Week 10

Hi everyone,

And again, this week was the same as all the other weeks.. However, there are some small changes as we keep getting way more orders than before. This is positive, but not always, as we don't have any time left to do other tinge besides processing orders. We also have some returns, which we have not been able yet to process, so hopefully we can do this anytime soon.

This was my weekly update, again not very exiting..

- Anouk

New update

Hello everyone,

This week has actually been the same as any other week. It was very busy with orders, so basically I had to process orders all day everyday. At the end of the week, we had to process all the returns from the last two weeks, because we didn't have to do it sooner.

The other intern and I got a present from the owner of the company because he's really happy with out work. We both could choose a nice scarf, this was very nice of them.

My weekend was not that special either, I went to the gym and I did some of my school work.

I hope next time will be a bit more interesting to read..

- Anouk

Week 8

Hello everyone,

It has been a while. This is because I was not at the office for 2 weeks because of my Christmas holiday.

This Monday I started again, although I could've used another week off. Nothing had changed, and I was used to everything again very soon. Over the Christmas period it had been very busy at the company because of all the Christmas sale, but it has calmed down a bit now.

This week was basically the same as any other week. I had to process the orders and do some of the returns. I do have something to look forward to, because the two upcoming months are a lot of photoshoots planned. I have to help with some of these, so this will be interesting. It is also nice to experience something else than orders all day.

There was a new intern, so I had to learn her all the things we were doing. I explained her the whole order process and how to process returns. I don't think it was very successful because she only stayed for 3 days and then she quit. On Monday a new intern is starting, so I will probably have to explain everything again. But it is nice to have someone new at the office.

This was my weekly update, see you next week!

- Anouk

The fifth week

Hello everyone,

It's only one more week until Christmas. This means that the Christmas sale has started, and that means a lot of orders. That's why this week was not very interesting, because all I had to do everyday was process orders and at the end of the day I had to process the returns. I explained these processes before, so not very interesting to read if i tell you again..

Because of an error in the system, we had to do a stock take. We had to scan every item we had in stock, to make sure the stock levels were all correct again. Because now the website showed customers we still had the item in stock, but when they ordered it and we tried to find it, we discovered some of the items weren't there. So we had to cancel some of the orders. Now all the stock levels should be ok again, hopefully. It took us a lot of time to scan every single item we had in stock.

My weekend wasn't very interesting too.. On Saturday I went with my host mom to a very big Tesco Supermarket. This store had 35 check outs, that's something I'm not used to, since I come from a very small village with only two small super markets. This was nice to see some new things.

On Sunday we went bowling, this was pretty fun, even though I was second last :(

- Anouk

The fourth week.

Good afternoon!

This week has practically been the same as previous weeks. We had a lot of orders because of special Christmas offers, so we had to send a lot of packages.

We sell through the online James Lakeland website, but also via another website called: Debenhams. It's a bit the same as Zalando and the Bijenkorf. When people buy something on this website, we don't receive their returns like we do when they order at the James Lakeland website. We get a weekly report of all the returns and then we have to process it. Eventually we get all the returns of the whole month in big boxes. This week I have learned more about this process and I had to make sure all the reports of the last weeks were updated and the stock levels would be correct.

This was actually all I did the whole week. My weekend was more interesting. On Saturday I went to North Finchley, a small town on 15 minutes distance from where I live. There are some nice stores over there. I bought some Christmas presents for home.

On Sunday I went to Winter Wonderland. This is a huge event here in London. It is very big and there are a lot of visitors. There are a lot of rollercoasters and different markets, but all very expensive. I liked to see all the nice decorations, but it was a bit too busy. But it was nice to experience it!

This was my week update, hope you liked it :)

- Anouk

The third week

Hello everyone,

The third week has already come to an end. Everything is going so fast, the working days, but unfortunately, the weekends are flying by as well.

I think my orientating period has come to an end now. The tasks I need to do are explained in detail and I now should be able to complete these tasks. So, first I will something about the period where I got introduced to the company and all the tasks.

First of all, the acquaintance. As I explained in the first blog, when I entered the building at my first day, it was a bit chaotic. Everyone was very busy with arranging things for the sample sale. When I entered, I told the person who I saw first, I was here for my internship and where I had to be. This person was very nice and she showed me the way to my supervisor. I introduced myself to her and then she gave me a small tour through all the departments and I introduced myself to every employee I saw. Everyone was very nice to me!

While arranging my internship, we made some agreements about my work times and things like that. They told me I had to work from 9 till 6. When I first contacted them, I sent them my CV. This way they knew what languages I was able to speak. In this e-mail, I'd also written down some information about the number of work hours are required (720 hours). We also made an agreement about at what date I started and ended. Another agreement we made, was about a dresscode. I have to wear nice and casual clothes. I am not allowed to wear jeans or sneakers.

I register my work hours in my notes on my laptop. I write down the beginning and end of my day, and then the total number of hours I worked that day, and week.

The other Dutch intern actually explained everything she needed to do everyday. My supervisor printed an intern manual. In this manual, all the detailed information about the different processes is written down. The first couple of times, the other intern registered everything in the computer and I was just watching how she did everything. After a while, I was able to do it all myself, but sometimes when I didn't know something, I could just ask the other intern and she would explain it again.

The evaluation of my orientating period was very positive. They told me several times, they thought I was a quick learner, because I was able to do it myself very quickly.

Moving on to the tasks of this week. This week was actually pretty much the same as last week. Everyday I am busy with processing all the orders. On Monday, we receive the most orders, because of the weekend. Last Monday, we had 130 orders to process and this is a lot compared to the usual, but because of the extended Black Friday offers, we had a lot of orders.

