Work Experience.

Two words that make me shiver uncontrollably when mentioned. Work Experience. I remember being excited about work experience. It seemed fun when I was 14. "Work experience is coming up girls. You get to work for 2 weeks, and experience what life will be like as an adult", somehow that translated to me as "Work experience is coming up girls. You get to do nothing for 2 weeks. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. That's what adults do, nothing". I was young and... naive. Anyway, needless to say, I was excited about Work Experience. In fact, I honestly think work experience could have been fun... it would have been fun, until I made a vital mistake when filling out the work experience form. A mistake so fatal, it still gives me nightmares to this day.

The Mistake: When filling out the form we got two options. Option 1: Let Trident (the work experience company) choose a job for me. Option 2: (I'll be an idiot and) Find my own job. Being the idiot that I am. I chose option 2. I thought yeah, I'll find my own job, easy peasy, no problem. 

I didn't find a job, I still thought I'd be okay because Trident finds a job for everyone regardless. That was until Mr Little decided to call an assembly saying "People who said they were going to find their own jobs but didn't, are at the bottom of the list and therefore, Trident will give them the worst jobs", I still thought to myself "Psshtt, how bad can these jobs be?" It wasn't until we were giving our work placements that I realised I was in for the worst 2 weeks of my life.

Not an exaggeration.

My work placement was at 'Boots'. Boots is a pharmacy. As you can imagine, I wasn't too pleased about having to spend two weeks doing nothing at a pharmacy, but I was still going to be doing nothing for two weeks and that was fine by me. 

That was until I turned up for my first day at work and realised I was going to have to actually do something. I met my manager called Uzma. I hated Uzma. I mean, just look at her name, "Uzma", it's very Disney Villain-esque. I hated her from the moment I laid eyes on her. She was a hardcore bitch. She made me stack the shelves, clean the shelves, clean them again, and again, and again, and again. Now, I wouldn't  mind cleaning the shelves if they were actually dirty. THE SHELVES WEREN'T DIRTY. I was cleaning for the sake of cleaning. If I stopped cleaning, I would be told to "pull the stock forward" and so I pulled the stock forward,over and over and over and over again. THERE WAS NOTHING TO PULL. 

Uzma hated me. I could see it in her eyes. She had a mole on the left side of her chin and it twitched every time she had the displeasure of laying her eyes on me. I irritated her. It was obvious. I was once 2 minutes late from my lunch break; I loved my lunch break, I couldn't get out of that shop fast enough, and I was beyond reluctant to return; but I did return. Every time, and most of the time, I was on time. Anyway, one day, I arrived from my (beloved) lunch break 2 minutes late. TWO MINUTES. Not 5, not 10. Two. I was 2 minutes late. Uzma decided to make a big deal out of this.

Uzma: Why are you late?

Me: *stares at clock* It's 1:02...

Uzma: Exactly. You're two minutes late.

Me: That hardly makes a different, does it?

Uzma: Well, this is work experience. You're experiencing work (well durrhh), you have to take it seriously. Don't be late again.

Me: (Die Bitch). Sorry, I'll try not to be (120 seconds) late again.

Uzma: NOW BEGONE PEASANT. (She didn't really say that).

Uzma detested me. She loathed me. She wanted my skin burnt and made into some sort of cream so that she could sell it. 

I hated her too, so it was fair, I guess.

Anyway, on the 6th day of work experience. I decided I had enough and I faked being sick. I faked  being sick for the remaining 4 days and didn't return until the day I had to get her to sign my booklet. (Our bosses had to sign a feedback booklet detailing how well they thought we did)

I wasn't looking forward to it.

I was expecting her to slate me.

To my surprise, she didn't.

She said something along the lines of...

"Titilope worked very well in Boots and has good time efficiency, however, she can be a bit shy and sometimes is late for work" <- I was pleasantly surprised.

I still hate Uzma.

But, I decided to destroy my voodoo doll of her after that.

Thanks for Reading.

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