Chapter 10 - Australia Pre-Olympics 1999/2000 “G’day G’day Mate!”

After an eye opening few months in South East Asia, my buddy Liam and I decided to take a flight to Australia with one last stop before we had to start working again. This time it was Indonesia, we spent two weeks taking it easy on Kuta Beach in Bali with some other backpackers on route to Australia. 

Our English friends Tim & Doug decided to go back to Thailand and meet back up with the girls they had left behind. When we arrived in Sydney, we had planned on meeting up with some of our good friends from back home: eleven single lads from Dublin who went to Australia on a one year working Visa about 8 months before we arrived.

When we actually got to Sydney, they were all still traveling up the Australian East Coast. My friend and I rented out a pretty cool furnished apartment in an area called Newtown (similar to Haight Ashbury in San Francisco or Camden Town in London). It had a pretty chilled out hippie vibe with amazing vintage stores, cool markets and some great bars and restaurants.

I ended up getting a job selling American Express insurance over the phone in a pretty big call center that was full of Irish and English backpackers. We each sat in cubicles like “Dilberts” and wore ear pieces on automatic dial to American Express customers. You had about 10 seconds between each call. The goal was to get as many existing card holders as you could to sign up for a free 30 day trial of American Express Insurance. After the 30 day trial ended they were charged approx $9 - $15 a month, depending on the coverage. It was a numbers game. I guess American Express was banking on most people forgetting to cancel it and make their money that way. I got to meet some really cool Irish and English guys and girls while working there.

Whenever I saw an Irish name come up on the screen, I would play the Irish card and tell them I’m an Irish backpacker and ask them if they would please do me a favor and sign up for a month and then cancel. Lots of people were up for it. All they had to say was “Yes” on a recorder. It didn't require filling out any forms, thank God.

Sometimes, when I got a real idiot on the phone getting abusive, telling me to never call again, instead of hitting the "Never Call Again" option I’d schedule a call for about 10 mins later. 10 mins later you’d hear someone in the call center saying "Oh My God! I just had some really pissed off customer on the phone. Someone called him just 10 minutes ago.” It was hilarious. Some days, I’d have pains in my stomach from laughing so much.

I also got another job bar-tending Friday and Saturday nights in a nightclub in Kings Cross. It worked out perfect. Not only was I saving money not going out to a bar, but I was also earning money working. I used to make the most awful tasting super strong cocktails. Some people loved them and tipped really well, and some would ask me to exchange for “something a bit more drinkable.” Then late one Saturday night, it got raided by the cops for serving after hours and they were closed down for a month and I never went back.

After a few months in Newtown, we decided to move over to Bondi Beach to another apartment right in the middle of all the action and next to the beach. 
The beaches and the water were unbelievable. Hard to believe that you were in a city. Bondi was full of young backpackers from Ireland, England and Scotland on their one year working Visa. 

I only worked for three months at the call center (that’s all our work Visa’s would allow on any one job) and now needed a new job. My buddies had all worked on the building sites and got me in contact with some labor hire agencies. I got a job as a laborer on a pretty big building site where they were building a hotel and luxury apartments. This was just before the Sydney Olympics 2000. The place was screaming out for construction workers. There was construction going on everywhere. Three or four different labor hire agencies used to call our apartment every day looking for more workers. After a few months of laboring, I bought $600 worth of tools off a Welsh guy who was leaving town and chanced my arm at being a carpenter on another building site. It was a good bit more money then laboring. I had met a guy while laboring who said I could work with him and he would basically carry me along. Of course I still worked, but he did all the technical work. I was basically laboring for him and getting carpenters wages from the agency. It worked out great for a few months and all we were doing was putting up sheet rock. Then, he got sick for a week and I was transferred to another site run by an English guy who figured me out after a few days when he asked me to hang a few doors and build a staircase (which I had never done before). Anyway, I got a great run out of it, learned a good bit and got paid more than laboring, so I couldn't complain. I ended up selling the tools for what I had paid for them to some legitimate carpenter from Ireland.

