hmmm
Not my own but a colleague being left alone in the Shell Amsterdam labs with instructions to not touch a certain valve left an awful lot of liquid sulphur all over the place.

I wanted to go to an airport and being told that choices were done alphabetically didn't pay too much attention to my second and third preference. Ended up as a butcher for two weeks but can still separate wings and breast from a dead chicken and knows that tea with whiskey works just fine.
(mortisdead, Sat 12 May 2007, 0:51, Reply)

First day trying out working in a nursery
It was a hot summer and I made the mistake of wearing flip flops, in the vain hope that I would be put in the attic room with the three or four quite ridiculously cute two year old girls who seemed to love me immediately, but no. They put me with the four year olds. The four year old boys, with their stupid little Bull Boys trainers, with the lights in the heels that lit up when they stamped.

Very impressive, yes little boy.

However, I can't help but feel that I might still have a minute vestige of maternal instinct, that my uterus may not have shrivelled up and died inside, that the souls of my unborn children wafting around in the ether would not have to live in the knowledge that, were they to incarnate, they would promptly end up in a bucket, if these little boys had chosen to demonstrate the flashiness of their footwear by walking around in a civilised fashion, instead of ON MY FUCKING TOES.
( Spazzcat jam out with your clam out, Sat 12 May 2007, 0:41, Reply)

not strictly work experience
Just remembered and early work experience that sobered me up somewhat. I was taught a valuable life lesson and matured considerably after this.

I was 16 and had just started working in a dental lab making false teeth. Now, if you don't know, they're cast from an impression of your own teeth. We'd mould the basic shape in wax, then cast them into plastic. We had to mix powdered plastic with liquid plastic (stay with me) then bake it to set it.
Anyhoo... One of the first things I was told is that both the plastics were highly flammable.
Cool thinks me. A 16 year old wannabe pyromaniac and tons of flammable stuff (I'd once 'accidently' set fire to my brothers bed whilst he was in it, but that's a story for another day).
Cut to my first saturday working in the lab on my own. Now the lab was connected to the surgery which had about five dentists and had a waiting room full of people.
Without explaning the motivation, there was:
Me, alone in the lab
A bunsen burner
A pile of powdered plastic
A feckin huge metal drum of liquid plastic.

I'd discovered that throwing handfuls of the powder onto the bunsen burner flame created a wonderful mini forework display.
Equally fun was pouring some of the liquid onto the counter and setting it alight. It burned in ripples and was very cool.
I'd done this very carefully several times when disaster struck.
I'd hefted up the drum to pour some more onto the counter when it slipped slightly in my hands. I managed to stop it from dropping, but must have squeezed it as a jet of liquid shot out of the drum and landed squarely on the bunsen burner.
The rest happened in slow motion.
The flame on the bunsen burner lit the liquid in mid air. The liquid was now flame and shot backwards towards the drum.
Without having time to even think "oh shit" the drum exploded like something out of a bond movie. The top and bottom (thankfully, both pointed away from me) flew off and shot burning liquid all over the walls, ceiling and floor.
I don't remember the rest, but one of the dentists filled me in later.
He came rushing into the lab to see me 'dancing' across the lab trying to put my hair out with one hand and my feet with the other.
Still alight I grabbed the fire extinguisher, pointed it at the wall of flame, screamed "Banzai!" and pulled the cord.
The fire was put out in seconds as the chemicals from the extinguisher put out the flames and then bounced of the walls and put me out.
I was left a jibbering mess and responisble for the entire lab needing to be redecorated.
The nice dentist who found me helped me cover it up and pretend it was an accident, rather than me fecking about with fire.

I never did play with matches after that.
(EvilMeister, Sat 12 May 2007, 0:04, Reply)

Heathrow Airport
As a 14 year old lad, my work experience was in the Avionic/Electronic workshop for BA engineering.

There was this one techie type (I think he was called Norman or Colin or something) who one day decided to make a point of how bored he was by miming slashing his wrist with a scalpel.

He thought the blade was reversed. It wasn't.

Cue massive gush of arterial blood and a quick nip to A&E.

And this guy mends aeroplane parts....
(tree hugger putting the "semen" in "basement"..., Fri 11 May 2007, 23:21, Reply)

The Morgue...
I spent my year 12 work experience at a local morgue (to prepare myself for what I might have to see as a future CSI *fingers crossed*).

