Cork, Ireland - In times of recession Irish imagination is at its best: what a better way to overcome cash shortage than creating one’s own personal idea of a job? During these six years of living in Ireland as a foreigner I’ve been used to people coming to knock at my door during winter to sell woods for the chimney, but nothing like this year… I’ve seen an army of door-knocking people, young or middle aged, offering the most variety of jobs you can ever imagine. Everything started in Christmas time when a teenage colorful trio of girlfriends came to my door offering to sing a Christmas Carol for me. It was so sweet and funny and I was such in my Christmassy mood that I said “why not”. For a fiver I was able to witness the most unusual Christmas carol ever sung, with the three girls laughing their asses off while missing the right note. I was even laughing myself!

From then on, every time I hear a knock knock on my door, I go to open it with somewhat an expectation of the next job offering. I’ve seen men offering carpenter work, or solar panels installation because “I’m doing it for your neighbor, I thought you might be interested”.  I even got a persona invitation to a beauty salon, I guess the door to door strategy it’s a popular way to find new clients here.

Now that summer is approaching, within a week I got two offers of lawn cutting… guess my lawn looked pretty bad! I have to say that it was growing a bit wild, with weeds all over the places and ugly yellow flowers infesting the beautiful green that I have (and as green as Irish green you can’t get any!). At the second offer I was convinced to accept, at least to save us a three hours job that the man with grassy hands solved in half hour while holding a lit cigarette at the corner of his mouth. He was so great and did such a perfect job, that I was inclined to offer him a tea: over our cuppa, he told me he has a wife, a five year old boy and one on the way, that God sent them even if they didn’t want other kids, “and it’s God’s will, and we’re happy.”  He was so honest and happy inside his eyes. When I asked him if they know if it’s a boy or a girl, he said they don’t want to know, that “it’s God’s will, the important thing is that baba is healthy.” He asked for 20 euro for my front and back yard, but he was so kind to clean up the mess and take away the trash, that I felt compelled to give him 25 euros. Those 5 minutes talking to him made my day: I felt happy and over the clouds for the rest of the day! You should have seen the peace and happiness in those eyes…

Well, I thought, if everybody is inventing a job to be offered door to door in time of recession, what can I do? Maybe some baking, in the Italian way…. Working on it!

Any strange job experience in the other parts of the world?

5 Things I Miss The Most Abut SF

• Sunday Streets (http://sundaystreetssf.com/)

 

Walking out of my front door onto sunny Valencia St. to find the entire road closed down to auto traffic and people on roller skates.

 

• La Taqueria (http://www.yelp.com/biz/la-taqueria-san-francisco-2)

The El Dorado taco. Deep fried taco awesomeness that isn’t on the menu. You just have to know to ask.

 

• My Bay Window

 

• Amoeba (http://www.amoeba.com/)

 

It’s a bowling alley that has been turned into the largest record shop you’ve ever seen.

 

• Dinning Out

 

 

5 Things I Currently Love About London

• Art and Shoreditch

 

There is street art all over my neighbourhood, and it’s always changing.

 

• Brick Lane on a Saturday

 

Awesome food. Awesome people watching.

 

• Dressing Up

 

 

• Rough Trade and Spotify (http://www.thealbumclub.com/) (www.spotify.com)

 

The best record store and the best online music service are UK only ;)

 

• Free Museums

I've seen plenty at Tate Modern, but probably would have skipped out on this sound installation/exhibit of dozens of finches playing electric guitar had it not been free. Turned out to be well worth it. Finches are fucking punk.

 

Ok, so, I've been living in the UK for 3 weeks now, and I have to say this article in the NYTimes http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/arts/television/14sfculture.html is sort of stupid. To summarize, it basically states that the ad industry in the UK is more edgy and artsy than in the US. Uhm....no, don't think so. I haven't been spending too much time watching TV, but let me say that the ads I have caught are rip offs of the Geico auto insurance commercials, sex selling cereal , and these really creepy ads on bus stops to scare teenagers from driving drunk. These 5 foot tall posters all feature a person dead (yes...dead) on the ground, or in a vehicle, with their friend holding them crying out...or just looking shocked and not really intoxicated. That is pretty damn edgy...

When you are away from home, time goes at a different speed. In San Francisco I feel like a day counts like a week, a week is a months, a month almost a year.
When you are far from home, every day something memorable happens. You meet new people all the times. You spend a day with someone and you've got a new friend. After a week you feel like best friends forever. People come and visit you and in a week you plan 1000 things to do - that would have normally taken a month. You fall in love just like you were used to on summer times when you were 16: at first sight and once a week. You spend intense months with people that you have just met, and then they leave, they move, they go back... and it feels like a whole life is gone.
People I've met here change apartment every few months, change job at every opportunity, spend money twice as fast, see 5 seasons of Lost in a month.
Is it just me or do you feel like you are living at a different speed too?

