Pauline was clear about the ground rules for the essays. No swearing. So of course I’m going to push the envelope by immediately composing an incisive academic thesis examining the etymological and sociological implications of taboo verbiage in occidental culture, ‘cause that’s just the kind of gal I am.
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So, I had a bit of an epiphany the other day.
I had to go to the doctor’s to have him take a look at my hand which, truth be told, has been hurting me for months now, but as the mother of a toddler I am no longer allowed to indulge in luxuries such as timely medical attention or peeing in complete privacy. But before giving the doctor a visit, I tried to find out more about them and got to know that they’d just finished their studies. Anyway, I headed off to the doctor’s…no, wait. I’m skipping a step. To make a long story short, our family doctor has his olive grove bordering on our olive grove above Capodacqua, so he spends lots of time talking This Year’s Harvest with my father-in-law Ugo when they run into each other out there (often, it seems, since my doctor appears to visit patients a total of two hours a day). Unfortunately, whenever I stop by Dr. Bensi’s office with some minor complaint or prescription to renew, he invariably settles himself down for a nice satisfying chat about fertilizer and pruning techniques. This used to be a bit of a problem, since I have something to confess. We all have our dirty little secrets and this is mine: I don’t really know all that much about the daily workings of our farm, Brigolante, my home for the past ten years. I often have guests at our agriturismo ask me things like how many pigs we have in the barn, and I look them straight in the eye and respond: four females, two males, and 14 piglets. I’m lying. I don’t have the faintest idea of how many animals are in the barn, what is planted in the north field and the running market price of barley. In fact, the last time I was in the barn was Christmas eve 1997, which began with an emergency 1 a.m. porcine birth, and faded out to a touching scene of me, attired in a cocktail dress and black pumps holding a slop bucket in each hand filled with squirmy, slippery newborn piglets while my husband, in suit and tie, whacked at the glowing new mother with a broomstick to get her to lie down and nurse, both of us cursing our neighbors Peppe and Gentile with all our linguistic creativity for having invited my in-laws over for a late game of cards.
Back to the doctor story. For about the first eight years I lived here, I would no sooner step into Dr. Bensi’s office before he would whip off his glasses, lean back in his chair, and bark, “Is Ugo spraying his trees this year?” and I would stare at my shoes in shame and mumble something under my breath about how I really wasn’t sure and the rest of our interview would be terse and stilted and I was starting to worry that I was receiving substandard medical care and relying on prescription coupons because of this whole olive thing. However, being the kind of gal that takes a bull by the horns (after almost a decade of mortification) I now arm myself with knowledge before my doctor visits. Or, I always mean to, but seem to forget until 3 minutes before I’m supposed to leave for the appointment, which results in much frantic driving in my 4×4 from field to field searching for my father-in-law in blind panic, until I come upon wherever he is tilling, and pick my way across clumps of freshly plowed dirt in heels and a clean skirt until I’m within shouting distance and screaming over the noise of the tractor, “How’s the olive harvest this year?” which, what with the engine roar and Ugo’s encroaching deafness, inevitably leads to a vaudeville-esque routine of him yelling back, “No, thanks, I don’t want a beer!” and me replying, “No, the OLIVE HARVEST THIS YEAR!” and him looking at me quizzically, “Yeah, the sky sure is clear” until I finally mime for him to shut off the damn tractor and repeat myself, at which point he really looks disconcerted, because, as I have already established, I’m not exactly in the habit of talking crops with Ugo. Then his face clears and with a look of comprehension he yells (my father-in-law yells even when there is no farm equipment to compete with), “Tell the Doc there isn’t a damn thing to pick this year!” and I take off at a lumbering sprint back towards the idling car.
