How to find work in Italy or a warning to other foolhardy immigrants.

Posted on October 13, 2014 by Pecora Nera • Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged Berlitz, finding a job in Italy, fun expats, job in italy, looking for work in Italy, Mrs Sensible, Pecora Nera, work in italy, working in italy • 59 Comments

Whilst I was living in the UK I begged and pleaded suggested to Mrs Sensible that we should consider living in Italy. I explained my grand plan which included, drinking copious quantities of Italian wine and sunbathing learning Italian and opening a bed and breakfast.

My dream was an Italian Bed and Breakfast.

We didn’t manage to open a bed and breakfast, unfortunately the bottom dropped out of the UK housing market whilst I was repainting the kitchen wall and it soon became apparent that after selling our house, we would receive about £5.00 and a burst balloon and Italians don’t accept burst balloons as down payments on houses. Following this unfortunate news we didn’t scrap my fantastic grand plan our plans. First, Mrs S had found a teaching job in Italy and was living with some nuns in a nunnery and second; I am an optimist. I knew I would find a job. (If Mrs Sensible is reading this, she will now be gnashing her teeth and pulling her hair out) So here is my Italian CV or how I found work in Italy. Horticultural Executive One morning a market for flowers and hand-made objects was set up near our little house, Mrs S and I decided to have a little look. One of the stalls The English Cottage Garden was run by two women, their stall was selling typical plants found in a UK garden. I managed to impress them with my horticultural knowledge by exclaiming, “That’s a nice white rose and my mum has one of those purple flowers in her garden.” I was instantly offered the position of Chief Hole Digger and Lawnmower Operative.

I became quite proficient at digging holes

I worked 5 hours a day digging holes mowing the lawn and removing weeds from the garden. I understood weeds were anything green that didn’t have a flower at the top. One day Stephania decided we would prune the roses, Adriana and I were summoned to help. Stephania would spend 5 minutes looking at a branch and eventually she would clip a piece, this was then handed to Adriana who looked at it and then passed the piece of rose cutting to me, my job was to place it in the wheelbarrow. Assistant Building Contractor Our landlord was a builder and one evening he was complaining that he had to replace a leaking water-pipe and his assistant was ill. Bravely and without a second thought I offered my services. Mrs S told him that I knew one end of a screwdriver from the other and I was duly appointed, Executive Sweeper Upper. I spent 3 weeks removing old concrete, mixing new concrete, carrying concrete and complaining to Mrs S that I may never ever be able to stand up straight again.

Builders Bum an English tradition

Landscape Gardener At another gardening market, I was stood watching a karate exhibition. As one poor guy was kicked and dropped to the floor I muttered, ouch! A man called Georgio who was stood next to me, said “you English?” Georgio and I then spent 10 minutes chatting to one another, Georgio using his poor English and me with my appalling Italian. We occasionally winced as the poor guys kicked and punch each other to death.

we are training our cats in Karate

I asked Giorgio if he was considering joining the karate club, he told me he didn’t have the time, at the moment he had too much work on. I immediately offered my services, after all, I now knew how to drop rose cuttings into a wheel barrow. Amazingly I was offered the part time job of Exterior Carpet Fitter Temporary Garden Lawn Layer.

Following his course on turf laying, Pecora Nera no longer needed to wash Mrs Sensible’s car.

I discovered laying a garden lawn is very similar to laying a carpet in a house, the main difference in laying a lawn, is there are no door frames or fireplaces to cut around, plus if you make a mistake when you cut a piece of turf, you just cut a small piece to fill in the hole you made and stamp on it. Despite helping Georgio lay several lawns and other gardening duties, we are still the best of friends and my knees have recovered. English Teacher In my quest to live in Sicily, I applied for a job as an English teacher with the Berlitz Language School in Catania. I relocated to Zia Ester’s apartment in Sicily and left Mrs S in Piedmonte. Having used but not necessarily studied English, I easily passed the interview and was appointed Commercial and Business English Tutor. Berlitz told me they would e mail me some training literature and a start date. That was 5 years ago and I am still waiting for the training literature and my start date, so Berlitz please pull your finger out.

5 years and still waiting, but this is Italy so there is still some hope!

Private English Tutor Mrs Sensible told me that a local business man needed some English lessons and she had organised for me to meet the man in a local café. After plying him with lots of bottles of beer (I haven’t yet found an Italian that can drink an Englishman under the table) he offered me a job as an Industrial Pump Salesman. I know it is not the job I was after and I knew less about industrial pumps than I did about weeding gardens or teaching English. For three years I sold Industrial pumps for the man. Our friendship and my services ceased when he decided to alter how he paid me, basically my wages just didn’t arrive and if you read this you little git, send me my money or I will spill the beans about the English pub, the transsexual and a very drunk Italian.

