Marcel van Breda

‘From the fish seller’

I started working at Schmidt Zeevis Rotterdam on the 1 rst of October 1980. First as help in the shop, later on the delivery van, dispatch manager, order intake, production sales and even later as the handy man again, also known as the GENERAL MANAGER. It was always early, wet and cold where we worked and many co-workers got a cold or sometimes injuries as a result of slippery floors and muscle aches. When a co-worker couldn’t work because of this, they would usually go to the doctor. When there was a referral to the physiotherapist, he or she uses the sickness benefit act for a minimum of two weeks. The result is unnecessary longer sickness absence, which eventually costs more than the right treatment. In the meantime there were working around 80 people in 1996 at Schmidt Zeevis on the Vasteland and Hans Schmidt let me run the business. Hans always talked about Gezond Management when he suffered from the injuries mentioned above. He always said to go there immediately, when something is wrong they straighten it out. I am probably lucky to never had to go to Gezond Management, but it annoyed me very much that when a staff member went to the doctor he would be sick for a week because muscles and joint were tensed up. I intervened, and said that we were going to do things differently at Schmidt. And I will never forget the first case, a filleters back locks up. All crooked and crying from the pain we managed to get this man into a truck from Schmidt. Our Anja Wertmuller calls Gezond Management. Marco tells us to come straight away and no longer than two hours later our filleter is back at the cutting table, and two treatments later all complaints are gone. Really one of two weeks absent from work????? We have been calling Gezond Management ever since!

Marcel van Breda