In the movies,
workers sit in cubicles and wait for the day they’ll be asked to pile their
picture frames into a topless box and take their bedraggled desk-top plant
elsewhere. This happens in real life too and it’s called ‘being fired’. If you
are an undiscovered genius, joblessness allows you to do great things, like
conjure up Harry Potter by scribbling on a napkin in a destitute café. If,
sadly, you’ve got no miraculous talents to market, your options are much less
thrilling. At best, you’ll find yourself eating banana yogurt in your own
destitute kitchen wondering about the sadist who invented the verb ‘to fire’. My question is: is it not
bad enough that you’ll soon be searching under your sofa cushions for change?
Must being dismissed explicitly evoke the thought of being set aflame?
Italians are much more
ambassadorial about it. Get the sack in this country and you can call yourself licenziato. I like that. If one
must be canned, why not be official about it? You’re a new stray dog with no
owner to answer to, but don’t look too doggy-at least they’ve ‘licensed’ you.
Maybe because I like
the word or perhaps out of pure vice, I do my darnedest to get licenziata at
least twice a month, although in my case, ‘fired’ feels more accurate. The
beginning of the story is this: for six years I’ve worked for a translation
agency, a semi-respectable outfit with no real office, run by a charismatic man
who considers complication a sport.
And he has reason to-translation agencies only deal with one type of
client: procrastinators who are three weeks behind ideal printing time. Most of
our customers are clear about one thing and one thing only: if the event is any
day other than tomorrow, it’s simply too soon to call. With Andrea in command,
files get shot through cyberspace as if they were cannon balls exploding off a
pirate ship at anchor. His dramatic messages arrive some time before dinner, ‘Siamo in alto mare. We’re in deep-sea
trouble, can you manage to do this before 9am tomorrow?’
‘It’s thirty-four
pages.’
‘I know, I told you. E un casino.’
Indeed. In addition to
having no word for deadline, Italian is also lacking a real word for ‘mess’-two
language flaws that need urgent correcting in a lovely country as late and
messy as this one. In Italy, you can fare confusione or fare un disastro, but not make a real
‘mess’ like the purely physical kind we refer to in English. Most commonly,
colorful Italian messes are called un casino, which doubles as the
word for brothel.
Most evenings, I sweep
the confusione under the rug and have the work done neat-and-tidy like,
sometime before breakfast. In a perennially down economy, super human efforts
are standard procedure. This is because Italy has varied geography. Thus, it’s
common practice to promettere mare e monti, guaranteeing you’ll
supply both the sea and the mountains. Great scenery is part of the package;
promises must always as large (and as sinkable) as the Titanic.
Like I say, every two
weeks or so, our ship goes belly up. Andrea agrees to cutting an already
impossible deadline even shorter. Or he swears I’ll translate an encyclopedia
in the time it takes to stir risotto. Or he’ll simply swear at me for not being
an engineering expert and a chemical technician, well-versed in watts and
sulfur dioxides. My inadequacies as a linguistic jack-of-all trades usually set
us both ablaze.
‘You know, Andrea, if
I were an engineer, I’d just be one. The company will want a discount for the
mistakes I make and I don’t want to do it.’
‘Well, if you can’t be
versatile, you can’t work here anymore.’
It’s the versatile
thing that kills me. Versatility is a prerequisite for living in this country.
If you’re Italian by birth, it comes with the DNA. If Italy has conceded to
adopting you, they stamp versatility on your passport as you pass through
Immigration. It’s illegal to live here without it.
Before the conversation’s
over, Andrea has fired me and I’ve said good riddance. Sadly, it’s never un licenziamento like the fat-cat kind
you get at Alitalia, packed with seven year’s worth of unemployment pay. It’s
simply an ‘up-in-flames’ threat. This week’s casino centered around an
instruction manual for building a roller coaster-an apropos topic that assures
me beyond the shadow of a doubt that the Universe has a keen sense of humor.
Once the threats are
over and the document has been returned to its rightful owner, Andrea and I
become friends again. ‘Brava, hai fatto un buon lavoro.’
‘Yes, and you were no
help at all.’
‘Tesoro, you know what this
business is like.’
Yeah. And he knows
that I’m a sucker for the pet name Tesoro. It’s a silly weakness for a professional
woman, but this is Italy, and weakness in the workplace is allowed. To me, the
word is kryptonite. I simply cannot resist its charm and swagger. ‘Va bene,’ I say, in total
forgiveness. ‘But next time, give me the whole weekend.’
‘I promise I will.’
It is a mari e monti pledge. He knows it. I recognize it. We’re
buccaneers heading for the deep stormy sea. And our treasure chest is full of
amicable mess.
