Key Takeaways
- A warehouse worker in the Netherlands is told he is slow and faces the risk of losing his job, even though the real delay comes from a colleague.
- The colleague acts like a handbrake on a car, turning clear instructions into confusion and slowing every step of the work.
- The boss sees only the final speed of the small team and complains that “you are going very slowly”, without seeing how the work is organised.
- Health agencies in Europe now treat this kind of hidden pressure and blocked workflow as a psychosocial risk at work, not just a personal weakness.
Story & Details
The story takes place in the Netherlands in late November 2025. A warehouse and production worker is pulled aside at work and told that he is slow. The warning is sharp. If he does not speed up, he may be fired. The message lands hard. It feels less like a suggestion and more like a threat.
On paper he is part of a small team of two. In reality, he feels very alone in that team. He shares tasks with one colleague, but this colleague does not help the work move faster. Instead, the colleague slows everything down. The worker starts to describe his daily life with a simple picture: driving a car with the handbrake on. He can press the pedal and try to move faster, but something is always pulling back.
The details behind that image are very concrete. The colleague needs a long time to do his part of the job. He often does not understand new instructions. This means the worker must stop what he is doing to explain again and again. Instead of saving time by sharing work, the pair lose time in repeated explanations. There are also many small interruptions. The colleague asks questions that could be avoided if the instructions were clear to both of them from the start. Each interruption breaks the worker’s focus and puts another small weight on his shoulders.
Information often takes a strange path. When the boss has something new to explain, it does not always go straight to the worker who can move quickly. It sometimes goes first to the colleague, because the worker is busy handling another task. The colleague is then expected to pass on the instructions. But if the colleague did not fully understand them, what arrives is a messy version of the message. The worker feels like he is working with a second-hand map that has pieces missing.
He is sure that, if he were working alone on the same line, the story would change. Instructions would come straight from the source. If something was not clear, he could simply ask again. He could move at his natural speed instead of at the speed of the slowest link in the chain.
The boss, however, looks at the situation from a distance. Instead of looking at each person, he looks at the output of the team. At one point he tells them both that they are going very slowly. He talks to them as a unit. For the worker, this raises a new question. Does the boss not see the problem inside the team? Or is the boss acting as if he does not see it, hoping that pressure will push the worker to complain about his colleague?
The worker refuses to do that. He does not want to be the person who blames someone else to save himself. At the same time, he feels trapped. He wants to protect his job, but also his basic sense of fairness. In quiet moments, his wish becomes very simple: to block the colleague’s negative effect on his work, without hurting that colleague as a person.
He starts to look for small, calm ways to do this. When tasks are handed out, it helps if he speaks up early and offers to take the parts that depend on clear instructions. When explanations are given, it helps if he can be present and listen first-hand. When the colleague comes back with doubts, it sometimes helps to gently suggest asking the boss directly, so that the information does not have to pass through several people before it reaches the point where work is actually done.
These are not big, dramatic moves. They are quiet attempts to protect his own energy and speed without turning the workplace into a battlefield. They are also a way of shifting attention from “who is slow” to “how is the work organised”.
Across Europe, similar stories are becoming more visible. Surveys by safety and health agencies show that many workers report heavy time pressure and feel that their efforts are not seen, even when they are doing their best in difficult conditions. Experts use the term “psychosocial risk” for problems that come from the way work is set up, from constant stress, from unfair blame, or from tension inside teams. These risks are linked to anxiety, depression and other health problems when they are not addressed.
Dutch rules on working conditions say that employers must look not only at physical dangers, but also at this kind of pressure. They are asked to assess these risks, to create a plan, and to make sure workers know what support is available. In practice, this can mean better training, clearer roles, more direct communication and access to a company doctor when stress becomes too much.
Seen through this wider lens, the warehouse story is not just about one “slow” worker. It is about a man stuck between a colleague who acts like a handbrake and a boss who looks only at the speed of the car. It is also about a system that sometimes forgets to check the brakes before blaming the driver.
Conclusions
The Dutch warehouse story shows how easy it is to label a worker as slow when the deeper problem lies in the way work is shared and explained. A team of two can look simple from the outside, but inside it may hide a maze of delays, interruptions and mixed messages. When only the final numbers are measured, the person who cares most about the work can still end up carrying the blame.
Health experts and labour authorities now warn that this kind of hidden pressure is not a minor detail. When someone works for a long time in a setting where effort is blocked, where blame feels unfair, and where there is no clear way out, the risk to mental health grows. Calling this a psychosocial risk does not solve it, but it helps to name the problem in a more honest way.
For workers in similar situations, quiet changes can still make a difference: asking for instructions directly, protecting concentration, encouraging clear communication, and remembering that wanting to be fair to a colleague does not mean accepting limitless strain. For employers, the lesson is just as clear. Looking beyond simple labels like “slow” and into the structure of the work is not only kinder; it is also smarter if the goal is a healthy, steady and truly productive team.
Selected References
[1] European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA). “Psychosocial risks and mental health at work.” https://osha.europa.eu/en/themes/psychosocial-risks-and-mental-health
[2] World Health Organization. “Mental health at work.” https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/mental-health-at-work
[3] International Labour Organization. “Psychosocial risks and stress at work.” https://www.ilo.org/resource/psychosocial-risks-and-stress-work
[4] Business.gov.nl. “Physical and psychosocial strain.” https://business.gov.nl/regulation/physical-psychosocial-strain/
[5] European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA). “Managing stress and psychosocial risks at work – Healthy Workplaces Campaign 2014–2015.” YouTube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBy4WaR14Bo
[6] European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA). “OSH Pulse 2025: Mental health at work.” https://osha.europa.eu/en/tools-and-publications/infographics/osh-pulse-2025-mental-health-work
[7] Netherlands Labour Authority. “Psychosocial workload at Dutch universities.” https://www.nllabourauthority.nl/publications/reports/2024/05/14/psychosocial-workload-at-dutch-universities
Appendix
Boss pressure
This phrase refers to the way a manager’s words and tone can create strong emotional weight for a worker, especially when comments focus on speed and the threat of job loss rather than on clear guidance or support.
Handbrake colleague
This image describes a co-worker whose slow pace, confusion or constant need for help makes the whole team move more slowly, even when another person in the team is ready and able to work faster.
Psychosocial risk
This term is used by health and safety experts for problems at work that come from how tasks are organised, how people are treated and how pressure is applied, such as long-term stress, bullying or unfair blame.
Werkdruk
In Dutch, this word means work pressure; it is often used when people feel there is too much to do, too quickly, with not enough control or support, and it is closely linked to discussions about stress at work in the Netherlands.
Work stress
This describes the strain that builds up when the demands of a job are too high for too long, or when someone has little control over the pace and content of their work, and it can lead to tiredness, anxiety and health problems if it continues without change.
My Diary - Leonardo Cardillo 