Brother, can you spare a job?

Got job searching today in earnest. Shaved and put on a crisp white shirt. I had to go to the USIT office first to print off my resume (now with a phone number) and even though I got there before the computer room opened, I got talking to a French Canadian girl and we missed the opening, and when we got in there five minutes later all the computers were taken. As I was anxious to get started (and was kind of bitchy without my morning coffee) I started glaring at these three girls (who I think were Canadian as well) who wear reading facebook profiles and comments out loud to each other. There’s something about being given computers that makes our generation think they then OWN IT until they are literally forced to give it up. This one girl in particular was lame, as I sat there and watched her sit at the computer stapling twenty copies of her resume but without giving up the desk. Then, when her time ran up, she asked if she could get more (presumably, so she could highlight things, or read a book, or something else that didn’t need a computer at all but she wanted to sit in front of one!)

[For the record, I am lugging my lap top around, so I don’t need to wait for public computers, mostly, and am not wasting other peoples’ time by updating blogs and looking at figurines of Judy Garland or learning about how 30 Rock is a rip-off of the Muppet Show]
Then it was off to the downtown Starbuckses. The people at the ones on Dame Street, Grafton Street (which is the upstairs of a clothing store) and Dawson Street (which I think I would like best, as it is much slower and it’s the street with used bookstores) were all really friendly, although most said they weren’t looking for anyone (that they were aware of, which is the key). Also, they were almost all non-Irish, so at least I they don’t discriminate against non-citizens.

Then I walked way past St. Stephen’s Green because legend told of another Starbucks way up there, but I didn’t know exactly where. I finally found it in a little commercial-park type street, and in some ways it was most helpful, not because I think they’ll hire me, but because the woman there (from California) told me to apply as a shift-supervisor (and only say in your interview that you’ll have to train for it) and she also told me to check out Costa Coffee, an expanding company. A Starbucks barista suggesting a rival cafe?! It’s like a Massey’s Santa Claus telling you to go to Gimbles!

Then I checked out another house which was almost in the suburbs, but I walked the whole way, as I am still scared of the buses here [explanation: they are double-decker and yellow, they whip by the little curvet streets almost running down people, tickets cost different amounts depending on where you’re going, and who the heck knows where they’re going to go anyway?! Also, you supposedly have to flag them down, like a cab. How uppity and Irish is that?] I almost gave up on the house, as there was absolutely no marker for the street from the direction I was coming so I missed it the first time, but then on my way back I found it. Turns out this nice older man rents out to students in this large, very clean house (in fact, too clean. And I suspect he would’ve disapproved of aspects of my lifestyle, but who knows). Mostly, he just wanted to talk. I suspect that’s why he rents out his house actually. Even though he had spent some time in Ontario, he kept saying things like “Kitchen’s not as big as an American one...” or “In America, do you do such and such...” Until I corrected him that I was Canadian, to which he gave (the only) response, chuckles, “No big difference.” I wanted to say, “Yeah, similar to how all you are English...” but I would never actually say that.

Anyways, on the walk home I stopped in yet another Starbucks and the French guy who worked there told me they weren’t hiring anyone. He then said no Starbuckses were hiring anyone (“not in the city centre”) and then wouldn’t even take my resume, as it would just “end up in the bin”, which pissed me off. I’m pretty sure he’s not supposed to say that, and I was like “Listen, bitch-rista, how do you know what all the stores in Dublin are doing? You actually expect to believe that all the foreign, 21-year old employees are never going LEAVE and open up a new stop?! Please!” But I didn’t, I just said ‘thank you’ in a dismissive way. Wouldn’t want to work in that neighbourhood anyways!

Tomorrow, it’s off to the North side of the Liffey for the first time to see what the shops are like over there. Send me good, luckfilled thoughts!