Once you got over the smell it really wasn't so bad - though saw a few things it will take me a long time to forget. I was assisting the embalmer, so it was just rotting old people. Had Mr Blue - wasn't found for a couple of months after dead and turned a lovely navy colour, mmmmmmm.


Also got the wonderful chance to hold back the skin of someones face, once it had been peeled back so that the guy could get some kinda of artery in the face (don't ask me what it was, I was trying to pretend the thick cold sheet in my hand wasn't someones face). Found out a week later that very person was one of my friends Grandma's.....oh the memories.

Managed to make my usual array of mistakes, even with the deceased. While blow drying the makeup on some guys face, I turned the hair dryer up too high and managed to blow off a large thin fragment of skin...nice. We just kinda stuck it back on and hoped no one would notice.

Got to hold a human brain, break the rigor-mortis of the eye lids with a hook, wash and dress corpses (ALONE when everyone had to go to a funeral...I'm sure I saw one wink at me..) so overall and enthralling and educational experience. :D
(Strangemiester, Fri 11 May 2007, 22:21, Reply)

miniature chicken wings?? anyone?
I've worked here for about a month now (at my dad's car repair shop) and they finally felt the need to welcome me today. I had to go pick up a car part and when I walked out the front door there was a tiny baby bird lying next to the door, it was dead. Me being sad and a girl I told them they needed to get rid of it. So when I got back was all settled back in at my desk my dad asked me to bring him a piece of paper from inside the desk. When I opened it, lo and behold there lies said baby birdie wrapped in a tiny towel looking right at me. I screamed. Took everything I had not to cuss the stupid fuckers. So I yell at them. My dad's partner claims I didn't tell him what to do with it I just said move it. And so he did. So My dad comes out with the towel in his hand sez he's gonna flush it down the toilet. I go back in the office and there it sits on my dr. pepper can. YaY! I make him come get it, for real this time and I am just praying it's not on the hood of my car. bleh.
( Lisette von Falcon, Fri 11 May 2007, 21:46, Reply)

What career field would you like to work in?
So I put down 'Pharmacy' in both year 11 and sixth form. Where did I end up?

1) Doctor's surgery

Making tea 'just one dunk of the tea bag please', putting up christmas decorations, weighing pregnant ladies and spraying air freshner around after dirty unwashed flea bag family had been in!

2) Boots the Chemists

Getting a bit closer, was near a pharmacy counter! Unfortunately I already had a saturday job in the other branch in my town. Therefore, a week's free labour for Boots and week's worth of shelf stacking and serving old people for me!
(DangerFlange Chamone Mother Hubbard, Fri 11 May 2007, 21:45, Reply)

Christmas work at Currys
A few highlights:

- Getting deliveries of fragile electrical goods downstairs by simply throwing them, which is how everyone else did it.

- Opening the box containing a new Alba "hi-fi" for shop display, whereupon the entire front panel fell off, exposing the shitty cheap electronics within.

- Spending half a day putting up some shelves in the stockroom with another guy. We did a bloody good job, but were then told to stack irons 20 high on them. The next day I walked past and a steam iron fell on my head.

- The chronic BO of the manager and the deputy manager, who was his wife.

- Observing the chronic bullying of the ginger junior manager, who once spent a morning reorganising one side of the stockroom. Assistant manager comes downstairs, says "you haven't fucking done much, have you?" and literally pushes a pile of big TVs on top of him.

- Repeatedly getting electric shocks when cleaning the shop floor TV display.

- Being sent out regularly to buy JPS and Peter Stuyvesant fags for the chain-smoking staff. Usually allowed to keep the change though :-)

- All for a fabulous £1.17 an hour in 1985. I could almost afford the bus fare home.
(rogerzilla, Fri 11 May 2007, 21:43, Reply)

What a bitch
I did the whole work experience thing and learned how to make it hell for some poor little tit.

I wanted to be a mechanic (yes I know, very girly) and my school sent me to the crappiest garage in the whole universe. I was assigned to work with Neville, the alcoholic manic depressive. I once saw him test drive a car with no stearing wheel. Apparently the horn sounded when it turned left, so he took off the stearing wheel and drove with mole grips.