In the US you can find jobs that I've never even heard of in Italy. Like the person at the grocery store who puts the stuff you buy in the bags (we've already talked about that in a previous post).

Recently I've discovered two another interesting ones pretty common in ski resorts: first, they have dozen of kids scanning your pass at every lift - we have turnstiles almost everywhere in Italy. Second, and funnier, they have the "lift director", who makes sure no seats of the lift are left unused, picking people to make groups of 4.
They ask: "how many of you?"
- "three"
- "go ahead. Give me one single please!"
- "how many of you?"
- "two"
- "the two of you and the two of you, please go ahead.."

and so on, all day long. They are like playing Tetris with skiers and snowboarders! Impressive. It also reminds me of Micky Mouse directing brooms in Fantasia.

Do you know any other unique or unusual job opportunity?

Hi All,

My name is Ryan and I am an American who is about to relocate to London. As sort of a joke Christmas gift (but not really) my folks gave me this book by Toni Summers Hargis -- a very British sounding name, and it contains several chapters on cultural differences as you would imagine. One is on language entirely -- both the small semantic misunderstandings that can easily occur, and the larger social taboos and ignorance between American and British culture. So what have I learned so far?

1)    If a Brit leaves the room to go “knock up” another sleeping guest, he is not intending to impregnate that person. Simply wake them

2)    Underpants are pants. Outer garment = trousers.

3)    The phrase “I’ll be with you momentarily” is likely to cause confusion, since a more literal translation is likely to be taken by the Brit – making the meaning of the statement that the time spent during the actual meeting will be quite brief. I love that one!

Anyone have any other potential language pitfalls they want to share for the hapless American before his departure?

San Francisco - I've just realized how hard it must be to be a marketing person in the US.
Let's say that you want to promote a All Purpose Cleaner: the tipical blond chick we have in Italy who says that's fabolous is not enough here. You need a bunch of woman to cover all possible races, at least an african american, a hispanic and an asian. Commercials become choruses, differente voices, accents and colors repeating the same thing: "this cleaner is super!". So everybody can identify with the product.... well, if your race has not been left out.

San Francisco - To tell you the true, this picture does not really impress me anymore. It's an "Italian Sandwich" from Ted's, in SF, and it's stuffed with 3 kind of "italian meats", cheese, tomato, lattuce, mayo and more. It weights a couple of pounds, seriously. In Italy you usually get two thin slices of prosciutto and one of mozzarella and that's it.
Which one is better?
I guess I'm starting getting used to American portions. If I don't get my huge hamburger or my 30cm glass of water or a pasta as a side dish I'm a little disapponted. I'm getting used to free coke and coffee refill and I think that the place is cheap if they don't have it.
Am I getting fatter? Not really. And you? How many pounds did you put on on your last trip to the US?

Having lived for considerable periods in Ireland, England and America, my accent is a confusing mix of the three. Until recently it was just Irish/English, but since becoming a full time resident here, I've been finding the American influence sneaking in and I can't seem to stop it.

More than the accent, it seems to be the words and phrases I'm picking up on. In Dublin, I use turns of phrase that only make sense to the people there, who use them too. Some of these do make sense, but it would just be an unusual or quirky way of saying something, and people here find it strange. But sometimes, they are completely indecipherable. I am regularly faced with confused or blank expressions in response to something I've said. It doesn't help either that my name seems to be impossible to pronounce or remember for anyone who is not from Ireland.

Since moving here, I have picked up so many new words and phrases, just because of the influence of the people around me. My friends back home make fun of me relentlessly for this. Awesome? Sidewalk? Cell phone? None of these were a part of my active vocabulary a year ago! Now I say them all the time. Then there's the inevitable 'like'...try as I might, I don't seem to be able to get through a sentence without it these days.

What about you? Do people look at a loss when you say something that is completely normal where you're from? Do you find yourself picking up new words and phrases? And are your friends at home giving you hell over it?!

Maybe I'm not one to talk here. My friends are always making fun of my completely inappropriate and impractical sartorial choices, especially when it comes to footwear. I understand that people want to dress for comfort and practicality, but this is surely a step too far! I'm talking about CROCS. Those brightly coloured plastic shoes that are so inexplicably popular here in Berkeley! I see whole families wearing them, and admittedly they are quite adorable on babies and little kids, but I don't understand why any self-respecting adult would allow themselves to be seen out and about in these. I really do not get it! Are they really that comfortable? And what is the point of the plastic? It can't be to keep water out because they are full of holes and open at the back. I have spotted the odd pair of CROCS back in Ireland but it's nowhere near as widespread as in Berkeley, where it's an epidemic! What do you think - am I missing something here? Will they ever catch on in Europe, or have they already done so while I've been away?!