Getting a job!

Clonakilty girl Sharon Whelton who has moved to Calgary in Canada gives us a taste of what life is like for Ireland’s new generation of emigrants – this week, Sharon gets a job.

I had signed up with an employment agency who conducted both an interview and a comprehensive skills test with me, and thankfully I scored well in the skills test.

As well as working with Hunt Personnel, I signed up with Friday Professional Group, where they also conducted a really comprehensive skills test. 

To be fair to Friday Professional Group, after just one day, they called me to tell me that some temporary work was available on December 14^th and 17^th, so as I had no other work plans, I immediately grasped the opportunity. However, there was a slight change of plan!

Spoilt for choice

It started off as a typical Monday morning, Mike would usually two set alarms the night before; one ringing at 5.30am and the other at 6am.

He would usually hop out of bed soon after 6am, whereas I would fall back to sleep!

However, when I woke up that particular morning, I had this gut feeling that I was going to get a call from someone about a job opportunity. 

Little did I know how right I would be; I first received a call from Diversified Staffing Ltd in relation to a job that I had recently applied for, so I scheduled a meeting for the morning after. 

A few minutes later, I received another call; this time from Melissa in Hunt Personnel. A company downtown were in dire need of a receptionist, so she asked if I would be available for an almost immediate interview? 

I jumped at the opportunity and ran to the shower to get ready. I got downtown just after 10am and meet with Anne MacLeod, who is a director with Collins Barrow, the company that I could potentially end up working for!

Interested

It was quite an informal interview, but Anne seemed interested, so I went back to Hunt Personnel where Melissa told me that she would contact me before midday with an answer. 

I went back to our apartment in Montgomery and relaxed for a while, as the previous couple of hours were a complete blur! Low and behold, just after midday, Melissa called to inform me that I was offered a permanent position with Collins Barrow, who is one of Canada’s top accounting firms!

You can imagine my sheer delight when Melissa told me the good news. I messaged Mike immediately whilst rushing to make the next bus into town to sign the paperwork, but typically he didn’t reply for almost an hour! 

But both he and my parents were delighted with the news! Reality then really kicked in the following morning, when my own alarm rang at 6am…it really was quite a harsh reality!

I jumped into the shower and it finally hit home that I would be starting my first day of full-time employment out here that morning. I was pretty nervous as I got on the bus at 7.05am, and reached the office just after 7.30am (I don’t technically start work until 8am but the buses can be quite quick or slow, depending on the traffic, so it’s safer to get the 7.05 bus and just get to work earlier).

Back to reality

My first day mostly consisted of a lot of training, but this role is really a learning process, so I am almost constantly learning new things about my job.

Our working hours from January to June are 8am-5pm as the tax season will be coming up.

But the good thing with this is that with the extra work time that we make up can be used as Flex Time, which then goes as holiday time!

This Christmas was the first time that either Mike or were away for the festive season.

We sent our gift boxes back home just before the deadline for international posting ended, on December 7^th, and thankfully my package arrived safe and sound (and more importantly in one piece).

Everyone was thrilled with their gifts, so that was great. We received a fabulous hamper from Mom and Dad which has loads of delicious Irish foods, and there are more packages on the way; it’s so exciting!

With my work, I am entitled to three weeks vacation, as well as flex time, so overall I should have about 22 or 23 days vacation per year, which is great – I will certainly put those days to good use! We also our both our work Christmas parties in December, which was great fun!

PVP Engineering Christmas Party

Exciting times

I really do want to travel, so I would love to try and even get to Toronto or Vancouver, as well as somewhere like New York! Wishful thinking perhaps, but you never know what could happen!

We’re also having our first snowboarding lessons so I can’t wait to get started! Mike has already gotten a taste of the sport, as he went to one of the mountains with John last Sunday, and to say that Mike was a broken after the day was a bit of an understatement!

He could barely climb the stairs to our apartment after! He was in even more pain on Monday, and with me being the ever-supportive girlfriend, I just laughed constantly at his misfortune!

I’m really excited to start lessons though; from what Mike was telling me, it sounds class! I just hope that my lack of patience won’t get the better of me, because Mike has warned me that it can be very frustrating at times! We also went to Calgary Zoo in mid-December, it is class! It was quite cold that day however, so we will definitely go back when the weather gets warmer!

I think that’s everything for now. It’s been six weeks in Calgary, exciting times!