Federico Di Marco - Personal advice while applying for working at international organizations (fededim.github.io)

Federico Di Marco

I’m a senior software engineer, born in Genova, Italy, with a master degree in computer science, in the second half of his forties.

I started using a computer at six years old, went through logo, basic, assembly, C/C++, java and finally to .NET and .NET core. Proficient also in databases, especially Sql Server and reporting. Let’s say I also have some experience in security but mainly in the past, now things have become much more difficult and I do not have too much time to keep myself updated, but sometimes I am still kicking in.

I am a fan of videogames, technologies, motorbikes, travelling and comedy (click my name above for my main page).

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Introduction

During life you may be applying for vacancies at international government organizations (European community, United Nations, NATO, etc.) and I would like to point out some hints for not having potential unpredictable issues jeopardizing your career and even your life as it happened to my person.

Perhaps if you are thinking of working in such vacancies you are for sure a well above average person or even a top performer among your peers who has been successful in studies (or languages) and who wants to put your skills at the service of a greater cause obtaining at the same a high rewarding job. You are also probably a person who likes competition because you want to prove yourself how you rank among your international peers. Unluckily people who are above average in studies (and I put myself among these) are somewhat naive: they spend their time studying or working hard, often helping others without requiring anything back, but at the same without thinking that envy is omnipresent and, remember, envy creates silent enemies, sometimes even deadly. And for sure joining IGO workplaces Yes, deadly, e.g. persons who suffer from the success of others and want at all cost to curb or even destroy it because according to their brain they are better than you (maybe just for the physical appearance) and they have to prove it to others. In fact, a typical characteristic of envious people is that they do not devote time to improving themselves, but rather to trying to discredit what others have achieved in life.

Many years ago I started applying for temporary vacancies at European Commission and I was even summoned for interviews a few times (I am including a screenshot from the EPSO website - the European personnel selection office) and I inadvertently talked about these interviews to some of my "friends" and former university alumni without boasting and above all without thinking of someone could be plotting against me and my career. You never know what envy can push to do to those who feel it, it is even one of the main reasons why murders are committed (and, if I am allowed, I would say that this story is almost due to it). In fact, as a personal consideration, I wonder why slander and defamation are considered in the legal system worldwide as minor crimes whereas they can actually destroy the life of innocent persons; the Bible itself states in the "Proverbs 18:21" an interesting verse about this: "The tongue has the power of life and death".

In particular after some time I applied to one vacancy as a software engineer which required a security clearance, an unknown word to me at that time and even still "blurry" today which fundamentally "warranted" the fact that the candidate was "somewhat trustable" in giving him the access to classified information. It is obviously an undocumented procedure to most people; as far as I was able to gather reading some newspaper articles a security clearance involves a background check (criminal records at least but probably also other checks) from the national secret service about you, your parents, your close relatives and friends. Should something be found not to be "right", the clearance procedure would have ended just by "labelling" the person "not suitable" without any "consequence" on him or his family (as a sad note of my family in '80s my father had a car accident in which a young woman from Venafro, Molise - historically Abruzzi and Molise were a single region, then they separated in 1963 - died and he was sentenced to misdemeanour involuntary vehicular manslaughter).

Below I'll get straight to the heart of the matter giving my advice when applying for working at international organizations, if you wish to get an insight about the strange and troublesome facts (many of which, if I may, are in my humble opinion uncharged crimes) which persuaded me to create this webpage and changed my view towards friendship permanently (and the executive/judicial system), you can also read the final section.

Personal advices while applying for working at international organizations

Leaving my personal misadventure apart the advices I would like to give to those applying for international organizations are:

Strange facts which affected my life and changed permanently my view towards friendship

I was on a holiday in US with a former friend of family Roberto Bazzoni and Stefano Meletti (he was a friend from Milan of one of female friends of Mr. Bazzoni named Stefania Serra) when I received a summon for the interview to an EU Institution and just a week before my interview I was introduced by Fabrizio Rizza, a Calabrian former university alumni, friend of me at that time, to two of his friends, Marco Marocchi and Sebastiano Ceraudo, which revealed to be easy-going and sociable at the beginning and even introduced me some women external to my circle of friends, but revealed then very "felonious" after some time. As a side note this Calabrian was introduced to me by another former university alumni Paolo Dellepiane, who in turn was introduced to me by a former my same high-school student Luigi Chirico (Chirico surname is originating from Campania), who started studying computer science at the university like us, but then left to become a policeman. Paolo Dellepiane, while attending the classical lyceum at high-school, also studied musical instruments at conservatory. Ultimately, yet importantly, at the same time, I was working at Altran Italia and I was also being relocated from the company headquarters in Milan to the ones in my home city Genova and I always had the suspicion that they could be involved with the dark figure of Mr. Marco Marocchi (high likely connected somehow to secret services) in the following unfortunate events.

