I got told off during work experience so I quit that day.

So I currently study level 3 animal management at my college and as a part of my course, I am required to do 300 hours of work experience. Unfortunately, I was unable to find a placement within 2 months of starting the course so my college allowed me to partake in non mandatory work experience on their animal unit until I am able to find a placement. This was the first time I have ever been at a job/work environment so I was pretty excited.

Today was my first day doing my work experience and when we arrived, we were not informed of the work experience expectations. Therefore, we only roughly knew what was expected of us. We got to work building an enclosure and when we finished, we went on our phones (I know now that you are meant to ask for more work instead). No one told us to put them away, despite seeing them so we saw nothing wrong in being on them.

The afternoon rolled around and when I have finished my task that I was sat, we once again went on our phones. After a few minutes, a lady came into the room and spoke to us in a very confrontational tone, starting off by asking us if we knew who she was. She ended up being the assistant head of faculty which is quite a high up role and you only tend to speak to her if you are in a lot of trouble. She then processed to tell us off for being on our phones and that the animal unit was very busy. We were then sent home for the rest of the day after that moment. It was 2pm and we were not meant to finish until 4pm.

I was then left worrying that I would be told off like that if I did anything wrong on the unit again. I also found the work there quite boring as it was mostly building the enclosures, which will not benefit me for my dream job. As a result, I decided to quit and wait until I find a placement as I don’t want to constantly work in fear. I also don’t think it was fair how I was told off as we were given no warnings about using our phones before getting told off by someone high up.