How it all started
How it all started,
The Letter
📚 Dutch Version
📚 English Version
The tight financial corset in which I was forced by the municipal tax authorities has had very serious consequences for me as a person, but also for my children in the long term. In the summer of 2007 I became hopelessly lost. I went bankrupt due to a residual debt of more than 42,000,-. The outstanding debt to the municipality, however, was only 13,000,- Euro. Due to the unnecessary wage attachment that followed on my salary. I went under unnecessarily.
Reference 03526650
Arnhem, 13 October 2006
Reference 03526650 Resident Affairs Department Arnhem
Attn. Mr. Henderiks Postbus 59 6800 LK Arnhem Dear Mr. Henderiks, With an ever-increasing increase in personal amazement, I have taken note of your answer in your letter of 3 October.
The excessively tight financial corset in which your service has forced me has very far-reaching consequences for me as a person, but also for my children in the long term. These are so serious that I will no longer be able to participate in our current society in a normal way. I would therefore like to give you my motives and reasons why I am appealing to you on humanitarian grounds.
In the attachment you will find a very urgent message, of which I certainly expect that this emergency appeal can count on your positive cooperation. To make it clear once and for all how serious the situation is that we are actually dealing with here. Kind regards,
Hol D.J.B.
Appendix Cause
Enjoyed too long with too little open education within the available frames of reference of life.
Consequence Because I was not allowed to enjoy any or hardly any good education in my youth, I never realized at a young age what it is like to be accountable for something that was seen as a form of tax evasion, in the then prevailing social class within my available frames of reference. I did not know any better at that time. Not aware of the importance of the consequence for the rest of my life as long as this issue is not dealt with and is set to Done.
Because I only realized at a later age what the damage was of my actions within the previously mentioned frames of reference, due to too little education, it is an enormous long road to repair all the suffering, penance, and damage caused. In that respect, I am metaphorically an exponent of so-called open learning.
During my stay at LTS, this form of education provision had already crystallized. I have been on the road for many years to overcome all its bumps and imperfections. The first years after the awarded verdict and associated provisions, I was mentally three-dimensionally knocked out given the then outstanding claim. Again, due to not having received enough education and not realizing that there would indeed be a future if I had been able to receive a good education earlier in my life. The realization and the turning point came at the moment that I could feed my mind in a creative and challenging environment that had a positive effect on the blossoming of my increasing desire for knowledge areas in all kinds of areas. I have always made much of this knowledge that I have acquired available in the service of various non-profit organizations on the basis of voluntary contributions.
Many projects and volunteer work done over time. This has allowed me to lay a foundation to ultimately be able to consciously choose the solution to the still open and indelible issue in my life that is still not on Done today. The efforts to come to a definitive Done of the problem coincide with an increasing longing for rehabilitation with regard to the feeling of how much penance is justified in order to be eligible for a fair new start that I entered at the start of my reintegration towards the labor market.
Finally, in search of the essence of a justified Done. This new start began for me on the first day that I entered the reintegration class in February 2003, and was fortunate enough to meet a great Mental Coach who more than excellently pointed me in the right direction towards the ultimate goals in life. The first real step in this was the treatment of my personal step-by-step plan at the time. Which still forms the starting point for the goals that I have set in broad outline. A very important main goal then finally comes into view after a successful and successful retraining, and a good reintegration project.
Where after closing that I entered in November 2004 at a company in a Purchasing department where administrative processing was the main focus of a leading national retail distributor of Software and Games.
Within three months I was ultimately responsible for the complete organization and backordering at operational level of the company. Which when I entered consisted of approximately fifty employees. After six months my position was upgraded to As. Purchasing Manager upon departure of the then Head of Purchasing Micromedia. Working with the industry top in the Netherlands at national level. In a great challenging industry. Being allowed to make purchases for two thirds of the market in the Netherlands, without and with the knowledge that Micromedia has so far filled in the successor of the departed head of the Purchasing department. Micromedia has large K-Accounts and provides the complete Software and Games, Game consoles and related platform hardware assortment at Mediamarkt Nederland, Kijkshop, Dixons, Dynabyte, Office Center Makro, Bol.com and every Gameshop and Computershop in the Netherlands.
In order to be able to serve all these partners on time in combination with strictly monitored folder campaigns and timely stocking for the upcoming holiday season, I check the outstanding value of all our purchase orders daily. Micromedia has a worldwide network of industry-related suppliers and publishers. As a result, I am in daily contact with many internationally renowned and listed companies, such as Microsoft, where Micromedia has negotiated exclusivity on the total Dutch distribution of the ® Microsoft Xbox Xbox 360 and Xbox Games.
