Working for Paddywagon Tours!

Well, I found a job. It was a bit random how it happened, but I’m now officially an employee of Paddywagon Tours in Dublin.

The company headquarters are located in the Paddy’s Palace hostel on Lower Gardiner Street in Dublin 1, only a few blocks away from the central Spire. 

I’m going to be working part of the time as a reservations agent for the tours, and the other part as a receptionist for the hostel.

The two girls that I’ve worked with so far are both from Australia. I think I got the job simply because English is my native language. This is how it happened:

I walked by Paddy’s Palace, as I do frequently because it’s on my route out of town, and noticed a “staff wanted” sign on the door. The only details it listed were “Fluent English, valid work visa and some office experience required. Call Charlie at (mobile number).”  Colin and I are always talking about the Paddywagon buses because they’re so noticeable around town (bright green with leprechauns and sheep decorating the sides), and we’ve said in the past that it looked like a fun place to hang out. So I was pretty excited to see that they were hiring and decided to save Charlie’s number into my cell phone.

Then we were walking away to the bus to go home, and I thought, maybe I should just go ahead and ring him, even though it’s a Saturday. What the heck. And he answered right away, asked me how long I’m here for, where I’m from, and then said I should go back to the hostel and ask for an interview with Bianca.

Bianca turned out to be one of the two Australia girls I’m now working with, and she didn’t even interview me because she was on a call when I came in. The other girl, Kim, asked me a few brief questions about my work history then said she would ring Charlie, who is now my boss, and see when I could come back for training.

I ended up doing the training about 15 minutes later, and I was back in today for my second session. Tomorrow I’m working my first full day, from 7:45am to 4pm.

The girls told me I should be getting about 40 hours a week and earning a little over minimum wage, which works out to roughly €350 a week — €1400 a month! Sweet relief! I’m going to be rich compared to before. And now I have the means to stay here for the summer, so I don’t have to leave my baby behind.

I never listen to Collie when he tells me not to worry, but he was right this time. Everything worked out in the end, and now I get to enjoy a summer of rain and World Cup football watching, woo hoo! Well, maybe I won’t enjoy those parts so much, but I am happy that I don’t have to leave Ireland, and the Finns, just yet. Should be a summer to remember!