Then I tried heavy vehicle mechanics. By now I should have known better, but I still went and asked for the long weight at the store. I rapidly became more wary and refused to get the bucket of steam.

Move on ten years and I am a work shop manager in a bike shop, building shit hot mountain bikes all day. A local thick cunt school kid turns up and is a lazy fuck. I sent him off to see the shop manager for the following items.

A bucket of cold steam to clean a bike.
A glass hammer to see what I was hitting.
The usual left handed screw driver.
A long stand.
A short stand.
An imperial adjustable spanner for an old Raleigh.

The boss called me into his office and I was mildly disciplined for bullying and wasting the boss's time.

Nowadays I work in a school science department as a technician (yes a more girly job) and occasionally one of the kids is thick enough to want to work with us. They love working with me, I have my own lab, I play loud rock music and Radio 4 and make the bugger inventory the very same equipment they have been nicking or chucking out of the window. I hate the little bastards.
( Rev. Jayneflakes Buy my book, I need the cash for drugs and hookers, Fri 11 May 2007, 21:06, Reply)

work's always been good
although that'll change when i graduate.
but for my work experience i had to go to the EFC academy once a week :(

should've crippled one of the little buggers, i'll never live it down if one of them scores a winner against us in a derby
(cs192 is sucking on a Koala at, Fri 11 May 2007, 20:44, Reply)

I still can’t bear the smell of Edam…
Aside from my paper round (Which was just a thinly veiled excuse for masturbating furiously over freshly stolen Jazz-Magazines in the local nature reserve), my first exposure to 'work' in the conventional sense was in a hellhole they call..... 'Shoe Express'

My god.


Feet.


"Can you measure me young man"

You look up to see a middle age frump proffering her baggy stocking-ed hairy leg with a pungent calloused foot displaying thick yellowing toenails..

"Why yes, I'd love to madam" - I would puke politely

“EXCUSE ME, I bought these the other day and they’re already coming apart…”

Lies the swarthy Pikey woman brandishing a pair of shit-caked clodhoppers, clearly at least a year old and purchased from a different shop - "I forgot my receipt though…"

"No problem, choose another pair" - I would vomit professionally

The fucking smell of that place…

The real killer however, was being forced to dress as a giant bunny rabbit for some wretched promotion, and hand out balloons and sweeties in the local shopping centre clutching a little wicker basket.
As a 15 year old schoolboy with a pube complex, standing smoking a cigarette trying to look cool as every single pupil from my school decided to pass by that day and laugh hysterically was tricky to say the least.

I quit one day after a hellishly intense psychedelic evening where I actually became a mushroom king of some note, I had an epiphany on the stepladder, tucked in a couple of laces out of habit and ran away.

I got a better job sorting rotten fruit in a factory instead.


3 inches.
Cubed.
(wrigglesworth, Fri 11 May 2007, 20:13, Reply)

I did work experience with the sysadmins at Plymouth University.
They clearly didn't know what to do with me, so after showing me round, they gave me the strenuous job of installing Windows XP on a PC they didn't need, entirely to give me something to do. I pressed the few buttons I needed to do this, went for an extended lunch while it installed itself and downloaded various urgent updates, then returned and spent the rest of the day playing Flash games.

Next day I was given the task of manually updating the networking on about 300 computers through the Linux terminal. Worked my way around these in an hour or two (I essentially had to type in two commmands), then had a wonder through town, a fairly long lunch and spent the rest of the day teaching myself CSS and yes, playing Flash games.

Over the next two days I achieved high scores on Motherload and Defend Your Castle, and completed Fishy several times. I also learnt rudimentary JavaScript and XML and spent an enormous amount of time away on the pretext of eating a pasty.

Then, on the final day I got the privilege of going to off-site, where I installed motherboards into computers in the new media room they were building, and got to play with electric screwdrivers. I also watched heavy objects being moved around by straining geeks for an hour or two, but sadly wasn't allowed to help due to health and safety regulations.

