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SEAN MORONEY RETURNED to his hometown of Balbriggan in north Dublin two years ago, after almost a decade in the US.
“I wanted to settle down at home, so I came back,” he told us, before Christmas
I didn’t realise it was as bad as it was.
After a run of bad luck on the job-seeking front (the start-date a course he’d signed up for had just been postponed) the former moving-company manager had taken to standing at the side of the road each morning, with a ‘for hire’ sign.
A passer-by snapped the pic below, and sent it to TheJournal.ie — and the 36-year-old said he was inundated with offers, the day after we called to ask why he’d decided to take such an unusually direct approach to job-hunting.
“Coming back to Ireland is probably the sorriest thing I’ve ever done,” Sean said, in that initial call.
It was a rude awakening.
His mood was buoyant all the same… His job-seeking campaign had been embarrassing “for around the first hour” but it felt “great to be doing something”.
By the following night, his story had pretty much gone viral —- Sean had had “150, maybe 200 calls” he told us as he settled down with his girlfriend Yvonne to watch the Late Late Toy Show.
He hadn’t been able to sleep properly as a result of what had happened, he said. Already, he had a few interviews lined-up.
So what’s the latest, you’re no-doubt wondering.
Did any of those employers come through with their offers?
Well… yes.
Yes they did.
We were delighted to hear from Sean again this week — and even more delighted to hear he was knocking it out of the park, two weeks into his new job.
“I’m feeling great. Busy,” he said, as he hurried in to start his Friday.
After five concrete job offers before Christmas, Sean took up a sales role with Dundrum-based merchandising firm the Lites Group at the start of January.
I just liked them. I liked what they were about.
The company is working with Glanbia on a ‘bring back your local milkman’ project. Essentially, Sean hooks householders up with local self-employed milkmen via this website.
“I wish we had more like him,” Lites regional manager Dave O’Connor said.
He got 12 sales in one day this week — in this weather! We ask people to aim for five.
As it happens, the company’s decision to call Sean for an interview had nothing to do with all the internet attention he’d generated.
“I had a job up on Jobs.ie,” O’Connor said.
Sean applied through that… I asked in the interview, as you do, if he had any background in sales. He didn’t, but then he mentioned this thing on Facebook — it caught my interest straight away.
“It’s not the sort of thing you normally come across in an interview.
You have to say — fair play to him… Anyone with the balls to stand out on the side of the road in an Irish winter has to have something going for him. We were glad to have him on board.
Sean, meanwhile, is finally planning for the future again, after what’s been a frustrating two years since his Irish homecoming.
He’s getting used to all the attention too — he may be coming soon to screen near you, in fact, after MovieExtras.ie called offering to sign him up for the next 12 months.
“I’ve never not worked before, so it’s fantastic. It’s great being so busy.”
The girlfriend’s even putting the hold on me for a proposal this year, after all this.
PS: Dave asked us to mention that they’re still looking for people. If you’re interested, maybe drop him an email.
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Does the Irish Asian community love a good bargain or what?
Jesus joe…. Will you leave it outtttt….
Hope all the management w@nkers in suits who decided that shops should open today, had a nice day off today. Meanwhile their grunt workers were forced to work and forego their two-day day Christmas with their families.
I’m sure they were on double time at least. I was disappointed not to be working today. It was my 1st St Stephens day off in 7 years and I’d rather be out working when double time is going
Double time? Actually most places are time and a half at a stretch. And its not paid but you get the day back at some random time in January.
A pal of mine works in one of the large electrical retailers and they had to put their name down for the double time on St Stephen’s day and he was left disappointed that he didn’t get any hours.
They’re not civil servants so no they are not on double-time. & the type of shopper that queues on St Stephens day to get into a shop is going to be the worst type to deal with.
That’s a bit of a generalisation Thomas. Plenty of people in the private sector get double time as well as public sector.
Double time premium pay for Sunday or bank holiday duty is a relic of the past James.
Not necessarily. My job does double bank holiday pay and I don’t work in the private sector
*public
You should talk to someone in Ibec about how widespread it is across the private retail sector. I can assure you that your situation as you say is the exception rather than the norm.
