Crap work Experience
I was working at a computing firm that build the computers from the components they ordered. I worked 9am-4pm

I was in the "workshop" with a grumpy old man named Steve who sat on the internet all day. I went in the first day and all I did was put 12 computers in boxes. Second day, I actually built the rest for the batch, I built the remaining 7 in the morning(which was pretty quick), then the afternoon came, I did nothing. 3rd day, No work left , The parts that had supposedly been dispatched hadn't left the suppliers and wouldn't arrive until Friday. 4th day no work . Then Friday came, oh the joy , I did nothing again, the suppliers delivery van had broken down, I couldn't believe that a week of experience had only been 4 hours of work at the most.

The only thing I learned from this was that other people sit doing nothing while you do as little wrok as possible.
(poolcue123, Thu 17 May 2007, 8:46, Reply)

Dried Flowers....And Fluffy Toys
Did my WE at a friend of my moms business about 12 years ago now.

He sold dried flowers,wicker baskets and all manner of crap. He supplied most of the florists in the area from his little warehouse (store room)

Business was a bit slack....so spent most my days watching the cricket in his little office, smoking underage cigaretes.

Fantastic.

The people who rented upstairs had a fluffy toy business.

They looked like gangsters.

Mr Jolly lives next door anyone?


Edit* I believe the smokes were of age..it was me that was under.
(never-right -getting it wrong since '78, Thu 17 May 2007, 8:45, Reply)

Work Experience these days?
There was a work experience girl at work today. She stood around and did fuck all, didn't help out, ate a big dunch and buggered off before 6. (We finished at 8.45!). It turns out that the law says these days that work experience people can't actually DO ANY WORK, cos they're usually kids, they can only 'observe'. Waste of bloody time. If you can't give a 16yr old a daft job, show them what its like in the REAL world, then they're likely to think its all a bleedin' breeze. Oh things have changed since my day.. Bah!
( moosecow and that was... Karate., Wed 16 May 2007, 23:57, Reply)

Not really work experience
but it did feel like it. I was on the dole for a short time a number of years ago and my brother was the IT Manager at a company that went out and set up registration networks for big conferences. He took pity on me and said I could stand in for him whilst he was away on business for a couple of days.
One of the things he had me doing was sorting out the contents of a cupboard. It was full of network cabling that had been thown in after a job. About fifty cables, of varying lengths completely tangled up. I was on the floor for most of one day trying to untangle them. Still, it was an easy two hundred quid...
(Ghostlight, Wed 16 May 2007, 23:22, Reply)

Work experience in Switzerland?
Great idea. Go to agricultural college, secure a few weeks on a golf course near Gstaad, come home refreshed from the cool mountain air, resume course, pass exams, get a good job...

Instead, a certain female b3tan stayed out there the whole summer, ignoring pleas and threats from family and tutors, and was not seen again until autumn.

Came back, took work as pole dancer...
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Wed 16 May 2007, 23:04, Reply)

WEX
my work experience was 2 weeks at the village hotel. It was as good as the real job was. sit around until someone comes in and needs something.

however, my actual part time job at a sports store with three letters was hell. It was so utterly boring. Not only that, it was hell, it was so shit it was unbelievable.

I have however decided to leave uni, so, anyone need anyone to work for them?

sorry about the length, I'm nervous...
(lei, Wed 16 May 2007, 21:28, Reply)

Nivea Dream boy
Not my first experience of work but worth a post

Thursday evening I get a phone call from a friend.

"Do you want to do you want to do this promotional thing on Sunday? Basically we go to North Yorkshire (from Essex) and do a bit of a dance."

"Oooh ahh, Im not sure"
I replied with a distinct lack of conviction.

"Travel expenses included free night at a travel-lodge and £110 basic for 8 hours"

"sold!"

It turns out I was representing Nivea as a 'Nevea Dream Boy' at a race for life in Skipton In Yorkshire. Nivea being one of the race for lifes main sponsors. My duties along with my 3 fellow 'Dream boys' to earn this £110 included blowing up balloons and handing them to children, easy enough. But more importantly and terrifyingly, my second duty was performing a cheerleading routine and a dance in front of several thousand women, whist wearing some very tight spandex.

