Four months in a nutshell

Okay. I give up. I've been trying to get up the energy to write an enormous blog detailing everything that's happened to me since I started at Genesis, but I've finally (four months later - a testament to my stubbornness, which knows no bounds) given in to the fact that that is simply impossible. Therefore, what follows is a brief, bulletpointed summary of Lucia from end February to date. From there on in I am committed to updating this thing more than once in a blue moon so that it will actually be fairly current (haha).

Okay. Bullet point one. My job. Genesis is rocking along great. Well, Genesis and W5, for in fact I work for two companies (W5 is a subsidiary of Genesis). All the bullshit Irene told me at the interview turned out not to be bullshit at all, but an accurate description of the atmosphere. Genesis/W5 are immensely creative, energetic, dynamic, (at times chaotic) organisations that I feel honoured to be a part of. Everyone there is super-motivated, hardworking, intelligent, but also laid-back, fun, interesting and different (at times oddball). The old maxim, “We work hard, and we play hard” actually rings true at the office. Everyone works hard all day, but it is always acknowledged and hardly a day goes by when we aren't congratulating someone for something (a well-crafted presentation, a new client, a project come to completion). I get thanked a thousand times a day for the same number of mundane but necessary tasks. It sounds trivial but having worked at companies where nobody showed the slightest gratitude for the work you put in, I can say that it makes a real difference to your day and motivation when you feel like your work is valued and appreciated. This is the first job I have ever had where my employers haven't made me feel a well trained monkey would do just as well. In fact they've gone out of their way to tell me what a great job they think I'm doing.

I'm not the only one who gets lauded. Everyone's work is acknowledged, and when someone is under particular pressure there is always a clamour of helping hands ready to dive in. Even the MD will help me stuff envelopes if I have to get them out before 17:00. And the directors are always doing little things to brighten our day - usually food related. Our offices have been inundated in an endless stream of cookies, pastries, chocolates, muffins, scones and cakes. My favourite is Roddy's recently acquired habit of bringing back ice-creams on Friday afternoons. Not to mention the company lunches and dinners. I'd never ever had a staff lunch before I'd come to Genesis, and by now Gary, Roddy, Michael and Mark have treated us to more than I can count on my fingers. Once we had three in a week!

Anyway, after all this panegyrical waffle (and I haven't even started to list all the fabulous things about Genesis and working there), you can understand why, a week into my job, I didn't know how I was going to leave once my contract was up in October (I was thinking they'd have to drag me out by force as I clung with all my might to the heaviest bits of furniture). Thankfully, it turns out that Genesis is quite pleased with me and doesn't particularly want to let go of me in November either (hurrah!). They've asked if I'll stay on after my contract ends, and not necessarily in the same job. I.e, we'll hire another PA, and I'll get to do client work! Woohooooooo! It's not certain whether I'll be working for Genesis or W5 (They're actually completely different - Genesis does branding consultancy, customer experience design and a load of other stuff that sounds like jargony bullshit but is actually really fascinating and useful and they're trying to make things better for you, the consumer!, and W5 does market research, customer experience measurement and yes, again, more blahdy blah stuff that is actually much more interesting than it may sound at first) but I'm not too bothered, whatever I'll be doing I'll be learning loads (given I've never studied marketing or even advertising or even business or anything remotely related to this stuff). I've picked up quite a lot just from sitting next to these people but obviously there's a big difference between listening to and understanding what they say and actually doing it!

The downside to all this (if there is one) is that I'll have to stay in Dublin for longer than I planned, and therefore postpone my Barcelona thing, and my Seoul thing, and my Buenos Aires thing (and, I suppose, my eventual homecoming thing). But all those cities and adventures will still be there in a couple of years, and this fabulous opportunity certainly won't. So I'm grabbing it with both hands. Perhaps I can convince the guys to open up a Barcelona office?

Well, after all that drivel I can barely remember what else I was going to talk about. Oh yeah. Bullet point two. Health and fitness. Do you guys remember me at 15 or 16? I was always the one in Phys. Ed. class way, way, waaaaay in the outfield during the softball games, I was always picked last for the teams (well, second last, only to Joanne “Bush Pig” Williams), I'd come last by a mile in all the athletics try-outs (compulsory damn them), and the biggest physical achievements in the whole of my life were: coming third in the discus is Grade 5 out of four competitors; and coming 21st out of the girls in my class in the annual (again compulsory) cross country run in high school. That might actually have been something, had anyone actually cared about the race and ran with any conviction whatsoever. Thankfully I had some brains, because let's face it, I was never going to be an Olympic athlete.

