Summer Internship

What The Fuck! What Happened To George? World Food Programme!

For those who were missing me so much i just want to tell you that i'm alive, it's juts that i'm doing my internship in BCG and, as you expect from a consulting company, it's very very demaing in terms of working hours and I don't have time to post new messages on my blog. Here is a picture which is quite representative of what's going on.

Ok i was joking. This was just a weekend organized by BCG in Rome to let summer consultants enjoy the summertime and know each other. But overall i'm happy with my internship. I've been lucky in terms of working hours because the client is not very demanding and the team is not forced to work overnight. But let's go step by step:

Rome:

Rome in summer is a very lovely place to be. The city is amazing, lot's of cool places to have lunch, dinner or just a walk. During my short stay i've been out for dinner every night and summing all them up i think i've been more time to the restaurant than my grandmother in her all life.
Want to eat the best fish in rome?
Go to "Federico I", via della colonna antonina 48
Or to "Hosteria del pesce", via monsterrato 32

Want to have the best ice cream?
Giolitti (don't know the address but it's behind pantheon, quite famous, just ask)

Want to go in a nice club at the beach?
Guerrino, lungomare amerigo vespucci,Ostia


Want to be cheated and robbed of some 50 euros?
Take a cab!

As a foreign visitor the probability of been cheated is almost 0.999 which, for the sake of semplicity, can be rounded at 1. Every time a new colleague is coming on the project we do the silly game of guessing how much it will cost to travel a route which should be aroud 20-24 euros. New colleagues always pay a price ranging from 45 to 95 euros!
The way they can cheat you are basically three:

1) They start the journey with 10-15 euros already on the meter. It shouldn't be higher than 2.33 or 5 if they pick you up in the city after a phone booking.
2) They use tariff #2 instead of #1 even withing the city center. The difference is around +70% more from 1 to 2.
3) This is the best one. You give a bill, say 50 euros. The reply showing a 5 euro bill and saying: you gave me 5, money is missing. They do this after distracting you or exploiting a moment in which u are not concentrated on the action.

BCG

BCG is a very wonderful place to work. Considering that we are talking about consulting, so you cannot escape from demanding working hours and travelling a lot, i can say that:
1) People are really really nice. Which is very importat in a context in which you spend with your colleagues 5 days a week for 20 hours a day!
2) The working environment is very professional and the internal resource and capabilities are huge and powerful.
3) You can feel that the company's policies are made to help peaople overcome the disadvantages of being a consultant (not only in monetary terms).
I've received an offer for the post-MBA. I'm still thinking about it. I like the job, i like being a consultant because it's true that is challenging and very stimulating for the brain but there are still some conflicting things with my expectations in terms of private life. Moreover, I want to understand if it's possible to change office and be employed in the UK office for example. I'm sick of Milan.

WFP

World Food Programme is a UN agency that delivers food to poor countries or areas affected by natural disasters, war and so on. People working there are not that different from the ones that are in a normal company. Is not because it's a UN agency and cars have a diplomatic plate that people are different. But it's true that you feel you are doing something good in your daily job. That you are dealing with human lives. In the room next to mine every day there was a conference call to Lebanon. I found it very cool.
If you want to work in a real international environment and you like travelling a lot, this shold be for sure something you might consider.

Barcelona

While i was working, life in Barcelona was going on. Parties and BBQ on my terrace saw many people going back and forth from my flat, on calle calatrava 1. We subrented the rooms to other students to recover part of the expenses but we ended up with a broker dumb elevator, 25 days of trash left out of the door without nobody noticing it (except our neighbors i guess) and other broken/dirty stuff. My girlfriend spend some days in Barcelona (not in my flat) and sent me this funny video.




She added: "Hey can you see.. zis is at least 50 zentimeters"... and I "You mean.. fifteen?"... "Ne ne ne, FIFTY!". Obviously even if I have to admit this is a huge drill it's closer to fifteen rather than fifty. But how i can blame her, it took me so long to convince her that mine was 25!

italienische Politik und moderne Wände

In Italy's political environment things are getting worst every day. Few months have passed since the new left wing party has taken place as the majority in the government but the seeds of mismanagement of the country are already flourishing. The left town government of a small city in the north-east decided to build a wall to isolate one area of the town from the rest. Berlin down 17 in 1989, Padova up in 2006! I'm wondering if they are going to build other walls. Yes because the hot summer and the overcrowded jails gave them the brilliant idea to promote a law to discount 3 years of penalty to everybody… late summer sales. Some hundred thousands people are now freed, whatever was the crime they where discounting… also people who has not been judged yet. Hey it's summer time, who cares? The important thing is to have a clear idea on foreign affairs. Clear ideas? Mr Prodi, our Prime Minister, gives samples of his wisdom from the countryside. He doesn’t know exactly how many soldiers are going to be sent in Lebanon, doesn't know why they are going there,what is the role of our troops and where to find the funds. He is just too sleepy to think, he just say "I agree" to what others decide. Anyway he feels safe within the walls of his 18-rooms castle. But from the news this is just a rural house, because he is not Berlusconi, he is a left wing leader. However, while Italian troops are ready to leave for the Middle East, I'm wondering where all those idiots that during the right-wing mandate were chaining themselves to fences in the street to protest against the war. Do they know that this is not peacekeeping but peace enforcing? And do they know about the walls in Padova? Why they are not in the streets with the flags of Che Guevara? Street protest exists only when the right is at the government. Very good. But other leaders are giving samples of their wisdom. D'Alema, our foreign affairs minister is going around Beirut with Hezbollah ministers, following blindly that anti-sionist spirit that is typical of the Italian ignorant arm of the left. Bertinotti, the extreme-left leader, to not appear less active in this Italian summer, sent greeting cards to Fidel Castro to tell him that he is close to him and is really looking forward to see him back on the throne of his dictatorial regime. In all this mess, my father is becoming every day more and more worried about the daily threat of robberies in the houses. So he decided to build a 5-meeters wall around our house. No not here, in our house India. IMF says that real estate prices in India are skyrocketing. Our fence did the same. Eighty thousand Euros. For a wall? For me is a great relief. I feel less guilty now for having invested only sixty for the MBA.