What was your work experience placement at school?

[OneUmberJoker]

It was at a local garden centre

It wasn’t ‘a thing’ when I was at school. Sad really, as if I’d done work experience then I might have made a better choice of career!

First was in an abattoir, second week in HMV - worlds apart 🤣

Thomas Cook! An all female team who all seemed to hate each other. My first experience of grown adult bitchiness. Not that different to high school.

Mine was as a hotel receptionist I was in year 10, they ended up offering me a part time job at 16.

I went to college, whilst continuing to work about 15 hours behind the reception desk and I ended up staying at the same hotel for 24 years and was General Manager for the last 14 years of them.

Absolutely loved it, but I’d done my time in hospitality by the end of it and left aged 40 for a better work/life balance

In a local estate agents office where they all chain smoked inside and I ended up with bronchitis.

Debenhams for a week. Two days of which was spent restocking balls of wool!

A week in a veterinary practice.

With the dietitians at the main hospital where I lived. I have been a dietitian for 34 and a bit years now

With the next council along's archaeology team. The reality of their salaries put me off, but I had a great time, they took me to the pub and taught me pool, and always made sure I got on the train home safely. Good 90s times.

I did mine in the listing office in the Old Bailey. It included meeting the mayor of London and going to different court cases - beginning, middle and sentencing. Was the best experience however don’t think it was really appropriate for a year 10 student

I went to school abroad where we did 2 placements at 14
-Private hospital
-Pharmacy, where I got a job and worked saturdays from school through all of my degree

I also did a student exchange abroad and did another week. I asked for a medical related placement and was sent to a hotel. 1 day front of house, 2 days housekeeping and 2 days with the maintenance/garden men.

The men had a shed with topless calendars everywhere. I was 15! I had to climb up the waterfall of the empty pool to clean out the little pools at the top. The drop would have been 10ft to the bottom of pool! Then push a heavy lawnmower around the grounds getting spiders webs stuck in my hair/face in the lesser used parts of the grounds. Another delight was trying to clear a blocked toilet in a room! No boots, no googles, gloves or any health and safety back then!

FWIW- I didn't end up working as maintenance in a hotel 😆

1 week in a solicitor’s office
1 week in a crèche (and I then got a summer job there)
1 week shadowing an environmental scientist in a factory.

that was 2000-2001

In a school. My Godmother was head. I was placed in with the nursery aged children. Ended up working in the NHS 😂.

Local museum - I've worked in heritage since a year after university so it was a good choice! I organised it myself as I was a regular visitor.

I organised mine too. We were told to, the school would fix something shit if you hadn't.

I had a week at a car hire company. If you ever want to slow down time, that’s where you need to work 😆

A primary school. Spent most of it scraping play doh out of the carpet

There was no work experience when I was at school but almost everyone had a Saturday job. I worked in two different shops and then the local library.

A week at Royal Military Police offices. I met some really interesting people and had to pretend to be a casualty in a military motorcycle accident as we were inspected by the Brigadier. Fake injuries, blood and gore, the lot. The lower rank officers had to show how they would have treated me in that situation.
I loved it and vowed to join the Army, however I met my DH about a year later and I decided against it 🫤

In an office which I think was in a business selling building supplies or something I wasn't remotely interested in. It was very boring, the only thing I remember being given to do was filing. I also remember just sitting about because they didn't seem to have much for me to do. Oh, and making tea for everyone, which I found very stressful because I didn't drink tea or coffee and didn't know if I was making it right! I was supposed to be there for two weeks, but I stopped going after the first week and hung around town with an equally delinquent friend instead. School didn't bother to check up on anyone, and nothing was ever said to me! It was 1988.

Mine was at the local radio station (power fm/Ocean fm) and it was amazing! At that point I think went from journalist to lawyer but I must have said journalist to get the gig (alongside a friend)
we helped on air, put through calls from listeners, helped adverts be recorded. Got a load of free stuff as well and helped out at roadshows afterwards

it has been entirely useless for life going forward but was a really good week!

A car mechanics garage of all places, I had to work from 8am-6pm & it broke me!!! I think I might of even had to work Saturday mornings.

It was a long time ago & I remember that they used to use petrol from a small bucket and brush it onto car engines before jet washing it off to clean the engine bay. This one time the guy has applied the petrol, and then decided to move the car, the ignition of starting the engine set fire to the car which they rapidly extinguished. And then had to replace all the melted pipes etc without ever telling the owner.

My first job from school only went downhill in terms of H&S....

Music shop. I fixed and restrung guitars for two weeks. Absolutely loved it.

Still love music but never worked in the industry.

I'm coming up to 60 and I did it. Maybe it depended on area.

Mine was at a nursery and I hated it. Working with children wasn't what I wanted to do at all so no idea why I was sent there (placements were done through school back then).

outing self so NameChange... I had a semester of volunteering at Sea World (so... 12x8 hour full days?). I came home stinking of fish, my parents complained loudly. Fed penguins or hosed down their (enclosure) excess ice and helped clean out flamingos & parrot enclosures. It was fun but I only got a C grade initially... I begged the assessor to raise it to B and then declined to do another semester because that WE would drag down my GPA too much if I did.

SW ended up not offering more WE to high school students after that and I always feared I did something to upset the penguins too much (!!) While I was there, was a staff member who did something to accidentally destroy some penguin eggs and a red & green Macaw parrot named Sergeant who took a big chunk out of my finger (but I was determined to be his friend anyway). I still have the scar on my finger. Fun times.