Dublin to Limerick

A recent development in my life is absolute poverty while studying. This is, in no small part, due to the fact that I have not managed to maintain a proper, full time position in the last few months. Largely due to my lack of interest in such a position. I’ve made enough money through various bits and pieces (particularly with web design and the like) to see myself through. I do not require a lavish lifestyle to get through the day.

I have done interviews for various positions but as picky as I am in where I send my CV, companies appear to be just as picky about the staff they hire. Development places like me but not the fact that I don’t graduate until the end of this year and other places don’t like me because I am still in college (thus rendering their locations at risk of hiring me on a short-term basis). All of this despite my reassurances that I’m not hitching a short ride to bleed a company dry of its cash.

However, in recession Ireland, post-Christmas it’s been rough seas to say the least. Job interviews have come and gone and, despite feeling good about positions, I’ve not had much luck with getting proper full-time work that will accomodate my part-time evening study – which, frankly, takes precedence over any job I may have at any given time. On more then one occasion I’ve been politely fed the line “…but I really look forward to being able to work with you sometime in the future”. Sorry folks, but when I’m declined a job because I dare pursue my education or other such “trivial” matters, I won’t be back to you anytime soon. Regardless of how crap the economy is.

Lucky for me, though, something perfect is on the horizon. No, it has nothing to do with college, development, or software engineering type work at all. Instead, this is a great chance to work in what is likely to be Dublins’ only Apple retail outlet for some time. The plan is to be the “expert” (which Apple’s own stores affectionately title “Genius”) in the store, to help patrons with all manner of issues relating to their Apple hardware, and software. On top of that, the plan is for the company to train me in various areas to then go on and give classes to customers. Such classes would be in products like Final Cut Pro, etc. Sure, it’s not exactly on the same line of thinking as a Computer Science qualification, but it’s a springboard into something later on, and a good CV stocking-filler.

My history with retail work is somewhat sparce, with a part-time job years ago in one of Ireland’s most terrifyingly awful companies: Xtra-Vision. I was a part time sales assistant in my local outlet, and when people weren’t shouting at you for giving them scratched discs and thus ruining their lives, they were trying to rob the place or rob me of any dignity I could muster up in the place. I did make lifelong friends in there, and indeed met my ladyfriend in that hell hole – but never again will I willingly be a customer of theirs, and I will always recommend people avoid getting employment there. Potentially, it is one of the most amazingly badly run companies in the world, with layer upon layer of tosser running the show from store level to executive level. I’ve never seen staff so mal-treated in my entire life. Some time after that I was a sales guy in Currys, which earned me a decent enough wage and a chance to use my knowledge of computers on customers. This made me the top sales guy in our branch months on end, an honour that all Indian and Polish sales people would kill to have. After only a few months of active selling I was promoted into another hell hole, as an assistant manager in their sister-company, PC World.

This, in terms of corporate structure and incompetence, overshadows Xtra-Vision. Not because the people at the top are worse, but because they truly, deeply believe they are the best of the best. Some of them are, though. The directors I worked with for a little bit of time were amazing. The managing director was good when he wanted to be, but the team under them for the most part were utterly awful to deal with – all the way down to the girl who barely spoke English. These are the people who set prices for Irish people to scoff at and drive up north. However bad they may have been (and they weren’t all bad, just enough of them for me to brandish everyone with the same stick) by far the worst group of people involved were the store managers. Scarily, these were the biggest idiots ever created by man. No business sense, no leadership skills and brandishing their managerial roles in stores like it was some sort of societal medal of honour. I’ve never been forced into depressive lack of motivation so quick in my life. Never before do I want to go into work to be given a list of orders by a manager who has never lifted a finger – nor do I want to go into work to remotivate 30 colleagues after being told they’ll be sacked if they keep under-performing. Never again do I want a manager to tell me I should “give up that college stuff, as it’ll do you no good”. And never again do I want to feel helplessly lost at the whim of an awful corporate structure that leaves assistant managers, supervisors and staff without a proper voice – and with horrifically low wages in comparison to their managers.

With that in mind, it might be mad to go back into retail. This time it’s different. They’re delighted I’m in college. They’re delighted I want to work for them… and they’re a smaller company (Dublin will only be store number 3). It also seems they’re spending a lot of time to assemble a proper team of people to run the show and get things moving. The designs for the store are ripped right from the manual of Apple stores (and is, in fact, being approved by Apple, etc.). It is as close to an Apple store without being an Apple store… a dream for nerds like me who own everything Apple make.

And so I come to the crux of this post, 1075 words in. I went for training with this particular outfit in their main store in Limerick, on O’Connell street specifically. To document my vast journey across the rail network of Ireland I brought along my brothers’ Lumix camera… because I wasn’t hauling a 50D on the two-day tour de force.

Heuston Station, see if you can spot the pigeon...

