Monday 20 October 2008

Welcome to the real world Andrew

Andrew started work experience today as a brick layer!! The poor fella had to be up at 6 am and he left the house at 6.30am to bike to his work place. He had a hard day!!

Now Andrew doesnt have too many big muscles, in fact he is what you might call - a whimp! The only muscles that get exercised are the ones in his fingers when he is playing his computer. Well that all changed today!

His first assignment was to fill a big basin with stones, rocks and bricks and carry it back and forward. He did this for 2 hours!!! Now this nearly killed his arms!


Then he was told to break down a wall. He got a hammer and chisel. Then the man he was working with came and give him some sort of BIG tool and told him to use that to break the wall down with instead. Then he left him to go and get some other materials. So Andrew is all alone in this luxurious house, with a very heavy machine that he didnt have a clue how to use. Thank goodness for mobiles.


Kristian got a call from Andrew. "Dad how do you use this piece of machine?" He quickly explained what the machine was like and what he was supposed to do with it.. Kristian told him how it worked and what to do. Thank goodness he did the right thing, the house was still standing when he left.


When he came back the man then told him they were going back to "base" again. It was about 1.30pm. Andrew thought he must be finsihed for the day, after all he started work at 7.00am! Nope - he got that wrong, they were just going back to fill up the van and head out to another house.


Finally at 3.30pm he was allowed to bike home. We have a very, very tired boy, with very sore arms, at home this evening, but what a laugh we had at the dinner table as he told us all about his day. He thinks he has the hardest job on earth!! Welcome to the real world Andrew!!

As for me, I have a had a good first day back at work after the autumn break. The day actually went by really fast. Nice to see all my colleagues again.

When I came home this afternoon my good friend Rhona came by. It was soooo great to see her again!! It´s been a while since we hung out. It felt like old times. (When our kids were small we were together all the time. We did kids club, sunday school, and teen club together so we were always together planning and organising.) It was just soooo nice to sit and chat with her today and to eat some of her lovely cake. I supplied the tea and she supplied the most delicious cake. (Girls, I am getting the receipe, so I´ll post it sometime!!) Thanks Rhona for dropping by. It made my day!!

6 comments:

Charlene said...

Poor, poor Andrew! Now he'll know what it's like to sleep like a baby once again!

Do you remember your first job Laura? It was in SOS if I'm not mistaken. Remember mine? It was in the Beefeater-oh I feel more memories coming back-ha ha. I think we could forget about some of those!

lisa said...

Well done Andrew! But he'll be wishing he had picked something a bit easier for his work experience, like something in IT, no physical work involved at all, although he wouldve probably ended up making endless cups of coffee!

Stuart and Pauline said...

It is a shock to the system going into the real world. Hopefully he's not too achy today and can do everything he needs to.

Have they asked him to go and get a glass hammer yet? Or go for a long stand?

I did that to one of my pupils on April Fools Day. He was a right wee pain, but really funny with it. I sent him to the RE teacher and gave him a note which read "Can you give Brian a long stand please, if you feel the stand is not long enough can you send him to another teacher for a longer stand? Thank you" While he was gone, I told the class what I'd done, they thought it was hilarious. He went round about 4 teachers and was gone the whole lesson, when he came back he asked me what he was meant to have gone for. I told him a long stand, it took a while for the penny to drop, but when it did his reaction was hilarious and oh how we all laughed!!! He used to bring me chocolate every Friday and wind me up about my clapped out car, telling me he could run faster than it would drive!!!!

Rhoda said...

I was just thinking the same as Lisa, that he should have chosen something less physical! That must have been rotten to think he was finished and then realised he had another few hours to go:-(
Yup I'm sure he slept soundly last night!

Laura said...

it´s 10.15 and Andrew has been out for the count for the last ½ hour. Yes, he should have picked something easier, but hey, it does him good to see what the real world is like.

Actually today he was really moved by what he saw. He was out at the refugee camp to work and he came home feeling for those people who lived there. He thought it was a terrible place that they had to live.

Rhoda said...

Laura,
I remember on the visit to Denmark finding out how the Danes treat their refugees - and realising it is even worse than here! Mind you there are those here who would like to adopt the Danish system - I hope they never succeed!

But good for Andrew to see it!