My next job was working on the building of a Buddhist Temple just outside of Sydney. It was a bit of a trek but easy work. I met a really cool guy there from the North of Ireland, Dermy Finn. Dermy was a hardy tough Irish lad that was a hard worker and well up for a laugh. The foreman on our job liked us and we got to work together all the time. We had great chats about growing up and the crazy carry on we both got up to and travelling stories, which were very similar. We became pretty good friends while working together. The Aussie foreman from our job, Pete, was going through a divorce at the time and was always looking for some wing men to go out on the town with him, so of course we obliged. He was a good bit older than us but loved hanging out and hearing our travel stories.

Dermy would always be talking about his friends who were living in San Francisco and a cool festival they would go to every year called the “Burning Man”. 
I had never heard of it. He also mentioned that if I ever went to San Francisco that I should look up his friends. To be honest, I had never ever thought about going to San Francisco. The only thing I knew about San Francisco was from the TV show “The Streets of San Francisco,” which we watched sometimes when I was a kid.

After I had saved up some decent money, a few of us decided to go traveling up the east coast with a neighbor of ours from Dublin. He was a bit older than us, but well up for a laugh. He had an old Hiace van that could fit five lads and their bags comfortably. It was perfect.

We ripped up the East Coast like we were in the Cannonball Race. Some days we drove 1000 kilometers in one day and only saw about ten other cars on the road. It was desolate. We had a blast stopping off in some strange little towns along the way. We hit all the cool beach towns and drove inland to Mount Isa. Then we made our way to Ayers Rock, climbed the famous huge rock and hung around there for a few days.

At this stage, we were on the last leg of our round the world trip. We decided to make our way to Melbourne to fly out from there. Our next stop was New Zealand then Figi & Hawaii.

I learned a lot in Australia while I worked. Something that stuck with me most is: 1. Sales is a complete numbers game (the more calls you make
the more sales you get), and 2. There's no harm in trying (if a job isn't the right fit, you'll know)

Chapter 5 - Promoting Night Clubs In Greece, What A Job

After a year back in Dublin working and dreaming of getting back to Greece, I finally saved up enough money to get my flight back and some spending money. The word had spread around our neighborhood about the crazy times a few of us had the year before so a few others guys and girls decided to join us. We arrived back on the Island of Ios in June 1995. This time, we flew directly to London and got a connecting flight from Heathrow Airport to Athens Greece. It was still a bit of a journey, but nothing like the year before and of course we had saved some cash going through London. 

On this second trip to Greece, I went with a complete lunatic from my neighborhood, Liam Scully. His nick name was "The Liamo." He was infamous around our area. He was nuts, a bit older than most of my friends and one of his arms was paralyzed from a drunken motor bike accident, but he could still roll a joint with one hand. I always had a great laugh with him and there was no better man for a session. I gotta respect him. He didn't give two shits what anyone thought about him. He'd argue with his own shadow. If you got on well with him, he was cool, but if you didn't, things got real awkward. He drank like a fish and smoked like a chimney. I remember meeting other guys who used to act all macho saying that they hadn't stopped drinking since they got to Greece. He used to say, "I haven't stopped drinking since the world cup," he'd pause for a second and then specify "1990" and he meant it. He'd start the day off with about 3-4 one liter bottles of Merry Down cider, a bottle of wine or two and then move on to a bottle of cheap Greek vodka, sometimes two. The Liamo could drink. He was also a pool shark and used to swindle people regularly. The more he drank, the better he got.

I used to have to break up arguments all the time with "The Liamo" and whomever he didn't get on with, which was quite a lot of people. 
I think I learnt a lot about people skills from my many encounters with people who had got in arguments with Liamo. One thing that really stuck with me was, never talk politics or religion when travelling. Something my friend never stopped talking about, I saw so many arguments start over that.

The word around Ios was that all the locals were all trying to rip you off, which I gotta admit was pretty true, but not everyone was out to rob you. So you had to be super careful doing any dealings with the locals and anyone else for that matter. 