Fast forward about seven years from high school to now (eek! I'm getting old!). Even last year I was dabbling in jogging here and there, as well as walking to and from the Luas every day (about half an hour each way). But now I walk to and from work every day, to Rathmines and back, which each way is about 45 minutes if I walk briskly (or significantly more if I dawdle) which by itself is plenty of cardiovascular exercise but...drumroll please...I have actually gotten off my arse and gotten myself a gym membership! I hadn't set foot in a gym since I left Oz last May, and was worried about the deteriorated state my body had probably settled itself into in the meantime. But have no fear - it seems that all the exercise I have been doing, not to mention all the hillwalking, jogging, and sightseeing I did in the two months I was roaming the Americas has actually had a positive impact on my fitness.

My first day at my new gym and I booked myself in for a fitness assessment (unfortunately not with the cute trainer I was flirting shamelessly with during the gym tour), preparing for the worst but hoping for the best. I nearly died of shock when not only did I rate the highest possible fitness level (What? How? Is this really me?) but it turned out that my fat level is 18% (the average for women is 21%). Apparently eating bacon and eggs for breakfast two weeks straight doesn't necessarily turn you into a hippopotamus. My stamina was also sky-high, the only disappointment was my flexibility, which rated “Poor” (the lowest possible level). Well, it's loads of stretching for me from now on. I told David, my trainer (unfortunately not one of the cute ones) that my goal was to tone my muscles so he gave me loads of boring but necessary machine exercises to do (thanks a million Dave) as well as plenty of excruciating sit ups and ab crunches. Yay. But now, after about six weeks, I'm starting to see the (very) vague outline of the possibility of a two-pack. Muscle definition, here we come. Plus I've been running loads, but I've found treadmills infinitely more forgiving than the open road. Pavement is just so hard!

I don't really want to dwell on the specifics of my training schedule, but I'd just like to point out how absolutely fantastic it feels to be fit and healthy. I feel normal again (after about seven years) and I'm fitter and feel better than ever. The truth is, I've always been a bit of a health and fitness nutcase, it just didn't look like it from the outside. I've always read loads about nutrition, sports, different exercise, the benefits of interval versus distance training, and so on. I had all the knowledge and facts but wasn't able to put it all into practice in my life. Something had to give me a nudge (well, ok, a sizeable shove) and that was moving away from home to another city. No more Mum and Dad having dinner on the table for me, which meant a) that I wasn't eating so much because who can resist five or six helpings of Wiener Schnitzel and Kartoffelnpuree and b) I could control exactly what I was eating all the time which meant less red meat, saturated fats and ultra-processed foods like cheese and more fish, nuts, yoghurt, brown bread, and broccoli. Mmmm, broccoli. I'm trying to eat stuff without additives (so, so, difficult) and organic where possible. I'm not turning my life upside down about it, but if it's fairly accessible, I'll buy natural and organic. Not having a car means a hell of a lot more walking. Thankfully Dublin is fairly small and you can walk everywhere if you live and work in the city like I do. So now that most of the hard work has been done (I'm now 66% of the weight I was at my heaviest) I can implement all the knowledge I soaked up in my years of reading like a maniac. I actually eat fish with some sort of regularity, I drink soy rather than regular milk, I do 30 minutes of cardio three times a week (or more) I try to include protein in every meal, I try to eat six small meals a day, and all the other stuff you're supposed to do but can never be bothered.