The journey began at 8AM on a bus to town, after which I got the LUAS to Heuston to collect my pre-paid €10 internet ticket. A ticket that otherwise would cost €50. Granted the company was paying, but there’s no need to be an asshole about such things. Of course, the return leg tickets could not be purchased from the store because the Irish Rail website decided to go AWOL when we wanted to book, so the poor company got stiffed with a hefty cost for sending us home. Unnecessarily hefty.

High speed, ish!

The train from Heuston was quick. Very quick. From Heuston to Cork was the full journey, but us poor unfortunates going to Limerick, a city I had not been in since childhood, had to get a connecting train somewhere along the line. Incidentally I had purchased the wrong ticket unknowingly online, from Heuston to Limerick Junction, which is a good hour away from Limerick. Luckily the disgruntled ticket man in Heuston extended my ticket for free.

Metro 2033 - a great read si far

Accompanying me on my journey was a book I have been awaiting the release of for months. Metro 2033 tells the story of a post-apocalyptic community living in the desolate area of the metro underground system in Moscow. It’s one of Russia’s biggest selling modern books, and the English release was delayed several times over to meet the release of the video-game of the same story (that I refuse to play until I have completed all 458 pages). The train journey gave me a chance to get 4 chapters into the gripping story. And my bottle of water helped me through, too. A bottled I purchased not for the contents, but to get 30c change to use the toilets in Heuston.

It is quite ironic that I was reading a post-apocalyptic tale from Russia, as the change-over at Limerick Junction from the speedy, comfortable and modern InterCity train to the Limerick city Commuter train is stark, at the very least. Not only is the train basically a DART (Dublin’s local rail system that covers a tiny bit of the city because our planners are as incompetent as PC World managers), the tracks feel somewhat uneven, so the train jolts around like a dune buggy for most of the hour-long journey. In accordance to the book, it’s also apt that the surrounding area of Limerick Junction is a desolate wasteland. It appears that there is no possibility of this area sustaining life of any form. Chernobyl has more plantlife then this place. It’s no coincidence that the entire journey was kissed by sunshine down, until we reached Limerick Junction.

The 5-star B&B

Eventually we got to Limerick, and I donned my stab-proof vest (the joke being that murders in Limerick, while plentiful, are always carried out with a knife rather then a gun) to make the 5minute walk, accompanied by my iPhone and the Google Maps app, to O’Connell street and to the store where I began my 2 days work.

The training was fun and easy-going. The store was absolutely dead for the most part, with a few queries here and there, some phone calls and some low-cost sales. For the most part it was a chance for us (as I was later joined by a colleague who will also be starting in Dublin when the store opens) to learn the software being used in the stores.

At the end of the first day we went off to our B&B, on the same street, only 10 minutes walk from the store. The B&B was nice, but despite the owner saying there was “wifi… or broadband, whatever it’s called” I couldn’t get a signal. Luckily I could leech from a nearby Eircom users’ connection by using an app to get their WEP key. I then downloaded the second episode of “The Pacific”. The room was nice, had a shower and what not. More hotel-ish then B&Bish. The breakfast was lovely – but I didn’t have it because I woke up at an ungodly early hour and began working on my dissertation. At some point, earphones in my ear, I fell back asleep; waking only with the time to be able to get dressed, have a quick glass of juice and get to work.

In your city, stealing your wifi!

The view from the window

Overall my experience with the job was great. It’s the exact opposite of my previous experiences with retailing. It’s exactly what you’d expect an “Apple” style company to be like. Nonchalant, not trying to pressure people, and in turn, not trying to blame people with things go wrong. Instead they’re just running an honest operation and trying their best to get the best possible staff on board with them.

Limerick was as expected – a giant Tallaght (a notoriously bad area in Dublin). I’m sure it has lovely parts as well as horrific parts, just like Dublin – but if their main street is anything to go by, things are as I suspected in Limerick; barren. Even the store manager commented that the city has been hit hard by the recession. It’s a city I wouldn’t live in. It’s also a city with nothing to visit either. No real drive to push tourism, or business it seems. It’s a perfect poster-boy for decentralisation (where the government departments move to locations other then Dublin to help drive the local economy). It’s no wonder most people live in Dublin, and if they don’t, they live in Cork or Galway instead.

O'Connell Street, in all her glory

It doesn’t help that everyone wears tracksuits, and people the same age of me have a scowling face whenever they came in contact with “proper” people. You know, heathens with nice clothes. Having said that, the majority of customers were lovely and local. It also seems the staff in the shop had developed a fantastic relationship with their customers. Though this is something that I doubt will translate into Dublin, as I would expect that to be a complete madhouse with a huge turnover of customers in and out the door.

This is the only monument we saw

The homeward leg was a bit more entertaining. It felt a little like a holiday as, in the station, we spent the last of our change as if we weren’t going to need euro back in Dublin. All in aid of a horrible coffee and sandwich.

Even the timetable for Limerick station was desolate

Minutes before departure and our train was nowhere to be seen

Limerick station wasn't exactly on a par with Heuston

..and here comes the train, from the bright outside world to the murky depths of Limerick station

The high speed train at Limerick junction was late arriving here, and late into Dublin. Characteristically Irish journey, so...