My Work Experience

The first day of work experience, typically, I felt quite petrified to be honest. The Idea of working with people I've never met before and the humungous amount of mistakes I could make all added to the fear of getting killed on the way there! The story started when I realised I had to find a work experience placement two years ago in September, and I wanted to work in a hospital. Unfortunately I was considered too young, as you had to be sixteen to work in a hospital, and with my dreams crushed, I decided that I'll never find a placement. I did eventually get over it and tried to apply to a pharmacy six months later. Again I was told that all the places had been filled. At this point, I decided to ask Ms. Patel for help. Being as lazy as I was, I â€Å"couldn't be bothered†, until a few weeks in July when my tutor pressed me. I went in the afternoon, and looked at the list for pharmacies that I could work at. Thinking I was one of the luckiest kids alive, I noticed there were two! Then I realised that both were gone, and I was going to end up driving a ice cream van for the rest of my life. After explaining my problem to her, Ms. Patel suggested working at CHAS, as a previous student had enjoyed it immensely! Instead of using my common sense and asking what CHAS was, I automatically said â€Å"YES†! I woke up on the first morning excited and yet nervous at the same time. I didn't know how any of this would go. Would I be able to go a whole week without messing up or setting fire to the place? That day I woke up at around six thirty, and left the house at eight. Once I got to the station I was shocked that my train ticket was five pound. After muttering a few inaudible words, I got onto the train and went to Edgware road station. When I got out of the station, and took few news papers, I headed towards the office. Before I went in though, I just had to use some breath spray. As I walked down the steps of the entrance and stood outside the door, I noticed the door had two unmarked buttons, and a speaker system. I just stood there thinking, â€Å"Oh umm, now what um†¦ eenie meenie mynie, mo? â€Å", and just as I pressed a button a voice said â€Å"Hello? â€Å". Now this part, I'm quite ashamed of what I did, I panicked! â€Å"Hi! I'm†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. the um†¦. err†¦.. work experience kid? † like I was a plumber or something. Just then, the door buzzed open and I walked in. I don't actually remember the first person I saw, but I remember that it was Theresa who introduced me to everyone else. I was too busy wetting myself to memorize any of the names. Then she introduced me to Barry, who was the CEO, which was when I had to say something. I said a meek hello and was told that the person who was going to â€Å"look after me†, which I translated to â€Å"would boss me around† would be there in about an hour, though I still had no idea who it was since neither Barry nor Theresa had given me any other information. I was confused, until I turned around and realised I was an hour early. The day hadn't even started and I had already made my first mistake. I was then seated at a desk, and told to get settled. I guess I could count myself lucky that my supervisor, Brano, was early that day, and since I had started getting a little more confident during the last forty minutes of silence, I said â€Å"You must be Mr. Brano†. Later I learned Brano was his nickname. After being re-seated, I went into an interview room, and I was told all about the office and finally it struck home that I was spending two weeks at a solicitor's office. The first thing I did after being settled was to familiarise myself with everything they did at Chas and learn all about things like programmes, clients and other things offices use. It was such a rush in the morning, and I found myself loving every minute of it. The boring part was when didn't have anything to do. I literally had to ask for more work, while I assumed that my friends had were buried in work up to their necks. As Brano was quite busy, and was getting sick of me pestering him for more work, he told me to start a â€Å"Diary of Work Experience†. Personally I hated the Idea, as I find writing my thoughts and feelings down has got to be the strangest way to make yourself emotionally stable, or maybe I was just really lazy, but I decided that it would give me something to do during the next two weeks when they didn't need the help of an under qualified child. As assumed, I did end up having quite a lot of time on my hands. While I was working on this, I kept noticing that my â€Å"colleagues† kept answering the phone. That may sound like a weird thing to say, but you tend to let anything distract you when you're bored. I suddenly had a strange desire to answer the phone, so I decided to ask Brano. I got a reply e-mail saying â€Å"wait until the afternoon, and then I'll tell you what to say†. It turns out that all you had to do was to say â€Å"CHAS Central London, How may I help you? † like I was a marketing assistant. The day finally came to an end, and after saying a brief goodbye to Brano, and Arefa, who turned out to be the