Careful transfer to the Netherlands with his wife. Part 3: work, colleagues and other life
In 2017-2018 I was looking for a job in Europe and found in the Netherlands (you can read about it here ). In the summer of 2018, my wife and I gradually moved from the Moscow region to the suburb of Eindhoven and settled there more or less (this is described here ).
A year has passed since then. On the one hand - a little, and the other - enough to share their experiences and observations. I share under the cut.
')
Gun Bondarchuk Mortgage is still there, but I will not tell you anything about it :)
I would not call the Netherlands a leader in high or information technology. There are no development offices of world giants such as Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft. There are local offices of smaller rank and ... low popularity of the developer profession. Perhaps that is why the law allows you to easily import the right specialist.
From the couch to me - because already in the Netherlands I was not looking for work, I only lazily looked through the vacancies when it was boring - so, it seems to me from the sofa that the most IT work in Amsterdam. And there the work is more connected in the web and SaaS (Uber, Bucking - all in Amsterdam). The second place with a high concentration of vacancies is Eindhoven, a city in the south of the Netherlands, here basically every Embedded and Automotive. Work is also in other cities, large and not very, but already noticeably less. Even in Rotterdam, there are not many IT jobs.
I have met the following ways to hire IT specialists in the Netherlands:
By the way, I have heard that a person was fired without waiting for the end of the contract. With notification for 2 months, but still.
They love Scrum very much here, very simply. It happens that in descriptions of local vacancies Lean and / or Kanban are mentioned, but in the overwhelming majority - Scrum. Some companies are just beginning to introduce it at home (yes, in 2018-2019). Some use it so passionately that it takes the form of a cargo cult.
I refer my office to the latter. We have daily planning meetings, retrospectives, sprint planning, planning large iterations (for 3-4 months), detailed team analysis of upcoming tasks, separate rallies for scram masters, separate rallies for techlides, rallies of the technical committee, rallies of competence holders, etc. P. I used to play scrum in Russia, but there was no such senseless observance of all the rituals.
Periodically, people complain about the dominance of the rallies, but they do not become less. Another example of meaninglessness is the team happiness index compiled at each retrospective. The team itself treats it rather frivolously, many easily say with smiles that they are unhappy, they can even arrange a flash mob (who said “collusion”?). I once asked a scrum master, why is this even necessary? He replied that the management is carefully looking at this index and is trying to keep the teams in a good mood. How exactly he does it - I have not asked.
This is my case. In my environment, there are 3 main groups: the Dutch, the Russians (or, more precisely, the Russian-speaking, for the Russians, the Ukrainians, the Belorussians are all Russians) and the Hindus (for all others they are just Hindus, they themselves distinguish themselves by many criteria). The next largest national "groups": Indonesians (Indonesia was a colony of the Netherlands, its inhabitants often come to study, easily integrate and remain), Romanians and Turks. There are also British, Belgians, Spaniards, Chinese, and Colombians.
Common language is English. Although the Dutch do not hesitate to discuss among themselves both working and non-working topics in the Dutch language (in open space, that is, for all). At first it surprised me, but now I myself can ask something in Russian. All others are not far behind in this regard.
Understanding English with some accents requires me to work. These are, for example, some Hindu accents and Spanish. There are no French in my unit, but sometimes you have to listen on Skype to our remote French employee. It is still very difficult for me to understand the French accent.
This is my wife at work. 90% are local. They speak English with non-natives, and Dutch with each other. The average age is higher than in a Russian IT company; relationships are much more businesslike.
I would say the same as in Moscow. I had to hear that the Dutch, they say, like robots, work from and to, no matter what, without being distracted. No, they drive their teas, they stick in the phone, they watch Facebook and YouTube, and they post all kinds of pictures in a general chat.
But the schedule is different from Moscow. I remember that in Moscow I went to one of my works at 12 and was one of the first. Here I am usually at work at 8:15, and many of my Dutch colleagues are already in the office for an hour. But they go home at 4 pm.
There are recycling, but very rarely. A normal Dutchman spends in the office exactly 8 hours plus a lunch break (no more than an hour, but less is possible). There is no hard time control, but if you stupidly walk a day, you will notice and remember it (one of the local people did so and did not receive an extension of the contract).