At the same time, Stefania Serra, a female friend of a former close friend of family Roberto Bazzoni, introduced me to two new women, Chiara Parodi and Paola Mazzarello. Chiara Parodi was working as a business analyst in Verona, a city little less than 300 kms away from Genova, incredibly with a former customer relationship manager I worked with at Atos Origin called Massimo Gaioli, and she was coming back to Genova on weekends; her best friend was Paola Mazzarello, who at that time relocated back to Genova after having worked for some years in Alessandria. I knew very little about them (I do remember that Paola Mazzarello had a brother whom I only saw once), unluckily, they proved troublesome (I even wondered if some of the men whom she or her friends were dating could be sneakily non-heterosexuals) after some time, and Chiara Parodi later even married Mr. Ceraudo. To make a long story short, the situation degenerated after a holiday to Canary Island - Playa Des Ingles organized by Mr. Marocchi with Mr. Ceraudo, his girlfriend Susanna Giardina, her cousin Maria De Pippo from Turin, and her boyfriend Marco Francavilla. I did nothing strange in that holiday as far as I can remember, except some unpleasant facts that I list here:

Anyway, even after cutting all of them off after that holiday (I still have doubts whether they went again to Canary Island by themselves later), I experienced troubles not only with the Calabrian Rizza and his other friends, but also with my historical circle of friends without being given any reason. At that time I was employed at Altran Italia, a multinational French consulting company (the president at that time was the French Marcel Patrignani), I was hired by the director Giorgo Dabbene from Turin, initially in Milan HQ under the "pleasure" of the perfectionist project manager Alessandro Zamboni and the functional analyst Mariafrancesca Iolo (they were not a direct reports of Giorgio Dabbene but there was another manager between them called Michele Colantuono whom I only saw later a few times to settle the situation). The software architect of the LNG project was at that time Marco Barzaghi, an external consultant from Managed Designs, trusted long-term collaborator of Alessandro Zamboni and also a Microsoft MVP against whom however I have nothing to say, at least for what I know and the times I worked with him (unless Altran used him to evaluate me sneakily with the aim to discrediting me behind my back for the vacancies I applied in Belgium since some time after I came back from the interview Alessandro Zamboni hinted, out of blue, if I wanted to be transferred to Altran Belgium because they had some openings there, notwithstanding I never mentioned with anyone of them - except my close friends in Genova - that I had done an interview there). As a curios fact shortly before I was reassigned to another project a coworker named Alessandro Boca living near Novara joined our project, with whom however I have practically never collaborated, but several years later I met him again as a co-worker in the same open space while working in Lugano, Switzerland at Corner Bank, where also here I didn't cooperate with him at all. In Corner bank I was assigned to the a group dealing with bank transfers under the guidance of Dario Serino working with Claudia Bortolotti and a long-serving consultant called Stefano Castiglioni (he was a Finscons Group employee like me and by the way Castiglioni is also a surname of a noble Lombard family) who happened to have worked also for Altran Italia though I had never met him before and I do not know his potential connections to the company. Claudia Bortolotti was also an acquaintance of the system architect Tiziano Crisci (they were born in nearby towns near Varese) whose working group included Luca Bruni, an engineer who was also a Microsoft MVP and high-likely knew the aforementioned Marco Barzaghi, and a Swiss Antonio Pelosi who was related to the Swiss line manager Mauro Pelosi whose family originated from the Italian Abruzzi region. Coincidentally, the division manager was a Swiss man named Lamberti, the same surname as an unscrupulous lawyer from Apulia working in my home city Genova whom I unfortunately had the misfortune of having him recommended to me; I strongly hope they are not connected somehow. As a curios fact there was also another senior manager called Ivo Tramacere who looked a bit like Gaetano Rizza, one of the Rizza's brothers. Alessandro Zamboni had also another long-term trusted collaborator called Marco Lombardo, a database administrator, an employee like me and also a biker, with whom again I have nothing to say against, again at least for what I know and the times I worked with him; I met him again many years later on the highway at an Autogrill (an Italian highway station) and I discovered