Staff

Next week our new Italian girl starts, Agnese from Terni. I was surprised to read on her cv that her marital status is "nubile". My colleague assures me that this is an old-fashioned Italian word for "unmarried". Let's hope she has a better start than Alessandro of Assisi. He was very charming, had an MA in statistics and had "cucina" on his cv as one of his major interests. His first day, a Wednesday, seemed to go well. The second day, when one of the partners was over from Milan, he e-mailed saying he was unwell. We e-mailed him on the Friday to ask how he was and he replied that he was still unwell but hoped to be in on Monday. He had not yet signed a contract and we assumed the worst: that he was using our job offer as leverage to get a better job elsewhere. We were amazed when he arrived on Monday morning, apologising for the fact that he'd had terrible sinusitis. Our compliance officer gave him the contract to sign. He said that he'd look at it overnight. When I came in on Tuesday morning, his office keys were on his desk. He later e-mailed to say that he could not sign the contract and was sorry to have wasted our time.