Another difference from Russia is that the 36 or 32-hour work week is normal here. Salary is reduced proportionally, but for young parents, for example, it still goes better than paying day care for children for the whole week. This is in IT, and so there are jobs with one working day per week. I think these are echoes of the previous order. Working women here have become the norm just recently - in the 80s. Previously, the girl, having married, stopped working and was engaged exclusively in housekeeping.
I will say straight away that there was no cultural shock here either for me or for my wife. Yes, much is arranged differently, but there are no great differences. In any case, it is not scary to make a mistake. More than once, I behaved foolishly and / or incorrectly (I tried to remove the scanner from the stand in the supermarket without pressing the necessary button, tried to take a picture of the controller on the bus, etc.), and they just politely corrected me.
The official language, of course, is Dutch. The overwhelming majority of the inhabitants speak English quite decently and speak their language easily. For a whole year, I met only two people who spoke poor English. This is the mistress of my rented apartment and repairman, who came to repair the roof damaged by hurricane.
The Dutch can have a slight accent in English, a tendency to lisp (for example, " first " can be pronounced as " first "). But this is absolutely not a problem. It's funny that they can speak English using Dutch grammar. For example, to find out the name of the person being discussed, one of my colleagues once asked, “How is he called?”. But firstly, it rarely happens, and secondly, whose cow would moo.
The Dutch language, though simple (similar to both English and German), but has some sounds that a Russian person is not able to reproduce, but cannot hear correctly. My colleague for a long time tried to teach us, Russian-speaking, to pronounce trui correctly , but we did not succeed. On the other hand, for them there is not much difference between ph and v , s and s , and our cathedral , fence and constipation sound about the same.
Another feature that makes learning a language difficult is that everyday pronunciation is different from spelling. Consonants are reduced and voiced, extra vowels may appear, or they may not. Plus a bunch of local accents in a very small country.
If in oral communication you can always switch to English, then all official letters and documents have to be read in Dutch. Notice of registration at the place of residence, a lease agreement, a referral to a doctor, a reminder about paying taxes, etc. etc. - all in Dutch. I can not imagine what I would do without Google translator.
I'll start with a stereotype. Yes, there are a lot of cyclists here. But if in the center of Amsterdam one has to constantly dodge them, then in Eindhoven and its surroundings there are fewer of them than motorists.
The car is in very many. They drive to work by car (sometimes even over 100 km.), Go shopping, deliver children to schools and groups. Anything can be found on the roads - from twenty-year small cars to huge American pickups, from vintage “Zhukov” to brand-new “Tesl” (by the way, they are made here - in Tilburg). I asked my colleagues: the car costs about € 200 per month, 100 for gasoline, 100 for insurance.
From public transport in my area only buses. On popular routes, the usual interval is 10-15 minutes, the schedule is maintained. My bus goes every half hour and is always late for 3-10 minutes. The most convenient way is to have a personalized transport card (OV-chipkaart) and link it to a bank account. You can buy different discounts on it. For example, in the morning my trip to work costs about € 2.5, and in the evening I go home - € 1.5. Total per month, my transportation costs are approximately € 85-90, my wife also.
There are electric trains for traveling around the country (expensive, frequent and punctual) and FlixBus buses (cheap, but several times a day at best). The latter go all over Europe, but to shake in the bus for more than 2 hours is a dubious pleasure, in my opinion.
Have you heard that in the Netherlands everyone is treated with long walks and paracetamol? It is not far from the truth. Local themselves are not averse to joke on this topic.
The choice of drugs that can be bought without a prescription is very, very limited compared to that in Russia. To get to a specialist doctor, you have to go to a family doctor several times to no avail (he is huisarts, he is a GP - general practitioner). Here it is, and can send to drink paracetamol from all diseases.
Housarts gets money from the insurance simply because the person is assigned to him. But you can change your family doctor at any time. There are even family doctors specifically for expats. We go to this with my wife. All communication in English, of course, the doctor himself is quite adequate, never offered us paracetamol. But from the first complaint to the visit to a specialist, it takes 1-2 months, which is spent on testing and the selection of drugs (“Use this kind of ointment, if it doesn't help, come in a couple of weeks”).
