Work Experience Kid

[irreverentad]

Agreed. The kid sounds like a deadbeat.

However I don't think from reading what your account that you had the man power, time or infrastructure to take on a Work Experience kid either. So maybe not the best idea in the first instance.

[GarethRDR]

Did my two weeks at the Sports & Leisure dept. of the Basingstoke & Deane Borough Council. At one point they sent me down to help the marketing dept. proof-read some pressers for a couple of days, a team consisting of three rather attractive girls in their early 20's. As a teenager/chronic masturbater it was utter bliss.

[villa_shere]

Also did mine with the police, was great, one week admin and forensics and the second police training @ Tally-ho.

Not all kids are like him, i used to train at this gym in London where a few teenagers would trek it there 30-50mins each way just to learn Olympic lifting. If they are keen they will learn. This guy probably just lazy

[Dante_Lockhart]

Did mine at Marks and Spencers. Was quite good really. Helped out with loads of stuff, plus they gave me a flip phone mobile so the gaffer of the stores (2 different ones up Merry Hill) could summon me to either store to help out.

I felt like a boss.

[tonyh29]

the kid is 14 or 15 ... for sure he could have perhaps shown a bit more enthusiasm but it's a tad harsh to write him off as a deadbeat when we don't know anything about him ... When i was 14 /15 I had no idea what I wanted to do for a career and I would have been more interested in sleeping than working ... around about 17 after I left college was when I got my drive and earned a reputation for being a hard worker

We've got a kid in on work experience at our place this week , ever so quiet , but he's getting on with things and helping out where he can , but in truth it's probably incredibly boring for him , we can't let him lose on any of the good stuff , but maybe if he approached us again after he's left school we'd see if we could do something for him

[lapal_fan]

I worked in the offices of a Construction firm.

It was alright, I mostly just helped out with the post/franking machines. Copied some A1 CAD drawings in the photocopier for some jobs and sat with a really nice old guy who must have been some kind of contracts manager. For every single phone call, regardless of however long that call was his sign off was 'Ok, goodbye my friend.. Ahh ok, goodbye my friend, goodbye' and he repeated it X amount of times until he faded away and put the phone down. - I do this to my brother whenever I call him

The girl in the office was a huge baggies fan but was also computer illiterate so I had lots of fun changing her background to 'Up the Villa' with a big pitcture of Paul Merson

But the whole experience taught me that I never wanted to work in an office, and I don't, so that's good!

[snowychap]

I think there's a good deal of difference between a two week 'work experience' thing (which varies quite a lot as shown on here from some interesting shadowing to being a dogsbody) and kids getting experience of work.

I don't particularly see the point of the former (unless it is shadowing someone in a profession in which one is interested) but do of the latter (kids getting a reasonable experience of earning some money actually doing something).

[chrisp65]

My work experience was at a timber yard.

During my induction tour I witnessed somebody gangnail gun their hand to a timber roof truss. It made me realise that I didn't want a job that involved use of a nail gun. So on the whole, worth going.

[PussEKatt]

The kid sounds like an idiot and yes there are two sides to every story but I doubt his side is articulate.

The kid was an idiot to let a chance to impress slip by,on the other hand yes there are 2 sides to every story.To put it more precicely there are kids that want to work and kids that do not want to work.He is obviously the latter catagory.

As for my experience of work experiance.It was not invented yet, when I went to school.

[Chindie]

I did mine with a company that primarily worked as a contractor/consultant for Severn Trent. I got to experience working in the office and out and about with site teams. I quite enjoyed it although it was a bit haphazard, the plan at first was for me to spend week 1 out of the office doing meter verification and then water sampling out and about around the Midlands, and the second week in the office being, in essence, an office dogsbody. What actually happened was I turned up at the office and got told what the day involved when I got there.

Meter verification, since I was unqualified to do it, largely involved sitting in a van driving around Worcestershire in gorgeous weather (lovely part of the world) and handing equipment down to the bloke I was assigned to whilst he was in a hole, and reading map print outs that were always wrong, and lots of waiting. Water sampling was dumped on me one day when I was supposed to be in the office, I ended up opening up hydrants and getting covered in dirty water in Leicester whilst wearing a shirt and tie.

The office consisted of data entry, updating schematics (glorified colouring in), and being made to realise that assumptions about people will lead to embarrassment - I was sat next to a bloke who never spoke to anyone, unlike the rest of the office, and would occasionally just turn towards me for a moment, look at me slightly expectantly, then turn back. At the end of the fortnight the boss asked me what I'd made of my time there and how well I'd done, and I just happened to mention, jokingly, that the non-talky bloke was a bit weird. Stony faced the boss just said '...he's deaf.' Turned out it was an office prank they play on everyone or something but I wish the earth could have swallowed me up.

Oh and unlike all my friends, I didn't get paid for the experience. I was allowed to keep a pair of work boots, which were terrible.

[RunRickyRun]

I did mine at a Nursery as it was only 3 hours a day - happy days

[cheltenham_villa]

Great thread, we had a work experience at the bank I do some contract work for last week. We put him on the weekly pricing phone conference. He fell asleep. Actually proper asleep, at his desk.

Granted its boring but at his age I was out to impress.

When woken up he proceeded to tap buttons on the phone, somehow caused a huge disruption to a pretty important meeting.