A successful week, I think.
(MooCow_Byter, Fri 11 May 2007, 19:12, Reply)

Plastic...Melts?
Er this is a really bad one. On my work experience in Tower Records i was sent into the basement (where no one goes) to shrink-wrap (sort of melting plastic to fit on things) CD's DVD's etc. Only thing is, no one tells me to turn on the Air-con before starting the machine.
So I'm an hour in and the fumes are starting to pile up,I'm feeling...woozy, so woozy in fact that i knock over the HUGE stack of porn beside The Machine (It justifies the capitals).
I bend down to pick up said magazines and ugh.
Cut to an hour later where my very attractive female fellow work experience-er finds me sprawled in a fumes filled basement on top of a load of porn magazines.
Hmm there was compensation though, i got to have as many (2 at most) free things that i liked.
(BobbyDarin Was somewhere Beyond the Sea on, Fri 11 May 2007, 18:45, Reply)

What's that smell...?
I got a summer job working in a mental hospital. On "The Dysentery Ward".

Surprisingly, there was shit everywhere. Ugh.

Length? It was all runny.
( MisterPunch did it that way on, Fri 11 May 2007, 18:43, Reply)

Work experience
I thought I was one of the lucky ones when I was picked by the local vets to spend two weeks work experience with them. It involved:

* Cleaning up poo
* Watching the vet put cuddly fluffy bunnies to sleep
* Carrying said bunny to freezer before being cremated
* Being covered in dog vomit by dog being operated on. Dog then died.
* Helping carry dead vomit dog to freezer
* Assisting in cat castration

Then it was time for lunch.

I had a pot noodle.

The experience scarred me for life.

I decided to work in an office instead.
(disco_al_uk, Fri 11 May 2007, 18:42, Reply)

Is this cheating?
When I was a smaller god, my Dad was self-employed. He ran his own Management Consultancy business. Anyway, he ran this psychometric test on his victims (err, subjects) and had to process the results. This took him two weeks with an elderly, mechanical, hand-cranked calculator. I mean, it was the early 80s, but even so...

One weekend, I was bored, so I wrote a program to do the calculations on our ZX Spectrum (no, really). He was rather amazed by this, and checked it out. All well and good, as it saved him two weeks billable time. Experience of work number 1: Customers will pay two weeks of billed time, but it now takes two minutes = customers will pay two weeks, but you can fit more in.

Anyway, as all good things do, we got busted. It seems that people twigged on to this one. So we changed the plan. He wanted to pretend his business had A Computer, and was therefore Cutting Edge. (Did I mention this was 1983?)

So, to the plan. He'd go to the customer, get them to fill the forms in (he'd basically be billing for staring out the window and drinking coffee at this point). Then, he'd do ten minutes work totting up the numbers. Then, he phoned me 'at the office'. I typed the numbers into our Spectrum, and then took a number to call him back on.

Then, I waited five minutes again, then called him back with the results. He'd thank me politely, hang up, and continue doing whatever it was that he did.

When he got home, he bunged me a fiver. That works out at about sixty quid an hour, which I've yet to better even now.

So, pretty good really. I never did the work experience thing, but I did spend my summers working various jobs. Of which more later, maybe.

(Feel free to click 'I like this' if you remember typing on an original Issue 1 ZX Spectrum 'dead flesh' keyboard!)
(purplegod counting down for Christmas!, Fri 11 May 2007, 18:33, Reply)

Chemicals!
Once of my nice neighbours managed to get me work experience in a university chemistry lab .... one of my morning jobs was to refill the lab Toluene containers, carrying round buckets full of what amounted to nail varnish remover was definitely a learning experience.

Oh, and I had to make sure the solid CO2 (dry ice) was filled ... I conscripted the help of a friend in the building of a portable insulating containment chamber (polystyrene box) in order to requisition some, requiring a covert filling of pockets with steaming CO2 and running into the toilets to fill the box while my boss took a giant poo next door.

Lest I forget 'mercury cleanup' involved cleaning up the contents of broken thermometers with a dustpan and brush and pouring it all in an old beaker for later re-use, (super interesting side fact: mercury is surprisingly heavy). I'm sure that was healthy.

I had another work experience placement at a pharmaceuticals factory, that was also surprisingly fun, though I don't they were too happy with my accidental contamination of the Gas-Liquid Chromatagraph ... which caused a whole weeks worth of data collection to be off.