The recipe from our expats: if you suspect something bad, and local doctors do not even want to conduct an examination - fly home (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Minsk, etc.), get the diagnosis there, translate, show here. They say it works. My wife brought a bunch of her medical papers with a translation, so she quickly got to the right doctors here and got the recipes for the right medicines.
I cannot say anything about dentistry. Before the move, we were like our Russian dentists, he had his teeth healed. And when we are in Russia, we go at least for a routine inspection. One colleague, a Pakistani, in the simplicity of his soul went to a Dutch dentist who treated 3, or 4 teeth. At € 700.
Of good: all visits to the family doctor and some medications are fully covered by health insurance. And if you pay extra, then part of the cost of dentistry.
The medical insurance itself is compulsory, costing an average of € 115 per person, depending on the options selected. One of the most important options is the size of the franchise (eigen risico). Some things insurance does not cover, you have to pay yourself. But only as long as the amount of such expenses for the year does not exceed this franchise. All further expenses are fully covered by insurance. Accordingly, the higher the deductible, the cheaper the insurance. For those who have health problems and are forced to closely monitor their own carcass, it is more profitable to have a small franchise.
I have already talked about liability insurance - the only insurance (besides medical) that I have. If I damage other people's property, insurance will cover it. In general, there is a lot of insurance: for a car, for housing, for a lawyer in case of sudden litigation, for damage to own property, etc. The latter, by the way, the Dutch try not to abuse, otherwise the insurance will simply deny the insurance itself.
I am not a theater-goer and not a lover of museums, so I don’t suffer from a lack of the first, but I don’t go to the second. Because I will not say anything about it.
The most important art for us is cinema. With this, there is complete order. Most films are available in English with Dutch subtitles. The ticket costs an average of € 15. But for regular customers (like my wife, for example), cinemas offer season tickets. € 20-30 per month (depends on the “level of access”) - and see how many films you want (but only once).
Bars with mostly beer, but there are also cocktail. The price of a cocktail is from € 7 to € 15, about 3 times more expensive than in Moscow.
Still there are constantly all sorts of thematic fairs (for example, pumpkin in the fall) and educational exhibitions for children where you can touch the robot. My colleagues with children love such events. But here you already need a car, because will have to go to some village 30 kilometers from the city.
Local cuisine is no different refinement. Actually, apart from stampot (mashed potatoes with greens and / or vegetables) and barely salted herring, I can't remember anything purely Dutch.
But local vegetables - the highest grade! Tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, carrots, etc., etc., are all local and very tasty. And expensive, very good tomatoes - about € 5 per kilo. Fruits are mainly imported, as in Russia. Berries - and so, and so, there are local, there are Spanish, for example.
Fresh meat is sold in every supermarket. This is mainly pork, chicken and beef. Pork is the cheapest, from € 8 per kilo.
Very few sausages. Uncooked German sausages are good, smoked sausages are bad. In general, for my taste, everything that is made of minced meat here turns out badly. Local sausages will eat only if I am in a hurry and there is no other food. Hamon probably is, but I was not interested.
There are no problems with cheese (I was interested :). Gouda, Camembert, Brie, Parmesan, Dor Blue - for every taste, € 10-25 per kilogram.
Buckwheat, by the way, is in ordinary supermarkets. True, unroasted. Milk fat content of 1.5% and 3%. Instead of sour cream and cottage cheese - a lot of options for local kwark .
In supermarkets there are always discounts on certain products. Thrift is the national trait of the Dutch people, so there is nothing wrong with actively buying promotional items. Even if they are not really needed :)
Our family of 2 spends at least € 3,000 a month on life. This includes rental housing (€ 1,100), all utility bills (€ 250), insurance (€ 250), transportation costs (€ 200), food (€ 400), clothes and cheap entertainment (cinema, café, trips to neighboring cities ). The total income of two working people allows you to pay for all this, sometimes to make larger purchases (I bought 2 monitors, a TV set, 2 lenses here) and save money.
Salaries are different, in IT they are above the national average. The main thing to remember is that all the amounts discussed are before tax and most likely taking into account vacation pay. One of my colleagues from Asia was unpleasantly surprised when it turned out that taxes were being taken from his salary. Holiday pay is 8% of annual salary and is always paid in May. Therefore, in order to get a monthly salary from an annual salary, it is necessary not to divide by 12, but by 12.96.
