You could just experience it at work: three colleagues who were simultaneously elected carnival prince this year. That’s probably a polonaise every day in the workplace. Boy, René and Jan know all about it. They have been renamed Prince Carnival, each in their own city. And that creates a bond: “We greet each other every day with ‘good morning, your highness’, and shake hands. We will continue that until Carnival.”
Boy Joosten has been chosen as carnival prince of Kaauw Voetenland, or Lierop. Colleague René van Boxtel is Prince Renaldo of Schoenlapperslaand (Waalwijk) and Jan Eijsermans can call himself Prince John the Third of Kruikenstad (Tilburg).
All three were asked months in advance to become Carnival Princes. Boy and René soon became a little too loose-lipped in the workplace, which meant that all colleagues knew early on that they would hold sway over their carnival kingdom.
“But I really had to keep my mouth shut longer, if colleagues here knew about it, then the whole of Kruikenstad would know that it would be me,” says Jan Eijsermans in the in-house café of their Schrobbelèr workplace in Tilburg.
“What does the weekend have in store for you, how has it been and how fit you are?”
There in that cafe they recently celebrated this joyful fact with their carnival clubs and their entourage. Boy: “We celebrated the fraternization of carnival together live here, which was really fun.”
The three often talk about their important task. They exchange tips and keep each other informed about the ups and downs in their own kingdom. “Especially at the beginning and at the end of the week. What does the weekend have in store for you, how has it been and how fit you are?”, laughs Boy with a hoarse voice who has already spent quite a few carnival hours.
How are things going in everyday life on the work floor? Polonaise and serpentines in the air all day? The in-house café may look carnivalesque, but René is down-to-earth. “Just work and bring the product to the man or woman.”
“When the three of us met for the first time, it was something we will never forget.”
But he thinks the situation is really very special. “It looks like a movie we are in. When I heard that Jan had also become a prince, that was fantastic, the icing on the cake. And when the three of us met for the first time, something we will never forget .”
Is there an explanation for the fact that no fewer than three eminences work at this address? According to Jan, carnival is in the company’s DNA. “Almost all colleagues who walk around here are avid carnival celebraters. During carnival there is only one who does not celebrate, but the rest are on the road. So it is a bit of an ABC.”
These are busy times for all three. Jan, commercial director of the company and also singer of the well-known carnival group Veul Gère, has an idea of how these three hold up during carnival. “Let me put it this way, a drink every now and then works wonders.”
