It’s Friday! What a busy week… not to mention month. Where did January go?! Dublin has been having chilly, but we’ve been having mostly sunny bright winter days. I don’t understand why people complain about the weather in Ireland at this time of the year, saying that it’s gloomy and depressing. Yes, it still gets dark relatively early but the days are getting longer, slowly but surely.
On Wednesday, I had an appointment for an in-person driver’s theory test, after failing the online test I took last week by one question. I had checked multiple times to see if other online appointments were available, but there were none to be found. I suspect that the “pilot” online testing programme has been suspended now that COVID restrictions have been lifted. At any rate, the closest testing centre with available appointments this week was in the Santry / Beaumont area to the north of Dublin centre, about halfway to the airport. Thankfully, I have lots of public transportation options near me so it was an easy 20 minute bus ride. It was interesting to pass through parts of the city I hadn’t seen before. The parts of Dublin outside the city centre feel very suburban, with neighbourhoods that are primarily made up of duplexes and single family homes. The driver’s theory testing centre was on the second level of the mall, tucked into what would otherwise be a retail space. The test centres are run by Prometric, the same company through which I took my accounting certification exam, so they have more of a corporate feel than the nightmare bureaucracies that are DMVs in the U.S. My appointment was at 10:30am, and there were a few others already in the waiting room — not surprisingly, they were young people in their late teens or early 20s. After checking in, I had to empty my pockets and put all my personal belongings in a locker before being escorted into the testing room, which housed a dozen or so computer station cubicles. The tests consists of 40 multiple choice questions and lasts 45 minutes. After failing my first test the previous week, I took studying more seriously and practiced several mock exams on a mobile app that goes through the same questions as on the actual test. I went through the 40 questions in about 20 minutes, and flagged about 4-5 that I wasn’t sure about the answers. I could miss 5 questions and still pass, so I was feeling fairly confident but not 100%. I reviewed all the questions again, changed an answer or two, then submitted my final responses. Then I proceeded back to the waiting room where I was told my results would be ready in a few minutes. Soon thereafter, the young Indian woman who was staffing the front desk printed out the results and, without saying anything, handed me the piece of paper me folded in half, a gesture that was intended to convey discretion and/or build suspense. When I unfolded the paper, I was very pleased to see I had passed — and what more, I had answered all 40 questions correctly. Whew! I would have been quite annoyed had I failed again and needed to schedule another test, especially given the cost of €45 per attempt.
In a spirit of victorious glory, I left the Omni Shopping Centre and boarded a bus back to Dublin city centre. I passed by one of the locations of The Rolling Donut, a chain of donut shops in Dublin, on my way back to Sprangers Yard and decided to treat myself to some celebratory sweets. The whole ordeal took me about 2 hours round trip, and I was conscious about getting back to work as it continues to be extremely busy.
Later on Wednesday afternoon, I get an unexpected call from a Dublin number. I figured it must be a work related call, as my mobile number is included in my email signature, and I was prepared for it to be someone to pester me about me not responding to their emails (at this point, I have about 200+ unread emails in my inbox… the workload is that insane). However, it turned out to be a call about a job application that I had submitted over the past weekend. The position is with a global auditing, accounting and consulting firm called Mazars; I would be working in their financial services consulting practice. I have become increasingly aware of Mazars since my arrival to Ireland, but I had never heard of them before in the U.S. Apparently in 2010, Mazars bought out Weiser, an audit and advisory firm with a strong presence in the northeastern region of the U.S., so they do have a presence there. In fact, Mazars was the defendant in the case of Trump vs. Mazars USA regarding the Congressional subpoena of Trump’s tax returns. Mazars was willing to comply with the subpoena, but Trump, in his personal capacity, sued Mazars to stop the firm from providing the information sought. The subpoena was stayed while the case wound its way through the courts. Trump lost both in the district court and on appeal, and Trump appealed to the Supreme Court. For anyone interested in reading more about the case and the Supreme Court’s verdict check out this Wikipedia article.
Back to my phone call, the recruiter on the other end of the line asked some basic screening questions and apparently decided I was worth putting forward to the hiring managers because he asked about my availability for an interview and said that I should “watch this space closely.” (In other words, I should expect to hear back from them soon? What a newspeak way of saying that!) Sure enough, within about an hour I received an invitation sent to my personal email address for an interview on Friday afternoon.
It had already been an eventful day, but there was still more ahead. That evening I was planning a small dinner party with my friend CJ and another of his friends whom I’ve met before — the impetus was to watch the latest episode of the Star Wars series The Book of Boba Fett on my mini home theatre setup. I signed off work a little early to prep the main course, a turkey meatloaf with red pepper sauce, that takes awhile to bake. Then at 5:00pm I had a previously scheduled video consultation with an Irish psychologist that I have seen a couple of times before. The session went well. It feels much more like life coaching than therapy, and in that way, it’s complementary to the ongoing work that I am continuing to do with my long-time therapist in San Francisco whom I’ve been seeing every two weeks. I had about an hour after the session to do the remaining prep for dinner, which was plenty of time. In addition to the meatloaf, I prepared some easy side dishes — pre-made mashed potatoes from the grocery store and air-fried tenderstem broccoli. CJ and his friend brought wine and another nibbles — cheese, olives, grapes — so we ended up with quite a spread! The latest episode of the Book of Boba Fett was very good. The series has been slowly building up to a crescendo, and with only two left, I can’t wait for next week’s.
On Thursday, I was chained to my desk for the morning and afternoon, trying to make a dent in the mountain of to-do’s that keep on piling higher and higher. I did get out for a walk in the evening for some fresh air and decided to head in the direction of the Mazars office complex which I have walked by several times before. For the rest of the evening, I had a quick diner of leftovers, did some interview prep (including trimming my beard and hauling out my suit), then managed to relax for a little bit before heading to bed.
Today I was very focused on getting a few key things done at work before the week was over. I literally made a handwritten to-do list on a piece of paper and worked out how much time I could allocate to each (channelling my dear Aunt Pat who was an avid list maker). It worked pretty well, for the most part I gave myself permission to ignore my email inbox and actually get work done. I worked until about 1:30pm, took a break for lunch, and then prepared for my interview with Mazars at 3:00pm. I think it went very well and, in my opinion, could have done any better. The interview was with the director of the consulting team and a manager who was leaving (hence the job opening). We talked for 45 minutes (the interview was scheduled for 30). I came away with a good impression about them and the work. They said I may not hear anything back for a week or so, and that there would be another 1-2 rounds of interviews should I advance in the recruitment process. Fingers crossed!
Until next time….
