Gina's restaurant manager Veronica Fioravantie with Luca Cicioni. Photo / Michael Craig
When Italian Luca Cicioni was told not to come back to his temp job as a forklift driver after having greeted a female manager with a casual "hi darling" one couldn't help but wonder if it was a moment lost in translation.
The whole truth may never be known, as
the company at the centre of it never told its side of the story, but at the time Mr Cicioni expressed his disbelief at how his casual use of the term of endearment could have gone so wrong.
"I was just trying to be nice."
In fact in his Italian hometown, ciao caro - hi dear/darling - is a fairly common choice of words albeit more in a casual rather than professional environment.
But, despite his wrong choice of words, Mr Cicioni landed on his feet as his fellow Italians came to the rescue and gave him a job at Gina's Italian Kitchen, a flamboyant Auckland restaurant that was probably more suited to his regular use of endearing words. "Gina's was the best job ever," he said. "I can scream happy birthday for the customer, or take off the T-shirt, or just do what you want to, it's not really a formal restaurant.
