Diary of an Economic Crisis Survivor

Life, Death and Miracles of a Startup, in the Italy of the Economic Crisis

Month: March, 2014

2. Be Positive to be Ready

FEBRUARY 20, 2014, h.21:45

DAY 5

Immagine

Another nightmare day.

Wrapped between one job and another, between one order and another, between one shout and another (from my boss).

I’m feeling it. My attitudes and my talents can’t grow and can’t be expressed here. I have had little time to think about my startup project, just a few hours. But I realized that when the fire is burning, it is very hard to blows it out. It’s like the Jovanotti’s song that I heard yesterday morning, while I was going to work, in the hideout of the wolf:

“Io penso positivo, perchè son vivo, perché sono vivo, niente e nessuno al mondo potrà fermarmi dal ragionare, niente e nessuno al mondo potrà fermare, fermare, fermare, fermare..quest’onda che va, quest’onda che viene e che va” (..in few words…”I think positive, because I’m alive”, if you want you can translate the rest of the text).

I don’t know what’s happening. It’s hard just imagining the reasons for this sickness, that has damaged the world of work and us, the brave young men that have decided to stay in Italy, in the period of the advent of the Great C.

Maybe, in 100 years, in history books, rather in history-ebooks, there will be this emigration of young men. Maybe we will study it, like now we study the Italian emigration in the first decade of ‘900(and maybe, in 100 years, there will be a country, where a lot of families have an Italian surname, like Argentina or Uruguay now).

My opinion is that, among all of the causes of this problem, we can find:

  1. The lacking motivation/will/desire of young Italian men between 20 and 35;
  2. The generation that governs Italy doesn’t give attention to us.

Also Renzi’s generation, finds huge difficulty in achieving to help the country: Maybe..is also this generation too old to create innovative and brilliant ideas? Is this generation too full of old patterns that doesn’t realize that the Italian Titanic is sinking?

However, presently, I have faith in the youngest premier of Europe. Stop talking about politics.

The generation in charge, or simply the citizens, haven’t the time(and the “space”) to listen to their creative genius…imagine if they have the time for our ideas:

–>they are too stressed to bring home the bread for the family,

–>they are too stressed to fill the hunger of the tax authorities,

–>they are too stressed to survive the Great C.

How many suicides in Italy from the advent of the Great C?

No one has listened to the prayers of these citizens in pain.

Young Italian men don’t have motivation. You must to search the young Italian men that realize their work dream, starting from the fact that most don’t dream anymore. I have my dream. In my hearth, and in my drawer(does this expression also exist in England?).

In my life the number of  failures is bigger than the number of successes(sometimes when I’m sad I try to remember what a roman friend said to me in the past about failures:“Vittò, questi quando te fanno un colloquio de lavoro, non te chiedono Ahò ma quanto sei bravo…ma te chiedono quante volte hai fallito nella tu vita? se hai pochi fallimenti sei una merda.” Substantially some American managers, during a job interview, appreciate if you have had more failures than successes).

But this time no, we can’t fail…my team and I.

Because we’re motivated, and we have the will to survive.

Without the right motivation your startup can’t go anywhere.

I repeat: will. Like don’t give up in front of the complications, like most of startuppers do.

Even if there are who give up the first time that they explain their entrepreneurial idea: when they realize that this idea is very, very awful.

Everyday my team and I search solutions in our whatsapp group. The threats aren’t missing, like hard moments, when there isn’t nothing to light up the way.

But we’re motivated. We have love and bravery.

And we want to continue, insist, at least try.

We want to be a lot, staying together, doing networking and sharing.

We want to be the exception from the rule.

We want to be pioneer in a sick country.

We want them to come to us to ask where we have found the resources and the forces.

We want to survive the Great C, and we want to do it with success.

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1. PROLOGUE: Birth of a Startup (and of a Diary)

FEBRUARY 15, 2014 h. 16:30

DAY 1

keep calm and survive crisis diary of a crisis survivor startup team crisis

When I decided to start writing a blog, with great sincerity, I did not expect to be here where I am also on Saturday afternoon.

I was expecting to “find myself inspired to write on top of that hill ” (rather than the sea ), obviously in complete solitude .

However, I am here, where I have spent most time over the last three years: at work, behind a desk.

I want to talk about the life of a young thirty year old Italian worker, but most of all an aspiring startupper (when the work will allow me).

A little information about me: my name is Victor, I love spending my free time with family and friends, now I’m  apolitical and, now, I hate football.

You’ll have to make do with this information to imagine the writer…About my career, I will be more detailed.

After graduating , three years ago, I was cast in a saturated world of work, in Italy, well … at the wrong place at the wrong time .

The first year I was excited about the job, so as not to notice my growing dissatisfaction.

The other two years, instead although I believe enthusiastic about life, have gone not very well. For this reason, I have felt a need for revenge, that I’m trying to satiate with an entrepreneurial project of my own. Of course, in the hours when I’m not working .

For three years now I have been stressed basically by two things, work and my country.

As regards the work, I’m a consultant within a company, and I’m tired of furious rhythms for inadequate rewards, monetary and otherwise. For this reason I’m planning my revenge..creating a Start Up of my own.

Instead Italy..well..I don’t want to pull out the story of “young people have to leave Italy as soon as they can“, but the reasons are all there. I am a young aspiring startupper who wants to live a relaxed life ( family, health, job satisfaction ), but this Italy is not a country for young people(cited above).

Is it because of the economic crisis? Called “The Great C”, from now on.

I do not want to emphasize the concept, but I would rather take the Great C, with the right amount of irony, talking about a Diary of a young man who fights daily to “survive” in a work situation that kills every new attempt: this situation is the Great C  indeed.

My survival of the Great C will be told here, in this blog, indeed, in this diary: I’d like to write about my work  and my emergents entrepreneurial project, but at the same time, do a little ‘ ironically…in short, oscar wilde quote “life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about”.

I want to tell you step by step about my adventure as a young aspirant startupper in an Italy sick to the bone, where everyone and anyone is a zombie that eats society, where everyone and anyone complains more than they actually try to fight the Great C, where everyone and anyone is victim and victimizer, some with more, some with minor faults.

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