Chantal - Have Laptop Will Travel

Five or six of the group are Irish. Most have lived here before, or have been living here already for anything from a few weeks to a few years. Of the agency I am with, only two others are in the same position as me. On the first day, we were shephered into a small room to meet our agency representative who read through every piece of documentation. The extent of the assistance offered to us was one side of A4 informing us of how to obtain a Social Security number and bank account. I have left mine in London. It would take up to three weeks to get the former, and about the same for the latter. In the meantime, we would have to go to their offices weekly for our pay cheque and find a bank willing to cash it – the only one known to us is clear on the other side of Dublin, and again, not on my map; the alternative would be to receive the cheque in the post at some unspecified point and again take time off work to find a bank able to cash it for us. For six weeks.

Our first trainer assured us that IBM were well aware of our problems and would grant us all the time we needed to sort out our paperwork. On Friday, our less personable trainer growled at us that we would only be entitled to a one-off two-hour lunch break either that day or today, Monday. When she asked who would need to go, a sea of hands went up, but in fact there were only five of us today. Or six, if you count Ana, who drove off to the nearest town, Blanchardstown. On returning to the office, we found we had been cc’d into an email to the Training Manager stating, ‘The following people took time off work today and have not returned….’ Ana made it back in time.

Logical problem number one: it is logistically impossible to get public transport out of the business park between 9 am and 4.30 pm. The receptionist suggested we try the bus stop out on the main road. As we stood there, having made our way through the swamp that the roadsides had become, we indeed saw a bus drive into the business park, finally returning to collect us and take us to the Blanchardstown retail park. By the time we had found a bus going into the city centre, we had already used up 45 minutes of our precious two hours. I think 2.30, the time we were due back at work, saw us heading off towards our agency. We finally returned at 5 pm, having taken a taxi from Blanchardstown Village in the end. One of the guys emailed me to ask if we got a bit wet. I replied, ‘Did the Blanchardstown River making its way down the room give us away then?’ It’s been raining for two days. The reason English weather is so light and wispy is because most of it has been left behind here. If the rain continues for much longer the car will be swimming to work.

Apparently this is a new IBM policy, testing to see if we can indeed teleport ourselves or find jetpacks in order to complete all our necessary paperwork. Previous teams did indeed have all the time off that they needed. The building I am in houses the helpdesk and the sales department. I’ve not met anyone from sales, but I do know it is very rare to hear English spoken in the smoking room or while queuing for lunch. I’ve seen from the Spanish team’s noticeboard that most of their staff are Spanish, with one Nicaraguan. I’ve shadowed four of the English-speaking team; only one was Irish. Two were Dutch, the other was Bosnian. A new, very large group started their training period yesterday, and we can guarantee that very few, if any of them will actually be Irish. Some will be fortunate enough to have already lived here, but most will be in exactly the same situation: at the mercy of their agency’s temperamental level of cooperation, and IBM’s willingness to accept the situation we are in.

When I was queueing at the Social Welfare office a week ago to get my Social Security (PPS) number, the receptionist told two Australians that all they would need is a letter from their hostel or the friends they were staying with confirming they were staying there. By the time she reached the person in front of me, the advice had changed yet again. Incidentally, when I mentioned the above advice to some of the others, they reported that they had been turned away; utility bill or nothing.

I have never appreciated how valuable the utility bill is before. The first thing I did in Dublin, after stashing my harp and rucksack under my bunkbed, and pumping the other woman in the dorm for information, was set off for the mobile phone shop that had been recommended somewhere in search of, well, a mobile phone. Having my priorities straight, perhaps. Utility bill required for all models. Pay As You Gos are every bit as expensive here as there are now in England, about €150 or €180. Fine, then, I thought; I’ll get a Monthly phone. Oh, I don’t have a bank account yet. A week ago, I tried to buy a SIM card for my sole remaining handset; it’s been locked by Orange. No mobile. My handset is now being very selective in who it lets me text. At least Social Welfare accepted a letter from the agency confirming my new address; I don’t know how many other institutions would be as accommodating.

Finding somewhere to live in itself has not been terribly easy. As I was looking with two French men, they decided I shoud make all the phone calls as, well, my English is better, also I can sound very Irish on occasion which we thought would also help. We also thought that the fact that we were Professionals, hired by IBM, would also count in our favour. I think all the furore about the Nice Treaty has said a lot about the Irish attitude towards foreigners; I have talked to several people about it, but eventually only got a glimpse of the actual story from the listings magazine I bought on the day of the referendum vote. Ireland, not the most multinational of countries, has very mixed feelings about immigrants and foreigners, and the core issue was the prospect of receiving residents of Eastern European countries. Initially only Sinn Fein, the Green Party and some Eurovision Song Contest winner had been against it, but that was sufficient to delay the Government’s decision until this weekend when the referendum finally took place.