I thought he was brilliant, Unfortunately didn't last til lunch.

[TheDon]

I wouldn't have turned back up either.

2 weeks carrying cable from a van, or fetching tools some dozy idiot forgot to pick up on his way into the job, and not being paid for it? Nah I'd pass.

Work experience is a great idea in principle, but lacks because there's really not much you can do with a kid in 2 weeks. We've got a girl in our place on work experience at the moment, and honestly, I'd hate to be her. We're a software firm, she's being taken out on a couple of sales presentations, some user training groups, but the rest of the time she's sat there watching everyone else work because there's near enough nothing she can do. We try to make things interesting, but it's pretty hard going.

[Houlston]

I wouldn't have turned back up either.

2 weeks carrying cable from a van, or fetching tools some dozy idiot forgot to pick up on his way into the job, and not being paid for it? Nah I'd pass.

[hogso]

I didn't give two hoots about Work Experience at the time it came to do it. The school asked me to tell them what 'areas of work I was interested in', or to approach places I was interested in. I did neither So they sent me to work in Sainsbury's for 2 weeks.

Also on Work Experience from a different school in the town was a cheeky little minx, the kind of girl with that tom boyish streak, who was kind of cute. She was a wonder to me, truly. There werent girls like that at my school. She became my first girlfriend. I learnt alot thanks to those 2 weeks, and it didn't have anything to do with stacking shelves. Unless you can dig some sort of euphemism out of that, which I'm sure most of you can.

Funnily enough, I actually got my first job after leaving school - in a supermarket, but not a 'good' one like Sainsbury's - because I had done that work experience. Went in, got an application form, had an interview, they asked me about my work experience, I told them...got the job. Don't think I wouldve if I hadnt of done it. Worked there for 4/5 years in the end, in during/between college and uni.

[TheDon]

I wouldn't have turned back up either.

2 weeks carrying cable from a van, or fetching tools some dozy idiot forgot to pick up on his way into the job, and not being paid for it? Nah I'd pass.

Deadly serious. It's work experience, not slavery.

What better way to turn people off work than making them do monotonous tasks that you could train a monkey to do. Give someone a placement like that at 14, then wonder why at 16 they'd rather sign on than look for a job.

[chomer]

I loved chemistry at school...so got placed at the local chemist for a week counting pills! Looking back I suppose I should be grateful the school took any notice of my interests but my god it was a long week...

[Davkaus]

My work experience was at an Estate Agents (I asked to go to a firm of solicitors, this was the closest thing apparently). After 4 days the guy I was following around asked what I thought, and I asked why he put up with doing such boring shit day after day. Then I got 6 days free holiday. Result.

[hycus-flange]

I wouldn't have turned back up either.

2 weeks carrying cable from a van, or fetching tools some dozy idiot forgot to pick up on his way into the job, and not being paid for it? Nah I'd pass.

Deadly serious. It's work experience, not slavery.

What better way to turn people off work than making them do monotonous tasks that you could train a monkey to do. Give someone a placement like that at 14, then wonder why at 16 they'd rather sign on than look for a job.

Health and safety says kids cannot work on electrics, doesn't say they can't

watch and learn something, FYI nothing was forgotten and left in the van by "a dozy idiot". What is the point clogging up your work area with stuff you could trip over, stuff that if left to one side while you are doing something else could be dangerous if the wrong person picked it up ie kids, this is domestic electrics, people live in the house too you know, I won't guess what you do for a living but I bet you don't have to think about site safety. What would be a better work experience, broadening your mind or stacking shelves, I know what I would rather have done.

Ps they don't let idiots loose on electrics, it's dangerous stuff.

[TheDon]

Health and safety says kids cannot work on electrics, doesn't say they can't watch and learn something

This is my point, if the kid can't do the job, what the hell is the point in sending them on a placement there? It's pointless, it doesn't equate to work experience, it amounts to standing around watching someone else work. Might as well sit them in a room and play them a video of someone doing a job. It's pointless, the kid gets nothing from it, it doesn't teach them anything because people don't learn by following someone around and watching them do the same thing over and over again. People, especially kids, just get bored doing that.

FYI nothing was forgotten and left in the van by "a dozy idiot". What is the point clogging up your work area with stuff you could trip over, stuff that if left to one side while you are doing something else could be dangerous if the wrong person picked it up ie kids, this is domestic electrics, people live in the house too you know

From the work experience kids perspective, you left it on the van and now they have to go fetch it. If the only thing you're good for is playing fetch then why would you want to go back?

I won't guess what you do for a living but I bet you don't have to think about site safety.

I've done network installations in bare shells of buildings, I've had to think about site safety plenty of time. Incidentally we had a work experience kid for one of them, and they could do plenty, because when we took them on we knew we could actually find things for them to do.

What would be a better work experience, broadening your mind or stacking shelves, I know what I would rather have done.

Ps they don't let idiots loose on electrics, it's dangerous stuff.

What you describe though isn't broadening your mind. It's boring. It's mind numbing. It's completely ineffective at teaching people about the world of work, because by your own admission, they can't actually do anything.

I also beg to differ on the last part of that as well. I've seen plenty of idiots let loose on electrics. When you see someone turn the power back on whilst someone else was still wiring up a lighting circuit you quickly realise you don't have to be that smart to qualify as an electrician.