Taxes in the Netherlands, compared with Russia, are high. The scale is progressive. The rules for calculating net income are non-trivial. In addition to the income tax itself, there are also pension contributions and a tax credit - this thing reduces the taxable base and, accordingly, the tax. Thetax.nl tax calculator gives a true idea of ​​net salary.
I will repeat the common truth: before moving it is important to imagine the level of expenses and salaries in a new place. It turns out that not all my colleagues knew about it. Someone was lucky, and the company offered more money than they asked. To whom - no, and in a couple of months they had to look for another job, because the salary was too small.
When I left for the Netherlands, I really hoped to get rid of the long and dreary Moscow winter. Last summer it was +35, in October +20 - beauty! But in November came almost the same gray and cold weather. In February 2 spring weeks happened: +15 and the sun. Then again Khmara until April. In general, although the winter is here and much warmer than in Moscow, but the same sad.
But here it is pure, very pure. Despite the fact that everywhere lawns and parks, i.e. enough soil, even after heavy rain there is no dirt.
In the previous part I mentioned that I did not have to sort the garbage in the temporary apartment. And now it is necessary. I divide it into: paper, glass, food waste, plastic and metal, old clothes and shoes, batteries and chemical waste, everything else. There is a site of a local waste disposal company, where you can find out what type of garbage it is.
Each type of garbage is taken out separately according to the schedule. Food waste - every week, paper and other - once a month, chemical waste - twice a year.
In general, everything that relates to household waste depends on the municipality. Somewhere they do not sort garbage at all, they throw everything into underground containers (like in the centers of big cities), somewhere there are only 4 types of garbage, and about 7, like mine.
And the Dutch themselves do not really believe in all this sorting of waste. My colleagues have repeatedly assumed that all the garbage is simply exported to China, India, Africa (underline) and there stupidly falls into huge piles.
I did not have to communicate with the police either in Russia or in the Netherlands. Therefore, I can not compare, and everything described below - from the words of colleagues.
The police here are not omnipotent and doze off quite well. A colleague stole something from a car parked near the house three times, but going to the police never gave a result. Bicycles also steal just like that. Therefore, many go to the old, which is not a pity.
On the other hand, it is quite safe here. For the year of my life I met only one person who behaved indecently (not even aggressively).
And here there is such a thing as gedogen . This one is like a light version of our “if you can't, but really want it, you can.” Gedogen allows for contradictions between laws and overlooked some violations.
For example, marijuana can be bought, but not sold. But they sell the same. Well, okay, gedogen . Or someone owes taxes to the state, but less than € 50. Then figs with him, gedogen . Or in the city a local holiday, contrary to the traffic rules, a bunch of children are being taken in a simple cart not fastened under the supervision of only one tractor driver. Well, a holiday, gedogen .
Here you have to pay for a lot, and this much is not cheap. But any work here is paid fairly well. There is no tenfold difference between the salary of the programmer and the cleaner (and, accordingly, the programmer does not receive a salary of 5-6 times the median).
Developer's income, though not bad even by the Dutch standards, lags far behind that in the United States. And there are almost no prestigious IT employers.
But in the Netherlands it is easy to invite a foreign specialist to work, so there are many of us here. Many use such work as a springboard for moving to the States or the richer parts of Europe (London, Zurich).
For a comfortable life is enough knowledge of only one English. At least in the first few years. The climate, although milder than in central Russia, is also capable of causing a winter depression.
In general, the Netherlands is not heaven or hell. This is a country with its own lifestyle, calm and unhurried. Here it is purely on the streets, there is no everyday Russophobia, and there is a moderate breakup. Life here is not the ultimate dream, but quite comfortable.
A year has passed since then. On the one hand - a little, and the other - enough to share their experiences and observations. I share under the cut.
')
Job
I would not call the Netherlands a leader in high or information technology. There are no development offices of world giants such as Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft. There are local offices of smaller rank and ... low popularity of the developer profession. Perhaps that is why the law allows you to easily import the right specialist.