Much woo for chemistry labs.
(Mr_Rigby, Fri 11 May 2007, 18:14, Reply)

Not so much "ha ha" funny. . .
I was forced to work at a cattery/boarding kennels in the long lost days of Year 10, which is good because I love animals. But when the place is run by the foulest, stupidest people on the planet then a love for animals can't override the complete and utter despair you feel.
Handy dandy bullet point summary, because I am lazy:

- Was yelled at for not answering the phones even though I'd had no instructions on what to do if someone was making a booking
- A distressed cat had a tea towel flicked in his face repeatedly by the shit-for-brains blonde girl who was also working there. Making cats upset is funny apparantly.
- Frightened dogs were dragged around by their collars and told to either "f***ing shut up you f**kfaced dogs or I'll deck you" if they barked
- The kennels and cattery were freezing cold and the cats basically had a tea towel or a scrap of carpet to sleep on unless the owner brought something in
- A cat who was desperate to escape would climb the screen door on the outside run and eventually fall onto the concrete below, all while people laughed at her
- The foul owner let her equally foul family come in and paw at the animals with their grubby mitts, which included dragging the shy cats out of their cages and manhandling them
- I was called incompetant for not doing jobs that no one had told me to do. I said I wasn't a bad worker and was basically told that I actually was and was lazy.
- I was yelled at for taking three seconds too long to respond when called, despite the fact I had my head inside a cat cage and didn't hear the first time
- I was taken aside and told I was fired about 3-4 days into it
- Afterwards the owner admitted that she didn't like work experience students

The kicker? She'd made the contract with the school and could have terminated it a while ago, but they still accept students to work there.

You don't know long I've wanted to vent my spleen on this. And now I have. Yay!
(Blue Phoenix, Fri 11 May 2007, 17:35, Reply)

Im going next week
to house of fraser

is it good?
(abignumber, Fri 11 May 2007, 17:28, Reply)

jesus
how meny peoples work experince involved solvent abuse in some way?
( willenium Fist bump for verification, Fri 11 May 2007, 17:23, Reply)

Phoo Learns about Chemistry
Well, Im a scientific type, and have been since those halcyon days at school...

So, being top of the science tree, I got a work experience placement at the local HUGE employer to work in one of their laboratories at a realy shitty end of the plant. It was science Jim but not as I knew it, grease and cack absolutely caked the place, this was no place for white coats!
So, during the placement I get talking to one of the oppo's and it sort of comes about that I like science cos Im a bit of a pyro. This chap is typical dodgey lab fodder... too many years around solvents, jam jar bottom glasses magnifying the odd twink in his eye.
"Oh" he says, "you might want a read of this, all the stuff we do in here is shit, but at christmas we make the fireworks out of this book"
At this point he puts into my hand not one of the great academic tomes by such scientific greats as Bhadesha or Atkins, no, its a very well thumbed copy of "The Anarchists Cookbook" : now some years on considered reasonable grounds for the rossers to hold you indefinitely as they fit you up for terrorism. I spent most of the next week reading it when not working, and at the end of the week he said "here, Ive photocopied it for you...." thus setting up two occasions where I nearly landed up in SERIOUS crap ( once including running from the law as my home made rocket fueled on sulfur and match heads was warming up for launch, the second where my "Beer Can Orange Cannon" was fired in a little less than indiscriminatory fashion )

I ended up working for the company (and still do, thus the reason why as to no clues about the business) and asked if he was still creating "projects" from the book.
"No" he answered, "but I have built a tesla coil in my garage..."

Click I like this cos its true and not some contrived shite that someone is posting claiming as their own when they heard it from a bloke in the pub, make me a B3ta darling!
(The_New_Phooey cant draw//cant 'shop, Fri 11 May 2007, 17:14, Reply)

Solicitors
So I went to a solicitors office for my work experience. Had ideas it would be something along the lines of LA Law or at least Judge John Deed. It wasn't.
But I did get to go to court and I saw a heroin addict who was guilty of stealing £14 of vaseline to sell to other addicts for smack.
Genuinely. That was her case.
(cancel my subscription-i'm tired of your issues, Fri 11 May 2007, 17:02, Reply)

Saturday job at Boots, aged 15
Two things kept me amused during this time.

The first was solvent abuse in the warehouse. I'd "accidentally" drop some nail varish or whatever and then spend half an hour "cleaning it up" and breathing deeply...made the afternoons fly by.

