For my work experience from the period 20th April till 2nd may I was placed at Dorothy Perkins in Sittingbourne. This is an organisation that deals in the retail of ladies fashion and is a chain store, which has shops, located in most towns in the United Kingdom. I worked Monday-Friday 9:00am-5: 30pm but the manageress of the shop I was situated at often let me leave early due to shortage of work for myself.
Before I arrived at my placement I had a varied ideas of what was expected of me, how to compass myself and considering retail shopping isn’t something I wish to follow up as a career, I wondered how interesting I would I would find the work and if I would be involved enough to understand what goes on behind the scene.
The other worry I had was transport, I live in the countryside and the only public transport available to me is a bus service which is a very limited service, but how ever I found I didn’t have a problem, the first bus of the morning left my village at 8:04am, arriving at Sittingbourne at 8:40am, which meant I had 20 minutes to spare. On my placement I hoped that I would develop new skills and qualities that would be an advantage to my future. I hoped to gain more confidence with fellow workers as well as the public and customers.
To be able to communicate with people I believe is to be one of the most needed and important skills anyone could gain, without communication problems are created and left unsolved, and the standards of the company would decrease. I wanted to have the ability to know and understand the work I was trying to have to do the best of my knowledge, independence, concentration and dedication were also skills I wanted the ability to develop further to help me imagine what the working environment is really about, and the kind of career future I wanted to plan for. Abilities, qualities and key skills I want to develop:
Confidence 2. Communication 3. Independence 4. Concentration 5. Dedication During my placement I interviewed tree members of staff to find out what their job entailed and what qualifications they has to enable them to do the job they were doing. The first member of staff I interviewed was the assistant manager, my findings are as follow. The second member of staff I interviewed was a sales advisor. My findings from the interview are as follow: – The third member of staff at Dorothy Perkins was a manageress of shoe consecution. My findings are as follow. During my placement I was given varied tasks to carry out.
I kept a diary of my weeks activities so that I could keep notes on what I was doing. On my first day there, which was Monday, I arrived at 9:20am. I was due at 9:30 am but preferred to be a little early rather than late. I entered the store and introduced myself to the manageress, I was feeling very nervous as I was doing something very unfamiliar to me, however the manageress wasn’t expecting me and she was very confused as there had been some kind of mix-up, this made me very apprehensive as to what the rest of the week was going to involve and I don’t feel I got off to a very good start.
Nothing was planned for me so I spoke to a lady about eh company I was representing and mainly health and safety rules, which also involved me watching a quick video that lasted about 20 minutes. I then went downstairs to the shop floor, where I stood by the dressing room offering assistance to customers and tided up the shop floor, turning hangers around, making sure clothes were lined up properly and generally making myself look busy. By the end of the first day I ways thoroughly bored, and looking forward to going to home.
My second day began at 9:00am. This morning was spent on the shop floor carrying out the same duties as yesterday. The manageress took me into the staff room half way through the day where she filled in my work experience forms with me, she doesn’t explain herself very well and I didn’t find her at all helpful. I felt like I was being given tasks that would keep me busy and out of the way. Rather than actually learning about the company itself. The afternoon was spent outside the dressing rooms again.
A couple of customers asked me to help them find different sizes and styles of outfits to suit the, – and were happy with the assistance I offered them. I found that the members of staff I worked with all chatted and laughs amongst themselves, but I was very much ignored and treated as an outsider. Not too long later a delivery arrived and I was asked to assist. This involved removing the plastic covering on the clothes and hanging them up on a rail. I was asked to put a size cube on the coat hanger to describe the size of the garment.
There were two sorts of cubes, silver one’s that belong on a sliver coat hanger which represents Dorothy Perkins petite range and black cubes for black coat hangers which represent the normal, standard range. After sizing the garments with a size cube, I tagged them with an anti-theft security tag which sets off an alarm if removed from the store by that when you purchase an item the tag is electronically removed at the till. I found this a little more interesting than the tasks I had been previously carrying out and due to running out of time I will finish the delivery when I return tomorrow morning.
Today I arrived at work by bus, I was very apprehensive about travelling on public transport due to a limited bus service in and out of my village, but I didn’t have to worry as I actually arrived 20 minutes early, proving to myself that relying on public transport was manageable. When I arrive at work I have to sign a register to confirm that I am in the building due to health and safety reasons. I have been allocated a locker for my personal belongings and I keep the keys pinned to me while I am at work to ensure the safety of them so as they cannot be misplaced.
The first thing I done today was to use my initiative and check the rail by the changing rooms. I found the rail to be full so I begun to put the clothes where they belonged on the shop floor. I came across some clothing that I couldn’t find a place for, I asked a member of staff for help and was told that these items get taken back upstairs to the stock room. Eventually they will be placed in the sale, as the stock gets rotated on a weekly basis they will eventually be sold.
After helping a customer look for a pair of sandals that were required, but out of stock I returned to finish of the delivery I had begun the previous day. I felt more confident in myself today because I knew what I was doing, what my tasks involved and the work I was carrying out. So far today has been the best day. On Thursday I found that the variety of tasks I was given to carry out hadn’t changed. After signing the register I carried on with the previous delivery, sizing clothes and tagging them I honestly believe that I could do this job in my sleep.
I was asked to remove all the rubbish from the stock room and place it downstairs outside the exit doors, due to health and safety reasons, if there was a fire in the building the rubbish would be classed as hazardous. I began to find the work I was doing very boring and tedious, as there was no variety in the tasks I was carrying out. Due to this I found I wasn’t concentrating properly leading me to make a mistake by placing the wrong colour cubes on the wrong hangers, I rectified my mistake and continued with my work, paying more attention to detail.
I was very relieved to go home today, happy that tomorrow is my last day working here. Friday – my last day at Dorothy Perkins, I travelled to work today by bus, where Spent most of today with the delivery and the other part of it was spent helping customers on the shop floor, assisting them with their needs and helping to provide the goods they require, when I left today everyone wished me luck and the manageress presented me with a i?? 10.
00 gift voucher to thank me for my time and the effort I put in. When I left my placement I didn’t receive any comments regarding my time there, but according to my employees evaluation form that was filled out by the assistant manager, I scored excellent on every personnel ability and the comment stated was ” Amie worked well as part of the team, always showed willing and keen to learn new things. A great help in completing tasks given”.
My conclusion to my work experience, is that I feel that my time spent at Dorothy Perkins was of no help to me with my future career, I felt I was given jobs that no-one else wanted to do, meaning the employees of the firm had a hassle free week, I was kept out of the way and in the background learning nothing of any importance of how the company runs. The things I did learn anyone would know by using a bit of commonsense. The only conclusion I have come to is that ladies retail fashion is defiantly not a career I will pursue. I found it very dreary, dull and uninteresting job.
