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I worked for Olivetti in Ivrea and it was a nice town. However, any town needs jobs and a tax base. It's set in the Aosta valley. The river which ran through w
by CalChris 7y ago
I worked for Olivetti in Ivrea and it was a nice town. However, any town needs jobs and a tax base.
It's set in the Aosta valley. The river which ran through was used as a practice center for a kayaking team. At the time, it wasn't far from winter skiing but I understand global warming has closed most of those resorts.
Northern Italian cooking (Piemontese) was amazing and we had a list of restaurants with notations of who went there (Bill Gates went here, ...).
Ivrea itself had a walking street, Via Palestra. I walked to work, getting an espresso in the morning.
No one was actually from Ivrea. It was a company town. If I wanted the Olivetti operator, I'd dial 6, IIRC. Most people didn't have phones and you'd make appointments. I made appointments to play basketball.
Many if not most people, went home on weekends, or at least often. And everyone left for August. Olivetti drew people from all over Italy. I remember one woman who definitely made it known that she was Roman, went back to Rome on weekends, and was angling somehow to get transferred back to Rome.
Lunch at Olivetti was pretty good by American rather low standards. They served wine at lunch. Then it was an ice cream while watching people play tennis on clay. Of course, Olivetti was a typewriter company and we were working in the factory. I was there for a month before I was allowed to go to lunch on my own because otherwise I'd get lost in the labyrinth.
I haven't been back in long time but but I suppose I was there at the right time.
- phkamp 7y agoSeconded! I worked on a SW-project there in the late 1980-ies (Moving the European Parliament from OSI to TCP/IP) and it was a strange and wonderful place indeed. And yes, very good food, I gained four kg in the first two months :-) But there were absolutely no doubt anywhere that there were two classes of people: Italians and "Strangero" like me, and God help you if you did not understand Italian... The sadness of Olivettis passing is somewhat tempered by the fact that Arduino grew from its ashes.
- CalChris 7y agoI only hung out with Italians and I was cheap English lessons. The other faction of foreigners, English tech writers, were very offish. I lived in San Francisco for 25 years and it's hilarious to watch what a self important high school reunion it has become. San Francisco wasn't always this way. I'm very happy for my time in Ivrea. That was quality of life.
- davidw 7y ago> Lunch at Olivetti was pretty good by American rather low standards. I've been to university cafeterias in Italy... and I'm pretty sure you could take the food in there and serve it in a lot of moderately upscale restaurants in the US without anyone batting an eye.
- oh_sigh 7y agoMaybe if they are still independent. Many serve the same sodexho garbage you find in US universities and prisons.
- tannhaeuser 7y agoMan, you made me want to immediately get into the car and drive there to enjoy Italian reform architecture (and cuisine, of course). Does anybody have a guide or other link to share for classical-modern architecture in nothern Italy (rather than rinascimento which is everywhere)?
- gattilorenz 7y agoYou could look for a list of liberty, rationalist and modernist buildings on Wikipedia or elsewhere and start from that. Tipically the "casa del fascio" buildings are all interesting and present in most major cities. The most famous one is the one in Como, but I like the one in Trento as well, for example. Train stations (e.g. Milano Centrale), central post offices are also often from these periods.