She knew she was a he, I knew she was a he, the question is.. did my drunken friend know she was a he!!

She knew she was a he, I knew she was a he, the question is.. did my drunken Italian friend know she was a he!!

Private English Tutor I decided to advertise as a private English tutor and within a fortnight, I managed to secure a group of eleven friends who wanted to practise English conversation. I also found an engineer who was relocating to France (please don’t ask me why he wanted English and not French) and a local manager who needed English for work. During a lesson with the eleven friends, I suggested we should have an English lesson based around something I love. They agreed so I organised a combined English lesson and wine tasting, it was so much fun we now open a bottle of wine at the start of every lesson.

The incredible Thursday Group at our English murder mystery night.

English Crisps Because Mrs Sensible was only on a yearly contract with the schools, she didn’t receive any salary during the long summer holidays and my teaching money was just not enough for us to survive on. So we decided to look for a smaller house to rent. A friend of ours offered us an apartment that was attached to his house. While we were explaining why we needed a smaller house, he suggested we could work together and find products we both could sell, we looked at importing crisps into Italy and contacting my old pump customers to see if we could supply them with a new range of pumps. And that is how Tough Guy Europe was born, it is early days and the Italian bureaucracy is crazy but we have some good customers and another 2 pallets of pumps on the way. And in the immortally words of Del Boy said “this time next year we will be millionaires” So here are a couple of thoughts for anyone who wants to find a job in Italy.

In my experience jobs are given to friends and family.
If you are here and looking for a job, tell everyone, even strangers that you need work.
I have registered with Manpower and four or five other agencies, in my opinion it was a waste of time.
Berlitz is a waste of time.
I have registered with online job agencies and I still receive their spam mail.
If you are not fluent in the language of your chosen country you will struggle.
Without the support of Mrs Sensible I would be starving or back living in the UK.

C.O:S:I are a group of friends from different parts of Italy, once a month we pick a subject to blog about, if you go to my C.O:S:I link and then read their blogs, they will no doubt have some useful information on how to find a job in Italy.

Telecom Italia or 2 cans and a bit of string.

Posted on September 16, 2014 by Pecora Nera • Posted in home, Work • Tagged an englishman in italy, fun expats, humour, Italian customer service, living in italy, Mrs Sensible, Pecora Nera, Telecom Italia, working in italy • 48 Comments

Welcome to my new office. You might notice it is full of old men drinking espresso, this is so I can sit here unnoticed and get some work done, well until I open my mouth and order another cappuccino and all heads swivel my way.

Some people in my office are even older than me…. incredible

Why don’t I work from home? Two reasons, 1 It is full of scabby cats and 2, there is no internet connection. A week ago I asked Mrs Sensible to phone Telecom Italia and ask them to connect us to the internet, this should be very easy after all we already have 5 working phones scattered around the house.

We value all our customers, even the dead ones.

So Mrs S picked up the phone and called a ~~customer service representative~~ woman at Telecom Italia. She gave them our address and explained that the previous owner of the house had died and we wanted to have the line reconnected (The phone line was working, it just wasn’t in our name) and to also have fast internet. Telecom told her, the contract is still in the dead man’s name and they required a relative of the dead man to write to them and prove he was dead so they can cancel his contract. While this conversation was in progress I was hopping from foot to foot saying helpful things like “how soon, I need fast internet, tell them I also need a modem. The scowl from Mrs S shut me up.

Stay Connected with your loved ones

I sent an E mail to the son of Telecom’s dead customer and asked him to prove his dead dad was in fact dead. He told me he had proved to Telecom that he was dead 2 years ago and to his knowledge, things had not changed.

Mrs S phoned Telecom and reached a different woman, she explained their customer was in fact still dead and they had been told he was dead 2 years ago. The woman said “we know he is dead” Ah ha progress!! Mrs S again gave her details and requested an internet line and phone line. I knew I was allowed to hop from foot to foot but I had to keep silent. When Mrs S put the phone down, the phone that according to Telecom was already disconnected and as dead as their previous customer, she told me Telecom would call me in a couple of days to organise the fitting. I was sooooo excited.

The best I can hope for.

Seven days passed and no calls, so I harassed Mrs S to call them again.

The conversation went something like this,

Mrs S; You promised to phone Pecora Nera to organise his internet access, when are you going to do this because he is driving me mad.

Telecom: Please will you give me your address.

Mrs S: 2 Green Leaves Road in the middle of the countryside.

Telecom: That is why we didn’t call you, this phone is registered to 13 Old Mill Road in the middle of nowhere.

Mrs S; Can you please update your system as the address is wrong, the council say we live at number 2 Green Leaves, not number 13 Old Mill Road.

And so until Telecom arrive with my 2 tin cans and a long length of string I will have to share my office with 7 old men.

