After completing my apprenticeship I ended up getting recognised for my hard work and got selected out of all the apprentices in the company across the UK for an award. It was an amazing day up The Shard and there were other apprentices from other electrical wholesalers getting recognised for their hard work. All of the award winners had a table that was filled with people from their company so I had some senior people of Rexel UK on mine and my amazing manager and mother. One person from every table got up and said a speech about the award winner and every speech stated that the apprentice was given a full time role in the company on completing their apprenticeship. The speech for me was given and nothing about a permanent roll was mentioned. I was the only one not to receive a permanent roll. You would have thought after all the hard work I put in and getting recognised for that and being given an award would mean the company valued me? The answer is no. 6 months after completing my award and sending email after email to my area manager, HR, any person I could get hold of to ask about my position in Rexel all I got was ‘We will get back to you’ 6 extra months of being on apprentice wage even though I completed it and my manager fighting for me to stay and have a permanent role, I heard nothing. That was until someone in the company emailed me about doing an article for a magazine that was going to be given to all the branches and one of the questions was ‘Where are you now with Rexel?’ My answer: ‘I have just accepted a role with City Electrical Factors and I start at the beginning of April. I still haven’t been offered a role from Rexel.’ Obviously that never got printed and I was getting emails asking me to stay after that. They really couldn’t care less. All they wanted was cheap labour and had no intention of employing me full time and giving me more money.