Now Im not exactly a slim chap. I looked like Steve Redgrave after a 6 month pie binge, in my spandex vest and shorts. This coupled with the fact that I am the whitest man on the planet and as such have no rhythm or dancing ability, meant doing a dance routine after just 3 hours practice in front of a load of women was pretty scary. However it all went well and any fuck-ups mearly added to the spirit of the event.

It was great fun and the best £110 I have ever made. Some of the women running were really inspiring and I ended up really enjoying the dancing, we even volunteered to join the aerobics instructor on stage while she did the warm-ups. In fact I enjoyed it so much that I am hopefully going to do loads more over the summer.
(Gimli son of Gloin., Wed 16 May 2007, 20:27, Reply)

My last teaching job - got given a WE girl....
She was still at school in the sixth form and not that much younger than me...But she still managed to make me feel like I was old enough to be her mother...She told me that of course because I was *so* old I'd had no choice at school but to either become a housewife, nurse or teacher....FFS one of my friends became a civil engineer!

Anyway, I got my own back on her some years later - I was helping out behind the bar at an exhibition...she recognised me and was astounded that I hadn't changed at all - she however had clearly had a hard time at uni and looked totally f*cked. Her mate asked if we'd been at school together...Ha!


And yes, if you've been trying to get that miracle cream from Boots that makes you look ten years younger - tough, I have it shipped in by the truckload! Mine! All Mine!
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Wed 16 May 2007, 18:35, Reply)

I had a rather dull work experience placement
typing up boring things about cookers in a gas show room, but my mate, got the unenviable task of working in a old peoples home.

80 old codgers in various states of decay demanding arse wipings and bed baths.

She managed 4 days of these delights with the Wilfs and Ednas before she quit.

Returning to school it was clear she had been disturbed by her experience, and when questioned as to what was wrong, she gave us this insight into getting old.

"OH GOD, YOUR TITS GO ALL VEINY AND YOUR FANNY HAIR FALLS OUT!"

Smashing
( Scary Mary The D'oh Fairy, Wed 16 May 2007, 18:30, Reply)

Council
Working for Sports Development Department I was sat in front of a big database with names of everyone on the Young Offenders List infront of me and their addresses. Petrol Bombs Me Thinks! So I had to put it in some kind of an order, do a power point all of which took about five minutes. The best bit was getting to fuck around in the equipment room all day, drive around in a van then go home at 3! After Lunch, which could be anything from 11.45-2.45. In one instance we went on an orienteering course with said Y.O's and my instructor said they would get to about Marker three give up and begin starting fights with trees. Then sure enough 15 Minutes later we hear the snapping of branches and a bunch of Chavs shouting Ah ya bastad!
(Manontheedge Are you MANontheEDGE-ing Ok?, Wed 16 May 2007, 16:29, Reply)

I was lumbered with a work experience chap
You know the type, just about to start Uni thought he knew everything about everything. Having him working next to me was too much after a couple of days. So...

One of my projects was redesigning the works car parks to suit future expansion. Problem was I didn't know how many cars use it at present. Guess what his job was...

Every morning and afternoon for his remaining time he had to count around 1000 cars across three different car parks. Peace for me, work experience for him. I don't think he was sharp enough to realise he could have made the figures up.
(Yellow Car is now red, Wed 16 May 2007, 16:27, Reply)

perspective
When I did my school work experience, as far as I know, nobody in my year got their first choice of placement unless their first choice was "working at the company my daddy owns". I think this taught us a valuable lesson about the real world.

Several years on, and I found myself landed with not one, but six work-experience people, all at once, on my own, and with about ten minutes warning via the age-old method of a post-it-note on my desk when I arrived in the morning. They were doing an admin qualification through one of our delivery partners and my boss was in one of those "can't say no" situations.

Trouble was they all had a checklist of things they had to do, half of which weren't things we ever actually DID. Like "sending and receiving faxes, observing the necessary procedures". Procedure number one, finding something harmless to keep all six of them occupied in an office that gets crowded with four people in it, while Batsgirl tries to find the dusty instruction manual for the equally dusty fax machine which has neither sent nor recieved a fax in the entirety of her period of employment...

