The annual staff outing of the Blokker team from Veldhoven will not take place this year, because the chain was declared bankrupt in mid-November. That’s why the staff had set up a tip jar to raise money for a very last outing as a team. But it was stolen. “I really didn’t expect that someone would take that with them,” says employee Saskia Verharen.
No, normally they don’t have a tip jar at the Blokker, but for this occasion they thought it was possible. “We thought it was rude to ask, so we placed the jar at the payment machine, with a note stating that it was intended for our outing.”
The jar and its contents disappeared on Friday evening between five and eight, says Saskia, who also lives in Veldhoven. “I called the afternoon team to see if they had seen it and I also searched for half an hour myself,” she says. There wasn’t a lot of money in it, about twenty to forty euros, Saskia estimates. But she finds it scandalous that it was taken. “Who would do something like that?”
“We always want to conclude something together, as a team.”
It is not clear who did it, the camera images are managed by a security company and have not yet been viewed. “We took it up with our boss.”
The team outing will go ahead anyway, Saskia knows. “We will pay for it out of our own pocket. In any case, we want to conclude something together, as a team.” Because in a few weeks it will be over for the chain that determined the Dutch street scene for so long.
Saskia and her colleagues will work for the last time on December 31. “A hundred other branches will close on the 21st. We stay open a little longer because we are a well-run branch.” She has not yet found a new job, although the twenty-year-old does not expect to be without work for too long: “That will work out.”