{
 "id": 82151,
 "slug": "2026-10-19_human-work",
 "url": "https://agents.willem.com/en/posts/2026-10-19_human-work/",
 "source_url": "https://willem.com/en/2026-10-19_human-work/",
 "language": "en",
 "date": "2026-10-19",
 "published": "2026-10-19T00:00:00+02:00",
 "created": "2026-10-19T07:46:54.668000+02:00",
 "updated": "2026-10-19T08:51:13.656000+02:00",
 "title": "Human Work",
 "subtitle": "Industry and services, with people center stage",
 "summary": "Most of the websites I showed here lately were restaurants, bars and shops. But a lot of my work is for people whose craft does not fit in a menu or a cart: a metalworks in Mijdrecht, a curtain atelier in Hegelsom, the inspectors of the hoisting beams of Amsterdam and a relationship therapist in Krommenie. This post shows four of them. Their work is human work. The website has one job: put them center stage.",
 "topics": [
  "AI",
  "web",
  "webdesign",
  "work"
 ],
 "author": {
  "name": "Willem L. Middelkoop",
  "url": "https://willem.com"
 },
 "translation": {
  "language": "nl",
  "url": "https://agents.willem.com/nl/posts/2026-10-19_mensenwerk/",
  "source_url": "https://willem.com/nl/2026-10-19_mensenwerk/"
 },
 "image": "https://willem.com/global/images/c107a8da4c00.webp",
 "image_width": 2560,
 "images": [
  {
   "url": "https://willem.com/global/images/9bcdc340fc25.webp",
   "description": "Welding in the Korver factory in Mijdrecht. Photo: Kevin Middelkoop",
   "manager_file": "148-bf2d6faf6057f115dc72e82d984e71359f16b48d8c42b4b41c2ee918cf46b556_ContentAsPost_82151_images-1.jpg"
  },
  {
   "url": "https://willem.com/global/images/abe9a9c66af1.webp",
   "description": "korverbv.nl on the laptop and the phone: the reel plays behind the headline",
   "manager_file": "148-bf2d6faf6057f115dc72e82d984e71359f16b48d8c42b4b41c2ee918cf46b556_ContentAsPost_82151_images-2.jpg"
  },
  {
   "url": "https://willem.com/global/images/4d498eea0ee4.webp",
   "description": "A dark curtain under the sewing machine in the atelier in Hegelsom",
   "manager_file": "148-bf2d6faf6057f115dc72e82d984e71359f16b48d8c42b4b41c2ee918cf46b556_ContentAsPost_82151_images-3.jpg"
  },
  {
   "url": "https://willem.com/global/images/af9a896b6c46.webp",
   "description": "atelieraanhuis.nl: measured at your home, made in Hegelsom",
   "manager_file": "148-bf2d6faf6057f115dc72e82d984e71359f16b48d8c42b4b41c2ee918cf46b556_ContentAsPost_82151_images-4.jpg"
  },
  {
   "url": "https://willem.com/global/images/8246b02e197c.webp",
   "description": "The Hanebalk test weight on the cobbles by the Oude Kerk, and an Aboma inspector at a hoisting beam",
   "manager_file": "148-bf2d6faf6057f115dc72e82d984e71359f16b48d8c42b4b41c2ee918cf46b556_ContentAsPost_82151_images-5.jpg"
  },
  {
   "url": "https://willem.com/global/images/dca77a409cb9.webp",
   "description": "hanebalk.nl: insured safe use, on the laptop and the phone",
   "manager_file": "148-bf2d6faf6057f115dc72e82d984e71359f16b48d8c42b4b41c2ee918cf46b556_ContentAsPost_82151_images-6.jpg"
  },
  {
   "url": "https://willem.com/global/images/f768d28c1567.webp",
   "description": "The consulting room: two chairs, flowers and daylight",
   "manager_file": "148-bf2d6faf6057f115dc72e82d984e71359f16b48d8c42b4b41c2ee918cf46b556_ContentAsPost_82151_images-7.jpg"
  },
  {
   "url": "https://willem.com/global/images/aca6adacd443.webp",
   "description": "bijmijrelatietherapie.nl on the laptop and the phone",
   "manager_file": "148-bf2d6faf6057f115dc72e82d984e71359f16b48d8c42b4b41c2ee918cf46b556_ContentAsPost_82151_images-8.jpg"
  }
 ],
