Activity Instructor Group Leader
PGL

Jenna C

0.00.00 My name’s Jenna C. I work for PGL at Caythorpe Court and I’m an Activity Instructor and Group Leader. The thing I love most about my job is the people that I work with, definitely. Everybody’s there for one another, we’re all going through the same things, you know, if it’s raining we’re all out in the rain. If it’s sunny, we’re all loving the sunshine. And when I went away for Christmas, I went home, I missed the place so much. It was nice to be home for a couple of weeks, then I was craving to get back to like the people that I knew and you form friendships that you don’t form in the outside world.

0.00.30 We’re so tight. At school I was quite a shy child. I mean I had my group of friends but I sort of stuck to them, wasn’t really outgoing enough, so did my work, did what I had to do and went home and hung out with my friends. After I left school I went to do A Levels at college. I did a English language and psychology which I passed in both, which was quite surprising cos I didn’t really like college that much.

0.01.00 It wasn’t for me. So I decided not to go to university. My dad is an engineer. He’s worked for the same company since he left school when he was 16. So he stays there. My mum works for an insurance company, she’s worked there for quite a few years now. So they’re very nine to five sort of thing. They never used to push me. I mean they were pretty stoked when I went to college.

0.01.30 But they never pushed me for university and they said if you don’t want to go, you know, don’t do it, you’re sensible enough to know what you want to do. That was the turning point. I sat at my desk one day and I thought I don’t want to do this anymore. So in my lunchbreak I went on the internet, started looking around, not really sure of what I was looking for, just like going on search engines, searching different stuff. The thing that I was interested in doing was working away for the summer,

0.02.00 just going abroad, so that was something that I looked up and PGL came up offering bar work in France. So my dad dropped me off in Birmingham at this coach station where loads of people all stared with their bags and things and I just rocked up and I was like ‘oh my gosh, what am I doing?’ So it was totally out of depth. I just stood there for a while like oh my gosh, I didn’t know any of these people. And then we all piled on a coach, I think there was like 40 of us on a coach

0.02.30 for about 20 hours, which is quite a long time with 40 people that you don’t know. I think that was the turning point for me where I had to go and talk to people. I had to go and sit next to people and introduce myself and talk. So it was quite daunting but I’ve never looked back since. It’s been brilliant. When I’m not working I’m usually catching up on sleep because they are, they are long days but they’re fun and you do tire yourself out running around with the kids and stuff. But there’s always people on the same days off as you.

0.03.00 So we either hang out, watch movies, go into town to the cinema, shopping, ice-skating, that sort of stuff, bowling. There’s lots to do, you’re never bored and the days pass so quickly. My parents can’t believe how far I’ve come in the past three years. They are so shocked that I’m willing to go to places that I’ve never been before and work with people that I don’t even know, like I’ll go to places on my own.

0.03.30 They’re really proud of me and my dad keeps saying if only I’d have done this when I was younger and things, and my ultimate dream with PGL is to run my own centre in France, so it‘s nice and warm, you know, I’ll be the Centre Manager, that sort of thing. So I am working towards that.

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