I was having tea with an Italian friend today - she asked for tea, not coffee. She's been living in the UK for 15 years and has recently started a job which involves having to deal with southern Italians on supply chain issues. Easy, you would think, as she's Sicilian, but she says it is driving her crazy, and is reminding her of all the reasons she prefers to live in the UK. "They have a completely different sense to me of right and wrong!"
I mentioned that I had been talking with a Japanese manager who had been sent to a factory in Italy, recently acquired by his Japanese company, to spread Japanese manufacturing techniques. He was not having much success. In response to my question of what three key things a Japanese expat manager in Italy should know (my three for the UK being: expectation that managers should be good communicators, need to respect status and job roles, must observe fair play and due process). He said expect a totally messy decision making process with the end result appearing suddenly out of nowhere, to have to be a strong top down boss and a need to be flexible.
My Italian friend agreed and added, with regard to her preference for British 'fairness' and queuing, that she felt even more alienated from her original culture when she tried to renew her ID card in her hometown in Sicily recently, and turned up at 8am when the town hall was supposed to open, only to find it closed. The official finally turned up at 9am, with a friend, with whom he had been having breakfast in a bar. When she complained, he simply went into his office with his friend, and left her to wait. When she complained further, he then filled in her form incorrectly (deliberately). She complained again, and he told her to go elsewhere. "But this is where I come from, there is no elsewhere!" she protested.
I asked her what she liked about the UK, and after some discussion, she boiled it down to the British lack of intrusiveness. She gave as an example, that the Italians that she worked with felt they had a right, even after only working with her for a week, to pass comment on whether or not they liked her clothes.
I think I will add 'lack of intrusiveness' to my Britishness list.
Random Italianness facts from recent surveys covered in the Financial Times:
Italians are the second most pessimistic after the French, in Europe, in terms of believing that life in their country is getting worse.
Italians take the least time off work (absence, not holidays) in Europe
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