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Beedie School of Business
Organization

For my very first co-op term, I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to work at the head office at the company I currently work for, Plenty Clothing. At the head office, my position was E-Commerce Customer Service Representative, meaning that I would be responsible for everything from when a customer places an online order all the way to order fulfillment. I start my day off by printing out new orders. Then, since our orders are fulfilled through products from the stores, I would use the inventory system to look up which stores have the items I need and order them. Sometimes, the items would be at the warehouse which is just below the office so I would go down and pull the items myself. Once I’ve gathered all the items I needed, I would pack up the orders and then ship them out. Alongside online orders, I would help out with updating the online store with photos and product descriptions and also help out during photoshoots. Helping out during photo shoots gave me first-hand experience at how a real company generates promotional materials. Some shoots were for product photos for the website but some shoots were more fun and creative which were for social media promotion. One little project that I was working on during this semester was making a warehouse directory for the office staff so everyone would be able to find products quickly and efficiently in the enormous and sometimes confusing warehouse. During my co-op term, I learned a lot more about the company and how things work.

In my current position, I am a Keyholder at Plenty Metrotown, which means that I am on the front, customer facing end. It was very interesting to be on the opposite end of things because there was less face to face interaction with customers. Since there was less face to face interaction with customers, the main method of communication was emailing. I gained a lot of experience with writing emails to customers and to my coworkers. It’s fascinating how something as simple as an explanation mark can change how the email is perceived. The chance to write emails to so many different types of people was good opportunity to gain a skill that I can without a doubt apply to my future positions. My co-op term also gave me the chance to gain connections and meet people that I wouldn’t meet in my everyday life. It was also finally nice to put faces to the many names that would contact me back when I worked at the store. The 4 months I spent working at Plenty’s head office gave me lots of good experience and skills that I can definitely see myself using in my future career. I absolutely can see myself working in a similar environment in the future.