What was your work experience placement at school?

[OneUmberJoker]

It was at a local garden centre

Travel Agents, very catty place and I spent the whole week stamping the back of travel brochures.

We didn't have work experience (end of the 70s) but at our school in the 6th form you spent one afternoon a week in a workplace. I had a term in a nursery, 2 terms in a school for children with special needs (as it was then called) and a term at our local hospital in the OT department. It was a really good insight into different work environments.

Two weeks at the Assay Office spent sat at a vice stamping hallmarks onto silver bracelets. Every bit as mind numbing as it sounds, didn’t bother going on my last day!

I spent a week at the Highlands & Islands Tourist Board in Inverness when I was 16.

I'd moved to england from Inverness a couple of years previously and I just wanted to go "home" and stay with my pal for a bit.

Honestly can't believe I was allowed, it was 1991 though 🤣

Should have been the police. They withdrew the placements a week before and I ended up at Age Concern as every other place had gone. Hated every second.

In the 90s, and I did a week helping out in a primary school classroom, which was the default option for girls who hadn't organised their own placement. I don't recall ever having expressed an interest in working in a school, and I hated it, so at least I ruled it out as an option.

2 weeks at New Look. Ended up getting a Saturday job from it which was the envy of all my friends in the late 90s! Then they took me back part time for a few years after I dropped out of college. Loved it at the time but would absolutely hate to work in retail now!

I never did one it wasn’t a “thing” then

I worked in an estate agents. It was good fun, they were hilarious

I'm quite glad to hear that. I applied to Bliss and then had to cancel as I hadn't done any GCSE revision 🤣. I've often pondered if I missed my big break into the publishing industry.

Before that I did two weeks in Jaegar clothes factory. I learned that I didn't want to work in a factory. It was in the middle of the big heatwave in the 90s and one day they had me stacking pressed cloth on the heated conveyor belt for a few hours as they forgot about me. I had sweat pouring down inside my top and at lunch time I went to get macdonalds and burst into tears under a tree with exhaustion. 😅

Local library back in the 80’s. I loved it but already had a job in a bank lined up so went that route instead.

At a local hairdressers. They made me load the dishwasher as the first thing I did as they all sat around chatting in the staff room.

A week in a special needs school. I don’t remember if we were asked what we wanted to do or if we were just sent somewhere but as the teacher who organised the placements told me, I was a band geek from a small town in Scotland, there was literally no where they could send me that had any relevance to what I wanted to do.

I did it twice. The first time on the music counter in a department store and the second time as a lab assistant at a petrochemical plant. Both in the 90’s.

Late 80s, local primary school. Had no desire to teach but had to be somewhere I could get to myself. Found it exhausting, don't remember anything I did except playtime duty but did take a photo of my class (reception age) at the end.

Dd1 did her old primary school because she wanted to work with children. Dd2 had no clue and ended up at the local leisure centre with zero interest.

Logistics and lack of interesting contacts screwed us all really!

I desperately wanted to do it as a stage hand in the west end show of Cats but ended up helping in a primary school. I did not become a teacher lol

I went to a bank in central London. Arranged by the school. I think now they have to arrange their own and I’ve had several people come to me for work experience (civil service) but they have to be people I know due to the fact they’ll hear some stuff that would be of interest to the press!

Mine was with the police! They made me sign the official secrets act and then sent me off out with various officers!

I went to a burglary, sat in on interviews (including giving my name for the tape!) I went to a suspects house after they were caught stealing clothes in the town centre - they were looking for a detagging device, I went to some sort of halfway house to interview a drug addict about some info he had on a dealer. They also took me to a police involved traffic accident scene to gather evidence and photos witg the accident investigation team. Then I ended the week doing a spell on the reception desk, lost property and then down in custody!

I can’t quite believe they let a 16 year old ever tag along on stuff like that! Would never happen today! I bloody loved it!

Working at a florist that was next to the underground station my dad was a supervisor at. I’d say it was a great experience… until someone jumped in front of a train right in front of me 😓

At school in the 70s, didn't do it. However, had a job for a few hours, after school at 14 in a greengrocers, Saturday girl in Dolcis at 15, did holiday cover in an office before college started at 16, then a few weeks in an office, when on college holidays. I started work at 17, even then had a few side hustles!

I did it in 1979.
2-weeks in the drawing office of a large (then nationalised) utility company.
Didn't influence my choice of career as I never wanted to be a draftswoman anyway but it was a good placement and showed me what a large, close-knit, happy office environment was like.

One was in a pharmacy and the other in a local primary school

I wanted to be a vet, but the only work experience my (utterly awful) school could get was a week at Petsmart - a few months before it became Pets at Home.

I hated every second. All the animals were sick but were not treated, the first task of every day was fishing out and recording how many had died overnight. Was yelled at several times by customers who had bought animals a few weeks before that had subsequently died. Had to scrub animal cages with neat bleach and no PPE ( at first I didn't understand why I went home with red and painful hands) and the permanent staff were downtrodden, miserable and uninterested.

Two weeks in a vets, it was bloody brilliant and I ended up with a Saturday job when I finished. Convinced me I wanted to be a vet unfortunately just missed out on the grades.

It had to be tourism related for my GCSE so I worked at a holiday park for a week. I was already working 4 evenings and one weekend day a week at another holiday park so they realised I was capable and left me to it; i spent four days getting people booked in, helping clean caravans and putting welcome packs together, and then cooked moussaka in the restaurant with the chef on the last day.

I enjoyed it but 14 year old me was fuming that they hadn't just let me do the equivalent of full time hours at my existing job so I could have gotten paid for my work experience 😂