I didn’t care where I worked now so I went into any shop and asked if they did work experience and if so I would be able to work there, but almost all of them said that they do work experience but they are full as it was short notice. The others places just said that they didn’t do work experience. I had now reached a point where I felt like crying and going home but my mum managed to convince me that I would find a placement but unfortunately she was wrong.
It was now 6 o’clock and the majority of the shops where closed and I went home and started thinking about what I was going to tell Mrs. O’Connor. About 10 minutes after getting home my aunt rang to ask if I had any luck, and I told her ‘no.’ she then went on to say that it would be possible to work at her old job. When she told me this I was delighted and she told me it was at a chemist and I thought ‘oh, this could be interesting’ and I screamed ‘ahhhhhhhhh’
On that same day I rang the chemist up and asked them myself, if it was okay for me to work there and the manager said yes and asked if he could meet me. On that very same day at about quarter to seven I went into the chemist and took the pink form and asked if the manager could fill it in, he was more than happy to fill it in and I asked him what time I would start and finish, and he said that I could decide and I was more than happy to. I said 9am to 4pm but on the form he filled in 10am to 3pm, but I didn’t say any thing as the fewer the hours I have to work the better.
The next day I handed in the completed form and for the first time Mrs. O’Connor wasn’t lecturing me. I was then given the parents consent form which my parents signed and I handed in the next day. With only over one week to go I felt like I had actually got somewhere with my placement as everything was succored and I finally had a placement for work experience.
Sunday, the day before I started work experience. Scared, me, no, but I was wondering weather or not things would go well or not? Will they like me or not? Will I be good at the job or not? And do they remember I start tomorrow? All these questions were running around in my head and believe it or not I was getting actually scared.
Monday 24th June first day of work experience and I didn’t know what to wear. I thought to my self what type of place am I working in and decided that I would have to wear something smart but not to smart. I got dressed and my mum dropped me off, I was 10 minutes early. I gave my mum a hug and a kiss whilst she said good luck and gave me her motherly advise.
I opened the door and took my first step. The chemist was a bit busy. I slowly walked to the counter where I saw the manager. He said ‘hello’ and I replied in a quite voice ‘hi’. He told me to come around to the back were he showed me where to hang my jacket and put my belongings. He then introduced me to the other colleges that I would be working with.
The first thing that I was taught was to label the medicine. I had to place labels on the medicine. Although this may sound easy I found out that it wasn’t as I managed to put the wrong labels on the wrong medicine. Labeling the medicine took me over 30 minutes. Once I finished the medicine Flin taught me how to use the till. It wasn’t busy anymore.
I had experience with a till before as my parents owned a cloths shop two years ago but I realized that tills were made differently. Flin showed me how to check the money in and how to open then the till. She also showed me how to find out what change to give to customers if they give more money. I saw a customer come in and she was looking around and at this point I was at the counter this meant that if she bought something I would have to serve her, my heart stared beeping. I was told to always have a smile on my face no matter who comes in to the store.
The lady bought some tissues and some deodorant and she was my first customer. It felt good but scary at the same time. I checked in her deodorant and tissues and said ‘that’s £1.87 please’ I started hesitating and couldn’t figure out what change to give to £2. I used the method that Flin taught me on the till and realized that I had to give 13pence in change. The lady turned around and left the store and I felt so stupid not knowing what change to give.
At about 11.45am a customer came and they wanted to develop a film. Flin taught me that if someone brings in a film I should take his or her name and telephone number and write it in the space at the top of the envelope. I then have to look at the film that needs developing and note weather it is a 24 or 36 film and you then ask the customer if they would like extra sets or matt finish. Once the form is complete I put the film in to the envelope and tell the customer when they can come in and collect there photos, this would for most people be the next day after the time they handed it in unless they wanted matt finish or extra sets. If this were the case they would have to come back in 2 days time.
It was now 12.30 and the manager told me that I could have my lunch break, which was half an hour. Lunchtime was great as there were a McDonald’s two doors away and pizza hut across the road, there was also an Indian restaurant called Jays down the road. On the first day I had McDonald’s and it was a lovely first lunch.
After lunch the delivery of the photos came. Flin showed me where and how to place them out. There was a certain way to put them because it makes it easier to find them when people come in to collect their photos. This would take up half of an hour.
Next day I came in early again, but it was okay because Flin let me go home early. During the day I done the entire thing that I did the day before as well as cleaning the shelves.
On Wednesday we had a math’s exam so I went in at about 12.30pm. I had already had lunch so I didn’t have a break although I could have done with one as all that I done was clean the shelves for about 3 hours. My arms were hurting and my feet felt like they were going to drop off. The rest of the week was as usual. I stacked shelves, cleaned shelves, served people and labeled the medicine.
The next week I learnt how to take people’s prescription when they ask for their medicine. This wasn’t very difficult. All that I had to do was check that they had there name and age on the top and on the other side I had to check weather they ticked the right box according to what there age is and if they had a job. Once this was filled out I would give it to the pharmacy who was the manager. If the prescription was for a person that worked, was not under sixteen or over sixty and did not have any medical reason not to pay for their medicine I would have to charge them £6.20 for every item of medicine.
Flin let me do the prescriptions for the rest of the week as well as working at the till and doing everything I did in the first week, but lucky for me there wasn’t as much cleaning. Great! The week passed by so quickly and before I knew it, it was Thursday my last day. This was because I was going Swanage on Friday. On Thursday I spent most of the day stacking shelves as the new stock had just come in and I also had a visit from my tutor Mr. Hillman which was wonderful as I was hoping not to see any teachers from school and out of all of them it had to be him. Great!
It was about 2.50 and it just hit me that I had about ten minutes left and I realized would most probably never be working there again and that I may not even go back. I realized that although I didn’t enjoy it in the beginning of the week I was actually going to miss working there. When they said that it was okay for me to go they gave me a bottle of exclamation, which is a perfume, I thought this was really condisidarate as not many of my friends got anything and the thought was lovely and it was a perfume that I liked that I didn’t have.
There were many things that I learnt from the experience and the most important I think is that we should not take advantage of life. Everyday I would meet over ten elderly people who came in to collect medicine everyday. Many of them went home with bags full of medicine and I felt so bad knowing that I have a healthy life whereas for these people it must have been hell taking all these different medicines. I spoke to a few of the elderly people and they said that they spent more time taking there medicine than living there life as it was always on their mind that at a certain time they would have to take there medicine and it made me wonder if the things that eat and do are the right things to do if I don’t want to end up like some of those people.