I am getting more responsibilities. For example, this week I had to process the returns on my own. This means, refunding the amount of money paid for an order to the right person. This process can be a bit difficult because it involves lot of different steps. First we need to make sure the payment is refunded to the customer, we have to print the invoice and put the refunded payment in the weekly sales so we can see how much money we made that week. We also have to put this item back in stock, to make sure the stock levels keep updated.

This week I also learned how to answer the phone. This is actually quite easy because most of the time they are looking for another employee, so then I just need to connect them with the right person, or take a message and forward this message.

On Friday night, I had a couple of drinks with some of the other employees. This was very nice, because this way you get to know them better and works gets more fun.

On Saturday night, I went to central London. I went to visit Carnaby Street, Covent Garden and Regent Street. This was very pretty, because of all the beautiful decoration.

I hope this blog was a bit more interesting than the last one :)

See you next week!

- Anouk

My second week

Good afternoon everyone,

My second week in England has already come to an end. Time is flying by.

Last week we had the sample sale at the company, this week there was a fashion show planned on Thursday. This meant, a lot needed to be done. First of all, on Monday and Tuesday we started with thing up everything from the sample sale. We had to put all the clothes in boxes and make sure everything looked nice again. When this had been done, the chairs had to be arranged. The arrival of all the chairs was planned on Thursday morning.

On Wednesday everything was tided up and the other Dutch intern and I started with the orders. Because of Black Friday, there were a lot of orders which needed to be shipped. The order process within the company looks like this:

We make use of an Admin program where we receive all the orders. We have to find the items which have to collected for the order and when this has been done, we need to make a label and print the invoice. We need to make the package and ship it. This is all I've done on Wednesday.

On Thursday I could start at 12 because the fashion show would end at 9pm. First I had to ship orders and at around 4 we started with the preparations for the show. This included unfolding the chairs, steaming all the clothes and make sure everything was ready for the show.

During the fashion, I had to make sure the clothes which the models had worn, would get on the right place again. The actual show took half an hour, afterwards the visitors got the change to buy the clothes which were shown during the show. I needed to collect the desired sizes. When all the visitors were gone, we had a drink with the other employees and afterwards we went home because the next morning we had to start at the normal time.

On Friday I helped with tiding everything up again and when this had been done I continued with the orders. When the other intern and I had finished the orders, we started with the merchandising of the website. This means we can decide which clothes to show on top of the page. With this used program, we get a view of the stock of all the items. The most popular items and items with the most stock items should be on top of the page because it can be annoying for the customers to have a lot of out of stock items on top of the page. This was actually really interesting to do.

My work week wasn't very interesting, but I did some nice things in my weekend. Last Sunday, I turned 18 and my host family decorated the house a bit with some balloons and they also got me a few presents. In the afternoon we went to the new Harry Potter movie, which was very nice.

This weekend I also did some nice things. My friend, who does her internship in Manchester, came to visit London for the weekend. So yesterday I went to central London to meet her. This was actually the first time I had to go with the underground and I was a bit nervous, but eventually everything went well. My friend and I did some shopping and went ice skating and it was very nice to see a familiar face again :)

It's only November, but London is already decorated with a lot of pretty Christmas lights, this was very nice to see. I am only 40 minutes away from Central London, so I am definitely planning on going there more often!

- Anouk

Welcome to my first travel blog!

Hello everyone,

Welcome to my first blog. Today is the already 6th day I woke up in London. In my blogs I will tell you all about my adventures in the UK.

Well, let's start at the beginning. When I achieved my MAVO degree, I had to find something else to study. I'd come up with a lot of different things and eventually I was very interested in becoming an English teacher. When you want to study for becoming an English teacher, you first need an MBO level 4 degree, which I didn't have yet. Eventually I decided to start with the education called International Business Studies. This is a bilingual course. I decided to do this course, because then I would improve my English a lot and this would be an advantage for my next education.

Currently I am in my third and also last year of this course. In the third year, it is obligated to do an internship of 5 months. I decided to go to London for this internship.

So, that's why I'm currently with my host family in Finchley Central (close to the centre of London). I decided to live with a host family instead of renting an apartment, because I wanted to get to know more about the English culture and then what's better than live with an English family.

I left Holland last Saturday, together with my parents. In the beginning I was very nervous for the arrival at the host family because I had no idea what to expect, but when the moment was there, they were all so kind and my parents could really get along with them as well. All of this made my mom worry less, because she knew I was gong to be in good hands.

The first couple of days were still a bit strange because it takes a little while to get comfortable with this whole new situation, but they helped me with everything. Last Sunday, they showed me around and they walked with me to my internship company. This was very nice, because the next morning I had to walk down there myself.

The company where I will do my internship is called: James Lakeland. This is a clothing company, but I will be working at the head office and not in the retail stores.

On Monday I had to start at 9.30. I was very nervous, because, again, I had no idea what to expect. When I arrived after my 30 minute walk to the company, the people were very nice. After I got a small tour through the building and got introduced to everyone, I had to start working. There was a big sample sale going on, so there were lots of customers who wanted to buy clothes. Normally they don't sell clothes because it's the main office, but twice a year they have a sample sale.

The first 4 days were actually all the same, I had to help customers and make sure everything looked nice. There are also 3 other interns and in the afternoon I had to go hand out flyers with them.

On Friday, I actually did the same as the previous days. The last two hours I helped with the orders, this was more interesting because it has more to do with my education.

The next weeks will be more interesting, this is because right now there are also some other things going on which normally aren't there.

Hopefully you liked this and I promise the next blogs will be more interesting :)

- Anouk