Charl’s Work Experience
22nd July 2016
Chippindale Foods welcomed Charl for a week of work experience as he spent time with every member of the team. It was a pleasure having Charl with us for the week and here is his summary:
My week here at Chippindale has been one of the greatest experiences I have had in a while. The week began with Nicola Woodcock (Production Manager) who issued me with a pair of safety shoes to wear around the factory and followed on by a tour of the site. She then provided me an itinerary packed full of activities for the whole week, in which I overlooked and was amazed by the effort she put into preparing my week. As I progressed throughout the day, I was introduced to most of the people working here at Chippindale and they have proved to be one of the most helpful and kind group of people when it came to packing, QA testing etc. During the morning I attended the 9 o’clock meetings in which the managers, directors and people from the main office attended to discuss how the previous day went to see if there were any incidents, how efficient they were yesterday, how much overtime did anyone work etc. I then met Nick and Peter (Managing & Productions Director) upstairs in the office where we had a little chat about the history of Chippindale and an explanation of the company’s future goals.
The next day, I was supposed to be out all day with one of the drivers visiting a farm but instead was sent to the nearest farm, Nun Monkton, as there were no available wagons due to their early start times. But was instead given over to Greg (one of the drivers) to go to Nun Monkton where we received a wagon full of eggs to take back to Chippindale. Greg was awfully kind throughout the journey and taught me a few things about trucks, as it was my first time in one, and showed me how to insert information in the system when he unloaded the eggs.
On the third day I was talked through the steps in which the eggs took from being ungraded to graded. Which I found a very fascinating process. I helped the line out with some packing in which I unusually enjoyed but got really tiring after a while. But fortunately I had others helping me out when the machine got faster and the egg boxes started to pile up, which I was extremely grateful for. I also had the pleasure of working with Ian or Bib as he would like to be called who had a great sense of humour and never fails to put a smile on my face. He taught me to count the stocks which will help figure out estimates for the next day. In the afternoon I was introduced to Jamie, George and Andy who showed me their roles in the office. Jamie’s role mainly focused on the social media and marketing side of Chippindale in which I found very interesting but did involve some work with spreadsheets and inputting data which we both agreed was less interesting. After that Andy and George showed me various parts to their roles in the office which I did understand but got confused at some areas when overwhelmed by the various areas they cover in the business.
The next day I was introduced to Megan in the main office where she showed me how to order packaging and order for the next week as she is going on holiday for two weeks therefore she taught me how to order in advance. After that I was passed over to Sean the logistics manager and he explained how he manages the wagons and the cost of each one a month to see if there is a general pattern of costs prior to the month before. He also taught me that each vehicle contains a GPS within it so that he can see where the truck has been, how far it is from Chippindale and even the speeds it was travelling at certain points. After that I went to see Dan upstairs in his office where he explained how important it is to have important documents at all times especially when there is an inspection or a certain company want proof of such documents like certificates etc.
Overall my time here at Chippindale has been amazing, I have learnt a lot over the course of my week here. I would like to thank everyone within the business for taking me in for the week and treating me very well. A special thanks to Nicola for preparing my week and taking of any papers I needed doing from school etc. I would also like to thank the people who gave their time to talk me through what they do in the business, people at the packing centre for helping me when I had trouble packing boxes and finally Nick for accepting me for the whole week of work. As a whole I would like to thank the whole business for a very enjoyable week and I hope that the company thrives in the near future.