Working remotely is far from ideal as far as Ad van Rooij is concerned. The property manager and contract director for Management and Maintenance at Real Estate Management is a social animal who enjoys the company of other people. But by now he has worked out a way to deal with working from home. And he gets to work on campus every Thursday with his ‘duo partner’ Thijs Mooren, account manager at Management and Maintenance.

Real Estate Management sends a regular duo of Management and Maintenance to campus every work day in this period, to deal with calamities and to act as a point of contact for the many external parties that work there. Thijs and Ad are Thursday’s regular duo. They have been colleagues for years and know each other very well. This is illustrated by the quips and jokes they make during the interview via Skype, and by the fact that they complement each other when necessary. “I’m inclined to behave a bit licentiously and he corrects me now and then,” Ad jokes.

Busy days

Work at Management and Maintenance is never finished. In fact: there’s more to do than ever before now that campus is practically deserted. Because the truism that to every disadvantage there is a corresponding advantage applies here as well. “We try to undertake as much of the replacement maintenance as possible that would normally cause an inconvenience to the users,” Ad says. “And the contractors have no choice but to continue with their work, because you can’t stop carrying out maintenance.”

Checking the drinking and process water for legionella is currently a standard procedure. “We need to ensure that all installations remain safe, which is why we flush out the pipes more regularly. And when some of the labs reopened in early May, it was our job to make sure that is was safe to use the showers there,” Ad says.

“Our suppliers and partners simply continue with their work. That means there’s a lot of contact via mail and many meetings,” Thijs adds. During work meetings Ad and Thijs consult with prime contractor Heijmans and discuss the goings-on on campus and all the things that need to be done. “We carried out maintenance on the Green Strip and the barriers, which is more difficult when everyone is on campus.”

Events

In addition to his work for Management and Maintenance, Thijs is also in charge of the process associated with events on campus. Normally, these are the busiest days of the year, but that work has come to a complete standstill now that all events have been cancelled until September.

At home, the very busy days alternate with quieter days. Thijs: “I have fewer meetings when I’m at home. I spend a lot of time in meetings when I’m on campus on Thursdays, mostly with external parties that work here.” Ad immediately joins in with a joke: “I look forward to working together but I hardly get to see him, he goes from one meeting to the next.”

In the end, a ‘live’ meeting works better for Thijs, even though meetings via Skype or Team are conducted in a more business-like manner and get to the heart of the matter more quickly. “I miss the interaction you have during a live meeting, the body language you can interpret in a live setting. You really need to concentrate on the image of the person on the screen in front of you to take in everything.”