So for those of you who don't know - and I'm guessing that's pretty much everyone, seeings as I didn't exactly announce it - I had work experience at Insight 51 this week.
Oh yeah.
I put a link on Insight 51, so you can all go to the website and see how cool it is. Also because I wanted to show off my wicked linking skills. Anyway.
So I had work experience. I say had, because today was my last day.
And thank GOODNESS for that.
Alright, let me explain.
So when Michelle, the careers adviser at FBI (haha, careers adviser. Is anyone else having Vera Cranston flashbacks at the mere mention of those words? Because I am!) described what I was going to be doing all week, she made it sound fun. Like this:
"Oh, its going to be so much fun! They need you guys (that's me and Lucinda, also from FBI) to help put some gift bags together for the buyers. I think they need you to do some beading? So it'll be really fun, and easy, you just get to sit and bead, and chat. Fun! Easy! Super fun! Ohmigosh! THE MOST FUN YOU HAVE EVER HAD IN YOUR LIFE! Honestly, girls, I'm jealous that I don't get to come with you. That's how fun and easy it will be."
Aha.
Ahaha.
I am so sure.
NOT.
Ok, it was torture. Honestly, torture. For the first day, we did nothing - NOTHING - but thread beads onto string. For hours. And hours. Ok, we started at 10am, and finished at 5pm. We got 20 minutes for lunch. And the rest of the time, it was all about the beads.
And these were no ordinary beads, either. And no ordinary string - they were tiny beads. And it was tiny string.
TINY BEADS.
TINY STRING.
Do you know what that can do to a person?
I FELT LIKE I WAS TAKING CRAZY PILLS!
I mean, even more so than usual!!
What made it even more torturous was that we kept expecting it to end, but it didn't. Like, yeah, we knew we were supposed to be there from 10 til 5, but Michelle said they would probably let us go earlier than that. So everytime somebody came over to laugh at us - because, you know, if you're not the one doing it, the concept of beading for 7 straight hours is pretty laughable - we would wait for them to tell us we could leave.
But did they?
DID THEY?
No.
They didn't.
Ok, day two.
It started off well. We got there in the morning, and were informed that we would be working upstairs.
UPSTAIRS? To someone who had spent the previous day sitting in a tiny isolated office threading freaking beads onto freaking string for hours, this was the best possible news.
Upstairs meant up. Up, away from the office and the beads and the string and the hell that was the previous day.
So we're walking up the stairs, all jittery and excited over the process of not having to bead, we turn the corner, and what do we see?
WHAT DO WE SEE?
A table.
A HUGE table.
Covered in beads.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
(That's what it sounded like on the inside of my head).
So, for the second day in a row, we beaded. For 7 hours, minus 20 minutes for lunch.
Today was the third day, the frost (thats a little John Marsden humour for you readers of the Tomorrow Series).
So for the first half of the day, guess what we did?
Guess.
Go on, guess.
Did you guess beading?
Yeah, you were right.
Ok, but after we came back from lunch, something exciting happened.
NO MORE BEADING!
That's right. No more beading, they told us. Now it was time for something completely different. Now it was time to tie the bead strings together at the ends, to form necklaces.
Yeah.
Right.
At this point, I was ready to kill somebody.
Ready and willing.
But I didn't, because the final episode of Prison Break in on in like 2 weeks, and if I went to jail for murder, I would probably miss it.
Ok, where was I?
Oh, right, making necklaces.
So you would think, wouldn't you, that after 2 and a half days of beading, doing something as simple as tying a knot would be a welcome break, right?
Right?
WRONG!
And I'll tell you why: BECAUSE TYING KNOTS IS A BITCH.
A bitch that just won't quit.
Because we couldn't just tie the two ends of the bead string together, and call it a day. No no. We had to tie a perfect knot, then snip the thread ends off, then burn the knot with a lighter until the string melted, and then use our fingers to squish the melted string knot into a "perfect bead-shaped ball."
Perfect bead-shaped ball.
PERFECT BEAD-SHAPED BALL?
Who says stuff like that?
So now all my fingers and one of my thumbs are all burnt from squishing super-heated string knots into perfect bead-shaped balls. And the other thumb is red and calussed from flipping the lighter on so many times.
Ok, so it was all shaping up to be a pretty bad experience.
UNTIL one of the designers from Insight came over to us and was all "I just want to thank you girls so much for helping out this week", and gave us a free top each.
FREE TOP!
FREE TOP!
And I looked at the price tag - $80!! Not too shabby, Insight 51.
Not too shabby at all.
Ok, so here is my conclusion: Work experience is just like watching Jaws. Remember what I said about Jaws a few posts back? Here's a little refresher:
Well, when you first think about it, it's awesome, then the more you think about it, it's not that great...then you think about it some more, and it becomes awesome again.
Yeah.
Work experience is just like that: You start off being misled into thinking it's going to be awesomely easy and fun. Then, after a day, you feel like you would rather put fish-hooks through your nipples and fly yourself off the Chrystler Building than do it again. Then you get given a free t-shirt, and all is right with the world again.
Huh.
Maybe its not like watching Jaws at all.
Well, whatever.
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