Co Cork shop sees tongue in cheek job advert go viral

Someone shopping in a supermarket. File picture

A Co Cork shop has seen a job advert go viral for its tongue-in-cheek tone.

Sam’s Gala in Dunmanway posted the advert on social media, setting out specifically what sort of applicants it was looking for.

The shop isn’t looking for people “who cannot work on Sunday because it’s their next-door neighbour’s third cousin’s First Communion” but young people who “want to make the transition from pocket money to earning their own”.

Sam’s Gala Dunmanway advert

What we DO NOT want are;

Daddies asking for a job for their son because he’s a big strapping lad, is a good footballer, feeds the neighbour’s goldfish when they’re on holidays and cuts the lawn every Saturday.

Mammies asking for a job for their daughter and telling us she’s great around the house, emptied the dishwasher at Christmas, cleans her bedroom every Saturday and loves meeting new people yet is sitting in the car outside the door!

People coming in, handing in their CV over the counter and running out the door like Paddy Cullen running back into the goal in 1978 to catch Mikey Sheehy’s free.

People who cannot work on Sunday because it’s their next-door neighbour’s third cousin’s First Communion.

People asking for a “job” instead of asking for work as the country is full of people with jobs who don’t do a tap of work.

What we DO want are;

Teenagers who want to make the transition from pocket money to earning their own to come into the shop unaccompanied by parents, ask to speak with Noreen or Colm and simply tell us why they want to work for the summer.

Top Tip; “My mother doesn’t want me hanging around the house for the summer” or “my Dad told me to call down” are not the correct answers.

Since going on Facebook, the advert has been liked more than 1,000 times. 

Colm O’Sullivan from Sam’s Gala said that the reaction to the advert has been fantastic, adding that the applications to the ad have been “phenomenal”.

“To be fair a lot of people have taken it for what it is.

“It’s tongue-in-cheek with a small bit of seriousness in there,” he told Patricia Messinger on C103's Cork Today Show.

Referring to the ad, Mr O’Sullivan said that he has experienced “all except the goldfish” which was just “a bit of poetic license”.

He wanted to hire a part-time worker and said that when they began interviewing people, he realised how a lot of Transition Year students missed out on work experience due to Covid-19 and he has spoken to some young people he said that they had been looking forward to the experience of work.

Mr O’Sullivan said that he wanted young people to show initiative and to look for jobs themselves instead of getting a parent to help them.

“They’ll appreciate it an awful lot more if they had to go out for the first time in their lives and go looking for work.

“And get it and experience work for the first time in their lives. Experience having to open a bank account.” 

Mr O’Sullivan said he has no problem with parents advising him that their child is shy and will make an approach for a job later on.

He said that a lot of shy people grow in the role and it “will do them the world of good”.

Mr O’Sullivan said that he would love to have a job for everyone who applied and that he has met some “fabulous people”