Entertainment

Work Experience – My two days from hell

Okay, let’s get the obvious out of the way. Hi. I’m Michelle and this is my first article for Yuppee Mag. I’m super excited to be here and… I’m boring you already aren’t I?

Right, okay! Should we just get down to the nitty gritty of how I realised that within the space of 2 days, the career that I once wanted was the career that I no longer wanted anymore? Okay, well it all started on Monday…

*memory wave. do do do…*

I was travelling on the train and I was about to approach my final stop – Southport. I took a look at my watch, 9:22am. I was 40 minutes early! GASP! I was told by the big female boss to arrive at the main entrance for 10am. Naturally I had aimed for 9:45am rather than the told 10am because I wanted to make a good impression and I’m never late. So, I did. In order to kill time I walked around the station, went the toilet and then headed to the main entrance. My heart was pounding, my hands were sweating and I felt as though I was about to pass out – I didn’t, of course!

The reason for this high intensity was because the upcoming five days had been planned for over a year! Last summer I contacted this placement to enquire about work experience and I was lucky enough to be granted a full week! The placement was “journalism-based”. I won’t be name dropping because I don’t believe that it’s fair plus my overall moral has nothing to do with them personally and I’m too nice to do anything that mean!

 

Day one: nearly passed out, was introduced to the team, and was given a pad, pen and desk. Was told to research on the internet, played on Bing and was then told to grab my coat. Spent 150 minutes at some place, met a lot of really nice people and then was sent on my lunch. Had a KFC, returned to work, skimmed the internet a bit more and spent another 60 minutes trying to write a piece which I thought was supposed to be 500 words but instead it turned out to be 100. Played on the internet some more and was then sent home at 5pm. I also made several cups of tea throughout the day.

I left the office that day feeling depressed. I was sat on the train feeling confused and sad. I wondered why? My day wasn’t bad! This is the moment when I started to wonder if this is what I wanted? But, I decided to put it all down to “first day nerves!”

 

Day two: arrived at the office 10 minutes early, made a few phone calls, researched on the internet some more, made a cup of tea, went to the toilet, made another cup of tea, read over a copious amount of newspapers, went to the toilet and was then given a task. Decided to research some more, made another cup of tea, researched some more, pretended that I was researching, went to the toilet and then went for lunch. Went to Subway this time, enjoyed some retail therapy, returned to the office, made some hot water because I felt sick, went to the toilet, met a new client, took details, was then told to deal with the issue, pretended to research some more, called up the client, created some questions for my other project and then was told that I was going to attend a press conference. Grabbed my coat, got in the car, realised that the location was wrong, was then dropped off at the train station because it was slowly hitting 5pm and I was due to finish. Then I realised that this isn’t what I wanted. I waited 4 minutes for the train, got on and swore that I would never return.

 

It took me just two days to learn something new about myself, in which, has now completely changed my career path. To all of those who are debating over trying out work experience, I hope that my story has pushed you TOWARDS it rather than AWAY from it. You need to test out your ambitions – even if it does goes completely pear-shaped!

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