My Last Day of Work

This was my final day at the Italian company. I would have been willing to stay on through New Year’s, but as of today they are closed until January.

When I arrived, I went straight to work on a particularly difficult, technical part of this already difficult, technical document. That didn’t last long, though, because there was soon a champagne break to celebrate the holidays. A number of employees were going to be catching flights that afternoon for Europe.

Everyone has been uniformly nice and welcoming to me here, and it is dismaying to think that the work I’ve done on this translation—which no one has bothered to look at yet, unless they’re sneaking peeks when I’m not around—may not actually be of use to anyone. I have gotten through only a fraction of the thing.

It is a mess.

When I left that day, Luca thanked me and gave me a sampler of the company’s products. I was touched.

I loved my Italian job.