I was lucky being one of the 20 students who had the chance to do their internship in England, Bristol. I had the valuable opportunity to complete an internship at the charity store St Peter’s Hospice Henleaze. This report serves to reflect and document my experiences, learning, and insights during this time. The internship provided me with the opportunity to gain a deep insight into the world of work and to practically explore the challenges and opportunities I will face in my professional future. In addition, I was able to gain important experience in the field of foreign languages, as I was “forced” to speak this foreign language for two weeks and not my native language.
St Peter’s Hospice’s Henleaze Charity Store is one of more than 40 shops across Bristol. Proceeds from these charity stores go to St Peter’s Hospice. The store runs on donations and volunteers. I was in the shop at 107 Henleaze Road. It was a pretty big store compared to the other ones. There were two managers. On a normal day there was always one paid employee and some part-time volunteers.
I worked from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. with an hour break in between at 12 p.m.. Because my way to the shop was just 2 km I always walked to work. It was a nice way to wake up in the morning and switch off a little after work. My host family's mother always gave us a lunch box with a sandwich and an apple in the morning. One thing I quickly noticed, which was quite common in England, was that you always got a little bag of crisps too. We got a key as we were the last to leave the house.
When I arrived at the shop, it was already very busy. I took my things to the back room, took my employee card and started working. I often started with simple tidying. Picking up things that had fallen off the shelves, sorting things that were still in the changing room, putting things that were hanging in the wrong departments in the right place, sorting departments by size and much more. Most of the time, one of the staff members was steaming the new clothes and as soon as I was done with tidying, I put the finished things away. The donated items only stay in one shop for 3 weeks and are then sent to another to increase the likelihood of a purchase and to vary the different assortments of a shop every now and then. The sorting out is called rotation and to do this you take a bag, choose a department and then look at the price tag of the item. On it is the week in which the item came into this shop. As soon as this number has exceeded the 3 weeks, it is taken off the rack and packed into the bag. Then you write down the address of the next shop and take the bag to the storeroom. Once a week a service comes by to pick up all the bags and they take them to the next shop. That means in one week you have to rotate all the departments and take them away. This was mostly my job in the morning. Those were very systematic tasks, but once I got a very creative task. A kind of ladder was put up in the shop window and I was allowed to choose anything I wanted to put on it from the tableware department. No limits were set for me in this task. I chose a coherent theme and designed it according to that theme. I then decided on a kind of tea time theme. I put lots of flowers in vases, set up a tea service and put an étagère there. I also put smaller things there like cake forks and a cake server. When I finished early, I could price and sort new books, DVDs or CDs. Of course, you always tidy up the shop in between. Because the shop lives on donations, you have to accept a lot during the day. The donors have a chance to gift aid and thus increase the money for the hospice of this product by another 25%. You have to write your first and last name, address and the postal code on a piece of paper. Then I attached the slip to the items and took them to the back room. Sometimes there were a few difficulties with the names because I'm not a native speaker and always had to have them spell them out for me, but most of them were very understanding. Often by then it was 12 p.m. and my break had begun. Since a friend worked nearby, I always met with her in a café during the break. The street from my charity shop was littered with cafés and we tried a new one every day.
It became a tradition that I would order an iced coffee and she would order a peppermint tea. Then we talked and after the break I walked back to the store. Once we went to a nearby park and sat on a wall near a subway. While doing so, I noticed a special feature. The subway was on a bend and you could’t see the people coming towards you directly. Since there is left-hand traffic in England, you would think you were also walking on the left. Some people do this, but others walk on the right. This was exactly the problem you could notice in this subway. Everyone had to stop and agree with the person opposite on which side they were walking. I noticed it again and again during the rest of my stay.