I had heard about a really cool 5 bed house on the Island for rent. It was half way between the town and beach. It was perfect. It was a palace compared to most of the rooms that the locals were renting. Everyone kept saying the guy who owns it was dodgy and to stay away from him. I took a look at the house and thought we gotta have it. It was perfect for a group of Irish guys and some crazy English girls we had met on the party scene. So a friend of ours got us in contact with Yannis "the owner." I heard he was a bit of a drinker so I brought him a bottle of Metaxa, Greek Brandy. It turned out that he could speak perfect English and was super cool and had studied architecture in England and had spent some time in Ireland and really liked the Irish. He just had so many bad experiences in the past with others renting his house, that he was very hesitant to rent to anyone. I ended up spending half the day with him drinking the Metaxa and getting to know him. In the end, we got the lease on the house, which turned out amazing. One thing I learnt from that was always go into a business meeting with an open mind and look for the best in people, don't be so quick to judge anyone.

I ended up getting a promoter job with "The Liamo" for a club called "Disco 69." We used to get three thousand Greek Dramacka (no Euro's back then) a night and as much drink as we wanted. We'd work from approx 9pm till about 2am and then go to a rave called the Sound Factory and meet up with all the other workers there who had also just finished work. This place was bananas. It closed around 7am and then we'd regularly have parties back at our house. People used to dance on the roof, dance on the balcony, dance all over the house, it was mental! I l loved it. Some people used to stay up all night and then head straight to the beach from our house. We'd often find people asleep on our roof in the middle of the day, who had fallen asleep drunk with no sun block on and would wake up hungover with major sunburn. Our house was pretty well known around the Island.
Work at Disco 69 was perfect. It paid our rent, food and a small bit left over for whatever else we wanted. Our job was to stand at the door and hustle people into the club. Entrance was 500 drackma which entitled you to one free drink. We used to shut the curtains and have the DJ turn the music up full blast, some cheesy top 40 stuff. We'd tell guys that there was a few sexy drunk women inside. The owners used to employ a few crazy girls we knew to look sexy, get drunk and flirt with customers so by the time the first people had come in and drank half their super strong cheap cocktails we'd hustle a few more folks in. The place used to get packed out and we'd take turns leaving the door and having drinks in other clubs that were next to us.

Despite the perks, I left Disco 69 because I didn't like the owners. The owners of the club didn't like Israeli's coming in as they didn't drink anymore than one drink and they used to dance as if they were in a mosh pit, which would frighten most of the women and make them leave. So they told Liamo not to let any Israeli's in, which he gladly enforced. The word spread around the Island like wild fire, some folks laughed about it and some thought it was disgraceful. It got really awkward when Israelis would come up to the door and Liamo would refuse them. Mind you, after that, the place used to stay busy all night.

I left Disco 69 not long after that and got a job in a bar called "The West Club." It was a free for all. The owner was super cool but didn't have enough money to pay the staff in the beginning so he'd pay us with drink. There was about 6 girls and 6 guys working there. I met some really fun folks from all over the world working there. I had plans to leave there and go travelling to Turkey and Israel but I was broke and got word that I had failed my Diploma in Legal Studies and had to repeat it. I really didn't want to go home to repeat it, but I wanted to keep my mum happy as she really wanted me to get the Diploma. So I packed up at the end of the season and went back to Ireland.
Something that I learned on that trip was that I was a natural promoter and that I had "people skills" too. I also learned that where there is a will, there's a way and the path to that goal is part of the fun.

Chapter 4 - A Trip To Greece that Changed My Life Forever

After hearing all the crazy travel stories from the Aussie & Kiwi guys at Cafe en Seine and from my good friends older brother I had no choice but to rally the troops and book our first holiday to Greece, there were four of us.

Obviously we wanted to get there for as cheap as possible, so we booked a return flight off the teletext (an advertisement on the TV, no internet or Expedia back then) from Gatwick Airport in London to Athens Greece. We got an amazing price, the only challenge was, we had to make our own way to Gatwich Airport, which was just outside London. So we booked a Ferry from Dublin, Ireland to Hollyhead in Wales and got a train from Wales to London. Fuck - we must have been nuts, we got a 6am Ferry and within a half an hour of departure we were in Duty Free buying the cheapest bottles of whisky and Vodka we could find. 
After a brutal 4 hour ferry crossing from Ireland to Wales, and an 8 hour train ride from Wales to London, we arrived in Victoria Street Station London wasted on cheap whisky and Vodka. We had no idea how busy London was. It was nuts! People running in all angles. There were blacks, whites, Indians and Asian's... This was completely new for us. In Ireland in 1994, it was hard to find a Black, Asian or Indian guy. I remember one time walking down Grafton Street (one of the busiest Streets in Ireland) in Dublin with my mum and she pointing out a group of Indian guys to me. "Gerard quick, look over there." (To be honest, I think it was half novelty and she was half afraid.) 

