One day working in London…

Komando-Flash Back

Cambiamos de tono en esta sección y como somos políglotas perdidos lo hacemos recuperando, desempolvando crónicas de erasmus. Además, viene bastante a cuento porque en nada serán las pruebas de selección. El bitácoras en cuestión es de Edurne H. ex-2ci del curso que re-100 acabó. Enyoi de Edurne's daiari!!!.




I have been working in the British Heart Foundation in Clapham Junction and it is a charity company that donate all the sales money to help people with heart diseases. There are so many shops in London like this one. My company is one hour far from our flat so I’m used to get up at 7:30 in the morning to have enough time because we are five persons living in the same flat and everybody want to use the toilet and the shower... After a great shower, I’m used to have a good breakfast (orange juice, milk with cereals, chocolate…) to have the strength to work. My timetable is from 10:00 am to 17:30 pm (having one hour to lunch).

I’m used to leave the flat between 8:30 am or 9:00 am and then take the tube at the station that is near the flat. I take two tubes (Picadilly Line and Northern Line) to get Waterloo where I take one train to arrive at Clapham Junction. Actually, the tube is the worst time of the day because it’s full of people and sometimes it’s impossible to breathe well although it is funny because there are a lot of strange people and you can’t avoid laughing sometimes about them...

I arrive early at work because I like taking a coffee and sitting relaxed in a bench before starting work. At 10:00 o’clock I am in the shop and normally I use to stay in the till about one or two hours until any workmate come to replace me and then I’m going to do any work in the office that is upstairs. The work in the shop was so difficult the first days because of the till and the customer services but customers are so kind with us and almost everyday, all the customers are the same and it is nice because you already know all of them.

All the clothes and items that are on sale in the shop floor are donations from people that bring a lot of bags to the shop everyday. In the shop floor, I’m used to change the window display everyday (each week we used to promotion different colours) and then supply the shop with garments, shoes, accessories…, rotation of the items and keep it tidy. In the office I use to file some documents like staff forms, daily sales forms, bulletins and a lot of things sent from the head office. I’m used to be alone in the office because it is small or with my manager Louisa who is in the picture.

At one o’clock I have my lunchtime and normally I eat a sandwich with a piece of fruit and a coffee alone or with any workmate in the street. We have one hour to lunch so we also have time to go shopping. When I finish my lunchtime at 2 o’clock I come back to the office. There I keep on with my work. Lately I was calculating the van drive’s new route so I have spent a lot of time in the office. At 4 o’clock we count the sales money from the till, fill the weekly sales form and I enter some information in the computer about it. Later, I go to the bank to deposit that money.

If I don’t have to much work at the office I help doing other things such as prepare garments to put on sale or supply the shop. The building has four floors and all the items are prepared on the second one where are working some volunteers and the managers. In this kind of charity companies are working a lot of volunteers, some of them are already retired or they just want to get experience working. Each Monday we have to send some documents about the last week to the head office and complete some forms like the monthly targets that are calculated by some figures about last weeks.

At 5 o’clock more or less, I use to go downstairs from the office to help tidying the shop before close it. I’ve done a lot of things in this company. I left al 17:30 pm, so it was time to enjoy London. Actually it’s a nice place to live and there are a lot of things to see. I liked to go to Covent Garden because it is always full of people and there are some artist doing their shows in the street. Also, London Bridge area it’s very nice to stay and take some beers. We have visited a lot of places.

Everyday we use to go to the pub near our flat to take some beers with the waiters and the owner. We have made a great friendship with them. Even the other day they invited us to have a barbeque. And this is a day working in London. Actually, during the week we don’t have enough time to do so many things so the weekend is the best time to do it.