So, the other day I marched confidently into my doctor’s office and deployed a preemptive strike before the good Doc even got out “Buon Giorno”. “Doc,” I said, “Ugo says there isn’t a damn thing to pick this year” at which point Dr. Bensi yanked off his glasses, tossed them on the desk, and leaned back in his seat with the air of a man vindicated. This segued into a 15 minute conversation with me doing lots of nodding sagely and um-hmming and desperately trying to convey the image of someone who has the least opinion of whether or not this year will be worse than the harvest of ’83, if plowing or leaving meadow is wiser with this kind of heat, and if old Mario’s team of pickers skim off the top. Having successfully navigated these rocky waters, we were able to move on to talk of my hand. (Any of you still with me here will remember that this is how the whole thing started.) While the doctor was printing out the forms for an x-ray and specialist visit (which you then have to take to the hospital and wait in line to book an appointment, then come back for the appointment, then come back for the results of the appointment, then go back to your family doctor for follow-up, because Italy is many things, my friends, but user friendly ain’t one of them) I made some crack about starting with the minor ailments of advanced age and Dr. Bensi immediately replied, “No, you’re only 32.” I automatically opened my mouth to correct him because, Lord knows, I’m only 31, before I realized with a bit of a shock that, in fact, I am 32.
Now, I’m not one of those people who really cares all that much about aging…no existential crisis or leaving my husband or anything for my 30th birthday (though there has been a noticeable proliferation of face creams in the bathroom over the past couple of years, because if it’s a battle against time I’ll go down fighting). As the great James Taylor said: The secret to life is enjoying the passing of time. Of course, his brain was completely fried on acid and we all know how he screwed things up with Carly, so as a mentor he’s a dubious choice at best. Anyway, I am usually one of those people who takes successive birthdays with aplomb. But I suddenly had that recurring vision of myself sitting across the desk from a balding man in a white coat staring gravely at a leaflet for hair replacement in Sydney, then his hands intoning, “Ma’am, I’m sorry but you only have 55 years left to live” except all of the sudden he was intoning 54 and I felt a year had been shaved off my life. It was clearly time to regroup, reflect, reevaluate my priorities.
As soon as I left the doctor’s I immediately ate a big Magnum Double Caramel ice cream bar, because with only 54 years left why bother dieting? Then, I resolved to catch up with my son’s baby book. I am one of those masochistic freaks of nature allegedly keeping a baby book. I say allegedly because I haven’t actually touched the thing for six months, which doesn’t seem like much time until you consider that he’s only two, so that’s roughly a quarter of his life left undocumented. Anyway, I feel it’s important to have something to page through sixteen years from now during the drive over to the police station with my husband, who has been dragged out of bed along with me by a 2 a.m. call from headquarters requesting that we come collect our son who has been picked up for drag racing/underage drinking/smoking reefer behind the school. It will remind me what a beautiful miracle he is and keep me from throttling him on sight when we get there.
But what this feeling of evanescent mortality really got me reflecting upon was the difference in how age/aging are perceived in Italy as compared to the States, and how the US is fundamentally much more of a youth oriented culture. This is actually a theme I have occasion to contemplate every three months when my college alumnus magazine arrives in the mail. There are good and bad things about having attended a top university (besides, of course, just another prestigious bumper sticker for your parents to add to their collection. My father claims that he keeps so many in clear view as an explanation to the world in general as to why at his advanced age he still can’t afford anything better than a beat up ’91 Mazda minivan with cracked windshield and left rear fender held on by duct tape): the good thing is that you meet all these highly intelligent, motivated overachievers. The bad thing is that you meet all these intelligent, motivated overachievers, so as I peruse the alumna news section of the magazine I get to say to myself, “Why look, there’s Mary Jo! What’s she up to these days? Oh, Supreme Court justice, mother of six, Olympic archer. And here’s Billy Bob…hmmm Nobel prize winner last year, adopted 12 Brazilian street children, recently sold an investment property for six million” by which time I am turning the bathroom upside down searching for a razor blades and lamenting loudly to my husband about how I am a worthless piece of dog doo wasting my life away. Just for kicks, I’m tempted to write in, “Rebecca, who busted her a** to graduate with honors in Political Science/International Relations, now lives on a farm in the middle of nowhere, where she spends her days crashing her computer and fishing legos out of the toilet and lists among her hobbies stain removal and butchering of the Italian Language.” That’d make ‘em green.
