Blog written before I left for Rome - how it all started

May 27, 2007
Any of you who have talked to me in about the last year or so know that one of my goals/dream for the last couple years has been to go to Rome to work. Well that dream is about to come true in less than a month! The short version of the story is that I'm leaving on June 21st to go live/work in Rome for 2 years!
For those of you who want the long version...here ya go:
Since about June 2006, I've been going through the process to get a 2 year assignment in one of our offices in Italy. It's been a bit of an up & down ride. At first they made it sound like it would be no problem at all. Then around Sept./Oct. our global deployment people started saying it looked like there was slim to no chance that there would be anything in Italy for me. (and tried to talk me into going to Moscow for 3 years instead!) I did talk to a partner I know in Moscow, but never gave up hope on Italy. The reasons I was given for there being a slim chance was everything from the Italy offices not needing/wanting foreign workers, I had to be fluent in Italian in order to go and that I wouldn't be able to get a working permit. (All of which were proven to be wrong.)Around late October my partner sponsor was able to contact a partner in the Rome office & I had a phone interview with that partner. I thought the call went well & at the end I mentioned to the partner that I might be vacationing in Italy in late November (I was thinking about it, but didn't have anything planned at that time.). He told me if I did come to let him know & he would schedule a time for me meet with people in the office. So at that point I decided I was going to go to Italy to see if it's really a place I could live & to 'seal the deal'. I was going to go by myself, but then my sister was able to rearrange her vacation time & went with me. We left the day after Thanksgiving & spent 10 days there. It was great as always! While we were in Rome, I spent half a day in the PwC Rome office visiting with partners & managers. My last meeting was with the head office partner & at the end of our meeting he told me I would be getting an offer. (Even though I'm staying with the same company, it's pretty much like re-interviewing for a new job and you have to have interviews, get a new offer, etc.)
The 1st version of my offer didn't come until January. The offer was contingent on me being able to get a working permit. I had several discussions with my contacts in Milan on the ways to get my permit & how they were going to try to get it. For the next couple months the Italy & US global deployment groups went back & forth on ways to get my permit & what the US could accept considering what would have negative implications on me, etc. I was told not to sign my offer until this was all resolved. I finally received a revised contract about a month & a half ago, which had that to go through the lawyers on both the US & Italy side before I could sign it. So finally I received a hard copy of my contract to sign & this past Tuesday I received all the documents I needed to obtain my working permit. Today I went to get the actual visa put on my passport, but I didn’t have all the documents needed so I’ll have to go back next week to try again!
Once the permit paperwork went through, I was finally able to set my start date & have Italy schedule my flight. So I now have a one way ticket to Rome leaving on June 21st! I've been waiting to finally be able to get that flight information for so long! But it is actually a little earlier than I originally expected (I thought I was going to start around July 1), so ever since the date has been decided things have been a bit crazy. I have so much to get done in less than month. I’m excited, anxious, & nervous all at the same time! (Oh & my work schedule has been a bit hectic & I’ve been working until about 11pm or midnight, so that’s made me even more stressed!)
Oh & to answer most people's question - no I'm not fluent in Italian yet, but hope to be within the next couple of months. I took some Italian classes a while back, but stopped when it got to the point where I didn't know if I would get to go (& I was missing a lot of class because of work). I'm taking 10 days of 7.5hr one-on-one classes before I leave (first class is on Monday), so hopefully that will help out some.
That's all I have to share for now...but I'm sure I'll have more soon!