But like every silver lining, there is a cloud. In life there is good and bad, black and white, yin and yang. So for all these boons there must be a loss. And (again, watch out if you're male and can't stomach talk of “girly things” - perhaps you had better skip this paragraph) the loss for me has been my breasts. I knew (thanks to my maniacal reading) that fat loss occurs all over the body at once, not in particular bits and pieces. And I knew that since breasts are composed mostly of fatty tissue, that they were going to be affected quite strongly by these changes in my body. But I certainly didn't know it was going to matter so much to me or how much I would miss them. For once I understand people who have plastic surgery. I would still never even consider it, but now I can more or less see where they are coming from. My body generally has stayed the same shape, with the same proportions, but just shrunk like a cotton t-shirt in a hot wash. Except for my chest, which has gotten disproportionately small compared to the rest of my body. Having always had at least a C cup has been a part of me, of my identity, like wearing glasses, loving the Beatles or living in Melbourne. It sounds ridiculous, but I feel less feminine now with my tiny A-cup boobs. I guess I just have to learn to accept my new body (when will this utopian self-acceptance ever occur?) with its new flaws, because now this is me and this is my identity. Take it or leave it.

Ok. Third bullet point. My social life. It's been a bit dead to be honest. I work 09:00 - 17:30 Monday to Friday, and often a little longer than that. Thankfully, for reasons I think I made abundantly clear above, I honestly don't mind putting in the extra hours (strange but true). But it does mean that going out during the week is nearly impossible without an enormous effort not to give in and simply collapse on the couch after work. Which leaves Friday and Saturday nights for going out, but this usually clashes with those of my friends who have shift work (damn them). That said, I do go out fairly regularly (last week I had social engagements on Wednesday and Thursday, not to mention the weekend) especially when you compare it to the Saturday nights I used to spend in Melbourne curled up on the couch with a romantic comedy and a bar of chocolate! This certainly has its merits as a top way to spend a Saturday night, but not every weekend. The clubbing thing goes up and down - usually I'll club a few weeks straight, get sick of it, not go out for a month, then feel the need to dance and get up and go!

I haven't really made any new friends since I got back to Dublin, something that's been troubling me. I love the friends I have now, but I feel like if I don't continually broaden my horizons I'm going to get stuck in a rut again. I have to start doing some kind of extra-curricular activity. I was thinking about Gaelic football, but to be honest I don't think I'd have the strength for training after work. Not to mention that the pitches are all out in the middle of nowhere, and catching the bus in the dark is not something I relish. Then I thought dance classes, which is still up there, or a writing class, which is something I want to do anyway so I may as well use it as an excuse to socialise.

In terms of boys - that area of my life is as chaotic as ever. Well, more chaotic actually, because I'm no longer content with admiring the objects of my affection from afar, but have actually had meaningful interaction with men I am interested in - an unheard of situation back in Melbourne. The Dermot thing didn't work out in the end - he was too hard to pin down, and after two or three broken dates I threw him in the too hard basket. He's an enormously interesting and incredible person, and the night we met was an unforgettable one, but I just don't know if I can deal with seeing someone I can never see (does that make sense?). Another guy, Fergus, I met at a club (he was really cute). He worked for the Golden Pages (Irish Yellow Pages), owned his own home, was a Liverpool fan, played the guitar and seemed a really nice guy. He took me out to the movies and then never called me again. Whatever. No-one really interesting after that, until now. But that's all I'm going to say about that for the moment (a girl's gotta have some secrets!).

Okay, now I've covered work, health and social life, the three main factors in my life at the moment. Some other stuff that's happened:

I have colours other than brown, black and navy in my wardrobe (even pink!)

I'm looking to move out of my flat but can't find anything I like that isn't €700 a month.

I'm not as mad about the World Cup as I thought I would be.

My skin is terrible at the moment.

I really miss my Paul Simon CD.

It's the middle of summer here and after two beautiful weeks at the beginning of June it's about 15 degrees and today I had to wear my winter coat.

I finally had the Labour Relations Commission hearing on Monday to try and get my previous employer (hereafter known as “that son of a b***h”) to pay me the €3,000.00 he owes me since last November. He's going to have to pay me but not until August. F****wit.

I've discovered the deliciousness of prunes.

After four years of longing, I finally caved and bought an iPod. It is just as great as I thought it would be.

I saw “Russian Dolls”, the sequel to “The Spanish Apartment”. It wasn't as good as I thought it would be.

Korean food is the second best food in the world, after Indian.

I've finally found a place to buy mate here in Dublin, but I don't have a bombilla.

I finally met three gardaí and got their phone numbers, but never got around to calling them. (Sorry John, John, and Pat! We really did like you...)