This house was the third one we looked at. The first one was very funky, and in an excellent location. The owner acted like a gruff grandfather, so I played up my charming granddaughter role, hoping it would be sufficient to sway him in our favour. He rented it to three Irish sisters. The second house involved waiting outside in the cold wind and rain for forty-five minutes; the landlord gave the house to the gothic-looking Irish friends who had been waiting with us. We were probably the first to see this house – it is not the kind of house that would sit on the market for any length of time – but both the agency and owner of the first house were not very well-equipped to deal with overseas references and the logistics required in obtaining them. I think that is probably one of the things that deterred the owner of the first house, and certainly concerned our agency to some extent.

Dublin in itself is not a very practical city to live in unless you are both a driver and a car owner. I had been told by a guide book that the city has a very impressive bus network, but that is probably only in comparison to what it could be, or to the rest of the country. I have already mentioned, both above and probably in other pieces as well, the impossibility of finding public transport leaving the workplace outside of key commuting times. The last bus in the morning leaves at 7.55 am; the first one out is at approximately 4.30 pm. When we unexpectedly finished work early one afternoon and decided to go to a pub, those of us who were lucky enough to get a lift had to wait about an hour and a half for those who were not. One thing preying on my mind is access to the airport. From this house, it is no problem at all; it is on the airport route, and there are five or six buses to choose from. From work, which is only slightly east of the airport, I would have to find a bus to the city centre and then another back out to the airport. Although, according to the Time Out guide, there are ‘about 900 buses serving well over 100 routes’- that’s actually rather a depressing statistic – very few, if any are actually available to where you want or need to go. They run on Irish Time as well, which means they turn up when they feel like it, if at all, which ultimately means: Forget It. Perhaps if I could drive or had a motorbike I might actually be less apprehensive about exploring and visiting more of Dublin. Could go to the bank in my lunchbreak and not accumulate uncashed cheques. And the amount it rains, god you do not want to be spending half an hour for a bus that is probably too full anyway, and is going to get stuck in gridlock traffic.

I know that the recruitment agency I am with is responsible for hiring approximately half of us, which leads me to question why they had assumed so many would be starting in this country from scratch when they knew very well the other candidate’s situations. Also why they would be so poorly equipped to handle assisting us with the practicalities involved in moving here. Perhaps the recruitment staff are not kept sufficiently informed of agency practice; perhaps they actually think a sheet of paper and at least six weeks’ waiting for a bank account is perfectly acceptable. The two men I am living with, Yannick and Olivier, are with an agency called Eolas; I know of them from their website which took about half an hour to open. Although their agency did not gather them around on their first day, they met in the first week, and again at the start of last week, when they helped Olivier set up his bank account. He came with us into town today to collect his credit card. From what I can tell, their agency is helpful, considerate and professional.

Mine is not. I met out trainer’s evil twin today at the agency. They had not expected any of us to arrive to collect our cheques, so the receptionist summoned a bouncy young woman to bring down my cheque as the other two had been posted. (Soizic is puzzled; he does not recall giving the agency his new address.) When I started asking about bank accounts and the impracticality of losing half a day’s pay each week simply to collect what was left over, she bounced back up the stairs to fetch Evil Twin. Firstly, she told us off for not having made an appointment. She argued hard, in the manner of someone who is used to being listened to and not questioned. (Another aside: a few years ago, I was considered for the role of recruitment agent; the agency finally decided I appeared too young and too sweet. Any of you laughing out there?) Certainly I argued back that she was not listening; although my first question was about providing a letter of introduction that I would need to open an account, the second questioned her mantra of ‘thou shalt have a PPS number in order to have an account’ when Olivier and others were clearly able to open theirs far sooner without one. She was still harping on about the letter of introduction while I was asking her if there was any way around having to take time off work to collect or even cash the cheque. We ended at an impasse, but she gave me her business card. I haven’t looked at it yet. Oh. ‘Consultant.’

Again with my recurring theme, this is why tourists leave with such a positive impression of the place. I am not certain about how they would find their impression of Irish people as they are in a severe minority in the city centre, but all the same, they do not have to worry about the ridiculousness of public transport, getting money and a mobile phone so that you don’t have to snap at everyone who innocently calls you. Some banks seem to do all they can to discourage you from opening an account, from what I have heard, so even that is hardly an option. When I tried to phone Eircom to find out why we couldn’t receive incoming calls, each option on the automated service I tried returned me to our voicemail. The Irish people in my group are all very nice, however I’ve had a shopkeeper pick an argument with me, and I think I’ve made my feelings about our trainer very clear. The men I have met outside of work have been lecherous timewasters.

And, come on, with all the rain this country gets, you’d think the roads and pavements could at least be level.