School Work Experiences

[IainMorton]

I spent a week at the TSB bank on Byres Road. Didn't hate it but at the same time I didn't enjoy it.

I remember the week before I went I was given a schedule of what I was going to be doing during that week, and one of the days included 'counting and sorting money'. So there was me, 15 years old having images of sitting there in the back room counting all these notes worth hundreds or maybe even thousands of pounds. Imagine my seethe when loads of bags of silver and copper coins were dumped in front of me!

[Aidan]

I done 2 weeks work experience at Scania in Aberdeen which was alright I suppose, then I got to do another week at Matrix in Brechin which was a great laugh, basically just doing the pre-assembly for servo brakes. Actually ended up going back to work there when I was 19 but it was different management and it was nowhere near as enjoyable as I'd remembered.

[Dee Man]

I was basically Juice Terry for my 2 weeks work experience.

[AyrshireTon]

12 hours ago, throbber said:

I worked for my parents friends company where the work involved both practical/lab work and a bit of office work. All I recall from the week was that annoying as f**k song by I Monster was popular amongst the staff and I thought nothing about slipping off to the toilet for a fly tug whenever I got bored.

I presume you mean "Daydream in Blue"

Anyway, I went to National Semiconductor - probably because my dad worked in the local IBM plant and I wanted something similar. Was decent enough, and really prepared me for life as a teacher.....

[Aladdin]

My school only made it compulsory if you didnt already have a job.  Being employed at 16 as one of McDonald's foremost burger flippers, I managed to convince the school to simply let me go to work instead during the week.

Signed up for about 2 extra shifts if I remember correctly and spent the rest of the time sitting on my arse at home.  

On of the best (worst) story about work experience I heard was from a mate at uni who got sent to some sort of chicken farming/processing plant.  She had to separate male from female chicks with one sex immediately being forwarded to be gassed.  Being an animal lover, she only lasted one day as Josef Mengele in the poultry concentration camp before begging for something else.  I like to think that role was probably provided every year simply to identify potential adolescent psychopaths who would come back after the week telling everyone what a rewarding experience they had.

[Cardinal Richelieu]

37 minutes ago, Aladdin said:

My school only made it compulsory if you didnt already have a job.  Being employed at 16 as one of McDonald's foremost burger flippers, I managed to convince the school to simply let me go to work instead during the week.

Signed up for about 2 extra shifts if I remember correctly and spent the rest of the time sitting on my arse at home.  

On of the best (worst) story about work experience I heard was from a mate at uni who got sent to some sort of chicken farming/processing plant.  She had to separate male from female chicks with one sex immediately being forwarded to be gassed.  Being an animal lover, she only lasted one day as Josef Mengele in the poultry concentration camp before begging for something else.  I like to think that role was probably provided every year simply to identify potential adolescent psychopaths who would come back after the week telling everyone what a rewarding experience they had.

Is the job of chicken sexer not really difficult, as the differences between the males and females is so minuscule that the untrained eye can't see it? Sure I saw something on QI about chicken sexers earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. 

[tamthebam]

12 hours ago, Rab B Nesbit said:

With a limited number of work places different schools in authorities take weeks spread out across the year. 

Bigger schools tend rely on more pupils finding their own placements. 

From first hand experience it takes some organising! 

You're missing a trick Rab- it's close season so get a couple of young Midlothian ne'erdowells down to Fergie Park to paint the dressing rooms, cut the grass, clean out the pie oven, paint a sign saying "Reserved for Sir Peter" on the grassy knoll etc.

[Enigma]

Went to a surveyors. Was alright actually. The best bit was when we went to the Northern Lighthouse Board on George Street in Edinburgh. It was pretty cool seeing inside there.

 

What was less cool was waiting for some daft woman to finish up in her bathroom.

[Aladdin]

1 hour ago, Cardinal Richelieu said:

Is the job of chicken sexer not really difficult, as the differences between the males and females is so minuscule that the untrained eye can't see it? Sure I saw something on QI about chicken sexers earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. 

Perhaps - she may have just been the equivalent of a guard facilitating transport to the gas chamber rather than the Mengele-esque selector themselves.

[ginge123]

I didn't really want to do work experience so I worked in Asda.

I worked in the produce section and spent most of my time hiding in the fridges to avoid actual work. To be fair though, some of the guys I worked with were oddly interesting, made time go by a bit quicker I suppose.

At the end of the week Asda gave me a £10 voucher, which I used to buy a Funkadelic CD and the guys I worked with chipped in to give me £40, which I think went on cigarettes​, booze and take aways, which I know in my heart of hearts they would have wanted.