There is a post about our strange address here I will update you on Telecom Italia ASP (at some point)

Spectacular Failure #001

Posted on April 22, 2014 by Pecora Nera • Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged an englishman in italy, brown bag crisps, conzano, expat, fun expats, humour, Italians, italy, Pecora Nera, piemonte, working in italy • 45 Comments

In an attempt to educate the taste buds of Italy, we booked a stall at the Conzano village fair. We packed 400 packs of crisps into my Mini, one large umbrella to protect us from the blazing Italian sun and five receipt books to help us to comply with the Italian bureaucracy.

My business partner and his daughter also had a full car; it contained one makeshift table and enough provisions to sustain us through the day. At five-thirty in the morning, I foolishly climbed out of bed, drank the tea that Mrs Sensible had made me while she ironed my shirt, had a bowl of soggy cornflakes and sleepwalked my way to my little mini. When I arrived at my partner’s house he was still enjoying a cup of tea and warm croissants for his breakfast.

Not only was it raining, but some fool was trying to drive down the road as we were driving up it.

In convoy we finally set out for Conzano. The promotional leaflet we had been given advertised clowns, angels, sunshine and dancing girls with snakes. Unfortunately when we arrived, we were greeted by white vans, rain, unhappy looking stall holders and big wet looking puddles; oh, did I mention the wind and the driving rain that was arriving horizontally?

The leaflet promised clowns, angels and dancing girls with snakes.

We convened a management meeting underneath a semi-waterproof gazebo to discuss how we were going to erect our sun-proof umbrella. There were many helpful suggestions, including one or two suggestions that can’t be published.

Brown Bag Crisps Management team. This gazebo cost the owner 1,800 euros, but it didn’t look very high to me

At 7.30 am (I should mention that I ‘m normally still be in bed at this time) we decamped and ran through the rain to the nearest bar for a hot cappuccino and the chance to dry out.

A well deserved hot cappuccino after a mornings work

A well deserved hot cappuccino after a morning’s hard and demanding work.

When we returned to our rain battered umbrella, we had another short meeting with two other stall holders to discuss whether the weather would improve. While I was taking photos to record this farcical attempt at promoting our crisps, I saw arriving through the driving rain, or at least I am pretty positive that’s what I saw, an old man with a beard walking up the hill of Conzano carrying one hammer and several planks of wood; he was closely followed by two cats, two dogs, two ducks and two of every other kind of animal imaginable. Taking this as a sign, we decided to cut down our sun umbrella and head for home.

You can cut this picture out and colour it in on a rainy day.

To see if we are coming to a sunny festival near you, check out or web site and our facebook page.

It is Monday morning and I really need a bacon butty.

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Pecora Nera • Posted in home, Language, Work • Tagged an englishman in italy, bacon, bacon butty, bacon sandwich, englishman, expat, fun expats, humour, Italia, italian, Italians, italy, language, languages, pizza, pizza diavola, translation, translator, working in italy • 60 Comments

Red Cross Parcel

It is Monday morning in Italy, it is raining, I am sat in my office sulking and I need a bacon butty (bacon sandwich).

Don’t tell Mrs Sensible, but from time to time I do miss bits of England, bits like crisps, real beer or a bacon butty.

During the summer two of my children came to visit me, “Dad, do you need anything bringing” they asked. The above photo shows the goodies they managed to fit in their suitcase. I think the only clothes Lucy managed to fit in her suitcase, were a pair of jeans and a bikini. We spent the rest of the holiday buying her summer dresses. On hindsight it might have been cheaper, to have air freighted my emergency provisions over and let Lucy fill her case with her own clothes.

Back to rainy Monday and life in my office, I have 25 industrial water pumps in Taiwan that should be sat in my stores, money sat in my customers banks that should be sat in my bank and I really, really need a bacon butty.

I really need a bacon butty

If I was still sat in my old office in England, it would still be Monday morning, it would still be raining and I would be dreaming of life in Italy. But, and it is only a small but. The sarni shop (sandwich shop) down the hill made fantastic bacon buttys.

I could order a pizza from the local pizzeria, if someone was here to phone them for me, last time I tried it was a total disaster. I never realised how difficult it was to mime down a phone line.

Io bisogno una pizza (I need a pizza)

Cosa? (What)

Mi scusi, Io bisogno una pizza Diavola, mio indirizzo è strada industriale… (Sorry, I need a Diavola pizza, my address is industrial road…)

Cosa, non capisco?

ARGGGHH! IO SONO INGLESE, IO FAME; IO BISOGNO UNA PIZZA, PLEASE. ( I am English, I am hungry, I need a pizza Please)

CLICK Brrrrrrrr

As I stared at the phone that was still brrrrr ing in my ear, Manzo the nice delivery man from Bartolini, arrived with a parcel. He understood that I was hungry and he phoned the pizzaria on my behalf.