What I’m getting at is that many of my contemporaries are quite far down the path of career and family and financial stability in the States, and this is accepted as just and good. Consider, however, that in Italy the average age of a college graduate is 27.8 years, after having studied for an average of 7, according to the August 7 issue of Panorama magazine. This means that in the US a graduate enters the labor market at least five years before her Italian counterpart (though, to clarify, many Italian degrees are the equivalent of US graduate degrees, such as law and medicine). Once out, Italian graduates face an incredibly stiff labor market…roughly half of all unemployed Italians are under 25; 1 in 3 people under 25 are unemployed according to Paul Ginsborg. There are numerous complicated reasons behind the lengthy stays at universities and youth unemployment, but the point I’m trying to make here is that most of our thirty something friends and acquaintances here in Umbria are only just finishing school and beginning their first jobs, not working on second homes and retirement packages. It’s a little bit of a chicken and egg question, but this later start into career seems to have affected expectations for young people in general. In the US, by thirty you are expected to have your act together, or at least go into massive credit card debt to cultivate this image, for I read statistics from a Medical Collection Agency that showed that almost 40% of the Americans are in debt. There is no such pressure here in Umbria. Thirty is considered just about right here for kids to start moving out of the family home, getting married, starting a career. There is no sense of failure, or even showing up late to the game, to be pulling in your first paycheck at 31, and the youngest small business owners I know are…me and my superhusband, who founded his own company last year at the age of 34 after waiting for four years. The wisdom was for him to start up something in his name at 35, since clients don’t really trust anyone too young. He stuck it out until 34, and then decided to roll his dice. (I’m not counting here the numerous friends we have who have entered into their historic family-run business, which is by far the most common model in Umbria.) This later blooming is accepted on a political level as well. A law passed in 2000 offered cheap government financing for “young entrepreneurs.” The first version of the law defined a young entrepreneur as up to 25 years of age, the next version up to 30…to make a long story short, the definition for “young entrepreneur” is now until 40. 40?!? I know American kids who have retired at 40 (okay, I don’t actually know any, but stories circulate).
On the flip side, Italians seem much more comfortable with growing old. There is so much pussyfooting around the word “old” in the US. No one is old anymore. They’re older, or elderly. In Italy, old people are just old and make no bones about it. At a certain point, middle age women who routinely dye their hair a strange shade of copper, dress in tight jeans and stilettos overnight morph into bowed little old ladies wearing Queen Mother shoes, who garden in wool tweed skirts and take bus trips to places like San Giovanni Rotondo or Lourdes. It happened to my mother-in-law (okay, she’s never worn jeans, but you get my meaning). My grandmother in Chicago at almost 80 still dresses in velour track pants, blindingly white tennies, power walks the mall each morning, and would probably be offended to hear herself referred to as elderly. Her big source of pride is that they still ask for ID for the Tuesday retiree discount at Dominick’s Supermarket.
So I’ve come to the conclusion that your life as an adult is brief here in Umbria, Italy. You don’t grow up until after 40, and suddenly by sixty you’re primary concern is playing bocce and ballroom dancing. I’m happy to find that I am still in the flower of my youth here, quite precocious on a professional level, really. And, in moments of alumnus rag self-doubt, I comfort myself with the thought that thirty years from now Mary Jo, Billy Bob, and their kin will be dead of stress related cardiac disorders while I will be here in the Bel Paese, dressed in a support stockings and kerchief boarding a coach for La Verna.
All this reminds me of a story relating to my husband, who, though undoubtedly Italian (who else would pack olive oil for vacation?) is not what you’d call a flashy dresser. Or, I should say, he has all the necessary elements, but doesn’t really have the knack for putting them together correctly. To help him get aligned with the present and show him off a little, I am considering adopting a Geranimals system.
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Would you believe me if I told you that the happier your employees are, the more successful your company will be?
It may sound like the definition of a “Care Bear” management style, but study after study has shown that employee happiness has a direct correlation to your bottom-line, what is intranets.
Consider this:
Companies with happy employees outperform the competition by 20%, and happy salespeople close 37% more sales.
It’s hard to ignore those numbers.
Ok, I know you’re probably thinking, That’s great, Sean, but can I really create a happier work environment for my team without breaking my back?
Well, today you’re in luck, because I’m not only here to tell you that yes, you absolutely can, but I’m also about to share with you my list of the top seven things you absolutely must be doing in order to create a happier, more productive workplace.
Did you know that feeling unappreciated is the #1 reason why Americans quit their jobs? It’s true.
So what can you do to ensure your team is being consistently recognized for their hard work?
Create a system that makes it easy.
At SnackNation, we hold a “Crush It Call” every Friday. It goes like this: our entire team gathers around in a circle and we go around the room calling out someone whose work we want to recognize (i.e. “someone who “crushed it” that week).