[D.A.F.C]

On the flip side when I was working in an electronics factory there was a lad in for work experience. Our boss in the test department actually tried to make him sit there and properly work and test stuff. He hid in the bogs as a result and at the end told the general manager "I'm I f**k" when asked if he would be coming back after school.

The one and only time someone spoke back to him. We were all mentally high fiving each other for the rest of the day.

 

[deej]

Got a week in a slaughterhouse, thought it was going to be interesting seeing the whole process of how a cow becomes a burger.

Took a bad turn though, when they asked if I wanted to stun the cow.

I wanted to give it a go, then the funny b*****ds handed me a sledgehammer instead of a bolt gun. Spent a full morning cow-bashing before packing it in, should have seen their faces when I came in covered in bits of blood and skull.

Not going back. 

[LiviLion]

Done mine at a charity shop through in Bathgate, first day it was going between pishing down with rain and snow, tried to be smart and cut out 10 minutes of my walk to the train station and cut across a bit of grass, slipped and got my trousers covered in mud. Couldn't be arsed turning back so just tried to use my jacket to clean it/blend it in. Train ended up being delayed and when I finally got there I couldn't find the place and ended up walking past it a couple of times. So my first day I was about an hour late, soaked and covered in mud, and spent my first little while trying on trousers so I didn't look like a total mink. 

One of the days at lunch some old woman made some very weird comments about taking me home, wasn't even a wid. I had one woman try to get the price of a pram down, it was only about 40 quid and for charity ffs.

Other than my scumbaggery on the first day it wasn't bad, they hardly had any customers so was just sitting doing nothing most of the day, and sent home early. 

[atfccfc]

Worked in Intersport for a week. It was during the 1990 world cup so remember being allowed to go over to the TV shop across the road to keep an eye on the scores. IIRC two of the games I watched were Ireland V Romania and Scotland Costa Rica. 

Also got sent to the bank with the takings to deposit them with them (have to admit I was very nervous) was also sent on the lunch run (but got free McDonalds)

Also got annoyed at having to stay until 5pm on the first day as School usually got out at 3.30pm!

[steelmen]

I was one of the last to get mine from the big sheet so imagine my surprise to see Fir Park still on the list. Never looked at the top section that said 'schools'. so my work experience was at Fir Park School, which is the special needs school in Motherwell just round from the ground.

It was alright. Spent most of my time in the PE department and trying to chat up a couple of girls from another local school doing their work experience.

Highlight was lunchtime football, I was like Pele playing against kids who could hardly walk never mind run. Add in the fact the keeper could only use one arm and I scored my first ever quadruple hat trick!!

[BFTD]

11 minutes ago, steelmen said:

"...the special needs school in Motherwell just round from the ground.

It was alright. Spent most of my time in the PE department and trying to chat up a couple of girls..."

I can't be the only one who needed to read that twice.

[Sergeant Wilson]

2 hours ago, LiviLion said:

Done mine at in a charity shop in Bathgate

 I couldn't find the place and ended up walking past it a couple of times. 

Easily done in such a sprawling metropolis.

[Miguel Sanchez]

I was one of the normal people who didn't get something organised, had to pick a bunch of stuff that was on a board in the library. I vividly remember trying to decide with one mate which of us would take "book shop" and which hotel. He ended up with a job out of the latter which I'm pretty certain was paying something like £4 an hour to the assorted 14-17 year olds it employed. I'm sure it still does.

Anyway, the book shop in question was the WHSmith one in Glasgow Airport. To whoever it was who posted about following maintenance guys around in there, someone else from my school was doing his work experience in the airport so we'd have lunch together. Him sat telling me how he got to go on all these planes and be shown around, how he'd be out helping shoot birds on the runway. Me, aye, I put stickers on all the chart books. Fucking magic. I'm pretty certain on my first day I alphabetised the entire place properly (which amounted to about ten shelves tbf). Decided after that first day I didn't want to work for a living. Aside from all of that tedium the only other things I remember is that the airport was freezing and the Time Crisis machine in the arcade was brilliant.

The only money I got was a tenner from someone whose phone I found on the ground under one of the table displays. I felt guilty accepting it since I had been too much of a shitebag to pick it up when I first noticed someone standing next to it, but then I suppose he could have said it was his when it wasn't. I bought Blackened Sky by Biffy Clyro and Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge by My Chemical Romance with it on my way home.

The only other thing I remember about my work experience week is that at the end of it I kissed a girl for the first time. Sobering to think this was ten years ago this October.