Work experience at Plant Health, York
| "The
past two weeks have been a great learning experience. When I first
stepped into the Defra building, I couldn’t get the notion
out of my head that the office was going to be stuffy and boring,
for all the space-agey feeling the entry pods brought to the reception.
However, when Rob turned up to take me up to the Plant Health office,
my fears were instantly assuaged. When I arrived, everyone was friendly,
supportive, and good-humoured." |
|
After an explanation of the Health and Safety rules by
Karen, and a brief introduction to the staff and general aims of PHD by
Rob and Richard, I spent the first day helping Rob fill in spreadsheets,
send off requisition requests, print reports, and draft an e-mail to the
department. Although I had been told it might have been a lot of information
to take in, I didn’t find it too hard to remember roughly what everyone
did.
I also quickly learned that the office was very relaxed, with flexible
lunch hours and very few ties to be seen, I soon felt at home here.
Coming back on the second day and equipped with a Temporary Pass, I felt
a lot more confident, because I knew where I was going and who I was working
with. I spent Tuesday with Darren in Service Delivery, where he showed
me what his job was, and we travelled around the department supplying
people with items such as packs of information posters, wellington boots,
test kits, and the occasional sherbet. We also went down to give the pool
car its monthly check-up, but this was not the last time I’d meet
that green car with the bizarrely configured locking systems.
On Wednesday I spent the afternoon with the Learning & Development team, finding out exactly what they did and taking one of their online courses, as well as helping compile a list of Microsoft courses available this year.
With the end of the week came my first field visit. I
went with Graham (in the dreaded green car) to check on a report of a
certain non-indigenous pest at a local garden centre. After several glimpses
of our quarry, Graham caught a close-up sight of it and decided it was
probably the non-indigenous species. He recommended to the garden centre
that they set up sticky traps for the pest and sprayed the plants regularly
to keep them clean. However, luckily the centre had already had the presence
of mind to destroy the original crop they had found the pest on, and so
it had been controlled for the time being.
After coming back from the inspection site, who had no problems with their
crops, I stopped for lunch and then spent the afternoon working with Rob
on some phytosanitary certificates, which are a pain to print out, but
it was interesting to see how forms (for which the Civil Service may get
just occasionally stereotyped) are actually filled out, and what they
mean.
The weekend was a welcome break, catching up with friends (who sometimes had awkward shift hours) and discussing work experience.
Back to work on Monday, and we (Lynne, Guy, James and I) were heading out to the Central Science Laboratory to explore what work they did there. One of my co-workers put forward the suggestion that they grew mutant 3-foot tall babies with two heads, and Tryffids, but since we weren’t allowed into the restricted access section these questions will have to remain unsolved….
After a tour of the large CSL buildings, in which we
learned a lot about what they do, how their company works, and why they
keep a whole room full of preserved insects (they claim it’s for
entomology purposes) we had a brief lunch at their above-standard cafeteria,
then a quick wander around the grounds and back to learn more about the
different ways of testing for plant diseases and pests.
The day after, I helped Karen print off some reports and distribute them
amongst the department, then helped Emma with filing. This has taught
me exactly why filing is used as a synonym for boredom, but it was a useful
experience.
On Wednesday I worked with the Policy section, using the scanner and other such high-tech jiggery-pokery to send off reports, and also helped filing, then in the afternoon we returned to CSL for a lightening briefing on Bees, because the section has only just ‘inherited’ responsibility for bees earlier this year.
My fortnight here has been an informative and useful one. Although the work is not always the most exciting (bar field excursion etc) the people are friendly, I have picked up new skills and knowledge of office life, I have made new friends and met one who I met once before less than three weeks ago, by random co-incidence. Oh, and I lost count of the times I’ve been offered food.
Thank you to everyone at the PHD (especially Rob, Jill,
and Christine) who have helped me, tutored me, and generally put up with
me for the past two weeks!
Peter, aged 15, York
Page last modified:
13 Oct 2006
Page published: 14 Aug 2006