You can also create a monthly or quarterly award for the team member who most embodies your core values. Brand it with something inspiring to communicate the intent behind the award (for instance, at SnackNation, the entire team votes every month to name the “Value Victor”).
I also highly encourage impromptu praise. Send out an email to the company when you notice someone going above and beyond, or give it a personal touch by writing them a handwritten note. The unexpectedness of the gesture will give it greater impact.
In my opinion, you can never, ever underestimate the power of a handwritten note (especially when sent to your employee’s home).
Welcome back our monthly Italy Blogging Roundtable! The theme this month is “Myths”, so take a look at posts by Georgette Jupe, Kate Bailward, Jessica Spiegel, Melanie Renzulli, Alexandra Korey, Gloria, Laura Thayer, and Michele Fabio. (If you missed the previous months, take a look here.) Welcome back to our ever-expanding table…come pull up a chair and join in on the conversation!
I kind of lucked out this month, as fellow roundtable member Jessica discovered that I had already tackled the theme of myths in…wait for it…2003! Yes, I was already writing posts more than a decade ago for the beloved Slow Travel site, and it came in handy a mere 13 years later when I was too busy to come up with a new post so served up this warmed over classic from the back corners of my fridge. Enjoy!
Now, I’m the last person to criticize guidebooks – any author deserves some credit for taking a stab at a task so momentous – but certainly they all have their strengths and weaknesses. Some seem to be museum-opening-time-challenged, others couldn’t recognize a decent hotel if they stubbed their toe on its doorstep.
But I think the Achilles heel of the vast majority of guidebooks is to be found in that small chapter somewhere near the front entitled, “Insights into Italian Culture”. This section, usually stuck in between “How to Purchase Train Tickets” and “Where to Change Money”, dedicated to the admirable task of helping the English speaking traveler navigate the rocky stream of acceptable behavior in Italy, is usually peppered with grave pronouncements I imagine made in that booming, self-important male voice which narrated every social studies and biology film I viewed between the third and ninth grade. Sometimes these are quite accurate and helpful, but I have certainly read some over the years which have made me sputter my cappuccino all over myself and exclaim “WHAT?!?” to no one in particular.
The problem is that most of these authors have never lived in Italy and barely have a working grasp of the language. They dedicate most of their time here to inaccurately recording museum opening hours and overlooking decent hotels, and their cultural knowledge is incidental at best. I would like to share a couple of my favorite doozies, and, I hope, set the record straight for those Slow Travelers out there who may be about to make their first trip to the Bel Paese.
This is my favorite example of what happens when an outside observer interprets a situation completely out of context, with comic results. (Another example: Many comment on how endearing our two dogs are – how they so obviously care deeply for one another, always out walking together and napping side by side on the lawn and whatnot. Our two dogs hate each other with a jealous passion and live for the day the other is sucked into the combine harvester and gone forever. They are mortally fearful that the other will somehow manage to get more than his share of chow, and for that reason only stick to each other like white on rice.)
This is how I imagine the scene: Our fearless guidebook author sips his espresso at an outdoor café in a small town in Italy, all the while observing an Italian gentleman meandering down the Corso, greeting with regularity those he passes. “Aha!” says our author to himself (in a booming, self-important voice), taking feverish notes, “Why, Small Town Italians are Very Friendly. They greet Everyone They Pass. It must be Rude not to do so.” What is really happening is this: The Italian in question is not greeting Everyone he Passes, he is greeting Everyone he Knows, which, in most small towns in Italy, is about 99% of folks in town.
Now, I am not saying that Small Town Italians are not Very Friendly – they generally are. But you are certainly not expected to greet every single one of them as you pass them on the street, though you can if you feel up to the task. Their reaction will probably be:
1) in faux small town Italy (i.e. places like Assisi with a small population but huge tourist influx) a friendly, polite greeting in return. These folks have met thousands like you who have read that same guidebook chapter and taken it to heart;
2) in real small town Italy, a infinitesimal pause, during which the Italian quickly tries to place you, followed by a friendly, polite greeting in return. Small Town Italians are, after all, Very Friendly;
3) a shocked silence, followed by a loud, indignant “Who are you and why are you greeting me?!?” I can’t actually imagine this happening but feel I must make allowances for those few Small Town Italians who are, in fact, not Very Friendly.