The second was hanging out at the photo processing counter (before the advent of digital) and looking through all the mucky photos people brought in. The official line was that we were unable to develop any porny photos, but of course we couldn't tell if they were porny or not until we'd developed them, so there was quite a stock of amateur filth lying about. The funniest part was that all the protagonists in these pictures would come back into the store to pick them up, and I'd have to look them in the eye and say "I'm sorry, we can't develop these pictures as they appear to be pornographic" while all the time thinking "Christ, I've just seen you with his cock in your mouth."
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Fri 11 May 2007, 17:01, Reply)

Work in a studio...
I was playing in a band and we went into the studio to finish off a recording. I very pretty young lass with blonde hair was also in studio as her work experience.
I bet her mother never anticipated her sneaking off with members of the band to a dark room when she sent her off to see the world...
Of course the band was terrible, as for the sex I got cos of it....
(Bluffboy South Africa! World Champions!!!, Fri 11 May 2007, 16:54, Reply)

More temping laziness
Another job I had, actually with the same friend, was as cameramen for a "whole mind and body expo," which was really just one big snake oil convention. People claiming to take pictures of your aura and selling wheatgrass cure-all vegan protein shakes. Our job was to film the lectures, then give the DVDs to a guy at the booth that was selling them. I have never seen such bullshit in my life as these lectures. One guy was teaching people how to use these brass rings called the Rings of Odin, which he claimed would cure any illness by waving them over the affected area. He said he made the rings by shooting them with a beam from a machine which he invented in a dream. The saddest part was people were actually buying these things. Another lecture I had to film was "Transcending the Spirit Plane Through Love," In which an obviously Italian guy with a New Jersey accent dressed up in an indian costume (feather indian, not dot indian) and told everyone to close their eyes. He went around kissing everyone and then said: "open your eyes everyone, we just transcended the spirit plane through love." After the first few lectures I realized that not only was it incredibly boring but there was no way I was going to be able to keep myself from laughing, so I started just putting the camera on a tripod and leaving the room and coming back when the lecture was supposed to end. One time I did that I came back to an empty room. The camera was still recording and I have no idea how long it had been since everybody had left. Another time the speaker walked out of the frame and stayed there for the entire lecture. I'd feel sorry for the people who bought these DVDs, but it serves them right for going to a snake oil convention. I have to say, I did have a little fun while I was there. The best times were eating a Wendy's double bacon cheeseburger in the middle of a lecture on healthy vegan living. There was also a lecture by a "real life ghostbuster" who claimed to have a crack ghost fighting team consisting of 11 archangels that only he could see. It was my job to hand out nametags for that lecture, so I started giving people tags pre labeled with "Egon Spangler," "Gozer the Gozerian," "Rick Moranis," and things like that, and refusing to give people another blank tag. God I hated those poeple.

Length? 2 days, 10 hours a day
Girth? have you ever seen a 350 pound vegan? How do they get that way?
(raulduke, Fri 11 May 2007, 16:32, Reply)

Football boots
When I worked as a teacher one of my responsibilities was visiting the 5th year kids in their placements during work experience week. One of them (I'll call him John, I can't remember his real name) was a shy, retiring kid who'd begged for a placement at a local garage where the mechanics were all rough and ready types. When I visited John it was immediately obvious that he wasn't enjoying it at all and after some coaxing, he explained why.

One of the mechanics had said "Hey, John, do us a favour mate, go and find Dave and ask if his brother still wants those football boots." Keen to please, John complied, and gave Dave, the roughest mechanic at the garage, the message.

Dave's brother had only lost his legs in a motorbike accident a week before, hadn't he?
(eesnahk, Fri 11 May 2007, 16:22, Reply)

Slicing a dead horse
My work experience was at a highly respected teaching establishment for the training of vets.

On my first day, I was taken into a vast room where the students do their practicals. I was led to a pile of preserved cold dog legs. My morning’s task was to sort them into front lefts, front rights, back lefts, and back rights.

After spending a day in labs, and a day in the freezer cleaning gristle from sheep skulls, my worst task was explained. Disposal costs of animal remains are not cheap, and there is no weight to cost ratio. There are fixed prices for animal types, the larger the more expensive. There is also a price for miscellaneous 25 kilo bags. The miscellaneous price is MUCH cheaper than whole carcasses. That morning, they had done a post-mortem on a race horse. It was my task to put this horse into 25 kilo plastic bags, thereby saving the institution a hundred odd quid in disposal costs. I was a dopey child, so when I presented with a scalpel to carry out this task, I did not complain.