From the couch to me - because already in the Netherlands I was not looking for work, I only lazily looked through the vacancies when it was boring - so, it seems to me from the sofa that the most IT work in Amsterdam. And there the work is more connected in the web and SaaS (Uber, Bucking - all in Amsterdam). The second place with a high concentration of vacancies is Eindhoven, a city in the south of the Netherlands, here basically every Embedded and Automotive. Work is also in other cities, large and not very, but already noticeably less. Even in Rotterdam, there are not many IT jobs.
Types of employment
I have met the following ways to hire IT specialists in the Netherlands:
- Permanent, it is a perpetual contract. More similar to the standard way of employment in Russia. Pros: the migration service issues a residence permit for 5 years at once, banks issue a mortgage, it is difficult to dismiss an employee. Minus: not the highest salary.
- Temporary contract, from 3 to 12 months. Disadvantages: the residence permit seems to be issued only for the term of the contract, the contract may not be renewed, the bank most likely will not give a mortgage if the contract is shorter than 1 year. Plus: they pay more for the risk of losing their jobs.
- The combination of the previous two. The intermediary office concludes a permanent contract with the employee and rents a specialist for rent to the employer. Contracts between offices are concluded for short periods - a month by 3. Plus for the employee: even if the end employer doesn’t do much, and he doesn’t renew the next contract, the employee will continue to receive full salary. Minus as in any bodyshop: sell you as an expert, and pay as an intern.
By the way, I have heard that a person was fired without waiting for the end of the contract. With notification for 2 months, but still.
Methodology
They love Scrum very much here, very simply. It happens that in descriptions of local vacancies Lean and / or Kanban are mentioned, but in the overwhelming majority - Scrum. Some companies are just beginning to introduce it at home (yes, in 2018-2019). Some use it so passionately that it takes the form of a cargo cult.
I refer my office to the latter. We have daily planning meetings, retrospectives, sprint planning, planning large iterations (for 3-4 months), detailed team analysis of upcoming tasks, separate rallies for scram masters, separate rallies for techlides, rallies of the technical committee, rallies of competence holders, etc. P. I used to play scrum in Russia, but there was no such senseless observance of all the rituals.
Periodically, people complain about the dominance of the rallies, but they do not become less. Another example of meaninglessness is the team happiness index compiled at each retrospective. The team itself treats it rather frivolously, many easily say with smiles that they are unhappy, they can even arrange a flash mob (who said “collusion”?). I once asked a scrum master, why is this even necessary? He replied that the management is carefully looking at this index and is trying to keep the teams in a good mood. How exactly he does it - I have not asked.
International team
This is my case. In my environment, there are 3 main groups: the Dutch, the Russians (or, more precisely, the Russian-speaking, for the Russians, the Ukrainians, the Belorussians are all Russians) and the Hindus (for all others they are just Hindus, they themselves distinguish themselves by many criteria). The next largest national "groups": Indonesians (Indonesia was a colony of the Netherlands, its inhabitants often come to study, easily integrate and remain), Romanians and Turks. There are also British, Belgians, Spaniards, Chinese, and Colombians.
Common language is English. Although the Dutch do not hesitate to discuss among themselves both working and non-working topics in the Dutch language (in open space, that is, for all). At first it surprised me, but now I myself can ask something in Russian. All others are not far behind in this regard.
Understanding English with some accents requires me to work. These are, for example, some Hindu accents and Spanish. There are no French in my unit, but sometimes you have to listen on Skype to our remote French employee. It is still very difficult for me to understand the French accent.
Dutch team
This is my wife at work. 90% are local. They speak English with non-natives, and Dutch with each other. The average age is higher than in a Russian IT company; relationships are much more businesslike.
Work style
I would say the same as in Moscow. I had to hear that the Dutch, they say, like robots, work from and to, no matter what, without being distracted. No, they drive their teas, they stick in the phone, they watch Facebook and YouTube, and they post all kinds of pictures in a general chat.
But the schedule is different from Moscow. I remember that in Moscow I went to one of my works at 12 and was one of the first. Here I am usually at work at 8:15, and many of my Dutch colleagues are already in the office for an hour. But they go home at 4 pm.
