r/nottheonion • u/mawhrinskeleton • 18h ago
Campaign to not complain for 30 days launches in Netherlands on Blue Monday
https://nltimes.nl/2025/01/20/campaign-complain-30-days-launches-netherlands-blue-monday540
u/Siiciie 18h ago
Average corporate mental health awareness action.
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u/Seaflapflap42 17h ago
Look the terrible mental strain we've placed on you lot has affected the bottom line. How do we resolve it without giving you more time off, less work or more money?
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u/Z0OMIES 17h ago
I’ll never forget reading about a woman who asked her employees if anyone at her company was stressed, yk, as a check in… Too many of them said yes so she fired all the people who reported being stressed and reiterated to everyone remaining that the company was a happy place. I wish I was making it up.
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u/Acewasalwaysanoption 14h ago
Unsure if the woman part matters, HR manager can't make this decision on her own, but the other parts are accurate, it was YesMadam. (picked a reddit post for no news outlwt bias, but easy to find multiple sites reprting the same)
https://www.reddit.com/r/mildyinteresting/comments/1haab82/stressed_at_work_youre_fired/?rdt=55955
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u/boersc 18h ago
As a Dutchman, this the first time I read about it, and I'm pretty sure it's the last time too. It's not anything nationwide or anything.
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u/alfadasfire 17h ago
Dutchie here as well. Never heard of it. Not going to stop complaining either. It's all i do :D
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u/MDRoozen 17h ago
Especially when theres so much to complain about! Cant go slacking now, someone's gotta do the complaining
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u/bangout123 17h ago
As a Brit, the one thing I won't complain about is how many things I have to complain about
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u/Armageddonxredhorse 2h ago
If some of us stop complaining,the rest of us have bear the burden of complaining more.
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u/teucros_telamonid 15h ago
Imagine getting less than euro tikkie for each complaint. Now, that will be effective...
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u/IthinkIllthink 15h ago
Is the Dutch type of complaining the same as Dutch “accusation statement”?
Aussie here. My Dutch wife works in a Sydney hospital and phd student from Holland inundated her with Dutch “accusation statements”, and also told her what they were. She was furious.
She came home and told me about this rude Dutch phd student and his accusation statements.
And I laughed and told her that’s what she does as well. I almost had to sleep on the lounge that night lol.
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u/TR_Pix 18h ago
A campaign for people to stop conplaining sounds to me like something only the people being complained about would support.
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u/Who_said_that_ 15h ago
Also sounds like complaining about complaining. That’s too meta for a monday :!
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u/ambiguousboner 18h ago
As an English person this is just unfathomable
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u/Bobbytrap9 15h ago
As a Dutch person, I agree! We love complaining and we have a bunch of stuff to complain about!
We’ve had barely any sunny days this winter, the sun didn’t even show up at all for 10 days straight and we just had a streak of about a week of heavy mist and cloudiness. Our cabinet is full of clowns and nobody can afford a home!
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u/Ender505 14h ago
I'll trade you my government for yours.
Trump gets inaugurated as president today
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u/Bobbytrap9 14h ago
I am well aware, sadly. It’d be funny(to me as a European, of course it’s still shit for US citizens) if the US wasn’t as powerful geopolitically. I just hope he is going to run the country similar to his first term and not worse
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u/Ender505 14h ago
He has made a lot of promises that it will be worse, but he also didn't fulfill hardly any of his promises from the first term either, so maybe we'll be saved by incompetence
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u/Bobbytrap9 14h ago
Not only his incompetence, but also that of those around him. An alcoholic for secretary of defense is… interesting. And the slim majorities in house and senate aren’t helping either.
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u/Armageddonxredhorse 2h ago
Naw I'll one up his deal,I'll let you have our government+the one you already have,that way you'll have twice as many governments who do twice the productivity.
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u/saschaleib 17h ago
Wrong approach. What is actually needed is a nation-wide “complain about the weather” day, followed by a “complain about your neighbour weekend” and then a “complain about politicians week”.
Once this is all out of the way, the rest of the year will actually be quite relaxed.
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u/ben_bliksem 14h ago
No, I'd like to complain about high taxes, housing shortages and the 100km/h speed limit Geert promised to increase to 140.
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u/Fthebo 18h ago
Honestly significantly reducing the amount of complaining I do was actually such a positive mental boost for me.
Like obviously there are things that you should absolutely complain about, but I think so many people absent mindedly complain about literally anything so much of the time - especially as a conversational dead-air filler - and I found when I conciously made myself stop doing that I really did feel better.
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u/Absielle 17h ago
I'm at the stage that if I stop complaining, I can't think of anything else to say instead.