receptionist, I left the office. Even though I was tired, I felt great. I loved working, which is really strange. I decided it was much better than being stuck in school doing maths. The next day I went to work right on time, and the train ticket still cost me five pound! I came to work, and started doing some normal receptionist work. This is where the work started to get interesting. After a few hours of helping Arefa with her work, I was introduced to a programme called â€Å"Casetrack†. It was basically software which allowed the Case-workers, or solicitors, to keep records of each client they deal with. Brano then showed me how to input information, and keep records. Turned out that CHAS had over 12,000 cases, how stressful! No wonder they were always busy. After another day of repetitive work, I still hadn't lost my keenness and still wanted to do more work. Day three in my story, and for the afternoon I was bored out of my mind as there was nothing to do except my diary. The only useful thing I did that day was learn how to use the photocopying machine, little did I know that would prove extremely useful. Just as I thought the day would be really dull Barry informed me that I would start to help a colleague of mine who was leaving called Julie. That afternoon, I decided I was the luckiest person in the world as I got to use the shredder. Looking back on it now, it seems strange I could have an obsession with a machine that does nothing but rip paper. After shredding a ton of documents, Julie asked me to photocopy over five hundred pages work of book, after I ended up doing over-time, I realised I have a major problem saying â€Å"no†. Finally I got to go home, and on the train I had an epiphany, I loved doing overtime! Day four, was when the long repetitive chain of office work started, and I also started to help other people with the reports, and take phone messages, help Arefa with typical administrative work and other boring jobs. I must admit I loved doing these typically boring things, mainly because it was a completely new experience for me. During the afternoon, I decided to converse with my colleagues, and I realised that I should have started to converse the day I got there, and it doesn't help to keep to yourself quiet in the workplace. During the next few days, I saw two colleagues leave, and two new colleagues join. I must say I found the people there one of the most important aspects of work experience. I also discovered a market right behind the office, the only bad thing was the boredom and the repetitive work. The highlight at the end of the week was the money. I got paid for all my travel expenses, which came to a very high twenty-five pound, imagine how much gum I could buy with that! The next week seemed to have a routine to it, I got up later and came to work fifteen minutes later each day to save the company money, as I felt guilty for charging them twenty-five pound a week. I got on the tube, came to the office, and got on with my work. It was a boring routine, but there were new and exciting experiences each day for me, and one personal highlight was seeing a London bus with the lyrics of â€Å"Amarillo† on the side, like a karaoke machine. The other thing I noticed was that I was doing so much overtime. It was amazing. I was actually willingly doing extra work, and I hate extra work. I suppose the thing that made me want to stay was that after four where most people worked slowly and spent more time â€Å"chatting†, rather than ignoring everything around them and working too hard! I suppose that after a hard day's work, a nice chat with your colleagues really doesn't hurt! The final day was actually extremely relaxed, which was a massive contrast from the first Friday, and though I had a mountain of work, I managed to get it done by the afternoon. For the rest of the day, I finished my diary, and though I did tried, I couldn't find anything more to do. Since everyone else decided to go out, I got stuck babysitting the office. After I got back from my lunch break, which was at three, I was given a card and twenty pound as a gift. I knew I couldn't take it, but they insisted, and after protesting, and being told to â€Å"stop being silly† I decided that it would be best if I just took the money. By five, it was time to leave CHAS forever, which was quite depressing. As soon as one of the colleagues I had worked with got on the train and left me at Baker Street station, the realisation hit me that I'd never see CHAS again. After getting home, I sat on the sofa and thought about how great my two weeks of work experience had been, about the people I had met, and about what it had taught me. I had learned so many new manual skills, and how to use different kinds of machinery. However, the most important thing I learned was how to behave at work, and about how the world of work is really different from the sheltered world that is school. My Work Experience Firstly I am going to explain what is work experience? Work experience is our opportunity to spend a period of time outside the classroom, learning about a particular job or area of work. During our placement, we'll be able to find