Darrien wasn’t very good with computers due to missing most of his ICT classes. Uncomfortable in the executive leather chair, he thought of the Work Experience motto: “take a risk!” So he pressed F12 and sold $1.2m of stock, making his probabationary employer a timely profit: the ASX crashed the next day, Darrien’s flex day, around the time Darrien was pumping up his brother’s bicycle tyres.
Orange
Gripping the handle of the knife carefully, Vanessa made a nervous incision in the body on the table. Growing with confidence, she pressed the knife deeper into the yielding flesh, wondering vaguely if she was anywhere near the heart. The surgeon, her work experience supervisor, flicked vaguely through the latest Who magazine, which had been placed over the head of the patient. Taking a deep drag of her filtered 16 milligram, the surgeon noticed, if the Oscars were anything to go by, that orange was back in again.
The Warden
Pausing to scrape dog mess from the heel of his shoe, Roger stepped off the pavement to cross the busy main road. He felt very important in his new parking warden uniform. He looked back over his morning’s work: a line of cars, courier vans, a cement truck, a bicycle and even a recycling bin had all received parking infringement notices. As he reached the other side of the road he made his way into Smoke Mart & Gift to buy a chocolate bar in celebration of his first day at work.
Negotiation
It had been an exhausting 5 1/2 hour negotiation. Even so, Patrick paused, ever so slightly, before finally accepting the sizable bribe from the local businessman. He wasn’t sure if he was now, officially, moving beyond the boundaries of his work experience role in his capacity as Junior Clerk at the local Council. But, he reasoned, the Mayor had placed Patrick in charge of the Council during his week long secondment to the Gold Coast.
Innoculation
His first morning at the paediatric immunisation unit had been busy, but James was glad of the activity. Only last week he would have been laying in bed until lunchtime every day, scratching himself and eating timtam biscuits for every meal. The work was routine although he didn’t like it when the infants let rip with their wails as he jabbed them with “Hep-B combo” as the nurse called it. He was surprised that she treated him like a superior rather than a trainee: he was expecting something different when he signed up to be a Ward Orderly on work experience. He rummaged in his white coat for the keys to the vaccine cupboard, wondering how he was going to tell the identify the non-mercury innoculations. Surely it didn’t matter – just as long as he didn’t jab himself with the syringe again, like he had twice this morning.
(Elsewhere in the hospital)
Malcolm smiled to himself as he pushed his fourteenth patient into the theatre pre-op area. It was a great policy this hospital had: even experienced doctors were required to get some hands-on experience of “on the ground working”. And actually it was quite interesting getting to see the patients and the general traffic of sick people up and down the corridors. Perhaps next week he would start his real job in the immunisation unit – he assumed someone would come and welcome him, introduce him to his team, show him his new office. But for now he was happy with the smell of disinfectant and placing his hands on the worn bed rails, putting his back into it… “come on Mrs Jones, I’ll take you to surgery now.”
