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.