Miranda is a BA Business and Management Undergraduate at the University of Reading. She recently started a Step sandwich placement with Coppenrath & Weise, Europe’s largest producer of frozen desserts. We know interns can have a range of feelings at the very start of their placement as they are often entering the world of work for the first time. This extract from Miranda’s placement diary gives a good insight into her early thoughts and expectations as she settled in to her new role and what she did to get herself up to speed.
My Placement Diary
Week 1
Although I was quite nervous to begin with, it didn’t take me too long to settle into the office lifestyle. Everyone was incredibly friendly! I spent my first day being shown the ropes by the current sandwich placement candidate, whose position I will be taking over next Friday when she finishes her placement. I learnt about the order systems, and small tasks like how to work the scanner and where to collect the faxes from and attempted to learn everyone’s names. As it is quite a small office, and many are on holiday this week, there were thankfully only a few to learn today. I didn’t get to eat any cake today but apparently that is very unusual for the office. Fingers crossed for tomorrow!
Week 2
My first week seems to have flown by already! I have eaten lots of cake…but that’s not my main job, promise. I have many jobs. The supply chain is a very important part of a business, as it makes sure the products get to the customers, which keeps them happy and loyal.
Every morning, I have to update the total stock sheet and umlagerungen calculation, and I have to double check the orders received report. These are important as the total stock sheet is used by other members of the supply chain work group, the umlagerungen calculation is used for seeing how much of which stock is needed to transfer from Germany to Ardo (where the cold store is), and the orders received report has a list of deliveries from the previous day, meaning it must have all the orders that I recorded. If it does not have one, it means they may have missed it on the system and it is my job to make sure they are aware of this order and make sure it is getting to the customer.
Mostly I do a lot of orders, but the busy Christmas period will be my biggest test. Everyone is so friendly in the office though, they don’t expect me to know everything and are very patient with me.
Week 3
This week was my first full week without the other sandwich placement student, so naturally I was nervous! It seems to be going relatively smoothly so far. It’s good that my supervisor is very patient, because I ask a lot of questions! I’ve learnt so much, it’s been a good experience so far. I can imagine I will look back in a year’s time and feel like I’ve grown up a lot and gained more confidence.
Miranda is now fully settled in to her role and is an integral member of the Coppenrath & Weise team, gaining valuable commercial experience and developing her transferable work-based skills. So don’t worry if you are feeling a little bewildered at the start of your placement or have concerns about how to cope in your first few days, most people have anxieties but these are short lived and soon you’ll forget you ever had any concerns. Enjoy the opportunity and make it work for you!
