Work Experience and Important Announcements

Hola! I didn't think I would be back so soon, considering the monotonous work of this week, but alas, here I am! I was going to be back yesterday but I decided to change my theme, which lead to an epic quest which lead me to today, to me making my own header. It's not the best, but I made it myself (out of MS Word and Paint... shhh, don't tell anyone), so I'm pretty darn proud of it.

If any of you read my about page (which would be a miracle if you do) it's gone a bit funny, repeating the post, just with more space. If you know how to fix it, it would be GREATLY APPRECIATED, because obviously, I don't.

In the two days that I have been absent from the Bloggosphere, my mother has lost her phone and I bought a desk, which means I am required to do homework now once it's put into my room - a little bit of shuffling has to be done before that. Unfortunately, since work experience leaves me knackered just about everyday except today, it's not really an option.

Yesterday's work experience wasn't so bad. I had gotten used to the environment, but I didn't have to kneel as much as I did on Tuesday. That was good because I swear to God, I've internally bruised my kneecaps or something. They hurt. However, I spent a lot more time on my feet and the aching feeling refused to go away last night. It was awful.

On the plus side, one of my supervisors became way cool and instinctively called me Tash. I always find it cool how I never tell anyone to call me Tash, and they do anyway. It's like I send off this signal and everyone follows it. I dunno.

Our main supervisor is extremely intimidating so don't expect me to report that I've had a normal conversation with them anytime soon. In saying that, she nicknamed me 'dude', which I think is a start, but it still weirded me out. Anyway.

One of the main things I have done over the past few days is adding shelves/dividers to the shelves. Basically you stick this long thing on the edge of the shelf, which is covered in adhesive, line up the stock, and then click the dividers into place. It hurts your hands, but it's rather rewarding once you get into it. I did the dividers of the cold and flu section yesterday (the stupid Strepsils in particular), and they weren't too good, apparently.

Today, I was exiled to the back of the store: feminine hygiene, toiletries, sunscreen and baby items.
It wasn't so bad. I was separated from the other two, but it gave me a lot of incentive to work (silence and lunch: they work like a charm). I basically added in heaps of these dividers for a lot of shelves, and it gave me a lot of satisfaction even though my fingers and arms hurt. I reached the baby section when I was about to go home, and if I get to back into that aisle, I'll be up to the nappies. That's only halfway down the aisle in one section, but trust me, that's a hell of a lot of progress.

I also found a lot of gross stuff on the shelves (I'm not going to say because disclosure - I'm kidding, but you don't really want to know), and my hands were disgusting and dusty when I was finished. I was also sincerely grateful because I didn't have to add dividers to the pregnancy test section, and the other.... um, awkward section, which was right next to the baby shampoo. WHY WOULD YOU EVEN.

My supervisor, the first one I talked about, mentioned that I had "travelled far". It sure as hell felt like it, because I was moving slower than a snail.

Tomorrow is my last day, and I'm kind of used to the routine I have at work experience, which is kind of weird. I'm not quite sure whether I'll miss it when I leave, because it's not as heartwarming as Mary's placement at kindy, but it's not as depressing as what Kim's experiencing. It's sort of... meh. There's some sort of satisfaction I feel at a good day's work, and that's what I get from work experience, and I think I'll miss that.

We're probably going to get them a little present, and a nice card to say thank you. They've all helped us out and been extremely nice to us, even though we might be annoying and dimwitted at times. They might've given us a lot of work, but I feel like I've learnt a lot from the experience. Like, it's really difficult to work in the retail sector. I wouldn't advise it, really. Working at KMart, teenagers, isn't as glamourous as we all think - even in comparison to Maccas.

... I can honestly say that now I'm ready to enter the workforce. I'm still scared, but I think I can take a lot of the things I've learnt and apply them somewhere else.

Workforce means good things for me as well: I went to the Salvo's the other day, just browsing, and I bought a book. It's a Lonely Planet guide of Western Europe. It's normally like, $25, but I bought it for $4.99, so I thought it was a good bargain.

France featured, with Paris getting a lot of maps, so I was able to find the Latin Quarter mentioned in Anna and the French Kiss and find a lot of the landmarks that featured: the Arc de Triomphe, the Panthéon, Notre Dame, the Luxembourg Gardens... one of the landmarks listed was the Église Saint Étienne du Mont. You can understand why I might've squealed a little.

I haven't read too much of it, since it's massive, but I've read some of the Ireland bits and how to get around Dublin and things like that. It might be outdated (I have no idea), but this is like my new Bible. It's a way of knowing where I want to go, like a physical guide to me accomplishing travelling to Europe. I'm really excited, for obvious reasons. 



This has become an extremely long blog post, and I've done a lot of reflecting, which makes me feel really good. I think I'm going to buy myself a big notebook, and when my desk gets put in here, I'll place it in one of the drawers, so I can write down what I want to do when I'm in Europe there. And since I'm beginning to get ideas... I definitely need a job.



I think it's time to polish up that resume.



Yours in weirdness,
Tash.