In addition, we do business directly with almost all self-respecting software & game producers in the world. Such as Symantec, McAfee, Scansoft, Corel, but also Game industry-related companies such as Electronic Arts, Nintendo, Sony, Atari, Ubisoft, Vivendi, Trust, Altech Lansink, and countless others.
Initially, I am mainly concerned with a solution-oriented issue approach. I try to monitor and prevent "hold" situations by initiating early escalation procedures. To this end, I have many business discussions with almost all suppliers and I defend the Micromedia interest at all times. Inventory management and correct loading, and the creation of win / win situations are mainly important. In between all these open lines of communication, internal projects run in which I have acquired a substantial company share in the formulation and preparation of work procedures, defined according to the development and progress of applicable system improvements within our own maintained network and database management, in which I am always looking for inventive ICT solutions with applicable functional efficiency increasing methodologies.
In the pursuit of increasingly service-oriented services for the benefit of the tactical purchasing side, I was able to set up a new Fulfillment department last year, which takes care of the operational activities of the purchasing administration within the Purchasing department. The staff for this was partly recruited at my request. All this within a team of highly valued colleagues, in which I work closely with the Director and the General Manager in a pleasant and warm manner. Two special people to whom I owe a great deal of gratitude.
I am resigning from this very stressful and hectic job in a turnover of countless e-mails, and personal and/or telephone contacts per day. From January 2007, when I have finally sorted everything out, I want to focus on a nine-month evening course in Middle Management, which I want to successfully complete in the autumn of 2007, in order to be able to fully grow into the next nine months of Higher Management.
With the ultimate goal for me to place a serious application for the still vacant position of Head of Purchasing Micromedia. The reason that I am presenting all this to you and the explanation stems from the fact that my successful reintegration is currently being hampered to such an extent by the decision of your service that the fact is beginning to present itself that I am starting to become mentally, mentally and physically exhausted and therefore cannot do my work properly. It is even so serious that my entire existence is being called into question because, in the aftermath of your claim, I have built up a number of debts arising from a period of many years in which I, but also my family, enjoyed a joint income well below the social minimum of the legal standard.
As a result, I have never been able to pay all the bills that a family brings with it without creating and building up new debts. A years-long race of the crazy and ever-revolving financial circus with credit problems that cannot be solved because there is structurally too little coming in, leads to a vicious circle that can only be broken with iron self-discipline and motivation. I was well on my way to 70/30, but because of your rigidity and steadfastness, I still threaten to run aground in sight of the harbor in search of the previously mentioned Done because I am no longer able to do my job properly because aggressive bailiffs are driving my financial inability to the limit and I can no longer go anywhere.
I am starving because I no longer have the spending power for a decent meal. I have enormous difficulty paying my daily travel expenses to get to work. Micromedia is located in Nijmegen in the direction of the Gelderse-poort. I take the bus, train, have to change to another train where I have to walk 15 minutes upon arrival to be able to do everything I have just described to you. And visa versa back at the end of the day. 4 hours of travel time per day is no exception in the increasingly busy public commuter traffic in the KAN area. Of course I get a travel allowance but with the outcome of the current attachment-free allowance for a single person I cannot, with all the will in the world, generate more money than imposed and executed by your service.
As a result, I no longer have any spending space to be able to fully pay my penance. As a result, I lose everything I have built up, and I am not concerned with any material damage because I do not or hardly have any. I am talking about loss of goodwill, social standing because I have always made an effort in many areas in society to be of service to society on several fronts. With the current imposed standard, I will soon be stigmatized forever and damned for the rest of my life. If these kinds of problems threaten to put people with really good intentions out of the labor market because the pressure of performing under these extreme stress conditions is inhumane and therefore humane to succumb to, then in my opinion that can never be the intention, since I can demonstrate that I have been fighting for years to turn the tide and am really doing everything I can to get it resolved.
In addition, this has damaging consequences for Micromedia because I play a pivotal role in an extremely busy period of the year in our company and our business. In my opinion, the claim that is still outstanding with you is therefore completely out of proportion to the strict urgency of the item that is still outstanding. The penance that I have been carrying with me for years and the level of communication outlined in combination with my personal potential should be sufficient guarantee for you to want to look into possibilities for granting clemency, to make it possible for me to take that very last step and to be able to continue to be part of that which I have worked so incredibly hard on with dedication and self-discipline in a dignified and normal way in recent years.
