merel Westrik and Roos Moggré, to name just a few, would it?”
“Oh well,” Bert then sighs, and his eyes take on a soft glow, “there will always be strong substantive discussions. We as a cheerful right-wing public broadcaster should not be afraid of that.”