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One of St. Patrick’s claims to fame is that he drove all of the snakes out of Ireland. To this day, there are no snakes in the wild on the island, even though they’re not uncommon across the Irish Sea in Britain. The Irish would like Patrick to exercise his Dr. Doolittlesque talents once more to beckon back the Celtic Tiger, the name given to the boom economy the country experienced from the mid-90’s until the Wall Street surge faltered in 2000.  “Here, kitty kitty” has been the catch-cry of the Irish as layoffs and business closures plague the headlines daily. 

I’m sure the hardy Irish hardy people will weather the downturn brought on by NASDAQ pneumonia. Anyone over the age of eight will recall a tougher times. In the pre-Celtic Tiger era, even a Masters in Business Studies from University College Dublin didn’t guarantee employment. It was even a great challenge to get any kind of interview for one of the scarce jobs paying the equivalent of $10,000. Early on in my masters program, in 1994, I did beat the odds and managed to get a call for a civil service job in Co. Carlow, near my home town. In uncertain times, the stability of the civil service looked quite attractive.   

I took the train down from Dublin to Carlow town and went to the drab gray building indicated on the letter I’d received.  When called from the waiting room for my interview, I was given no opportunity to use the firm handshake I’d been practicing.  Not only did my tall gray haired interviewer not offer his hand, he did not introduce himself or the middle aged woman sitting by him.  He just started looking over my curriculum vitae and asking me Yes or No questions about it.  “You will graduate in September, correct?”  When he read that I was taking some industrial relations classes his eyes lit up and he asked me if I could explain the Unfair Dismissals Act of 1977.  I was somewhat familiar with the legislation, so I gave him what I thought was a good one-minute overview. He was not impressed.

I didn’t get a chance to speak again. The remainder of the interview consisted of a 20 minute lecture on the origins, intentions, pitfalls and strengths of this piece of legislation, and the structures and dimensions it added to the Irish industrial relations scene. I received a rejection letter some weeks later thanking me for my interest in the position.  The junior clerical role, which incidentally had nothing to do with industrial relations, was not for me.  

But I’d sent in two civil service applications, and not too long afterwards, I was invited to interview for a position in the city of my birth Kilkenny, only twenty miles from Carlow. Well, who opened the door to invite me in for the interview, only a very familiar gray-haired Unfair Dismissals Act fan. He didn’t seem to recognize me at all, and the interview followed the exact pattern of the one I’d had just a couple of months prior. I was delighted when, upon “discovering “ that I was enrolled in industrial relations classes, he wanted to know what I could tell him about the Unfair Dismissals Act of 1977. Well, I sang him his own song and he beamed across the desk as I expounded at length about that landmark piece of legislative genius. He actually shook my hand at the end, but never divulged his name.  

If there was ever an example of interview practice making perfect, I thought this had been it. I felt like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day-- the clock had been turned back for me to start over with a clean slate. A few weeks later, a letter arrived thanking me for my interest in the position. Startled that I wasn’t being hired directly into a job three levels higher then the one I’d applied for, I called the Human Resources office for an explanation. They informed me that it was my lack of honors-level Irish in high-school that was the issue. Funnily enough, my not having taken honors Irish had been quite clear from my CV long before any interviews were scheduled.   

Well, if nothing else, that fellow got me interested in the Unfair Dismissals Act of 1977.  I wrote my Masters thesis on that very subject and it was a pretty good one. As for St. Patrick, it might have been just fine if he’d left the wildlife alone and focused his attention instead on driving the incompetent interviewers out of Ireland. I’m afraid they still run free to this day, traveling the highways and byways of the auld sod wreaking havoc on all careers in their path. 

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