More about causality than the actual work
I've gathered from the other stories so far that Work Experience is something official that all teenagers in the UK have to do; being an American one in Holland, I rather think I'm exempt from that sort of thing, so a similar story will have to do.

Last summer (almost a year ago, that is) I finally had a good reason to get up off my ass and do some work: my girlfriend lived in Finland and plane tickets cost money. So after a few weeks of raiding temp agencies, I finally got a job just outside the place I live, a couple days' work in a mailroom belonging to the corporation my stepdad worked for at the time. It was pretty ace as far as mailrooms go- the people were friendly and the job consisted mainly of putting things in boxes in the right quantities, and they had an absolute motherload of surplus goods (corporate propaganda goodies like soccer balls, stress relief homunculi, gummy bears, et cetera, as well as some other random stuff like a huge box of apparently nice water in glass bottles) which they kept giving me, especially on my last day there.

Then, I got a job at a factory which assembled gas and water line hardware, and that one lasted a bit longer than a couple days. The job itself wasn't bad; they had me doing whatever needed doing, which provided some much-needed variety, and besides, I'm not one to fuss about the kind of work in question. Cash is cash after all, and it was me seeing my girlfriend which was on the line. (I think the worst that happened to me at the factory was a busted up hand, hip and elbow from taking a dive during a game of keep-away soccer in the lunch break, and a ruined pair of jeans due to some indelible won't-come-off-'til-you're-dead-and-then-some glue.) So it wasn't my dream job, but the people were all really friendly and it paid decently for a 17-year-old Yankee doing summer work.

Where's the catch, you ask? I'll tell you.

Around a month and a half after the summer was over (in October, do the math), after I'd accumulated something like 600 Euros, my girlfriend decided she no longer wanted to be with me. (Yes, it was as blunt as it sounds, but that's a story for another QOTW.) So I'd done all that work for nothing! *shakes fist* You cu-

Oh. Wait.

I had 600 Euros that I was no longer saving for an extended trip to Finland.

WOOHOO!

I of course abjectly refused to learn anything at all from this, so insert moral here. (Be creative.)

/coat

CK
(CK is rocking out near you (cosmologically speaking), Thu 10 May 2007, 12:38, Reply)