When I was 16, life seemed so ____ because just about everyone I knew had a weekend job and I didn’t. They were ____ enough to have a ____ up’. That’s when someone like your parents, or a friend, gets one for you so you don’t have to ____ time reading through ____ job advertisements. But then one of my mates got a Saturday job as a cleaner in a big hotel down the road from my house, so when there was an ____, I joined her. Now, I know what you’re thinking. ‘I’m not cleaning for anybody.’ I was thinking the same. But it paid the usual hotel ____ of £5 an hour and anyway, cleaning couldn’t be that difficult, could it? There was a lot more to the job than you might ____. First, I’d collect my ____ from the storeroom and ____ it with all the ____ I needed – a pile of fresh sheets and towels, as well as ____ like shampoo and soap. Then I set to work on cleaning the rooms. I made the beds, ____ the carpets, cleaned the baths and ____ the furniture. Such was the reality of my very fi rst job. It wasn’t particularly fun. In fact, it could be really ____ at times, especially at the beginning. The first time I ____ a bed, I didn’t ____ the sheets correctly and the manager made me do it all ____ again. But one of my colleagues showed me exactly what to do and I ____ notes, just like I did in school. It took ____ for me to get it right but when I did, I felt happy and ____, and it wasn’t long before I could make a bed in no time at all! The guests were mostly pleasant and I even learned new words in a few different languages by speaking to some of them. However, on a few ____, they would get ____ because they had returned to their room to find me there cleaning it. Then there were a few guests who left ____ like empty pizza boxes and clothing on the floor, making it just about ____ for me to do any cleaning at all. But the ____ thing was when we lost clothes guests had asked to be ____ cleaned – occasionally I’d forget to put a ticket on an item, and it would simply ____ Although it wasn’t ____ paid, the job ____ me to party with my friends and keep my mobile phone in ____. It wasn’t just the money that made it all ____. For the first time I was able to spend time with adults other than my parents and teachers. I ____ always thought that it would be difficult to get on with them, but as long as I was ____ to work as hard as them, we all got ____ fine. They didn’t have any authority ____ me either – we were all the same – pushing the same carts and cleaning the same number of rooms. And if I didn’t want to do the work, these grown-ups wouldn’t try to ____ my arm. They wouldn’t ____ at me or punish me, it was ____ to me to motivate myself. That was one very important lesson for me to learn and one I never got taught in school. My time at the hotel also taught me that you can ____ new ____ from any kind of work, even a job you never thought you’d do. And at the same time, it showed me where I didn’t want to be in future. And I didn’t want to be in a hotel cleaning baths and ____ towels for the ____ of my life. I was looking for something a lot more ____.

Complete Unit 6 (text p.64)

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