I bought a tiny black dress and actually wore it.

On Daffodil day a guy at Morton's, the deli where we usually get our lunch, gave me a daffodil for free. I didn't think anything of it until I'd walked out of the shop, realised what had just happened, and cursed myself as he was rather cute. Yesterday the guy at Londis gave me a free bag of chips. This time I realised what was going on (slowly but surely I am catching on to how the world works) but was in a hurry and anyway I wasn't interested so I accepted the salty treats and flew away to my physio appointment.

On that note, my neck has been playing up and I have been seeing a physio for the last month or so. My neck seems to be ok now, but I miss my osteopath Simon from back in Melbourne. He was fun, played good music during our sessions (strictly no Enya) and fixed my back.

That's all I can think of for now and it's time for me to go to bed (it is a school night after all). Happy belated flag day to all my loved ones in Argentina (I meant to email, I swear, but I just didn't have time). To all of you who have written to me and have as yet received no reply, sit tight, I will find the time sometime soon to get back in contact. I swear. I think of you often you can be sure of that. Love you long time and I promise to try and update this blog a little more often from now on. Hope the Argies kick ass in the World Cup!

Back to reality

I walked out of the airport and inhaled deeply of the grim, cold, smoky Dublin air. Home sweet home indeed. I waited for the 16A, dragged my bags onto it, and off again at O’Connell Street. Without surprise, I noted the roadworks on Dublin’s major street were still going (since I arrived in Ireland last June). I finally made it back to my Bolton Street flat and buzzed for Ilona to let me in. What a relief to chuck my bags in a corner and flop on the couch after that flight! All I wanted to do was snooze on the couch but Ilona wanted to talk so I made her fill me in on everything that had happened in my absence. Not too much apparently – Antonia had found her dream job at a four star hotel in Switzerland, Sabrina had a boyfriend (Mark, she met him in the jacuzzi at Ilona’s gym – is that weird or what?) and Shelly was...still Shelly. Ilona herself was getting heartily sick of working in retail and thinking about moving to London.

The work thing was preying on my mind too. One of the greatest things about returning to Dublin was the knowledge that I would never ever have to spend another day working for ACS “Professional” Cleaning. But that knowledge also meant I had to find another job, and everyone knows how unpleasant jobhunting is. But as I was snoozing on the couch that day I plugged in my phone (which had died in the first week of my travels and I had forgotten my charger) and later I turned it on to find not one but two text messages! I found this odd as not only had I not told anyone (other than my flatmates) exactly when I was coming back, but I didn’t even know until a couple of weeks before my flight home! The most precise description I had given people was “I guess I’ll be back sometime around February”. Who could be trying to contact me? The first message turned out to be from Dermot, the guy I met a week before flying out to Buenos Aires. He had messaged me a “Happy Valentine’s Day” from the day before, which was cheering as I had figured he would have forgotten all about me in the two months I was away. Apparently not, which put a smile on my face. The second message was for voicemail. I dialled the voicemail number and this is what I heard:

“Lucia, hi, it’s Tanya here from Orange recruitment. I know you’re looking for contract work and I’ve got a job here you might be interested in, but the interview is tomorrow. Can you do it? Call me back.”

Jeezus.

I called her back of course, and she told me a little about the position (very little, just that it was a small company, that I would be PA to the directors, and the salary, which was more than acceptable). I told her I’d just flown in from Boston and hadn’t had time to update my CV. She said, “No worries, I updated it for you and they have it already”. I said, “Great, just tell me where I have to be!”. She told me, I put down the phone, and then flipped out. But there my friends came to the rescue. How different from my first jobhunting experience in Ireland! Back then I had one interview outfit (one pair of black pants and one ill-fitting white shirt) that I had to wear to all my interviews, and I was all by myself in the world, dealing with preparation and knockbacks on my own. This time around Maria lent me a shirt and pullover for the interview (all my shirts were now far too big for me), Shelly and Maria both gave me advice, and generally reassured me that I would be brilliant.

