| My Work Experience Week Essay, Research Paper
My Work Experience Week ??????????? I travelled
to France for my work experience to improve my French whilst gaining some
valuable experience in the world of work.?
I left for France from Portsmouth on Friday arriving early on the
Saturday morning.? I had an enjoyable
weekend; getting to know my host family, speaking French, and having a welcome
break from schoolwork. I commenced working on Monday morning at 8am on
Monday morning.? I was working at a
French factory called Ty Nad that produced crepes, gallettes and other goods
for resale on a large scale in all parts of France.? On arrival, I was introduced to Nadine Nadan, my supervisor and
manager of Ty Nad.? She was very
understanding regarding my level of fluency in French, and spoke slowly so that
I could understand.? I was then handed
over to one of the staff to allocate me a job for the week.? I was placed with another French work
experience student in the folding and packaging department.? I spent the entire morning folding gallettes
and placing them in plastic bags, dating them and sticking labels on to the
packets.? I found the job extremely good
in some respects in that it wasn?t particularly complex and therefore I was
able to talk French with the other workers whilst working and I was therefore
able to improve my French whilst doing a job that didn?t tax me mentally.? However, after several hours of folding
crepes, I began to find the job a little monotonous and boring, I also found
that repeating the same action repeatedly over and over again made my arms and
backache.? However, there was a positive
side to the job as at lunchtime the factory closed and therefore I had the
majority of the afternoon after a short break for lunch to do as I pleased.? I used this time for reading and catching up
with schoolwork that I hadn?t had time to finish during the term. I spent the week in similar fashion, my allocated
job each day was either to fold crepes of gallettes or else to package piles
that had already been folded.? By the
end of the week, I was thoroughly bored of the work as I found that despite my
initial enthusiasm for helping, five days of hard work with no pay was pushing
the limits of tolerance.? However, I
have learned two exceedingly valuable lessons from my work experience. Firstly,
I have decided that I will never work in a factory, doing a dead-end job with
few prospects getting paid very little for back breaking monotonous work.? This is a valuable lesson that I will carry
with me through life.? Secondly, that my
French is not good enough to be able to communicate freely with native French
people, and I have now resolved to work at my French so that by the end of the
next two years I shall be able to communicate freely with any French speaker.
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