For Take Your Kid To Work Day, I went to my dad’s work, Woodhaven Kitchens.
Name of your host: John Grant Relationship to you: __Father____
The Interview:
- What is your job title? Entrepreneur-Kitchen sales and design
- What is your job description? He manages a company which includes supervising and manages up to eight employees. He also designs kitchens and other cabinets and sells them. Manages sales, purchases, installation and accounts payable and receivable. Lastly, he measures and designs kitchens and trouble shoots all aspects of the business.
- What are the duties and/or tasks you perform at your job? He manages and supervises employees, speaks to suppliers, offers suggestions, designs kitchens, meets with people to discuss their kitchen, check on kitchen installations, meet with prospective clients and visit job sights.
4. What qualifications do you have for this job in the following areas:
a) Training?
Designing; learning how to draw and design kitchens and cabinets. Installing; being able to install the kitchens into a house.
b) Education?
Interior design and management. My dad did not study to become this but he still could do this job.
c) Experience?
Not necessarily. In general no experience is required as if you go through some basic training you should be able to get the hang of it. You would probably need some experience on how to talk with people and handle different situations. You also might need some experience on managing a business; dealing with sales, finance, as well as running the business.
d) Skills and attributes (personal qualities)?
Entrepreneur spirit. Being good with people, and dealing with various scenarios. Also being organized and responsible, as you are running a business.
- What are some of the things you like about the job? Being involved in projects from start to finish, freedom of making your own decisions and seeing happy clients once their kitchen is
- What are some of the things you dislike about this job? All the government paper work that has to be done (red tape) which is the administrative part of the business. Dealing with conflict with clients, which is his least favourite thing to do but it has to be done.
- How do you anticipate this job changing in the next 5 years or so? Possibly some technology changes but nothing major in this type of job.
Other question (s):
- What made you choose this job? Interest in design and sales. Is a people person, and enjoys working with people.
- If you could change something to do with how your business was run what would you change? This job is continuously having small changes, so there is nothing I would change at the moment, but that’s not to say changes don’t happen. It adapts to the changing world we live in, whether its finance or marketing we are continuously changing things to keep up with the modern world.
- How many hours a week do you work? 50-60 hours.
Here is a picture of inside my dad’s work, WoodhavenKitchens.
Student Reflections:
- Give three reasons why you would like this job (be specific): a) You get to work with people. I thoroughly enjoy working with people, and find that one of my strong suits as a person is communicating and being with others. I am a people person, and tend to work very well with others. I think that it would definitely be a good job fit. b) You get to design kitchens, which is similar to interior design. I have always like doing perspective drawings, and that is a major part in this type of job. It is enjoyable for me, and that is also important when doing your job. c) You have the freedom of making your own decisions, and aren’t constantly relying on others. I find that I am very independent when working, so this job is well suited for me as I would get to work on my own, and could run things the way I feel will be best.
- Give three reasons why you would not like this job : a) Lots of responsibility. I don’t think that I could handle the stress of having to be in charge of everything that happened in the business. You have to be an extremely organized person in order to keep your head on straight, which I am not. I feel that personally I couldn’t handle the craziness of running an entire business. b) Installing. I do not have the strength to install and place kitchens. It would be an aspect of this job that I would not be able to do at all, and would probably have to hire someone to do it for me. I think that that would be my biggest problem in this job. c) Ordering the materials. This part of the job can get very confusing. When ordering a kitchen you have to be very precise about everything you do. It can be very difficult because one slight slip up could become a huge mistake. It can get overwhelming when you have many jobs at a time when ordering.
Here is a picture of the outside of my dad’s work. - Is this job for you? Why or why not?
I think that this job is not necessarily the right job for me. There are definitely certain aspects of this job that I would enjoy and/or be good at, such as working with others, and the designing kitchens part, but I feel like it is not my first choice of job. I already have a list of certain jobs that interest me and that I would like to do in the future, and this is . It would definitely be an okay job to have, but it doesn’t suite me as well as it does my dad. I am not as organized as I would need to be for this job, and I also don’t feel I have all the right qualities to have my own business. Maybe in the future that might change, but as of right now I don’t think this is the job for me.
- Explain the value of the TOKTW experience in relation to your ideas about your post secondary (after high school) plans (education?, training?, travel?, work?).
I think that the TOKTW experience is an amazing opportunity for high school students. It really opens up your eyes to see what jobs are like in the real world today. It shows us a different job that we might never have thought we would be interested in. It could definitely help us become independent and help our decision on what we would like to study. I also think that the interview is an important part of this project, because it shows you how much work you have to actually do in a job, and also the amount of education you might need. It could also show you how important post secondary education and training is for the job you might want.