Bad
Firstly, it is bad that I have not done a blog post for a few months after managing a few each month, but this is partly because there would be too much negative stuff, but now I can write an post with a slightly higher note at the end and I may have my sense of humour back because of this!
Most of my blog posts have been slightly negative about life in Italy, but with a bit of tongue-in-cheek humour. I was originally waiting for lots of nice things to say, but there has not been so much material for me to write about. Maybe I did not want to write out the reality of how I was starting to actually feel a bit unhappy about living here and missing the stress-free life of living in the UK (seems like it should be the other way around does it not?).
As you might be able to tell, some of this blog post will be the quite negative. If I can fit some humour in there though, I will…
Worse
Ok, so not everything is perfect here. Certain feelings and stresses start to creep in though when work is involved because unless you are incredibly fortunate, you usually spend a huge percentage of your time working and thinking about work-related things.
I was quite optimistic about my Italian job which offered a casual approach to working hours and a friendly, relaxed environment. The pay was interesting because it was a contract that offered a fixed monthly income accompanied with a much higher rate for working on certain projects. Potentially this could have been lucrative, but it seemed nice to have the monthly supplement for quiet times. Unfortunately no project work seemed to come up and when it did I ended up working on it but never getting paid due to some quite elaborate excuses.
There was the growing feeling that I was being swindled somewhere. This feeling became stronger when I chose to do some contracting for a UK client of mine, but got paid through my Italian company so that taxes could be dealt with all in one place. Probably mainly through my own fault (believing that my small company would be kind), I lost out a lot here. I ended up receiving just a third of what I had “earned” from my work. My company had taken an admin fee to do my taxes and things like that and they gave me sob stories about how it costs money to do these things (even though they pay me every month and calculate my taxes, so no more effort?). Well, I am not a tax expert, but it is pretty rubbish if this is all true! To makes things even worse, they reluctantly agreed with the amount of money we had agreed before tax, but… they said it was definitely in Euros not Pounds. This was not true as we were being paid a set amount in Pounds and we obviously would have agreed how much of that I was getting in Pounds as we were not going to get paid for months and the exchange rate would not be know. Oh my days…
But it gets worse! I go into the directors office and get an hour-long telling off about coming in late in the morning. My contract and verbal explanation (from their own mouths) of my working hours is literally (ok, slightly shortened) “come and go as you please, no specific number of hours required unless on project work”. I pointed out that I had not had any project work and I was sticking to what was agreed, but they decided that they were expecting me to come in early anyway (despite telling me the opposite, and waiting over 6 months to say this). There is nothing to work on, but I have actually done a lot of work for them off my own back which they are always happy with. To top it all off, they suggested I come and work early until late every day for the next three months and we will see how it goes. Bloody cheek!
Better?
This is all a bit depressing, being treated badly at work. Being let down about the romance of living in Italy generally (although, I have managed to fit in about ten weekend trips to various places in Italy and I still maintain that it is my favourite country for going on holiday, just not for everyday life).
So, how could this improve rapidly? Well I had been thinking about how I might have to just move back to the UK for a less stressful life and for more money, plus family and friends are another bonus. Friends and ex-colleagues were encouraging me to come back which made me lean even more in that direction. But you can always be surprised and when offered a chance to work for a global company but be able to work from home a fair deal and otherwise get to travel at their expense, I suddenly saw the light at the end of the tunnel hit me right in the face within seconds! I think I have been smiling ever since, just counting down the clock for a few weeks 
On this ligher note, I have already started writing my next blog entry and it is back to normal, so expect a few rants and raves about less serious stuff!
