When the hammer drops

Believing that low self-esteem results from criticism, schools attempt to boost our self-esteem by handing out as much praise as possible, sometimes even when it’s undeserved. If some critical comments have to be made, teachers also tend to be extra careful with their wording, such as ‘It would be great if the reasoning could be improved a bit in your next essay’. The truth is that our ears have been gradually tuned to these candy words, or ‘positive reinforcement’ as it’s called. Leaving schools behind, we continue seeking positive opinions from our bosses or co-workers in order to define ourselves at the workplace. However, we don’t often end up with what we want.



Last Monday came my first job performance review. It was a one-on-one meeting. Although I’d been working hard meeting my professional goals, I still couldn’t be exempted from feeling the butterflies in my stomach, which reminded me of the moment back in school waiting for the final grade of my graduation thesis. But unlike my supervisor acknowledging my work and following with some minor suggestions, my boss directly expressed his disappointment in me by saying: ‘you haven’t delivered what I expected’. I felt this like a slap in my face. Confronted with such an unexpected comment, my mind went immediately blank, leaving my blood racing fast and heart pounding hard. Not noticing my reaction, my boss continued to specify his criticism of my job performance. As hard as I tried to calm myself down, I couldn’t shake off the feeling of being stripped naked, embarrassed and vulnerable. As you can imagine, for the rest of the meeting I was incapable of responding to my boss and instead just stared at my review sheet through watery eyes. I must have lost all my grace and dignity.



Overwhelmed with the urge to self-defend, I couldn’t wait to rush into my boyfriend’s comforting arms. As someone having many years of work experience and knowing me inside out, he quickly helped get my emotions settled. But my collapsed confidence still needed to be rebuilt. I secretly wished I could simply bury it in the sand and pretend as if nothing had happened. But I quickly realised that this would end up being career suicide. So I decided to read through a couple of articles on how to cope with criticism and then mapped out a plan as a response to my review.

Well, for as many tips and tactics one can find on how to handle criticism, it’s really hard to stay cool and react with courtesy when confronted with such situations. Probably the art of receiving criticism is something we can only learn by experiencing it. But if you need some trick for emergency emotion control right on the spot, here goes mine: criticism isn’t always about you; instead, it could also be a way for your boss to release his pent up anger with his wife, for example. Of course, such reasoning is only an emergency rescue with a short-term calming effect. Self-reflection afterwards should never be replaced.

Van Bijsterveldt zegt dit in een interview met de Volkskrant. Ze vond de recente demonstratie van duizend hoogleraren tegen het bezuinigingsbeleid waardig, maar: “Ik had ze liever gewoon in collegezalen aan het werk gezien.”

De langstudeerboete voor studenten, een idee van haar eigen CDA, noemt ze ‘alleszins redelijk’ en het protest van de universiteiten daartegen niet terecht. Immers: “Het bezuinigde geld wordt weer geïnvesteerd in het hoger onderwijs.”

Een vergelijkbare opmerking kwam staatssecretaris Zijlstra op veel kritiek te staan. HBO-raadvoorzitter Guusje ter Horst beschuldigde hem tijdens de demonstraties in Den Haag van ‘jokken’ en ‘publiek bedrog’ omdat hij de bezuinigingen in een interview bagatelliseerde.

Volgens de hogescholen en universiteiten komen de bezuinigingen en investeringen pas in 2015 met elkaar in evenwicht. Het protest van de universiteiten en hogescholen richtte zich vooral daartegen en ook tegen het wegvallen van extra investeringen in onderzoek met de aardgasbaten.