I was told to go in on Monday morning at “around 10 or 11 o clock”, so I chose a happy medium and went in for half ten. This was a nice lie in for me. I travelled by metro, this took around 45 minutes, which was ok if I had a complimentary newspaper to read, but two days out of the five it was not, so I had a very boring journey to work. When I got off the metro, I used the map I was given, a drawn one, which exploited the reason Jen, the editor, was a journalist, and not an artist, to get to the workplace. This was not the most accurate of maps, and at one point I found myself turning around on the spot, in a not so brief moment of confusion. However, I eventually got to work, and was greeted by Jen. I was shown around, the company was based in a large building, however it was shared between four businesses, and we were on the right hand side of the building on the bottom floor. I was shown the important things first – the fridge, kettle and teabags (there were two of each, one set belonged to the other business that was there, I was under strict orders not to use their stuff, because the previous week, the fairgame company had ran out of teabags, and used the other businesses teabags, they were somehow found out an all hell broke loose. I was then introduced to the team of workers they had, and to my own desk, which had a computer. I was then later shown the health and safety procedure, which contained a top of the range medical kit – two plasters (one square, once rectangle) and a notebook. As always, no expense spared.
Once I had been shown the ropes I was given my first task – check the online forum that they had to see if anyone had been saying unacceptable things. This was fine with me, until I found I had to read about 300 comments on about 35 different subjects, this took me about 2hours to check through and I found nothing unacceptable on it.
It was now the highlight of the day – dinnertime meant one thing and one thing only – The Sandwich Man! He travelled around in a van full of, you guessed it, sandwiches! When he came and sounded his noise (which is indescribable) it was a mad rush as to who could get there first. After that excitement, it was back to the usual day.
In the afternoon I was given what was quite possibly, the most fun task that I have ever needed to undertake – I had to look through 5 cardboard boxes, containing hundreds and hundreds of photographs each, and pick out 15 photographs which showed girls football. Thrilling. That took me about 3 hours, and I think that watching paint dry would have kept me more entertained. Well, that was the end of my first day, but I could not go home yet as I had to attend a classroom session and training for my football club, which lasted 3 hours, I did not get home until around 9.00, which meant I had been out of the house from 9am until 9pm. This made me feel very hungry.
My second day was on par with my first as far as boredom goes, I was told to write an article on Goalkeeper Gloves for the next issue of the magazine, this left me sitting baffled for about 30minutes until I began to do some work, as I did not have the slightest clue where to start. I continued with this article until around 2 o clock, doing other tasks in-between, such as interviews and finding pictures for the magazines and websites. I then went out with the editor and writer to watch how they organised sponsorship, I ended up sitting down, on a block of wood, extremely cold, for a very, very long time, this was because, just as we were going to leave, the man started a completely new conversation about random topics, such as kangaroos and space. The only upside to this meeting was afterwards, in which I got a lift home because the writer was going to the town.
The rest of my week was much more interesting, I wrote interviews for players, edited the website, found pictures for the website, and also put the Christmas tree up. One of my interviews went onto the website, I was also interviewed myself, this was also put onto the website. Also, on a higher note, I managed to make just two cups of tea during the entire week, this was either because they were extremely kind people or that my tea making ability was incredibly poor, I think realistically, the latter is more probable.
By the end of the week I was sad to leave, what started as the most boring thing I have ever endured ended as a very valuable experience. I was also disappointed to leave as I would miss the friendly and funny atmosphere that surrounded the office, everyone was very kind and talkative with me, and they made me feel welcome from day one. I will also value my nickname ‘Helen the Christmas work experience elf’ forever. Although I enjoyed my week, I have decided that I do not want to pursue a career in journalism, as I would prefer a more practical approach to work. At the end of the week I felt completely fine, as my day was spent sitting down, doing work, but also talking to my friends on msn messenger. From this experience I have also mastered the game blast billiards and have since completed all versions of it. Thank you for your time.
