S01.E08: Trial of Jan

[AnimeMania]

The Colonel wants to fire Jan but must abide by Dutch labor laws. After The Colonel witnesses Jan crash his bike into BA, he requests a mediation hearing to terminate Jan’s employment.

Premiere Date: February 27, 2025     FOX     9:30pm

Arnmundur Ernst Björnsson as Jan

Edited February 28 by AnimeMania

[shura]

This show is a gem.  “First they came for hula hoopers and you didn’t speak out because you weren’t a hopper...”. Bravo, show.

Love how Colonel Quinn thinks that the Dutch are Scandinavians somehow.  “Why did you give him the hammer?” - “He is Thor now.”

And Maggie afewgoodmanning the “you’re damn right I’m proud of you!” out of her father?  Bravissimo!

[DanaK]

And it turned out Jan was in a slightly complicated polycule after he explained why he took paternity leave twice in a few months. Is either kid his and does he raise either one though?

[Harvey]

I wonder how Dutch people feel about how they are portrayed in this show, if they are aware it exists.

The scene where Maggie yelled at her dad to ask if he is proud of her was really good.

[paulvdb]

I can't speak for all Dutch people, but I always expected some exaggeration for comedic effect. I'm assuming that the portrayal of the Dutch is no more unrealistic than the portrayal of the military. I'm assuming someone working on the show has done at least some research because I doubt many Americans would have been familiar with korfbal, even if they didn't portray it entirely correctly. I'm assuming that was for cost saving to pay only four actors per team instead of the eight players that are in a real korfbal team.

As far as this episode's story goes, mediation is one of the things an employer can try to improve the working relationship with an employee so that was at least a realistic part of this episode. But there is no three strikes law for firing an employee. If an employer wants to fire an employee they must keep a file about how the employee is not doing his job and/or how the working relationship is disturbed. And they must give the employee an opportunity to improve before they can be fired. Of course the mediator should not have allowed the colonel to turn the mediation into a trial. The fact that he went along with that means that he's probably not very good at his job.

I should add that I'm not an expert on labor laws and I also have no idea how things might be different if you work for the US military instead of for a Dutch employer. Which would probably also depend on whether they are actually civilian employees of the US military or if they work for a Dutch employer that provides services to the US military. But I would not expect the show to actually go into that much detail.