By the time we arrived in Gatwick Airport, we were even more wasted. My good friend Jeff thought it was a good idea to mix our travel sickness tablets with the Whisky & Vodka from the Duty Free, and I agreed with him. (He was right, it worked).
We still had a 6 hour wait in Gatwick Airport, which we spent in the departure lounge drinking, then a 4 hour flight to Athens, Greece, and then finally a 7 hour ferry to the Island of Paros. After our insane journey to Paros, we arrived extremely hungover, hot & sweaty. It was the hottest weather all of us had ever experienced... about 90 degrees. We were greeted by about 100 locals all trying to get our business and stay in their rooms, after some weak negotiating we got a room in some old guys apartment, 4 of us in one small room. He had clearly seen that we were newbies and ripped us off. I guess it's all part of the journey, to be honest we were so tired and hungover we didn't care all we wanted was a bed and a shower. 

We spent the next two weeks partying it up with guys and girls from all over the world. We met some really interesting people, I sat spell bound listening to other travelers talk about their amazing adventures. I got to meet some cool guys who were selling t-shirts and jewelry on the beaches, it blew me away, these guys were travelling the world and funding it through selling merchandise on the beach, how amazing was that. Suddenly, a light bulb went off, I had a vision. That was my ticket to travel the world. 

After that 2 weeks in Greece, I came back to Ireland with a new perspective on life. I got my old job back in Cafe en Seine and had one goal in mind "to save as much money as possible so I could go back to Greece and spend the whole Summer there. One thing that I learned from this early experience, is that if you have a goal and you're hell bent on seeing it through, you can achieve it. It just takes a bit of creativity and a certain knowledge of where you want to go and a lot of action.

Cheers 
Gerry :)

Chapter 3 - My Early Years of Work and Still More School

So the road to building my own company and beginning to realize I needed to be my own boss, like many others, came to fruition while working for someone else. From these early experiences, I learned a bit of what I wanted to do, but more importantly, what I didn't want to do in my own business.

After leaving "Rathmines Tech" and now armed with my "Certificate in Business & Computer Studies," I got a commission-only sales job selling advertisement space for some under rated education magazine over the phone. We worked out of a small office on the second floor of some dingy building on Rathmines Road in Dublin and I was assigned to a small cubicle which felt like a prison cell.
The owner of the magazine would lock the main office door when we were onsite to protect us from all the unhappy customers. I only found this out when some guy came banging on the door looking for his money back and the boss wouldn't let him in. It was crazy. I looked out the spy hole and some big country lad was standing behind the door shouting in a thick country Irish accent "Ya Dirty Scamming Bitch gimme me money back .....". After about 20 minutes of shouting back and forth, he left the building and we went back to work.... Thank God for that. This was my first interaction with a very unsatisfied customer. (Note to self: Not what I want.)

The business model of her company was for us to cold call existing customers from the Yellow Pages and talk them back into buying more ad space in our publication. Then we'd repeat their own very same advertisement back to them, as if we had just made it up and attempt to resell it to them. This was pre internet days. I did my time & sold a few ad spaces, but not enough to keep me in drinking money and the boss was a pain in the arse and very dodgy, so I left.

Then my good friend Chris got me a job working with him in the kitchen of a pretty cool/fancy bar & restaurant in Dublin called 'Cafe en Seine'. It was a very successful, up & coming trendy bar in downtown Dublin. I recall speaking to one of the owners about how he got to own the place and he advised me of his favorite motto which was "Keep It Simple & Start Small." He told me he just did what he knew: "stick to the knitting...stick to what you know..."

This was the Summer of 1993. Dublin was entering the Celtic Tiger and kids had money. It's always about the timing! Cafe en Seine ended up being the trendiest bar in Dublin. At that time, it was the place to be and to be seen.

