Tom Zwanenburg sees life as a big hobby: work, fishing, not to mention his trips abroad. He himself jokes: "Well, working... It takes up a lot of your time. That's why I only see it as a big hobby. I genuinely like it here."
He has now been working at Van der Waay as a sales engineer for 12.5 years. He does so with pleasure. Even great pleasure. His phone is always on. Even while pursuing his other big hobby: fishing: "From the boat, the work just goes on. It has often happened that the sale was concluded while angling."
This catfish weighed 80 kg and was 2.3 meters long. After 20 minutes of fighting, Tom and his fishing buddy pulled it in. Of course, the fish was returned to its element after being immortalised in a photo.
During one of the fishing trips, Tom's phone plunged from his breast pocket straight into the water. So, as fast as he could, he got a new phone. Fortunately, the old, wet SIM card still worked.
Marcel Koolmees, Tom Zwanenburg, and Joost van de Waay (and many more colleagues) celebrate the anniversary with a cake.
National complainer
Joost van der Waay briefly joins the table over coffee. Joost has given Tom the nickname of 'national complainer': "Tom is critical of the design, of the user manuals and actually of everything. The machine has to be perfect on all fronts from him. He knows exactly what the users need. He often puts the machines into operation himself on site. So he is literally right next door if there are any questions."
Tom's colleague, Marcel Koolmees, adds to the conversation that they are very happy with Tom. Tom immediately corrects him: "We really do this together, you know. We just have a fantastic team here. I'm 'just' the Jack-of-all-trades.
The late Wouter de Jong (Ludvig Svensson), Tom Zwanenburg (Van der Waay) and Chris Aerts (CE Wireworking).
Good fun
Back to Tom's adventures abroad for a moment. He enjoys them. He shows the photo above, three horticulturalists in front of a helicopter. This picture was taken in Poland. During a trade show there, he was selling a deck scrubber. The customer had negotiated a discount, and in return, he would drop Tom off at his hotel with his helicopter. Chris Aerts (C&E Draad Bewerking B.V.) and the late Wouter de Jong (Ludvig Svensson) were also allowed to board. Tom: "It was all good fun, of course. Until we got off. You see, we were dropped at a glider airfield. It was somewhere in the middle of nowhere and very far from our hotel. We had to call to see if they were coming to pick us up to take us to the hotel after all. We had a lot of laughs about it."
For more information:
Tom Zwanenburg 
Van der Waay
+31 (0) 613 005 273
+31 (0) 172 - 210 311
tom@vdwaay.nl
info@vdwaay.nl
www.vdwaay.nl