There are recycling, but very rarely. A normal Dutchman spends in the office exactly 8 hours plus a lunch break (no more than an hour, but less is possible). There is no hard time control, but if you stupidly walk a day, you will notice and remember it (one of the local people did so and did not receive an extension of the contract).
Another difference from Russia is that the 36 or 32-hour work week is normal here. Salary is reduced proportionally, but for young parents, for example, it still goes better than paying day care for children for the whole week. This is in IT, and so there are jobs with one working day per week. I think these are echoes of the previous order. Working women here have become the norm just recently - in the 80s. Previously, the girl, having married, stopped working and was engaged exclusively in housekeeping.
A life
I will say straight away that there was no cultural shock here either for me or for my wife. Yes, much is arranged differently, but there are no great differences. In any case, it is not scary to make a mistake. More than once, I behaved foolishly and / or incorrectly (I tried to remove the scanner from the stand in the supermarket without pressing the necessary button, tried to take a picture of the controller on the bus, etc.), and they just politely corrected me.
Tongue
The official language, of course, is Dutch. The overwhelming majority of the inhabitants speak English quite decently and speak their language easily. For a whole year, I met only two people who spoke poor English. This is the mistress of my rented apartment and repairman, who came to repair the roof damaged by hurricane.
The Dutch can have a slight accent in English, a tendency to lisp (for example, " first " can be pronounced as " first "). But this is absolutely not a problem. It's funny that they can speak English using Dutch grammar. For example, to find out the name of the person being discussed, one of my colleagues once asked, “How is he called?”. But firstly, it rarely happens, and secondly, whose cow would moo.
The Dutch language, though simple (similar to both English and German), but has some sounds that a Russian person is not able to reproduce, but cannot hear correctly. My colleague for a long time tried to teach us, Russian-speaking, to pronounce trui correctly , but we did not succeed. On the other hand, for them there is not much difference between ph and v , s and s , and our cathedral , fence and constipation sound about the same.
Another feature that makes learning a language difficult is that everyday pronunciation is different from spelling. Consonants are reduced and voiced, extra vowels may appear, or they may not. Plus a bunch of local accents in a very small country.
Bureaucracy and documents
If in oral communication you can always switch to English, then all official letters and documents have to be read in Dutch. Notice of registration at the place of residence, a lease agreement, a referral to a doctor, a reminder about paying taxes, etc. etc. - all in Dutch. I can not imagine what I would do without Google translator.
Transport
I'll start with a stereotype. Yes, there are a lot of cyclists here. But if in the center of Amsterdam one has to constantly dodge them, then in Eindhoven and its surroundings there are fewer of them than motorists.
The car is in very many. They drive to work by car (sometimes even over 100 km.), Go shopping, deliver children to schools and groups. Anything can be found on the roads - from twenty-year small cars to huge American pickups, from vintage “Zhukov” to brand-new “Tesl” (by the way, they are made here - in Tilburg). I asked my colleagues: the car costs about € 200 per month, 100 for gasoline, 100 for insurance.
From public transport in my area only buses. On popular routes, the usual interval is 10-15 minutes, the schedule is maintained. My bus goes every half hour and is always late for 3-10 minutes. The most convenient way is to have a personalized transport card (OV-chipkaart) and link it to a bank account. You can buy different discounts on it. For example, in the morning my trip to work costs about € 2.5, and in the evening I go home - € 1.5. Total per month, my transportation costs are approximately € 85-90, my wife also.
There are electric trains for traveling around the country (expensive, frequent and punctual) and FlixBus buses (cheap, but several times a day at best). The latter go all over Europe, but to shake in the bus for more than 2 hours is a dubious pleasure, in my opinion.
The medicine
Have you heard that in the Netherlands everyone is treated with long walks and paracetamol? It is not far from the truth. Local themselves are not averse to joke on this topic.
The choice of drugs that can be bought without a prescription is very, very limited compared to that in Russia. To get to a specialist doctor, you have to go to a family doctor several times to no avail (he is huisarts, he is a GP - general practitioner). Here it is, and can send to drink paracetamol from all diseases.
