On this beautiful July day, I close my laptop an hour early. Outside beckons and being outside keeps me sane. It's wonderful to know you can do this without conscience: work hard, play hard.

I throw my rowboat into the Amstel River and row with languid strokes into the summer afternoon. After a while I notice I have company from the shore. I look sideways into the friendly face of a cyclist. In addition to wearing a helmet, he is wearing a brace of some sort that goes through his neck, which is connected to both wrists. In addition, he holds in one hand a large plastic crate with wheels and a lid. As I ponder this unusual combination, he makes contact: "Hi! How are you?"

"Good," I say.

"Do you row often?" he asks.

"Again more and more often," I reply.

Then we are separated by a long reed bed.

At the end of that, he's still there and talking further Whether I suffered from the corona crisis and then how often I row. He is obviously ready for a chat. I decide to change tack and ask about his brace. A story follows about a broken shoulder after an unfortunate fall while skating last winter. It made his work as a financial accountant impossible for a long time. By now he is doing much better, although such a brace is rather in the way if you want to cycle with a large crate. That is why he guided it to both wrists via his neck. It doesn't seem to give much support this way and he agrees with me. But a crate has to be cycled from Amsterdam to Amstelveen and you need both hands for that, so he does it this way. He looks at me with a practical expression.

I ask if there is good guidance from his employer.

What follows is a story about a thorough reintegration process under the guidance of an occupational health physician and an employer who thinks it is all taking too long. The cyclist finds the latter particularly annoying.

At a good time, the employer indicated that he simply expected the cyclist back in the office on Monday. It just had to be done. The employer didn't say it, but you could hear the words "with this bullshit" behind it.

Cyclist seems to me to be someone who follows his orders very meticulously and faithfully. In this case, he has figured out exactly what obligations employer and employee have in reintegration and thus knows that the advice of the company doctor must be followed. That his employer "sat in the chair of the company doctor" makes him very angry.

I say I can imagine that.

"And how is it now?" I ask him.

"Now I think he's a l*l" he says. "I'm doing everything I can to recover. I had a rotten time with a lot of pain, where I couldn't do anything and had to try to sleep upright in bed. I only notice irritation on his side about being out for so long. That doesn't exactly encourage me to come back".

"And skating?" I ask. "Are you ever going to do that again?"

" Oh sure!!!" He shouts without hesitation.

He talks enthusiastically about the Elfstedentocht. He has a starting ticket. Obtained in the year after the last Elfstedentocht was ridden. And it hasn't been freezing since... Except last winter! So no wonder he went.

"With no way they can keep me in the office then. If there's ice, I'm out of there". But yes, the suppleness was gone after all those years. That probably explains the fall.

He had thought about that too. Watching a rugby match, he had suddenly gotten the bright idea that a rugby suit would provide perfect protection for his shoulders: nice and wide and with lots of protective material.

Suddenly I have a hunch: "and then you ask your employer to sponsor you!!!".

He looks at me for a moment and then laughs very hard.

I can totally picture it: the cyclist, dressed in a rugby costume, skimming over the Frisian waters. The name of his employer in chocolate letters on his back and chest.

Employer branding at its best.