 "text": "Human work\nLast year I wrote that the future of AI is human: true attention from a fellow person is something special, hard to replicate with a computer. A year later, agents do a big part of my work. They translate, write code, check pages, read logs. And the more the machines can do, the more the human part stands out.\nThink of the welder who knows when a seam is right. The seamstress who sees a weaving fault before she cuts. The inspector who says approved or rejected, and means it. The therapist who listens to what is not said. That is intangible expertise: craft, judgement and taste, built over years. You cannot download it, and nobody wants a chatbot doing it.\nSo where does a website fit? Web technology advanced a lot: pages that are generated in advance and load in a blink, structured data for search engines and AI, video without a third-party player, agents that keep content up to date. But that technology should be like the lights and the sound of a theatre. You notice it only when it fails. The people are center stage.\nHere are four of them.\nKorver: metal since 1905\nOn 5 June 1905 Dirk Korver started as the village smith of Mijdrecht. Today the fourth generation runs Korver: steel, stainless steel and aluminium made to measure, from a single piece to series, with their own fibre laser and CNC press brakes. What does not show on a machine list is the people. They think along with the customer from drawing to product, and many orders leave the same day.\nPhotographer Kevin Middelkoop captured the factory, as they call it themselves. His photos and a 60-second reel are the face of the site: the reel plays on the home page, sparks and all. Four colleagues, Britt, Jaime, Bart and Patrick, tell in short films what working at Korver is like, with Dutch and English subtitles. The end screens of those films point to the vacancies, so that address will stay reachable forever.\nFrank Korver updates the site himself: vacancies, portfolio, the order of the services, all from the Lemmid Manager. Every save publishes the site again within seconds, and new photos are automatically resized and optimised for the site. Small things, but they let Frank do his work instead of fighting a CMS.\n| | korverbv.nl |\n|---|---|\n| Since | 1905, fourth generation |\n| Pages | 16 |\n| Video | Home page reel, four colleague films with subtitles |\n| Photos | Over 100, most from the shoot in the factory |\n| Updated by | Frank himself, in the Lemmid Manager |\n| PageSpeed, phone | 100 · 100 · 100 · 100 |\n| PageSpeed, laptop | 100 · 100 · 100 · 100 |\nAtelier aan Huis: curtains since 1962\nIn 1962 Mrs Salet-Robat sewed curtains in her cellar. Today her granddaughter Christel and her husband Marco Niehsen run CM-Gordijnconfectie in Hegelsom, and Marco's son Kevin is the next generation: he is the adviser who comes to your home. The atelier has 800 m², about fifteen craftspeople, a cutting table that cuts curtains up to six metres high perfectly straight, and light boxes in the tables, so a weaving fault shows before anything is cut. Their webshop is Curtain Company.\nSome people want to see the fabric in their own light before they order. For them I made Atelier aan Huis: Kevin visits you with samples and measures every window himself. He works one door away from the sewing table, so when the atelier has a question about your order, it is settled in a few steps. The site has one job: a free home visit.\nBehind that one button sits the whole collection: all 282 products of the webshop with their price, and worked examples calculated with the shop's own price calculator. At every build the site checks its price formula against that calculator, so a price on the site is never a guess. One review score combines four review sources: 9.6 from 232 reviews. And the projects show real homes the atelier dressed.\n| | atelieraanhuis.nl |\n|---|---|\n| Since | 1962, a family atelier |\n| Pages | 24 |\n| Catalogue | 282 products with price, synced from the webshop |\n| Reviews | 9.6 from 232, four sources in one score |\n| Service area | 116 places within 30 km of Hegelsom |\n| PageSpeed, phone | 99 · 96 · 100 · 100 |\n| PageSpeed, laptop | 100 · 96 · 100 · 100 |\nHanebalk: the hoisting beams of Amsterdam\nLook up in the centre of Amsterdam and you see them under every gable: the hoisting beams, *hanebalken* in the local tongue. People still move their furniture through the window, and a beam that gives way is a real danger to anyone below. Hanebalk inspects and manages them, exclusively with the independent inspection institute Aboma. The verdict is always clear: approved or rejected.