Epilogue

 

Today I'm back in the Netherlands for a week. That's a good opportunity to look back. What do I think of the assignment? And of Rome?

 

The assignment

 

When I started I felt like I could not do it in a million years. So much to be done in so little time!. On top of that this was my first big analysis. I did small ones before ("what happens when this mandatory field becomes optional") but never something this big.

Despite the fact that I didn't feel like I could do it, everybody else firmly believed in me. Everybody thought I could do it. Summarized everyone believed in me except me (apparently I have a tiny problem there). J ).

 

Looking back I can safely say everybody was right and I was wrong. I can do it. I proved that doing this impactanalysis. I'm very proud of what I've done too. And adding to that I discovered I actually liked doing it. Because we wrote a decent action plan first, during the analysis I only had to follow that action plan and tick off all actions mentioned in there. That made it a lot easier not to get lost. It was not until everything came together at the end that I started to really realize how big the centralization project will be!

I clearly felt how important it is to first think of what you're going to do. What are you going to do, and when and how? And then create an action plan or plan of approach for it. Of course you know it's important because everyone says so, but there's defintely a difference between knowing something because it's been told, or knowing something from experience.

Furthermore, I liked the researching part of the assignment. I'm a curious person, so the more I dove into it, the more curious I became as to what everyone thought of it, and whether or not it would actually be possible. And how exactly centralization should be done.

And finally, when I started I wanted to finish it also. Not the easy way, but the correct way. Quality. When I do something, I don't want to just do it, but I also want to do it right! They say that's because I'm a capricorn, but I don't really believe in astrology. I think I got that from my daddy, he's exactly the same. J.

Now all it said and done, I reach the conclusion it was simply a terrific assignment. I was working in a very special organization, with fantastic collegues! I hope I ever have the chance of doing something like this again!

 

 

The city of Rome

 

“Afrika starts at Rome”. This is a known proverb I've been told. Now that I've been there, I can see where it comes from. And I can confirm it's true. Some roads and buildings are very badly maintained. And then there's also possibly illegal North-African people selling definetely illegal stuff like fake Coco-Chanel.

Another thing I discovered is that Italians work different from Dutch. A fine example of this is McDonalds. In a dutch one staff is always running back and forth begind the counter in order to serve everyone as fast as possible. In an italian one staff is walking very relaxed and slowly here and there to gather all parts of your order. I can't really understand how they do it, I'd go crazy doing that.

 

On the other hand, Rome is a very beautiful city. You can feel the history. Every five metres or so you trip over yet another monument. And every building has some kind of story, which I could read in a little book I bought for that purpose. Buildings in my hometown also have stories, but they don't go that far back. And of course the roman buildings are far prettier than the ones back home.

Rome is also a fun city. It's great to just walk the streets, have some dinner somewhere or do some window-shopping. Or have drink at a terrace and just watch all the people walking by. There are all sorts of wonderfully different people in Rome! Fashion-conscious Italians, fashion-nitwit-tourists (now that's the group I belong to). They all walk the same streets and watching all those people is fun. J. It never bores me to watch people

 

In those five weeks I spent there I got to known Rome as a beautiful and special city, and it's fun to be there. Rome is a city of which the pro's easily outweigh the con's. I have to back there sometime!

 

Ciao,

Ingrid.