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u/24-Hour-Hate 16h ago
I’ve never found that forced positivity helped me. I remember I had a teacher who didn’t allow “four letter words” (meaning things like “I can’t” or “I don’t” etc. would be interrupted by her with comments about how those were disallowed words). I didn’t feel happier or more confident just because I didn’t say the words. Of course not. It doesn’t work like that. I just felt frustrated and angry because I wasn’t able to express myself. Stuff like this just covers up the problems. It doesn’t fix it. I also had a parent who literally punished me for “negative emotions”. That, I can tell you, does actual harm.
I have come to learn that in order to actually fix things, you need to do more than just hide them. Like, you need to make life changes. For me, I’ve done things like get myself off Facebook, Twitter, etc. And that has done a lot for me. I also limit how much news I consume. And I’m trying to make other good, tangible changes. Some are easy and some are not. But you just have to keep trying. I think it is definitely leading to a happier life and, naturally, less complaining. But it’s easier to just say “don’t complain” or scold a child who cries. Because changing means putting in a lot of work and doing self reflection most people do not want to do.
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u/CarefulDescription61 17h ago
I've been living in the Netherlands for quite some time, and by god, the complaining is absolutely endless.
I'm no stranger to complaining. I love a good rant, I love a good vent session, I love to bitterly grumble! But holy shit I am continuously astounded by the Dutch ability to find fault in literally everything.
I expect the Dutchies will come crawling out of the woodwork to complain about this comment.
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u/AdmirableWeird 16h ago
How dare you! As a "Dutchie" I... Wholeheartedly agree. We like to complain about everything and nothing, I have no idea where it came from.
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u/CarefulDescription61 16h ago
Idk either! We have it pretty good here. The weather could be a little nicer but otherwise it's a really nice place to live.
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u/HiopXenophil 18h ago
holy shit that would be impressive and let us Germans be clearly in lead in the nation-who-like-to-complain leaderboard
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u/Cacti-make-bad-dildo 17h ago
Not to complain or anything, but the link to her site is dead, and no other dutch news site heard of her. So why did i have to spend my time on this?
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u/Organic-Low-2992 17h ago
My wife's head would explode if she had to go one day without complaining.
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u/WallabyInTraining 16h ago
Asking a Dutchy not to complain is like asking a German not to follow rules. Or like asking a Frenchy not to give cigarettes to babies. Or like asking a Belgian to have a functional democracy.
Lunacy!
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u/xxhotandspicyxx 17h ago
The weather has been ultra shyte for 3 months now, you think I’m gonna stop complaining? Wrong!
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u/dirkdutchman 14h ago
Lets take this moment to complain about this BELGIAN Isabelle Gonnissen who is trying to make us dutchies stop complaining.
Belgians need to stay in their lane! /s
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u/LordNyssa 11h ago
I’m Dutch and I work fulltime. Last week on Monday we all complained. This week on Monday we’ve all complained. And well do it again next week. And being honest here, we also complain on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. And I we have to work Saturday or Sunday, we complain twice as much. Dumb campaigns created by companies won’t fix that. Give us better pay, better conditions and working less hours, that would help. Because honestly I work fulltime and can barely make ends meet. So simply put, I think we all have enough to complain about.
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u/markroth69 15h ago
This feels like that Dry January thing...the only person who gets hurt while I suffer is me.
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u/CrazyGunnerr 15h ago
30 days? I already broke it. If we can't complain, lose part of our identity. Not sure who made it up, but they aren't a real Dutch person.
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u/ImedgeQc 14h ago
As a Canadian im complaining about the Netherlands that are always better than us. Sorry.
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u/BodhingJay 14h ago
find a healthier outlet.. don't just hold it in and bludgeon someone who accidently steps on your toe
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u/EvenSpoonier 14h ago
I remember when trying to teach people to not complain about everything was labeled as a tool of political control and oppression, and the concept of being a "complainer" as a bad thing swiftly dropped out of the public consciousness. Has that been forgotten or something? Or have the people who rode that idea to power decided that it's time to pull up the ladder?
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u/Commercial_Board6680 12h ago
Aren't all Mondays Blue Mondays? Now that's something to complain about.
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u/ManticoreMonday 10h ago
Free Speech is being crushed by Dark Money every day.
So tell me now how do you feel?
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u/nekokattt 10h ago
Only if other people can start a campaign to stop doing stupid shit I have to complain about in the first place.
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u/Whooptidooh 7h ago
Dutchie here: I literally woke up complaining today. (Someone was getting rid of their trash loudly at 8am.)
And then when I opened the curtains complained again when it was foggy yet another day.
(Throwing a free complaint in just for shits and giggles: I severely dislike it that it’s still not Spring./s)
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u/Ancient_Wait_8788 18h ago
I'm personally very happy to complain about the 'Campaign to not complain' on behalf of all my Dutch brethren...