\nBehind Hanebalk are Allard, Bas and Frans, and their team. Frans runs the company day to day, and he writes for the site himself: he mails texts and photos from the street, and they go live the same day, straight to production. His words are the content. The knowledge base answers the questions everybody asks: is an inspection mandatory, who is liable after an accident, what does it cost. Short answers first, sources included. This is the kind of content a chatbot quotes, and since SEO is dead, that is where people now ask.\nThe old site was a WordPress theme that sent 1.7 MB with every page, almost all of it styling. The new one sends a fraction of that, carries no cookies and no tracking, and shows the AT5 television report from its own server.\n| | hanebalk.nl |\n|---|---|\n| Inspections | Exclusively with Aboma |\n| Pages | 19 |\n| Knowledge | Five answer articles, 11 questions answered |\n| Press | AT5, De Telegraaf, Cobouw, Stedenbouw |\n| Updated by | Frans, by mail, straight to production |\n| PageSpeed, phone | 99 · 100 · 100 · 100 |\n| PageSpeed, laptop | 100 · 100 · 100 · 100 |\nBij mij relatietherapie: a safe place\nMarcella Hagenaar has helped couples since 2008, in her practices in Krommenie and Zwanenburg. She is a psychologist, an EFT and Imago relationship therapist and a schema therapist. \"Bij mij is het goed\" is how she explains the name of her practice: with me, it is good. You get attention and safety, whatever your story is, and she still confronts you with your own behaviour.\nA therapist's craft happens in a room with two chairs. Nobody can see it from the outside, so the website lets her speak for herself. In Marcella vertelt she explains in seven short videos what she sees in her practice, with a transcript you can click to jump to any sentence. 71 clients tell their own experience, word for word. Every theme, from constant arguments to an affair, has its own page, and so does every town around her two practices.\nThe site went live on its own domain on 22 September. The next day the first intake request arrived. That is what a website is for.\n| | bijmijrelatietherapie.nl |\n|---|---|\n| Since | 2008, two practices in North Holland |\n| Pages | 114 |\n| Video | Seven films with clickable transcripts |\n| Experiences | 71 client stories, word for word |\n| Questions | 34 answered |\n| PageSpeed, phone | 100 · 100 · 100 · 100 |\n| PageSpeed, laptop | 100 · 100 · 100 · 100 |\nThe stage\nAll four sites run on the same engine: the Lemmid Platform, with every page generated in advance. That makes them fast, scalable and efficient to run, without plugins to update or a database to break. Each site has its own design, made for its own people, and its own language: the blue of the Korver logo, linen and sage for the atelier, the red and white safety stripe of the Hanebalk test weight, the warm colours of Marcella's logo.\nThe PageSpeed rows in the tables above read performance · accessibility · best practices · SEO, measured with Lighthouse, the engine behind Google's PageSpeed Insights, on the home page of each site. This is how fast those home pages arrive on a phone:\n| | First content | Largest content | Data |\n|---|---|---|---|\n| korverbv.nl | 0.9 s | 1.4 s | 5.3 MB, with the video reel |\n| atelieraanhuis.nl | 1.3 s | 2.1 s | 2.9 MB |\n| hanebalk.nl | 0.9 s | 2.0 s | 0.7 MB |\n| bijmijrelatietherapie.nl | 0.9 s | 1.3 s | 0.2 MB |\n*Lighthouse 13.5, mobile profile, median of three runs per site, 19 October 2026.*\nI build sites like these for craftspeople, makers and practices of every size. Feel free to drop me a message if your work deserves a stage too.\nConclusion\nThe machines get better every week, and I am happy with that: they do the work nobody wants to do. But the welder, the seamstress, the inspector and the therapist do what no machine can. A good website does not compete with them. It turns the lights on and steps aside.",
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