Work Experience

[Easilyconfused]

I never had the benefit of "work experience". I just started at 16 on an apprenticeship.

I did manage to get my eldest daughter in on work experience at my employer. I have been on delivery project for the last 12 years and it involved a lot of travel at one time and I was very able to choose what work I did. SWMBO was concerned my daughter was getting the wrong messages over the dinner table when I talked about not doing certain tasks because I could find more urgent things to do etc.

So I got her into the office and she quickly found that we work hard and play hard. She also learnt that having a long Thursday lunchtime at a restaurant means you have to work late to finish the report your work experience mentor requires you to complete that day. She came away understanding that not all work is interesting and some things are a real bind but you get out what you put into work (well that works for some employers).

I have had the pleasure of having a work experience person assigned to me for 2 weeks. She thoroughly enjoyed her time and I managed to give her a lot to do and find out about and I learnt some stuff too from the site visits I managed to arrange.

[arabiandisco]

Your daughter was very lucky. I was stuffed in a corner and told to put things in envelopes. And then when that was over I got to type some numbers into a computer and write down what it said.

We don't get <16y.o. work experience at my office (or haven't yet!), but we do have people on the graduate scheme come in for placements. If they last a couple of months then there's some point to the exercise, but often it's for a week, which means I spend 2 days telling them how to do my job, and then they clear off without doing anything more than taking up 2 days of my time. Consequently they get stuffed in a corner with the engineering equivalent of envelopes to stuff, or some fabricated irrelevant task where it doesn't matter if they succeed or fail. If they were here for long enough to actually do something productive it would be better for all concerned.

[ied]

I had a work experience placement at a day care centre and I spent virtually all my time there playing pool and reading Internet message boards. I had no choice but to do that placement (they wouldn't let me swap it) and it was a wasted week as I learnt nothing from it.

Thankfully, other work experience placements I've had have been good. I was at the BBC in March and they had stuff for me to do all the time so I was kept busy and wasn't bored. Further, they had me doing some proper work such as writing interview questions and preparing bits for the running orders etc. Oh, and I didn't have to make anyone a cup of coffee!

Work experience is hyped up, but some people will take it seriously. I do think that a lot of people spend a lot of time trying to get a work experience placement and then end up being disappointed as the placement wasn't what they thought it would be.

[AlanP46]

It's the luck of the draw unless you organise your own thing. I did peripatetic (1) music teaching for my work experience which was pretty fun. I'm on the TfL graduate scheme and I do know of work experience people but they are usually very far away from any operational stuff. I guess for TfL you would have to find a department and write to them via the HQ (see their website for details).

I have stuffed envelopes too, but only as paid work! (Worked in a bank whilst at uni...)

1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peripatetic

[Desiromad]

Cheers Guys, im just leaving year 9 too

I got a interview with the connexions people when we go back but im gonna email National Express East Anglia and see what they say

I tried to get in with National Express East Anglia at the time when it was One, but obviously they are the same company, and had no luck at all. I was fobbed off with 'we don't have enough staff to supervise during those 2 weeks' which was absolute rubbish. So if you try there, and keep getting told one thing and another, keep on trying and pestering as much as you can! Either that or C2C might be worth a try too.

Good luck!

Tom

[tango4262]

I had a work experience placement with Southern at Barnham station, June 5th-9th 2006

that was in year 11 as i missed it in year 10 due to being on holiday at the time.


If you do a search for "Work Experience" you'll probably find the write up i did about it, Was brill.

-I got to work in the Signal Box (under full supervision being told what leavers to pull, and god those levers are heavy )

-Got introduced to a system they were using at the time called "sooti" to record train arrivals and departures and sending them to NR in Croydon (as the TOC are fined for any extra time they arrive late at a station)

-Had to do a bit of cleaning here and there around the station, whilst giving advice to customers about their journeys ( I was wearing a High vis with a walkie talkie)

-Helped work the internal mail train (which is just using any passenger service to get to stations to deliver the internal company mail)

-Worked on POS at Ford, as it was a nice quiet station with a calm flow of passengers

-Also got to work at my local station, Worthing, for a day


-Made cups of tea, as you would expect

-And best of all got to ride in the rear cab of a 377 for a return journey from Barnham - Portsmouth Harbour whilst being supervised/assisted doing Conducter duties, It never occured to me how many curves are actually between Barnham and Chichester

-What they didn't let me do and this was a big fat NO, was interfere when a train was being split or connected there, i was told to just stand back and watch, as dispatch is something you cannot by any means do until you are 18, which is very fair, as it is a very responsible job.


When i reapplied a few weeks later, apparently they had changed their rules on Work Experience, which was sad as i'd have loved to have done that one day a week

But best of luck to ya getting a placement somewhere mate, its brilliant if the companies/staff are fair

Start looking ASAP cos it takes longer than you might think, they took a while sorting out insurance issues etc when i was applying.

Best of luck to you


Dave

[Damo]

Sorry to drag up a week old thread, but anyone considering contacting SWT for a placement may like to take a look at http://www.coxster.co.uk/railworkexperience. That is what I was lucky enough to do, but a mate who did his just a few months later simply did platform/ticket office work. I'm not sure if they changed how they looked after work experience people or if it depends on where you're based and who's supervising you. I was with the Basingstoke guard managers where as my mate was being 'looked after' by the station manager/supervisor at Guildford. Either way it took us each a couple of months to get everything organised from the initial phone call to the confirmation. Also don't leave it to your school's work experience co-ordinator(s) as they don't tend to find things on this kind of level for students themselves.