In fact, as measured by greeting perfect strangers and superficial small talk, most English speakers I know are far more “friendly” than Italians who, as a whole, combine gregariousness and reserve with great skill. I have known Italians for years before finding out what they do for a living, what their university degree was in, how much they are paying in child support, and when they had their last surgery, which are all subjects generally covered within the first five minutes of sitting next to any average American on an overseas flight.
I suspect that some Italian restaurant consortium actually paid the author to put that in the guide, because I have never read such complete bunk in my entire life. I can honestly say that in 25 years of traveling to, and living in, Italy I have never ordered three courses in a restaurant (mostly because I’m vegetarian) and have never been treated any differently because of it. If you are, you should immediately get up and leave. Your server is either being inexcusably rude or is part of the consortium which paid the guidebook, and either way doesn’t deserve your business.
The truth is this: very few Italians eat a traditional three to four course meal anymore. Modern sedentary life just can’t justify the calories. I eat out quite often, usually with groups of friends, and it is a rare occasion when one of us orders more than a main dish and salad. The only time I have seen our waiter get hot under the collar is while trying to coordinate the order of the dishes to be served, as in a group of eight there are inevitably two who want an antipasto and primo, two who want an antipasto and secondo served with the others’ primi, one who wants a pizza served with the antipasti, one who wants a primo and contorno but the contorno as an antipasto, one who wants a secondo and contorno, but the contorno as a primo, and the poor guy at the end of the table who caught a bit of a chill on the back of his neck two evenings ago and hasn’t digested since and can he just have a bit of riso in bianco with perhaps a little lemon? It would drive a saint to drink.
I have given a lot of thought as to how this misconception of what you must order in an Italian restaurant came about, and I think I may have an explanation. Whereas in the States, your server comes to your table, introduces himself by name, pulls up a chair and launches into a 20 minute discourse on his family history, latest car purchase, and the fact that this is just a day job, what he really would like to do is direct, followed by a deep, heartfelt look into your eyes and a beseeching, “Now, is there any chance that I could possibly interest you in one of our appetizers today?”, the Italian server marches up to your table and with great economy of words barks, “Per Antipasto? Per Primo? Per Secondo? Vino?” Now, neither server really cares all that much about what you end up ordering (in fact, the stakes are probably higher for the American server, as it is not common in Italy to tip as a percentage of the total bill), but to those not used to the Italian way of taking an order, it may seem that you are expected to choose one thing in every offered category. Regardless, feel free to order exactly what you feel like eating without pressure. Doggie bags are, however, taboo.
This is, in fact, true. I have seen Italians offer up a conspiratorial grin and wink to the teenage girl at the Osco Drug check out counter in Northwest Suburban Chicago, plunk down a toothbrush, and say (in English which sounds like a mix between Ricky Ricardo and Tarzan), “You give me good prize for dis, no?” to which the girl flatly responded, without pausing either in paging through Vogue or snapping her gum, “Prices are as marked”, which might explain why her photo was conspicuously missing from the Employees of the Month plaque on the wall behind her.
My word of warning here is that this sort of unqualified statement skims over the subtleties of Italian bargaining. Italy is not a Moroccan bazaar; Italians generally do not haggle. Bargaining in Italy calls for finesse and good humor and, above all, time. It is, in short, an art.
I offer here an example of how not to go about it: A few years ago I was conversing with a friend of mine inside her upscale ceramic shop in Assisi. Suddenly, an English speaking man barged in and interrupted us by abruptly demanding of my friend, “How much for the clock in the window?”. My friend, taken aback, smiled politely and replied in her perfect English that the price was 150 euros, as marked. The man, apparently mistaking my friend for a patient of Oliver Sacks, repeated his question veerrryyy slllowwwlllyy, “N—o, h—-o—-w m—-u——-c—-h i—–s t—h—e c—l—o—c—-k i—-n t—-h—e w—-i—n—d—o—w???” My friend matched his speed, “I—-t’s 1—5—0 e——u—-r–o—-s, a—–s m—–a—r—k—e—d.” The man had had enough of his precious time wasted, and, raising his voice, barked, “No! I mean, how much do you really want for the clock in the window!?!” My friend looked at him, slowly and sweetly smiled, and answered, “200 euros.” The man huffed out to join a very harried and dogged looking wife, and they stomped away together (surely prepared to regale their bus-mates with stories of the rude shopkeepers in Assisi all the way back to Rome).
