Hi folks!
Since it is a physicist deepest desire to pack his stuff and explore the world after more or less having had no life throughout his PhD programme, a dear friend and colleague of mine decided to explore the mysterious and promising land south of the Alpes called Italy. Here is a story where he shares one of his adventures with the rest of us….
Ciao Levent!
You asked about my progress with the salary. Well, here’s a summary, this time with a happy ending (almost).
As you know my salary has been delayed 2 months due to the simple fact that this is Italy, and in Italy it is very nice to have a job within a central administration. You are set for life and you can exercise some power by not doing what you are supposed to do (and payed to do), such as completing the paperwork so that a foreign Postdoc can get his salary.
This person (which I luckily will never find out who it is since he or she is situated in Rome) did not get my papers finished in time for me to have a salary after the first month here. This part I can almost understand, bureacracy is really big business in this country, and it takes plenty of time, so maybe the papers arrived late from the local administration here in Milano. But the fact that the paperwork could not be completed during the second month I consider to be nothing else than negligence from the involved administrator.
And you don’t mess with Italian administration even if you are starving, there’s just no way that you can win. And even if the person who is sitting on your papers would agree to speed up the process then there are a number of rules that makes it impossible to get my delayed salary payed at any other date than by the end of the month.
So the head of the local secretaries asked me to write a letter where I cordially requested a so called “anticipo”, to be payed by the local office. Anticipo means “payment in advance”, which during the circumstances sounds a bit ridiculous (to say the least). Well, let’s have a positive mindset and try to see it for what it is: a payment in advance of a part of my delayed salary, “advance” in this case meaning “less late than very late”. At least there were hopes for some money before too long.
However, an anticipo is, of course, not something you just arrange immediately, the bureacracy in the local office must also have some time for the wheels to turn. So I was promised that it would be completed after about a week, and by the beginning of last week one secretary could even be specific enough to say that it would arrive on the Thursday.
Thursday:
Happily I arrived in order to get my money. Happily the secretary told me that it would come on Friday. I told her that it would be nice for me to be able to buy some food for my home, recharge my cellphone, pay my rent and do a few other things that we Europeans commonly associate with a normal life, so I really put my trust in that she would have the money for me the next day. She asked me how I would like to have the money. The options were: either sent directly to my bank account; or to get a cheque that I can cash at any bank. Not surprisingly “directly” in this case meant that it would take a few days before my bank would have the money, and based on my previous experiences with my bank it meant that I would have no hopes of seeing the money before the weekend even if the money would be transferred immediately. So I went for the cheque option. Just go to any bank and cash it, how difficult could that be, must be foolproof!
Friday:
Still smiling and hopeful I went to the secretary, only to find her office closed, she had not showed up for work this day. But by the head secretary I was promised that Monday is the day, really. This piece of information was estimated by my colleagues to be 99% accurate because it came from the head secretary, who is considered to be very reliable. So I scrapped my plans for the weekend and stayed at home instead, trying to make the most out of my remaining pasta.
Monday:
It was with this “Now or never!”-feeling that I came to the head secretary’s office. Not just a little embarassed she explained to me that somebody had FORGOTTEN to process the check! The 99% accuracy instantly dropped to the more modest 0%. This was in any case a huge step forward because before they just DIDN’T CARE about processing it. Now, at least somebody had INTENDED to do something, but, unfortunately for me, had forgotten to do it. I WAS laughing when I left the secretary’s office, I promise.
Tuesday:
This would be the day: Pay-day! The only trouble was to get there to receive it. Not that I am upset or anything, I am slowly evolving into a very calm guy with plenty of patience and low-cost habits. But it was the usual story, 40 minutes delay of the train from the little town where I live, so I went to a nearby cafe where by now I am a regular customer (excellent coffee by the way). I went back, somewhat naively, after 30 minutes (it does happen that the train arrives earlier than the announced delay, don’t you dare thinking that it will wait then until the announced 40 minutes have passed). Now the train was announced to be 50 minutes delayed. No problem if you have your bag filled with work-related articles to read, just sit down and wait for kingdom come, or whatever, while actually doing some kind of work.
60 minutes announced delay turned into 70 minutes and I went out to the platform to wait for the train. There were no further announcements after 70 minutes, though it was closer to 90 minutes when the train actually arrived.
On board the train people looked bored, but everybody started to smile when the train stopped after only a few kilometers and the speaker voice (Note: This is a new feature that I have not encountered before on the relatively large number of delayed trains that I have been fortunate to be a passenger of during my two months in Italy, usually you get no information at all!) said something about a slight delay. After about 10 minutes the train continued, only to stop at the next station (where it shouldn’t stop, this was a direct train). After about 25 minutes the speaker voice announced that we would stop for about 20 minutes due to a “scheduled delay”. By now people were laughing loudly.
My cell-phone rang after a while. It was the head secretary from work, asking where I was. Apparently she had a cheque for me and was wondering why I did not come to get it. I told her, trying not to laugh, that I was on my way, but I asked her not to wait up late for me. Finally, 3 hours after departure, the train trip that was scheduled to take 21 minutes was completed. But who cares about time? “Time is money!” is not an expression that has reached Italy as far as I can see. And I got my cheque! 1200 Euro to go wild with, yes! But wait a minute, there was still one more stage to go through: cashing the cheque!
Wednesday:
In the morning I went to my bank in the town where I live. It turned out that the promise from previous Thursday of “a cheque that I can cash at any bank” was of course true, provided that “any bank” would know me and have my signature since before. In other words, “any bank” means “my bank”, where they by the way should have about 80 copies of my signature by now.
So I went to the counter to cash my cheque, 200 in cash for me, 550 for a new cheque for the rent (which was overdue), and the rest to my bank account, easy. The clerk made 2 phone calls. There are always a bunch of phone calls involved in Italian banking, no matter what little thing you are there for. It makes me feel important and I pretend every time that I am closing a multi million dollar deal or something. And then there are the signatures, always a bunch of signatures, which reemphasises the feeling of me doing something important.
But it turned out that I could not get the new cheque directly from the clerk, so I had to speak to another person in the bank. She fixed it, took only one phone call and 2 signatures. Then she asked me why I had my salary in the form of a cheque instead of having the money sent directly to my account. I explained my situation and she agreed that it would take a longer time for the money transfer. “But you know that we will charge you for the cheque” she said happily.
This was news to me, though it somehow makes sense. I realized that there was no way that I could win, but I enquired about how it worked, just in order to know for the next time. I had expected some kind of fee for cashing the cheque and that’s it, but it turned out to be more interesting. The money that I withdrew from the cheque would technically not be mine until next Monday, so the 200 I had received in cash, naively thinking “MINE!”, and the new cheque for the rent, is money that I am borrowing from the bank. And I pay a penalty fee for every day because it means that I am overdrafting my bank account until Monday. So whatever is left after the penalty fee will be inserted to my bank account on Monday. “You see, somebody has to pay my salary” she said. I told her that I know that I am on the paying side, made my last signature and went back to the clerk in order to finalize the new cheque.
I ended up in another line for another clerk. He made a phone call and looked very puzzled, it seemed to him that I was trying to process a cheque without having any money on my bank account. He was right of course, but after another phone call, and 2 signatures, I could leave the bank with the new cheque and my 200 Euros.
So it was a happy ending, no major drama after that. And the train was almost on time, but I think that it had a flat tire. I am looking forward to next Monday, it will be exciting to find out if there is any money on my bank account.
Best regards,
MiLantzelot