HOW I EVOLVED FROM JUDY TO JUDIT

JANUARY 21, 2010


So yesterday I spent an entire day -- 8:35 Am until 4:30 pm -- first getting a piece of paper from the Italian government giving me the right to work and after that, 2 1/2 hours getting an Italian bank (Banco Nazionale di Lavoro, (once translated, correctly in my opinion, as the Lavatory Bank) to accept the Italian Government's permission and then another 2 hours getting John Cabot University to create a fantasy document that would allow the bank to allow me to open up a checking account.

And me a newly baptized Kraut in gut standing! And a citizen of the EU!!

But I learned lots of stuff in the process.

Rule No 1: After sitting 3 1/2 hours waiting for a weary bureaucrat to hand over a crummy piece of paper swearing that I am a newly baptized Kraut and therefore employable, ALWAYS double-check their fine work. I didn't of course. I was so thrilled after 3 1/2 hours of waiting to actually get the piece of paper it wasn't until I got outside the hideous government office building at the far edge of Trastevere that I read what it said:

JUDIT BACHRACH SEIFMAN. The missing H on Judith was, as it turned out, a disaster. Everyone said so.

Rule No 2: Never ever believe what anyone in Italy tells you. Even if it comes from someone who should know and sounds convincing. Especially then....

"You absolutely cannot sign your contract with us until you have an ITALIAN bank account and to get this you really should go to the Banco Nazionale di Lavoro next to us," a John Cabot U employee suggested. "It's right inside the caribinieri office across the street, convenient. And English-speaking. Just take your new permission to work to them, and there'll be no problem."

So I trot across the street, waving to assorted cops, trying to look benign and stupid. And the first thing the bank manager, whose name is S. Giavannangelo and who has a LARGE picture of a smiling Pope John Paul, and also many, many postcards of archangels with gold halos hanging from a cork board above his desk says -- in Italian because he speaks zero English-- is:

Ma disastro!!-- Your name is spelled wrong, either on your German passport or on the Codice Fiscale (the government document). This is awful !! They left the H off Judith

Me: It was your government that spelled it wrong. But Hey, it doesn't matter. Call me anything you want.

SG: OK we will. You will now be known as JUDIT in our bank documents, because otherwise the government will never allow you to open an account. (what follows are a million different phone calls on SG's 2 different cells interrupting his train of thought, and also a complete breakdown of the printer, which enrages him). Then:

Ma--- Un autro disastro!! You don't have an ATTESTATA DI SERVIZIO!

Me: Which is?

SG (annoyed): A document from the university saying you really work there. Get one! Come back tomorrow!

John Cabot U, as it turn s out, has never heard of this document. In Italy, no one needs this document. You got 3 trillion Euros? 2 Euros? You're welcome to bank anywhere you please all over Italy ! It's basically a lawless country.

Except of course across the street with SG, the caribinieri and the archangels.

The university people shove my contract into my hands and say, Here: Show the idiot this!

So I trot across the street again. SG looks really sad to see me because it isn't tomorrow. He calls out to a subordinate who, best I can see, sits behind a grill doing nothing at all, all day.

SG: Lorenzo!! fotocopia per favore!!

Nothing at all happens.

Lorenzo!!!

It takes Lorenzo 19 minutes, I'm not kidding, to xerox 10 pages of contract. He does not remove the staple. He appears not to know this would help. Or maybe he does know, but hates SG.

I leave, but I haven't taken two steps outside before SG runs after me, screaming Signora! Signora!! This won't do. It's a contract, not the proper document for a bank!

Back at the university, I inform nice Roberto, an older gentleman who speaks almost no English but is somehow or other in charge of finances at an American university, that a) I will start to cry pretty soon and b) my university contract, in the eyes of SG, the archangels and the late Pope, is not considered proof that I actually work for the university .



So Roberto invents a document at his computer, calls it ATTESTATA DI SERVIZIO and signs it. It is impossible to read his handwriting, and he doesn't bother to print his name beneath the signature.


And then Roberto's assistant says:



Ma Professoressa Bachrach -- the Italian government left off the H in JUDITH. WE CANNOT POSSIBLY HIRE YOU UNTIL YOU GO BACK TO THE GOVERNMENT OFFICE AND GET THAT CHANGED!

Which is how I learned Rule No 3.



I just said

NO! I am not going back to the government office to wait 3 1/2 hours again for another codice fiscale. I am not going to re-do the contract. I am not going to waste my time or ruin my digestion by returning to the bank with an extra H on JUDIT. I refuse to see SG, Lorenzo, the copy machine and the late Pope and the angels EVER AGAIN. Deal with it!

And actually that worked.