Work Experience at No Grey

Hello readers ! My name is  Kate, I’m 15 and in year 10 at Mentone Girls Secondary College. For the past week I have been having an awesome time doing work experience at No Grey Creative. Today is my last day of working with these lovely people and to give you a bit of insight of what goes on at work experience and a t No Grey Creative I am writing a recount of the things I’ve learnt about heading out into the workforce and what I’ve been doing here. Hope you enjoy!

Monday

To get to Jacqui’s office in Gordan Street, East Richmon from Cheltenham Station I figured out I needed to catch the Frankston line train and then the Blackburn line train to East Richmond Station and walk to Gordan Street. As  i walked out of Richmond Station i realised that even though Jacqui had provided me with a map and instructions, I had absolutely no idea where i was going. So after spending 10 minutes turning the map around and around, reading the instructions a million times and  trying to figure out where exactly the nearest BP servo was (my only landmark), I set off down Church Street.  I was so sure that i was going in the wrong direction but when I saw the BP sign I did a little victory dance in the middle of the footpath. Jacqui and I arrived at the same time and she introduced me to the other people who worked in the same building. We got to her desk and Jacqui informed me that i would be completely re-organising her office. I would be doing everything from organising the two cupboards she had that were exploding with papers, crafts, pirate dress ups , dog food for her chihuahua Pippi, cups and enough pieces of unused software to open a shop.  So i set to work emptying the cupboards and sorting everything into the files while Pippi walked over my work. At lunch time a few of us went and sat outside in the sun to eat. After lunch I went straight back inside to continue working. by the end of the day we realized that this was going to take me a lot longer than one day.

The bookcase before

Tuesday

Today I was supposed to be meeting Jacqui on Southwharf in the City at 9:00 to attend Adobe’s software launch, so i got up nice and early to catch the train to Flinders Street station. When  I planned this trip I expected to leave my house in time to get to Flinders Street at 9:15. Through some kind of confusion with train times, I ended up arriving at Flinders Street at 8:00. At least I got to watch the sunrise on the train. At 9:30 I met Jacqui and we went into the Melbourne Convention centre. We sat down for a 7 hour presentation  with breaks for morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea. The presentation was on how to use the updated programs in CS6 such as PhotoShop, Indesign, Illustrator, Dreamweaver and Fireworks. There were several different presenters who were absolutely hilarious in their presentation and demonstration of the advantages of the software for different professions. At the end of the day, they announced the winner of the photo competition tht had taken place earlier that day on twitter. The winner of the competition was the person with the most creative photo with a tagline with #cs6rocks and they received a free updated version of PhotoShop. I helped Jacqui win with the photo below. After we claimed her prize, we headed home.

“#cs6rocks Adobe has gone to my head!!”

Wednesday

When i got to East Richmond I topped up my Myki card with $20 even though I had only put money on it on the weekend. I then spent the whole day cleaning up and organising the cupboards. I allocated different shelves categories and drew up a diagram to sort out my thouhgts. At lunchtime Jacqui put Pippi on her leash and her, Sam and I went out to lunch at Spud bar. When we got back, I finished up the cupboards and personalized Pippi’s resting corner. Then Jacqui and I collapsed with exhaustion for half an hour before going home.

Thursday

Today I started cutting out pictures from calendars to decorate the wall space in the office. Designing how I was going to do that took most of the morning and after having lunch at a cafe with some print suppliers of No Grey Creative I came back and watched Mackenzie, one of the many people who have businesses in this office space, do some photography and PhotoShopping work. She was very nice and helpful and went out of her way to show me the different features and things you could do to enhance photos. After doing some more tidying of Jacqui’s files, I caught the train home.

Friday

Today I started putting up all the postcards, posters, pictures and photos that I found when sorting the cupboards on the walls and the partition that enclosed her desk. It required a lot of patience, stretching to high places on the wall and velcro but I think it looks a lot more personal and gives clients a glimpse of the kind of person they will be dealing with. I also went through a bag of pirate dress ups I found and Jacqui let me keep one of the sailor hats which I then wore all day. When we got back from a yummy lunch I finished decorating, vacuumed and tidied up. Here are some phtos of the transformations!

Today is my last day of working here and it has been so much fun. I have learnt how expensive it is to travel by public transport, to avoid buying coffe in the city because it’ll cost you your soul, to ALWAYS use metlinnk journey planner for public transport instead of guessing the times, to be prepared for anything and how important it is to be organised and work in an environment where everyone helps eachother and are so nice to newbies. Thank you to all the people who have worked with me and been so fantastic to me these past couple of days. I’m so lucky to have found a great work experience place! I will miss working here, being Jacqui’s slave and the awesome lunches!!