The staff were amazing and lots of fun. There were girls and guys from all over Ireland and lots of students and even some travelers from Australia & New Zealand. They were all in their early 20's, using the place as a stepping stone onto something else. At the time, none of us knew where the next steps where, but I loved it. It suited me perfect. I was washing dishes with my buddy, getting drunk and talking smack with guys & girls in the kitchen and bar. I got 4 pounds ($7) an hour, which was pretty amazing for a kitchen porter job back then. Plus, I got free food and drink of course.

At the same time, I enrolled as a mature student in an evening course in another college, the Dublin Institute of Technology: "DIT Aungier Street." I would graduate with a two year diploma in Legal Studies, another course to keep my mum happy. 

Something I learned from these early experiences were, although you might have a successful business financially in the short term, you want to do it by making customers happy. Your legacy will live on and people will remember. Also, doing what you enjoy is always best and it usually involves other happy people, always start small but have a big vision.

Until next time........

Gerry, Christine, G Pup

Sonas Denim

Chapter 2 - School's out - Thank God For That :)

After leaving school in 1992 and doing terrible in my leaving cert exams (similar to your A level's or high school final

exams) I talked my way into a local college called " The Rathmines Tech" this place was not your typical college or university. A lot of people were there to repeat their leaving cert exams or just there to do a one year course that didn't require a high grade level or they were there just to waste a year and figure out what they wanted to do with their lives.
Either way, no one really gave a F*$K. I enrolled into a computer and business studies class. To be honest I had actually no interest in ever going to college or taking a course but my mum always wanted me to get a certificate or diploma in something. She always said, "That's one thing that can never be taken away from you" Word of wisdom

from my mother, thanks Mum :)

I didn't think that I'd be accepted, because I had failed my leaving cert but somehow I talked my way in or the professors/teachers at the admission desk felt sorry for me, either way I got in :)
I have no idea how I did it, but I passed the one year course and came out with a Certificate in "Business and Computers Studies". Not bad considering I still had no idea how to work a computer or had any business skills whatsoever. 
Mind you, I did meet some great people there, and we ended up spending most of our time in a bar called "Streets" in Rathmines, drinking cider, smoking cigarettes, and talking shit with other students from other colleges nearby who were also skipping class.

Cheers Guys, till next time :)

Gerry Kelly :)

Chapter 1 - Where I Came From

I grew up in a suburb in Dublin called Templeogue.  Our family is your typical Irish family.  My mum's from the country and my dad's from Dublin.  I have two sisters who I get on with very well, and who have great families.  When we were growing up, my mum worked as a nurse and my dad worked two jobs: one as a taxi driver and one as a school teacher in a prison. My dad also studied law at the same time, and when he passed his exams, he became a full time lawyer.  He told me that he found it very sad that he would meet lots of young guys in the prison who wouldn't have been there if they had proper representation.  That inspired him to study law and become a lawyer. 

Some nights when we were very young and my mum was working the night shift in the hospital, my dad would drive my two sisters and I around in the passenger seat of his taxi while collecting fares.  To say the least, my dad's the hardest working man that I have ever met and the only person that I have ever met that never got sick. 

I must say that I think my parents had a huge role in shaping my personality to know I could do whatever I wanted.  They were living examples of being hard working, do it yourself, make-what-you-want type of people.  Without their example, I wouldn't have the underlying belief in myself that I have today.

To get back to my youth, I had a thing for jeans and  my mum would tell me that I always had great fashion sense.  When we went shopping together when I was a kid, I always picked my own clothing and was complimented by the sales assistants on my picks.  Growing up in the 80's in Dublin, Levis 501's were huge.  In fact they were so big that sometimes people would steal the jeans off your washing line, seriously.

 I had a great childhood and still have lots of amazing friends with whom I went to school and grew up with.  I must admit I never liked school,  I always seemed to get in trouble for day dreaming and having too much fun.  Crazy when you think about it.

My first job was a milk round when I was 14 with my friend Keith.  We collected the milk money every Thursday and Friday for years and also stole  Xmas trees and sold them outside our local church at Xmas time.  My teenage years were spent 1) drinking cheap vodka, cider and beer, 2) going to local disco's 30 terrorizing our neighborhood,  4) dreaming about travelling the world.