Working / Living Abroad - Ireland

Ireland It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth. 

People have lived in Ireland for over 9,000 years 

Population: 6,197,100

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To start at the beginning, making it a little clearer why and how I moved to Ireland for a limited period.

As most of you know I am a student undergoing 4 years of Bachelor studies in Budapest, Hungary. Usually there is only 3 years of studies for bachelor but the school figured it very important for us to experience work life first hand. This in one way is good, so that you don’t just learn the theory but also the practical side of things.

So for the beginning of my third year I started looking for places to go and experience since we did not have to stay in Hungary. My thoughts and criteria’s from this was:

I would love to develop my English pronunciation and writing skills (also a little part why I’m doing my blog in English).

It should be close to both Norway and Hungary.

It should be “something new” culture, people and so on.

Having these criteria`s in mind, my girlfriend and I started uploading CV`s to tons of pages online, and sooner or later they started calling and showing their interests.

Usually I search directly to the company I would like to start working for but this time through employment firms such as Adecco, I had no idea how many agencies there actually were and I’m still amazed about the massive amount of mails from different actors in the market!

One day a woman called from an agency in Ireland saying that she had a vacancy available in Dundalk Ireland, as I’ve never heard of the place and would rather stay in the capital city Dublin I checked it out online and it showed out to be a charming town.

Dundalk quick facts:

• Largest town in ireland 

• County Town of county Louth 

• Close to the Northern Ireland Boarder and equal distance between Dublin and Belfast. 

• The rural population said to be 25 500 but I`ve heard numbers up to 40 000 from locals. 

Having had a Job Interview with a Company called National Pen, I found out I wanted to try out Ireland for 4 months and packed my Bags.

The work I was hired for was telesales which I had dreaded long. I`ve heard a lot of stuff about how mentally and physiological strong you have to be, and you have to be because of the people you talk to can be hard and rude! I had previous experience within sales in Norway but that was direct sales which I really liked, and found it necessary to develop sales skills by seeing the other side of sales.

Starting my experience was exciting, new country, new colleagues, new lifestyle. Arriving in Dublin I met my girlfriend which took a later flight and we agreed on meeting at the Airport. We then took a taxi in to the city Centre where we had booked a B&B for the night so we could see a little of Dublin as well. The first impression was more or less as expected, gray weather, windy and a lot of small pubs and brick houses. After a day of enjoying Dublin and its history we went back to the B&B for the night since we would have a long upcoming day, moving our 6 Suitcases to our new Hometown for the upcoming 4 months, Dundalk.

Taking a train from Dublin to Dundalk was good and took only 1 hour (express train), Arriving there was a little more unexpected sight, small train station, small houses, hundreds of bars (Dundalk has over 140!) and also short walking distance to most of its attractions. We got into a taxi and told him to drive us to our new home, Lismar B&B. It showed out to be a 3 minute drive and the taxi driver was happy to take full rate which was 6 Euro, not so much but I think you get the point. 

Lismar B&B

Safely there we got our keys and started moving in to our serviced apartment and really liked the standard and service showed by employees and owner at Lismar. It was a 40 sqm, Apartment which had everything you needed and utilities included in the bill, Fantastic.

I was starting my Work on Monday and got a call from the Manager that they would have a meet and greet at a hotel nearby for the new seasonal employees on Sunday. Sunday came and the cloud was filled with a huge sun and no clouds, a great start, I went down to the Hotel and was met with a small amount of people chatting around in all ages, actually from 18 to 60 and from all corners of the world.

I have to say that I could not really find a good tone with all of them, and many of them were way over my age. I then started talking to a Dutch man named Martin, and he was a very nice man that experienced a lot through his years and was very interesting to talk to. Later on a younger guy came in and he sat next to me in the couch, I found out that his name was Dennis. I thought that is a Nordic name and asked where he was from, and it showed out that he was from Sweden (Luleå), what a coincidence, another Nordic person. We talked and it showed out that he was going to be my best friend there, a very decent and funny guy that had a great personality and crazy humor.

In the beginning of the work we had Training on how the systems worked and how to operate, it was a looong and slow week and in the end of it we ended up like this:

Me | Sebastian (Bee Whisperer) Chavez | Dennis (Squigglan) Helander

We were placed strategically in groups like Nordic market, Italian, German and so on. Since I was the only Norwegian I was placed next to 2 crazy swedes, which without them would be difficult to tackle the fore coming long days.  Sebastian and Dennis have great sense of humor and we had a great time together, we also had a lot of fun, maybe too much sometimes. We were hushed and told be calm down on the jokes but without it a telesales job could be very boring (if you don`t love it).

The weeks went on and we got to know more people and most of them were very nice people, some had moved there to escape their previous lives and try something new, while others wanted to go there for the money.

Most telemarketing jobs have a salary based on commission and incentives making the employees give a little extra. We were paid weekly, that made it difficult to save but easier to pay rent and have a good time. As the salary came in my girlfriend and I did not spend it on much party and useless stuff, but we decided to let it benefit us on the part that we went out often to restaurants and cinema, and also save up a little.

For those ever going to Dundalk i can strongly recommend Eno`s restaurant and their amazing Calzone (did not eat anything else there!)

As the months in Ireland started to get to an end, mine and Fanni`s parents came to visit and we they mostly concluded with that the unstable weather and in general, that visit was all they needed. But that it had a fantastic charm and something original was present in Ireland. We went to Belfast, Dublin, Horse/Dog race and Giants causeway for mentioning something.

Dennis and me in a local pub.

Giants Causeway

THE Temple Bar  in Dublin

Fanni in Deep Concentration<3

Ireland was a good experience and I would say it was exciting to see a different culture over many months, meet new people and try out a new line of job. I can say now that telesales is not my future but it gave me a great experience and I became more “hard skinned” after getting 100 no`s a day for 4 months! Ireland as a Country was good, unbelievably friendly people everywhere and Dundalk was a good town!

Have you been in Ireland and what do you think?

Christer.