My second 2nd dose of the Pfizer vaccine is scheduled for this morning at the Aviva Stadium. Surprisingly, there isn’t a direct bus there, so I decide to take a taxi just to make sure I’m on time. The driver is chatty… he mentions he has a large family (seven children!), and talks about the UEFA Euro 2020 football championship games and how much he can’t wait to see a match in person again. Apparently he got his 2nd Pfizer dose two weeks ago and was sick for a few days with a strong reaction to it, but now he’s fine and very much relieved to be fully vaccinated, especially given his line of work. We arrive right on schedule for my appointment. There isn’t a queue outside, and it takes me all of 10 minutes to weave through the passageways, check-in for the appointment, and get my shot without any waiting. The “observation period” of 15 minutes is the longest part. There are about 50 people sitting quietly in an enclosed concession area on the stadium upper level. Signs posted around the room ask that you wipe down your chair after your wait time is over, and there are numerous “sanitation stations” with bottles of disinfectant and paper towels dispersed around the room. One by one people stand up silently, retrieve the sanitation supplies to spray down their chair, and then make their leave of the room in a very orderly fashion. So civilised!
I take the DART commuter train to Pearse Street Station, which is about a 15-20 minute walk from Sprangers Yard. My motivation for taking this route is to stop by the Bread 41 bakery (allegedly one of the best in the city) for a treat. Unable to decide, I choose a selection of pastries: pain au chocolat, a roulé aux pommes (apple roll), a sugar-dusted morning bun, and a sea salt caramel “cruffin.”
While I was out, the recruiter from University College Dublin emails to check in. She says the offer is still pending the one last signature needed to proceed AND the hiring manager is asking for me to provide a reference from a specific job that is the closest to the role I’d have in their office. Of course it’s the one job where my boss was so bad I ended up filing an official bullying complaint about her, and when that went nowhere, I decided to quit. I respond to the recruiter’s email asking if we could chat over the phone. She calls soon thereafter, and we have a cordial chat. He apologises for the delay and assures me that everything is order except for the final sign-off. On the topic of the additional reference, I deflect by saying that it would take 1-3 weeks to hear back from anyone in finance at the University of California, because it is the busiest time of the month with the fiscal year-end close on June 30 (which is true). She says she will convey this information back to the hiring manager and let me know if he still wants to pursue it…. hopefully my strategy works, especially since my tentative start date is July 19, only a few weeks away now.
The big news in Ireland today is that the government has decided to postpone the reopening of indoor dining and bar service as had been originally planned for next Monday July 5th. There was some speculation that the delay would be only for two weeks, but the Cabinet left the new reopening date to be determined, until there is a workable plan for how fully vaccinated people can show their status and be allowed to dine/drink indoors. The EU’s electronic COVID certificate is supposed to be available in Ireland by July 19, but it’s not clear if this system will be used or something else. This throws a major wrench into the plans that many restaurants and pubs that had already put into motion their plans for reopening next week. No doubt there will be lots of fallout in the coming weeks.
Until next time….
