Welcome to Italy

One of the major differences here is how human resources works. What I am currently tasked with his hiring around 30 people to do various tasks in time for the start up. Currently, I am interviewing for coordinating producer.

In this first week or so of interviewing there have been many highlights. For instance, my first interview - which was conducted in English - the candidate dropped the f bomb. In fact he told me that his last employer was not good, so he told

him to f-off. Needless to say, he didn't get the job.

When I asked my HR director Cele (who attends all the interviews and acts as interpreter when necessary) about if she thought his reaction was unusual, her response was "Welcome To Italy."

Yesterday after another fruitless interview, Cele's first bit of feedback was, "He was really cute." Can't remember too many human resource people ever commenting on a candidate's looks before. The rules are a little more lax when it comes to the questions you can ask as well.

You are allowed to ask if the candidate is married, if they have children, or if they are planning to have children. You can ask how old they are too, but there is no need because it is listed on everyone's resume (aka. curriculum vitae or CV).

Speaking of interesting hires, Monday I will review over 3 hours of audition tapes of host candidates. Should be crazy. The response has been good here in Italy for show hosts. Apparently everyone in Italy believes they belong on TV.

Today is Saturday, and I spent the days looking at potential areas in which to live. One is a place called Arese, which was very green (Italians way of saying open spaces) and Milano Due which is a gigantic expatriate community. I like Arese a little better because they have town homes available. Milano Due is all apartments. There are very few stand alone homes in Italy, and none withinin our rent allotment. I hope to see a few places this week so I can stop living in an hotel.