The record performance of a 67 year old from the province of Pistoia, second only to a Ligurian official: “This is what my iron health depends on”
ROBERTO GRAZZINI
December 14, 2020
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PISTOIA. He worked for 41 years and 9 months without taking a single sick day and is now enjoying his much-deserved retirement. 67 years old, Genoese by origin but permanently married to Pieve a Nievole, he achieved a workaholic performance. And now it threatens the record of Tina Marotti who in 2016 went to enjoy her well-deserved retirement after 41 years and 10 months without a sick day. But the official of the secretariat of the Municipality of Spotorno, in the province of Savona, stopped for five months in her honorable career: even if due to maternity and not illness. Diamante never: always at his desk. A life without “marking a visit”. I would also have another five months as an employee in the private sector – Roberto Diamante begins – but unfortunately they didn’t count them ».
Graduated as a surveyor, he enrolled in the faculty of architecture, with the promise to his parents that if he finds a job he will interrupt his studies. “We certainly weren’t sailing in gold – he admits – and it seemed to me an honest compromise”. In 1978 he was hired in a factory in Genoa and the books ended up in the attic. But then he wins a competition in the land registry. The destination, Sondrio, is not around the corner, but Roberto with his wife Santina (in 2021 it will be 40 years of marriage) and with their two sons he moves to Lombardy. The family will stay there for six years. «Thinking about my children – explains Roberto – I decided to submit an application for a transfer to Tuscany, a region that I have always loved and for studying the most comfortable of the Lombard valleys. So I was transferred to the tax office in Pistoia and remained there for the next 25 years, until just a few months ago, having reached the age limit ».
Health, as ascertained, has always supported him despite not having the physique of a decathlete and without adhering to the jockey’s diet. «I used to play tennis but I prefer the chessboard to gym shoes – he reveals – I don’t drink and I don’t smoke. For the rest I do not deprive myself of anything. Santina is a great cook and we use a lot of farmer’s products. My well-being, touching iron, I would say depends on genetic factors. For example, my father lived up to almost 95, making out two packs of cigarettes a day.
Gilda Diolaiuti, mayor of Pieve a Nievole, informed of the affair, sent a documented report about the prefect. In any case, Roberto doesn’t feel like a hero, he doesn’t want medals or prizes. “I didn’t know anything about the record. Some former colleagues have informed me. Except that too many times the whole grass is made a bundle – concludes Diamante – denigrating many people who simply and daily do their duty in the best possible way. It seemed right to remember him ».
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