On my first day at work experience i was really nervous as i had never worked before so i had no idea what it would be like. When i first arrived at the shop, it was still closed as i had arrived there to early, but after 5 minutes of waiting the owner came and i helped him open up the shop. Afterwards I met every one who worked there and i introduced myself to those who didnt know me. There was also another person there from another school who was also taking part in work experience who i made friends with which made me feel more comfortable as i could work with him and not be by myself. My main duties on the first day was to make sure all the sizes of the clothes were in the correct order and also had to make sure all the hangers were roughly equal distances apart fother and that they were lined up straight.
These were my main duties for the whole two weeks at which i was working there. I had a few other duties which included answering the telephone in a polite manner, Helping out with stock taking, Helping customers, assembling rails on which clothes could be hanged from and get the owners lunch from the cafe every lunch time. This all went smoothly with no hickups for the whole two weeks and went better then i thought.I leanrt many new experiences from my work experience and really enjoyed working there and made many new friends who i keep contact with.
As they had two stores, a childrens stores for young children and an adults store for the bigger adult sizes, I had a chance to work in both shops. I found that the adult shop was slightly busier then the childrens shop proberly because not as many people spend great amounts of money on designer clothes for their children and more on themselfs but i was still surised at the amount of adults who brought designer clothes for their children. I started to get the feeling children are getting more and more spolit as i was never brought designer clothes as a small child by my parents and still today I only get a pair of designer clothes once in a while. During the middle of week two, i was totally shocked when a man and his daughter came into the childrens shop and brought over £500 worth of clothes for his daughter who must have been about 12 years old, at first i thought he may be doing credit card fraud but then to be amazed even more when he paid in cash, may be he was extremely rich, although he did not dress like it, as he looked more of a builder then a millionaire.
My high point while doing my work experience was when i made my first sale which i was really proud about and went on to make many more sales which my boss was proud of. One of my lowest points of doing work experience was when i turned up 3 hours late as i had overslept in the morning, which my boss was abit annoyed with but let me off and told me not to come late again. I had attended my work experience every day and did not take any days off and my punctuality was good aswell as my appearence, which i had to dress up smartly unlike a normal day prior to work experience.
Whilst doing my work experince i learnt many new skills like knowing how to use the till which i was allowed to use for small purchases that had been made aswell as finding out how to properly write out a receipt with the correct codes from the clothes. I also was taught how to operate the shutters when opening and closing the shop which was fun to use. I also bettered myself with my communication skills as i had to talk alot more then at school, which is normally just listening to the teacher and getting on with work. I had to talk to customers and be polite to them aswell as being as helpful and kind to them as much as possible.
From work experience i have leant other valuable things which i was not to sure about before, like whether to leave school to get a job after year 11, but from work experience i now feel i would be more better of going into future education as the pay is only £5.10 per hour, which i feel is not enough for the amount of work which has to be done and for the hours being worked. I wouldnt mind working there as a weekend job if i had the time but i have more important things like playing football, meeting girls and doing coursework and revision. The place is a very happy and friendly environment and has given me a possitive attitude to working and now has aimed me in the right direction to what i want to do and how to go about acieveing it.
