Day 1

My first day as a trainee at Harvey Nichols

Visual Merchandise Team

i started working with the VM team at Harvey Nichols yesterday. It is my first experience in the field of work and i chose to do it as a summer job. Basically our job is to design display windows, the interior design of the store, the organization and distribution of allllll famous, luxurious, most expensive brands in the world.

I arrived at the store at 10:am, i was escorted by the security to the HR manager who is in charge of my temporary employment. She welcomed me very warmly and introduced me to a lady who was supposed to direct me to different places around the store. We went all around until we met the "Level one Manager", in charge of everything in that level of the store. He, by himself, very clearly and specifically enlightened me with the process of the business, and the distributions if the products. He was very nice that he introduced me to each sales person we crossed by as a member of the Harvey team. Then he took me to the store, here comes the best part; i entered to a huge store filled with the newest collections of over a 40 brand of shoes and handbags. I WAS ALMOST GOING TO CRY, how am i going to spend a month between all this!

Later after the store tour, i was introduced to a VM Designer,
That was such a pleasure. He, as a manager, briefed me with the nature of the job and what is expected from me during my stay. Allora, the best thing is that he was Italian! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT!! You would not believe the happiness I felt. We connected so much, and started chatting in Italian / English. In 15 mins was my lunch break, so I went to meet a friend who came all the way from RAK to have lunch.

We headed to Armani café, sat and skimmed through the menu. After ordering a Moroccan waiter came over and started chatting, through him we met an Italian waiter who used to be a friend of our Italian friends back in Perugia. Imagine the conversations! It was amazing, the guy was really happy to finally have some news coming back from his country. We communicated for a while, and all the local guys, jaws opened and ears eager to understand what we were saying. Thank god they were talking in Italian and we tried replying in Italian. Unfortunately it was soon time for me to go back to work.

I went to find Matheo, who is my manager, yet couldn’t find him in his office. A very typical Italian, never on time. We were supposed to be going around the store to see what has to be done. I really enjoyed our conversation; he was really kind and asked me for my opinion as if I was one of them. After we were done he kindly suggested showing me around other stores that are under his supervision, like YSL, DG, EA. I seriously loved him; if he were not married I would certainly fall for him. He spent an hour and a half just showing me around out if his very busy schedule. Such a gentleman, a vise that most guys lack!

At last he invited me to work with them in their studio. He said that it is going to be ready in 2 weeks and I can come work with them even after I finish my commitment with them. I was over the clouds. I certainly would want to work in such an environment forever.

That was my first day experience; I can’t wait for the upcoming days for I am sure it’s going to be extraordinary.

N.A.O