The first thing I did after that was to walk around the pharmacy segment of the store. As I was walking around the store, the security man asked my name, I replied “John”. He then asked me “how old are you”? I responded “15”, the shocked man said “no way! You look like the new store Manager”. I couldn’t help myself from laughing and replied, “I’m here on work experience”. I then suddenly saw Nina so I stopped my conversation because I didn’t want to create a bad impression.
She took me to the head pharmacist, Mrs Kapoor. She was quiet a tall women with black hair and hazel eyes. She appeared to be a kind lady and seemed pleased that I hade come along because they were short of staff. Mrs Kapoor then introduced me to the members of staff I would be working with. I had come to this work experience, expecting to do something in the medicine line. Unfortunately I was on the wrong end of that line. Instead of actually learning how medicine is made and separated, I was stacking a whole load of drugs and men’s deodorant. After about two minutes I was seriously bored, and this was just the first hour out of the eighty I had to do.
After my eventful and hard working first day, I arrived in the next day felling utterly miserable. Nina took me to the cashier’s office. There was a massive safe in a relatively diminutive room. I had a look in the safe and it had so much money, that it was unthinkable. This Boots store wasn’t a very hi tech branch as Nina explained, so money had to counted by hand. At first I thought that must take ages, but I was proved wrong because, there were two men, who were capable of counting 500 notes within a minute without a single miss calculation. I found that fascinating. I had a go at trying to count a couple of hundred notes, I couldn’t get the exact number the first time but got it after a few attempts.
That was most eventful job I had done so far, but the next room Nina took me to was much superior. It was the games room; it had a full size snooker table, table tennis tables and a couple of dartboards. I was eager to play but couldn’t because I had to many jobs to do. Mrs Kapoor explained the things I was going to do in that day, it involved stacking more shelves and helping with a display board, which the staff is assembling. Lunchtime was a time for putting your feet up and just resting, I hardly get to sit down, so lunchtime is the perfect opportunity. After I had my lunch I wet down to the games room to watch some snooker. I played a couple of games but I only get an hour for lunch so it flies by. The afternoon passed reasonably quickly as I had a fair number of jobs to do like, more stacking, scanning photos and counting money.
On the fourth day in the morning, I was busy working when suddenly a piercing bell began to ring. I thought it must be the fire alarm. I hurriedly took the nearest fire exit, as I saw in the video. The exit led to the back of the shop where I saw some of my colleagues. Everyone seemed to be glad to get out and have a chat. I assumed it was just a practice as we were back in rather quickly.
The next week saw two new arrivals, I was glad because now I had someone to talk to who is my own age. There was a girl named Monica, who was quiet, short and chubby with long hair and a boy named Dennis, who was pretty tall and slim, he had spiked up hair. Monica started stocking shelves like I did and the boy went to the stock room to reduce items. I thought that was really inequitable. This week I didn’t do the usual of stacking shelves; instead I was reducing items with Dennis in the stock room. It wasn’t too bad because I got to know him and we got to sit down. We priced the items as slow as possible by purpose so we wouldn’t have to stock shelves.
Although the place where I worked wasn’t exactly luxurious or interesting, there was an air of cosiness in it. I felt this because the environment around me was so pleasant and sociable. They were very encouraging, supportive and made me feel welcome. I didn’t really enjoy my first day, but as the days went on my enjoyment grew and this was a dilemma because on the last day I didn’t want to leave.
When the last day arrived, I did my duties as usual. I was very much acquainted with everyone around my department, especially Mrs kapoor who showed her appreciation by buying me lunch. It was then that I realised how much I would miss everyone. It was really depressing to think that I would never do these duties again. It was even saddening to leave all the new friends I had made. I was exactly in a position of a temporary worker, who is about to leave except I don’t get paid.
As I was saying farewells, I might have appeared jubilant but in fact I was quiet poignant. I thought I would never meet any of my new friends again until Nina suggested that I should visit regularly. She made my farewell less emotional by saying “I will try to find you a summer job if you want it”, I replied, “ I’ll think about it”. Nina then handed me a white envelope, I wasted no time and opened it straight away. I just couldn’t believe it, it had £50 in it and I just can’t describe the emotion I went through that moment. I walked out of the doors knowing I could return.
I had been at work experience for two weeks and I did have some tedious jobs. But I knew it would be difficult to adapt to school life again. I contemplated how it must be like for someone to leave a job after twenty years. At work I was being treated as an adult and I knew I would have to put up with being treated as a child in school. I think I was one of the luckier students on work experience because, as far as being in pleasing surroundings and working with pleasant people, someone was always making sure I was happy.