he had relocated to Zurich, Switzerland working at UBS the same company for which also Luciano Rizza had worked before. After spending one year on foreign assignment in Altran Milan I requested to be moved back to Genova branch as initially agreed, under the "pleasure" of the manager Emanuele Castagno and I was staffed as a consultant at Ericsson after some time in the local branch; one brother of Fabrizio Rizza, Gaetano, had been working for Ericsson for years and I experienced some serious troubles also there, which forced me to resign. Here I worked with a Rumanian project manager called Dorina Ciubotaru and another "felonious" project manager named Stefano Parodi, but I do not know if they are connected somehow respectively to the cited below childhood friend of mine called Giulio Manassero or the aforementioned troublesome Chiara Parodi (Parodi is a common surname in my home city); there was also an intern who worked with me for an assignment called Stefano Viale who during lunch breaks in the canteen used to tell funny stories about his Rumanian friends, but again I do not know if any of them are connected in some way to my childhood friend of mine Giulio Manassero. Last, but not the least in the apartment building where I was living there was another female resident with the same surname Viale called Laura, but I do not know if they are related somehow (I happen to know her mainly by sight and I never dared to ask). The troubles at the workplace started just after coming back from the holiday to Gran Canaria (I had already been working there for months without any issues), essentially many work colleagues started mobbing me by making jokes that I might be non-heterosexual (in particular a colleague of my same team called Carlo Mendola from Pasturana, Piedmont who never missed an opportunity as if he was paid) and persisting, even though I rebuked them and I explicitly asked the reason of such misbehaviour but, as it always happens during mobbing, I was blamed for everything (I did not tell them any detail about the holiday to Gran Canaria). Another unbelievable behaviour was actually committed by the project manager Stefano Parodi, who, on several occasions, including during a minor meetings, would awkwardly mimic an effeminate voice when addressing me in front of others, including the aforementioned project manager, Dorina Chubotaru, and a Danish quality manager named Michael Sandholm (a "similar" misbehaviour - or to say better crime - happened also many years later in Switzerland, partially in Corner Bank and above all in Zucchetti, where in the workplaces there is quite a big share of "rainbow" employees). Pissed off by this unwarranted harassment, one day I "jokingly" responded to the same manager with a very mean remark suggested by Fabrizio Rizza for the most critical situations: "Look, if you don't stop, I am going to kill you, eh?". Fabrizio Rizza had suggested it to me as a “last resort weapon” to curb people who are angry at you for no reason and who continue to harm you with impunity (the other one is to avoid any contact with them, but at workplace it is only possible if you quit and change job, even changing department would not solve because rumours thrive in businesses). And, incredibly, it worked; in fact, after that remark, he never dared to misbehave in front of me or again. Obviously I wondered the possible reasons for his criminal behaviour, but I was unable to find one, except maybe the fact that he was not a tall man at all (he was around 165cm - 5'5 ft in comparison I am 182cm - 6'0 ft). Changing the subject, as a sad fact the secretary of Genova branch of Altran Valeria Bruzzone, who studied as psychologist, with whom I and other co-workers used to have lunch died mysteriously at her home in her early thirties, only two weeks after I went to a solo aperitif with her (at that time she had recently broken up with her historical boyfriend Federico, a gardener from Chiavari a town nearby, moreover at the aperitif in an another table there was also Lorena Piloro a former girlfriend of my family friend Roberto Bazzoni, for all the weird or odd things that happened to me I even suspected that I had been investigated as a suspect for her strange death). To try to understand what happened, I had to hire some private detectives: the first was an ex-policeman who, by bad luck, I discovered later to have managed a lawsuit against one of my childhood friends Giulio Manassero from his first wife, moreover he was working with a partner called Massimo Guglielmi whose another detective did not speak very well at all (he was supposed to be working without a valid license and to have played both sides in the past), so I had to replace him with another one. Anyway, I list below the most important facts about this story, some of which are somewhat "worrying":