Week 3 Taranto

Being flexible, living in the moment, going with the flow... these are all expressions which describe the attributes needed for doing this job and NOT getting frustrated or perturbed by continually changing plans.

By the middle of my second week in Italy, there was already talk of a workshop the 3rd week back south in the Grottaglie area, 4 hrs. away from my home base in Pomigliano. Just as I was starting to settle in in Pomigliano and learn where to go and not get lost, I turn right around and go back. This time I stayed in Taranto, a seaside town west of the plant. It is an old city built by the Romans as a leisure getaway and still has a huge seawall, huge stone bridges and many of the cobblestone roads built by the Romans. I was actually glad I ended up in Taranto at the Hotel Europa rather than the Relais Histo where I stayed before. Although I was not with the other Boeing people, that ended up being a blessing as I met some Italians and had an excellent time on my own exploring. I was sitting outside my hotel one evening just enjoying the breeze which gave relief from the oppressive heat. It was about 8pm and I had a long day at the office. I ordered a pizza and a 1/2 carafe of house wine (about 3 Euro and delicious!) and was sitting with my head back just smiling to myself and enjoying the cool. I ate part of my pizza before a gust came up and knocked over the rest of the wine into my pizza and drowned it. The owner and waitress both came rushing out and talking fast apologizing and fussing over me, they wanted to order me another pizza but I assured them I was full already and it was not a problem. After a moment I just started laughing as it seemed funny to me and I was not at all upset by the spill. A table of Italians were sitting nearby observing all this and invited me to come

Week 2 Pomigliano - Working in Italy

No pictures to show of the plant where I am working but perhaps later. Not sure how they feel about photos and won't risk it until I know their policy.

The plant at Pomigliano is a large facility, relatively new, nice wide roadways, and inside the different buildings the aisles are nice and wide. Compared to some of the factory buildings we have that are over 50 years old, these are new and modern. All the factory areas are air conditioned, well-lit and with lots of new machinery. I have not spent any significant amount of time in the factory to make any observations beyond that. I did notice that safety is not high on their list: people walked through the factory with flip flops, no safety glasses, no ear protection, and the mechanics still use pressured air hoses to clean metal chips off the equipment and the floors. Hm.

Office environment: The Engineering office building where I will be working is like any other modern office building; cubicles and offices. The nice thing is rows of windows that ring the area so natural light is available as well as artificial light. It is air conditioned, a must in my mind for the blistering heat of summer, however, the Italians don't like it so you will find them leaving the doors open and the windows in the conference rooms open because they think it is too cold. They are used to the heat and their grandmothers taught them that AC is bad for you.

I am guessing there are about 200 or so engineers in the office and a dozen or so managers. You can count the women on one hand and most of those are secretaries. Hm. The typical working hours are a little later than we have here. It is not uncommon for people to start at 9am and work until 5:30 or 6pm with many not taking lunch until 1:30 or 2pm.  I am used to an earlier start time at 7am, so it will be a shift for me to start later.

Commuting: Quite a few people ride the train or the bus to work. The train runs right by the gate to the plant, so many of the Americans take it also. I didn't see very many bicycles which was a surprise after living in the Seattle area for so long where they are very popular. But there are lots of scooters, and a few motorcycles -- basically anything fuel efficient since diesel fuel equates to over $13 per gallon (I actually paid 3.60 euro per liter). Even the cars are very fuel efficient getting 70-80 mpg. Most everything is diesel with a few gasoline-powered vehicles (they call gasoline benzine).

Cafeteria lunches: The companies it Italy provide the noon meal to employees. The cafeteria has a selection of typical Italian food -- pasta, a meat dish or two, salads, fruit, yogurt, and drinks. No sandwiches, no hamburgers and fries, no soup, no salad bar, no stir fry or ethic foods, no dessert bar; overall the food selections are modest compared to the large cafeterias at Boeing. There were some very tasty dishes I tried but have no idea what they were called, and a few that weren't so tasty. I would say Americans desire a greater variety of selections and we definitely want bigger portions than I saw served there. The Americans that eat at the cafeteria there pay a flat rate for their own meals at 5.50 euro or about $7.80. That is a bit more expensive than I typically pay for a cafeteria meal in the US.

Office dress code: Overall people dress a little bit more traditionally, with slacks and sports shirts, quite a few suits, definitely no jeans or t-shirts or sports clothing like track suits or sweatshirts or hoodies or that kind of thing. They don't always tuck in their shirts; the younger men seem to like a fitted, long sleeve dress shirt left untucked with the sleeves rolled up. That was in the heat of summer so not sure what people will wear when the weather cools off.

One thing that really struck me was the fact that the computers are all in Italian. When they pull up Excel or PowerPoint, the tool bars and menus are all in Italian. Of course they are, I just didn't think about that ahead of time. When you call someone, the voice mail message "please leave your name and number...." is in Italian. At the vending machine, the buttons are printed in Italian. On the airplane, the safety talk is in Italian. All the little things you don't think about and just take for granted, those are the things that stand out in my mind from my brief initial stint in Italy.