Housarts gets money from the insurance simply because the person is assigned to him. But you can change your family doctor at any time. There are even family doctors specifically for expats. We go to this with my wife. All communication in English, of course, the doctor himself is quite adequate, never offered us paracetamol. But from the first complaint to the visit to a specialist, it takes 1-2 months, which is spent on testing and the selection of drugs (“Use this kind of ointment, if it doesn't help, come in a couple of weeks”).
The recipe from our expats: if you suspect something bad, and local doctors do not even want to conduct an examination - fly home (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Minsk, etc.), get the diagnosis there, translate, show here. They say it works. My wife brought a bunch of her medical papers with a translation, so she quickly got to the right doctors here and got the recipes for the right medicines.
I cannot say anything about dentistry. Before the move, we were like our Russian dentists, he had his teeth healed. And when we are in Russia, we go at least for a routine inspection. One colleague, a Pakistani, in the simplicity of his soul went to a Dutch dentist who treated 3, or 4 teeth. At € 700.
Insurance
Of good: all visits to the family doctor and some medications are fully covered by health insurance. And if you pay extra, then part of the cost of dentistry.
The medical insurance itself is compulsory, costing an average of € 115 per person, depending on the options selected. One of the most important options is the size of the franchise (eigen risico). Some things insurance does not cover, you have to pay yourself. But only as long as the amount of such expenses for the year does not exceed this franchise. All further expenses are fully covered by insurance. Accordingly, the higher the deductible, the cheaper the insurance. For those who have health problems and are forced to closely monitor their own carcass, it is more profitable to have a small franchise.
I have already talked about liability insurance - the only insurance (besides medical) that I have. If I damage other people's property, insurance will cover it. In general, there is a lot of insurance: for a car, for housing, for a lawyer in case of sudden litigation, for damage to own property, etc. The latter, by the way, the Dutch try not to abuse, otherwise the insurance will simply deny the insurance itself.
Entertainment and leisure
I am not a theater-goer and not a lover of museums, so I don’t suffer from a lack of the first, but I don’t go to the second. Because I will not say anything about it.
The most important art for us is cinema. With this, there is complete order. Most films are available in English with Dutch subtitles. The ticket costs an average of € 15. But for regular customers (like my wife, for example), cinemas offer season tickets. € 20-30 per month (depends on the “level of access”) - and see how many films you want (but only once).
Bars with mostly beer, but there are also cocktail. The price of a cocktail is from € 7 to € 15, about 3 times more expensive than in Moscow.
Still there are constantly all sorts of thematic fairs (for example, pumpkin in the fall) and educational exhibitions for children where you can touch the robot. My colleagues with children love such events. But here you already need a car, because will have to go to some village 30 kilometers from the city.
Food and Products
Local cuisine is no different refinement. Actually, apart from stampot (mashed potatoes with greens and / or vegetables) and barely salted herring, I can't remember anything purely Dutch.
But local vegetables - the highest grade! Tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, carrots, etc., etc., are all local and very tasty. And expensive, very good tomatoes - about € 5 per kilo. Fruits are mainly imported, as in Russia. Berries - and so, and so, there are local, there are Spanish, for example.
Fresh meat is sold in every supermarket. This is mainly pork, chicken and beef. Pork is the cheapest, from € 8 per kilo.
Very few sausages. Uncooked German sausages are good, smoked sausages are bad. In general, for my taste, everything that is made of minced meat here turns out badly. Local sausages will eat only if I am in a hurry and there is no other food. Hamon probably is, but I was not interested.
There are no problems with cheese (I was interested :). Gouda, Camembert, Brie, Parmesan, Dor Blue - for every taste, € 10-25 per kilogram.
Buckwheat, by the way, is in ordinary supermarkets. True, unroasted. Milk fat content of 1.5% and 3%. Instead of sour cream and cottage cheese - a lot of options for local kwark .
In supermarkets there are always discounts on certain products. Thrift is the national trait of the Dutch people, so there is nothing wrong with actively buying promotional items. Even if they are not really needed :)
Income and expenses
Our family of 2 spends at least € 3,000 a month on life. This includes rental housing (€ 1,100), all utility bills (€ 250), insurance (€ 250), transportation costs (€ 200), food (€ 400), clothes and cheap entertainment (cinema, café, trips to neighboring cities ). The total income of two working people allows you to pay for all this, sometimes to make larger purchases (I bought 2 monitors, a TV set, 2 lenses here) and save money.