My masterpiece was probably "You see this blank form? This is the format in which we collect client information. We're trying to get computerised (like hell we were, confidentiality meant no recognisable client data on the computers). So using this as a guide, can you hop onto Word and create some blank files for future clients on these diskettes?"
( Batsgirl, Wed 16 May 2007, 14:53, Reply)

My Work Experience...
... was UBER cool! Went to "Curly Music", a guitar shop in the centre of Liverpool. Sat around playin' guitar all day and just lazin' around. Most relaxed environment ever. At the end of the two weeks I got paid £50 and got given LOADS of free stuff!

I was a happy chappy!

Regards,

Narna
(narna ... the cunning linguist, Wed 16 May 2007, 14:29, Reply)

got high.
i was sixteen, working for an events production company. I had designed a set (woo gcse art), and was now having to cut foamboard (henceforth my mortal enemy) and glue bits of it together to make miniature podiums etc. in a VERY small room, with lightboxes, no other light, and no ventilation.
consequently, the fumes gathered, and i ended up quite smashed.
my teacher chose this exact moment to 'check on my progress', but my 'mentor' (who put me on the job in the first place) stepped in and flirted with her till she was all fluttery and went on her merry way.
so not terribly interesting. sorry.
(niceandwarmandhot vive la résistance, Wed 16 May 2007, 14:23, Reply)

being the hopeless gimp
my work experience was to be in an engineering factory
1st day make tea
2nd day make tea
3rd day dropped the teapot
4th day new teapot
5th day dropped new tea pot
6th day: learning how to weld cos i was a clumsy tnuc! apparently....

lenght? in your mum it feels great!
(mickturate if i could be arsed i'd be bored, Wed 16 May 2007, 14:18, Reply)

Good tales about being useless
Several months ago I was doing work experience after I finished my Art School degree at a marketing company in London. I was signed up for 2 weeks, all very well and good. But due to my incompetence and inability to read a calendar, i over booked my hostel and the flight back to Aberdeen by a week.
So i asked if I could stay another week and by the Thursday they offered me a job.
8 months later I'm still here, a testament to bad planning and things coming up roses!
(kintore_homeboy tenuous links since 1986!, Wed 16 May 2007, 12:59, Reply)

Testing
Fuck knows how I managed it but I got a job after uni as a test and installation engineer. This involved assembling chemical analysis kit (GCMS)(£1M each in 1990) in the UK, testing them, dismantling them and reassembling them overseas.

It was stupidly well paid, but only when you were away installing - they had a scale, £25 per day week days, £50 per day weekends 'location allowance', £50 a day on food, tax free. I was on £500 a week after tax, not bad for a twenty year old - hah more than I earn now :(

Sounds great? Only problem. I qualified in Chemsitry, and after the paultry 4 months training it became clear I needed the following degrees/quals:

Electronics engineer, capable of reading circuit and logic diagrams, using a logic probe (whatever the fuck that is)
Sparks capable of wiring up three phase mains etc.
Plumber capable of connecting up the hoses, chillers etc for pumps, water cooling etc.
Engineer capable of fiddly jobs, allen keys a gogo.
Linguist (had to train the foreign customers)
Consummate bullshitter (fucking things were prototypes and didn't work properly)
Sociopath (spending 6 weeks on my own in northern Sweden is not as glamorous as it might seem)

I spent my four months training in the electronics engineering labs with the uber geeks.

One of the scariest things we had to do was work with 50 killer(sic)volt power supplies.

These had huge capacitors for storing the charge, and had silcone sealant (bath sealant) over the two metal contacts to stop them shorting.

The thing was, they used breakdown and to fix them, you had to check they were discharged first. This involved insulating yourself then gingerly removing the silicone. Once the bare contacts were exposed, the circuit board was flipped over onto a metal surface and BANG the charge (if there was one)dissapated.

I'd done this a couple of times without soiling my trousers but I managed to leave a bit of sealant on one, and thinking it wasn't charged (as it didn't bang), I set to work replacing it.

The shock was so violent I ended up hurling it across the room at George, the pineapple faced QC manager. He ducked. I missed :(

They had another chap there, repairing one in situ in a confined space. He got a 'bit of a tickle' off one and his arm jerked back, but because of the cramped space he hit his funny bone (elbow reflex) on a metal bar. The pain from this and the reflex jerked his arm forward, whereupon he got another shock. This carried on for some minutes until the other engineers stopped laughing and unplugged him....
(Countryslicker, Wed 16 May 2007, 12:49, Reply)