Now that I reasonably thought I had everything under control, my control over the case is slipping away like loose sand under my feet due to your stringent collection policy, without me being able to influence the outcome of the cloudburst of problems that await me soon because I will then no longer have a chance to keep myself on my feet. In all those difficult years that have now passed to get to where I am now, I have met all my financial obligations to numerous creditors and paid off more than I could afford as a responsible head of the family.
I did and still do all this in an honest and sincere relationship with the various bailiffs' offices that are prepared to think along constructively and agree to further reductions in payment agreements. If we cannot get out of this impasse together, your service will have to take full responsibility for why no help has been offered again and why there is so much urgency to want to collect the outstanding mail more quickly, even if children are in danger of becoming the victims again and being left out in the cold.
This will become clear if you take a closer look at the last paragraphs. As you know, I recently got divorced after a 19-year relationship that ended because I refused to turn a blind eye to my eldest son’s 18-year-old soft drug use after theft and burglary were discussed. Mentally, all this is not going to leave you cold. How should I treat them now that I can no longer pay off the last bit of my enormous debt burden within sight of the harbour? This also has consequences for those who are still very dear to me. The importance of the children should not be underestimated if it turns out that Mrs. Verpoort is still in the aforementioned frames of reference where once again improper property is being taken from the state.
It is no longer my responsibility, but she does not realize that she is destroying herself in no time, and with that my children too. I have tried for 15 years to change her mind and give her standards and values, but if she does not want to learn, it will end for me too. This was always a controversial point of discussion in our relationship, but that is beside the point. By making these statements, I fully realize that I am putting her in a difficult position. But the damage is now limited to a few months. If this comes to light later, the suffering will be completely incalculable. That is why I have decided, despite the fact that I formally have nothing to do with her anymore, to take my social responsibility and to protect her from herself, for the benefit of my own children, among others.
That is providing help in the long term, even though she will not perceive it that way, if you know what I mean. I have never succeeded despite repeated pleas to the point of despair: take a regular job, that will increase our repayment capacity. She did not understand it, and never. Put her on a reintegration project focused on home care and make sure she recognizes the value of a regular job. Then she might just be able to keep her head above water later. If not, then I will always offer her financial help where I can for the rest of my life, so that she can also have a dignified existence at all times. Despite our divorce.
The final question then arises. If the safety net offered to the children falls away because dad is on the brink and is slipping further and further away, and is therefore forced into an impossible and untenable situation in which he is part but no longer a part. In combination with the loss of the safety net of the other partner because he is primarily responsible for the damage suffered that will be recovered from her because dad is no longer able to pay it. And she who is far from being able to ever be able to pay it. Where then lies, in your eyes, the responsibility to arrive at a correct assessment of multiple interests on the basis of the counterarguments that I have tried to offer you in an open and warm atmosphere in which I ask you for an honest helping hand in an open and honest letter to want to plead the urgency of this matter to you once again.
It is also in your interest that I do not risk going under, if only from a social-societal point of view. In the past I have knocked on the door of the Municipal Budget Advice Centre twice in vain for professional help. They saw no point in it, and I feel that I have been abandoned by them. I still feel that I was not really taken seriously, even then. Finally, I would like to point out to you that at the time of my request in September 1999 with the request for help, a total outstanding amount of 72,955 Dutch guilders had been reported. Calculated on the introduction rate of the Euro, this amounts to an amount of more than 160,000 euros. Of this, an amount of almost 20,000 euros is still outstanding. Of which your claim amounts to almost 13,000 euros excluding interest. It can never be the intention of the legislator and the care sector that this can no longer be settled in a normal and humane manner??
And this while I clearly demonstrate here that I have my life in order, and generate enough of my own income with sufficient guarantees for a successful conclusion of a period that has been behind me for a long time. That is also why I am looking for that one and only justified DONE of that one and only pitch-black page in my entire life. A misconception with wrong actions as a result in my entire life. I am certainly not incriminated, but a full-fledged and extremely friendly endearing personality who really cannot tolerate any more bad luck in his life.
My children do not deserve this, I do not deserve this. My ex does not deserve this. My employer does not deserve this. No one deserves this who strives as much as I do to achieve a final and complete rehabilitation of all suffering, damage and penance suffered. Recalculation of the standard is therefore essential and strictly necessary. I therefore hope that your service, with a sense of urgency, will be able to properly assess the value of the content of this EMERGENCY letter.
I therefore continue to have confidence in a good outcome.
Yours sincerely, Hol D.J.B.
Arnhem February 2025
Never received a substantive answer³
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