E-VITA

1999: I was working for an Italian software house – it was the time of the web boom; no web programmers could be found. The few that were available claimed salaries that were not in the least adequate to their competencies. What to do?The company decided to try in the eastern countries, where the difficulty to find a job, even after a university degree, was high, and where costs were definitely lower. Romania was chosen: not too far and the language has the same root as Italian, therefore many could already understand Italian or were very quick in learning it.
Decision taken: I was going to Bucarest with the CEO of the company to carry out interviews for web developers. Very good; I did not have the competencies myself… hmm…. I decided to carry out the interviews more on a personal, experience and expectation level and asked my technical colleagues to set up some tests that the candidates had to fill in and that would be evaluated later, once back to the headquarters.

We needed VISA, as Romania did not belong to the EU yet.

A Tarom flight took us to Bucarest, where first of all a huge queue was waiting for us. Patience was one of the keywords of the whole trip. When it was finally our turn, our passports were severely inspected and a huge, new stamp was put on them. And then we were requested to change some money into their local currency, the old “Lei”. There would not have been another possibility, as western European banks did not trade that currency.
Still on the plane we started to talk to an Italian lady who was visiting Romania regularly. She gave us a lot of useful advice and suggested we should use the private taxi she was always hiring: he spoke Italian and could be trusted, both on the personal level as well as about the tariffs. Many taxi drivers tried to exploit the fact that foreigners had another attitude to costs, asking for much higher fares than usual.

I was stuck by the recurring fact that in the town everything looked grey: cars (old Dacias, all falling apart and very often kept together with packthread), streets, panels, even people. In the 4 days I had to stay there, I never saw anyone smiling. Apart from my candidates, of course. Bunches of little children were just sitting in the streets on their own – I found out they were homeless and sleeping under the asphalt, where water pipes were keeping them warm. Herds of dogs were running around the streets, looking dangerous and sick, desperately looking for something to eat: at night, when we drove with our taxi through the streets and the only light was that of the car, dark alleys would suddenly appear in front of us. Huge piles of waste baskets lying in the streets were torn by those dogs, who were not afraid, but would have been ready to defend their dinner probably at any cost. Our dinner was much more refined: paying what in Italy would have been the price of a pizza and one beer, there we were served in the best restaurants of the city, all reminding of better times. Live music of violins or accordion would fill the room and a lot of waiters would attend the few tables where someone was sitting. Probably on business trip, as we were.

With the money that we had been obliged to change, there was nothing that could be bought. Souvenirs were impossible to find, shops had empty, dirty windows. There was no place that could be visited: we could find in a spare hour, only an open air country museum, where 2 or 3 very poor cottages were shown. The museum cost nearly northing, but it was at least the only place in the town where I was able to find a few postcards. Very ugly and sad looking postcards. And a typical handicraft: sort of hand painted eggshells. At least, there some colour had been used!
I gave the coins I could not spent to some little children, who were obviously not understanding where all this luck came from: they looked at me with great suspicion.

The interviews went well: all candidates would have done anything to get the job. Some spoke Italian well enough, to do the interview in Italian; some had good competencies. But the problem was lying unexpectedly somewhere else: once at home, we decided who could work for us. But we spent months talking to very many different offices, to the immigrant’s office in Italy, in Romania, to ICE (Institute for Foreign Commerce), who already offered us their offices and support there, to the Italian General Consul in Bucarest…. It was impossible to get the visa for the people to come to Milano. Not even demonstrating that they would have a job, a salary and a home, paid by the company! Some parents kept calling me in the following months. I explained always the same things: a new law should pass; new regulations should enable us to go on; we had to be patient for another couple of months…. Then telephone calls arrived less and less, until they finally gave up hope.

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