out what skills employers look for when they're hiring someone to fill a job vacancy. We will also get the chance to develop our self-confidence and communication skills. This will help us to work better with other people in further or higher education, as well as in our future career. When I were first told about work experience I thought to my self ‘great no school for two weeks' I was looking forward to looking around places and trying to figure out what and where I wanted to do my work experience. I've always been good at doing things with computers. For my work experience placement, I was confused and could not decide on what to do. I was interested in doing everything from office work to computers, but I finally managed to find myself a placement in retail at T. K Maxx, Uxbridge. My hours were 10am-5pm, Monday to Friday. It is about 45 minutes drive to the place however a bus does travel from near my house To get this placement, I personally went in, and asked if they would take me in. When I first went there I met Mark, whom I talked to, for it. After that all the official letters and forms were completed. I was over joyed; as this was the first shop I went to and got the placement. All my worries of getting the placement were over. The T. K Maxx that I normally frequent is a funny sort of place. First of all, the entrance is tucked away in between two shops and is hardly noticeable. Second of all you have to go down a huge elevator down deep into the inner of the earth to get to the goodies inside. Lastly, it is, like most T. K Maxx stores, almost white inside. For a start, T. K Maxx promises brand name clothes at sky-high prices. It's true that I've found my fair share of deal. I found a nice pair of K SWISS trainers and they often sell cartoon socks for i4 a pair, compared to the i2 you would pay for the same socks in Claire's Accessories or somewhere similar. They are usually selling a plethora of brand name jeans at very sky-high prices, too, so they are second to none when it comes to value for money. Most T. K Maxx stores are fairly expensive, with departments catering for women, men, kids and usually even home furnishings, toys, bags, purses etc. on sale. However, my one main complaint with T. K Maxx is its aim to be honest messy. Clothes tend to be arranged by size on racks, but you really have to break in through them to find what you're looking for. Also, often they'll only have one item in a particular style on sale. The shoe section is probably the worst when it comes to mess. Both shoes in a pair are displayed on the racks and the theory is that you take the shoes, try them on, and take them up to the cashier if you want them, return them to the racks if you don't. Unfortunately, the certain happen. People try shoes on, decide they don't like them and leave them on the floor, so you usually find yourself stepping over huge piles of shoes to look at the racks yourself. Don't get me wrong, I understand that this can happen and it's not easy to keep the place clean, but I've never seen staff picking up the shoes. Although it is a tedious task, making sure we pick up any shoes dropped on the floor and returning them to their shelf or place in the stock room is one of the top priorities. What's more, toy boxes tend to be bashed, ornaments tend to be damaged and clothes can often be marked. The T. K Maxx Company started in America, and has now almost 2000 shops in the USA and Canada. They've only been in the UK for about 10 years but have 150 shops here already. The staffs in T. K Maxx aren't the type to walk around trying to butter you up into buying, which is nice as I like to browse on my own, but they aren't the most helpful either, in my experience. I've only had to ask for assistance twice, but both times it took my ages to find a member of staff and when I did they were unclear and unhelpful. However, from my experience, the basement staffs are very friendly and chatty and they are free by free I meant to say working slowly, chatting a lot it is because they don't have CCTV operating in basement. I suppose that in a store as large as T. K Maxx, especially when it has a rather messy layout and displays are all over the place, it would be hard for them to keep on top of things and know exactly what's on sale, so it's not exactly their fault that they're a bit unclear, but I think this is an issue the company should address. I often find that a lot of the clothes on sale in T. K Maxx are rather unpleasant, and some of the nicer stuff is still quite expensive and you're not making a great saving, but they do always seem to have sale racks out, and you can sometimes come across a real deal through these. All in all, T. K Maxx is a good store to browse in if you have the time, and you might just find a good deal here. However, it is definitely not the kind of place you could go into if you were in a hurry and wanted to pick up a jacket, top, trousers etc. quickly and then zoom out as you really do have to be prepared to list. It's definitely worth a look, though, so if you ever go across one and have time to spare, pop in and see what you can spend your hard earned cash on.