May 5, 2023
As a fourteen-year-old boy, Jorin walked into Van Geenen's. Now, more than ten years later, he still walks there. The 25-year-old Hellendoorner cycles to Rijssen every day, but still enjoys doing so: “You have to make yourself indispensable.” This is the face behind Jorin.
Jorin is 14 years young when he has to find an internship for his vmbo education. At the time, he is learning to be a welder at CSG Reggesteyn in Rijssen. "My image was that I would later become a welder, but then my teacher came up with a completely different kind of internship company: Van Geenen. I had no idea what exactly they did there, so I went to check it out. That's how I ended up here." Jorin starts in the clean room, where he mainly cleans a lot of large parts. Eventually, he is trained internally as a grinder. “I got the hang of grinding and then I found out that this suits me much better.”
Although Jorin is one of the youngest employees at Van Geenen, he already has over ten years of experience. In the meantime, he said goodbye twice, but both times he was back with a grinding or polishing machine in his hands fairly quickly. "I got a permanent contract here, but I had never seen the inside of another company in my whole life. I asked myself if I wanted to stay here forever and so I chose to leave." At his new employer, he lasted six months. "That's when I really saw what kind of company Van Geenen is. Here you are appreciated, it's a nice company to work for. So I went back." Later, Jorin chose to go to college. "But school really turned out not to be for me after all. I wanted to get back to work and luckily I was able to return to Van Geenen."
He has since grown into an all-round employee. "I do everything. That also makes it so much fun. No day is the same here. Of course there are colleagues who prefer to be in one place and that's fine too, but I'm not like that. Grinding, polishing, manual and machine, I can do everything and I do everything when I need to. That way I have a challenge for myself every time because I never have the same work." For that, of course, he had to work hard. "I really wasn't allowed to grind and polish right away. After I started in the clean room, I was first allowed to grind small pieces under the watchful eye of an experienced colleague.
In addition, Jorin really likes the responsibility within his profession. "It seems like all we do here is push buttons, but that is absolutely not true. It already starts with lifting the products. If I drop a five-ton plate from the crane, I have a mega big problem. After that, there are a lot of steps to achieve the desired end result. If I make a mistake in that, I can ruin the whole product."
When Jorin thinks back to ten years ago, he does so with a smile on his face. "I was a little rascal, really still a brat. I knew no responsibilities and I walked around here with my pants down to my knees." That has since changed considerably, he tells himself. "Of course that's a development I went through myself, but Van Geenen also helped with that. When I came to work here, Bart van Geenen was not yet a director. He used to walk around here and say to me, 'You have to make sure you become indispensable.' I have never forgotten that. That too has made me who I am today."
How he made himself indispensable? "Pushing that button every day, staying focused and motivated. And of course I enjoy my work, that also plays a part." Why he still gets on his bike to Rijssen every day? "First, to earn money, but you can do that anywhere these days. I have a heart for the business. Look at what has been added in recent years. If you had told me that ten years ago, I wouldn't have believed you. Yet it has succeeded. I am really proud of that. I too have had my share in that."
The fourteen-year-old Jorin of ten years ago has grown into a mature, all-round employee. "I feel right at home here. Everyone is equal here, it feels like one family." What the future holds? "I hope we can grow even further as a company. That would be nice."
