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Finding Work
It has been difficult finding work in Trani but with Southern Italy having the highest unemployment rate in the country it shouldn't have come as a surprise. After several frustrating months of searching in the local paper attempting to understand the job adverts, I began to make a breakthrough by being offered interviews. With a minimal grasp of Italian at the time, bizarre isn't the word. I would sit in an interview being spoken to, nodding my head as if understanding when I was really thinking 'I haven't a clue what you're talking about'. Despite occasionally wondering what I was doing, I was determined not to give up.
The interviews I've attended have probably been the most useful experiences and learning curves of my time here because they have given me an insight into the world of Italian businesses as well as the Italian job interview.
My first interview was conveniently in Trani, at a large store selling everything from toys to pine furniture, for a general assistant. The interview was with the owner, a very tall thin man with round glasses, and took place in the store with some strange easy listening music playing in the background. It may have been pleasant if the volume on the stereo hadn't been so high. It was therefore no real surprise that the interview wasn't exactly successful!
One interview I can never forget was at a marketing company at Bari’s Industrial Estate. The journey itself took almost twice as long as the actual interview, I got mistaken for a French lady when I stopped and asked for directions, and the interviewer suggested on my arrival, that I contact Lord Byron College in Bari, an English teaching college that could probably help me in my quest for work. Was that it, I thought, had I spent the best part of an hour and a half taking the train into Bari and then a bus out again only to stay for one minute, be advised to go somewhere else, and be shown out the door!? Apparently so.
But this particular unfortunate experience led to rewards. I did find my way to Lord Byron College, had a chat with the Director of Studies and was offered some work. I now teach English to a variety of groups and individuals, all of whom have one thing in common, they love to talk! One group that I enjoy teaching in particular is six judges at Trani's Tribunale, the court house that has the ideal location of being directly opposite the cathedral. They talk so much that I can often be found knocking on the table and telling them to be quiet, all in a polite way of course. The most surreal part of all was during the second lesson when we sat around singing the words to "Blowing in the Wind". Perhaps now that I have a good rapport with them they might care to explain some of this mystifying Italian legislation!