The NE job and its closing dinner

I know I have deserted my blog for a long time, and I apologize.
What happened, in short, is I went on working like a slave in the North-East, then went home for a weekend, hiked the Monte Rosa, and then I was sent to France for another project (where of course I had no internet-access).
I haven’t even logged into my FB account for weeks, I have been chastised from family about having forgotten both my nephew’s AND my grandfather’s birthdays, and plenty of other things happened. I’ll try to write about the weirdest/most interesting, but you’ll have to forgive the lack of consequentiality. I’ll post things over the next few days, and here come the first taste.

The North-East job and its closing dinner
This project was pretty important for my career: I’m still in the first 6 months in the new office, so technically I can be dismissed at any moment without any explanation/leaving package. (Once the six months are over, in Italy it’s pretty impossible to be fired. Other bad things can happen of course, but it feels good to know they can’t fire you, especially in this economy).
The senior manager who directed the project is pretty well known to be the toughest of the office, and I don’t even need to find him a nickname, because the guys from the office call him (behind his back) Fast & Furious (F&F), and it’s the best possible nickname for the man.
Anyway the thing about F&F is he has power in the office: he thinks you’re great, your career is granted, he thinks you’re dumb, you can consider yourself out of the business just as if you had leper: nobody wants you on their projects and you end up doing nothing all day (cool for a while, but in the end you’re stuck and your career is stuck as well).

This long introduction obviously means one thing: I had to work my fingers to the bone for almost two months. Meaning days, nights, weekends. In the end, it seems he did appreciate my work, but we’ll see once I get my evaluation done.

On the last week of the project we got back to the city on Thursday night and F&F decided to take the team out for a big dinner: work was almost over and he wanted the team to feel a little better (I guess). We had a nice time, drank delicious French wines and ate a good deal (but if you have been following the blog for a long time you’ll know already I don’t really enjoy these dinners, since you ALWAYS have to be careful about plenty of things).
On Friday morning I was finalizing some detail on the report that had to be sent to our client, when F&F called me and a colleague into his office, asked us to close the door and, with funeral face, said we needed to talk.
My stomach twisted, and I prepared myself for the worst (being fired/humiliated) and then he actually told us that due to the economy we couldn’t charge the dinner to our client so each member of the team had to pay his share (mind, staying home that night WAS NOT AN OPTION). Honestly, I was so relieved I just said “Ok, no problems”, and anyway how can you argue with the one who decides about your career/promotions/salary increase?
In the end, I’ll have to pay 150 Euros. Like the kind of money I personally spend in 15 nights out with my friends. Amazing, huh?

bummed

People,

they just told us (my colleagues and me) that we're going to stay in this stupid place for the whole month of July (we arrived on June 3).

Life sucks dudes...

it's official

...I'll have to work the whole weekend as well (and yeah, next week too).
Fuck me, fuck them, I hate everything. Myself in first place for still sticking to this job after 5 years.

200th post..

...flames to dust,
lovers to friends:
why do all good things
come to an end?

..and the dogs will
whistling at the new tune
barking at the new moon,
hoping it will come soon,
so that they could die..

I hate it here people. Cannot stand it anymore.
Hopefully I lost weight over the week, on Monday I'll be able to check.

What else?

It's not healthy working like this. I've been working 14 to 16 hours every day over the last three weeks, including weekends.

It's unhealthy both phisically and mentally. I think way to much about B.
I don't even have the time to talk to KS or to my family on the phone. And even if I did, I don't have anything to say but complaints, so I prefer to shut up. After all, B. dumped me after one of these moments.

I even dream about work and wake up sweating at night.

And if there is one thing I don't need in my life is thinking about B. I don't wanna think I may screw my life again like I did after B. left.

Hopefully I'll get to see KS in the weekend and hopefully we may get to spend some quality time together. Because when it gets to this point, you don't live, you don't love, you don't. You just try and carry on.

But KS is not B., and he won't give me up on this, so fuck B. and fuck the past.

June and I'm lost

I’m lost in the middle of nowhere.
I’m working between 14 and 16 hours every single day, with a 20 minutes break at lunchtime. I have virtually no internet access. I haven’t really checked my facebook account in 15 days, I haven’t even done a single thing for myself in 15 days. So no regular blogging, sorry people.
Is this life? No, and I know it, but with this economy, I feel lucky to have a job.

Anyway.