Civil servants do NOT get double time for working Bank Holidays
Another thing is, there are plenty of people who are collecting dole that’d be only too happy to be working St Stephens day
Not much double time left n public sector. Initial overtime is for free, then it works up from time and a quarter etc .
But if it makes you feel better, keep bashing.
Relic of the past ? Just like slavery was, I think the country is heading backwards alright.
For working a Bank Holiday, you either get:
* double time
* an extra paid day off in lieu (decided by employer) within one month of the holiday
* an extra day added to your annual leave
Either way, it’s effectively double time. It’s the law of the land (http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/employment_rights_and_conditions/leave_and_holidays/public_holidays_in_ireland.html#l1f4da), so there are no exceptions. It’s not a relic of the past as some are making out. If you’re being told that it is, well then you need to have a chat with your employer.
Jesus it’s like downtown Beijing on Grafton Street.
It’s a game – “where’s Paddy?”
Thought it was from China too
My wife asked me did I want turkey OR ham in my sandwich today. What a silly question.
it wasnt a question. it was a demand that you get off your arse and do something for a change!
ive got the same first name as todays day:)
Boxing?
nnnnooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Super
Terrific
Excellent
Perfect
Happy
Earnest
Nice !
thumbs down if you think my comments are cool!!!!!!
who gave me that thumbs up????? come out coward .I demand to know your name
Jaysus the wind is a pure terror, there’ll be some carnage in da mornin and maybe some damage from the weather as well
Such a strange article. A two month old girl is shot dead, a man is stabbed to death and a woman dies in a car crash, yet the article headline asks you what to do with your turkey leftovers.
Zip heads everywhere
Pan heads
I sent in a photo of my Christmas sandwich last night. It was delicious!
Not one mention about the fox hunt
What about the fox hunt?
That it is a perverted form of animal cruelty and an affront to the name of sport…
Hard to imangine children in Ireland needed to call childline. Poor mites. I didn’t hear my fella till 8pm last night when he finally felt hungery. The excitment was so much.!
He could have been ringing childline because his ma , was too busy commenting on the journal rather than feed the poor fella :)
Foxhunting on Saint Stephen’s Day?
While it may be the season to be jolly, it is also, alas, the time of year when objective coverage of blood sports tends to be discarded like a second-hand Christmas cracker.
In the pages of the national and provincial press we are treated to a one-sided, censured, and highly misleading picture of fox hunting…lavish illustrated colour-pieces about the magnificent red jacketed men and women setting off from a village square, spearheaded by a well behaved pack of hounds with tails wagging innocuously?
And more Christmas card images of pomp and pageantry… and a picture here and there of a hunt enthusiast exhaling little cloudlets of icy breath, stirrup cup containing punch or a hot toddy rising nimbly to his or her lips…
But we won’t see a single picture of a fox at the end of a hunt, on the point of exhaustion, its lungs spent and the dogs closing for the kill. Or of the moment of truth itself, when this much-maligned wild dog of the countryside is eviscerated and its brush (tail) hacked off with a pen knife preparatory to having its blood smeared on the faces of the “sportspeople”.
Likewise, newspapers will be awash with fawning reportage of contented hares enjoying lunch courtesy of an animal-loving coursing club.
And we’ll be treated to nice shots of trophies being presented after the fun sporting event…smiling faces, gamblers marking their cards, and the odd picture of a child or a fashionably dressed lady cheering the action from the sidelines or patting a greyhound on the head.
But not a word about the mauling or pinning down of a hare by pursuing dogs, or any pictures of a mauled hare in its death throes, being “dispatched” via a karate chop to the back of the neck after it has been pummelled and tossed into the air by the nice doggies. No words or pictures either showing the effects of Capture Myopathy, a stress-related condition that can cause the slow death of a coursed hare AFTER its release back into the wild.
Journalistic objectivity, it seems, is run to ground like a hunted fox at Christmas to make way for inane festive whitewashing of blood sports.
Charles J Haughey (king of the leprechauns) made an appearance at the Dingle Wren http://flic.kr/p/iDeMxW
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