The company itself specialises in rare figures and comics, as well as this they sell console games for Playstation 2 , X-BOX and Gamecube, they sell many DVDs. The company get it business from buying and selling second hand games as well as brand new games. The system they have is that you bring in a game you have played and they will give you a price, which you can place towards another game.
The people I worked with were very friendly and told me everything I needed to do in the shop and everything I need to know. They were very helpful when customers asked me about things because they would help me out as they know I want really into the kind of items, which they sell. The manger was friendly although he swore a lot and didn’t really do much to help in the shop.
I looked forwards to my breaks as the shop doesn’t get much business and is usually empty. I had to work from 9.00am till 5.00pm on the upper floor, which was fairly tiring because school hours are much shorter and I am used to them. everyday was pretty much the same as I was doing the same tasks everyday as wasn’t allowed to do anything just because I was underage which I thought wasn’t fair as I was part of the work team and as not getting to handle money , doesn’t really showed that I worked in a shop.
Everyday in the morning had to arrange all the games alphabetically, because customers on the previous day didn’t put the games back where they found them. As the shop takes in trade ins, games which had been taken in also had to go back on the shelf. The main work which I did was tagging books and comics using the tagging gun, I enjoyed it at first but I began to find it bring as I was doing the same thing for the whole week. I was surprised one day because they made me Hoover the whole of the upper floor of the shop, which I thought I would have never have to do. That’s basically what I did for the whole week . I was talking to the workers and they told me that they don’t have many tasks to do in the shops , and that they have been doing the usual shop tasks since they began working there.
Overall I thought that Work Experience was useless and a waste of time because I didn’t gain anything from it. I also thought that the date wasn’t right and should have been changed because one week after the work experience I had 2 GCSE exams which I feel were really important, and after a long days work revising my school work isn’t something I would usually do. Another thing I felt was that instead of the shop making me stand around , they could have made me do more , as I was always waiting for time to pass.
The work experience week was boring, I did what they wanted me to do and nothing more. On the first day I felt more grown up as I was meeting new and different people everyday, however as the week progressed I did feel useless, only because I was limited to what I could do due to age restrictions. The employees did get on well and had a laugh with each other , but there jokes were really weird to me.
Not many people will say this but I would rather have been at school, where I would be able to pas time easily and also be more involved in things. Although working in forbidden planet is an easy job and also money is being earnt easily, the employees were very young, which showed me that they hadn’t made much out of their lived. There was one girl who was 18 and was working full time. I was quite shocked as there are older people who are 18 and are in full time education, and are hoping to become something in their future lives.
I went into the week with no career ambitions and came out making a note of not to work in a shop where there is no future ahead for me and also not expecting anything new. I may consider Woking in a shop when I am older, just so I can earn some money on the weekends when I’m not doing anything. At the moment I am happy where I am. As I think ahead, I am not desperate to work because once you are in a shop , you have to do what the employer says without refusal and also each week will be the same; serving customers and putting stock on the shelves, where as other jobs have new things all the time.