After the break I always started again with tidying up. I have then often taken over the cash desk. I first needed some instructions because it's a bit more complicated, because you can't just scan the price tag and the product is taken away. Instead, I had to select the category and enter the price manually for each product. You also had to remember certain offers, such as that there was a promotion during the period of my stay that each book only cost 1.49 p. Then you had to ask the customers if they wanted to buy a book. Then you had to ask the customers if they needed a bag, and then charge them for it if necessary. You had to put the items together and put them in the bag. Meanwhile, you had to ask for the payment method and either get out the card reader or take the cash. The next difficulty was that you didn't know exactly which coins to use and always had to double-check which change you had to give. That's why the shift at the cash desk was sometimes a bit exhausting when you have stress for an hour. It was the best job I got because I had the most contact with the costumers but sometimes I was grateful to get another job and someone else took over the cash desk. Everyone was very open and started a conversation right away.
During my stay it was quite warm and you could see that the English are not used to good and warm weather. While I was walking around in shorts and a jumper they were walking around in tank tops. The weather was the number one topic of conversation and it was always emphasised how warm it was. On my last day at work, Sarah bought ice cream for all the staff and I got a fan for the cash register. It was a really nice gesture and I thanked her a lot. When my working hours were over on my last day, I was even a little sad to leave. I got a card and a small gift, which I was very happy about. It was a very family-like behaviour in my shop. I really made friends with a volunteer and I’m supposed to visit her next time I’m in Bristol. She always picked out clothes for me to try on during her break or asked me for my opinion on things. Whether it was about pricing or gifts for her daughter.
Apart from the job I did, the family was great too. The mother had such a nice personality. She treated us like a kind of fourth and fifth child. We didn't do much with the father, but he was always nice. But we did a lot with the children. Every day after work, we played with the children. Much hide and seek, football and card games. We called friends from Germany with them and were even invited to a birthday party.
Once we went into the city centre and sat down in a café and did a bit of shopping. I would say that we had a good relationship with our host children. Even after our arrival back in Germany we still have contact with them and will visit them again this summer. However, the hostfamily also want to visit Germany in winter to experience the famous German Christmas market. Of course, we offered to accommodate them in our house and I'm looking forward to meeting them again. We were even invited to one of their neighbourhood festivals, which only take place every 4 years. Of course, we went straight home after work. There was food and nice sporting games where the host children also played a lot. I even had a conversation with a neighbour my age.
I also have to say they gave me a lot of food alternatives. Because I don't eat meat and whenever the others had meat, I got the same only as an alternative. With that I made it a little more difficult for the family with such a thing, since nobody was a vegetarian there and therefore it was new territory for them. Although I had to try fish and chips once.
Since we didn't know our way around Bristol, we couldn't really walk very much, so we took the bus a lot and I noticed that everyone thanked the bus driver, said goodbye and maybe even wished him a good drive. Especially in the evenings. I wish they would do it more often in Germany, and that's why I'm trying to get into the habit of doing it and use it here, too. Most of the time people look at you funny, but the bus driver is always happy.
Outside of the job and the host family, of course, we also explored the city with friends. We went to an art exhibition, went out to eat and just met at the college green and played volleyball or something. We also got to know a few English people. Some were from London and some from Bristol. Everyone noticed us because we spoke a different language and then we were approached a lot.
I think the internship has helped me in that way because I used to be quite reserved and I have learned to be a bit more open and to dare to do things. I learned to be independent and to plan. I had to find a gym on my own (because of the upcoming German Championships) and talk to the owner and explain that I'm only here for 2 weeks. I wouldn't have dared to do that before. I have learned that I don't have to be uncomfortable sitting alone in a café reading a book.
Why did I want to do my internship abroad? When I started learning English, I had the dream of living in England one day. With that internship I am trying to get one step closer to this dream. My expectation towards the internship was that I wanted to learn to use the English language not only in class but also in everyday life. I also wanted to learn about the culture of England. Not in the sense of going on holidays, but in the sense of slipping into the role of an English woman and experiencing a normal day of work. Also, I think in general, an internship provides life experience and in my opinion, experience gained outside the home country should be considered as life experience. And that was my goal. So, to quickly summarise all the reasons again I just think it was a great opportunity to broaden my knowledge horizon. On top of that, of course, I was able to do voluntary work thus also help and achieve something. It was one of the best times I had and I would always redo it.
Thank you for that opportunity.