Salaries are different, in IT they are above the national average. The main thing to remember is that all the amounts discussed are before tax and most likely taking into account vacation pay. One of my colleagues from Asia was unpleasantly surprised when it turned out that taxes were being taken from his salary. Holiday pay is 8% of annual salary and is always paid in May. Therefore, in order to get a monthly salary from an annual salary, it is necessary not to divide by 12, but by 12.96.
Taxes in the Netherlands, compared with Russia, are high. The scale is progressive. The rules for calculating net income are non-trivial. In addition to the income tax itself, there are also pension contributions and a tax credit - this thing reduces the taxable base and, accordingly, the tax. Thetax.nl tax calculator gives a true idea of ​​net salary.
I will repeat the common truth: before moving it is important to imagine the level of expenses and salaries in a new place. It turns out that not all my colleagues knew about it. Someone was lucky, and the company offered more money than they asked. To whom - no, and in a couple of months they had to look for another job, because the salary was too small.
Climate
When I left for the Netherlands, I really hoped to get rid of the long and dreary Moscow winter. Last summer it was +35, in October +20 - beauty! But in November came almost the same gray and cold weather. In February 2 spring weeks happened: +15 and the sun. Then again Khmara until April. In general, although the winter is here and much warmer than in Moscow, but the same sad.
But here it is pure, very pure. Despite the fact that everywhere lawns and parks, i.e. enough soil, even after heavy rain there is no dirt.
Garbage and its sorting
In the previous part I mentioned that I did not have to sort the garbage in the temporary apartment. And now it is necessary. I divide it into: paper, glass, food waste, plastic and metal, old clothes and shoes, batteries and chemical waste, everything else. There is a site of a local waste disposal company, where you can find out what type of garbage it is.
Each type of garbage is taken out separately according to the schedule. Food waste - every week, paper and other - once a month, chemical waste - twice a year.
In general, everything that relates to household waste depends on the municipality. Somewhere they do not sort garbage at all, they throw everything into underground containers (like in the centers of big cities), somewhere there are only 4 types of garbage, and about 7, like mine.
And the Dutch themselves do not really believe in all this sorting of waste. My colleagues have repeatedly assumed that all the garbage is simply exported to China, India, Africa (underline) and there stupidly falls into huge piles.
Law and order
I did not have to communicate with the police either in Russia or in the Netherlands. Therefore, I can not compare, and everything described below - from the words of colleagues.
The police here are not omnipotent and doze off quite well. A colleague stole something from a car parked near the house three times, but going to the police never gave a result. Bicycles also steal just like that. Therefore, many go to the old, which is not a pity.
On the other hand, it is quite safe here. For the year of my life I met only one person who behaved indecently (not even aggressively).
And here there is such a thing as gedogen . This one is like a light version of our “if you can't, but really want it, you can.” Gedogen allows for contradictions between laws and overlooked some violations.
For example, marijuana can be bought, but not sold. But they sell the same. Well, okay, gedogen . Or someone owes taxes to the state, but less than € 50. Then figs with him, gedogen . Or in the city a local holiday, contrary to the traffic rules, a bunch of children are being taken in a simple cart not fastened under the supervision of only one tractor driver. Well, a holiday, gedogen .
Conclusion
Here you have to pay for a lot, and this much is not cheap. But any work here is paid fairly well. There is no tenfold difference between the salary of the programmer and the cleaner (and, accordingly, the programmer does not receive a salary of 5-6 times the median).
Developer's income, though not bad even by the Dutch standards, lags far behind that in the United States. And there are almost no prestigious IT employers.
But in the Netherlands it is easy to invite a foreign specialist to work, so there are many of us here. Many use such work as a springboard for moving to the States or the richer parts of Europe (London, Zurich).
For a comfortable life is enough knowledge of only one English. At least in the first few years. The climate, although milder than in central Russia, is also capable of causing a winter depression.
In general, the Netherlands is not heaven or hell. This is a country with its own lifestyle, calm and unhurried. Here it is purely on the streets, there is no everyday Russophobia, and there is a moderate breakup. Life here is not the ultimate dream, but quite comfortable.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/455000/
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