This week in the office, Dane and I wrapped up our project on workflow analysis for Tempocasa and geared up for our presentation. After running through it a few times, we went into Wednesday’s meeting confidently. After presenting our work to Silvia, she seemed very impressed and even jokingly commented “You boys should work for us!” after we made a suggestion for their operations. Hearing such positive feedback made us both very satisfied with the work we’ve done and excited to move onto the next, and final, project: competitor analysis using customer reviews on Trustpilot. Trustpilot is the platform that many Italian companies use for customer feedback and Silvia would like us to compare the positive and negative reviews for Tempocasa with that of their competitors here in Italy.

 

In class this week, we had a few very thought-provoking conversations that have stuck with me. One of which was on a case study for Apple regarding the working conditions of their overseas manufacturers. We had a very insightful debate on whether or not Apple is responsible for the conditions of the workers in the companies they contract with. I honestly don’t have a fully formed opinion on the matter. When you consider the fact that Apple could chew into their profits a tiny bit to create better conditions for their employees, it feels very greedy of them to still work with companies paying pennies on the dollar. Although, in many cases the pennies on the dollar these workers are paid are actually decently fair wages for that country and the work they are doing rivals much more difficult and demeaning work alternatives.

 

Travel this week was incredibly fun! First, I spent the weekend in Florence and La Spezia. Friday and Saturday in Florence was an experience I will never forget! The city has incredible architecture and great night life that I will never forget. Following that was a night in La Spezia, a harbor town just south of Cinque Terre. Saturday was spent in Vernazza, a great town with rocky beaches and a nice cliff jumping spot. Sunday was spent visiting Riomaggiore, Manarola, and Corniglia (my favorite) with a slew of cliff jumping spots, caves, and beautiful beaches. During the week I wasn’t able to travel anywhere but I found myself in Lake Como yesterday once again with a few of my friends from home! We spent the day in Lecco, a small beach town in the southeastern branch of the lake and had a blast!