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Lei at work, and when it drops
Italian offices use Lei more persistently than most northern European ones, and the switch to tu is a small social event rather than a drift. It is normally offered by the more senior or older person — possiamo darci del tu? — and until then Lei holds, even between people of similar age who see each other daily. Titles stack on top: an engineer is ingegnere, a graduate dottore, a teacher professore, and using the title with the surname is entirely normal at work. Hierarchy tends to be more explicit than in Britain or Scandinavia, and disagreeing with a superior in front of others is handled carefully. Two practical habits. Email is formal — Gentile Dottoressa Bruni, Cordiali saluti — and the breezy Anglo-American opener lands oddly. And the coffee Alex offers is not small talk: the caffè break is a genuine workplace institution, taken standing at the bar downstairs rather than at a desk, and declining an invitation to come along reads as a mild refusal of company rather than of coffee.