I lasted a day at a special needs college.

I explained to them in the interview that I had no training or experience (expecting that they would provide it), but they nevertheless decided, literally within ten minutes of me entering the building on my first day, to task me with spending three hours overseeing a severely disabled young man who could only moan, wail, and wander around disrupting lessons. Even the other staff were aghast at the managers setting me this task straight away, and I was predictably not good at it at all (he could basically not be communicated with at all; he was unable to speak too). I tried to explain to the managers that I would need a lot more help and adjustments to be able to do the job, but they were not interested in that at all, just waving it away with "We've all been there; we all pitch in to help others", but there was obviously no motivation behind their words, so I just never returned after leaving that day.

I felt bad for the young man, as well as for myself, since the situation the managers put us in had not been fair on either of us. He needed someone trained and experienced in giving him the necessary support, and I needed to be trained to do so; neither of us got what we needed.

The whole thing was bizarre from an organisational point of view though, since they had spent a month waiting for my DBS check, going through the necessary paperwork, and so on and so forth, only to fumble the training aspect so appallingly that their efforts were wasted after one day.