Column: in the Italian construction market

It was Saturday morning, half past eleven. We enter the hardware store. Looking for some hinges and a few grilles. The aisles are very busy. Everyone seems to be in a hurry. Pleasant chatter, a single voice that sounds a bit tighter and fathers who tell their boys not to touch everything. It almost looks like the home improvement store in the Netherlands.

on the chain

The difference? In the Netherlands everything is on a chain or a cable with a security. When you arrive, your hearing and vision are lost and an entire store looks back at the cause of the noise that is associated with theft. Not in Italy. Nothing on a chain or secured. And not necessary. No Italian would dare to run off with it.

Where is Ivo?

We struggle with the crowds and try to find what we are looking for. It is rather Italian decorated. So not always logical. The manager, who is often also the company manager in such a store, speaks excellent German. An Italian with a German branch to the family and a name that almost sounds Dutch. But, where is Ivo?

It soon becomes quieter in the store and there is a huge queue at the checkout. A third cash register is actually opened to help all those people. Or, as it became clear to us later, to get customers out of the store as quickly as possible.

If we want to ask something, we are still spoken to, but we are no longer happy. Watches are pointed out and suddenly we understand that just about the entire staff is waiting quietly. Just don't look at us and mumble. messes around. But emphatically ventilates that something is going on. The rest of the shop turns out to be completely empty as if by magic!

And there is Ivo, the manager. Or is he really suffering? We want to ask him where we can find those lousy schedules. Which are not there and which he would arrange for us.

Ivo smiles, looks back at his people and says, "It's noon."

Yes, we can tell the time ourselves. Thanks anyway. "But where are those schedules now?"

'No,' says Ivo, 'it is twelve o'clock and that is closing time. Schluss!'

Closing time? 'Close the business on Saturday at noon? It shouldn't get any crazier!' we say. In German.

Lunch time at the hardware store

'No', says Ivo, 'we are not closing. We're going to have lunch. Those schedules aren't there and we're going to have lunch now. We will be open again at XNUMXpm this afternoon. Then come back. Or tomorrow. Pay now quickly, because the lady at the cash register has stayed separately for you at my request. The rest want to go home and the one there keeps guard at the door for you. ' Everything in German.

Totally disappointed, we leave the hardware store with a few brackets and without grids. Closed at XNUMX noon on Saturdays until XNUMX p.m. Come back tomorrow. Tomorrow? On Sunday?

incomprehensible. For us. Not for Italians. After all, lunchtime is sacred. 'The hardware store is open 360 days a year,' Ivo proudly tells us a week later.

The quick calculator comes to the conclusion that the hardware store only closes at Christmas, New Year, Carnival, Assumption of Mary and Easter. And so at twelve o'clock. Until four o'clock. But then they're back. Until nine o'clock in the evening.

Lunch is sacred in Italy and tourist hardware store customers don't change that either.

Photo Italian DIY store: blogarredamento.it