Maureen: “Remon and I know each other from LinkedIn.”
Remon: “Maureen has a communications agency and was looking for a location for a client. I have an events agency and responded to her call.”
Maureen: “There was an immediate spark. We started dating before we even got around to working together.”
Maureen: “We now have a lat relationship. I’m a nicer person when I’ve been alone for a while.”
Remon: “But it is also because Maureen has children.”
Maureen: “They are 17 and 21 and still live at home, although they are with their father half the time.”
Remon: “So it is also a division of time and attention. But I notice that there is still quite a stigma attached to lat relationships. You really have to explain why you don’t live together.”
Maureen: “Because I don’t want to, haha.”
Remon: “The nice thing is: if you haven’t seen each other for a while, you fall in love all over again.”
Generational difference with Gen Z
Maureen: “I have the crisis communication agency UP Crisis Communication & Media, with a team of eight. We provide advice regarding a crisis, or for example a #metoo affair, a product that needs to be recalled, online data that has been hacked. It could even be murder. For example, I once helped a youth care institution when an employee was murdered by a client and his friends. All kinds of rumors often spread on social media, while the organization where something happened does not know what to do. My work is hectic, but that’s what I like. I don’t want to say that I am an adrenaline junkie, but I like to make a difference at the right time, even when there is time pressure.”
Remon: “I have the events agency dtevents, with five employees. We create large business events for companies themselves: conferences, anniversaries, end-of-year parties or kick-off events at the start of the new year. We have an office in a coworking space full of plants in the old Verkade factory, with a view of the Zaan. My employees are all Gen Z women, and I notice that there is a real generational difference. They really start the working day a lot later than I do. Sometimes they say they don’t come alive until sometime in the afternoon. But the commercial hours during which you can actually have customer contact are still between nine and four.”
Maureen: “We understand very well that work and private life sometimes overlap. Or that the other person has to work in the evening or during the weekend.”
Morning people
Remon: “I work sixty to eighty hours a week, although I try to take it a little easier these days. Last year we went to Colombia for three weeks and I really didn’t work during that holiday. That never happened before. Once when I was traveling in Jordan, I was on the phone all the time for work. I’m going skiing later and the friends I’m going with asked me if I wouldn’t want to sit in the car on the phone for the entire trip. So I’m not going to do that, but I will work in the car with the laptop on my lap. And even after skiing at half past six, I first go to work and then sit down to have a beer. Workaholic? I think the word workaholic has a negative connotation. I like to work.”
Maureen: “I work less, about fifty hours a week. I never go away for a weekend without a laptop and, for example, when I’m on the plane, I also have the laptop on my lap. Of course, a crisis usually comes unexpectedly, so that is part of it.”
Remon: “I get up at five o’clock every day, even on weekends, and then I start work. I go to bed between ten and eleven. I used to sleep poorly and then, around the age of 21, I started trying out this rhythm. I feel good about that. I fall asleep quickly at night and usually wake up before five o’clock. Sometimes I wake up at three o’clock, and then I get up and start the working day.”
Maureen: “I get up a little later, at six o’clock. Sometimes I sleep in until seven o’clock. That may sound crazy, but for me that’s sleeping in. We are both really morning people. Good thing, too! It seems difficult to me if one person is a morning person and the other a night person.”
Remon: “I can do a lot in the morning that I won’t get around to the rest of the day because I’m full of meetings.”
Maureen: “Our recipe? Let each other free.”
Remon: “And humor, especially Maureen’s. This ranges from lame jokes and puns to melancholy.”
Maureen: “My children said: if you have found someone who appreciates your humor, you should stay with him, haha. Remon also has a sense of humor himself. He is becoming more and more loose. And I also laugh a lot with my children. It’s a lot of fun here.”
Remon: “I get along well with Maureen’s children.”
Maureen: “Sometimes we give each other free time, sometimes we really take the time for each other. When we go for a walk, we immediately walk 20 or 25 kilometers. We love good food and a beer or wine. We can really get along with each other.”
Remon: “Certainly! In 2022, during my skiing holiday, on top of a mountain in Italy, I suddenly had a brilliant idea for my work. You can say that: are you still working even when you are on holiday? But it’s not that I can’t relax. Relaxation can create extra space for new thoughts.”