Last weekend I went home and threw a long planned surprise party for the Sponsor &=th birthday. I organized a huge party in the garden at home, by the lake. Two months ago I started planning things: making guest lists, sending invitations, putting down menus and so on. In the end, some 50 people attended. I prepared by myself with just a little help from the Panther the whole banquet. We had a buffet with appetizers and entrees, namely:
- gazpacho verrines
- peas and mint cold cream
- fava bean pesto crostini
- mini-quiche of two kinds: tomato mozzarella and olives, and aubergine-pecorino
- warm octopus salad
- salade nicoise
- spring salad
- greek salad mini skewers
- asiago cheese – salami skewers
- 4 different kinds of lasagne
- BBQ with fish and pork skewers
- Fruit and marshmallows skewers
- Ananas tiramisu
- Watermelon

I ordered French wine (Vouvray from the Loire region), we set plenty of tables in the garden, we set a play area for the kids, prepared everything and still managed to make it a surprise! It was very very nice, and the most important thing is that the Sponsor LOVED it!

On Monday I came back here, an dit was my birthday, but just as every year it went almost unnoticed. It’s true I’m not really fond of MY Bdays, since I hate the fact that I’m no longer 21, but honestly? I’m pretty known for throwing big parties for a lot of people for their bdays (KS, Maria, my dad and in the past my brothers), and sometimes I’m a little put off by the fact that the last person who actually put on some celebration for my birthday was the infamous Little Prince (if you don’t know about the Little Prince go back to 2006 archives).
Well I guess it’s still okay, the thing is this year something that still disturbs me came up. I’ve been thinking for some times now about buying myself a Vespa. Not just a scooter, but a real original Vespa. I would like to keep it at my parents’ place, at the lake, in order to go around there.

Now two weeks ago or so the Sponsor decided to offer me one for my birthday and went to buy a brand new one, in order to make me a surprise by letting me find it in the garage!
However, when he called the Panther to ask her advice about the colour, she told him if he bought me a Vespa she would ask for a divorce (this is the Panther usual blackmail strategy).

So of course I got no Vespa, and the whole thing pretty put me off about buying one myself.
I should not care, after all it’s just an object. But still, for some reasons I don’t know (and don’t care to explore), this whole thing makes me sad.

(Dad ended buying me a book I really wanted with all my heart that had just come out the day before, and an item for security on glacier for our mountaineering ski tours, and I was more than glad about both!)

(And no, I didn’t get any other presents. From anyone. So far, at least. And do you want to know? I really really wish an Ipod. I have been wanting an Ipod for years now, one of the very small and inexpensive ones, just to go running. Oh, and Kat? I know you’re reading. And don’t even try to buy me anything, all I want is to have a drink together when this mission is over and I come back to the city!)

PS: don't bother correcting my English. I feel like I don't even have any brain left, let alone write anything coherent, and I'm NOT goign to proof read this thing!

Dolce Vita

I’m going out way too much!
When was it the last night I spent alone at home? I can’t even remember. The rare time my friends take a rain check on me (like it happened last Tuesday, when Polish Chick was too sick to go out) my friend and former room mate Luca is always up to some cool event and always happy to bring me along.

Last night KS and I invited over a bunch of colleagues of mine for an after work glass of white wine, and then KS wanted to go out and enjoy a little of Milan nightlife. I was really exhausted, but then I thought it was really awful to tell him I didn’t want to go out when he knows I’m always hanging out in cool bars.
I slipped in a cute dress, gave Luca a call and we joined him and a few friends (including most of Luca’s Tuscan gang I’ll talk about later, but I love them all!) in a bar next to the castle.

I quickly discovered, thanks to a friendly barman, my new favourite drink: gin and grapefruit. Low in calories, tasty, fresh: just perfect.
I probably had a few too many drinks, we were all having fun, we were outside and the night was warm.

I love this life. You can just spend half of your night in the streets wearing flip flops and a sundress, dancing around, hanging out with friends, never feeling cold. It seems everyone around here lives this way, going out every night, never being tire of it. I know it will be a bit different in the winter, but winter seems so far away now that who cares?

But is this really me? I still dream of living in the mountains far away from cars and noise. But then again, while I’m here I might as well enjoy it, right?



On different news, KS had a job interview yesterday morning, and starting from June he’ll be working in Milan 4 days a month. It’s a nice beginning, it’ll help him realizing if this is really what he wants to do I think, and I’m really happy about it!

YAY

I lost 2 more lbs!!!!