A race horse weighs about 500 kilos. The head had been taken for further examination, but that still left about eighteen bags for me to fill with horse. Worst parts: a scalpel’s blade is an inch long; a horse’s guts fill more than one bag; having to break its spine by cutting away surrounding flesh, manoeuvring it over the edge of the table and letting its own weight break it; being elbow deep in horse trying to find the back bone… and my dog licking my boots clean when I got home. I replaced the scalpel blade five times.

Twelve years later. I must salute the guy who made me do it. I was a prick of a public school kid and I needed a taste of the real world.

It could have been worse, the guy that went next week “collected” semen samples from randy rams… and the fool told everyone when he got back to school.

Errr… Some joke about a horse’s cock…
(JuniorBruce, Fri 11 May 2007, 16:22, Reply)

May be irrelevant...
I did a Year In Industry with a certain electricity distribution company and heard many stories about what they did to temps newbies and work experience people.

One particular instance was of an indian chap who went to work with a team working on a pylon ina field in the middle of nowhere. Most of the guys waited till this chap had his boiler suit on then put a broomstick through his sleeve and out the other one so he was immobilised.

They tied the broomstick to the bull bars on the front of a Landy and then drove him slowly around a field of cows.

Apparently they get in trouble for doing that sort of thing now...
(Stanlington Jobsworthy Smythe Last skived off work on, Fri 11 May 2007, 16:19, Reply)

Temping
I worked as a temp for my first two years in college. It was great once I realized that nobody expects you to actually do any work. One of my jobs was at a movie warehouse where they sent tapes to local rental shops. I was working with one of my friends, and all we did all day was take movies out of one case and put them in another, then throw away the first case. We brought a TV and VCR from home and just watched movies all day, and pretended to work when somebody was watching. Oh and we also threw away any movies we liked with the empty cases and picked up the bags from the dumpster on the way home. Over 2 days of work we probably stole at least 150 movies.
(raulduke, Fri 11 May 2007, 16:16, Reply)

Magic Noodle
ok so this isn't really work experience. just a bit of a story. sorry.

I've been a couple of months at my first non-paper delivering job* working at a chinese takeaway shop called Magic Noodle.
I get paid AU$8.50 an hour, just over a dollar LESS than minimum wage, for an 18 year old, which i am. yes, i would get almost 50% more at the golden arches.
so how i got the job is my mum and dad (who had been pushing me to get a job for a while)came home from grocery shopping saying that there was a job going at the takeaway shop, and although they didnt understand totally what the deal was (they went in and asked (yes, my mummy got me my job), but it turns out there is a rather enourmous language barrier) they thought that if i went in at 5 that afternoon i would be able to work for an hour so the noodle magicians could see if i was any good.
so i go in at 5, am given a t-shirt with the logo on, and a 30 second miming lesson on how to use the cash register. i had no idea. within about half an hour the queue had grown to the door thanks to my frustratingly slow ordertaking, and the many many mistakes i had been making.
i'll put in my favourite part of the story now which is when the phone rang and I had to look for a leaflet/menu before i picked it up because i didnt know the name of the shop (so i could answer "hi. magic noddle..." or similar)
anyway, so eventually the orders stop coming and i am sent out back to wash up the ridculous amount of buckets that seem to be involved in running a noodle shop. i had been working for two hours now, twice what i thought i would, and had enquired as to when i would finish, but the question was not understood (i was the only english speaker working, although now there is a younger chinese guy who can act as translator)
so anyway. it gets to about 10ish and eventually i am told when i will work next and sent home(the boss has me write my phone number and points to the next day on the calender, and writes 5:30, i nod to show i know what he means, and then he points to the door and gives me a box of noodles)
this carried on for a week or two until they wisely employed someone who could speak both mandarin and english.
hmm not really a great story. or that accurate. they (i know the boss is named tony, but not the names of anyone else) are very nice, and i have eaten with them at closing time a few times (very interesting, unknowingly ate pigs lung, although it doesnt bothee me)
i am also better at negotiating(miming) now and can work mostly when i want.
the actuall wrost part about the job so far was that last friday my bike was stolen from out back. i did some maths and figured it would take me more than 85hours working there to earn the money to buy it again. fuck.
(woo who?, Fri 11 May 2007, 16:06, Reply)