Let us now juxtapose this scene with my fantasy version of how it could have gone: Man enters shop, compliments woman with different types of sentences on beautiful wares. Woman thanks, asks if there is something he likes in particular. Man indicates clock. Both wax poetic about clock’s beauty for several minutes. Man asks price, woman answers. Man sadly shakes head, comments that he is now poverty stricken after wife’s shoe shopping spree yesterday (indicates relaxed, happy looking woman waiting outside). Woman makes slightly flirtatious comment regarding what trouble women can be. Man laughs and settles himself against counter. Half hour conversation ensues (He just spent two weeks in Tuscany and Venice. Yes, Venice is beautiful. He and wife hail from Philadelphia. What a coincidence, her grandfather’s second cousin emigrated to Philadelphia in 1903, have they met?). Talk returns to the clock. Some good natured figures are bounced back and forth, interspersed with observations about the weather and recommendations for where to dine. A deal is struck, she packs up the clock and throws in a small ashtray for good measure. His wife comes back the next day for the lamp she spied the afternoon before. All is done with a light touch and friendly tone. Finesse.
Yes, you say, but what if there is a language barrier? Never fear, some of the best bargaining I have ever witnessed has been done almost exclusively with hand gestures, pen, and pad of paper. Some good stock gestures in any bargaining repertoire may include on one side:
On the other side one might see:
Remember, finesse.
A final note: Many guide books point out that a number of stores post signs informing you that their prices are fixed. I have found that it never hurts to ask if there is a possibility of a small discount. The worst that can happen is that you are politely told no, and the best is that you find yourself with extra gelato money at the end of the day.
Consider this scene: you (you’re female in this scene, and not unattractive) are sitting in the main square of your hometown…Des Moines, let’s say….at about 3 p.m. on a Tuesday, enjoying the sunlight and the view of the world-famous Baroque fountain (go with it). A man saunters up and starts making conversation. It soon becomes apparent that you are being hit on. Now, I don’t know about you, but I am pretty pragmatic about these sorts of things, so my first reaction would be to ask myself, “Why doesn’t this loser have a job, or isn’t at very least busy working on his Ph.D. thesis or serving hot meals to the hungry or otherwise productively occupying his time at 3 p.m. on a Tuesday rather than trying to pick up women at the famed Des Moines Baroque fountain?” (The same could be said for you, of course, but we are talking about predatory men, not ne’er-do-well women here.)
The point I’m trying to make is that the vast majority of Italian men, like those all over the planet, are too busy working, studying, volunteering, parenting, and otherwise living full, happy, responsible lives to spend many weekday afternoons hanging around in piazzas, wolf-whistling. The small percentage who instead have nothing better to do than lurk at the Trevi Fountain trying to pick up foreign women are more noticeable, but certainly not indicative of the average Italian male. This is not to say, of course, that Italian men, like many of Mediterranean cultures, are not notably more appreciative of the well-turned-out female than the average stiff-upper-lipped, Puritan Anglo-Saxon (aside, of course, from those certain subgroups which seem to include predatory behavior as part of their professional qualification the world over, i.e. construction workers, truck drivers), and given the amount of time and effort many Italian women dedicate to their appearance, it seems only fair that it should be so. However, I have found that a token, subtle glance at a leg is one thing (quite buoying, in fact, on those days that I can’t quite get the zipper up on my skirt and my hair dried all funny and sticky-outy and I am surrounded by a nation of women just naturally more attractive than myself), asking you if you are traveling alone and shadowing you back to your hotel is quite another.
So, my word of caution is to steer clear of those same people you would be prone to steer clear of in Des Moines, and you should have no problem. You may, however, go back home convinced you have the best legs on earth, and, hey, there’s nothing wrong with that in my book.
So, as they say in Italy, “’Un pò fa,’ disse l’uomo mentre che faceva la pipi’ nel mare.” (Every little bit helps, said the man as he peed into the sea). I hope I have added my bit to the sea of knowledge and not to that of myth and misconception. I’m sure I’m not the only one out there who has spotted these hilarious off-mark cultural observations. Let’s hear others!
Read the posts, leave comments, share them with your friends – and tune in next month for another Italy Blogging Roundtable topic!