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.