The next day I woke and prepared myself for the interview, dressed, put on makeup, and made my way to Rathmines to the Genesis offices. Lucky I had done my own research on how to get there as Tanya had told me to take the number 16 bus when in fact the correct bus was the 14A. I can’t imagine how stressed I would have been had I trusted her, got on the number 16, and ended up god knows where, and unbelievably late. As is my habit with these things, I got there way too early, and went down to the pub for a cup of tea before ringing the Genesis bell at exactly five to eleven. Irene came and met me, and showed me into the boardroom for my interview. As usual I was intimidated as hell (interviews are scary, boardrooms are scary, both combined are super scary). Irene asked me the usual interview things, and even though I’ve answered the same questions loads of times I still never know what to say. Especially to the killer question, “What is your biggest weakness?”. However, years of writing humanities essays on esoteric subjects like Just War Theory or Gender Politics in Rural Malaysia have raised my bullshit capabilities to a fine art, so in the end I think I came off rather well. Aside from the interrogative part of the interview I felt quite at ease as Irene was warm and friendly, and she insisted that that was the general atmosphere around the office. She gave me a big spiel about how everyone was on the same level and even the directors don’t hesitate to make everyone coffee, but I didn’t get too excited about it as I’d heard it all before from my previous employer, and it turned out that words are not always accompanied by deeds. But Genesis seemed a sensible, hardworking company, not too big, not too small, I was to have more responsibility than in my previous job (but no accounting thankfully), and I came away with a very positive feeling about it. But after the interview is over comes the hardest part – the waiting game.

As the waiting game was being played, I wasn’t idle – I signed up with a bunch of recruitment agencies, sent out squillions of CVs, and waited and waited for responses. Eventually, a couple of follow up calls later, they called me in for a second interview, to meet Gary, the MD and one of the directors I would be PAing for. This time instead of the boardroom, we met upstairs in the office, on the couches, with a coffee table covered in what I later found out was a real zebra skin (eek!). We had a quite quick chat, Gary explained to me in a bit more detail what Genesis does (as much as is possible in three minutes), and we had a chat about me, what I’d been doing (like everyone Gary was interested in my travels) and bits and pieces. She asked if I had any questions, and like an idiot I didn’t, because I’d done up a very extensive list for the first interview, and I didn’t have any left to ask. Gary asked me like three times, “Are you sure you don’t have any more questions?” and I couldn’t think of one (and I couldn’t repeat the ones I had asked last time because Irene was right there). I felt like a complete idiot, but thankfully Irene came to my rescue by assuring Gary that I’d asked loads the last time. And that was pretty much it, other than Gary commenting on how much she liked the book I was reading (“The Magus” by John Fowles, which is brilliant, by the way). I figured she couldn’t hate me completely if she read similar kinds of books.

Nonetheless, I didn’t have a good feeling about that interview. Unlike the last time where I had left sure that I had made a pretty good impression, this time I felt like I’d come across as shallow and dull, with a total lack of initiative, resourcefulness and lateral thinking. So when Tanya rang me a few days later, I was less than completely enthusiastic.

“Hi Lucia, how are you?”
“Oh, fine thanks. I had that second interview the other day”
“Yes, that’s why I was calling. How do you think it went?”
“Oh, not so good actually. I don’t think I made that good of an impression.”
“Well, it’s funny you say that actually, because I rang to let you know they offered you the job!”

That’s more or less how the start of the conversation went, but I can quote the following bit verbatim:

Me: “You’re kidding!”
Her: “No, I’m not kidding!”
Me: “You’re kidding!”
Her: “Nope.”
Me: “You’re kidding!”
Her: *laughing* “No! I’m not kidding!”

Anyway, long story short, I got the job (only God knows how or why) and started almost straight away. I had landed back in Dublin on February 15, and by February 27 I had started at Genesis. That’s less than two weeks. I had never found a job so easily and with so little effort and heartache. I even had people ringing me for interviews at other companies which I had to decline! I guess the jobhunt thing really does get easier each time you do it! So the job had been procured, but two significant questions were still to be answered: firstly, would I like the job? And secondly, could I do it? Despite assuring my prospective employers with all the confidence I could muster that the answer to both of these questions was a resounding “YES!”, in reality, I was somewhat less than convinced. But what’s the fun of going to work eight and half hours a day at a job you can do with both hands tied behind your back and a paper bag on your head? I just hoped I wouldn’t look like too much of a fool.