It's midnight in Holland and the AFC Championship game is about to begin. We are going to try to hnd with David William to cheer the Steelers on. However by half time, it's 2 am and I am exhausted (KD went down about 45 minutes ago). David will have to leave early for an 8:00 am meeting, but we are lucky...Janus' driver will not pic us up until 1:00pm. We sleep very late and the first words out of my mouth are..."did the Steelers win?" Knowing that David will be very happy if they do!
The driver, a young handsome Dutchman, comes and we travel to Almere for a tour of PEPS. ( A part of PON Holdings our Dutch parent company). We arrive to meet Marjorie and are surprised to see that the receptionists are al dressed alike. They actually buy their clothes together and call each other to coordinate the next day's outfits! Marjorie introduces us to Monique and Sandra as well as Leonie DeJong. We take a tour of this very modern and open environment, where no one has offices and privacy is non-existant. I think it would be very difficult, but Janus wants the open collaboration.
We go next to Motrac Linde and it is the same there as well...the one other difference is that each company has a bar where you can have a drink on Friday afternoons and socialize with your co-workers. Sandra then took us through the countryside to visit Pon Automotive in Leusden, a huge complex where all the cars are received for the dealers (the VW's and Audi's) and all the repair parts and pieces as well. A rail track runs right into the warehouse. The warehouse bustles all day with activities. We learned that the pickers for the small parts are all women because they have a better attention to detail. We then toured the showroom and saw all the gorgeous new cars - not for the general public - but for the various dealers. As luck would have it, I ran into Olaf, Marjorie's boyfriend who I met during their visit to Jacksonville last April.
Then on to NijKerk to meet Corrine, Henk Rottinghaus' assistant and tour the castle. Pon Holding will be relocating to Almere so it ws wonderful to get the opportunity to visit this very eclectic combination of old and new.
Monique, Sandra, Marjorie, KD and I then had dinner at Salentein, the restaurant of Mr. Mynard Pon. The fellowship was wonderful and the food and wine marvelous. KD and I were gifted with lovely bottles of wine from Mr. Pon's vineyard.
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