Leah's Work Experience

Monday 14th March 2016

Tags: Fun

My name’s Leah-Mae Weatherhead and I’ve just recently finished two weeks of work experience with Spectrum Yarns (that’s the company that owns Stylecraft). The reason why I’ve decided to write this blog is to share my many experiences with you, you could say some are funny, some are life changing and yet some just have to happen to everyone, no matter what. Leah Week 1 Day 1 – I woke up to catch a bus at 7.20am to get to the mill for 9.00am. Disaster! The bus I was due to catch went straight past me (we’ve all been there). Mum came to the rescue and dropped me off in town so I could catch the next bus. Finally, I arrived. On time but only just! I explained to Dani, who was mentoring me for my work experience, what’d happened and she burst out laughing quite hysterically. She said “at least it can’t get any worse tomorrow”. She wasn’t wrong!!! After I was introduced to the packaging department where I was responsible for preparing and dispatching orders. Overall my first day was eventful! Day 2 – The following day (no bus problems) I attended a Stylecraft team meeting with Dani and the team to discuss new types of wool they are looking at bringing into the range. A couple of cups of tea and biscuits later (you don’t get this at school) the meeting finished; I never knew there was so much to discuss about wool! Day3/4/5 – Over the next three days I worked alongside Alison, Emma and Julie who are all a part of either Stylecraft or Glenbrae teams. Glenbrae is Spectrum’s knitwear brand.  Emma introduced me to the social media side of all the brands and how they interact with the public – which I really enjoyed. I also got the opportunity with Emma, to take photos of different products, which have been posted onto Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.  Alison then explained and showed me how Glenbrae garments are packed and dispatched to customers all over the world! Julie then showed me the day to day running of the Stylecraft business which included placing orders, how the in-house systems worked and learned about all the different types of wool – which I found really interesting. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my first week of work experience it was fascinating. And as they say “time flies when you’re having fun”; and it flew by. Week 2 Day 1 – No problems with the bus this morning (I must be getting good at this!) Today I worked with Alison in packaging, putting stock away (Glenbrae) and organising them into sizes, colour and the type of garments. Day 2 –  I arrived at work and was involved in a meeting with a marketing agency: Propaganda. The meeting was to discuss a potential photo shoot. I thoroughly enjoyed this because I’m currently studying GCSE photography at school and it was fascinating to see how it can be applied in business. Day 3 – This morning I worked with the girls from Stylecraft in despatch. I was responsible for putting customer orders together and ready for dispatching (I hope I got all the orders right!). In the afternoon I was given my own work space in the office to put prices onto a spreadsheet. Day 4 – Today I spent all day out of the mill (lucky me!) and I travelled all the way over to Belper with Dani and Richard Brown who own the business, for a meeting. After this, I visited the dye house where all the Glenbrae garments are put through a colouring process, which is a lot harder than it sounds (as I found out). Day 5 – My last day… To say thank you to everyone at Spectrum Yarns I brought in a box of chocolates and a cake for everyone to enjoy on my last day. And when I say everyone, I really mean me ha-ha! Today I’ve had a 5 hour meeting, long I know, to discuss the different ways of getting the knitwear brands as established as possible. The thought of going back to school next week kills me but unfortunately it’s something I have to do... Whilst being here I’ve kind of forgotten what it feels like to go to school and to be honest it’ll be weird getting back into the routine,  but if I had a choice whether to go to school or work at the mill full time it’d be a no brainer - working at the mill obviously!    

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